2019 elections: Group seeks criminalisation of vote-buying

Election Monitor, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), on Tuesday called on the Federal Government to ensure enforcement of Electoral Act against election malpractices to check vote-buying and other vices.

National Coordinator of the organisation, Mr Abiodun Ajijola, made the call at the Public Presentation of the group’s Observation Report for the 2017 Anambra Governorship Election in Abuja.

He said that clamping down the offenders was necessary to protect the sanctity of the electoral process.

Ajijola said that the group observed that vote-buying was threatening Nigeria’s democracy, because it topped the list of election malpractices during the governorship election.

According to him, vote-buying is pervasive and it seems neither the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) nor security agencies have been able to do much about it.

He said that the Anambra election was fraught with brazen cases of vote-buying as witnessed in Edo and Ondo in 2016.

“We feel that vote-buying is what should be addressed by first having a stakeholders’ forum about it so as to identify that it is a problem.

“This is because as it is now it seems that the security agents, INEC and the public have not understood that vote-buying is criminal.

“If this is not checked urgently, it is something that is going to rob the country of her democracy because the implication is that you can manipulate people’s decision by paying them.

“This means that you can sit down in your room and raise money; so, imagine that during the 2019 elections somebody decides to raise one million dollars for each polling unit.

“That means 120 billion dollars for all the 120,000 units in the country and then buy the election that will not be democratic at all.’’

According to Ajijola, if Nigeria is moving to situations where people can buy elections, and that means that the country will not have democracy again.

“So, I think it is urgent to address the challenge.’’

He called for a stakeholder’s dialogue where people from relevant sectors like politicians, INEC, observers, CSOs, youths and religious institutions to come to a national forum on vote-buying.

He said that the group also observed that there were many cases of cancellations of results in the Anambra, pointing out that the number was higher than what was recorded in Ondo, Edo and Kogi.

“We cannot go into 2019 like that; we need to correct these issues so that in subsequent elections they will not re-occour.’’

Ajijola said that there was need for the National Assembly to accelerate harmonisation of the amendments on the Electoral Act to allow for changing dynamics in the electoral process.