Vote buying increases rate of political thuggery, result manipulation ― NOA boss

The Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Dr Garba Abari has said politicians who engage in vote buying during elections tend to use every possible means to protect their ‘investment’.

Abari said such politicians usually engage in political thuggery, and use of part party agents and state officials to ensure he gets their desired results.

Speaking at a one-day political parties summit on violence-free elections organised by the NOA,  Abari said there have been many known cases where politicians take out loans to fund elections and go into substantial personal debt.

He said it is not surprising that the very politicians who engaged in the distribution of money to voters are also those who complain about the system the most.

“The financial burden of cash hand out has been observed to foster corruption; similarly politicians are more likely to protect their investments (votes) through rented muscle, political thugs, party agents or even state officials. Often than not, violence tends to erupt where votes are exchanged for cash hand-outs,” Abari stated.

Furthermore, Abari said it does appear that more often than not, political parties and voters in Nigeria lack established long-term pacts which might inform voting behaviour.

“It also seems that in the absence of consistent party ideology, weak economic voter determinant, and clearly define party-voter relations rather than programmes and manifestos, it is claimed that parties engage in the undemocratic act of vote buying.

“In doing so, emerging democracies continue to be faced with the challenge of establishing a stable and institutionalized basis for party competition.

“More often than not, parties in emerging democracies engage in the commodification of elections, which manifests in vote peddling,” he noted.

He, therefore, said “in the build-up to the 2023 general elections, we at the National Orientation Agency urge political parties and their supporters not to procure violence as a strategy for winning elections.

He said politicians should be mindful of the fact that if violence increases, their chances of electoral success would be greatly diminished.

“It is against the backdrop of all these challenges and the need to stem these negative tides that the National Orientation Agency is hosting this one-day Political Parties Summit on Violence Free General Elections, come 2023,” he added.

The Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yabagi Sani in his remarks, said the summit “is a welcome engagement particularly for me, the leaders of political parties, as a matter of fact, if this has not taken place, we have plans to approach the NOA so that we can together host a programme like this.

“Even after this one, there will be a need for us to engage more so that this very important subject of violence in our elections can be approached effectively.

“It is about information dissemination, it is about the education of the voters that is not sufficiently carried out, and that is why we have the problem that we are facing now.

“An average Nigerian should be worried because whenever there is violence three things happen, it dissuades investments by a domestic and foreign partner, it triggers revenue loss and even resources loss to the government, properties are destroyed, and it paves way for unqualified corrupt persons to be elected and when that happens, the country continues to be in the vicious circle with no development”.

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