Ekiti guber poll: Civil Defence officials allegedly hijack N2 million party money

There was confusion at ward 10 Unit 9, Ilupeju along Ikere – Ado Expressway in Ikere Ekiti, in Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State as some personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) allegedly stormed the polling unit and hijack a sum of N2 million and went away with it.

Lamenting what happened, a voter who expected to get his own part of the money after casting his vote told journalists that the money was meant
to buy votes, and the incident has made voters who were promised to leave in anger.

According to him, NSCDC personnel harassed the man with the money who was supposed to share the money to them for voting APC, snatched the money and left in their official vehicle, saying that the money is over N2 million.

The aggrieved voter examined that the incident may affect the APC in the affected polling unit as other political parties share money for votes.

He said representatives of APC in the polling unit called the Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Funminiyi Afuye of the development who rushed to the scene with his security aides, but the NSCDC had left before his arrival.

When the Speaker was asked what he was doing at the polling unit when he was supposed to be in his polling unit, he said as Speaker of the State Assembly, he has right to move around to observe developments.

The Speaker said he has voted in his unit and he was going round to see if there were issues that needed his attention but said, he was satisfied with what he saw in Ilupeju as voters were seen conducting himself well.

Answering questions from journalists, he denied that there was vote buying by the APC.

He said: “By virtue of my position as the chief lawmaker of the state, the moment I don’t go and tampered with whatever they are doing, I’m observing, there is no problem. The only time I went there is when they said they wanted to confirm the number of the machines that’s all.

“I am not aware of that, I wasn’t here then, and if they were snatching money, they are not snatching from my party. No violence has been reported to me.”

When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the Ekiti State Command of the NSCDC, Mr Afolabi Tolulope, said he was not aware of such incident as he was yet to get to the office