(Punch) - Irate voters on Saturday stormed and
vandalised the office of the Independent National Electoral Office at
Adogo, the headquarters of Ajaokuta Local Government Area during the
rerun election.
They reportedly shattered the INEC
office with stones while the police who initially appeared overwhelmed
by the crisis later fired tear gas canisters into the mob in an attempt
to restore normalcy.
The mob also allegedly assaulted the
members of the National Youth Corps members who were INEC ad-hoc staff
for the election. They accused the corps members of selling the ballot
papers to one of the major political parties in the state.
Journalists
covering the election had to pull off their INEC media coverage jacket
and identity card to avoid being attacked by the youths.
The journalists escaped the onslaught through the help of one of the youths who was a classmate of one of them.
It took the intervention of the men of the Nigeria Army to rescue trapped victims at the council’s INEC’s office.
The voters were said to have been
angered by information that there were no ballot papers for voting at
Omgbo -Onosi unit 011 and 111 in Ajaokuta constituency.
The accreditation at the units went smoothly but trouble was said to have started during the commencement of voting.
An eye-witness, Balogun Yahaya, told
journalists that crisis started when the voters were told that there
were no ballot papers for them to vote.
He added that the voters suspected that
the electoral officers must have given the ballot papers to one of the
major parties and pretended that the ballot papers were not available.
Yahaya said, “When the Resident
Electoral Commissioner, visited the Ongbo 003 polling unit, the INEC
officials told him that the materials were intact but after he left,
they said there was no ballot papers. As we were trying to iron that
out, some hoodlums started throwing stones at the polling unit and in
the process, they left with the election materials to the INEC office.”
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