Ekiti Governor-elect too poor to engage in vote-buying - Oshiomhole

National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has disclosed that it would have been impossible for Ekiti governor-elect, Dr Kayode Fayemi, to have engaged in vote-buying to win the Ekiti gubernatorial election.

Fayemi defeated the PDP candidate, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, aka Eleka, in the state's July 14 election as he won 197,459 votes to his opponent's 178,121 votes.

However, many observers and the opposition, led by Ekiti governor, Ayodele Fayose, have accused Fayemi and the ruling APC of engaging in violence and illegal vote-buying with money paid to voters on the day of election.

While appearing during an interview on Channels Television, Oshiomhole said Fayemi could not possibly have been able to engage in vote-buying due to his meager means.

He said, "I was not in Ekiti so I can't claim to be a witness to vote-buying and I did not participate in any decision to buy votes in Ekiti, and I have my doubts as to if votes were to be bought and sold.

"No one can claim that Fayemi is a rich man. I know that he was struggling to find money to mobilise and sustain his campaign that he could have had such huge tons of money."

He further alleged that the only person capable of engaging in vote-buying during the election is Fayose.

He said, "I guess it's the guy who had access to Ekiti treasury, which in this case was the PDP and then the sitting governor (Fayose), who was so confident that he has all the resources.

"He even described himself as a rock - if you fall on him you will break, if he falls on you he will crush you. Now, the definition and the particulars of this rock may well be in terms of the amount of naira that he thought was available."

Despite his conviction that Fayemi or the APC have no financial muscle to engage in vote-buying in Ekiti, Oshiomhole said he could not dismiss the allegation.

"I'm not going to dismiss the allegations either way, just to say that I was not a party to it and I couldn't have possibly supported it," he said.

APC chieftain admits to vote-buying

Despite Oshiomhole's denial of the party's culpability in buying votes during July's election, an APC chieftain in Ekiti State, Senator Ayo Arise, confessed that the party bought votes.

During an interview days after the election, Arise said the APC had to start buying votes when it saw that the PDP was deploying the same trick.

He said, "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?"

Prof Olusola is challenging Fayemi's victory as was announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

On October 16, Fayemi will take over from Fayose, who defeated him in the 2014 gubernatorial election after his first stint as governor between 2010 and 2014.