#OndoDecides2024: Official confirms skirmish in Idanre, vote buying across state

The supervising national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the ongoing Ondo State 2024 gubernatorial election, Kunle Ajayi, has confirmed that violent clashes erupted in Idanre, the headquarters of Idanre Local Government Area of the state.

Idanre, a municipality famous for its tourist attraction, holds a central place in the governorship polls.

Apart from being the local government area of Ade Adetimehin, the state chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress and Festus Akingbaso, the deputy governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, it has a history of electoral violence.

“We had some violent cases in Idanre,” Mr Ajayi, a professor, said during an interview on Channels TV, adding that with “two forces in the same town, ordinarily you would expect some tension.”

“Automatically the town will be divided, some supporting the APC chairman, some supporting the PDP governorship candidate,” he added.

The off-cycle election was marred by incidents of vote buying, with officers from the State Securities Services nabbing a man with bags of money found in the booth of his car outside St Stephen’s Primary School in Akure, the state capital.

Mr Ajayi said it is not INEC’s job but that of law enforcement agents to prevent vote buying when questioned on the rampant reported cases of voters selling their votes as noted by observers and the media.