Monday, 18 November 2013

INEC official arrested, 20 others escape robbery attack

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega



The Commissioner of Police, Anambra State Command, Mr Bala Nasarawa, on Sunday confirmed the arrest of an electoral official involved in Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
 Nasarawa told the News Agency of Nigeria in Awka that the  command was interrogating the official  whose name he declined to mention.
The commissioner was reacting  to  statement credited to the Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, that the official,  who bungled the election  in Obosi,   Idemili North Local Government Area, had been handed over to the police.
The police chief said,” I can confirm to you that we arrested one official; but I don’t know if that is the one you are talking about. ’’
 Jega had  said on a live television programme monitored in Abuja, that  the  electoral  officer was being detained by the police in Anambra State.

He had said,  “We made all the preparations and decentralised the process of distribution of materials in order to ensure that they get to the polling units in time for the commencement of the election.
“That was before Saturday. Unfortunately and regrettably – we are humans. We can do all the preparations, but if people are determined to subvert the process, one way or the other they will subvert it.
“So, they used our official. I think we should be very careful when we have about 12,000 members of staff in INEC and when one person commits an offence, you use it to generalise or condemn everybody in INEC.
 “Our electoral officer in charge of Idemili North LGA , for inexplicable reasons, messed up the distribution of ballot  papers and result sheets. That was the cause of the delay in the distribution of materials in Idemili.
“All materials were to have been distributed by Friday evening, but for some odd reasons, they made sure that they held onto some of the result sheets, and they also gave wrong result sheets to different polling units.
“For Anambra election, as we did in Edo and Ondo  states, every polling unit has a unique result sheet. So, you cannot take one result sheet to a different place, because it will not work.
 “I assured the stakeholders when we met in Awka that materials must get to the polling units before commencement of  the election.
 “So, when we discovered at about 1am  that there was this mix-up, and we tried to reach the electoral officer and the supervisor and there was confusion, and we knew something was fishy.  We said there would be no deployment until we sorted out the problem.
 “As I speak, we have handed over the electoral officer to the police because clearly what he did is a sabotage of the electoral process, including the LGA  supervisor.
“It took us until about 1pm to be able to sort out what they had jumbled up.
 “We communicated with the community as at 1pm that we were ready to distribute to all the other wards, and materials were distributed.”
 Jega said INEC officials consulted with the community before rescheduling the election.
Meanwhile, 20 election officials in the state were attacked in the early hours of Sunday by armed robbery suspects along the Onitsha-Owerri Expressway.
One of the officials, who preferred anonymity, told NAN  in Awka, that they were attacked at about 3am while returning from Ihiala after the election.
 The electoral officer said they were rescued by soldiers who were covering them from behind.
According to him, the suspects stopped them, but on sighting the security vehicle trailing behind, they took to their heels.
 He said, “Some of us had already jumped out of the vehicle but  the timely intervention of the soldiers saved us.
“As soon as the robbers saw other vehicles behind us in a convoy, they escaped into the bush.
“I wonder what would have happened to us, if there was no adequate security.’’

PUNCH

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