Pro-democracy advocates, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the practices of “rigging and buying of elections as have happened in the Edo and Ondo states gubernatorial polls “
The group in a statement on Sunday, a day after the Ondo election, which witnessed widespread electoral fraud, with videos showing thugs shooting and chasing away electoral officials and voters, and seizing ballot papers and boxes, described the situation as unfortunate.
The rights group said the reported widespread bribery of police operatives in some areas in the case of Ondo is a threat to democracy just as it lambasted the police for looking the other way while the ruling party had a field day inducing voters.
The Ondo election was so bad that the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) immediately released a preliminary report the same day citing widespread vote-buying by agents of political parties.
The CDD said its observers saw policemen arguing over money shared by a party stalwart in Ward 005, PU 001, St. Barnabas Primary School, Ifon, in the state.
The policemen reportedly frowned that about 10 of them were given ₦100,000, while only one official from another branch of the armed services allegedly got ₦15,000.
Director of CDD-West Africa, Dr. Dauda Garuba, and Lead of CDD-EAC Observation Mission for the Ondo poll, Prof. Victor Adetula, in the preliminary report, said widespread vote-buying by agents of parties was recorded.
Particularly, the CDD said the APC shared ₦10,000 per person in exchange for votes.
“CDD observers watching the process in Ward 5, PU 001, located at St. Johns Primary School, Iba Akoko South East spotted APC leaders writing down the names of those who voted for their candidate.
“Subsequently, a card was given to them, and they were instructed to converge at an agreed location where cash would be disbursed to them,” the CDD said in its preliminary report.
Other observers equally cited widespread vote buying and voter suppression where the ruling party aided by armed security operatives and thugs, had a field day paying voters at polling units before they could go and vote.
While the APC candidate voted and hailed the process as transparent, the PDP candidate on the other hand voted and told the press that it was on record to be the worst election conducted by INEC.
HURIWA in the media statement endorsed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, called on Nigerians to deliberately become true lovers and promoters of democracy by resisting the temptation to sell their conscience even as the Rights group said any electoral victory procured and manipulated to favour the so-called winners, delegitimize those state governments and inevitably reduce their people to mere political slaves whose votes were procured with mere peanuts.
“What happens after politicians buy their ways into the offices of governors, is that the people of those states are no longer in the overall development calculations of those political office holders since it would be assumed that even when only a fraction of the population of the state actually voted and even then, amongst those who voted, those who mortgaged their consciences and picked up bribes for them to cast their votes would be less than half of those who voted.
“The danger is that those politicians who bought their ways into offices would concentrate on recouping and recovering every investment that went into their electoral robberies and then would also want to make multiple profits from their illicit political investment”.
“We must take immediate steps to conscientize Nigerians to avoid selling their votes because that is a direct invitation of thievery into the political governance of their states and the Country at large.
“Civil society, Religious, traditional leaders must devote good enough time to coach their people about the need to vote according to their consciences and not to accept any forms of bribes whether during campaigns or the actual voting exercises.”
HURIWA also condemns politicians in public offices both at the national and sub-national levels that churn out economic policies to weaponize poverty which is a plot to expose Nigerians to political corruption during campaigns and elections.
“Nigerians must know that when they sell their votes, then their dignity as human persons is also abused and discarded.
“What does it profit potential voters to accept bribes during elections and to bring in political robbers who would destroy their states and loot their precious commonwealth and then take their states back to the primitive era?”
Besides, HURIWA condemned the police authority for looking the other way during both the Edo and Ondo states gubernatorial polls whilst politicians bribed their operatives just as the Rights group wondered what has become of the avowed pledge by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to clamp down on vote buyers.
HURIWA said the direct consequence of stolen electoral victory is that there would be political corruption and total lack of good governance which would lead to the emergence of social deviants in large numbers and there would be spikes in organised sophisticated crimes in which case the same police that compromised those elections, would be at the receiving end of the attacks of those sophisticated criminals who became criminals as their only escape route to poverty and lack of good governance in their states.
“We as a Country must take strong measures to outlaw and punish vote buying because this practice delegitimizes our democracy and could lead to its collapse if the practice becomes extensive and uncontrollable.
“The constitution of Nigeria in section 15(5) provides that ‘the State Shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power’. The Rights group argues that vote buying is corruption and a grave sabotage of democracy which must be stamped out by all means,” the group said.