Forty-eight hours before the governorship election in Osun State, the civil society group, Yiaga Africa, has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to ensure there is no incidence of vote buying or selling before and during the poll.
The group also called on the anti-graft commissions to take action against anyone involved in such acts.
The Chairman of the 2026 Osun Election Observation Mission of Yiaga Africa, Asmau Maikudi, made the call on Thursday while speaking with journalists in Osogbo, the state capital.
He said, “Yiaga Africa calls for better coordination with EFCC and ICPC in making arrests of political party leaders, agents and anyone attempting to buy votes before the election and on election day.”
The group also expressed deep concerns about election-day readiness following technical challenges observed during the Independent National Electoral Commission’s mock accreditation exercise ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State.
To this end, Maikudi urged INEC to resolve all outstanding technical issues with election technologies, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System used for voter accreditation, to prevent disenfranchisement, delays and other operational disruptions arising from technical failures.
He tasked INEC with strictly complying with the Electoral Act and its own regulations on results management, and guaranteeing unhindered access for accredited party agents, observers, and the media at all collation centres.
The group said it would deploy two complementary, evidence-based methodologies on Saturday to independently verify the integrity of the poll from the ballot box to the results portal.
“On Election Day, Watching The Vote will deploy 300 stationary observers to a representative random sample of polling units, supported by 32 mobile observers across all 30 LGAs of Osun State.
“This allows Yiaga Africa to provide timely, accurate information on accreditation, voting and counting, and to independently verify the official governorship results announced by INEC. If the announced results match the ballots cast at polling units, we will confirm the outcome. If not, Yiaga Africa will expose any manipulation of the results,” Maikudi stated.
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