Kogi REC Tortured over Disappearance of Election Materials

Atabor Julius Irked by the non-availability of materials for the supplementary elections in some wards and polling units in Ajaokuta Local Government Area of Kogi State, angry supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the weekend descended on the State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Halilu Pai, who was on inspection to frog-jump for hours even as his cloth was torn to shrewd before security men came to his rescue.

The ugly incident happened on saturday at Adogo, headquarters of the council during the re-run election for the House of Assembly.

The irate mobs according to eyes witness on sighting the REC began to shout war songs as they manhandled and forced him to do frog jump for hours before some policemen who were on patrol rescued him.

The Chairman, Kogi State Inter Party Advisory Council, Hon. Ibrahim Itodo said the action of the irate youths was not unconnected with the non-availability of sensitive electoral materials for all the affected polling units.

“The card readers functioned effectively as there was no failure of the machines to recognise fingerprints. The people were duely accredited but when proper voting commenced there was no ballot papers and results sheets,” he lamented.

He stated that accreditation of voters in all the seven affected polling units commenced peacefully until when it was time to begin proper voting that the people discovered there was no voting papers and return sheets with INEC officials, forcing the people to suspect insiders collusion.

Itodo added that in Dumez polling unit, election had been concluded and the result was written on photocopy return sheet which forced INEC to cancel the result.

Investigation indicated that some officials of the election allegedly connived, hid and sold the sensitive materials to some politicians for several thousands of naira.

Confirming the incident, the embattled REC said some of his officials have been arrested by the police and investigation into the disappearence of the materials has commenced.

He added that the commission has fixed Tuesday next week for the re-run of the state House of Assembly election for some wards in Ajaokuta local government and warned candidates and their supporters to respect electoral law.