INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood YakubuTwitter
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has called for the criminalisation of vote-buying to stop the trend in the political system of the country.
National Electoral Commissioner in charge of South-West, Adedeji Soyebi, made the call in Abuja on Tuesday at the High-Level Post Election Roundtable on the 2018 Governorship Election in Ekiti state.
Soyebi said: “We need to work on people to stop selling their votes because it is their conscience they are selling; it means that money has become the determining factor of their choices.
“As a country, we need to think about this and find a solution to it, we need to start talking about it because the process made it difficult for INEC to really have a say.
“What happened in Ekiti State, if we are going to be very honest with ourselves is that, they did it so perfectly but very much distant from the polling units.
“Every form of vote-buying we are talking about is 80 percent or 100 percent- always takes place after the person has cast his votes.
“When we talk about vote-buying, we forget that it is the twin sister of vote-selling because there is no buying without selling.”
Soyebi stated that though INEC did a good job in conducting credible election in the Ekiti state, the only thing people remembered about the election was the issue of vote-buying.