The apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council, said it has uncovered plot by some desperate politicians to influence the outcome of Saturday polls using vote buying.
The group raised the alarm in a statement issued on Wednesday by Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, President General Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council worldwide.
He said in the statement that the OYC discovered a dangerous trend “going on now in the Southeast ahead of the rescheduled presidential election on Saturday 23rd February, 2019.”
According to him, intelligence report available to his group showed that the organisers of a recent rally in Enugu last Thursday by some Igbo youth organizations was aimed at scuttling the voting will of the people of the Southeast.
He declared that “Ohaneaze Youths is recommending to relevant authorities that anyone caught engaging in vote buying, especially in the Southeast should face the immediate penalty of the same as anyone caught in snatching of ballot boxes.
“The heavy dispatching of funds going on now in Southeast is terrible and those Igbo leaders behind it should not be allowed to sell the political future Ndigbo to the highest bidder.
“Igbo Youths know exactly where they will cast their votes, especially in consultation with the Southeast Governors and political leaders.
“We will surely deliver our votes in one direction towards ensuring that we will return Igbos to the mainstream, because the perpetrators of voting buying in the Southeast are captivating on suspected voter’s apathy likely going to happen in the Southeast because those who returned home last weekend for the February 16th election had returned to their base.
“Some suspended Igbo leaders, who are now at large had set up a secret hideout, where they plot on how to dispatch funds to their recruited agents for vote buying.
“We are watching them keenly and will alert the world on their next move, we will resist vote buying in the Southeast, and advise Igbo youths never to sell their votes as the people involved in this are no longer protecting or advancing the collective interest of Ndigbo.”
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