Hoodlums attack Ondo INEC officials, snatch result sheets

The result sheets for the Ilaje Local Government for both the House of Representatives and Senatorial elections were snatched by some hoodlums on Sunday evening.

Reports said workers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, who were on their way from the local government to submit the results at the collation centre at Okitipupa were also attacked by the hoodlums who made away with the result sheets.

The Returning Officer for the Ondo South Senatorial District election, Prof. Yomi Alfred, confirmed the incident to our correspondent, describing it as a huge setback.

He said, “We were expecting the result to arrive with high expectation but got information that the prepared document they were bringing to us was snatched by some hoodlums. We are downcast about this development.

“I don’t know the decision INEC will take on this. We have made some collations from the other five local governments in the state. INEC will decide on what to do about the issue. By what we found out, on the average, there were over 20,000 votes between the candidate who is leading and the one that follows. If the number of registered voters in Ilaje LG does not exceed the 20,000, INEC may go ahead and declare the winner. But the decision is for INEC to take.”

Findings showed that the missing result may hamper the declaration of a winner for the Ondo South senatorial and the Ese Odo/Ilaje federal constituency seats.

Calls made to the mobile phone of the Ondo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, for reaction were not picked as at the time of filing this report

Meanwhile, the Returning Officer for the Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency election, Dr. S. Oluyamo, has declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Omogbehin Michael, as the winner of the Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency, having polled 30,176 votes, as against the 25,841 by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Akinmoyero Victor.