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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The peace of the graveyard at a collation centre in Science Primary School, Kuje Area Council, was shattered late evening on Saturday as security agents released several gunshots and canisters of teargas to disperse angry political supporters.
Tension had started building up over an argument between the agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) over acceptability and or rejection of a void vote during the counting of results after the election at the polling unit.
An agent to the PDP candidate told Daily Sun that the genesis of the problem was when the returning officer finished counting the ballot papers of the APC at one of the polling units but while counting that of the PDP, an APC agent had protested the inclusion of a ballot paper, insisting that it was an invalid vote.
‘We tried to convince him but he insisted that it must not be considered a valid vote. Before we could say “Jack Robinson”, he has scattered the whole ballot papers, throwing the entire collation centre into a chaotic situation.
‘His action was deliberate and premeditated because they had seen that the electorate voted for the PDP massively and would prefer the polling unit was cancelled instead of giving advantage to the PDP,’ the agent complained.
For over 10 minutes, the centre was practically turned into a battleground as the electorate and Electoral officials scampered into safety to escape the gunshots and suffocating canisters of teargas.
The incident which happened around 7:45 pm decongested the collation centres hitherto housing over 100 supporters and electorate intermittently jubilating the victory of one of the political parties each time the agents of arriving to announce the results with a display of party signal.
