Kogi West election: Gunmen arrested in Kabba

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5 years ago

SOME gunmen allegedly working for a particular politician in Kabba area of Kogi State have been arrested after preventing electorate from voting.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the gunmen were allegedly escorted by agents of a powerful politician in the state to prevent people from voting. The men were said to have been arrested with an AK 47 rifle which is now in the possession of the police.

Meanwhile, vote counting was moved to collation centres area, as sorting and counting of votes ended in the early part of the afternoon.

Voting went on peacefully in Lokoja and other areas of Kogi West, including Odolu in Kabba, Aiyetoro-Gbedde and Demonstration Primary School, Asuta Ward, the voting unit of PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan.

At the Ward B Unit 001, Karaworo, near Pararanda, in Lokoja, accreditation began as early as 8.00am, after which voting commenced.

Turnout of voters was impressive in the early hours of the day. However, voter apathy soon began to be noticed as most polling units witnessed low turnout three hours before the 2pm closing of voting.

Sorting and counting was done easily and quickly too without any rancour.

However, the Kogi State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor James Apam blamed the low turnout on poor mobilisation of voters by political parties, adding that instead of them to embark on membership drive aimed at convincing their supporters on the need to come out and vote for them they turned around to blame INEC for the poor turnout.

Meanwhile, one of the candidates in Saturday’s supplementary election, Senator Dino Melaye, has said he would be approaching the election petition tribunal if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not review the last initial election.

Melaye said this on Saturday after casting his vote in the rerun polls. Maleye said, “What we have as result is fraud… a major fraud,” saying that the November 16 election would not stand.