- Inducing voters is a criminal offence – INEC
- Menace a national shame – Election observer groups
The British Government, Transition Monitoring Group and Civil Society Organisations that monitored the July 14 gubernatorial election in Ekiti State have called for stringent penalties against those involved in vote buying and other forms of money inducement in the election.
One main feature of the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State that received condemnation from local and international poll observers was the issue of inducement of voters by the two major political parties in the election, the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party.
“Some even used their telephone handset to take the picture of their voting to collect money. We discouraged the use of camera phone at polling station but it was hard to stop it
It was rumoured that while PDP members and agents shared N4, 000 to each voter, the APC allegedly shared N5, 000 to each voter. The APC leaders alleged
that the state governor,
Mr. Ayodele Fayose, started it when he allegedly paid pensioners and civil servants, who were being owed more than six
months salaries and allowances, N3,000 each, a day preceding the election. These were
allegations.
‘HOW WE’LL TACKLE VOTE BUYING’
Speaking on the issue, Director of Publicity and Voter Education, INEC, Mr. Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, said inducement of voters was a criminal offence, but added that the activities could only be curbed through a combined effort of INEC and the security agencies.
He said, “We know that bribery and inducement of people are criminal offences in the penal code. When it happens at the polling unit or during election, it falls under the purview of the Electoral Act. And when it falls under the Electoral Act, the Commission has the right to prosecute offenders.
Osaze-Uzzi, on how to curb the buzzing electoral crime, said, “The security agencies will arrest and investigate, and it is after the conclusion of their investigation that INEC can prosecute. So we are working with security agencies to compute the polling unit in a way that you cannot show how you voted. After the issues raised in Anambra, Edo and Ondo states, we sat down and asked, ‘what can we do in the meantime?’ We then had the plan to ensure more secrecy of the ballot by moving the sitting arrangement so that the agents could not see the voters voting.
“In Anambra, the allegation was that vote buying was done in the polling units, but the experience in Ekiti is that it was now fully removed from polling unit to some distance away. There was a new dimension in Ekiti; a kind of sending credit alert to voters. To us, it is inducement even if it is done a day to the election.
“The voters themselves compromised their secrecy by showing the ballot papers after voting to agents or some party stalwarts. The voting is done in secret but you drop your ballot paper in the box in the open and in this process, some voters showed it to people.
“Some even used their telephone handset to take the picture of their voting to collect money. We discouraged the use of camera phone at polling station but it was hard to stop it. That issue came about in Osun about four years ago, where the people insisted that they should be allowed to use their phones’ camera to take the picture of their votes, as a way of preventing rigging.”
BRITISH GOVT REACTS
Also speaking on the vote buying, the British High Commissioner in Nigeria, Mr. Paul Arkwright, who was an observer at the last gubernatorial election in Ekiti State, said vote buying or inducement was illegal but difficult to prevent. He, however, heaped the blame on Nigerian politicians, saying instead of engaging in vote buying, they needed to enlighten the voters on their policies and manifestos.
He said vote buying was as illegal as snatching of ballot boxes and that he wouldn’t buy the idea that vote buying was prevalent in Nigeria because of the high level of illiteracy.
“It is a flimsy excuse to say that vote buying is prevalent because majority of voters are illiterates and cannot understand the manifestos of the parties. They can’t read but they can hear and see. They may not be able to read the party’s policy in a paper but it can be explained to them; at least they can hear,” Arkwright said.
It is an offence for any official to show anybody my vote; but technically, if a voter wants to show the vote, there is hardly anything that can be done to prevent that
OBSERVER GROUPS TOO…
The Transition Monitoring Group, South West Coordinator, Suleiman Arigbabu, urged the National Assembly to legislate against vote buying, saying, however, that saddling INEC with the responsibility of punishing those that were guilty of inducement of voters would amount to overburdening the electoral umpire.
He said, “Those who engage in vote buying should be investigated and prosecuted, but we should not saddle INEC with such responsibility. It will amount to overburdening the INEC. Why people, especially politicians, are engaging in vote buying is because there is no stipulated penalty for the offence. In Ekiti, we saw APC giving N5, 000 and PDP, N4, 000.
“What we need to do is to involve the police, DSS and even the EFCC because a lot of money must be involved in inducing voters, because we already have it as a crime in our law.
“We cannot say the thing is happening because majority of the people are not educated; that they are not educated doesn’t mean they don’t have values. Those who are involved in this act must be punished for the crime. If they are doing that at the state level, then what will they do during national elections?
“Of course, it didn’t start with the Ekiti election, but it is getting worse in all elections.”
He further opined that the act of vote buying was on the increase because INEC was improving on its process, thus making rigging difficult; “and so, politicians found another way to influence voters through inducement with money.”
The Yoruba Leadership and Peace Initiative also strongly condemned the act of money inducement of voters, which it said was brazenly perpetrated majorly by both the APC and the PDP candidates and their agents before and on the election day, in the full glare of both local and international observers.
Speaking through its Chairman, Media Committee, Sir Folu Olamiti, the TYLPI believed this was not in advancement of our democracy and unrepresentative of the authentic will of the people.
He said, “There must be a time when ‘enough must be enough’. Now it’s the time to put a determined full stop to this show of shame, which has been with us even before Independence. We are not short of electoral laws fashioned to give us a robust and civilised democratic political dispensation. What is unarguably and ashamedly happening is the grave impunity by which electoral laws, especially at the end of the process, are brazenly committed. It is ominous.
“We say an emphatic ‘no’ to this disgraceful act and TYLPI, therefore, is calling on the relevant authorities, who usually turn their eyes the other way when the laws are being violated to immediately commence judicial proceedings against all those that have infringed upon any known electoral laws. Let this be used as a checkmate to politicians, INEC officials and security agents in a way that will sanitise our electoral contests.”
TYLPI added that from whichever angle the election was viewed, open, money inducement of the electorate by both APC and PDP should attract the strongest punitive sanctions, based on our electoral laws, so as to serve as deterrent.
It stated, “Indeed, the brazen and open vote buying in the last election in Ekiti was not just a national shame but an international one and it is equally the very peak of corruption. And, since corruption-fighting is a cardinal focus of the Buhari administration, the TYLPI believes this is the time this government should show its true commitment to anti-corruption war.
“It is our conviction that the damage already done to our national image internationally by last Saturday’s near unprecedented electoral aberration could still be salvaged. The most qualified Nigerian alive to do this, by putting national interest above partisan considerations, is President Muhammad Buhari.
“The TYLPI believes this is a great opportunity for him to stand tall above the rot in our politics and electioneering, as the TYLPI is committed to giving a push to this idea, as the Osun State governorship election is around the corner.”
Also, a coalition of more than 70 Civil Society Organisations that monitored the just concluded governorship elections in Ekiti State came up with a damning report on how politicians across political divides, desperately induced the electorate with money in order to secure people’s votes. The coalition stated this through the convener of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, Mr. Clement Nwankwo.
It said, “The worrying trend of vote buying escalated to desperate levels, with the major political parties sharing blames. This trend portends a grave danger to Nigeria’s democracy, as it undermines the responsibility of citizens to freely choose their leaders and threaten the essence of democracy.
“Vote buying represents a major setback to the gains made with Nigeria’s electoral process and denies citizens the power to hold elected officials accountable and responsive to the needs and aspirations of Nigerians.”
The group, therefore, called for urgent legislative action against the infraction, even as it tasked the law enforcement agencies to tackle the challenge headlong.
