The Ekiti governorship election might have come and gone, but the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, Tuesday, made its position known by condemning vote-buying between political parties and the electorates.
TMG in a statement signed by its Chairman, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, where it alleged that political parties and their candidates used public funds to woo voters during elections, and that was the scenario before and during the just concluded Ekiti governorship election last Saturday.
According to the statement, “Vote-buying was observed across the 16 local government areas of the state with political parties bidding for the votes of electorates.
“The ability of Ekiti politicians to make light of such a grave violation of extant law is most unfortunate. Transformation Monitoring Group condemns this blatant violation of the electoral law.”
However, TMG commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, prompt deployment of security agencies at the polling units.
He also acknowledged voters’ participation and comportment at the various polling centres.
TMG also noted that priority voting was given to voters such as People Living With Disabilities (PLWDs), elderly persons and pregnant women in most of the polling units in the state.
The group said, “Reports from field observers indicate that it takes at least 3 minutes to accredit a voter using the BVAS in 41% of the locations observed. Going by this, the BVAS would have successfully accredited 20 voters per hour on the average in the affected voting locations.”
However, He noted that INEC’s strategy of voters’ redistribution failed to address the problem of over-concentration of voters in some polling units, thereby urging INEC on the need to double its effort to improve the turnaround time of the BVAS of one minute per voter for a seamless process on Election Day.
Meanwhile, the group expresses satisfaction as voting priority was given to People With Disabilities, the elderly, and pregnant women in most of the polling units in the state.
“Reports from field observers indicate that it took at least three minutes to accredit a voter using the BVAS in 41 per cent of the locations observed.
“Going by this, the BVAS would have successfully accredited 20 voters per hour on the average in the affected voting locations.”
The group pointed that INEC’s strategy of voters’ redistribution failed to address the problem of over-concentration of voters in some polling units.
Meanwhile, the group tasked INEC on improving the turnaround time of the BVAS targeting one minute per voter for a seamless process on election day.
It would be recalled that INEC declared the Ekiti State governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC, Abiodun Oyebanji, winner of last Saturday’s governorship election.
