The Transformation Monitoring Group (TMG) has condemned the act of vote-buying which happened on Saturday during the governorship election in Ekiti State.

The statement issued by the group chairman, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, on Tuesday alleged that politicians used public funds to pursue voters during the election.

According to reports, Rafsanjani said, “Vote-buying was observed across the 16 local government areas of the state with political parties bidding for the votes of electorates.

“The ability of Ekiti politicians to make light of such a grave violation of extant law is most unfortunate. Transformation Monitoring Group condemns this blatant violation of the electoral law.”

“The group also commended INEC for deploying Security operatives at the polling units on time and voters for their comportment at the various polling centres.

“TMG also noted that priority voting was given to voters such as People Living With Disabilities, elderly persons and pregnant women in most of the polling units in the state.

The group said, “Reports from field observers indicate that it takes at least 3 minutes to accredit a voter using the BVAS in 41% of the locations observed. Going by this, the BVAS would have successfully accredited 20 voters per hour on the average in the affected voting locations.”