POLICE operatives in Abia State have arrested three officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission for allegedly being in possession of over 10,000 Permanent Voter Cards.

It was gathered that one of the suspects, simply identified as Stella, was arrested at a checkpoint at INEC head office in Umuahia, the state capital.

Stella was said to have stuffed the PVCs in the booth of her Honda Accord saloon car with Registration No.AKD 953 FN.

It was gathered that the suspect was arrested while trying to move the PVCs illegally to a location where they were to be used to rig elections in favour of some politicians in the last Saturday’s postponed presidential and National Assembly elections.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Prof. Joseph Iroh, confirmed that the suspects were employees of INEC.

He said they were on an official assignment in Ikwuano Local Government Area before they were arrested.

Iroh added that the INEC office in the state was not contacted to properly clear them before they were taken to the police station to make statement.

 When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr Geoffrey Ogbonna, also confirmed that the suspects were arrested by the police.

 He said one of the suspects claimed that she was reportedly returning the uncollected PVCs to the INEC head office before she was arrested by the police.