Osun gubernatorial election calm, as large turnout greets exercise

*Vote buying detected, culprits arrested

*Candidates secure respective units

*Foreign observers praise INEC for good conduct

By Our Reporters

The muchmouthed Osun gubernatorial election took place Saturday across 3,010 polling stations in the state with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) obviously up and doing in ensuring a safe, free, fair and credible election conduct to give a well deserved governor to the people of the State of Osun.

The exercise began with Accreditation with little or less acrimony regarding usual hue and cry about the function or disfunction  of the card readers just as turnout was generally impressive throughout the state.

Some respondents however dismissed attempted effort to discredit the process by the little experience of card reader malfunction as nothing to be worried about as, according to one of them, no technology is perfect but can always be improved upon.

There was calm in many towns, such as Ede, Osogbo the capital, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Iwo and Ejigbo.

Elderly people were given preference by electoral officials to cast their ballots first. And in Ede, the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Ademola Adeleke, cast his vote with a comment that he would win the election if the process was not manipulated.

Adeleke voted at the polling unit in Abogunde Compound, in Ede North LGA and won his polling unit just like other notable politicians including the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola, Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Iyiola Omisore, African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Fatai Akinbade, and Action Democratic Party (ADP) candidate, Moshood Adeoti, secured their respective polling units as a show of control at home in the keenly contested election.

Forty eight governorship candidates were in the race to succeed incumbent, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress. The big decision was expected to be made by 1,687,492 registered voters, although over 400,000 of them certainly would not participate, as they were yet to collect their PVCs as at Friday. According to INEC, 1,246,915 PVCs were distributed.

The interesting of the exercise was in the winning of Adeleke in his constituency of Ede and Omisore in Ife while Oyetola took his clear lead in the rest areas according to yet to be authenticated results reaching us.

The exercise was however not without reported cases of vote buying.

Above all in the meantime, the 28 observers from eight European countries praised INEC for conducting ‘proper’ election in Osun.

We will however not be part of results publication until the authorised body, the INEC makes its official announcement.