Vote-buying: A Legal Tender To Fraudulent Election

On the 27th of February, 2022, Osita Okechukwu, Director-general of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), called the new Electoral Act signed by President, Muhammadu Buhari, a booster, shot of vote-rigging-Vaccine (VRV).

The electoral law was signed by the president to usher in a new era of free and credible elections in the country.

This law amongst other things was meant to checkmate the fraudulent nature of Nigeria’s past elections and create a fair atmosphere for credible elections.

Fast forward to June during the election held in Ekiti, the Electoral Act was put to test and in the face of vote-buying, it fell flat.

READ ALSO: Ekiti 2022: APC’s Oyebanji Wins Big As Vote-buying Trails Governorship Election

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), revealed that its field observers documented 41 instances of vote buying and selling at polling units across six Local Government Areas (LGAs) during the governorship election in Ekiti State.

Making vote-buying look like an indelible mark in Nigeria’s politics

This cankerworm goes beyond the scenes in polling stations which involve the sharing of money and food items by party agents and money exchanging hands during party primaries. Politicians go to markets distributing seasonings and salts not forgetting Hollandaise wrappers like communion to influence market women to believe they are working.

Vote-buying even occurs within the moral ground of churches. Like the Pharisees, politicians bow their heads in cash to men of God for possible votes from the congregation.

Even politicians still sell votes within themselves. It was very obvious during party primaries to the extent the eagle-eyed operatives of EFCC stormed the Eagle Quare, Abuja where APC had their special national convention, but that was medicine after death because they already wet each other’s appetite in hotel rooms and restaurants prior to commencement of the exercise.

READ ALSO: Vote-buying: SDP Accuses APC Of Paying N10,000 Per Voter In Ekiti Guber Poll

Election in Nigeria is always an auction ground where the highest bidder gets to use the country’s fund to buy votes in this half-baked democracy.

The bulk of it all is that this peril did not start today and like a terminal cancer, it is getting worse.

During a national dialogue organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which had the theme: “Eradicating electoral corruption with the focus on vote-buying,” the CDD said: “Vote-buying has existed since 1960 in Nigeria. The only difference is that the mode has changed.”

The CDD also said: “When we talk about the 1993 elections, we tend to talk about it as being the freest and fairest. But evidence showed that between N120 million and N1 billion was spent during the primaries in that 1993 elections, raising issues on how we should define vote-buying.

“In the fourth republic, between 2003 to 2007, the value of vote-buying ranged from N1,750 to N2,250. In 2019 vote-buying was between N250 and N14000.”

This shows that vote-buying has been around for long and like an epidemic, it is mutating around the barriers set in its path, paving the way for politicians to continue walking with no skin off their nose.

Free and fair election cannot be possible as far as vote buying is still dancing through the country. Like they say, “he who pays the piper, dictates the tone”.

We would keep on electing inept politicians, ready to heat Switzerland with enough suitcases.

Politicians with no sense of the basics of economics have plunged the country into internal conflicts where law and order take the back sits while insecurity, birthed by bad governance, drives the nation to total anarchy and doom.

Citizens don’t even believe in the power of voting because it is always rigged and even if you don’t sell your vote, someone else would, making people kowtow to politicians, relegating conscience to the background.

Apart from that, people are hungry, hungry enough that four years is not too much to Esau for the moment.

It is high time we drastically curb vote-buying to its minimum in Nigeria, as people have suffered enough because if bad governance breeded by such illicit and corrupt electoral process.

Sir Mike Mbama Okiro, speaking at a “Presidential Aspirants’ Media Interactive Platform,” organised by New Nigeria Dream Initiative (NNDI), admonished Nigerians to reject corrupt politicians that go all out to buy votes.

He said, “Nigerians will talk about the leadership deficiency, but I say no, that is not enough. It takes two to tangle. If leaders have deficiencies, we have followers’ complacency because if leaders are misbehaving, we just laugh, wave at them, and say, ‘walk and go.’ And they will do the same thing again. But if we say no, enough is enough! They will change. They give you money for votes so that you can vote for somebody, whether the person can perform or not”.

It is a sign in the right direction as the youths are collecting their PVCs. Let them resist moneybag politicians and put the future of the country in mind.

As the 2022 Osun state election draws near, let the power of the Electoral Act 2022 come into play.

Polling unit officials, party agents, politicians, security officials and even the voters should enforce the Electoral Act and stamp out vote-buying and other electoral malpractices.

Nothing has been done so far to party agents caught on tape giving out money during the Ekiti election, living people to speculate the involvement of the government in the monkey business. The government should sanction all who bridge provisions of the Electoral Act. Nobody should be left out. This might sound as a deterrent for those who take delight in killing the spirit of free and fair election.

Political parties need to educate their members on the importance of a free, fair and credible elections.

They should make sure their members adhere to the laws of the Electoral Act and practice it in the fourth coming Osun State Governorship election.

Vote-buying has divided this country for too long, we all need change. That positive change cannot come if we are apathetic to elections or sell our votes.

John Lewis said: “The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.”