•Seeks global intervention to curb menace
By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
Ahead of 2023 general election, the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) yesterday cautioned the United Nations that the menace of vote buying by politicians will cause violence during and after the election, except the internal community intervenes to rescue the country’s democracy from the negative trend.
IPAC national Chairman, Yusuf Sani Yabaji, who made this caution while receiving in audience the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) of the United Nations and Head of the UN Office for West and Sahel, Mr. Mahamat Saleh Annadif who visited the leadership of the Council.
According to Yabagi, the bane of democracy in Nigeria is in three throngs, including: “the obscene use of money to induce voters; to buy votes, number two is the violence that normally come from the exercise, and mostly these violence are perpetuated by those that should stop violence. Then, number three is that people take advantage of their positions. That is the incumbency factor.
“The fact that you are in government and you deploy all the resources of government to have an advantage over the other contestants. So, these three issues are the ones we will like you to see what you can do to ensure that, if you can not eliminate it, it is reduced to the lowest minimum.”
IPAC boss who observed that the success of any election is as good as the preparations, said the visit by the UN delegation gives the council confidence that Nigeria is not alone in the democratic journey, adding that it is expected that the forthcoming election will be free, fair and credible.
While observing that one out of every five black is a Nigerian, IPAC said Nigeria is looked up to globally for leadership, hence the process of electing the leaders must not be left to chance.
Speaking further, the IPAC boss said “We believe if there is a way the UN can attract Nigeria some support, not in terms of money but infrastructure that can be used, that politicians can be aware that if they do some of these things, it will be discovered and they will be dealt with, it will help to reduce the cancer that makes votes not to count.
“The truth is that when you induce people to vote differently from what they would have done, you end up with leadership that is not representative of the people and when you have that, the consequences is that there will be no peace because the dividend of democracy will not reach the electorate, because the person elected was elected because he used his money.
“So he will not have empathy, interest of the people at heart. He will be busy on how he will make more money so that next election, he will use more money to continue to buy over peoples conscience”, he said.
He said as the Osun governorship election comes up in two weeks time, there is fear over what will happen, pointing out that they do not know if “they will repeat what happened in Ekiti or even do more. So we are happy that you are meeting with authority, you can use this opportunity to see how you can reduce vote buying in our democracy”.
Speaking shortly before the meeting went into a closed session, Mahamat Saleh Annadif said the peaceful conduct of an election that is free and fair remains the interest of the United Nations.
He said United Nations will wish to see election that will lead to more dividends of democracy in Nigeria.
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