The council Chairman of Ogoja local governemnt area, Emmanule Ishabor, was said to have stormed the voting process at Nkum-Iborr ward at Ogoja community.
Eye-witness, John Iddore, said Ishabor arrived the polling unit about 9:0AM when voting had already started and started dragging some youths out of the line, leading to the disruption of the process.
Iddore, who was the former ward chairman, said the chairman came in woth some stern–looking policeman who he directed to arrest soem boys on trumped up allegation but the voters reacted angrily leading to some scuffles between PDP and APC supporters.
He said: “The council chairman, an APC member, came in about 9:00AM with some policemen and some thugs and started pushing voters out of line.
He molested some youths and tored on of the youths shirts and threathened to arreat some of them.
“The youths resisted and insisted that the election must go. At that point, some elderly women started running helter skelter.”
Reacting to the development, the Presiding Officer, PU 002, Nkum-Iborr, Ukpi Dorcas Yohna, said: “We started on time untill i heard some noise from the second polling unit.
“I tried to find out what happened and they told me that one of the party agents didn’t have a tag identification and it situation is under control.
“We apologise for the disruption and would ensure that every voter who has turned out would cast his or her vote. We have about 961 registered voters and everybody who has turned out would vote.”
He didnt give any reason for his action.
Recall that Saturday was slated nation-wide for concurrent by-elections into national and state houses of assemblies vacant positions. In Cross River, the concurrent by-elections are taking place simultaneously in Ogoja-Yala Federal Constituency and Akpabuyo State Constituency.
