Rita Odafe
On Sunday, March 19, 2023, a group of hoodlums invaded the Independent National Electoral Commission collation centre for the Ogoja Constituency in Cross River and caused chaos. The thugs broke through security barriers and destroyed election materials, phones, and duplicate result sheets. They also beat up many ward collation officers and disrupted the collation of results. This occurred after the seventh out of the ten wards in Ogoja Local Government Area was announced and some party agents did not accept the figures. Dr Paul Bassey Inyang, the Collation Officer for Mbube East 1, reported that over 30 hoodlums were present and that his laptop was destroyed. He also mentioned that one of his colleagues is being treated in the theatre due to the severity of the attack.
The Electoral Officer for Ogoja Local Government Area, Mr Peter Kolo, said all results from both the BVAS and uploaded results in the portal were recovered and they were ready to resume announcing results from the three remaining wards. The Ogoja Constituency Collation Officer, Dr Timothy Ellah, was also beaten by thugs who carted away some result sheets but sustained only minor injuries. The governorship Collation Officer for Ogoja Local Government, Prof. John Undie, expressed his gratitude for surviving the attack and commended the police for deploying more officers to ward off the invaders. The spokesperson of the State Police Command, Irene Ugbo, confirmed the attack and said that the suspected thugs have been arrested.
