Twenty politicians have been paraded by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged vote-buying in Kwara state.
Nigeriacrime.com gathered that the suspects were arrested in parts of Irepodun, Ilorin West and Ilorin South local government areas of the state during the governorship and House of Assembly elections.
Parading the suspects, Acting Commander, Ilorin Zonal office of the commission Michael Nzekwe said the commission acted on credible intelligence to effect the operation.
Mr Nzekwe added that the “majority of the people arrested were directly involved in vote-buying. Our mandate at the commission is to ensure that money’s influence in politics is eradicated. We got credible intelligence and we acted on the intelligence. Some of the arrests were made in Omu-Aran, Ilorin South and Ilorin West. We were all over the 16 local government areas.
“We recovered a huge sum of cash and point of sales (POS) machines. We are still investigating the matter. After the investigation, we will strictly follow the provisions of the law.”
In a related development, The police on election duty in Birnin Kebbi have arrested one alleged votes buyer Yar daba at Nassarawa1 polling unit.
The journalists from vision FM in Birnin Kebbi were said to have noticed some people in a car dishing bundles of wrappers to voters at the polling unit, the journalists made attempt to record the votes buying incident when the said woman now in police custody swooped on them seized their camera and identity card belonging to Hassan Biso from vision FM all efforts made by the journalists to secure the release their working tools proved abotive.
Unable to get their camera released the journalists invited the police who arrested and wisked the woman away the suspect to their office for questioning.
However, incidents of votes buying were recorded at various polling units in Birnin Kebbi at 031 town hall polling unit Nassarawa 1 women were seen collecting bundles of wrappers after thumprinting their ballots same report of votes buying at Garkar magatakada 008,BVAS were malfunctioning initially but later fixed by INEC office.
At labbo maijirgi polling unit 006 one Fatima an observer was harassed by an APC agent who refused to give her name because she saw fishy things going on at the polling unit.