27th January, 2011
Lawmakers at the Lagos State House of Assembly have called on the State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, to assist in the security of the lives of corps members used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as ad-hoc staff and the Direct Data Capturing machines used for the exercise.
They made the call after a lawmaker representing Surulere 2 constituency at the House, Hon. Razak Balogun, told the House that his constituency had witnessed the snatching of the DDC machines by unknown gunmen who besieged the area.
This is against the continued denial of any theft of the machines by INEC.
According to Balogun, “In my constituency in Surulere, what we have observed in the couple of days now is the issue of increase in armed robbery attacks with a lot of sporadic shooting all around areas in Ikate, Adelabu, Ijesha and even in Shita.
“In two areas of my constituency, the machines were carted away and it becomes something of importance to us because we do not know the reason for carting away the machines,†he told the House.
Speaker Adeyemi Ikuforiji, while expressing optimism that the exercise would be successful, added that he was sure the Commission would extend the number of days for the exercise.
He added that “the Governor has already sent out Permanent Secretaries to monitor the exercise and all the issues that were raised have been passed over to him and we are sure the issues would be taken care of.â€
