Armed thugs invade Plateau INEC collation centre, disrupt results announcement

 

Suspected thugs on Monday evening invaded the Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State, venue of the collation centre for presidential and National Assembly elections in the Northern Senatorial district of the state.

It was gathered that the thugs chased away the INEC officials before they could conclude their assignment.

An official of the Jos North LGA who witnessed the disruption at the collation centre confirmed the development to a radio station, Jay FM,  in Jos.

The council official said, “Trouble started when the party agents were asked to sign the results for the Bassa/Jos North Federal Constituency as announced by the Returning Officer, Dr Nehemiah Sanda, which indicated that the PDP candidate, Musah Agah won the election with 59,337.

However, the agent of the PRP candidate who scored the second highest number of votes with 58,460 rejected the results and insisted that no result sheets would be signed at the collation centre nor the winner be announced.

As the INEC officials were trying to prevail on the party agent to allow them do their job, the thugs believed to be loyal to the PRP invaded the collation centre and chased the INEC officials away and prevented them from declaring the winners. We don’t know what the thugs  could  have done if not that a senior police officer  DC Afebuamhe  quickly came in and seized the election results ”

The Returning Officer for the Presidential election for the Collation Centre, Dr Lazurus Maigoro also confirmed the disruption of the election exercise by the thugs

Maigoro said “Yes, it is true that thugs invaded our collation centre while we were doing our job. It is now up to the INEC to know what to do next”

It further gathered that before the thugs invaded the collation centre, they had earlier attacked a Collation Officer, Mrs Leritshimwa Amagon while on her way to the Council Secretariat

It was learnt that Amagon who is the Collation Officer for Naraguta B Ward, in Jos North Local Government Area was returning collated results for the National Assembly election when thugs attacked her on the way and snatched some of the recorded result sheets.