The visibly traumatised
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), accredited observers during
Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections in Enugu State have
narrated their ordeals at the residence of Senator Ayogu Eze, the guber
candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Observers say they had paid a
visit to verify his alleged boycott of the election.
The observers, who introduced
themselves as members of Global Policy Advocate and Leadership Initiative said
they narrowly escaped death during the unfortunate attack on them, despite all
the efforts they made to identify themselves before the angry supporters of
Senator Eze, numbering over seven hundred.
Speaking to journalists shortly
after they were rescued by the police and brought to Enugu from Enugu-Ezike,
where the ensuing fracas claimed one life, the group thanked God for sparing
their lives.
Resulting from the injury
sustained from the attack, the leader of the Team, Amaka Offor, felt seriously
sick and fainted just a few meters away from the Enugu Police Command
headquarters, immediately they were granted bail.
She could not narrate her
experience.
It would be recalled that an
incident at the residence of Senator Eze, claimed the life of a 30-year-old
man.
Speaking on the incident, the
observers alleged that they escaped death by the whiskers.
One of the leaders of the the
team, Mr. Frank Ohazulike, said but for the prompt response of security
operatives, they would have either been lynched or burnt alive.
Ohazulike, who gave graphic
details of the incident, further stated that it was cruel for anyone to have
claimed that they were Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, thugs.
He narrated their experience
thus:
“We’re independent domestic
observers, a team from Global Policy Advocate and Leadership Initiative.
“This is an organization
accredited by the INEC. We’re the 50th group that was accredited to monitor
this election, hence we came down here to Enugu to monitor this process.
“We came here and in the process
of going for electoral observation, our car broke down. We then looked for an
alternative means to move around. Luckily for us, we approached a friend that
works in the Government House and he obliged to give us a bus so we could use
it to move around.
“At a point, we got a call that
Senator Ayogu Eze, the APC guber candidate had allegedly boycotted the
election. So, we decided to visit his home at Umuida in Enugu Ezike in order to
get our facts and figures right so that we would be able to ascertain the
correct information to give to the outside world when writing our reports.
“So, when we got to Senator Ayogu
Ezeh’s residence, we requested to see him. We also met some media people there
while other observers were coming out from the place. We requested to know if
it was, indeed, true as it was being alleged that he had threathened to boycott
the exercise. Some people alleged that it was because of the removal of his
name from INEC list whereas others claimed that they knew that the PDP would
compromise the processes. They told us that he was busy inside and would not
come out.
“So, as we were driving out of
his compound, one man accosted us and asked us where we were coming out from
and our mission there. We explained to him and even showed him our ID cards.
The man got enraged and asked us: ‘why would you people come to this place in a
vehicle with a government number plate? We explained that we had an issue on
the road and we had to get an assistance in that emergency situation.
“We told him that we didn’t see
that as a problem because even when the presidenct visits non-PDP States, they
give the entourage vehicles to move around. We explained to him that in the
spirit of oneness, we can always get help to make sure that the electoral
process is observed.
“Immediately, the man beckoned on
all the thugs within the compound; they were more than 700 and they rushed to
our vehicle, smashed the windscreens and other glasses in the vehicle. They
even brought out one cap with an inscription ‘Gburus’ and they dropped it in
the front of our car.
“Before we knew it, they started
beating us. We were beaten to stupor; they threatened to get the ladies with us
naked. If not for the timely intervention of the police, the DSS and the Army,
it would have been a different thing. They asked them to stop beating us
because we’re observers, that we were merely doing our job. Some of the thugs
threatened to burn us inside the vehicle. They collected all our phones, our
gadgets, our reports and other personal effects.
“At that point, the police now
started shooting their guns apparently to harass and/or disperse them. Some of
them still remained adamant. One of them was busy struggling for the gun with
one of the mobile policemen.
“In the process, we now suddenly
saw somebody lying in the pool of his own blood.
There was a lot of pandemonium.
Senator Ayogu Eze now came down and called us, asked us what the problem was.
When we told him, he apologized to us; he said that he felt bad over what had
happened to us. He now pleaded with the police to escort us out of the place.
“The police took us from there to
the police station in the area and finally to Enugu until now we were granted
bail after police investigation confirmed our name in the list of observers
with INEC.”
On the claims that they were PDP
thugs, the INEC-accredited observer charged: “How can we be thugs; who is
saying that? Didn’t they see our tags? We had nothing to do with the State
Government; it was just on pure emergency that we sought assistance and got
that bus from a friend. We actually had a vehicle which we had been using. So, we
never had any contact with the State Government. We are observers, properly
accredited by the INEC and we did identify ourselves as the 50th on that list.”
When asked to rate the conduct of
the elections, Ohazulike said “the election was going on very smoothly until we
had that incident which was not in a polling booth.
“So, there was no issue in Enugu
apart from that isolated incident. If you ask me to rate the performance, I
would say it was over 90 percent success on the part of the INEC, the security
agencies and other stakeholders.”
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