…As Venezuela blackout enters 4th day***
The Saturday State Assembly elections in Kogi East
was indicated to have claimed three lives, while four others were hospitalised
across the senatorial district, an eyewitness highlighted.
However, the Commissioner of Police in the state
Hakeem Busari, in a swift reaction said that the command recorded only two
deaths in the exercise, but acknowledged that there were widespread allegations
of thugs in police uniforms attacking people.
Eye witnesses report stated that after a peaceful
and orderly take-off of the exercise in the morning, violence erupted
simultaneously across the district during counting of ballots and collation
with ballot box snatching.
In Olamaboro Local Government, a Community Leader of
Inele, Mr Abuh Simon, was shot in the chest by gun-trotting political thugs,
who had earlier snatched ballot boxes from a nearby community of Ugojo-Ubalu.
Simon was said to have been shot by the thugs along
with two others, James Matthew and John Agada, allegedly on the order of one
David Onoja.
Mathew and Agada survived, but Simon was however,
was unlucky as he was hit directly on the chest which led to his death.
The two survivors, who sustained gunshot injuries,
were said to have been rushed immediately to the hospital.
An eye-witness, Mr ThankGod Onu-Moses, National
Chairman, Inele District Development Union (IDDU), allegedly told NAN that
thugs snatch ballot boxes.
“We were there when some people ran down to tell
David Onoja that PDP was leading in Unit 004 Ugojo-Ubalu. He immediately left
with some thugs in a Toyota Hilux Van straight to the polling unit.
Onu-Moses said Onoja and the thugs got there, shot
into the air, violently snatched the ballot boxes from Ugojo-Ubalu unit 004 and
came back to Inele unit 002.
He further alleged that the deceased community
leader, who along with Matthew and Agada, approached Onoja to inquire about the
boxes when he (Onoja) thinking they were out to challenge him, signaled the
thugs to open fire on them.
Also at Atuma in Ankpa Local Government, two persons
were allegedly killed while another two, including a woman, sustained various
degrees of injuries in the milieu that ensued as a result of forceful hijack of
ballot boxes
Thugs in police uniforms were also said to have
invaded Atuma village shooting indiscriminately and in the process, killed one
person and injured two others including a woman; and took the ballot boxes
away.
The police commissioner, who promised to get to the
root of the matter, called for calm.
He said: “We have already told political actors to
embrace peace.
“You do not have to kill your brothers because you
are looking for position. We will, however, parade arrested suspects at the end
of election.’’
Meanwhile, Venezuelans woke up to a fourth day of an
unprecedented nationwide blackout on Sunday, leaving residents concerned about
the impacts of the lack of electricity on the South American country’s health,
communications and transport systems.
President Nicolas Maduro has blamed the blackout on
an act of “sabotage’’by the U.S. at the Guri hydroelectric dam, but experts say
it is the outcome of years of underinvestment.
Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim
presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent.
Guaido has been recognised as Venezuela’s legitimate
leader by the U.S. and most Western countries.
In spite pressure from frequent opposition marches and U.S. sanctions on the
country’s vital oil sector, Maduro is not open to negotiations on ending the
political impasse and seems intent on trying to stay put, said Elliott Abrams,
the Trump administration’s envoy for Venezuela.
The blackout, which began on Thursday afternoon,
increased frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and
medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s economy suffers a
hyperinflationary collapse.
Food rotted in refrigerators, people walked for
miles to work with the Caracas subway down, and relatives abroad anxiously
waited for updates from family members with telephone and internet signals
intermittent.
“What can you do without electricity?” said Leonel
Gutierrez, a 47-year-old systems technician, as he carried his six-month-old
daughter on his way to buy groceries.
“The food we have has gone bad.”
At hospitals, the lack of power combined with the
absence or poor performance of backup generators led to the death of 17
patients across the country, NGO Doctors for Health said on Saturday.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the
figure, and the government’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests
for comment.
Power returned briefly to parts of Caracas and other
cities on Friday, but went out again around midday on Saturday.
The outage is by far the longest in decades.
In 2013, Caracas and 17 of the country’s 23 states
were hit by a six-hour blackout, while in 2018 eight states suffered a 10-hour
power outage, government officials said at the time.