The pervasive deployment of money to influence the direction and outcome of elections in Nigeria has of recent, become a matter of grave concern. Political parties require funds in prosecuting their activities of voter education, voter aggregation and interest articulation. So it is a recognized practice that politics like any other form of human engagement requires substantial funding.
But emerging concerns hinge on the undue use of money to influence the outcome of elections. To stave off the deleterious consequences of excessive use of money to influence the course of elections, governments are known to set limits to the amount of funds contestants to the various elective offices can spend during such engagements.
Nigeria is no exception to this rule as the Electoral Act clearly stipulates the amount of permissible spending for the various offices at the national and state levels. What has been lacking however has been the inability of the various agencies of the government to monitor and enforce compliance to these regulations.
In the face of the inability of the security agencies to enforce compliance with the laws guiding spending during elections, all manner of malpractices have had a field day. These range from the snatching and stuffing of ballot boxes with thumb printed ballot papers, writing of results in the comfort of the hotel rooms of influential politicians and compromising electoral officers through monetary inducement to do all manner of odd jobs and sabotage the sovereignty of the electorate.
There was also the incidence of voter inducement through monetary enticement. But its influence was quite reduced as politicians had more advanced ways of altering votes in their favour. Thus, agitations for electoral reforms had centred round substantial reduction in malpractices that reduce the credibility of elections by compromising the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box.
In the last few years, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had introduced a number of innovations including technology to limit malpractices and shore up the integrity of election outcomes. It also found support from the National Assembly through the recent amendment to the Electoral Act permitting the electoral umpire to deploy technology for the transmission of election results from the polling units to INEC result viewing portals IReV.
These innovations hold high prospects for reducing to the barest minimum, most of the malpractices that had overtime marred our electoral process. But politicians are not relenting. If technology has eliminated ballot box snatching, writing of results and ambushing of results sheets with the aim of doctoring them, politicians have shown a desperate inclination to invent new avenues to sabotage the electoral process and continue business as usual.
Vote buying seems to have provided them the new alluring window. The pervasive influence of this was witnessed during the off cycle elections held in some states recently. Reports spoke of politicians displaying uncanny desperation to buy votes from potential voters on the day of election even as the voters also showed an embarrassing interest to have their voting rights exchanged for money.
There have also been reports of politicians asking voters to fill certain forms indicating their voters’ card numbers, their BVN and details of bank accounts among others. It is being speculated that the purpose of this data gathering is to facilitate electronic vote buying during elections.
As if this does not constitute sufficient challenge, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, had alerted that politicians were buying off PVCs from poor voters in order to manipulate the elections. These have further raised worries as to whether there is a choreographed script to compromise the integrity of the 2023 polls ahead of time.
Apparently worried by these unsavoury developments, INEC last week organized a one day stakeholders’ summit to address the influence of money on the 2023 general elections. During the summit, the electoral umpire admitted that “many Nigerians have demanded to know what the commission is doing about the deleterious influence of money in elections particularly the diabolical purchase of PVCs from voters and vote buying at polling units on election day.
INEC chairman, Yakubu Mahmood while re-stating commitment to tackle issues of campaign finances, observed that areas of violation included party and candidates’ expenditure beyond what is provided by the law and the diabolical practice of vote buying. He said the commission is mobilizing institutions with the responsibility of tracking and combating illicit flow of funds and the media to confront the problem.
But he failed to address concerns about the purchase of PVCs by politicians and the possible use they intend to put them during elections. However, the answer to this puzzle was provided in another forum by the national commissioner for voter education, Festus Okoye when he said anybody purchasing PVC is engaging in an exercise in futility because the only thing he can do is to ensure that the owner does not vote during elections. We shall return to this shortly.
He said with technology that will be deployed for the elections, it is impossible to vote with another persons’ PVC because BVAS will not capture the impersonators’ fingerprints. The fact that the buyer of the PVC can really prevent the owner from voting during elections is a serious challenge and a present danger to free, fair and credible elections.
The diabolical practice suggests a well-crafted plan to disenfranchise some segments of the Nigerian electorate even before the day of the elections. It is a very serious matter that should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand as INEC is inclined to. Its full implication is that wealthy politicians who are unpopular in certain areas can buy off the PVCs and destroy them so as to whittle down the electoral strengths of their opponents.
Having bought off the PVCs, they ipso facto succeeded in reducing the voting strength of those areas to the disadvantage of very popular candidates. While the popular candidates score low due to this criminal practice, those behind it will now garner huge votes from areas of their strength to upstage their opponents. This is even more dangerous; more diabolical than vote buying on the day of the election.
For one, it prevents the voter from casting his vote on the day of election. This has negative consequences for popular electoral mandate. And for another, it assails the privacy of the voters by dispossessing them of that vital civic document that is also used for other purposes including official identification. The PVCs also face the risk of loss and eventual destruction thus creating additional burden for the INEC that will be stampeded to replace them.
Ours is a country mired in debilitating poverty. With a burgeoning poor population, it is not surprising that the same politicians that mismanaged the huge resources of the country are also exploiting this human development deficit to deny the poor their civic rights through the purchase of PVCs and vote buying.
Even as we blame politicians for corrupting voters through the purchase of PVCs and vote buying, the voters should share more of the blame. If there is no desire to sell, the urge to buy will not be there. Politicians indulge in this illegal endeavour because there is a willing population to exchange their franchise for a mess of porridge.
It is an uncanny irony that those complaining of bad governance; who would want leaders held accountable for the mismanagement of the national economy, would be the same people selling their votes to these politicians to continue impoverishing our collective patrimony. It is a vicious cycle.
Vote buying, underage and illegal voting as well sundry machinations to sabotage the sovereignty of the electorate are clear dangers INEC and security agencies must check if the integrity of the 2023 elections is to be guaranteed.
END
Be the first to comment