Security agents foil ballot snatching in Ogun, Cross River

Security agents, yesterday, foiled an attempt by a group of hoodlums at Bamgbose village in Odeda Local Government Area of Ogun State to snatch ballot boxes during voting in the National Assembly election.

The hoodlums numbering about 12 had invaded a polling unit with machetes and knives among other dangerous weapons.
Sunday Sun investigation revealed that six of the suspects were nabbed by security agents and handed over to the police while others escaped.

Similar incidents were also recorded in Sango Ota area where hoodlums also hijacked two ballot boxes. One of the ballot boxes was stolen at Arinko Area off Plaza Road in Sango Ota while the other incident occurred at the polling unit opposite Wema Bank.
It took the intervention of security agents, which included men of the Nigeria National Civil Defence Corps and the police among others to recover the ballot boxes from the hoodlums.

Skirmishes were also recorded at Oke Ago Owu near Olowu palace and Holy Trinity Primary School and in Ijemo area of Abeokuta as some hoodlums under the influence of drugs attempted to intimidate voters to vote for a particular party. The Public Relations Officer of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Ogun State, Mr. Olanrewaju Kareem, in an interview with Sunday Sun confirmed the developments.

He described the election as generally peaceful in the state and commended the voters for their peaceful conduct. Also in Etung local government area of Cross River State, three persons were arrested for attempting to hijack electoral materials, including ballot boxes. The thugs, suspected to be hired by one of the National Assembly candidates, were arrested by a combined team of security operatives who got a tip-off and quickly moved to the scene of the incident along Effraya road.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mr Mike Igini, who disclosed this to journalists at the NUJ Press Centre shortly after distributing electoral materials, said he was surprised that despite the public enlightenment and voter education embarked upon by INEC to dissuade people from engaging in snatching of electoral materials, some hoodlums were still bent on scuttling the processes. Igini said: “In Etung, there were attempts to go back to the old ways and snatch ballot box and papers. Three persons have been arrested.

“In any case, if they had succeeded in even snatching those ballot papers, who would accept the result from them? They wanted to snatch, thumbprint and come back and return them. Who would declare it for them? It is an abomination.

“It would require the cooperation of everybody for this election to work. If all of us work and say this is want we want, it would be difficult for them. This is not to say that they will not make attempt. As we are planning, they are also planning. Any observed weakness on the part of INEC is their area of strength. Where others are deficient, that is their areas of strength. So it is work in progress,” he said.
He assured that only results from the polling units will be accepted.

 -Sun

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Posted by admin on Apr 9 2011. Filed under Cross River, Elections 2011, NNP Elections 2011 Updates, Ogun, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry