By Adadainfo
To curb the emerging vote-buying practice ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission was weekend advised to work with relevant agencies to install close circuit television cameras at polling units.
Chief Agadaenyi Charles Nwodo, former national chairman of Progressives Action Congress, PAC, stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Enugu.
He regretted the emerging vote-buying tends, adding that the new Electoral Law had curtailed possibilities of rigging elections drastically.
In his words, “Vote-buying is pure corruption. It is bribery. It is an emerging tactic by desperate politicians to win at all costs. What I advise the government to do, if it is sincere to provide the platform for transparent and fair polls in 2023, is to install CCTV cameras at all voting units to capture the processes of the voting. Then whoever is caught should face the wrath of the law.”
On the clamour for the extension of voter registration, Chief Nwodo said, “INEC should continue to register voters. Millions of Nigerians did not register not because of their faults but because of inactions of INEC. Their machines and other logistics failed in many places. In that case, the exercise is wrong to have ended that way.
“This also implies disenfranchising millions of eligible Nigerians from casting their votes to determine their leaders. If one can go to a bank and obtain one’s ATM cards in a matter of minutes, why can’t INEC learn from banks. The problem is our penchant to contract everything out. If Nigeria can’t produce voting logistics and materials locally, then why are we the giant of Africa?”
