INEC report reveals how police helped rigged Rivers election
Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) in a 37-page reports it submitted over the
December 10 Rivers state election rerun has indicted the police and some
other people.
INEC said most
police senior officers around during the election behaved in disturbing
manners and tried to lure INEC officials away from their posts
A
five-man committee of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
chaired by INEC’s National Comissioner, Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu, has cited
police's activities as one of the reasons rerun election in some part
of Rivers state failed.
The 37-page report
stated that the police compromised the integrity of the election and
also alleged that obstructive involvement of security agencies as one of
the factors that led to the failure of the electoral process in some
local government areas, The Nation reports.
The report reads: “One
of the low points of the Rivers’ rerun of the 10th December, 2016 was
the flagrant intervention of security operatives in the process.
“This
was widely identified by staff of the Commission and independent
observers alike as one of the major factors that led to the failure of
the process in some local government areas.
“There were too many security agencies
involved in the process outside the framework of the Interagency
Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES). It was not clear
whether many of them were acting as part of their various organisations,
or as groups and individuals serving political interests.
“Most
importantly, many of them showed profound political partisanship.
Ironically then, security operatives, who were expected to protect the
process, turned on it.”
INEC
committee described most of the activities by senior police officers
during the election as disturbing and strange. The committee also
mentioned that a particular police officer was trying to lure people
away from their post.
The reports said: “But
most mid-boggling were cases of hostage taking, hijack of materials and
physical attacks on INEC officials by security operatives.”
Recall that the investigative committee of the Nigerian police in their own report recently stated that they recovered over N100 million from Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials arrested after the Rivers state election rerun.
Meanwhile, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has said that it will corps members will not work as ad-hoc staff in the Saturday, February 25, Rivers state rerun election.
The
Rivers state coordinator of the NYSC Omotayo Adewoye said the corps
members will not be available for the election exercise due to violence
in the areas.
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