Ballot box snatchers will be punished according to law —INEC boss

The Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, on Tuesday said that anyone who engages in ballot box snatching during the rescheduled general elections will be punished according to the law.

He also explained that, contrary to allegations that its National Commissioner, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, was arrested and detained by the Department of State Services, none of its personnel has been apprehended by any law enforcement agent.

Yakubu made these clarifications during a press briefing at the Abuja International Conference Centre, venue of the 2019 general elections collation centre, where he stated that “95 per cent of the Smart Card Readers have been reconfigured” in preparation for the presidential and National Assembly elections rescheduled for this Saturday.

He said, “No National Commissioner was arrested by security agencies. There is none whose residence was ransacked and the National Commissioner in question is in his office as we speak here.”

When asked to respond to President Buhari’s statement that ballot box snatchers would do it at their own expense, the INEC chairman said that violators of electoral law, including ballot box snatchers, would “be punished within the confines of the law.”