POLITICAL thugs have attacked officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as well as some political party agents who were accompanying voting materials in Ukum LocalGovernment Area of Benue State.
Channels Television reported that Benue State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Nentawe Yilwatda, confirmed that the attack happened as the officials were heading for Chito Adzendechi Council Ward, where a supplementary gubernatorial election was scheduled to take place.
The INEC officials and party agents were later rescued, but all the voting materials they were taking to the ward were set ablaze.
As a result, Yilwatda told journalists that votes in the ward, which have a total of 13,000 registered voters, have been cancelled.
Benue is one of the five states where supplementary governorship elections are being held. Others are Bauchi, Kano, Plateau, and Sokoto states. Though the guber election in Adamawa was also declared inconclusive, a court judgement restrained INEC from going ahead with the conduct of a supplementary election in the state pending the determination of a suit filed before it.
There have been reports of massive violence in several local government areas in Kano, where thugs are reported to have dispersed voters and attacked journalists.
In one of such instances of violence, the police arrested the Kano State Commissioner for Special Duties, Muktar Yakasai, for leading thugs to disrupt the election at Yelwa Secondary School in Dala LGA. He was arrested alongside some of the thugs that accompanied him.