Honourable Falegan Opeyemi David at his polling unit
Claim
The candidate of the Accord Party in the ongoing Ekiti State Governorship Election, Honourable Falegan Opeyemi David, says there is ‘vote buying everywhere’.
He made the claim in a Facebook post which he dropped after casting his vote on Saturday.
The claim read: “I have just exercised my civic responsibility by casting my vote in the Ekiti State Governorship Election as a candidate at my Polling Unit in Idofin Ado-Ekiti .
It was really sad to see vote buying everywhere at 20k per vote and security agents synergising with the those acts. (intimidation as well on our party unit agents).
“This doesn’t reflect what a good democratic process should be.
“I hereby condemn this process and conclude no election in Ekiti State”.
At the time of putting this fact-check together the post had garnered 1.1K likes, 263 comments and 44 shares.
Background
Honourable Falegan had cast his vote in his Polling Unit in Idofin Ado-Ekiti. He had earlier claimed that the BVAS in the polling unit was not working.
Image sent in by the observer at the polling unit
Verification
After he made the claim, we reached out to our observer in the Idofin area to verify if there were incidents of vote buying.
The observer reverted with a confirmation that there were incidents of vote buying in the location.
Also, the observer shared images from the polling where the vote buying had occurred.
Verdict
Our observer in the local area confirmed that there was vote buying in the location.
While it is true that there is vote buying in Idofin Ado-Ekiti, it is misleading to state that there is vote buying everywhere.
This could connote that vote buying happened in the whole of Ekiti State.
This is a claim that cannot be substantiated.
