By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – AT least four ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) including two members of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) were attacked in two villages; Ikakumo which is the homeplace of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) House of Representatives candidate for Akoko-Edo federal constituency and Okpe which is the ward headquarters.

   Suspected thugs reportedly invaded one of the units in Ikakumo and forcibly collected voting materials and thumb printed the ballot papers before departing the scene.

   Another set of thugs believed to be sympathetic with one of the candidates for the election also invaded the collation centre in Okpe where they reportedly went away with BVAS machines and other election materials.

   One of the Supervising Presiding Officers who does not want his name mentioned said the suspected thugs invaded the centre while they were collating the votes, beat them up and went away with some materials.

   According to him, “We have got all the results from the 18 poling units in ward six but they were yet to be uploaded because according to the INEC person in charge, she was having network issues uploading the results.”

   He said “We had waited for the collation officer who got to the ward headquarters between 9 and 10 pm and we started collating the results.     

   “However, in one of the units, we discovered that only 15 people were accredited to vote but we had over 50 thumb printed ballot papers, we were making enquiries from the NYSC staff who now told us the story.

   “He said they had accredited only 15 people when thugs which the people in the area said were from one of the candidates stormed the unit, threatened and collected all the ballot papers from the EO (Electoral Officer) and thumb printed all in their presence and they put them in the box and left.

   “This was happening at the collation centre where the Presiding Officer was present and the NYSC member was explaining what happened to us and other security agents when these thugs came from nowhere and drove us away, beat up two of the NYSC members with one admitted in the hospital and in the process collected all the BVAS machines and went away. We had 18 BVAS machines and one back-up”

   Confirming the incident, the Electoral Officer who also declined to mention his name said “I was not there but they said the thugs interrupted the collation process. In the process, one of the corps members was running for safety when he fell and he was seriously injured. He was taken to the hospital and he was treated. They also went to Igarra and used gunshots to scatter people at the collation centre in Ward II but the police were able to recover some of the items which they delivered to our office. I have officially reported the incident.”