The voter (name withheld), said the thugs also slapped his mother who followed him to the polling centre to exercise his franchise.
While recalling his encounter, the unnamed voter told a Punch correspondent in a telephone interview that he went to the polling unit alongside his mother with the single intention of casting his vote for his preferred candidate.
Meanwhile, while waiting in the queue for his turn to vote, he noticed some fowl play going on and decided to enquire what was happening.
“I stepped out the line to check what was going on, then I realised two young adults…like in their mid-40s or so, they were standing there and were asking those that had already voted, ‘What (party) did you thumb print? Who did you vote for?’ and as the voters replied, the two young men were giving them (the voters) tallies and N10,000 (each),” said the voter.
He said he felt that such shouldn’t be happening with the presence of security officers and officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, the act kept going unabated, the vote noted.
“There was a party agent who spoke up against it and he was silenced by the thugs. They punched him and broke his phone,” he added.
According to him, seeing how the thugs descended on the party agent, he also brought out his phone to capture on camera what was going on.
The voter said, “I brought out my phone to also take a recording of what was going on, which I was not too smart about; I would have done it more carefully.
“In that process, some guys saw me and asked, ‘Did they send you? Did they ask you to come and snap us?’
“I denied it, but one of the two young men handing out the cash to voters came to me and snatched my phone. I asked why he would take my phone from me, and I realised that the ward is where the Local Government chairman, who is an APC member, also cast his vote.
“It appeared that everyone was coming to vote for (the) APC. If you are there to vote for another party, they will bully you.
“I asked him to give me my phone, that I didn’t want any problem. It was in the process that my mum came and pleaded with them: ‘Please oh, he’s my son; what has he done?”
The voter added that one of the suspected thugs held his cloth and his mum asked the young man to let go of her son. It was in that instant that the young man slapped his mum.
“I asked why he would slap an elderly person. I got angry and punched the guy straight up. The others there surrounded me and held me so that the guy (that I punched) could punch me. My lips are already open and my right cheek is swollen. I don’t know who cut me; somebody cut me on my wrist. I was bleeding,” added the voter.
He further stated that the security officers at the polling unit looked on as the situation unfolded. He said it was after they had beaten him that one of the security officers came to him and told him he should be more careful.
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