Politicians, parties insert money in sandwiches to buy votes – INEC

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, has distanced the electoral body from buying of votes from the electorate, revealing that politicians insert money in sandwich on election day to buy votes.

This was even as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, accused INEC officials and security agencies of conniving with politicians to buy votes.

The INEC boss, who made this known during a public hearing organized by the Joint Committee on INEC in the National Assembly on buying of votes, recalled an incident in recent elections where electorates were chasing votes buyer for money.

He explained that at a particular poling centre, the voters were already on the line, but immediately they sighted votes buyers, they left the queue for money from them.

According to Yakubu, one of the ways through which politicians beat security to buy votes during elections is to insert currency notes in sandwiches in the guise that voters were being fed.

He said: “We talk too much as a nation.

“We should stop talking and do more for our country.”

Yakubu also added that there were instances where aspirants induced voters during primary election.

According to him: “We had so many instances where aspirant induces voters during party’s primary.

“It is systemic in Nigeria.”

Dogara said the worrisome dimension to vote buying is the involvement of the electoral umpire and officers of security agencies in vote buying.

Dogara said: “A more worrisome dimension to vote buying is the alleged use of the officials of the electoral umpire, INEC, and officers of security agencies to induce or intimidate and coerce voters to vote for particular candidates.  Such absurdities have been widely reported in the media and confirmed by some local and international observers in respect of the recently concluded governorship elections in Osun State.

“As expected, all lovers of democracy worldwide rose to condemn these despicable incidents. Condemnation is not enough, it will amount to hypocrisy, if we don’t take the bull by the horn by taking concrete steps to eliminate these evils that make mockery of our hard worn democracy.

“The essence of this Public Hearing, therefore, is to enable all of us interrogate these issues and proffer the way out.  We must not leave here before we have proffered practical steps to be taken in order to ensure that each vote counts in our elections and our elections henceforth will qualify as democratic elections not the kind of sham elections usually organized by totalitarian regimes.

“Let me seize this opportunity to call on all people of goodwill in our country to rise in condemnation and denunciation of vote-buying and all forms of electoral malpractices.  Indeed, electoral fraud is one of the worst forms of corruption, and should be treated as such. This is the only way we can guarantee the stability and growth of our democracy.”