The last Guber Election in Anambra State could have been passed off, as going very well, if not for one thing that blighted it. It was the vote buying phenomenon which reared its ugly head once more. Suddenly, our elections have brazenly become cash and carry affairs, as parties and Candidates now expend huge amounts of money to woo voters to vote for them. It is known as vote selling and buying.
This entails voters being paid to vote for particular candidates during elections. It was something that began like a joke and an aberration but is now fast becoming the norm. Despite earlier condemnation of this phenomenon by well-meaning citizens, it appears such has rather exacerbated it.
Today, it has become good business for some voters, some of who now go to polling units to await buyers. In the last election, many were seen by observers loitering around polling units waiting for who would buy their votes and eventually settling for the highest bidder. This shows that their motivation for coming was not altruistic but transactional.
This is indeed a sad commentary on our national life. It means in future that those without money to spend, no matter how good they are, will not be able to win elections. The implications of this are just frightening.
Some political parties which Candidates could not afford to pay for votes were left in the lurch as the two biggest parties, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and All Progressives Congress (APC), had a field day, with each battling to outdo the other. At some polling centres, voters were paid as much as N20, 000. This was why some of the other Candidates protested against this vote buying phenomenon.
This was also corroborated by one of the election observer groups, Pan African Women Projects, based in South Africa, which alleged that the ruling party in the state, APGA, outspent the APC in vote buying.
The group said they captured all this through their spy cameras at various polling centres. This is not good at all for our democracy and while the beneficiaries of this may be happy today, it is something that could come back to haunt them in the near future.
This is why we are calling on security agencies to wade in and punish those behind this, no matter the parties or candidates they work for. A strong deterrent should be set in order to quickly eliminate this vice, which, once it takes root, will be as difficult in stopping, as the scourge of kidnapping.
One of the ways of eliminating this is by arranging polling booths in such a way that no one can see or know whom one voted for. This is necessary because those involved in this usually show their sheets to party agents who are always not far from them.
The polling booths should be arranged in such a way that no one sees who is voting and where they will drop their votes, while all party agents should keep enough distance from the polling booths and can only come in if the voter needs assistance to vote, if they are aged or blind.
The sanctity of votes must not be desecrated in any form or for whatever reason. We must all rise as one, to not only condemn this phenomenon but to stop it. And for those who indulge in this, they should know that they have lost their right to complain about bad governance if after collecting money, they vote for the wrong Candidates.
The usual amount of money given to voters will never last long and in the end,those who collected money will only rue their greed or gluttony.
Let’s all work together to put a halt to this cankerworm before it eats deep into our societal fabric.
