Victor Ezeja
A chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ekiti State has alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was involved in vote-buying and paid N10,000 per voter during the governorship election in the state on Saturday.
Chairman, Strategy Committee, Segun Oni Campaign, Ben Oguntuase, while appearing as a guest on Channels Television Sunrise Daily on Monday morning, made the allegation, claiming that the voters were influenced by money paid to them by party agents at polling centres.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelOguntuase asserted that the election was not free and represented a collapse of democratic institutions in the country. He also accused the electoral body and security agencies of failure to properly discharge their functions during the polls.
He said, “what I take of the election is that it was not free and fair and we witnessed a horrendous collapse of our institutions. The two institutions charged with managing the election. I am talking about INEC and security agencies. They all failed. They were seriously compromised. What we witnessed was an electoral bazaar, so commercialized to the extent that t does not reflect the real attitude of Ekiti people.
Oguntuase also claimed that security operatives at different polling units witnessed cases of vote-buying buy never cared to do something about it. He further stated that INEC positioned their ballot boxes cubicles at polling units in a way that totally compromised the election. “This election that just took place in Ekiti State lacks integrity,” Oguntuase added, threatening that they would produce all evidence of malpractice in court at the due time.
Meanwhile, Oni, a former governor of the state who contested under the platform of the SDP has threatened to file action in court over the outcome of the election that saw him taking second position according to the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday morning.
Oni media aide had said the SDP governorship would not accept the defeat saying that APC was not sincere in their dealings in the entire process of the election, adding, “but we didn’t know they were going to go this far. So, the result is unaccepted.”
READ ALSO: Ekiti Guber: Real reason Segun Oni won’t accept outcome
Abiodun Oyebanji of the APC who was declared winner of the governorship election, scored 187,057 votes to defeat Segun Oni who garnered 82,211 votes.
READ ALSO: Ekiti 2022: APC’s Oyebanji Wins Big As Vote-buying Trails Governorship Election
Responding to the allegation of APC involvement in vote-buying and other irregulaties as made by Oguntuase, the director, media and publicity, Biodun Oyebanji (BO) Campaign, Hon. Taiwo Olatunbosun, said the election was free, fair and credible and reflects the popular opinion of the people in the state. He denied the party’s involvement in vote-buying.
Olatunbosun, a former deputy speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, accused SDP of coming up with face-saving excuses for not winning the election. He claimed that SDP only emerged recently and does not have formidable structures in major parts of the state, adding that it could not have magically won the election.
“Let me expressly say that I did not witness any vote-buying anywhere,” Olatunbosun stated.
“I am not surprised that they are coming up with face-saving excuses now. I am not surprised in the sense that you cannot expect an assemblage of people within a period of two to three weeks or one month to come around and believe that they will want to determine what the people of Ekiti will do with their votes,” He added.
He said Oguntuase and the party should come up with verifiable facts and figures to prove their case.
Also, commenting on the election, Ariyo-Dare Atoye, Executive director of Adopt A Goal Initiative, an NGO that monitored the election said the exercise was better than that of the Anambra governorship election in November 2021 in terms of the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS).
Atoye however, complained about photos and videos that he said went viral on social media about people acknowledging that they got money from political parties for selling their votes to them.
He also observed that were some cases of violence in some places as a result of ballot box snatching by armed hoodlums and security agents at such polling units were unable to prevent that because they were not armed. On this, he called for a review of the election security policy regarding use of arms by security agents in future elections in Nigeria
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
