Party agents, at the Presidential Villa, on Saturday openly adopted several measures to induce voters through the purchase of soft drinks, water and biscuits to attract their votes
Our investigations at the ward 022 and 021 polling unit, show that some of the agents were busy taking advantage of the hot weather and absence of cash to do brisk business buying the essentials items in return for votes.
Some people were given food, in the absence of cash which was the traditional way of vote buying
Some of the voters, after collecting the items, displayed their ballot papers to the sponsors of the drinks, as evidence of support for their party.
The vote buying openly took place at the polling units 022 and 021 at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Some voters who spoke under condition of anonymity lamented that party agents of two political parties, conveyed voters in a coaster bus to the venue and each voter after vote cast was directed to a particular building within the seat of power to have their launch and given a stipend.
Some of the voters alleged that the same set of people were ferried out of the villa in the same coaster bus that brought them.
An aggrieved voter who was bold enough to report to security agents present, was told they were assigned to the polling units and not to private residence and thereby can not interrogate the activities going on there.
Recall President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2019 while seeking re-election had lost the polls in the seat of paper.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan had also lost in 2015 at the two polling units in the villa.
Voting was still going on as at the time of filing in this report, because of late arrival of the INEC staff.
Recall that Abdulrasheed Bawa, Executive Chairman of the EFCC was sighted at the Presidential Villa, polling units, along with his team monitoring the ongoing elections at exactly 11.40am.
In a short chat with BusinessDay, Bawa applauded the ongoing exercise. According to him, ” we have visited several polling units in Abuja and so far. We have not witnessed any incident of vote buying.”
More later
