Edo: Three Corps Members Arrested For Selling Ballot Papers

Three National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members who served as ad-hoc staff during the April 11 House of Assembly election in Edo State have been arrested for allegedly selling ballot papers and other sensitive materials. They were alleged to have sold the electoral materials for N40,000. As stated by the state's Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini, who disclosed this while reviewing the 2015 polls, 15,000 workers were used for the conduct of the elections. Igini said the three corps members sold two packets of ballot papers. He stated that two staff of the commission who could not account for election materials given to them were suspended. The REC said investigations have commenced to determine the culpability of the two INEC staff in the incident. “The ongoing investigations will determine whether their act was deliberate or out of sheer negligence. “With respect to the NYSC members, they were given ballot papers of which they sold two packets and were nabbed,” he stated. Igini described their offences as severe and said they would be dealt with ruthlessly.