Yiaga Africa Urges EFCC, ICPC to Crack Down on Vote Buying in Osun Poll
Marks Another Year
ISSN: 2354-4481
By Franklin Omire
Forty-eight hours to the Osun State governorship election, Yiaga Africa has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to intensify efforts against vote buying and selling before and during the poll.
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.
Maikudi urged the anti-graft agencies to coordinate effectively with security and electoral authorities to arrest and prosecute political party leaders, agents and other individuals involved in attempts to buy votes.
“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,” she said.
The organisation also raised concerns over the preparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following technical challenges recorded during the commission’s mock accreditation exercise ahead of Saturday’s election.
Yiaga Africa urged INEC to resolve all outstanding technical issues affecting election technologies, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), to prevent delays, disenfranchisement and other operational challenges on election day.
Maikudi further called on INEC to strictly adhere to the Electoral Act and its regulations on results management, while ensuring accredited party agents, observers and members of the media have unhindered access to collation centres.
She said Yiaga Africa would deploy two complementary, evidence-based methodologies to independently assess the integrity of the election from polling units through 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,” Maikudi said.
According to her, the deployment will enable the organisation to provide timely and independent information on voter accreditation, voting and counting, as well as verify the governorship results announced by INEC.
She said Yiaga Africa would confirm the election outcome if the official results correspond with the ballots recorded at sampled polling units, but would publicly flag any evidence of manipulation if discrepancies are established.
The Osun governorship election is scheduled to hold on Saturday.
