The issue of vote buying in Nigeria is a very controversial one – back and forth we go without any meaningful progress. Haven observed the players within the electioneering field of Nigeria, I therefore wonder if the Presidency is involved in the current popular vote buying exercises.
Before now, we know that the electorates in Nigeria only queue up on election days for hours without any serious inducement from politicians. Then, the most important people to induce were the traditional leaders, electoral officers, security men, and some thugs. Once these groups supplied enough dollars, election trajectories are usually influenced.
However, with more sophistication on the part of local observers, INEC and even Nigerians, gradually, power is returning to the people of Nigeria. But these newly empowered group (Nigerians) are largely poor; the politicians then switched to inducing the people with money from 500 Naira to 5 million Naira, depending on who is involved and the desperation of the politicians to win at the polls.
Since various people are now campaigning against dishing out cash to electorates on election days, various political parties are not inventing new manners or approaches of carrying out this old tactics of financial inducements of voters.
Some weeks ago, Presidency, through the office of the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria began a process of giving out 10, 000 Naira to 30, 000 traders in Osun State through the Tradermoni initiative of the FG. The question on the minds of most Nigerians is, “why 10k, why now?” Although the aides of the Vice-President refuted the claim, but what else would he say under the circumstance.
If we are fighting corruption as a people, we should close our eyes to any governmental inducement of voters of any sort. 30,000 traders could appear small, but they actually have mothers, fathers, children and friends of voting age, who could simply be induced indirectly by such gesture of the FG to make election table unbalance in the State of Osun in particular and other States in general.
I think we must ask if the Presidency is now buying vote instead of delivering dividends of true democratic practices? I rest my case!
