It is no more news that vote buying has become the hallmark of elections in Nigeria, from the grassroots to the national level, the story has not been different especially in the recent past, getting to power now depends on how willing you are ready to spend money to purchase the votes of electorates.
Ballot box snatching and stuffing, as well as, thuggery and intimidation were known to be their popular antics in the past, some thanks to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for making all those; worthless efforts through various strategies it has deployed in the past and the introduction of the Smart Card Reader, SCR.
Edo, Ondo, Anambra and the recent Ekiti vote buying during the governorship elections are still fresh in the peoples’ minds, and still serve as reference point when highlighting the shortcomings in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
Initially analysts attributed the trend to the harsh economic situation in the country, but the latest trend with which the scourge of vote buying is expanding portends a huge challenge for the country.
Citizens are even the ones encouraging politicians that their votes are for sale, some will even tell you that they don’t have particular interest in any candidate during an election, but for the highest bidder.
Overzealousness of politicians to win elections at all cost is borne of the sit tight syndrome peculiar with our so-called African leaders, which to certain extent some does not even care if the political situation in their country degenerates into internal crisis or even full blown war.
INEC through series of interaction and synergy with various stakeholders has made some efforts in the past to ensure it delivers free, fair and credible election.
The commission’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has reiterated at different fora the need to conduct credible election in the country, as well as within the country.
Recently in Guinea Bissau, the INEC chairman who also doubles as ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commission, ECONEC President, reiterated his now famous mantra that “it is more cost-effective to deploy ECONEC in peace time for peaceful and credible elections, instead of deploying military missions (such as ECOMOG or ECOMIG) to keep peace after flawed elections.”
Yet, one wonders why the commission with the large deployment of security personnel during elections, still cannot curtail some of these challenges of vote buying, ballot box snatching and some occasional shooting in some places, as reported in the Kogi Federal Constituency bye-election.
According to a report made available to Nigerian Pilot by a group under the name.
Kogi elders and members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which had both called for the cancellation of the poll, during a joint press conference in Abuja on Sunday, through Engineer Sam Ohuetu, said the election was characterized by “violence, snatching of ballot boxes, brazen impunity, coercion, intimidation and vote buying” and that the election has “sent Kogi State and Nigeria backwards by nothing less than 20 years.
The group claimed that; “these Youths and fearful looking able bodied men were in the company of Security operatives, especially “the SARS” and were conveyed to their various operation theatres in Kogi State Government House Vehicles.
In a similar development, PDP, Bauchi state chapter equally stated its rejection of the Bauchi South Senatorial bye-election results.
PDP through the state Chairman, Hamza Koshe Akuyam said they rejected the results of the bye election, due to what it described as alleged electoral malpractice before, during and after the conduct of the exercise declaring that it is heading to the tribunal to challenge the results.
Addressing Journalists at the State Secretariat of the PDP yesterday, Akuyam alleged that the state government connived with the electoral body and security operatives in perpetrating the electoral malpractice therefore describing the exercise as a “mere charade which must not be allowed to hold”.
He further alleged that, Bauchi state government perfected a script on the art and science of electoral rigging, saying it was carefully rehearsed and executed with active connivance of law enforcement agencies and officials of INEC in favor of the ruling party.
The PDP chairman also alleged that vote buying was not only widespread, but was conducted in the open during the bye election as APC led government in the state openly lured citizens with cash for their votes, which were sold for between N100, N200, N500, N1000 and some cases N5000 per vote.
“Simply put, the ballot paper became the most sought after commodity in the senatorial zone. This shameless act was responsible for the low turnout as voters especially women and youth refused to vote until they get paid or settled. In some voting centers, security officials chased away voters and agents even before voting process and counting were conducted”, he further alleged.
Hamza Akuyam also alleged that Bauchi state government officials colluded with voting clerks and other electoral officers to stash boxes with excess votes only to turn around and cancel the boxes on the dubious card reader excuse of over voting.
“In Bauchi local government for instance, 15000 votes were cancelled due to so-called over voting. A card reader developed malfunction after tracking a little over 100 PVCs, the card reader stops working or is topped up by a few votes and will then be seen as over voting as was the case in Birshi and Mun-Munsal where more than 8000 votes were needlessly cancelled, in fact this is the first time in our democracy that over 80,000 votes were cancelled in an election” he added.
The PDP also alleged that prior to the bye-election, officials of the state government distributed forms to unsuspecting citizens, collected their data including PVC numbers stating that, “we believe in some areas the PVCs were preloaded in the card readers. This explains the massive number of votes recorded especially in Toro local government in spite of the low turnout”.
“We have evidence that card readers were not used in the larger part of Toro local government area. This explains the so-called massive number of votes secured by the APC compared to Bauchi which has more centers and registered voters than Toro”. He concluded.
In reaction of the commission to these allegations, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi averred that the vote buying phenomenon is not new. It has only come back strongly in recent time because politicians have now realized that due to the strong processes INEC has put in place, it is very difficult for any form of rigging to take place during elections. That is why they have resorted to vote buying.
However, the Commission has already taken steps to address this issue. “We have reviewed the architecture and positioning of our polling booths in order to make it difficult for voters to show their ballots to anybody outside the booths when an election is going on.
“We have also opened discussions about this problem with political parties under the auspices of the Inter-Party Consultative Committee, IPAC, on how we can address the problem. Besides, we are in consultation with the security agencies, also under the platform of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, ICCES on how to address the problem. In fact, the INEC Chairman has appealed directly to the Inspector General of Police for assistance on the matter.
However, the Commission thinks that it will take collaborative efforts of all stakeholders to tackle this threat to the electoral system. After all, if there are no voter sellers, there will be no vote buyers. But more importantly, the Commission will cooperate with the Nigeria Police to prosecute anyone arrested in connection to vote buying and selling, because it is an offence under the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
On the issue of deregistering aliens who must have registered during the on-going continous voter registration exercise, Oyekanmi stated the Commission visited the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, to specifically ask for collaboration in its effort to remove the names of illegal aliens from the voter register and also to recover our Permanent Voter Cards from any illegal alien who might have registered. This is because, according to our laws, foreigners cannot vote in our elections.
So far, the NIS has helped to identify and send the list of some foreigners to the Commission. But the collaboration is on-going and not concluded yet.
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