Ekiti Decides: Naira rains as ADP’s Elebute-Halle accuses APC, PC of votes buying

Kemi Elebute-Halle, governorship candidate of Action Democratic Party (ADP) has accused the three main political parties and their governorship candidates of monetising the gubernatorial election by buying votes from the electorate.

This allegation was corroborated by some news items credited to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which confirmed the arrest of some suspects that engaged in votes buying.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said that the suspects were caught with packages continuing money and books containing details of voters in certain polling units.

Elebute-Halle, who spoke shortly after she cast her vote at the Polling Unit 008, Ward 10, Ikole LGA in Ekiti, alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) paid N10,000 each to induce voters; the People’s Democratic Party paid N5,000 each and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) paid N3,000 each.

“At my polling unit here — ward 10, unit eight — we are aware that APC has started buying votes for the sum of N10,000; PDP are buying for N5,000 and SDP for N3,000.

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“We hope that the whole world is watching them. Something about life is that there is nothing hidden that will not be made open.

“We believe in our people that irrespective of whatever they give them; they will still exercise their civic rights and we are expecting a good change.”

The reports of votes buying as alleged by several other people in Ekiti might not be unconnected with a very huge number of electorate that trooped out in almost all the 2,445 polling units in 177 wards across 16 local government areas of Ekiti State.

BusinessDay reports that the accreditation and voting process were largely peaceful and attracted huge number of people as appreciable number of 749,065 voters out of 988,923 registered voters that collected Permanent Voters Card from INEC came to different polling units to cast their votes.