The Independent National Electoral Commission on Monday said it was working on secret balloting to curb vote-buying in the Sept. 22 governorship election in Osun.
Resident Electoral Commissioner in Osun, Mr Olusegun Agbaje, said this while making a presentation on INEC’s preparations ahead of Osun election at the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room Dialogue Session in Abuja.
Agbaje said that the commission had been worried about vote-buying since the Ekiti elections and was looking for ways to curb it.
According to him, the current trend of inducing voters with money popularly known as ‘see and buy’ in the local parlance, was particularly worrisome to the commission.
“The issue of vote-buying is worrisome to the commission because it is not easy for INEC to prepare for election and on that day people will come with bags of money.
“This undermines the credibility of elections; so, INEC has decided to re-arrange its voting cubicle in a way that voters cannot display their votes.
“There will no longer be a way of showing your votes to politicians to go and collect money; we are also working on not allowing voters with phones into the area and security agents will be there to make arrests.
“Vote-buying is a disease that is graduating to kill our electoral system and must be stopped,’’ he said.
Agbaje said that INEC was ready for the Osun election, adding that 1,192,386 Permanent Voter Cards had been collected while 483,826 were yet to be collected in the state.
He said that there were 3, 010 polling units, 332 registration areas and 30 local government areas in the state.
He added that voting points were 755, registered voters, 1, 682, 495 and that 71 per cent of registered persons had collected their PVCs while 29 per cent were yet to do so.
The REC said that the commission would continue to strengthen its voter-education machinery for improved and targeted exercise.
