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Alleges Plot to Rig Election
- Safiu Kehinde
Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, has allayed concern over the widespread of vote buying in the ongoing gubernatorial election as he expressed confidence in winning the poll by landslide.
NPO Reported that several cases of vote buying have been recorded across many polling units in the state.
Reacting to the development while addressing journalist after casting his vote, Soludo acknowledged the spate of vote buying in the ongoing election.
He disclosed that one of candidates allegedly shared N15,000 to voters at his local government.
While commending the peaceful conduct of the election, Soludo however reaffirmed the certainty of his triumph at the poll even if the candidate shared N100,000.
“The election is relatively very peaceful and going on smoothly except for glitches here and there in some places.
“The concerns we have received in some one or two places, particularly in Nnewi South Local Government where we understand that massive vote buying is taking place.
“One of their candidates, particularly from that local government seems to be desperate to win the local government. So, he is sharing N15,000 for voters.
“Even if they share N100,000, I never mind. Let the people just vote and they count the vote. That’s what matters to us.
“We are fairly convinced that on the basis of the vote, one man one vote, we are going to win in landslide. No question about that.
“As for the electoral process here, it is quite seemless. But you can see the crowd that are still here to vote.
In the next one hour, voting is supposed to close officially. But again, the ruling is that once you are in the polling unit before 2:30pm, you must vote.” He said.
Once chances of sweeping the entire local government, Soludo held that he is the only candidate to have reached the entire 21 local government areas.
He however disclosed alleged plot by one of the oppositio paties to swap the results of the election during collation.
“Let me declare, we said this all through the campaign. We have opponents, but we have not seen the opponents.
“And even then, we have not taken the votes of the people for granted. That is why we are literally the only party, the only candidate that has touched the entire 21 local governments.
“Even though everybody said nobody is competing again, but we don’t take any vote for granted.
“The only thing that is actually a concern and we hope it is not going to happen is that one party, I don’t want to mention the candidate, their only strategy is that they have written results which they want to swap during the collation process.
“They will want to swap them. They had meetings with polling agents, telling them not write or upload the results on IREV so they can have room to be able to manipulate.
“But we have confidence that the system will eventually sort it all out.
“Our people are vigilant, organised and united. We will follow the process.
“From the polling units, we will follow it to the collation at the Ward and from the ward, we will follow through to the local government and to the state.
“Once the system works, we have absolutely no doubt. We are going to win in all the 21 local governments.” Soludo added.