Justice, Development and Peace Makers Centre has called on the electorate to watch their votes during Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo.
The NGO also urged the electorate to reject financial and other material inducement during the election.
This was disclosed in a statement by Peter Akinkunmi, the general coordinator of JDPMC, on Friday in Osogbo.
Mr Akinkunmi said that the organisation’s pre-election observation and tracking activities since July revealed evidence of voters’ inducements, mostly through third parties, to rally support for various contestants.
The general coordinator said JDPMC had been monitoring the trend of campaigns by contesting political parties across the state. He said this was done through a team of trained campaign finance trackers and investigative journalists within the 18 local government areas of the state.
The JDPMC coordinator added, “With the funding and technical support of European Union Support for Democratic Governance (EU-SDGN) Phase II, these trained trackers have been monitoring trends, outlook and developments of political campaign activities.
“JDPMC comparison between the campaign activities of the contesting political parties ahead of the 2020 and 2024 elections indicated a sharp drop in campaign activities.”
Given the situation, JDPMC perceived there was likely to be massive vote buying and voter inducement on election day, stated Mr Akinkunmi. JDPMC, thus, called on all stakeholders to intensify the campaign against vote buying and initiate deterrent mechanisms to guarantee the integrity of the election,
He added, “We also call on the Independent National Electoral Commission to ensure timely opening of polls. Security agencies are called upon to be professional, while citizens are called upon not to only go out to vote, but to watch their votes.” (NAN)
