New Vote Buying Strategies Emerge As Osun Election Holds

AS residents of Osun State go to the poll to elect a new governor to pilot affairs of the state for the next four years, today, there are concerns that vote buying and violence may mar the exercise.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and security agencies have assured that the election will be violence-free and devoid of any form of inducement by political parties and politicians.

However, there are strong fears from observers of political events that today’s election could be exposed to massive rigging and unprecedented vote buying if urgent steps are not taken to curb the trend.

Saturday Vanguard gathered that unlike the strategy deployed during the governorship election in Ekiti State, some politicians have devised new means to induce voters.

 Ekiti election

It was further gathered that for some days now, some parties have been wooing potential voters with cash and promises of appointment. Cash payments may not be done near the polling units in some cases as was done in Ekiti and past elections.

Also some All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors are said to be on ground to provide support for their respective candidates as a way of swinging the votes in their parties’ favour.

The parties, Saturday Vanguard gathered, are said to have earmarked between N10,000 and N15,000 to induce voters and may increase the amount to N20,000 in strong holds of the opposition.

A source, who spoke to Saturday Vanguard, said: “I heard that vote buying started before the election. The politicians are devising another style to reach out to the electorate, they may not induce voters on the day of the election. They have cornered so many communities and leaders and have given them money. They strategically positioned their link men in these communities,” the source said of the new vote buying strategies adopted for the Osun poll.

It was further alleged that the leading parties have perfected plans to out manouvre each other at the poll.

Expressing worry over the new development of vote buying, a member of the Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, Election Analysis Centre (EAC), Prof. Victor Isumonah, said at the organisation’s Pre-Election Observation Report on the Osun governorship election that Osun may be worse than Ekiti.

Isumonah said: “This was evident in the Ekiti governorship election and likely to be worse in the Osun State Governorship election. During the 2018 election, three men were arrested for vote-buying by police officers and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, recorded instances of PDP agents partaking in such activities.

“CDD-EAC observers during the June 2022 Ekiti State governorship elections noted several instances of vote buying and called for stronger monitoring by INEC.”

Source: Vanguard

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