Six villages burnt, Corps members injured in Imo State over missing card readers

A source, who is one of the Corps members working
for INEC in Oru-East Local Government, Imo state and who would not like to be named, has told Pulse that villagers from the six villages in the region, burnt buses and polling units.

The villages include; Awo-Ommama, Akuma, Amagu, Akatta, Amiri, Omuma.

They also attacked police officers and soldiers.

The
source said trouble started in the towns when “some men came to the LG
council from Awo-Ommama, saying they heard that ten card readers and
report sheets were missing. They started disrupting the peace saying no
election.”

The fracas started since morning till
around 2.30pm when the DSS were deployed to restore order to the
affected areas, the insider told Pulse.

The
Corpers and other presiding officers were escorted to their Polling
Units afterwards, but the bus they were transported in was smashed on
their way and about four Corpers were injured.

“It’s major. Several Corpers in the village have had their phones smashed so that very few info/pictures leaves the village,” said the source.

The police in the state could not be reached for comment as at the time of filing this report.

However,
it was gathered that some youths in the village said it in November
last year that they were already paid to disrupt the March 28 election.
There was a high rate of PVC robbery and “forced selling.”

Awo-Ommama is the only stronghold of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of the six villages.

Most of the destructions happened only in the APC stronghold.