The suspects arrested on Tuesday, by police operatives in Abuja, on the grounds that they were the ones who tampered with the Biamodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), that stopped the uploading of results generated from last Saturday’s presidential election on the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), are actually personnel linked to the electoral body.
News broke out on Wednesday morning of a video, said to have been taken of police operatives arresting some persons arrested with some items, including BVAS machines and were said to have been arrested at a building located in Maitama, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
Muyiwa Adejobi, spokesman of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), however the suspects had since been released after INEC identified them as one of the agents to which part of its activities for the exercise was outsourced.
The police spokesman, said in a statement on Wednesday that the police arrived at the building to discover some electoral materials, including BVAS machines, but that when the commission was contacted, they identified them as working for the electoral body.
He said: “Operatives of the Nigeria Police Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB), acting on a tip from residents of an area in Maitama who reported suspicious activities, visited the location, interviewed the occupants, and conducted a search on the house.
“In the course of the search, some electoral materials and BVAS machines were discovered in their possession.
“However, the Independent National Electoral Commission, when contacted, confirmed that the occupants of the house are staff of Emperor Technology, outsourcing engineering services to the INEC, and they were immediately released to go about their lawful business.
“The force, while urging well-meaning members of the public to discountenance the false and misconstrued narrative being spread by some sections of the media about the arrest of these individuals and their link with BVAS manipulation, charged reporters and media houses to endeavour to do due diligence and ascertain the veracity of the information on the public space before spreading such to avoid being victims of the ‘breaking news syndrome.’”