Date: 2018-09-03

Electoral malpractice in the nation's body polity has taken a new dimension with the trending issue of vote buying by members of political class. Some eminent Nigerians including two Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali, Mallam Kehinde Kolawole Eleja and a varsity don, Professor Badmas 'Lanre Yusuf spoke to The Herald's ABDULLAHI SALAUDEEN, ONYEMACHI EMMANUEL, ABDULRASAK ALAWAYE and ADIGUN PETER on the menacing situation, especially as 2019 general elections draw closer. Mallam Kehinde Kolawole Eleja is an Ilorin based Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) spoke thus: Vote buying is an illegal act under the law. The technical name for it is inducement and this happens if potential voter is induced either with money or any other valuables, using that to influence his exercise of casting his vote on the election day. It is an illegal thing, and unfortunately it has become part of our electoral process and I think the earlier something is done to it the better.

In the electoral act itself, there is a chapter that deals with electoral offences, and vote buying would come under one of the sections in that chapter. It is something that is criminalized.The only problem is that, over the years, nobody has taken action to ensure that those who sell vote and those who purchase it are dealt with in accordance with the law. Vote buying persists due to the ignorance of the people.

If people are properly educated, they will know that vote buying is a crime that is against everyone. Because, if you exercise your franchise based on the money you are paid, of course, the person who gave you the money will be entitled to recoup the expense at the end of the day. Meaning that the person will not be able to discharge on his electoral promises. Importantly too, this practice is prevalent because nobody is taking any action. It would be observed that in polling unit another practice on the election day even though security agencies are represented there, they hardly do anything. On the converse in most instances, they are also compromised. They ask for their own share and once they are properly settled, they look the other way. And I think INEC should also be proactive this time around. They should ensure that some people who are involved are arrested and duly prosecuted as provided under the law of the land.

Vote buying is affecting us because, it has the potential of preventing an election winner from being able to discharge his electoral promises. For example, if a politician has expended N1billion to buy vote from electorate, is it not natural that by the time he gets back to office, he trys to recoup that first? And of course, that will translate to having to deep his hands into the state resources. So in a way, what will happen is that there can never be development in the real sense of it. Of course, those who take N1000 or N2000, they have forgotten that by so doing, they are compromising their future and the future of their children. The money they collected on the election day cannot even last them for one week or one month whereas the person that purchased their vote would be in office for the minimum of four years. It is an unfortunate thing for the socio-economic development of the country. It has to do with enlightenment. There must be serious enlightenment on the part of the electorate on the evil inherent in selling their votes and of course the electoral body and the security agencies must be prepared to ensure that people are brought to justice. Once these two are done, I believe it is going to break the spell drastically.

Professor Badmas 'Lanre Yusuf, a former Dean of Postgraduate School, University of Ilorin also shared his thoughts on the vote buying this way: It is a very bad political development in the history of Nigeria and the history of democratic practices all over the world. And it is making nonsense of the principle of democracy, which is to provide opportunity for the voters or electorate to decide who is going to occupy any position on their behalf, to make a free choice of their own without being influenced, without being induced or without being harassed by anybody or without being threatened with either punishment or other things that people used in order to get what they don't deserve from people.

The principle of democracy is to give opportunity for the people to decide who their leader should be without any inducement. Then, it follows logically that wherever you see people buying votes, what they are doing there cannot be called democracy. It can be called 'money-tocracy', and it is unfortunate that it is happening during this time when we all agreed that corruption should be fought to a standstill in Nigeria. It is a new dimension that should be arrested in good term, especially with the plan of the present administration to fight corruption. Then the question is that those who are buying votes, where do they get the money? It will be discovered that it is part of the corrupt practices the dividend of corruption is what they are bringing now to influence democratic setting, which is not good enough. Because, if it is done that way, what assurance do we have that whoever is elected too, would not start first and foremost to regain what he has spent in vote buying before he concentrates on the programme that will bring welfare to the people who elected him.

It is very appalling that it is happening when election 2019 is approaching. Though in Nigeria in the past, people used money to induce electorate, but it was not being done with impunity the way it was done in Ekiti and elsewhere especially where they will buy elections for Senators in Bauchi and also in Kastina State.

So, I want to appeal to the authority concerned to stem the tide of using money to get voted into office. Whoever is using money to get voted into the office would not do the bidding of the people. By the time he gets to that office, he would consider it as an investment, and for every investment there must be profit. He is not going to consider it as a call to duty, he is not going to consider it as an opportunity to serve the people. He will consider it as an opportunity to make much more money than he has invested in the process in the cause of being elected into the office.

I think its effect on social life, economy, political activities is greater emergence in the sense that it is going to have a corrosive effect on the economy. Instead of working to improve the economic situation, they will be working to reverse the economy gain that we have been able to make since 2015, and would also get promoted to the level of economic saboteurs, and that may even affect the confidence of the international community on our system in terms of the investment, in terms of bilateral trading between Nigeria and other countries.

Once the world leaders have identified us as a country that is being ruled by corrupt people, they will consider us as devil, and they will want to use long spoon to dine and wine with us and we know the implication of that. And further to that, the implication is that the electorate will no longer have interest in going under the sun or rain to queue to vote, knowing full well that some people have sold their conscience in the cause of the election by accepting money, with a view to voting for a particular candidate, and this is also going to have overall negative effect on the developmental agenda of the community.

Because, if people vote for somebody who has no manifesto, agenda and plan about the development of the society, or even make it better than the way it is when they are sworn in as a leader, it will be seen that there is going to be an economic standstill and there is going to be zero development in that period, whether it is four years or five years. That is why we have to continue that the social effect is very clear. The simple civic duty a patriotic citizen performs will no longer be performed, unless at a cost. They will be expecting money before they could be able to do any service for the nation. That is why I want to call on most of our leaders not to destroy the taste of our youth, not to destroy the eternity of our youth and not to destroy the future of our youth.

We are talking about those who are no longer disadvantaged because they can rule if opportunity is given and they are starting in this manner of looking for money in order to buy votes. Even we realised that some people will get loans in order to buy votes and win elections at which he will neither be here or there in terms of performance. There is a means of curbing it. One, the law of the INEC should be amended to criminalize vote buying and vote selling. If that one is done and the government is very faithful enough in implementing the new provisions in the INEC law, which is to criminalise vote buying and vote selling. Once an accused person has been arraigned before a competent court of law and he is sentenced, and is given widest publicity, I think it is a bit deterrent for other people and by doing that nobody will want to venture into that heinous criminal act of vote selling or vote buying. All they just need to do as politician aspiring for a particular office is to woo themselves into the hearts of the voters by telling them what you have planned to do to improve on the quality of their lives and what they are going to do to reduce poverty. May be in terms of provision of employment opportunities, may be in terms of promotion of entrepreneurship, may be in terms of promoting farming or all those things that people would do to enable them to draw their livelihood without depending on any politician, without expecting any money to exchange hands before they can be able to live a meaningful life.

The issue of vote buying also caught the attention of Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali, a frontline lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who responded thus: This issue is reprehensible and criminal. It subverts the electoral will of the people, and it doesn't allow the truly elected people to emerge.

So, it should be condemned by all well meaning people. And our law should be steady in ensuring that such behaviour is punished. There are provisions in the electoral act that prohibits this. But I don't believe it is rightly enforced, and I will also believe that the sanction or the punishment for it is too light. I think we need to do something about that.

Since all the parties are involved, that!s why the political class haven't seen reason to do anything about it. All the registered political parties especially the main parties, they are all involved in it. Even right from their own primaries not to talk of general elections. So, that is why they haven't found out the political will to enforce the law. The money that people used to buy votes is not gotten from donations; nobody wants to go to bank and withdraw money and say they want to go and buy votes. So, they are distorting the economy with all these activities and it causes more poverty for the people.

So, I think it should be discouraged, it causes more poverty for the people rather than ameliorate their poverty. There must be punishment for doing it. It is because nobody is punishing anybody for it that is why it is on the rise.