As 48 governorship candidates from 48 political parties jostle for 1,246,915 votes in the Osun State governorship election holding on Saturday (today), some of the contestants and their political associates have devised new means and tactics to induce voters ahead of the poll.
Investigation by Saturday PUNCH revealed that the representatives of at least one of the contestants were using the WhatsApp social media platform to woo Permanent Voter Card holders, who are residents of Osun State, to sell their votes.
This was despite attempts by the Independent National Electoral Commission to curb vote-buying and selling especially in the Osun election.
Checks by PUNCH correspondents showed that the associates of the contestants cleverly hid their identities.
To track the identities of the buyers and the politicians they were working for, one of our correspondents connected to an online link that in turn linked him with a WhatsApp number 08120569530, where he was asked a series of questions to ascertain if he actually had a permanent voter card and if he was an Osun State indigene.
The administrator later promised that N10,000 would be deposited into our correspondent’s account number at 6am on Election Day. The correspondent was asked to send his account detail, age, town, ward and unit to claim the amount.
The administrator said, “You’ll receive bank alert 6am on the Election Day. Don’t forget to pass this good news to all your friends and family. Make sure you add us to you(r) phone book and don’t forget to send this to all your friends and family living in around Osun State. Expect our call anytime from now.”
It was difficult to ascertain the party or governorship candidate that initiated the payment process. When our correspondent tried to call the number, using Truecaller, a mobile app that finds contact details globally, to trace the owner, it did not respond.
Almost immediately, the administrator sent a message that our correspondent would be stopped from enjoying the N10,000 vote-buying price. “Please, no WhatsApp call and if you keep calling, we’ll block you,” the administrator wrote.
Meanwhile, one of the contestants was said to have started distributing money to the ward leaders who would identify names of their party members on the voter registers and pay them ahead of the poll.
A source close to one of the politicians told PUNCH on Friday that money had been moved to where the distribution would be done in order to pay for the votes.
He said, “There is nothing they can do to stop vote-buying especially in this election, because politicians are desperate to outdo one another in their bid to buy votes.
“They have started bringing money out but this time round, because of the noise over it, they will be more discreet in sharing the money. Money has been given to the leader of the party in our area but they are yet to tell us how much.”
Saturday PUNCH gathered that the sponsor of a particular candidate compelled some party leaders to swear an oath that they would spend the money he wanted to give them to induce voters and not pocket them.
Some of the leaders were said to have agreed while a few of them were said to have rejected the money because they could not swear this oath of allegiance.
The same candidate was said to have distributed forms to prospective voters, asking them to fill in their accounts details to enable them to be credited with the sum of N10,000. The amount is said to be meant for any voter with a PVC.
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