There was massive and outright buying of votes from the electorates by some party officials in Niger state, findings have revealed.

In most of the polling units visited in Chachanga, Paikoro, Gurura, Basso, Paikoro, Suleja and Tafa, it was observed that the vote buying was not hidden from people as most of the voters hang around for the highest bidder.

Finding by Sunday Punch revealed that in one of the polling units in Maje, Suleja where the women were given N500 each to vote while some youths refused to accept N250 as they claimed to have been told to collect N1000.

“We will take our vote and leave. What is N250?, let us go”, one of the youths who seem to be the gang leader told the others.

Also in Gawu Babangida in Gurara local government area, there was vote buying as various groups were gathered in different corners but efforts to get close to them made them disperse with some of them pocketing the money they had collected.

At a polling unit in Paikoro local government area, one of the voters who said his name is Haruna said that there is coercion of the people to vote a particular party,

“They came to our houses last night to coerce us to vote them. What most people are doing here is to collect their money and vote for another party.”

A PDP Chieftain in Suleja who complained of the outright vote buying, however, expressed optimism of PDP victory despite the vote buying.

“Even with vote buying, we will have a reasonable vote. We are optimistic. It is very sad that this vote buying is being done outrightly and not been hidden and because of the hunger in the land, the people come out to collect the money and cast their vote.”

PUNCH