Voters beat INEC staff to pulp for coming with pre-filled result sheets in Enugu

An official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was on Saturday beaten to a pulp by irate voters for allegedly coming with pre-filled result sheet to a polling unit during the re-run election for the Igboeze North/Udenu Federal Constituency in Enugu State.

It was learnt that in the pre-filled result, the electoral umpire allocated 443 votes to the Peoples Democratic Party candidate (PDP), 31 votes to All Progressives Congress (APC) and 15 votes to Labour Party candidates for the Igboeze North/Udenu Federal Constituency.

INEC is conducting the re-run election in the constituency following the ruling of Appeal Court which cancelled the election in some polling units over the non-inclusion of APC logo in the Form EC8A.

Despite INEC officials arriving late in many polling units for the elections, INEC polling officers came without results or pre-filled results especially in polling units that have a great number of voters.

At Igogoro, Ozzi Ward 2 Unit 004, the presiding officer was lucky to have escaped after the voters discovered already filled result sheet even before the commencement of voting.

INEC presiding officer, who gave his name as Ronald Ugwudani from Igbo-Etiti Council area, said the pre-filled result sheet was given to him from the local government by INEC.

Trouble started for Ugwundani when the angry voters asked him to show them result sheets following the news that so many other polling units have no result sheets.

According to eyewitness, Ugwundani told the voters that his SPO was coming with it. Not convinced irate voters pounced on him and he brought out the result sheets from his bag.

“I told them that the SPO will bring it, so, they forced me to search my bag, I don’t know that the result sheet is inside my bag.

I showed them the result sheet and they wanted to kill me,” the INEC Staff was overheard narrating in a video.