The executive chairman of Eleme Local Government Area, Hon. Barr. Philip Okparaji under the PDP, has accused the military personnel and the police deployed for the gubernatorial and house of assembly election in parts Eleme of being responsible for low participation in the process based on their use of force to disrupt a peaceful and orderly conduct at the commencement of the exercise.
Barr. Orji who exercised his franchise at Ward 10 in Aleto Eleme alleged that soldiers disrupted the peaceful conduct of the people. He said: “the first army people came and asked people to maintain order. The second army came led by one captain, he ordered people to be on queue.
“All of a sudden, he asked the P.O, the APO to move the materials into a waiting bus. I say, where are they going, people are still voting, he said no, they should move.
“As the bus left the voting unit, I don’t know where, I said I will follow. I told them that we would come to the INEC. We got there, I saw one ASP, who said I must not get into INEC to make my complaints. I am the chief security officer here. If he is on special duty, it is within my local government for me to know who he is. The ballot, everything is here. They have disenfranchised over 300 persons only in that unit”.
That is why I want to see the E.O. how can the chairman be barred from entering the INEC office”, he said as part of the scenarios that played out in the early hours of the voting exercise.
But, efforts to get the party agents of other political parties present failed as they turned down all attempt to comment on the development as at the time of filing this report.
Other incidents that shaped the voting exercise in the area include slow operation of the card readers, apart from concern over network failure on the same device.
