Worried by the alarming rise of vote buying in the country, the Director of Mobilisation, Centre for Transperacy Advocacy, Faith Uwabuchi has advised politicians in the country to use the money they buy votes with to sell themselves to ensure that the people see them as popular candidates rather than helping to subvert the constitution by engaging in acts capable of militating against the credibility of elections in the country.
Uwabuchi spoke at a workshop held for the Osun gubernatorial election observers on Wednesday in Osogbo.
According to her, to have a credible election in the country a lot of works must be done on our politicians, noting that, “We also count on the citizen themselves to play their roles in ensuring we have a free and credible elections . It is when they don’t come out to vote we have apathy votes and when they come out to vote they should make sure they do not sell their votes. At the end of the day whatever results that comes out of the election the citizens would be proud of the whole process.”
Uwabuchi who observed the elections in Anambra, Edo, Ondo, and Ekiti commended INEC for their level preparedness ahead of the Osun September 22 gubernatorial election , expressing her confidence that the election would be credible.
She added that , ” we have noticed INEC keeps improving from every election. we were part of the Ekiti , Ondo, Edo, and Amanbra elections we see that most of the recommendations made INEC has taken cognisance of them which has helped them a lot to get better by the day. ”
She questioned the motive behind the development of 16,000 security personnel to Osun, a state with 30 local government while Ekiti with less had higher number, hoping that the entire system would be improved on ahead of the 2019 general elections .
On the workshop she noted her organisation decided to train over 120 observers deployed to the state so that they would be equipped with the stipulated code of conducts as well as having the needed skills to be able report without interference what they have observed during the election.
One of the facilitators, Ademola Olabisi described the Osun election as a litmus test that would determine if the country was ready for a credible elections in 2019.
He urged the observers not to show empathy for any political party as they could not be a solution to a problem they created.