Civil society group alleges that vote buying and fake news characterised Nigeria’s off-cycle gubernatorial election with conflicting reports of voter turnout
A civil society group the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa) Election Analysis Centre (EAC) has said that vote buying and fake news characterised Saturday’s off-cycle governorship election in Nigeria’s Edo state.
Adele Jinadu, a professor and chair of the CDD-EAC told newsmen on Saturday that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) engaged in massive vote buying ranging from N5,000 to N10,000 in the presence of security agents, leading to increase in voters’ turnout.
Disputing the high voter turn out was Oseni Rufai a presenter with Arise News who posted on X the micro blogging site, Sunday. “Voter apathy is a big problem, obviously people are disappointed in elections , I doubt if up to 1 million people came out to vote in an election with over 2million registered voters.”
YIAGA Africa director Samson Itodo in an interview with Channels TV stated. “Majority of those who are actually on the ballot are young people, and it is just sad to see that there are not too many young people that showed up to cast their vote.”
“If they did, perhaps we would have recorded higher turnout levels. You go to a polling unit of about 1,700 voters, you will see just a hundred or 200.” He added.
Apparently scattered thunderstorms affected turn out nevertheless the CDD-EAC chair insisted that fake news also affected turnout. “The heavy downpour reported in some parts of the state, and the reported prevention of people from coming to the PUs with umbrellas, may have affected turnout of voters. Another observation is the likelihood of rains damaging the paper based ballots used by INEC.”
The Independent national Electoral Commission said it was investigating all allegations of vote buying in conjunction with security agencies.
Monday Okpebholo and Asue Ighodalo
“On the morning of the election, several fake images and videos circulated across social media platforms, particular WhatsApp. CDD Countering Disinformation War Room also observed cases of old images being repurposed to spread false narratives.
“For example, the CDD War Room received an image with the claim that a thug associated with the PDP was arrested in Egor. The verification of the image by our fact checkers indicated it came from the arrest of a robbery suspect in Lagos as far back as 2022,” Prof. Jinadu said.
He said that 34% of all claims made on Election Day focused on the PDP candidate, 26% of the claims targeted the APC candidate, while 14% of the claims on Election Day focused on INEC.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) the lead agency in tackling vote buying arrested several persons in various parts of the state.
“However, local residents protested the arrests, accusing the EFCC of unfairly targeting the suspects. A brief confrontation ensued as some residents attempted to obstruct the operatives. Despite these challenges, the CDD commended voters in Edo State for conducting themselves in a calm and peaceful manner throughout the election process.” Jinadu stated.
As of the time of filing this report the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Asue Ighodalo, and his All Progressives Congress counterpart, Senator Monday Okpebholo, are neck and neck as INEC has uploaded 97% of the votes cast.
Akowe with reports from Lagos