The Niger State Police Command on Saturday arrested two supporters of a political party for allegedly snatching ballot boxes at Tugan-Bako Polling Centre in Maikujere Ward in Rafi Local Government Area in the Niger East Senatorial District bye-election.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Operations, Sotonye Liroy Wakama, who oversaw security for the election, made the disclosure at a press briefing on the conduct of the bye-election.
Wakama, however, did not mention their name of the suspects or their political party.
He said while the two were nabbed, the other accomplices are currently at large.
Wakama described the conduct of the bye-election in the nine local government areas in the District as peaceful, but lamented the lack of manpower to man the polling units and delay in the delivery of sensitive materials to polling centres as some of the challenges encountered in the exercise.
He also added that the police in the state was neutral in the exercise and that any police officer caught in partisan politics should be reported to the command for disciplinary action.
However, visit by our correspondent around various polling centres in Minna, the state capital, showed that despite the rain that started early in the morning, the voters still came out to perform their civic responsibility.
Many were denied the right to vote candidates of their choice as their names were missing on the registration list of the Independent National Electoral Commission when they arrived at the polling units in the morning to be accredited at their centres.
They left the centres disappointed.
In Paikoro, Shiroro, Kuta and Bosso Local Government Areas, the exercise was conducted peacefully as voters turned out to cast their votes at the polling units.
Speaking to journalists shortly after casting his votes for the senatorial bye-election, the All Progressives Congress candidate, Barrister David Umaru, expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the exercise by INEC.
Umaru described the poll as peaceful.
He explained that the conduct of the senatorial poll was an improvement on what obtained in 2011 by the electoral umpire in its determination to get things right ahead of the 2015 general election.
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