Rep alleges oath taking by politicians to induce voters

House of Representatives member, Rep. Israel Ajibola Famurewa (APC/Osun) has alleged that desperate politicians are inducing voters to take oath as a means of vote buying during elections.

The lawmaker who said this phenomenon was rampant during the just concluded Osun state governorship election, declared that the All Progressives Congress (APC) underestimated the desperation of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ademola Adeleke to win the governorship election.

Rep. Famurewa, who was the director – general of the campaign organisation of the Governor-elect of Osun state, Gboyega Oyetola, in a chat with journalists over the weekend warned that Nigeria’s democracy is facing its most perilous time ever with the introduction of oath taking by politicians to buy votes.

He said if the trend is not checked, the nation’s democracy will be at a greater risk of losing voters’ choice which he described as the most important part of citizens franchise.

“We discovered one frightening development during the just concluded governorship election in Osun state and it’s a very sad commentary for our democracy; and it has to be checked urgently.

“We realized that desperate politicians were offering cash to voters and asking them to swear to an oath before they could get the money so that they don’t take their money and vote their preferred candidate.

“One surprising incident occurred in my own poling unit where I know virtually everybody. On the morning of the elections, I went out calling on my people to come and vote, but they were stepping back after seeing me, saying that they had collected money from the other candidates.

“When I offered to give them the money so they could return same to those people, they said they were made to swear to an oath. I couldn’t find my voice to say anything.

“And I think, poverty is responsible for that, if not, how can a family man or woman compromise his or her religious belief just to get N3000 or N5000 from somebody who claims he’s seeking office to safeguard the peoples’ interests?”, the lawmaker wondered.

The lawmaker who is the APC senatorial candidate for Ijesha-North/Ijesha-East called for stringent measures by the authorities to curb the situation before the general elections in 2019 so as not to erode the credibility of the polls.

Giving reasons for the runoff, he said that the APC, though fortunate to have assembled a competent campaign team didn’t envisage the PDP manipulating the process as it did in Ede, the strong hold of its candidate.

“Our concern was more on other candidates such as Otumba Iyiola Omisore of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and that of the ADP who until his defection was the secretary to the state government.

“However, the PDP candidate was able to make it to the runoff against our expectations because of massive over-voting that took place in Ede.

“How can a poling unit produce about 600 votes with no single case of voided vote? You will see the veracity of what I’m saying by the time the tribunal is done with its proceedings.

“But preliminary audit by our team of lawyers has shown beyond reasonable doubts that there was a serious case of over-voting in Ede where Adeleke won.

“How did we know this? The number of voters accredited by the card readers was far below the number of votes returned, which means that at a point, the device failed and they continued with manual accreditation which was against the INEC guidelines,” he added.