The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on Tuesday said that any that engages in ballot box snatching during the upcoming rescheduled elections will be punished within the confines of the law, Igberetvnews reports.
He also noted that, contrary to reports that its National Commissioner, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, was arrested and detained by the Department of State Security (DSS), none of its personnel has been arrested by security agents.
Yakubu made these clarifications during a press briefing at the Abuja International Conference Centre, venue of the 2019 general elections collation centre, where he stated that “95 per cent of the Smart Card Readers have been reconfigured” in preparation for the presidential and National Assembly elections rescheduled for this Saturday.
He said, “No National Commissioner was arrested by security agencies. There is none whose residence was ransacked and the National Commissioner in question is in his office as we speak here.”
When asked to respond to President Buhari’s statement that ballot box snatchers would do so at the expense of their lives, the INEC chairman said that violators of electoral law, including ballot box snatchers, would “be punished within the confines of the law.”
