2019 Elections: Foundation urges Nigerians to shun vote buying

The Mike Omotosho Foundation on Monday urged Nigerians to imbibe the value of integrity and not to sell their vote in the forthcoming general elections.

The convener of the foundation, Dr Mike Omotosho, gave the advice at the 4th Mike Omotosho Annual Lecture in Abuja.

Omotosho said that Nigeria had seven core values of integrity which are: discipline, patriotism, self-reliance, social justice ,dignity of labour and religious cooperation, yet many people were not aware talk less of practising them.

“If we are able to live by the core values, the issues of poverty and food insecurity will be by-gone issues; even youths will have the courage to begin to understand that if they live by them, they will solve all the problems we have.

“Without the core values, the civil roles of people will not matter, if you talk about integrity it begins to convince you that you don’t need to sell your vote.

“You need to look for the rightful person who will be more patriotic to vote into power, so if you have the interest of the nation at heart then that will be paramount.”

Omotosho urged Nigerians to imbibe the core values so as to curb electoral irregularities like thuggery, vote buying and electoral violence during elections and everyone will cooperate for the nation.

He said that the lecture held annually to mark his birthday as a way of giving back to the society by addressing key issues and charting the way forward.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Mr Jimoh Moshood, said it was high time Nigerians inculcated the culture of the seven core values for a better Nigeria.

Moshood said that discipline which was one of the values was necessary because it was the key thing, adding that it would make people do only the right things.

He said that the police had the responsibility to protect the people, and that it was their duty to continue to cooperate with the police by being disciplined.

“Raffles and weapons don’t solve crimes, it is the culture of the people that do so; it is the culture of discipline that the police rely on to police the people because we police the people according to their culture.

“In Abuja for instance ,because there is a level of civilisation, the a policeman can effect the arrest of four people but in other parts of the country it takes four policemen to arrest one person so that is the situation,’’ he said.

Moshood said that there was need for traffic violators to be psychologically examined because of the way they misbehaved with impunity.

This, he said, was because driving was about discipline and safety, adding that when the culture of discipline was cultivated, Nigeria would be a better place.

Ustaz Adeyemi Abdul-Fattah urged Nigerians to have religious cooperation rather than tolerance, adding that the word tolerance made it sound that citizens were pain in each others’ necks.

Abdul-Fattah said that no religion should force another anyone to convert or believe in their own religious because Nigeria was a secular nation and should remain as such.

He urged Nigerians to respect and love one another and learn to have religious cooperation for the good of the nation.

Mr Hamzat Lawal, Convener, Connected Development, expressed the need to practice social justice in Nigeria.

Lawal said that when people were treated equally, there would not be grievances or crisis.

He also expressed the need to ensure that money given for projects reached the communities that it was budgeted for.

(NAN)