CIVIL Liberty Organisation (CLO) President Ms Ayo Obe and other civil society organisations members yesterday kicked against the non-enforcement of the vote-buying in the amended 2010 Electoral Act.
Speaking with reporters after her lead presentation, titled: “Incidence of vote-buying/vote-trading: Implications for 2019 general elections and democratic consolidation in Nigeria,” Ms Obe said although the law makes vote-buying punishable with N100,000 penalty or 12 months imprisonment, nobody enforces it.
She spoke at the Electoral Institute Roundtable in Abuja.
According to her, vote-buying started before elections and only common men are arrested by security agents on election day with no further investigation about the principal actors that buy the votes.
Ms Obe noted that “the few that are arrested are normally the people who are at the low level”.
“The people who are actually selling, there is no thorough investigation to find out about them. Let it not just be the ordinarily man at the ground level; the trader in the market arranging people to come and vote. Let us get the people who are behind that trader. It involves the security agencies,” Ms Obe said.
The CLO President noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been too busy with too many electoral matters, but the security agencies that should prosecute the offenders are reluctant about it.
Executive Director, Partner for Electoral Reforms Mr. Ezenwa Nwagwu urged that a department of police should be attached to the commission during election, stressing that the penalty of N100,000 was too paltry to serve as a deterrent to politicians.
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