INEC Submits Report on Rivers Rerun, Indicts Police, Others

                                   
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has submitted a shocking report on the last year’s Rivers State Legislative election rerun.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in a 37-page reports it submitted over the December 10 Rivers state election rerun has indicted the police and some other people.
INEC said most police senior officers around during the election behaved in disturbing manners and tried to lure INEC officials away from their posts
A five-man committee of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chaired by INEC’s National Comissioner, Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu, has cited police's activities as one of the reasons rerun election in some part of Rivers state failed.
The 37-page report stated that the police compromised the integrity of the election and also alleged that obstructive involvement of security agencies as one of the factors that led to the failure of the electoral process in some local government areas, The Nation reports.

The report reads: “One of the low points of the Rivers’ rerun of the 10th December, 2016 was the flagrant intervention of security operatives in the process.

“This was widely identified by staff of the Commission and independent observers alike as one of the major factors that led to the failure of the process in some local government areas.
“There were too many security agencies involved in the process outside the framework of the Interagency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES). It was not clear whether many of them were acting as part of their various organisations, or as groups and individuals serving political interests.
“Most importantly, many of them showed profound political partisanship. Ironically then, security operatives, who were expected to protect the process, turned on it.”

INEC committee described most of the activities by senior police officers during the election as disturbing and strange. The committee also mentioned that a particular police officer was trying to lure people away from their post.

The reports said: “But most mid-boggling were cases of hostage taking, hijack of materials and physical attacks on INEC officials by security operatives.”

Meanwhile, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has said that it will corps members will not work as ad-hoc staff in the Saturday, February 25, Rivers state rerun election.

The Rivers state coordinator of the NYSC Omotayo Adewoye said the corps members will not be available for the election exercise due to violence in the areas.