Tayo Olanipekun
Evidence of vote buying and large quantity of void votes featured in some polling units during today’s Presidential and National Assembly elections at the Ibeju-Lekki Local Government Area of Lagos State as the two leading parties in the state go neck and neck.
As various party agents tried to outsmart opponents in canvassing votes in some of the polling units visited by our correspondent around Alatunshe and Ayeteju, discussions bordering on inducements could be heard as apparent exchange of money from hands were also observed.
In the Ward B located at the RMC, Ayeteju, it took the swift intervention of the police officers attached to the centre to prevent the escalation of violence as some voters descended on a man they alleged had connived with another man, who was at large at the time, to bolt away with money meant for them in exchange for votes they cast for a political party.
This is as N500 and N1, 000 notes were also observed to be handed out by a party agents to some voters after the exercise in exchange for the “work done during the process” as similar request for payments by others were also declined by the same agent for “paucity of funds” and “poor quality of work.” Other agents were also observed talking in hush tones as they arranged for how to “settle” the voters.
A local Observer, Quadry Balogun, who represented the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), said the polls were largely peaceful around the area but lamented that vote buying was an issue.
“The agents are discreet about vote buying but one can not pretend that the issue is not going on,” he said.
At the Polling Unit 002, Alatunshe, a few minutes’ trek to the family house of an House of Representatives candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Honourable Bayo Balogun, party agents tried but failed to reach a consensus over the 51 invalid votes that was discovered in the House of Representatives ballot, in which APC polled 18 votes and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 19 votes, leaving four other parties with one vote each.
A similar issue played out at the Ward B where the finger print of a voter in favour of PDP missed the box with a slim margin and following a heated debate, the party agents insisted that the vote stood invalid and the Presiding Officer and his Assistants had to comply.
Some of the results available at press time showed the that APC and PDP are in a tight race. The APC polled 18 votes in the House of Representatives election of the Poling Unit 002 at Alatunshe where PDP had 19. The parties’ scores stood at 20-18 and 10-24 respectively in the Senate and Presidency elections respectively.