Akpata: “LP Members Among 300,000 Voters Who Sold Their Votes”

By Adesina Soyooye

The Edo State Governorship Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the September 21, 2024 Election, Olumide Akpata, has expressed shock at Edo people who willingly sold their votes and conscience on Election day. Reflecting on the incidents of the day, Akpata said his problem was not that he lost in an exercise that was “more of a business transaction than an election”, but the willingness of the people to sell their votes.

Akpata, a former President of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, spoke Wednesday night on a Channel Television’s program anchored by Seun Okinbaloye.

He came a distant third in the election behind Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, (the winner, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC), and Dr. Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second.

Dismissing the exercise as a no-event, Akpata revealed that over 300,000 Voters sold their votes. One of the things that shocked him most was that even members of his own Party, LP, sold their own votes to the highest bidder.

He lamented that it was so bad it was not hidden. It was a bazar, he noted, and added that the vote- buyers were scandalously brazen about it.

Admitting that what happened was, for him an experience, a kind of baptism of fire, he, however, said that he was more worried about the level of poverty and deprivation which pushed a people to sell their power for a better future, a better Edo State, than his purported loss at the poll that was, allegedly, no poll.

He also revealed that he knew he and LP were out of the race when he saw the obscene amount of money that his opponents were spending to buy votes. He noted that not only did he and his party not have that kind of money to spend, they wouldn’t have taken part in such criminality even if they had the money.

Reminded that he had exuded so much confidence in victory while on the Campaign train, Akpata agreed that he  campaigned with his heart, visited all the Wards, was received by  mammoth crowds in all places, a crowd which expressed eagerness for a change, but he noted that on election day, the pull to make money, to have some money to eat, was too much  for the people.

Akpata, also, expressed shame that the scandalous process that produced a winner was, allegedly, aided by law enforcement agents and INEC officials. “I am ashamed of what happened”, he said.

He, however, emphasized that he would neither leave Labour Party, nor give up on being part of a change process in  Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Julius Abure-led faction of the LP has congratulated APC’s Okpebholo on his victory at the polls.