APC chieftain confesses to vote buying on national TV

APC chieftain in Ekiti State, Sen Ayo Arise, has confessed that his political party bought votes during the Saturday, July 14, 2018 governorship election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the APC winner of the election.

Prof Kolapo Olusola-Eleka of the PDP, who was backed by sitting Governor Ayodele Fayose, lost the election.

The PDP, Eleka and Fayose have rejected the results of the election.

There have been allegations of cash for votes from the two major political partiesduring a tense and violent election.

Arise may just have admitted that the APC was just as guilty of procuring votes during the election when he appeared on ChannelsTV.

Cash for votes

“Did you witness any vote buying at all?”, Arise was asked.

“I am not talking about witnessing any vote buying, but blatant vote buying like setting up kiosks, I didn’t see that”, the APC chieftain said.

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Arise would go on to explain that the APC had to start buying votes when it saw that the PDP was deploying the same trick which allegedly returned Fayose to government house in 2014.

“The PDP started buying votes two days before the election. They were spending money…every voter in Ekiti, you know this photocopying of voters cards that we all cried out about. Now, he (Fayose) sent money to all the voters and they came to tell us that these people, they have bought all the votes already.

“Now we said, what are we going to do? If PDP is buying votes, and these people, the issue is, they will now keep asking you for money.

“As far as I am concerned, what happened in Ekiti is one of the challenges we as Nigerians must find a solution to because somebody started buying votes, you do not expect me to sit back…If I know that this guy has rigged me out of this election, so I should now say that those people requesting..O somebody has paid me N4,000, I’ll now say O sorry, I don’t have money? And so please go and vote for him?

“Would that be an election?”, Arise asked.

'Ugly trend'

At the end of a meeting it held to review the Ekiti election on Wednesday, July 18, INEC said “it had noted with deep concern, the rising phenomenon of vote buying during elections and restated its commitment and determination to continue to work with all stakeholders, especially the security agencies, to stem the ugly trend”.

Fayemi has received a certificate of return from INECand will be sworn in as Governor of the Southwest State on October 16.