A spokesman of the Labour Party’s candidate in the Anambra governorship election, Mr. Ben Chuks-Nwosu, has alleged that a representative of a political party was seen giving money to voters to buy their votes.
Mr. Ben Chuks-Nwosu, who is the Director General of the Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign Organisation, decried the rising trend of ‘Money for Vote,’ caused by incredible poverty in most communities in Nigeria, as a danger to democracy.
“As much as 3,000 Naira and 5,000 Naira was given out to voters,” he said.
On Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, on Monday, he said that the issues was reported to the police and the party representative, whose name was not mentioned, when accustomed, claimed he was ‘giving money to his cousins’.
Mr. Chuks-Nwosu said there was need to tackle poverty, which he stressed, had taken away the enthusiasm to vote from the electorates.
He also alleged that the governorship election was systematically rigged in the state.
“The systematic rigging happened mainly in three ways: Translocation of the voters’ register, voters not being able to find their names when they went out to vote and missing voters’ register at polling units,” he alleged.
Mr. Chuks-Nwosu said that the time between accreditation and voting time was a big loop hole for fraud.
“Within that time parties behave in ways that are unrecognised by the electoral act,” he said.
He also said that poor voters’ education led to poor turnout of voters in the election that saw only 20.4 per cent of total registered voters voting in the November 16 and 17 elections.
A supplementary election was held on November 30 and the All Progressives Grand Alliance’s candidate, Willie Obiano, was declared winner by the electoral commission.
The spokesman of Ifeanyi Ubah, the Labour Party’s candidate, explained that his party did not participate in the supplementary election because there was no statement by the electoral commission that it would correct the errors that were identified.
“INEC was still tinkering with the voter’s register three days to the day of the election, when they were supposed to have displayed the last register that they are supposed to use and this is fraught with danger. It is fraudulent and it is against the electoral act. It puts the contestants that were not favoured in a disadvantaged position.
“Voters register was tampered with in a way that is detrimental to my candidate and it is a justiciable campaign if we go to the tribunal.
“We will make our point and leave a window of negotiation. All we want is to make Anambra State great again,” he said.
Mr. Chuks-Nwosu said that the party members would meet to decide whether it would contest the result of the election in an election tribunal.
