By Austin Ogwuda
TWENTY persons were arrested for allegedly causing commotion, snatching of ballot boxes and other electoral  offences at  different places in Delta State, during the January 6,  governorship re-run, Police Public Relations Office, PPRO, Mr Charles Muka has confirmed. Meanwhile, an  independent monitoring group,has blamed the cases of thuggery  on the re-run election  day on the non enforcement of the no movement order.

Muka told Vanguard, yesterday,  that “all the 20 suspects have been moved down to Asaba, the state police headquarters. They are already  being interrogated by the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID.”

According to the breakdown,  12 suspects were arrested at Ughelli, six at Sapele while two were picked up at Ozoro.

Addressing the press on the outcome of the re-run, the Coordinator of Independent Monitoring Group, Mr. Festus Okoye, recommended that “security agents must henceforth,  enforce the order on restriction of movement on election day,” pointing out that “unrestricted movement on voting day is a license for double or multiple voting and thugs can also move from one location to another to cause mayhem.”

Okoye, however, noted that “the military and the mobile police responded rapidly to security alerts and this gave confidence to the electorate that they could exercise their voting rights and defend their votes.”

The state Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Gabriel Ada,  had while declaring the final result of the rerun, taken a swipe at politicians, saying that “politicians were hell bent to cause violence and if not for the strength of the security we had on the ground, it would have been worse.  Another was the issue of fake voters cards. Some went ahead to produce fake voters cards but we beat them to the game.”

The INEC boss assured that all those arrested for causing violence or committing one offence or the other during the re-run, would be used as example.