Speed Up Prosecution Of Vote Buyers, Foundation Appeals To EFCC

Speed up the prosecution of vote buyers, to serve as deterrent to others who may want to do same in the future.

This is the plea on the lips of a group concerned with transparency in election conduct, and public office holding in the country.

It also commends the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for deployment of technology in the conduct of the election amidst hiccups though.

The Eagle reports that the Balm In Gilead Foundation for Sustainable Development (BIGIF) made these submissions in a statement at Ado Ekiti today reacting to the conduct of last Saturday’s presidential and Houses of Assembly elections.

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It said the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and other relevant institutions to step up efforts to deal with vote trading as a way of stemming the practice in future elections.

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Speaking its brainchild, the Case Tracking and Response Centre (CTRC) in the statement signed by Ms. Oluwatumininu Adedeji, the Executive Director, BIGIF (Convener -CTRC) it urged the EFCC to make to make public, progress made with the prosecution of people arrested for vote buying in previous elections.

It said, should the EFCC speed up the prosecution of vote buyers, that it would help to make future elections more credible.

Mentioning culprits during the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections in 2022, it added:

“This will serve as deterrence to others who may be nursing such evil thought. We are therefore calling for the full implementation of Section 22 of the electoral Act, 2022.

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“To the credit of INEC, election materials were swiftly sorted and deployed before the elections which also accounted for early commencement of polls.

“Transportation of election materials and ad hoc staff after vote sorting and counting to the ward level collation centers were largely marred with delays, thereby subjecting them to undue risks.

“Polling units decongestion, an exercise by INEC that relocated some voters to new polling units before the elections certainly led to some voters’ inability to vote as they were unable to identify their polling units before the end of the elections.

“The elections witnessed relatively low turnout owing to the impacts of economic crises, yet there was a good turnout for the elections generally as reported across the states”, it said.