POLICE operatives in Abia State have
arrested three officials of the Independent National Electoral
Commission for allegedly being in possession of over 10,000 Permanent
Voter Cards.
It was gathered that one of the
suspects, simply identified as Stella, was arrested at a checkpoint at
INEC head office in Umuahia, the state capital.
Stella was said to have stuffed the PVCs in the booth of her Honda Accord saloon car with Registration No.AKD 953 FN.
It was gathered that the suspect was
arrested while trying to move the PVCs illegally to a location where
they were to be used to rig elections in favour of some politicians in
the last Saturday’s postponed presidential and National Assembly
elections.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Prof. Joseph Iroh, confirmed that the suspects were employees of INEC.
He said they were on an official assignment in Ikwuano Local Government Area before they were arrested.
Iroh added that the INEC office in the
state was not contacted to properly clear them before they were taken to
the police station to make statement.
When contacted, the Police Public
Relations Officer in the state, Mr Geoffrey Ogbonna, also confirmed that
the suspects were arrested by the police.
He said one of the suspects claimed
that she was reportedly returning the uncollected PVCs to the INEC head
office before she was arrested by the police.