- Safiu Kehinde
An election observer from the National Civil Society Situation Room, Dimma Nwobi, has raised alarm over alleged vote buying at the polling units under her observation at the ongoing governorship election in Anambra state.
Nwobi alleged that some of the voters were seen negotiating with some party mercenaries to sell their votes.
She made this known during an interview with Chanels TV on Saturday.
The election observer, who arrived at the undisclosed polling units from Nnewi North, reounted how the voters, after collecting their ballot papers voted and present the paper to the mercenaries who in turn cast the vote in the ballotbox.
“Here is unique. We saw that party mercenaries actually collecting people’s card. The INEC will give them form to vote.
“And when the vote, they give it back to the party mercenaries who will drop it in the ballot box. And they are buying and selling votes, actually negotiating. It is sad.
“One of the party agents there who is very angry over the matter has been shouting on INEC personnel that why are they allowing this. Nobody should touch the ballot paper of a voter.
“They should allow the voters to go and vote and drop the ballot paper inside the ballot box.” She said.
Nwobi disclosed that in Nnewi North where she came from, some of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials could not get bus on time to convey them to their polling units.
“We came from Nnewi North and nothing is happening there. They have five wards and 13 polling units. Many INEC personnel and police personnel are still waiting to be transported to their polling units. We left there 8:55am and are still waiting. They actually came to us and asked us to escalate their situation.
“When we came here, they told us that they commenced voting accreditation 8:10am which is not possible because BVAS was meant to start by 8:30am. They gave us wrong information.” She said.
On action taken over the noticed vote buying, the election observer disclosed that she has reported the case to their situation room.
“We met with the Commissioner of Police in charge of this Anambra election, and he told us yesterday that they have instructed their personnel to arrest anyone buying or selling votes. But in this place that has four polling units, only one police personnel, no other security agency is represented here.”
And the police officer is sitting far away from the polling units. I have already escalated it to the situation room.” She added.