The Directorate for State Security (DSS) has arrested the Director of Operations of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Imo State, Mr. Emeka Mbaneme alongside others over allegations of issuing fake result sheets to some political parties in the state. Sources within the Owerri office of the commission stated that the affected officials are currently cooling off in the cell of the DSS in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
The dependable sources told THE DIPLOMAT that the men were picked up Tuesday night in their various residences by men of DSS who apprehended and arrested them.
Apart from Mbaneme, those said to have been arrested are other staff members in the department of operations who had been fingered for their criminal involvement in results falsification.
The security agency was said to have acted on a tipoff that result sheets of the recently held elections were being mutilated in favour of a political party.
Mbaneme and his co-conspirator, Mr. Sunday Adedoyin who is currently at large doctored the result sheets and brought to the Acting Admin Secretary who already has signed some of the fake results as certified true copies.
The intention of the APC in this criminal act, according to a top INEC Director ‘‘is to falsify results and stamp them as certified true copies. By this act, the result sheets in the possession of those that won elections would appear as fake when they are tendered at the Elections Tribunal.
The Tribunal would only welcome as authentic, ‘the certified true copies’ with which they will pronounce ruling which obviously will invalidate the mandate of the winner.’’
As at the time of this report, homes of some top APC leaders, mentioned in the fraud are being raided while others have sneaked out of the state to evade arrest.
