 Poverty reduction is the only solution to vote-buying, says former resident Electoral Commissioner. And WIKE cannot put the PDP at risk and is free to associate with the opposition. Former PDP National Publicity Secretary Col. Olovo Dion says, Well, this is FOSS Politics, I am Mary Ionico. The immediate past resident Electoral Commissioner in River State, has said only an improved economy can guarantee total eradication of vote-buying in Nigeria, he described the menace as a societal problem and reflection of Nigeria's level of development, noting that introduction of technologies into the electoral system has made it difficult for politicians to re-elections through other means. Now on how this can be achieved, if I'm not stressed, the use of information and communication. Well joining us this evening is Oboe Fanga, the immediate past resident Electoral Commissioner for River State. And also to be joining him on this conversation is Emmanuel Mjokou, who is the Director of Democracy and Governance Connected Development. Mr. Fanga, it's good to have you join us. Thank you very much. So this is a regular that we talk about every Thursday we talk about, you know, the civic space and how we can educate people more on some of the devices that we're dealing with in the electoral system. And I'm so glad to have you join us. But let's start by educating people on what constitutes as vote-buying. A lot of people, when we talk about vote-buying, just think of, you know, exchanging money at the polling units. But research has shown that vote-buying sometimes starts even before the election in itself. Yes, vote-buying would mean that a political party or candidate or political interest are using money and money's worth to influence the choices of the electorate in the election. And since the election does not start and end at the polling unit on election day, it is a process. It means that vote-buying could happen at any time during the electoral process. And it is for this reason that I have come up with this idea of classifying vote-buying in Tubera's categories. I refer to the wholesale vote-buying. I also refer to the middle men, middle persons, which could be middle men or middle men or middle women trading. And also the retail vote-buying, which is the one most people seem to focus on, which is what happens on election day or very close election day. But vote-buying could mean that right from when people are aspiring for a position, even before they become candidates of the political parties, they would have gone around visiting influential members of the society, trying to woo them to support them or to endorse them. And too often, this is not only limited to merely talking to the people, to convince them to support these aspiring and potential candidates or political parties. There's also some form of post-trading that goes on then. So that also is part of vote-buying, which is what I refer to as a wholesale vote-buying. And that is why you would hear these influential members of the society say they have endorsed a particular candidate and then hope that those people who look up to them as leaders in that way, they have influenced, would now vote in terms of who they have endorsed. Then at the level I refer to as a middle man trading is what many people observed in the last few months during the primaries of political parties where huge sums of money was said to have been disbursed to the delegates of the political parties. That also is vote-buying. But the one that a lot of people are condescends with and they talk about so much is the one I call the retail vote-buying, which is what happens on election day or close to election day where the individual voter is given some form of gratification, usually cash, for them to vote in a particular way. Okay. Let's talk about how both connect. So I have also done some research that has said that there is a connection between vote-buying and voter apathy. But then one would think that if there is some monetary encouragement, you would get to see more people show up to the polling units as opposed to seeing less and less people come out to vote. But is there really any connection between those two? Well, maybe we should interrogate when we talk about turnout at election. There needs to be something to benchmark with. So if somebody says fewer people are coming out to vote now, then we need to know what they are benchmarking it with. And if people say more people are coming out to vote now, we also need to know what the benchmark is. I think that we first need to interrogate the number of registered voters in a particular, I mean, if we are looking at the entire country, then we look at how many of those persons are actually legitimately legitimate to be on the voter's register before now. And we are doing a cleanup of, I think it's doing a cleanup of the voter's register. Maybe at the end of this exercise, we will know exactly how many people are registered to vote in Nigeria. And then we can also look at various districts. And then apart from that, you also need to know how many people have collected their permanent voters card and as such are eligible to vote on election day. Then we can now calculate the turnout based on the number of people who have the PBC and could have voted in the election and how many people have actually voted. So when we do that, we can now say effectively whether more people, the percentage of persons who have turned up to vote. Because before now, a lot of times people were looking at the percentage of votes cast in an election based on the total number of registered voters. But we also know that on the voter's list are names of persons who are long dead and so shouldn't be counted as we in terms of turning up to votes until we have that clean record and also number of people who have actually collected the permanent voters card, then we may not really have a good picture of the real percentage. Now, your question was a link between a vote buying and the number of people who turn up to vote. I think it would require more research to find out if more people have turned up to vote because there's gratification or more people turned up to vote when there was no gratification for them to do so. Okay. I think we're being joined now by Emmanuel Jockel, who is the Director of Democracy and Governance for Connected Development. Mr Jockel, thank you very much for joining us. Yes, I can hear you. I can hear you. Perfect. Now, from the reports that, or rather from the piece that the former REC put out on the Guardian newspaper, he talked about dealing with issues of poverty in order for us to be able to even start solving the problem of, you know, vote buying. But let's start by looking at how this even started and who encouraged it and how we got here. Yeah, thank you for having me. And this is such a very good conversation coming at the right time, giving the introduction to the Electra Act and how INEC and the Electra stakeholders through all the commitments and engagement with the new Electra 2022 have given powers back to Nigerians and back to citizens. So this conversation is very important at a time like now, knowing in my mind from my experience in the field, that as we head to the 2022 election, it would be a spectrum, sadly, to see a lot more of good buying happening in the fields. Good buying has been part of us, frankly, since 2000 and since 1999, when the elections, when we had this democracy, it has become more like a culture. It has been happening. But then for every year, for every election cycle, the Electra stakeholders make efforts in amending the election and, you know, fixing the elections to make it better, the vote buying in itself increases, you know, the cost and the price, the rate of vote buying keeps increasing. I say this because in the last election in Ekiti State and Ocean State for once, we are seeing politicians trading votes and buying votes as high as 10,000 Nigerians. There is reason why this is happening and the reason is simply so. The Electra 2022 that has brought the use of the technology, the device, BivaS, which allows for biometric verification before you are allowed to get a credit to vote, has completely taken powers out of the poll clerks. You know, before now, you know, before, before now, these guys have aware of the process, but with the, with the electronic device that we are using, BivaS. Now, you can no longer work in with someone's PVC. Someone called John cannot work in with somebody called Stephanie's PVC and constantly pulling in it, and the poll class will allow you just to vote. It will no longer happen. They need you. They need me. They need biometrics for me to be able to vote. So what this simply means is the power is not in the hands of the people. But then, how much knowledge, how much exposure, how much do the people, the Electra, understand how much power do they have? Now, talking about hunger and poverty is a weapon, and these politicians understand this. They understand the organization of poverty, and they are using it, and they will use it more, as well as the election in 2020. In the state, and in a shown state, where I observed the elections, I saw clearly people being paid as high as 10,000 Naira for elections. And frankly, from what we've gathered, we understood that the money that these political elites and political actors released, the eve of that election was, they were valuing votes at 20,000 Naira per person. And this is very troubling. This is very sad. But then again, I always say this, and let me say this on your platform. While we try to critique and understand vote buying, I always tell people that vote buying in a very funny way is progress in an electoral process. Vote buying in a funny way in an electoral reforms is a bit of progress. You know why I say this? I say this because elections generally just hang on. I know you will wonder, what am I saying? Elections generally is more like a transaction. So you have politicians come to the people to tell the people, this is what I want to do for you. I want to do this. I want to do that. It's more like a transaction. And the people have to now buy into your manifesto and into your promises and now decide to give you vote. While politicians have brought this thing down to an evil way of transaction, treading, giving you a particular amount, a particular vote. Now, what we need to make Nigerians understand is that politicians are coming to you because your vote is important. Your politicians are coming to you because your vote will count and that is why they are buying the votes. Now, citizens need to move beyond that level of petty, evil transaction of 5,000 Naira, 10,000 Naira to start demanding more. There's a transaction going on. What are you asking for? You should be asking for primary health care centers in your communities. Exactly. So this is where I have an issue. This is where I have an issue and I'm going to put it to you and of course the former rec. So we always say people should, people ought to. How many of these people know the consequences of their actions? Again, just as you said, there's poverty. He also put it in his piece that poverty is at the base of all of this vote buying. But how many people know that their poverty will continue to linger? Some people have no idea. It's an opportunity for them to grab onto some money to feed their children. Professor Lumumba had said that no matter how lyrical you wax to the average African, when you're done speaking English, he would ask you in the interim, what do we eat? So how much information is out there for the people, the communists of people to understand the consequences of these actions? So first of all, and that is why it's good that you are using your platform to have this conversation. Because I mean, getting the people to understand the ills and evil of vote buying is not the job of just INX, the voter education department. It is the job of the media because the media has the reach to get down to communities. It's the media of print media, the radio media, the TV, everybody's job is job of civil society organization. It's job of traditional institutions. It's the job of religious institutions. It's the job of every person at the political parties, especially. But suddenly the political parties may not exactly do this because they are beneficiaries of this vote buying. And as we head to the 2020 election, let me tell you the evil of vote buying. So in the past, you hear politicians, someone saying, I made you a governor. I made this person a governor. I contributed to making this person a president. You know, that in my view has been very disrespectful to the citizens and to the electorates. Nobody makes anybody a governor. Those things have happened in the past because of the influence of vote buying and the process of regaining elections. Going forward, if you notice across Nigeria and the people running for presidential offices, you see they are seriously engaging one way or the other. So I'm going back to ethnic influence. I'm going back to religious influence. I'm going back. I mean, but they are all engaging because they have come to understand that in this election that is coming, it's going to be about the people. But the sad thing, like I've said is now I believe and I know because frankly, some of these politicians who have always started themselves to be popular and to be godfathers, they are not really that popular as you were. So for them to get themselves to win these elections, I'm expecting and we are hearing already that there is going to be massive vote buying in the elections coming because frankly, the electoral act has completely removed powers from the hands of even INAG officials who want to be corrupt and fraudulent. Frankly, they cannot do much anymore. So the power is in the hands of the people, but the politicians will come to them more knowing that the people are poor. I was in an ocean state, in a city state. Do you know what they were saying? What they were saying was vote and cook soup, vote and make better soup. So they are flashing 10,000 Naira in the faces of these very poor people. And frankly, in the rural communities, there are people who have spent their whole day and they've never seen 10,000 Naira once together as their own money. And they are putting it in their faces telling them vote and cook soup. So we are expecting that this is going to get worse, but this systemization, this awareness campaign has to be dipping to get people to understand the evil of selling their votes. Let me come back to you, Mr Burfanga. He's made a lot of references to what's happening today. Yes. But then how, because I also know, I was in Anambra, I saw a lot of vote buying during that election. I covered, you know, the main town, Oka. What do we do with the psyche of the average Nigerian who's used to, like he said, taking these monies to meet the immediate needs because you see for them, that's the only opportunity they might get to get, you know, to place their hands on that kind of money. Where do we even start to change that mindset, that narrative? It's not enough, it's not enough for us to say that, oh, well, there's the media, but then there are people who may not also have access to the media. So how do we do that? Well, let me first reemphasize what Mr Enjoku said, which is that vote buying has been happening now because the votes count now more than ever before. And I've stressed this over and again in my recent interviews that is because the votes now count and people can only win on the basis of the votes cast and counted and declared. That is why the politicians are going after the voters to buy the votes. Now, we've all agreed that this is a societal money and needs to be addressed. Mr Enjoku mentioned the responsibility of the mass media to that and we cannot overemphasize that. Now there are other agencies in the society that can influence the activities and opinions and attitudes of citizens. And this includes the religious institutions and the traditional institutions. Although, sadly too, some of the leaders of these institutions are also involved in this practice. Remember when I talked about the wholesale level of a vote buying that even the political parties, even the aspirants and candidates, grow conversing support from these persons that there is also some form of transaction that goes on at that level. But we cannot overemphasize the responsibility of these agents in the society for positive change. The religious groups, the community groups, every level of association needs to talk about this. And of course, we need the mass media. Even the political parties themselves, it is in their best interest to speak against vote buying because you cannot tell if you're going to have more resources than the other political party to buy votes. You know the interesting thing, at the end of the most recent elections, a lot of times those who lose out in the election complain that why the other party won was because they were involved in vote buying. But the truth is that all of them were involved, but somebody has outspent the other. So we can reduce our election to who spends more winning the election. So even the political parties, it is in their own best interest to also speak against vote buying and stop it so that at the end of the day, whoever emerges the winner in an election emerges on the strength of the promises they make and what they are able to deliver to the people in terms of what we call the dividends of democracy. Not the Mr. Joku said in the recent elections, they paid as much as 10,000 Naira and we know that this kind of 10,000 Naira won't even last more than a week even for the forest of persons who collect the 10,000 Naira, even the person who hasn't seen 10,000 Naira in a whole year because this comes cheap. They also spend it on all factor kinds of things that give you even if it is up to one month that they use in spending this. So after then what happens the people you are electing are going to be in government for four years. So if you've taken care of one month out of four years then you have three years and 11 months to worry about your future and these persons are going to mess it up because they've already bought you over. I want to talk about the again because I picked so many things out of what you're saying but I wonder why we don't question where these monies come from, where these monies that we're taking are coming from. Again, I wonder, I think on its own cannot do all of the voter education, political parties have a you know also a responsibility, we the media have a responsibility but I wonder why are we not questioning how these monies show up in the first instance other than just taking it and taking it and waiting. I mean we saw what happened in all of the party primaries and how allegedly was a dollar rain of sorts and nobody has questioned it, nobody's really probed it. I mean we heard that the EFCC was at most of these party primaries but money still were exchanging hands. So again does this mean that we the people ourselves have failed in our duties especially civil society in questioning where our money goes and how these monies just immediately surface on election day? Okay so is this for me should I go on? Well you can because you're a civil society. Exactly so the question is not even about civil society being able to probe where this money is coming from. So you know the the team of this conversation is vote buying you know. So first I would like to say using the term vote buying maybe not capture the whole conversation. I would prefer to call it vote shredding. I say this because we've gone to polling units and you see citizens themselves are on the lookout for who we buy their votes. So the politicians like I've said are not just guilty and we've done in-depth research on these issues and this is all found out. So the people the citizens themselves are also defrauded in the process. I've had conversations where politicians say when they come to a political polling unit before the election we start that they are making plans to pay as high as 10 to 15,000 Naira or 20,000 Naira to the first 10 persons that will vote for them. The reason why they do this these guys are just funny. The reason why they do this is to spread the message within that polling unit. So the first 10-15 persons that collect the 15-20,000 Naira goes around telling everybody ah but the XXX is paying 20,000 Naira out. So you see the citizens and the electorate now all keying up expected that they are going to collect 20,000 Naira and this whole thing is a bit challenging and as we're having this conversation I want to call on the attention of the security personnel who are in this polling units most of the time who have the powers to make arrests because frankly as civil society on election day my duty is to simply observe and make a report but then for every polling unit that I've been to in Echitea National State using that as reference because it's the most recent election that Nigeria's have had every polling station I go to I see at least four security personnel in this polling unit and myself I am not a security personnel but for every polling unit I go to it takes me less than it takes me less than 10 minutes for me to identify the person paying for this vote and sometimes it's very coordinated you see someone so so more and so I get I blame INEK I blame INEK because in some cases the secrecy of the ballot is not even assured it's not guaranteed so you see before an election you see the people in the polling unit will push yourself so much that people are standing right in front of where the person who is supposed to make his vote picks up same ballot so as it's completely making his turn print and these things are pretty easy especially in elections where PDP and maybe APC are involved so someone takes his hand to the top of the ballot paper it's simple he's going for APC the person bringing the design we all done is going to PDP the person bringing it out in the media is going to level these things are simple and it's easy to identify okay I'm so sorry to talk over Eva let me come in quickly you talk about the number of police officers at polling units I've been at a polling unit before and I was trying to as a journalist covering it and I saw open air vote buying and as I was trying to record it they almost I almost got mopped now the police officers this is a conversation we've also had it said they're not armed because it's against the law to carry arms at a polling unit how do they affect these arrests if most of these people are maybe more in number as opposed to one or two police officers at a polling unit no no so first of all the police need to do they have I mean the last election in a kid's state it took APC officials wearing their red jacket coming from above that to be able to make arrests across the state in our shows that in a kid's election literally every polling unit there was vote buying and there are police security personnel in this person it is their duty to identify and that's the point I was trying to make I'm not an intelligent example when I come to a polling unit I identify either so sometimes the vote buying doesn't have any people in it in some cases when you vote you go and meet the person who has identified that you voted for his party of choice and you'll give you a title with which you now leave the polling unit and go to some other place present the tally and you are paid but my point is there are secretary personnel in this polling unit and allegations and even conversations we've had have we've been able to find out that in some cases even the politicians they have a budget for the police personnel that come to the polling unit so the whole process the whole vote buying team starts first of all from the delegates and what the election down to the primary election they do in the states how this party candidates emerge down to the polling unit literally everybody politicians try to buy up everybody and what I'm saying like in most cases even the police secretary personnel who are in the polling units who have the knowledge that there's a budget mostly for them so they can turn the other way and have these guys do what they want to do because frankly all the political parties in the last elections that have observed they all do vote buying like like like like the former rex okay what is who will outbuy who who out spends who okay back to you mr fang he's he's he's he's saying he's he blames ineg i think i think i've had this conversation many times the ineg officials about security operatives at polling units what they're capable of doing and what they're not capable of doing because i've seen police officers stand by and do nothing and this thing's happening you know in the class so what does ineg do in this case because ineg is not a law enforcement but then he's saying ineg is to be blamed okay so um there are various ways to look at this i'm not holding brief for the security agencies but let's also look at practical scenarios you find you go to a polling unit in the community where we've established that we've passed the stage of political parties trying to who uh trying to buy uh the votes we've reached a stage that even the voters want their votes to be bought so you now have an understanding between the voter and the political parties okay it now becomes difficult for you to break that chain now if you have a security agent at that polling unit while it is important to stop the vote buying and possibly arrest people at that point i imagine that they will also have to weigh the possible consequences of an attempt to make an arrest at that point that it could lead to a breakdown of law and order that would even mark the entire election it could disrupt election in that polling unit so would you in the attempt to make an arrest there just to make a point that you arrested someone now ruin the risk the possibility of election being uh being a confusion in that uh a polling unit and then election is disrupted there now the other points he made um Mr. Njoku made about um the secrecy of the votes we have the cubicle that has opportunity for you to vote in such a way that somebody does not see how you voted but when somebody himself or herself is determined to prove that he or she has voted in a particular way then the person will do that so you'll find a situation where even if the secrecy is is is provided the person finishes printing on the ballot paper now remember what we have is open secret ballot in which means that you make that you mark the ballot in secret and come and drop the ballot in the open the ballot box must be kept in a place that everybody sees okay so these votes are now in coming to drop the ballot paper in the ballot box consciously does as if he's trying to fold this paper in such a way that he or she wants how he has voted to be seen by those who are going to vote so you find a situation where you have a willing boot a willing buyer and a willing seller it now becomes difficult for a third party to break that that chain the the the the arrest that we talked about that the ELCC made even Mr. Njoku admitted it wasn't within the polling unit the the the vicinity but outside the they were able to identify locations where money was being exchanged and it raised it raised concerns about what the money was being exchanged for and then those persons were arrested it is further investigation that would lead them to identify that this transaction was related to the election but at the polling unit the the electoral official at that point what is most important for him or her is to allow anybody who is registered to vote and has come with this or a permanent voters card to be accredited given a ballot paper to vote and when he or she has finished voting at the end of voting the votes are counted and results are declared based on the votes that are counted if you expect that we would prioritize the arrest of willing buyers and willing sellers as opposed to paying attention to people voting and the votes being counted then it means that we would have wasted the time of the voting because the election would be disrupted and at the end of the day we won't even have the votes to count well this is a conversation that has to be continuously had but unfortunately time is no longer on our side but I want to say thank you gentlemen Mr. Boyfonga is the immediate past resident electoral commissioner in river states and Jocely Minow is the director of democracy and governance connected development switch is also called code thank you so much gentlemen for being here thank you for having me thank you very much thank you and thank you all for staying with us we'll take a short break now when we return we'll continue our discussion on the PDP week a saga call our nobody on the people's democratic party former national publicity secretary has dismissed concerns that governor yes on week of river states may form an alliance that might be detrimental to the party's chances next year stay with us it's still plus politics now call our nobody on the people's democratic party he was the former national publicity secretary has dismissed concerns that governor yes on week of river states may form an alliance detrimental to the party's chances during next year's presidential election he also said the governor was at liberty to associate repoliticians from other camps such as with within which was within his right now joining us to discuss more on this drag within the PDP is Duran Odeyemi he is a former deputy national publicity secretary of the people's democratic party mr odeyemi thank you so much for joining us thank you very much I'm happy to be with you great there have been so many conversations around the situation between governor wiki and the presidential flag bearer of your party they have also been concerned as to he's hub nubbing I use that word loosely here with other members of other political parties especially the Labour Party being that there are certain demands that were made allegedly from his group that has not necessarily been met by the party but let me ask you as an insider um what is the party doing to reconcile governor wiki and of course the presidential flag wearer and the party chairman I would have thought this question could be answered by the once again joining us is Duran Odeyemi now mr odeyemi you are about to answer my question before we lost that connection yes I will say that the NWP member will be able to answer what exactly they are doing towards reconcile it with the crisis that we find ourselves and I want to make clear that the issues are damn too simple the party uh in its will done have given the presidential candidate to article and the vice-presidential to okawa in the process of reconciling with governor wiki and his allies such as the um former governor of the NWP case I identify us uh former governor of the NWP and others we have a particular demand which is legitimate and logical and this is that if we have the presidential candidate from the north and we have the chairman of the party from the north the chairman of the beauty from the north and the chairman of the governor of the north from the north then the chairman should be able to fulfill his promise and be a man of honor by resigning from that position and be with somebody from the south so that there will be equality there will be justice and there will be fear in the party which is a sign in our constitution but if and if the party in its will done are not ready to meet the demands of the governor wiki is not meant for the boc and other leaders of the party to clear we can move forward how is it possible how possible we are not in crisis I will not be a party to it exactly I was about to say that how do you move on if you know your house is on fire again the 2023 elections as we all know is going to be a very fiercely contested one and if this early in the day the PDP seems to have its house not in order and this drag and the fight is becoming a bit more public than it should be what's the what's the guarantee that the PDP will carry the day or you even stand a chance come 2023 again I'd like to put it out there this is the second time in a very short while that just to that the PDP is having another goal at its leadership and why is that I remember how second this was you know kicked out of the party here we are again in a very short space and everybody's asking for you to step down why can't these things be clearly sought out or sorted out at bigger pardon in the best interest of the party as opposed to personal personal needs the question is what's the guarantee that the PDP can stand a chance against all of its opponents come 2023 if this early in the day there's this much fire on the mountain or once again I think that we've lost Duran all day and me on I think that we are having a little collection problem there with him we will go on a quick break and when we come back we will be wrapping things up finally on the show stay with us well that's us on the show tonight but before we go here's my take now the past is supposed to inform our present and prepare us for the future yet the stagnation of our development is worsening national circumstances it shows that we're still doing the same thing expecting different results and that for me is a definition of insanity now too often so many of you you know have sold your votes for short-term gains the money that is paid for that vote is not a deposit for your future prosperity because short-term thinking like that would never solve any of our problems taking the money and not voting at all is not even better but our greatest weapon against making the same mistakes in the past is knowledge learn all that you can about these candidates I always say this they can tell you whatever you want to hear but do your own digging you will be making a more informed decision I am Mary Anna Cohn have a good evening