INEC office in Imo razed
Drama as House Committee dismisses AGF’s Representative for insincerity
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Friday during the public hearing of the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on attacks on INEC offices across the country disclosed that it had recorded 50 attacks in three years.
The attacks were spread in 15 states of the Federation with Imo being the latest to receive those attacks during which human lives had been lost and documents and machines razed in raging inferno.
The public hearing was fraught with drama when a representative of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Yusuf Abdullahi, who is a deputy director, told the House Committee, that there has been no request received from any security agency or INEC for the prosecution of persons arrested for attacks on the electoral body’s facilities.
This seemed to have angered the lawmakers who insisted that the police had claimed to have made success in the arrests and prosecution of the attackers.
The position of the Reps made Abdullahi to deny his earlier submission and later claimed that the Office of the AGF had received prosecution requests from the DSS but he could not state the details.
His volte face further angered the Reps and he was eventually dismissed by the lawmakers to return on a later date.
INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who was present at the hearing stated that from 2019 till date, 50 incidents from 15 states have been recorded.
INEC facilities had been the subject of multiple attacks ahead of the 2023 elections.
Offices of the electoral body in the South-East have been attacked of recently, with many concerns about the 2023 general elections holding in the region.
