Edo election was a bazaar, even LP members sold their votes – Olumide Akpata

The governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Edo State, Barrister Olumide Akpata, has described the September 21 election as a bazaar, where the leading political parties bought votes from the electorates.

He added that members of his political party also sold their votes.

Akpata made the allegations while speaking on Channels Television, on Wednesday night. He accused the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress of vote buying, alleging that officials of the two parties bought not less than 300,000 votes.

He stated: “I am not saying we won the election, I am saying there was no election; there was a transaction.

“By our estimate, about 300, 000 votes were bought by the two parties, actively participating in that bazaar. That is enough to sway any election.

“Some (voters) stayed at home, but a large number came out and sold their votes. Members of my party sold their votes.

“What happened was a tragedy. Let us remove Olu Akpata and Labour Party and interrogate our electoral process. It is something we must look into closely,” he noted.

The Labour Party candidate, expressed surprise at how the electorates responded to vote-buying. He likened the voters to prisoners, who fell in love with their abductors, adding that he was taken aback because he had not anticipated the people would succumb to cash inducements from the political parties.

The Labour Party, he said, ran a spirited campaign and was aware that the people genuinely desired change. Nonetheless, they gave in to a stronger pressure.

Akpata stated: “I was taken aback by the reaction of the people. The captives who are in love with their captors. That one left me a little bit dumbfounded because I did not expect that reaction from the people.

“We campaigned vigorously around the state and I know that the people really wanted to see change. But in the face of inducement of that magnitude, apparently, they capitulated.

“We were not sure of the process but we had more confidence in the people. But the people decided to go for freshly-minted cash that was on offer.

“The papa, mama, pickin that we thought would come out and say enough is enough, as they told us when we campaigned; when they came and found there was so much money on the table, every other consideration was out of the window,” he lamented.

The former president of the Nigeria Bar Association, explained that the deep-rooted poverty and misery in the country “has made it such that the people are unable to connect between their current situation and those who are the cause of their situation. For me, that was a big lesson to learn. That if you think you know the people, you have to think again,” Akpata concluded.