Edo governorship election: Late arrival of voting materials, accusations of voting buying dent polls

Late arrival of voting materials and accusation of vote buying characterised Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State.
An early morning rainfall Saturday delayed the distribution of materials in the battle ground local government areas of Esan South-East, Igueben and Esan North-East, Esan West and Esan Central LGAs.
At about 8.00am voters who braved the rains were still waiting for Independent National Electoral Officials to arrive, while others remained indoors.
Peoples Democratic Party candidate Asue Ighodalo, expressed bitterness over the delay in distribution of materials. He also accused the All-Progressives Congress of vote buying.
“I am not happy with the process that delayed the delivery of the materials. This is a single-state election. INEC has all the time to prepare.
“We are not comfortable with the little shenanigans that are going on. There are rumours that some people in the opposition are trying to undermine the election process. Many of them have been caught with …
“The worst is that they go round trying to buy votes. They buy votes for 15-20 thousand. They are trying everything to subvert the process. We will win this election by a landslide and move our state forward by God’s grace. If there is anybody at home, please come out and cast your vote.”
But APC stalwart Adams Oshiomole denied there was any sort of vote buying.
“It is laughable when I hear this kind of allegation. Did you see anywhere they are sharing money?
“People turned out in large numbers to vote for us because they wanted good government. During our campaign, people came out to see me not because I wanted to give them something but because of what I have done for them while I was in the office as the governor.
“All structures that I have put in place 12, 13 years ago are still there but the ones put up by the present administration, in one year, they are washed off.
“So our people have seen the difference. Some people do tell me that since I left the government, they haven’t seen the real presence of government in their communities.”
Meanwhile residential electoral commissioner in Edo Anugbum Onuoha assured that the result of the election would be uploaded into the viewing portal IREV
“You know that we have 4,519 pulling units across the 18 local governments, and so far, we have deployed 4,622 BVAS to the various local governments. And we also have backup of 660 BVAS,” he said.
“I just want you to confirm. So are you saying that this election is going to be… the results will all be transmitted electronically? Is that what you’re saying? Yes. Thank you.
“Yes, unless there is no network in that place. We will transmit it.”