2019: Political parties, candidates woo Ekiti voters with gifts
- Party candidates have been dishing out gifts to would-be-voters in the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations
- Items distributed to both party faithful and potential voters include cash, chicken, turkey, rice, and cooking oil
- Report also claimed that virtually all candidates and political parties are involved in the acts
Political campaigns in readiness for the February 2019 general elections have heightened across towns and villages in Ekiti state, with an assortment of gifts being dished out to would-be-voters, in the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations.
News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that items distributed to both party faithful and potential voters, depending on status, include cash, chicken, turkey, rice, cooking oil, as well as bales of cloth.
While some candidates simply choose to distribute gifts at party secretariats at both state and local government levels, others preferred to distribute them in their various country homes, where musicians simultaneously entertained beneficiaries.
Branded items bearing the portraits and campaign slogans of those contesting one elective office or the other were shared to attendees.
Reports claimed that that virtually all the political parties are involved in the gambit.
Only the presidential, senatorial, House of Representatives, state House of Assembly elections are due in the state next year, with a new governor elected in June 2018.
An aide to one of the candidates, who preferred to speak anonymously, clarified that the distribution of Christmas and New Year gifts by his principal was an annual exercise meant to reduce the suffering of the people.
He said the gesture has nothing to do with wooing voters.
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The president, in a letter to all Christians on Monday, December 24, said the birth of Jesus symbolised the message of hope, compassion, salvation, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace that Christ embodied and conveyed.