No fewer than 550 operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have arrived Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States ahead of governorship elections billed to hold on Saturday.
The operatives, with different visible and invisible gadgets, were deployed to suppress any form of inducements before, during and after the exercise by the politicians and other stakeholders involved in the electioneering process.
Daily Trust reports that the EFCC counterpart, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had earlier on Thursday deployed its operatives to monitor the exercise with a view to tackling electoral corruption.
One of the EFCC operatives, who was deployed to Kogi, said they were ready for anybody who tries to compromise the sanctity of electoral process in the Confluence State.
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Commenting on the deployment, the spokesman of the anti-graft agency, Dele Oyewale, explained that the operatives had been charged to bring anybody caught in the act of vote-buying or vote-selling to book.
Oyewale said the anti-graft agency would also fight all forms of manipulation of the electoral processes at variance with the Electoral Act.
“The commission’s monitoring operations are to tackle any form of voters’ inducements. This is in its drive to checkmate electoral fraud and associated financial crimes,” the EFCC spokesman said.
Earlier, the spokesperson of the ICPC, Azuka Ogugua, explained that the operatives of the commission were deployed to the 56 local government areas and 649 wards across the three states.
She said they were to monitor and prevent vote-buying and other electoral malpractices, specifically at the various polling units during the electoral exercise.
According to her, the monitoring exercise is a response to the invitation by the Chairman of the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, for ICPC to participate in ensuring that the electoral processes in these three states were free and fair.
Addressing operatives before their deployment, the Commission’s Head of Special Duty Division (SDD), Mr Alex Chukwura, called on operatives to collaborate with the military, police, Department of State Security (DSS), other security agencies and INEC to ensure that the elections were conducted free and fair.
Chukwura charged operatives to strictly adhere to the ICPC guidelines for monitoring elections, adding that officers should always act with discipline and imbibe the spirit of integrity while on the field, staying close to each other and working as a team to achieve the desired goal.
