BY OKEY NDIRIBE
ABUJA— The Presidential Committee on post-election violence across the country would soon submit its report after concluding its public hearing. Vanguard gathered yesterday that the Panel had already gathered memoranda from different parts of the country on violent incidents that erupted after the last general elections in the country.

A source within the Committee said that for now the Committee members were pre-occupied with writing of the report and filing of memoranda that were submitted in different parts of the country.

It will be recalled that the Panel investigated violent incidents which accompanied the Presidential elections in Kaduna, Bauchi, Kano, Akwa Ibom and other states. The Panel was inaugurated last May after the last general elections.

A source in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, confirmed that after the Panel was inaugurated it  worked silently to put in place the required logistics for its operations.

The source said although the killing of some members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, who served as ad-hoc staff for the Independent National electoral Commission, INEC, during the general elections could not be justified, several of them were involved in electoral malpractices which resulted in their being mobbed.

He asked: “Can you believe that some of those corps members who were killed were   caught with thumb-printed ballot papers?”

The source further expressed disappointment with stories  published in the newspapers about the post-election violence, adding that scores of Muslims were also  killed in Southern Kaduna especially in Zango-Kataf and Kafanchan without any newspaper publishing about these mass murders.

The Federal Government on May 9 set up the Panel to investigate causes of the  violence which erupted in Akwa Ibom State before the elections. The Panel was also mandated to investigate the violence which occurred in several states in the north after INEC declared President Goodluck Jonathan as winner of the presidential polls which held last April 16.

The violence resulted in the death of nine corps members in Bauchi State. Over 800  other persons were killed during the violent which occurred in Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano and several other states of the north.