…Beat Up Electoral Officers
By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
About 30 hoodlums, suspected to be political thugs in the early hours of Sunday stormed the Independent Natıonal Electoral Commission, INEC, Collation Centre for the Ogoja state constituency at about 2:20 am, beating up electoral officers on duty and brought the collation process to a halt.
The miscreants harassed the officials who were on duty, and destroyed collation materials, louvers, just as they also carted away cell phones.
Eye witnesses account stated that confusion started when results from Nkum Irede was announced, stressing that the figures did not go down well with one of the parties, which invited their thugs to storm the collation centre.
The eye witness, who claimed to be Estella by name, but declined to disclose her surname, maintained that the agent, who suddenly became scared of the results outcome, invited their thugs, who visited the collation centre and beat up the officials at the collation centre.
She stated that Nkum Irede ward result is the seventh out of the ten political wards in Ogoja Local Government Area, which has aided the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to sweep the polls.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the hoodlums, the Collation Officer for Mbube East, Dr. Paul Inyang, stated that he was beaten to stupor by thugs; expressing happiness with the manner the polls CE came to his rescue.
He said, “I thank God for not letting the more than 30 thugs who invaded the collation centre to end my life.”
He decried the loss of his laptop, and the destruction of duplicate result sheets.
In an emotion laden voice, Inyang said, “One of my colleagues is still been treated in the theatre and and I pray he comes out alive, as heavy stones and planks were used on him.”
Also expressing displeasure over the incident, the Electoral Officer for Ogoja Local Government Area, Mr Peter Kolo, who also confirmed the incident said, “The hoodlums broke all security barriers to disrupt collation with the intent to destroy election results.
“As I talk to you, we have recovered all the results from both the BVAS and uploaded results in the portal and we will soon resume announcing results from the three remaining wards.
Similarly, Ogoja state constituency Collation Officers, Dr Timothy Ellah, of the University of Calabar, also complained of receiving heavy beatings from thugs.
He stressed that thugs who descended heavily on him also carted away some copies of the result sheets.
He added however, “We have however recovered all the results and we are ready to resume announcing the results.”
Also governorship Collation Officer for Ogoja Local Government Area, Prof. John Undie, stressed that he and other collation officials are lucky to have survived the invasion, stressing that every one who was found in the hall of the Collation Centre was mercilessly beaten up by thugs on rampage.
The university lecturer commended the police for deploying more of it’s personnel who visited the scene of the incident to douse the tension.
On a visit to the collation centre at about 9:am, our reporter sighted some collation officials struggling to fix things right, to conclude the task of collating the results and subsequent announcement.
Reacting to the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, SP Irene Ugbo, while confirming the incident, stated that some of the suspected thugs have been picked by the police.
Ugbo maintained that those arrested by the police are at a moment been profiled by the police to ascertain the level of their involvement in the crime.
