Voters vandalise INEC office, assault corps members in Kogi

Irate voters on Saturday stormed and vandalised theoffice of the Independent National Electoral Office at Adogo, the headquarters of Ajaokuta Local Government Area during the rerun election.They reportedly shattered the INEC office with stones while the police who initially appeared overwhelmedby the crisis later fired tear gas canisters into the mob in an attempt to restore normalcy.The mob also allegedly assaulted the members of the National Youth Corps members who were INEC ad-hoc staff for the election. They accused the corps members of   selling the ballot papers to one of the major political parties in the state.Journalists covering the election had to pull off their INEC media coverage jacket and identity card to avoid being attacked by the youths.The journalists escaped the onslaught through the help of one of the youths who was a classmate of one of them.It took the intervention of the men of the Nigeria Army to rescue trapped victims at the council’s INEC’s office.The voters were said to have been angered by information that there were no ballot papers for voting at Omgbo -Onosi unit 011 and 111 in Ajaokuta constituency.The accreditation at the units went smoothly but trouble was said to have started during the commencement of voting.An eye-witness, Balogun Yahaya, told journalists that crisis started when the voters were told that there were no ballot papers for them to vote.He added that the voters suspected that the electoral officers must have given the ballot papers to one of the major parties and pretended that the ballot papers were not available.Yahaya said, “When the Resident Electoral Commissioner, visited the Ongbo 003 polling unit, the INEC officials told him that the materials were intact but after he left, they said there was no ballot papers. As we were trying to iron that out, some hoodlums started throwing stones at the polling unit and in the process, they left with the election materials to the INEC office.”