Hell was let loose at Ondo earlier today hoodlums stormed the Oba-Akoko, headquarters of Akoko Southwest local government area of Ondo state to snatch ballot boxes but met a strong resistence.

According to reports, hoodlums entered the community to snatch ballot boxes which led to rampage by youths leaving properties worth millions of naira destroyed including police station and police vehicles.

It was during the melee that two persons were shot to death, while the third one with gunshot wounds has been admitted in an hospital.

The Police Area Commander for Ikare-Akoko, Razak Rauf, an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) who led a contingent of police to the town to prevail on the people, described the act of vandalization of police property as barbaric.

He said investigation has commenced while culprits would be arrested and brought to book.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has denied a report on Radio Rivers she sponsored armed thugs that stormed polling units in Abam, Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State during the governorship and House of Assembly elections.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) member, who is a former Rivers Commissioner for Information and Communications during the Rotimi Amaechi’s administration, was accused by the Port Harcourt-based radio of mobilising the thugs to snatch electoral materials, which they allegedly took to her family house in Abam, Okrika LGA to thumb-print for her party.

Semenitari, whose husband, Chief Henry Semenitari, is the paramount ruler of Abam community, stated that she had suffered embarrassment by the false report.

She said: “At no time did the thugs come to my house. I don’t harbour any thug and I cannot imagine such reports being aired about me.

“The reporter did not do a simple fact-check, before going on record. Neither did the radio station that aired the news.”

Soldiers later went to Chief Abam’s house, a PDP chieftain and recovered the hijacked electoral materials. The former acting managing director of NDDC is a daughter of an ex-Deputy Governor of Rivers state, Sir Gabriel Toby, who hails from Opobo, the headquarters of Opobo/Nkoro LGA.