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From Tony Osauzo, Benin
No fewer than four ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) including two members of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) were reportedly attacked by suspected thugs in two communities-Ikakumo, the hometown of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) House of Representatives candidate for Akoko-Edo federal constituency and Okpe the ward headquarters in Edo State.
The thugs were said to have invaded one of the units in Ikakumo and forcibly collected voting materials and thumbprinted the ballot papers during last Saturday general elections before departing the scene
Besides, another set of thugs believed to be sympathetic to one of the candidates for the election also invaded the collation centre in Okpe where they allegedly went away with BVAS machines and other election materials.
Narrating how the incident happened, one of the Supervising Presiding Officers (SPO) who does not want his name in print, said the suspected thugs invaded the centre while they were collating the votes, beat them up and went away with some materials.
“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.
“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 thumbprinted 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 thumbprinteda 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”, he stated.
The Electoral Officer in charge of the area who also declined to mention his name, confirmed the incident.
“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”, he disclosed.
