Some of the political parties participating in the ongoing governorship election in Ondo State including the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been caught engaging in vote buying.
The Bureau Newspaper observed that the parties predominantly engage in the vote buying in Irele Local Government Area of the state.
It was observed at polling unit 007 (PU007), Ajagba Ward 2, Irele Local Government Area, some political party agents are handing out signed papers to voters as tickets to get paid after casting their votes.
Some voters said that the papers would be used to collect cash from the agents after the election, but they said that they didn’t know the exact amount they would be paid.
Earlier, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, participated in the ongoing election by casting his vote early in his polling unit.
The governor arrived at Igbo Ward 4, Obenla community, in Ilaje Local Government Area at 8:46 am, accompanied by his security aides.
He completed the voting process at 8:48 am.
This marks an important moment in the election as Aiyedatiwa seeks re-election under the APC platform.
Some voters had complained about malfunctioning of some Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
Speaking to The Bureau Newspapers at Polling Unit 004, Apoi Ward 2, Kiribo, Ese-Odo Local Government Area of the state, a voter, Omotayo Akinlami, had said the malfunctioning BVAS was affecting the election in their polling unit.
He had said it would be better if INEC allowed them to adopt manual accreditation.
He said: “The electronic system they brought is not working, it is not functioning. So I will advise that we should do manual accreditation so that we can vote and go. This is because whenever they do manual accreditation, the votes will be counted and also whenever they do electronic accreditation, the votes will be counted, so we should do manual accreditation and go. It is not working.
“They spend 30 minutes to capture one person, how will it be possible for people to vote? When we have a lot of people to vote here. These things are deployed to use against us here which we will not take it. It is better we use manual accreditation and cast the vote and go.
“You know anything computer does not work anywhere in this country. We have been doing manual accreditation and we have been doing it successfully. So this one(BVAS) is not working. Spending 30 minutes to capture one person is not going to work. We have a lot of voters here.”