Our Concerns Over Curbing Vote Buying, Other Inducements – Adeyanju

Forum 1 year ago

Our Concerns Over Curbing Vote Buying, Other Inducements – Adeyanju

THE convener, Concerned Nigerians, CN, Comrade Deji Adeyanju, Thursday, expressed concerns over curbing ongoing vote buying and other voter inducement strategies ahead of the 2023 general elections by some political parties and their candidates.

Speaking with Vanguard, Adeyanju said the move by some politicians does not make voters have their own decision to vote whom they want to give their mandate, and expressed doubts if the security agencies can really do much to curb the situation.

He said: “I doubt whether the security agents are willing to curb vote buying because their body language does not suggest that they are willing to do that. Like what happened in Ekiti and Osun, in fact, they supervised the vote buying processes.

“So I don’t have any confidence in the security agencies stopping vote buying in a large-scale election where there will even be inadequate policing and securing of the polling units.”

Also speaking on the whistleblowing policy as to be used to curb sources of vote buying and other inducements, he hailed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, over its policy to control money laundering had seriously hit corrupt politicians who thought they will use their stolen and hidden monies to achieve their dark ambitions.

“The masterstroke was the Central Bank of Nigeria’s governor, Godwin Emefiele, coming up with the recent policy to curb such, but unfortunately, the political bandits have gone after them. They (political bandits) have actually been bullied almost completely”, he said.

On contemplating postponement of the 2023 general elections, he described it as flying a kite and not possible.

“I do not think there will be postponement of the elections. They are just flying a kite as some people in INEC are flying. There is no ground for postponement of the elections”, he said.

However, sharing his views on the reliability and possible compromise of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BVAS, during the elections, he said, “The people who vote do not determine the BVAS but the people who count the votes determine it.

“If the political actors are not ready to play by the rules even the positioning of the BVAS will be hijacked by the non-state actors like we see in many States in South South.

“Like in Bayelsa, where in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, non-state actors were in charge of the security of the entire election. The election was already compromised and has an issue

“How will BVAS be effective technically and mechanically when we hear people were copying data of voters on their system and so many wrongful inputs during registration of voters? Well, I sincerely don’t know whether it will lead to compromise of the BVAS.”