Olumide Akpata, the Labour Party’s (LP) candidate for the Edo State September 21 governorship election, has openly criticized the conduct of the polls, stating that the events of last Saturday could not be classified as an actual election. Akpata, who finished far behind in the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), expressed his disappointment with the overall process, saying that it was more of a transactional exercise than a democratic election.
Despite acknowledging that he did not win the election, Akpata was clear in his argument that the entire process was undermined by widespread vote-buying, with voters selling their ballots to the highest bidder. He claimed that both of the major political parties involved in the Edo governorship election, namely the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), participated heavily in this corrupt practice, paying off voters to secure their support.
In his interview with Channels Television's Politics Today, Akpata further elaborated on how vote-buying had distorted the election results. He stated that a significant number of voters, including members of his own Labour Party, only turned up at the polling stations with the intention of selling their votes to the highest bidder. The LP candidate lamented that this practice was so widespread that it made it difficult to assess who would have genuinely won or lost the election had the process been free and fair.
“I am not saying that we won the election. I am saying there was no election, there was a transaction. It is very difficult to say who would have won or lost,” Akpata remarked. He went on to assert that an estimated 300,000 votes had been purchased by the two dominant parties, a number he said was enough to swing any election result. He underscored how this rampant vote-buying tarnished the integrity of the democratic process and ultimately rendered the election outcome meaningless.
According to Akpata, some voters chose to stay home, unwilling to participate in the corrupted process. However, he pointed out that a large portion of the electorate did come out, but only to sell their votes. This, he said, was a tragedy for the democratic process, as it highlighted how money had overshadowed genuine political participation. He expressed his deep disappointment that even members of his own Labour Party were complicit in selling their votes to the highest bidder, contributing to the overall degradation of the election.
Akpata’s strong condemnation of the Edo governorship election has ignited discussions about the integrity of the electoral process in Nigeria, with many observers now questioning the extent to which vote-buying and transactional politics have corrupted the country’s democratic system.