BY GBENGA ARIYIBI
ADO-EKITI—Members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ekiti State Monday stormed the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, protesting the alleged involvement of the staff of the commission in the reported manipulation of electoral materials used during the last general elections.

Seven members of staff of INEC were last week arrested for allegedly tampering with electoral materials used during the April general election at Ekiti East constituency 2.

Mr. Samuel Dele Ajibola of the PDP won the election, but the ACN candidate, Mrs Alaba Omonusi, has dragged Ajibola to the tribunal.
The protesters, led by the Secretary of the PDP in the state, Mr. Gboyega Agboola, displayed placards of various inscriptions.

Some of the messages on the placards read, “we demand for justice, “stop this political abracadabra; is this part of democratic tenets?; this is post-election manipulation.”

Though, the State Resident Electoral Commissioner was not on hand to attend to the protesters, some officials of the commission invited leaders of the protesters to a meeting.

Speaking to newsmen, INEC’s spokesman, Mr. Kehinde Gbadegesin, said the commission was looking into the complaints of the protesters and said no stone would be unturned to get to the root of the allegation.

Speaking  after the meeting, Mr.  Ajibola, said the protesters were at INEC to register their grievances about the alleged tampering with the voting materials, saying “You know the PDP won only two seats in the last election-Ido-Osi local government and Ekiti East local government.

That of the Ekiti East is being challenged in court by the ACN and one of the prayers of the opponent is that they counted void votes for the candidate who won.”

“ But sometime in last week it was discovered that some people arranged and got money from the opponent, that is the candidate who lost from the ACN and they went to the strong room of the INEC and brought out ballot boxes to re-thumbprint already ballot papers to come to the court that voided votes were counted for our candidate.”