Amidst protests by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) on Thursday conducted a rerun election in the remaining two wards in Udi local government area of the state.
The commission had conducted council election in the state on November 4, with the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winning all the 17 chairmanship and 258 councillorship seats.
It however failed to conduct the election in the two wards of Obioma and Eke where the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama and Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu hail from.
Speaking at his home town during the rescheduled election for Eke ward, Okechukwu expressed worries that the commission was still not ready to hold a proper election adding that the problems that led to the cancellation of the exercise still repeated.
He accused the PDP of plotting to manipulate the process.
Okechukwu whose position came after surviving an attack by some political thugs, expressed dismay that politicians were yet to understand the importance of playing according to the rules.
The incident occurred at Central School Eke polling centre at about 1.30pm yesterday.
While voting was going, the thugs who were allegedly acting on the orders of a PDP chieftain, surrounded the VON DG and snatched his ipad and mobile phone from him.
The timely intervention of eagle eyed policemen saved Okechukwu from the menacing thugs who were poised to wreak more havoc.
The policemen retrieved the ipad and phone from the thugs and handed them over to the VON DG.
Speaking with journalists at the scene, the VON DG who was apparently ruffled by the incident, said they were after him for insisting that democracy should be upheld at the grassroots through the conduct of free, fair and transparent elections.
“The election did not hold in Eke on November 4 because the result sheets were not brought to the polling centre and it was rescheduled. And today, they have come here again for examination without result sheets.
“Today, they came with only forms E8A for units. But they did not show us the form 8B and 8C. They have not shown us the collation result sheets. That was where we stopped. The same thing happened the other day. They came here again and told us the returning officer was coming with sensitive materials.
But, a PDP leader in the area, Bona Ude, dismissed the allegation that his party was planning to rig the election saying that having cleared the election across the state on November 4, the remaining wards would be a mere walk-over.
THISDAY Correspondent who monitored the polls, observed that there was high turnout of voters, but the election was delayed by the disagreement over the missing result sheets.
As at 3.30pm yesterday when this report was filed, voting has been concluded in the nine polling centres in Eke ward while collation of results was ongoing at the Central School Eke collation centre.
