Nigeria: Blemishes and blessings in the elections

News and Press Release
Originally published
View original

JOS/KANO, 15 April 2011 (IRIN) - Analysts say the initial round of parliamentary elections, which began on 9 April, have been more transparent than the country's past three elections, which were marred by violence and irregularities, but nonetheless, evidence of candidates in some towns employing desperate measures, including vote-buying, has emerged.


Akibu Dalhatu of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a local group in Jigawa state that has been involved in election monitoring in Nigeria since 1999, told IRIN that when monitoring the polls: "I witnessed politicians [in villages in Jigawa] openly offering money to voters at polling stations to cast their votes in favour of their candidates and many voters took the money with the promise to vote for the politicians' candidates."

"Most of the voters approached were women who are mostly illiterate with no voter education and therefore more gullible to such offers," he told IRIN.

Politicians also went door-to-door offering food, soap, clothes and money to potential voters, residents of the northern city of Kano told IRIN. "I was offered a wax fabric and 500 naira [US$3.3] which I collected, but I voted for the candidate of my choice," Fatima Musa, a 35-year-old voter in Kano, told IRIN.

In previous elections, voters in northern Nigeria would often wear leaves on their heads to advertise that their vote was for sale, and would openly haggle with candidates' representatives over the price.

The practice is evidence of disillusionment with the elections' process. "After voting several times, and their electoral wishes have been flaunted through election rigging, many voters feel their votes do not count and will take money to vote," TMG director Festus Okoye told IRIN. "Coupled with excruciating poverty and illiteracy, these voters would readily part with their votes for some paltry financial gain."


"I have been voting since the 1960s during the first republic, but good leaders have deserted Nigeria since then, and now my vote is for sale... I'm ready to give my vote for 2,000 naira [$13] which is better than wasting my time in casting a vote that will not count."

Nick Dazen, spokesman for Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission, told IRIN: "We are aware that some people do sell their votes, but the electoral law doesn't empower us to sanction [punish] such people. The best we can do is to appeal to their patriotic instinct not to exchange their votes for money and ensure they vote for the right candidate."

More transparency

Despite irregularities in some cases, Nigerians are more engaged in this elections' process than they have been in previous years, said Nasir Abbas, a civil society activist with the Civil Rights Congress in the northern city of Kaduna.

"Procedurally, [elections in Nigeria] used to be an affair of thuggery. Street vagabonds were put in charge of this [rigging and intimidation] and a lot of upper class citizens didn't go out to vote. [But] the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) has been unpopular [in recent years] so now a lot of people are voting. Elites, the downtrodden... people are determined to have an upright process," said Abbas.



Presidential race


It is not beyond the ruling party to employ "all manner of tricks" if politicians feel their power could be taken by voters casting ballots against them in the upcoming polls, said Olaide.


