By Bisi Olominu
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Politics in Nigeria is getting dynamic everyday. It is evolving like a new cloth. It is just like a phone, we have Samsung, Toshiba and others of high quality and prices. But the coming of Tecno phone crash the prices of phones in Nigeria. Politics as a game has changed. The days are gone where rampant and widespread ballot-box snatching, political thuggery, and falsification of figures at collation centres defined election rigging in Nigeria. Today, vote-buying is the new name of the game and just as an election observer and monitoring group, Yiaga Africa, has described, vote-buying is the new way of election rigging by politicians in the country.

Vote buying has been in existence since the advent of politics in Nigeria. In the past it was not pronounced like it is now. During the time of President Shehu Shagari, it gained momentum as rice were distributed to voters to buy their conscience. Have you forgotten “Akinloye Adisa Champaign”, a branded champaign that was distributed in Ibadan by the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, to stalwarts freely to capture the minds of voters?

No wonder, the Project Director of Yiaga Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu, said in Osogbo at a Media Round Table Discussion tagged ‘Watching The Vote’ ahead of the September 22, 2018 governorship election in Osun State that vote-buying was becoming a threat to Nigerian electoral process.

Her words: “Nowadays, the more money you give, the more votes you get and this is becoming a problem and a challenge to our electoral process.”

Mbamalu in her words at the round table talk said since the introduction of card reader machines, election rigging had been reduced minimally, but vote buying had been devised  by politicians to compromise the electoral process .

Money, according to her has become a dominant, determinant factor in Nigeria’s politics. The ordinary people are victimized by vote-buying because their limited means make them susceptible to material inducements, including offers of basic commodities or modest amounts of money.

What happened in Ekiti State during the July 14 governorship election brought to the fore the daunting challenge of vote-buying in the country’s electoral process. It was reported that the civil servants accounts were credited with N4,000 or N5,000 unsolicited amount just to curry their votes . The perpetrators seem to have become more daring with each successive election. If N4,000 or N5,000 could be distributed freely in Ekiti and Osun States to buy the conscience of voters, then the amount would be of the high price in states like Lagos, Rivers, Kano during  election.

The Nigeria Electoral Act, 2010, Article 130 states: “A person who— (a) corruptly by himself or by any other person at any time after the date of an election has been announced, directly or indirectly gives or provides or pays money to or for any person for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting at such election, or on account of such person or any other person having voted or refrained from voting at such election; or (b) being a voter, corruptly accepts or takes money or any other inducement during any of the period stated in paragraph (a) of this section, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N100,000 or 12 months imprisonment or both.”

Despite this clause in the electoral act, quite a pity that nobody has been arrested for this shameful act in the country. Vote buying is gaining ground in every election. The level of poverty in the country is making it to gain ground. Are people intentionary made poor to buy their conscience? This is a million question that needs urgent answer.

The politicians and their party agents are devising new techniques of attracting voters to vote for their parties. They even have a mechanism of detecting those who collected money but did not vote for them. We have heard that some even put the money on ‘Ogun’, the god of Iron, this was to make sure that the voters did not circumvent them during the election.

Speaking on this issue, a 73-year-old retired teacher In Ekiti state during the last governorship election said  that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) offered N5,000 to people to secure their votes.“I was offered N5,000 to vote for the party but I rejected it. I am a 73-year-old retired teacher. I cannot allow the future of my children to be bought by moneybags. I don’t know how we descended to this level when people brazenly offer money to people to secure their votes. It was not like this in the past. Will our votes count with this problem?,” he asked.

It would be recalled that during the Edo State governorship election, the same scenario played out. It was observed that in Igueke community, at Orhiowon Local Government Area, a group of young men were seen distributing cash to influence voting. Some of the voters at unit 26 and 27 in Iduenbo Ward would first visit the distributor of the cash encircled by members of the group before going to queue for voting.

In Auchi, Etsakor West Local Government Area, the practice was rampant, as cash was distributed openly to voters. It was gathered that the voters first received N1,000 before queuing and they got a balance of N1,000 after voting for the candidate who paid the money. This disturbing cash-and-carry trend has elicited some reactions, which many observers have described as undemocratic and capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.

Former Minister of Education in Nigeria and a presidential candidate in next year’s Presidential election, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, described the situation as ‘Democracy on sale’, reiterating why the major parties in Nigeria need to be voted out in 2019.

She noted that the mismanagement of Ekiti election by the ‘Twin-Evil of Nigeria Politics’ would pay off in 2019 election.

In her series of tweets, she wrote: “Democracy For Sale. What would make a person pay voters money in order to serve them? Democracy as practised by Nigeria’s political class is simple: Use the proceeds of the pillage of the public treasury to purchase the conscience of the people to pillage them some more.”

“Perhaps, more Nigerians will now appreciate why 2019 must be different. All things about sordidness of the EkitiVotes2018 shall ultimately work together for the good of Nigeria’s democracy in 2019 because now many more  citizens will be awaken to the work needed to deliver Nigeria from the twin-evil of Nigeria’s politics.”

In his contribution, the General Manager, Castremineo Limited, Mr. Seyi Egunjobi said that :“vote-buying shows the extent of poverty. I guess people have resolved to taking as much as they believe might just be the only dividend of democracy they will get. This is sad.”

Also, immediate past chairman, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja branch, Mr. Adesina Ogunlana, described vote-buying as a rape on democracy. He lamented that it is unlawful, immoral and described it as irresponsible inducement of support for a particular candidate.“I know democracy is about number but because it is about number  does not mean you have to get the number anyhow. It is a rape on democracy. When somebody rapes a woman, they will say he has had carnal knowledge of that person, he actually forced himself on that particular person. That is the same with vote-buying.”

Speaking similarly on the evil of vote buying, the National Secretary of Pan Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere Bashorun Seinde Arogbofa described it as a disaster in the politics of Nigeria.

According to him, if the ugly trend is not checked in time, it could put paid to the end of the present nascent democracy.

His words:” It is shameful with the way some sell their conscience by the way of vote buying. Some collect ridiculous money like N1,000 to vote for a party. Only a man without integrity will do that knowing fully that in the next four years, he is going to suffer for the money collected”.

” What can N1,000 do in such life? Nothing. It can only last few seconds and in the next four years such would continue to suffer because he has sold his conscience. It is high time to curb this menace before it destroy our democracy. It is demeaning and every apparatus must be put in place to stop vote buying in the country. The whole world is looking up to Nigeria in the next election, the election must not only be free, fair and acceptable, it must also be devoid of vote buying.”