The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kwara on Monday accused officials of the All progressives Congress, APC, of buying Temporary Voter Cards, TVC, from the electorate ahead of the 2015 general elections in the state.
Rex Olawoye, the state PDP Publicity Secretary, made the accusation in Ilorin in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
He alleged that the illegal practice was being perpetrated in all the 16 local government areas of the state.
He said that each temporary voter card was being bought for between N2,000 and N5,000 from their owners.
Mr. Olawoye alleged that officials of the APC were buying the cards to copy out their VIN numbers.
He said that though the PDP chairman in Kaima Local Government Area had lodged a formal complaint to security agencies in the area, it had continued unabated.
He appealed to the security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to take necessary steps to arrest the perpetrators to ensure free and fair elections.
He urged the people not to sell their voter cards, adding that the card is the weapon they have to effect a positive change and chase out bad government out of office.
Reacting to the allegation, the INEC spokesman in the state, Jacob Iyanda, said that the Permanent Voter Card, PVC, could not be collected by proxy.
He said that anybody who buys the temporary card is wasting his time as the process of replacing it for the PVC was cumbersome, thereby making it impossible to fake.
Mr. Iyanda said the PVC was designed to eliminate multiple registrations and voting.
In his reaction, the APC Secretary in the state, Yemi Afolayan, described the allegation as “untrue and a figment of the imagination of the PDP spokesman”.
He said that the APC did not need to buy voter cards because the people believed in party.
He said that the successes recorded by Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed’s administration in the last three and half years would work in favour of APC during elections.
(NAN)
