The incumbent Governor of Ekiti State and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Biodun Oyebanji, will today battle candidates of other political parties for the votes of over 1.028 million electorate in the state’s off-cycle governorship election.
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Oyebanji is facing Dr Wole Oluyede of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ambassador Dare Bejide of the African Democratic Congress, and 12 other candidates in the contest.
Other candidates in the race include Opeyemi Falegan of Accord Party; Olu Omotoso of Allied Alliance; Akande Oluwasegun of African Action Congress; Isaac Alade of the Social Democratic Party; Ayodeji Ojo of the Action Democratic Party; Bidemi Awogbemi of the Allied Peoples Movement; Joseph Anifowose of the Action Peoples Movement; Oyebanji Olajuyin of the Labour Party; Blessing Abegunde of the New Nigeria Peoples Party; Ayodele Praise of the Peoples Redemption Party; Olusegun Osinkolu of the Young Progressives Party; and Victor Adetunji of the Zenith Labour Party.
Although 15 candidates are on the ballot, political observers say the real contest is expected to be among Oyebanji, Oluyede and Bejide.
The electorate are expected to cast their votes across 2,445 polling units in the state.
Ahead of the election, voter card collection in Ekiti reportedly rose from 987,647 in 2023 to 1,059,360 registered voters certified to participate in the poll.
Across Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, and surrounding communities, security personnel were deployed to strategic locations to ensure the safety of voters, electoral officials and other stakeholders.
However, the PDP candidate, Oluyede, expressed concern over the conduct of security agencies ahead of the election, alleging that some of his supporters had been arrested unjustifiably.
“I am very wary and suspicious of the fairness of the present police force in Ekiti because there are situations where my supporters are arrested for unjustifiable reasons,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Bunmi Omoseyindemi, said the Independent National Electoral Commission could not guarantee a complete end to vote buying and selling during the election.
Speaking with journalists in Ado-Ekiti on the eve of the poll, Omoseyindemi said vote buying comes in different forms and that INEC’s role is different from that of anti-corruption and security agencies.
He said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission are responsible for handling cases of vote buying detected on election day.
“First of all, there must be enough education to the people not to buy votes and not to sell votes,” he said.
“People must change their mindset on the electoral process. They must not see election day as the only time they can change their lives.
“Until we can get through that proper way of educating people, we will still have these incidents of vote buying, which come in various forms. However, the people that we see on election day are the ones that we will see. It is the responsibility of the ICPC and the EFCC to handle them. It is not the responsibility of INEC.”
Omoseyindemi said security agencies had been put on red alert to manage the situation and protect the process.
On INEC’s preparedness, he said the commission had been meeting regularly with the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security.
“We are well prepared. We have been having regular meetings with the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security. We are going to bank on the consultative committee on electoral security. They are mapping strategies on how to take care of all the strategic things,” he said.
The REC said necessary arrangements had been made for the poll, including the distribution of non-sensitive and sensitive materials.
According to him, non-sensitive materials had been distributed long before the election, while sensitive materials were collected from the Central Bank on Thursday and distributed to local government areas.
“We distributed non-sensitive material a long time ago. But on Thursday, we went to the Central Bank to collect the sensitive material. It has been distributed to the local government areas,” he said.
He added that Registration Area Centres would be activated ahead of deployment of Supervisory Presiding Officers, Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers and technical personnel.
Omoseyindemi, however, identified fake news as one of the biggest threats to the election, warning that false reports could create panic and undermine the process.
“The deepest challenge we are facing is fake news by the media. That is the truth. It is the fake news that causes panic within the system,” he said.
“When people are writing stories that are not true and trying to frighten people, like reports that many people are kidnapped somewhere, and they may not have even visited the place to know what is happening, fake news becomes a major threat to this electoral process.”
He urged the media to exercise caution and maturity in reporting election activities, stressing that the success of the poll would depend on the cooperation of voters, political actors, security agencies and the media.
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