Anambra 2021: TMG Urges INEC To End Vote Buying, Improve Equipment

A civil society election observation group, the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, on Wednesday charged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to end vote buying and improve its equipment for proper election conduction.

TMG also specially called for the improvement of the Biometric Voters Accreditation System (BVAS), a new technology introduced by INEC to curb election rigging and ease voting process.

The group also called on the leadership of the security agencies to investigate and charge to court all security operatives who engaged in violation of human rights and gross misconduct during the election.

The group was reacting to the conduct of the Anambra Governorship Election which finished less than 24 hours ago, an election won by Mr Charles Soludo of the All Progressive Grand Alliance.

The Chairman of the group, Comrade Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, speaking on the conduct of the election noted that the pre-election season which witnessed a lot of violence that marred campaign rallies of the various parties in parts of the state, eventually led to low voter turn out, an omen he said was bad for “our democracy”.

He said, “The stand of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the strong presence of security operatives had an effect on how voters came out to exercise their franchise.”

The group further tasked the government to stand up to the challenges of insecurity in the country, so that the 2023 election will not witness voters’ apathy, as was the case in Anambra.

While observing that vote-buying was the business of the day during the governorship poll, Rafsanjani pointed out that, “Voters were seen selling their votes for as low as N2000. In some cases, the security operatives looked away while vote buying was going on at some polling units.”

He, however, commended residents of Ebenebe Community, Awka North, particularly women for publicly resisting vote buying in their polling units, urging “Nigerians to emulate the sterling example demonstrated by these heroines of the elections.”

Comrade Rafsanjani who doubles as Chairman Board of Trustees of Amnesty International Nigeria, Head of Transparency International Nigeria and Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, expressed dismay concerning the protest staged by police personnel over the non-payment of their allowances for the election.

He however, appealed to government and leadership of security agencies to make sure that the allowances of security personnel were duly paid before elections, to prevent them from compromising their responsibilities on election days.

He said: “Once you deprive security operatives of their allowances during an electoral period, they are high chances that they will be forced to be corrupt in order for them to survive.”

Similarly, the Vice Chairman of the Group, Mrs. Miriam Menkiti, however, lamented the poor functioning of the BVAM and Card Readers during the exercise, which frustrated voters across the 21 local government areas of the state.

She said, “It is shocking that despite the consistent statement by INEC that the card readers were all set for the elections, we still witnessed a high rate of poor connection of the BVAM in various part of the state.

“TMG appeals to INEC to live up to the task of providing smooth elections for Nigerians in the 2023 general elections which will be cumbersome and overstretch the electoral empire,” she said.