Political parties used codes and coupons instead of cash to buy votes at the ongoing Osun governorship election.
This was disclosed by the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room in an interim report on Saturday.
They said codes and coupons were used to extract commitments from voters in the poll as opposed to the blatant money exchanging hands in Ekiti Election.
The convener of the CSOs, Ene Obi, said while the group was observing the election, it observed another means of vote trading.
She said vote trading was recorded in most of the areas observed, particularly outside Osogbo.
Ms Obi said, “Knowledge of voting procedures and civic education of voters was very poor.
“Voting cubicles in many of the polling units were not positioned to ensure secrecy of the ballots, making it possible for voters to flash their votes to other people.
“There was open negotiation of buying and selling of votes well-coordinated by the polling agents in many of the polling units.
“There were no complaints from any of them against each other.
“Codes and coupons were used to extract commitments from voters as opposed to the blatant money exchanging hands observed in the Ekiti State Governorship Election.”
Obi, however, commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines functioned credibly Well.
