A member of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly who defected from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has been arrested and paraded by the State Security Service (SSS) in the state for allegedly printing fake ballot papers ahead of the April 26 House of Assembly election.

Bassey Willie, representing Onna State constituency, was arrested and paraded with two other persons in the alleged act. The two others are the managing director/prioprietor of the printing press, Leats Concepts Ltd., Emmanuel Edoho, and the manager of the printing press, Bright Etuk.

The state Director of SSS, Mr Toma Minti, said the suspects were arrested following a tip-off that the printing firm was printing fake ballot papers for the House of Assembly election in the state.

“The operatives of this command, on Tuesday, following a tip -off, raided a printing place in Eket Local Government Area. The printing press is called Leats Concept Ltd. We had information that they were printing fake ballot papers in that printing press and we went in immediately and stumbled on some specimens, with some 2,000 copies ballot papers already printed,” he said.

“We arrested the manager after interrogations and he informed us that one Bassey Willie of the CPC contracted them to print the ballot papers for voter education. We were able to get Bassey and he confessed that he actually contracted the job to them. They were to print 12,000 copies of the ballot papers,” the SSS director added.

However, answering questions from newsmen the State Lawmaker now in SSS detention denied ever ordering printing of any ballot papers saying what he contracted out was the printing of specimen of the ballot paper for voters’ education and enlightenment.

“As a result of what happen during the National Assembly election, some of voters didn’t even know where to thumb print for any political parties they wanted to vote for. Some of them who even wanted to vote for my own party CPC were thumb printing on the symbol of the party rather than the space created for anybody to thumb print.