The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has called for the inclusion of commitment against vote-buying in the Peace Accord signed by candidates of political parties ahead of election days.
ICPC’s spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua said on Wednesday at the PREMIUM TIMES’ weekly TwitterSpaces that officers would be deployed from the agency’s office in Osun State and its South-west zonal office to check the malpractice, adding that they would be supported by officers from its headquarters in Abuja.
The latest episode of the programme was titled “#OsunDecides: Lessons learnt from the Ekiti governorship elections”.
Ogugua, who was not sure yet of the number of officers to be deployed, assured that enough of them would be stationed across the three senatorial districts to provide effective coverage of the election. “As you all know, ICPC monitored the last election in Ekiti State, and we are set to monitor the Osun elections coming up this Saturday.
“Our work in election monitoring is to track vote buying. In the last election, we noticed they were a lot of vote-buying going on at all levels. The ICPC would be deploying officers from our zonal office in Osun State, supported by staff across our Southwest states. And a few of us from Abuja would also join the team of officers.”
Other speakers at the event included the Executive Director of the Centre for Journalism, Innovation and Development (CJID), Tobi Oluwatola; the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo; and the Convener of the Civil Societies Situation Room, Ene Obi.
Thirteen political parties signed the Peace Accord for peaceful conduct ahead of Saturday’s governorship election. The Labour Party was absent at the venue of the peace accord meeting held in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, on Wednesday.
The event is organised by the National Peace Committee led by a former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), and a cleric, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah.
The ICPC said its operatives would be on ground to monitor vote buying and arrest suspects during the election.
Voting buying was reported in the Ekiti State governorship election last month with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission stormed some locations and arresting suspected buyers and sellers of votes.
Credit: PREMIUM TIMES
