In furtherance of its campaign to end money politics, which it has continued to describe as the ‘hijack of the democratic process’ by the political elites, Sustainable Initiative for Nurturing Growth (SING) Nigeria has decried incidences of vote buying by major political parties during the just concluded Anambra elections.
The organization made this known at a session organized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Thursday, to debrief accredited observers to Anambra state governorship election, saying that normalization of vote buying is worrisome and should be promptly tackled.
The debriefing session provided an opportunity for stakeholders, especially Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to share their experiences and discuss findings from field observation, and how election observation engagement can sustain and add value to the nation’s democracy.
Stating the position of the organization, the Communications Manager, Victor Agi reported that the organization among several others, found out that there was an open endorsement of vote buying and selling during the election; noting that there was no resistance from the relevant authorities, including INEC and security officers who also saw these incidences happen.
The Communication Manager also expressed concerns over continuous low voter turnout vis-à-vis the cost of election: “we are concerned that INEC made preparations for over 2.4 million voters in the just concluded elections for instance, and ended up using just about 10.4 percent of the election materials; what happens to the ballot papers that were not utilized”, he queried.
He also drew attention to indications that the spending cap for political parties during elections has been increased in the proposed electoral bill before the president for assent, pointing out that accommodating more spending in the electoral bill would lead to more incidences of vote buying and selling in future elections
“As an organization, we are passionate about addressing the cost of politics and allowing money to determine the outcome of our elections; the politicians will continue to weaponize poverty to win elections if stakeholders do not take decisive steps to end money politics’ ‘, Victor said.
In their various reports, CSOs were unanimous about issues of late arrivals of elections materials at polling centres (poor logistics arrangement), failures of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation Systems (BVAS), security management and poor coordination between INEC and observers.
The session recommended that INEC should review and strengthen its MOU with the NURTW in order to address the challenge of logistics, and that INEC should train staff for effective deployment of the BVAS in future elections.
While addressing the session earlier, Prof. Kunle Ajayi, INEC Honourable Commissioner / Chair, Election & Party Monitoring Committee (EPMC), said that the debriefing session is “expected to deepen understanding of what is expected of accredited observers and clarify gray areas for future review of the guidelines for observation, and provide common understanding on the way forward.”
