#AnambraDecides: Politicians Bribed Voters Openly, Says Situation Room

The Convener of Election Situation Room, Clement Nwankwo has alleged that the Saturday’s Anambra Election was characterised with open votes buying as politicians openly bribed voters during the election.

Speaking in Awka, the state capital, Nwankwo said the election was relatively peaceful but the most striking thing was the situation of votes-buying where huge amount of money was spent by politicians to lure voters.

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“The most striking with the election is the huge amount of money that’s been spent by the political parties openly bribing voters at the polling units. Some spent as much as N5,000 – N6,000 to pay for a single vote,” he said.

The election room convener, who lamented over the situation of open buying of votes saying it is really disappointing and an abuse of electoral process, however applauded the police for being responsive.

“This is really unprecedented in terms of the amount of money spent buying votes of citizens and it is really disappointing to see this level of abuse of electoral process and the abuse on the limit of expenditure.

“The police have been very responsive. Places where incidents have occurred, they have been prompt to react and nip some incidents in the bud. Unfortunately, the police have not been wide spread as we thought. They had promised 26,000 police personnel; I don’t think we had 26,000 police personnel on ground.’’

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He also applauded the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC) for the responses to the cases of card readers malfunction recorded.

‘’There were few cases of card readers malfunction but the response from INEC has been very good. There has been incidents of ballot box snatching but the number have been limited and I think that the fear about police over policing has been seriously minimised.

Despite few cases of officials making away with ballot papers and election materials including officials turning up late, Nwankwo said the election was “relatively peaceful.”