It took the arrival of some officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at Ward 5, Eguare Primary School, Irrua, Esan Local Government Area of Edo State on Saturday, before the distribution of money was stopped.
Despite the early morning rainfall that slightly delayed the arrival of voting materials, accreditation commenced at about 8:30 am and voting proper started shortly after at about 10:02 am.
The ward is in Edo Central Senatorial District, which has five LGAs, comprising Esan South-East, Igueben, Esan North East, Esan West and Esan Central LGs, and it is the area where the PDP and the APC candidates hail from.
As the voting was going on, various party officials were seen lobbying voters to vote for their particular candidate.
It was a large turnout of young and elderly voters as the ward has about six units hence a haven for vote-buying which was getting rampant across the various units.
However, the arrival of EFCC’s officials at about 12:05 pm momentarily halted the vote-buying as the party officials stopped sharing money as soon as they sighted the EFCC men.
The EFCC’s officials went around the vicinity for about 30 minutes before leaving the scene.
They, however, did not make any arrests as the voters and party representatives had already comported themselves without showing any suspicion that could warrant any arrest.
Despite this, the voting process remained orderly and peaceful and the BVAS machines worked perfectly.
The restriction of movement order was strictly adhered to as security operatives scrutinised and ensured only residents with voter cards made use of the road to their various polling units.
Punch News
