By Adejumo Kabir
“An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names, but are as alike in their principals and aims as two peas in the same pod.” – Roosevelt
On July 14, 2018, the people of Ekiti State stood at crossroads where one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness while the other leads to total extinction. They were however not sure of the right choice to make until the election became a festival for the highest bidder.
The electorates in Ekiti knew that the politics of both the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot be disconnected from lies and euphemism to lobby voters into demanding their own enslavement which led to making the governorship election free markets for buying and selling of votes by the two parties. Unfortunately for the state, the organised greed defeated disorganized glutton.
Buying and selling of votes have over years injured our democratic system, yet they remain pervasive in every of our elections. The just concluded Ekiti State governorship election speaks volume about our corrupt system as media outfits caught several stakeholders of the two major political parties offering money to electorates in exchange for their votes.
In fact, the size of payments reportedly differ greatly across Local Government Areas. The sad story is that these voters votes were bought remarkably cheap compare to what will happen to them from now till the next four years when they will have the need to elect new government.
The chronic problem is that an average Nigerian do not believe that bribing for vote is a crime. Because of this mindset, money has become a great determinant of who win elections.
Although, some argue that many people who take money for vote sometimes vote according to their will or not even vote at all, since we run a secret ballot system. However, the agents of these political parties also have their wise criminal means of monitoring votes they pay for. Living in a country where even election officials cannot be trusted, most agents man strategic locations close to the ballot boxes to affirm that their customers did not do otherwise.
Even when Karl Marx argued that: “the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them”, we still joyfully receive money to submit ourselves to these persons.
It is however, important that we address these disastrous consistences in our Electoral Act. There is need for a critical and responsible Electoral Offences Commission that will be saddled with the responsibility to investigate and prosecute breaches of relevant electoral provisions including vote buying. The effectiveness of such commission will be a yardstick to measure the integrity of our elections.
Adejumo Kabir is a Student Journalist at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. He can be reached via: adejumoka1@gmail.com