From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
There was pandemonium yesterday evening when the police fired several gunshots and teargas canisters to disperse angry political supporters that gathered at a collation centre in Science Primary School, Kuje Area Council, after the closure of polling in the local council election held in Federal Capital Territory.
Tension had started building up between agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) over acceptability and or rejection of a void vote during the counting of results after the election at the polling unit.
An agent to the PDP candidate, told Sunday Sun that the genesis of the problem was when the returning officer finished counting the ballot papers of the APC at one of the polling units but while counting that of the PDP, an APC agent had protested the inclusion of a ballot paper, insisting that it was an invalid vote.
“We tried to convince him but he insisted that it must not be considered a valid vote. Before we could say Jack Robinson, he had scattered the whole ballot papers, throwing the entire collation centre into chaotic situation.
“His action was deliberate and premeditated because they had seen that the electorate voted for the PDP massively and would prefer the polling unit was cancelled instead of giving advantage to the PDP,” the agent lamented.
For over 10 minutes, the centre was practically turned into a battleground as the voters and electoral officials scampered to safety to escape the gunshots and suffocating fumes of teargas.
The incident which happened around 7.45pm decongested the collation centres hitherto housing over 100 supporters and voters intermittently rejoicing over the victory of one of the political parties each time the agents of the party arrived to announce the results with a display of party signal.