Edo Election: Politicians used girls, fabrics, cash to seek for votes – CDD

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on Saturday condemned the high rate of vote-trading in the Edo governorship election.

CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, spoke at a press briefing in Abuja.

The body released a preliminary report on the election.

Hassan said reports that politicians, in an attempt to circumvent the electoral process, used young girls as their contact with the voters for the trading

“We saw largely vote-buying in the Edo election, the most worrisome trend in this election is the level of sophistication at which politicians engaged in the anomaly of vote-buying. In some cases, votes were traded for Ankara materials, and cash gifts from N1,000 to N15,000, Spaghetti and other food items.”

She expressed concern that despite expending time and resources to deploy thousands of law enforcement officials for the election, nothing was done in the face of infractions such as vote-buying.

“The flouting of the rule of physical distancing was the order of the day, there was a complete inability of INEC to maintain her 2-meter rules as written in her guidelines,” Hassan added.