A faith-based non-governmental organisation, Justice, Development and Peace Makers, Centre, (JDPMC) Osogbo, Osun State, monitoring activities ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State has accused political parties of inducing potential voters with cash, food, and petrol.
The organisation, however, disclosed that the poll would witness high vote-buying and voter inducement on election day.
This was made known in a pre-election review statement issued and signed by Rev. Fr. Peter Akinkunmi, the General Coordinator of JDPMC, Osogbo on Friday.
He said this discovery was made by the trackers trained and deployed by the organisation to track the campaign activities of selected political parties in the state.
Akinkunmi said, “APC was observed to have carried out major Campaign events in Ondo Central Senatorial district. In all the 13 campaign events ward meetings, road shows with few mega rallies were observed and tracked.
“About 11 campaign events were carried out by the party in the Ondo North senatorial district and 6 campaign events were carried out in the Ondo South Senatorial district of the state. Major features of some of such campaign events included the distribution of food items and the distribution of money for ward-to-ward mobilization of voters ahead of the election.
“The PDP was observed to have carried out about 5 campaign events in the Ondo Central Senatorial district, 3 events were carried out in the Ondo South senatorial district of the state. There was no noticeable campaign event of the PDP observed to have been held in the Ondo North Senatorial district.
“There were no campaign events observed to have been carried out by the Zenith Labour party across the 3 senatorial districts of the state. Only one event was observed to have been carried out by the NNPP in Ondo Central senatorial district of the state.”
He added that political parties campaigned less when compared to previous gubernatorial polls in the state.
“JDPMC perceives that given the situation, there is likely to be massive vote buying and voter inducement on election day. This same trend has appeared in previous elections where campaign activities of previous elections were observed to be higher compared to those of the most recent.
“JDPMC thus calls on all stakeholders to intensify the campaign against vote buying and initiate deterrent mechanisms accordingly to guarantee the integrity of the election.
“Detailed reports on all findings shall be published after the election. The organization also calls on INEC to ensure timely opening of polls, security agencies are called upon to be professional while citizens are called upon not only to go out and vote on election day but to watch their vote.”