PDP Gave me N5,000 to Inflate Accredited Voters’ During Last Elections – INEC Polling Assistant
Published August 17, 2011 | By Independent Kwaran

An Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) polling assistant yesterday told the Kwara State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that a former Secretary to the State Government (SSG) gave him N5,000 to inflate the number of accredited voters.

Adeniyi Razaq told the tribunal that he was a poll assistant at Unit 007 in Kuntu, Adewole Ward, Ilorin West, and an ad-hoc staff of INEC in the April 26 governorship poll.

He said different amounts of money were offered other INEC workers, according to their ranks, to favour the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election.

The witness said the PDP requested for the booklets of ballot papers to be made available to it.

Razak, who said he was working for an Osogbo-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) added: “A few days before the presidential elections on April 15, the presiding officer for my polling unit, one Kola, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, asked me to go to Agbo Oba, where the NYSC lodge is located, for a meeting. When we got there, we saw a lot of PDP-branded vehicles inside and outside the lodge. When we got into the lodge, the party’s agent, a light skinned lady whose name we were not told but was widely called Alhaja Iya Alate, informed us as follows:

•‘That the PDP required all of us (electoral officers) to inflate the number of accredited voters in our respective polling units;

•‘That we should make ballot papers available to them;

•‘That we should not be concerned about how they would thumb-print the ballot papers and get them into the ballot boxes;

•‘That they would take care of that; and

•‘That for the services they were prepared to pay us handsomely.’

“At the meeting, the former Ilorin West Local Government chairman and one other person I don’t know gave N20,000 to each INEC Presiding Officer with an instruction that it be shared as follows:

•N10,000.00 each to presiding officers; and

•N5,000 each to polling clerks (every unit has two polling clerks).

“There was no provision for polling assistants.

“The poll assistants present were not happy that there was no provision for them and they began to protest. I led the poll assistants’ protest. Thereupon, the lady called me and explained that the payment was for work done for the PDP during the National Assembly elections a week earlier. She told me that they would invite me later for further discussion.

“I was invited by the same Alhaja Iya Alate on April 25, a day before the governorship election, to Gaa Aremu in Adewole Ward area of Ilorin West Local Government. The place turned out to be the family home of the ex-SSG as I saw a big photograph of the man dressed in his Senior Advocate’s ceremonial robes and his name was written boldly under the picture. The Alhaji was at this place with Alhaja Iya Alate. I was given N5,000 by Alhaji and I was told that further directives would be given to me later for the next day’s election by Alhaja.

“Thereafter, I was escorted out of the house by Alhaja. As we were walking away from the house, she told me that she would call me later that evening. And she did. When she called, she said we, INEC officials, at our polling units needed to inflate the number of accredited voters and if we did this, we would be paid N11,000.00.

“Also, she said we would receive N100,000 for providing the PDP with a booklet of ballot papers. She informed me that if we agreed to this, the money would be paid that night.

“On election day, on April 26, Alhaja came to meet me at my polling unit and asked if I had agreed to what she said. When I told her that I would not do it, she kept persuading me. But when she realised that I would not change my mind, she left…”

“I am aware that my own experience is not an isolated case as a lot of my colleagues agreed to the scheme, collected the money and did the PDP’s bidding, as I have said. I know for a fact that the polling officers for the following units collected N100,000 each and gave ballot paper booklets to the PDP. They are: Sakele Open Space Poll Unit 005 of Adewole Ward; Oke Agodi Open Space Unit 006 Adewole Ward; and Ojude Olode Kuta Kunte Unit 017 Adewole Ward; Gaa Aremu Open Space Unit 016 Adewole Ward; and Adeta LGEA School Unit 013.

“Subsequently, I discovered that through some of my colleagues and other people, that the Alhaji came from Adewole Ward and, being a senior person in the Kwara State Government, he wanted desperately to record a win in his ward and in my polling unit.

“I believe that what I have described above was very rampant in Ilorin West, judging by the discussions with my co-ad hoc INEC colleagues. In all likelihood, it took place in other places in Kwara State. It has also been reported in the Tuesday, April 26 -May 2 edition of the Premier newspaper on pages 1, 26 and 27.”

Truly free and fair !!!! No wonder they can't provide the ballot papers for forensic analysis.

this is not news. we all knew this was rampant in most places. free and fair elections my foot.

^^^^^Then how come foreign observers miss this one? The more i look the more i see wuru-wuru.Shocking sha!!!! We are told it was all fine and now stories like this emerge here and there of cheating (rigging,inflating,stuffing and all that).

where did those observers go to? did they go to the hinterlands, villages and remote places where things like this are really rampant.
very few of them came to the country, lodged in hotels at the state's capital and went to few streets at the same capital and finally went to INEC headquarters to hear the result.
after this they all came out to declare it free and fair. they are simply deceiving themselves.

the elections were highly rigged over here in por harcourt, yes people came out to vot, but after casting ballot and going home i came back to hear the results announced only to witness ballot stuffing. i tried to take a discreet picture and was made out. i spent a better part of that day in the police cell and regained my freedom after parting with N10,000, so free and fair my behinds!

What a bloody tool. Firing squad plz!!!

So when will we investigate the 99%s of the SS/SE?

somebody is going to prison,