Edo guber: No attack on collation centre at Oredo LGA, says INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says there was no attack at the collation centre in Oredo LGA of Edo state.

Chris Nehikhare, the state’s commissioner for communication and orientation, reportedly said during a briefing that soldiers had successfully repelled the attackers and reclaimed the hijacked INEC collation centres.

“We are here this afternoon to tell you the ugly incident that is happening in Oredo and some other local government areas,” Nehikhare was quoted as saying.

“But just as I stepped in here a few minutes ago, we were told that soldiers have recovered the Oredo and pushed the thugs out of the collation Centre.

“We want to encourage the military to go across the 18 local government areas of the state and take possession of these collation centres.

“The information we are getting is that they’re planning to attack these collation centres especially the strongholds of the PDP candidate.”

But Rotimi Oyekanmi, spokesperson to the INEC chairman, told TheCable that “there was no attack”.

Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), had identified eight LGAs in Edo, which are violence hotspots.

The LGAs are Ovia south-west, Ovia north-east, Egor, Oredo, Ikpoba Okha, Etsako west, Etsako east, Esan south-east.

The CSO said its pre-election observation revealed that there are patterns of thuggery, intimidation, violence, arson, hate speech, and proliferation of small and light arms in the LGAs.

The Edo state governorship election is to be held on Saturday.