Political thugs suspected to be members of a political party, have set the Ughelli office of the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission, DSIEC on fire. The youths whom earlier faced a stiff challenge by the police, invaded the office in protest of the noninclusion of result sheets in the voting materials.
Gunshots and protests at about 8:40am today, rocked the Ughelli office of the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission, DSIEC, as party loyalists who had kept vigil at the office protested what they termed as the non-availability of result sheets for today’s local council election holding across the 25 local government areas of the state.
Trouble started when the party members most of whom are from the opposition, insisted that they must verify the authenticity of all the voting materials before they are taken away to the respective units. Upon verification of the materials some of the youths from the All Progressives Congress, APC, invaded the DSIEC office and disrupted the process but for the timely intervention of men of the Ughelli ‘A’ division who used teargas and shot into the air to disperse the crowd.
A youth leader from Agbarha-Otor community, Enis Ogegere who was also at the scene of the incident, said: “Upon inspection of the materials, we noticed that there were only ballot papers and thumb printing materials excluding result sheets, this was what led to the fracas.” Speaking on the incident, a senior police officer at the division said: “We only used minimal force to disperse the crowd, but we are handling the situation.”
