Anambra: Situation Room Reports Peaceful Election But Widespread Vote Buying

…the Situation Room disclosed that voters in a particular polling unit in the state rejected an inducement of ₦5,000 per vote.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has said that the gubernatorial election in Anambra State was generally peaceful but had widespread vote buying.

In its report on Sunday regarding the polls, the Situation Room gave some specific instances of vote-buying to include the sale of votes for amounts ranging from ₦1,000 and ₦6,000 at various locations.

The organization, however, noted that this was being carried out very discreetly in some polling units while in others, the vote buying was done in full glare without prevention from the security personnel.

Nevertheless, the Situation Room disclosed that voters in a particular polling unit in the state rejected an inducement of ₦5,000 per vote. The agency commended the courage of those voters.

Speaking further, the organization noted that INEC ad-hoc staff and election materials arrived late in many polling units visited by field observers.

Also observed was a widespread malfunction of the Bimodal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) as it failed to authenticate voters’ fingerprints and detect faces.

“This was the case in 59% of the PUs observed, with a minimum of five minutes to accredit one voter in 65.8% of the PUs observed.

“Furthermore, some of the ad-hoc staff experienced some difficulty in operating the machines. In some locations, the machines were working rather slowly and took as long as 10 minutes or more to accredit a single voter,” the agency stated

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