The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says security personnel, including the Army and Department of State Services (DSS), have been deployed to its offices in Imo State, given the frequency of attacks on its offices in the state.
This comes barely 24 hours after hoodlums attacked and vandalised the INEC office in the Isu Local Government Area (LGA), marking the fourth of such incidents in Imo in less than three weeks. Other attacks were recorded in the Orlu and Oru West LGAs as well as the state headquarters in Owerri.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Prof. Sylvia Agu addressed the security crisis during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday.
“Security men have been deployed, stationed in those areas. At the headquarters, we have the army, the Civil Defence, and the DSS. In the various local governments, we are using vigilante groups; we are using Ebubeagu group too and we have 100 percent assurance from the security men – not just giving us the assurance, they are already on the ground,” she said.
“That particular building is one housing the election party monitoring department (EPM), security, the transport office, and some of the accounts building (sic). It’s very destructive, but we thank God because it did not affect our sensitive materials.”
Commenting on the implications of INEC’s operations in the state, Agu downplayed the severity of the attacks, noting that the commission had backups to ensure it did not suffer a significant loss of data.
