• 48 candidates battle for 1,246,915 votes
• APC, PDP clash over vote-buying allegation
• EU warns against inducement
• EFCC monitors money transfers
As
48 governorship candidates from 48 political parties jostle for
1,246,915 votes in the Osun State governorship election holding on
Saturday (today), some of the contestants and their political associates
have devised new means and tactics to induce voters ahead of the poll.
Investigation
by Saturday PUNCH revealed that the representatives of at least one of
the contestants were using the WhatsApp social media platform to woo
Permanent Voter Card holders, who are residents of Osun State, to sell
their votes.
This was despite attempts by the Independent
National Electoral Commission to curb vote-buying and selling especially
in the Osun election.
Checks by our correspondents showed that the associates of the contestants cleverly hid their identities.
To
track the identities of the buyers and the politicians they were
working for, one of our correspondents connected to an online link that
in turn linked him with a WhatsApp number 08120569530, where he was
asked a series of questions to ascertain if he actually had a permanent
voter card and if he was an Osun State indigene.
The
administrator later promised that N10,000 would be deposited into our
correspondent’s account number at 6am on Election Day. The correspondent
was asked to send his account detail, age, town, ward and unit to claim
the amount.
The administrator said, “You’ll receive bank alert
6am on the Election Day. Don’t forget to pass this good news to all your
friends and family. Make sure you add us to you(r) phone book and don’t
forget to send this to all your friends and family living in around
Osun State. Expect our call anytime from now.”
It was difficult
to ascertain the party or governorship candidate that initiated the
payment process. When our correspondent tried to call the number, using
Truecaller, a mobile app that finds contact details globally, to trace
the owner, it did not respond.
Almost immediately, the
administrator sent a message that our correspondent would be stopped
from enjoying the N10,000 vote-buying price. “Please, no WhatsApp call
and if you keep calling, we’ll block you,” the administrator wrote.
Meanwhile,
one of the contestants was said to have started distributing money to
the ward leaders who would identify names of their party members on the
voter registers and pay them ahead of the poll.
A source close to
one of the politicians told one of our correspondents on Friday that
money had been moved to where the distribution would be done in order to
pay for the votes.
He said, “There is nothing they can do to
stop vote-buying especially in this election, because politicians are
desperate to outdo one another in their bid to buy votes.
“They
have started bringing money out but this time round, because of the
noise over it, they will be more discreet in sharing the money. Money
has been given to the leader of the party in our area but they are yet
to tell us how much.”
Saturday PUNCH gathered that the sponsor of
a particular candidate compelled some party leaders to swear an oath
that they would spend the money he wanted to give them to induce voters
and not pocket them.
Some of the leaders were said to have agreed
while a few of them were said to have rejected the money because they
could not swear this oath of allegiance.
The same candidate was
said to have distributed forms to prospective voters, asking them to
fill in their accounts details to enable them to be credited with the
sum of N10,000. The amount is said to be meant for any voter with a PVC.
APC, PDP trade blames over allegations of vote-buying
But
the APC and the PDP trade blames over allegations of vote-buying on
Friday, accusing each other of trying to sway voters by offering
electorate money for their votes.
The PDP accused the ruling
party of planning to buy votes with billions of naira in order to
manipulate the people to vote for the ruling party’s candidate, Gboyega
Oyetola.
The opposition party denied that its candidate in the
election, Ademola Adeleke, was collecting bank details of the electorate
through a WhatsApp number in order to buy their votes.
He said the allegation was a rumour and that Adeleke would play by the rules of the election.
The
PDP Chairman in Osun State, Mr. Soji Adagunodo, who said this on Friday
at a press conference at the party secretariat, noted that the party
had detected several means through which the APC wanted to rig the
election.
Adagunodo said, “We wish to alert the general public to
the planned monetisation of the Osun State governorship election,
especially the voting process, by the APC. Towards this ignoble end,
several helicopters loaded with cash were flown into the Government
House between the hours of 4pm and 8pm on Thursday.
“The money,
which we were reliably informed about run into billions of naira, was
contributed by state governors elected on the platform of the APC to
enable the party to induce voters at various polling units.
“In
addition, each of the 67 local government council development areas in
Osun State was made to cough up N12.5m for the same purpose. The plan of
the APC, as gathered from very credible sources, was to buy votes with a
sum ranging from N5,000 to N10,000 each at the polling units.
“It
is quite unfortunate that a government which did not find it compelling
to pay salaries and allowances of its workforce for 34 months could
resort to attempting to buy the conscience of voters in this election.
But,
when contacted, a chieftain of the APC in Osun State, Mr. Sola Fasure,
who is also the media aide to Governor Rauf Aregbesola, asked the PDP to
provide evidence of its allegations.
In defence of the ruling
party, Fasure said the opposition party had started inducing voters
ahead of the election, adding that the PDP raised the allegation as a
smokescreen to divert attention from the alleged electoral fraud the
party had perfected.
He said, “The PDP and its candidate have
been sending messages out to obtain account numbers of the people whose
vote they want to buy. They are using this allegation to cover their own
heinous and sinister practice of trying to induce voters.
“They
are making allegations without evidence but we have evidence of them
trying to induce voters. They are the ones actually sending messages and
trying to induce these voters with cash. They have been obtaining bank
accounts and it is all over the state. Everybody knows but they are
using the press conference as a means to divert attention from them so
that they can perpetrate that criminal activity of subverting the
election and inducing voters.
“We are not giving out money to
anybody; anyone who claims to have collected money from us should come
out to the public and say it. We have the strategy of winning elections
by going out to canvass for votes and they have the strategy of taking
shortcut by paying to induce voters and to circumvent the electoral
process. They have started inducing voters already but they will fail
woefully.”
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Vote-buyers now doing electronic transfers –INEC chair
The
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Friday said the commission had
recently observed increasing voters’ inducement through electronic
transfers to influence their choice of voters on the day of the
election.
According to a release by INEC on Friday, Yakubu led a
team of national commissioners to the EFCC on Thursday to look at
further steps that could be taken to address the vote-buying and selling
menace.
Yakubu said, “Of immediate concern is the election we
are holding on Saturday in Osun State and it is going to be the last
major election before the 2019 general elections. We have taken steps as
a commission, but we need the support of the EFCC in this respect.
Vote-buying and selling is giving our democracy and elections a bad
reputation. Also, institutions like the EFCC having the powers to
arrest, investigate and prosecute can help to stem this ugly tide.
“We
have also recently observed increasing inducement through electronic
transfers, whereby money is transferred into the accounts of some voters
in order to influence their decisions on Election Day. We believe that
you have both the law and the capacity on your side to help us in this
respect.
“We implore the EFCC to also monitor campaign finances
of political parties and their candidates. We don’t want the moneybags
to determine our democracy. We want the votes of the people to determine
who wins in our elections.”
EFCC begins monitoring of money transfers, banks, vote-buyers
Meanwhile,
the EFCC has said it will monitor money transfers, collaborate with
banks, arrest and prosecute vote-buyers during the Osun State
governorship election on Saturday (today).
The EFCC Acting
Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, who stated this in Abuja at a strategic meeting
with said the anti-graft agency would use the Osun election as “a test
case.” Magu threatened that unrepentant vote buyers and their potential
customers would be arrested and prosecuted if they ply their trade in
the Osun election.
Magu said, “There is indeed a lot of concern
about vote-buying and selling. There is also a lot of concern about the
possibility of moneybags trying to derail our democracy and democratic
process. We have the mandate to monitor money transfers and we are
collaborating with the banks.
“We have the mandate to arrest,
investigate and prosecute and we are going to use the Osun governorship
election as a test case. We will work with you. We will do our best and
we appeal to Nigerians to support the EFCC in the fight against
corruption. One way to fight corruption is to stop vote-buying and stop
voter inducement in elections so that democracy can survive.”
Candidates, observers seek clampdown on vote buyers as politicians change tactics
Some
candidates contesting the governorship election have called on security
agents to stop politicians from paying the electorate for votes in
order to stop the trend of vote-buying in the country.
Some of
the candidates spoke in separate interviews with one of our
correspondents ahead of the poll which is being monitored by local and
election observers.
The governorship candidate of the Providence
People’s Congress, Prof. Ife Adewumi, charged security agents to ensure a
clampdown on vote buyers to serve as deterrent to others.
Adewumi,
who is a former Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities at the
Obafemi Awolowo University, said, “We in Providence Peoples’ Congress
know that the parties that buy votes have no genuine interest in
service to the people whose wealth are bought with peanuts.
“This
is made possible by the pervading poverty in which Nigerians have found
themselves from years of misrule by both past military and civilian
administrations.
“The law enforcement and polling agents should
ensure that mobile phone of each voter is left with the polling agents
and collected back after the voter has exercised his or her right to
chose who will rule them. They must stop politicians from distributing
money to voters and this is very important.”
“The PPC is a
people-focused party that has well thought-out programmes for every
citizen and resident in Nigeria. To us in the PPC, we bring democratic
welfarism as panacea to the failed Nigerian state.”
Also, the
governorship candidate of the Socialist Party of Nigeria, Mr. Alfred
Adegoke, has said that something must be done to stop corrupt
politicians from buying their ways into power.
Adegoke, a human
rights activist, in an interview with one of our correspondents on
Friday said, “Vote-buying must be stopped but I am not sure that the
police and others would do it. Government paid the policemen outrageous
amount of money as election duty allowance and I believe that is a way
to make them compromise, but we will expose them.”
Also, some
election monitoring groups also raised the fear that the process might
be compromised by some desperate politicians who were ready to buy votes
to emerge victorious.
The Head of Mission, Pan African Women
Projects, Dr. Eno Udensi and the Director-General, Centre for Credible
Leadership and Citizens Awareness, Dr. Gabriel Nwambu, said at a
pre-election press conference on Friday that vote-buying had become
cancerous and could destroy the nation’s democracy if it was not stopped
by all means.
Meanwhile, although there are 48 governorship
candidates from 48 political parties contesting in today’s election,
five of them are said to be major contenders.
These are
candidates of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola;
Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ademola Adeleke; Social Democratic
Party, Senator Iyiola Omisore; Action Democratic Party, Mr. Moshood
Adeoti; and African Democratic Congress, Mr. Fatai Akinbade, who is a
former Secretary to the State Government during the administration of
former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
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