NYSC Member, Others Recount How They Were Forced To Rig Ondo Election

A member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who served as a presiding officer and an ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has confirmed that he and other members of his team were held hostage for several hours at Ese Odo local government area by thugs suspected to be working for a political party during by-elections in Ondo on April 5, 2014, Saturday.
In his confession, Ismail Lawal disclosed that when it got close to the end of the voting, armed thugs stormed the booth and threatened to burn down the ballot boxes and other electoral materials if he and his co-workers refused to cooperate in rigging the election.
The illegal act was carried out at Polling Unit 005, Roman Catholic Mission Primary School in Kiribo.
“When we got to the end of the voting exercise they threatened to burn and kill us. We had no option other than to do their wishes by thumb printing lots of ballot papers,” Mr Lawal said.
He added that the thugs gave them N8,000 after forcing them to carry out the fraudulent task. Mr Lawal added they could not ascertain the identity of the party that hired thugs.

Prof Bode Okoriko who served as the collation officer for Ese Odo Local Government, has also confirmed the incident. In his speech at the venue of the final collation of election results at the Civic Centre in Igbokoda he told party agents, INEC officers, security agents and others that the corps members were held hostage and threatened to carry out illegal acts that contravened electoral laws.
Prof Okoriko confirmed that the corps members were given the sum of eight thousand naira after they had been compelled to carry out the illegal work of rigging.
He said the money (in the photo below) was later attached to the report written by the presiding officer who served as the team’s head.

After the confession Mr Lawal had reportedly gone underground to avert being attacked for confessing to what transpired.
It would be noted that the bye election was held in the Ilaje Ese Odo constituency to replace Raphael Oloye Nomiye, a member of the House of Representatives who died last year whilst having sex with a woman who was not his wife.

Sources: Naij.com news, Sahara Reporters