We suffered 41 attacks in two years - INEC laments

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says within the last two years, its offices and facilities have been attacked 41 times.

Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu revealed this on Thursday in Abuja at an emergency meeting with the security agencies under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on election security (ICCES).

Prof Yakubu stated that nine of the incidents happened in 2019 while 21 cases were recorded in 2020. He added that “In the last four weeks, 11 offices of the commission were either set ablaze or vandalized”.

Yakubu further noted that two of these incidents were caused by Boko Haram and bandits’ attacks while 10 resulted from thuggery during the election and post-election violence.

The INEC boss also stated that the majority of the attacks, being 29 out of the 41, were unrelated to election or electoral activities, adding that 18 of them occurred during the #EndSARS protests in October 2020 while 11 other attacks were organised by unknown gunmen and hoodlums.

The ICCES emergency meeting, which was originally scheduled for last Monday, was rescheduled after the death of the former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt-Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, who was a member of the ICCES.