As the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday declared the September 22 gubernatorial
election in Osun State inconclusive and fixed rerun for Thursday, political
parties have allegedly commenced move to buy votes.
The INEC returning officer for the
exercise, Prof. Joseph Adeola, while declaring the final results, said
electoral guidelines require that the margin between the two leading
contestants must be in excess of total registered voters where an election was
cancelled.
He explained that the margin
between the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and that of the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was 353, while there are 3498 registered voters
in the affected areas, making up of seven units, and in the four local
government areas of Orolu, Osogbo, Ife South and Ife North.
It was discovred that hundreds of agents from the two leading political parties, APC and PDP
have besieged communities where rerun would be held to purportedly negotiate
votes for money, ranging from N50 to N100,000 per vote.
A credible source at Alekuwodo,
Ward 5, in Osogbo metropolis, who spoke to our reporter on the condition of
anonymity, said both parties approached her early Monday morning to negotiate
with her.
“The first party came with over
20 agents to discuss with us, they first contacted that woman operating a kiosk
at the junction to mobilise those people who have Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs)
promised to pay N50, 000 immediately we produce our cards, and pay us N50,000
as balance after election on Thursday.
“I saw them writing down the
numbers on the PVCs of those who agreed to the bargain and return those cards
to them, I wonder what they want to do with those numbers. ”
Also, at Laro unit, Ward 4,
Isale-osun, Osogbo, voters were seen in clusters discussing about the juicy
offer made by the two parties, as some of them frowned at the development,
urging people to vote their conscience.
In the same vein, a clergy at
Ifon, in Orolu Local Government, who simply identified himself as Pastor Joel,
said an agent came to the premises of his church to negotiate with him.
“He said he would give each
member with PVC a sum of N50,000, I could see that desperate intent in him.
Anyway, I told him pointblankly that such could not happen in my church.
“He went away and another one
came, he spoke to me as if they have seen each other. I later discovered that
there were many of them on the street.”
Meanwhile, there were similar
reports in both Ife South and Ife North, where both parties allegedly struggled
to lure electorate with cash ahead of the September 27 supplementary election.
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