Obaseki faults INEC preparation for Edo election

The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, said on Saturday he expected better preparation from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the governorship election after queueing for over an hour before voting.

Obaseki, who is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the election, stated this shortly after he cast his vote in the election.

He said: “Given that this is a sole day election, I expected a bit more planning and preparation, and resources should have been put into this election.

“During the last presidential election in my polling unit, there were two polling points which helped the body on voters. You all are witnesses of how long this has taken.

“The card reader is working very slowly, and this is the situation in all the major voting centers in Oredo local government area of the state as I speak.

READ ALSO: Fight breaks out at Obaseki’s polling unit

“In Garrick Memorial Secondary School, I understand that over 500 voters are already stranded because they can’t vote because of the slow processing of the card readers.

“One would have expected that INEC will have deployed more card readers and more voting points in highly numbered polling centers.”

On the allegation of vote buying at polling units, the governor said the security agencies were not doing what they told Nigerians before the election.

Obaseki added: “The security agencies assured us that they won’t allow anybody who don’t have business of voting in a particular place to be there, but we are seeing was contrary to what they promised us.

“You can see cars parked with a lot of cash being disbursed to people and it seems to be normal practice, but we are not perturbed. People know what to do; cash can’t buy their future.”

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