Hoodlums burn electoral materials, hold ad-hoc staff in Benue

Rose Ejembi, Makurdi

There was pandemonium in Mbalom ward of Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State after some armed political thugs allegedly burnt all electoral materials for the council ward.

Some skirmishes were also witnessed in Gboko and Tarka local government areas of the state.

The Mbalom incident, it was gathered, happened early hours of Saturday, March 9, while members of the sleepy community were preparing to go and exercise their civic responsibility.

Sources from the area disclosed that as soon as the suspected political thugs invade the community, they started shooting sporadically before going ahead to set the RCM Primary School Aya, housing the materials ablaze.

Electoral Officer for the local government area, Mrs Ngunan Yongo, who confirmed the incident said that the materials were yet to be distributed to polling units in the ward before the hoodlums arrived.

Yongo who lamented that the entire electoral materials for the community were burnt in the mayhem, however, noted that final decision as to the conduct of the elections in the area would be communicated later.

Reacting to the incidence, INEC’s Resident Commissioner (REC) in charge of Benue State, Nentawe Yilwatda, while confirming the incident said election did not hold in Mbalom as well as two other council wards of the state.

The REC who disclosed this on Saturday in Makurdi while interacting with newsmen gave the names of the council wards as Mbalom, Yandev North and Manger II.

The affected council wards, he said, were in Gwer East, Gboko and Tarka local government areas respectively where he said the burning of election materials and holding of INEC ad-hoc staff hostage were witnessed.

Yilwatda said elections in those areas would be rescheduled to be conducted on a later date.

Governor Samuel Ortom confirmed the burning of INEC materials on Mballon, Gwer East local government area of the state.

While noting that he had already reported the matter to security agencies, Ortom expressed the assurance that the perpetrators of the dastardly acts would be brought to book.

Also, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Jime, condemned reports of violence in some area in the state especially the burning of electoral materials in Mbalon.