Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African
Action Congress (AAC), says “election finance” laws must be enforced to tackle
the issue of vote-buying in Nigeria.
The activist spoke on Thursday when he appeared on
#FixPolitics Dialogue titled ‘Cash or Ballot: What Should Be the Currency of
Democracy’, aired on AIT.
Sowore said the problem of money politics will persist if
laws addressing the issue are not enforced or are only targeted at “poor
politicians”, while “powerful ones” are spared.
“There should be election finance laws. We need them to be
enforced because majorly, we have laws that are not enforced or enforced with
poor people and not enforced with the powerful, rich people in the political
scene,” he said.
The AAC presidential candidate also described election day
in Nigeria as “a day for verification of poverty”.
According to him, mainstream political parties already know
how to use the currency of manipulation against the populace.
“Election dialogue day in Nigeria has become a day for
verification of poverty. Election day in Nigeria has become a day for verification,
that’s why we call the PVC, the poverty verification card in Nigeria,” he
added.
“The reason is
simple. It’s not just about cash and ballots, there are lots of factors
involved in making Nigeria’s election the way it is.
“Nobody is talking about security agencies. Mike did mention
election managers — the mainstream politicians have perfected how to take care
of every stage from primaries to the final election, so the real currency is
manipulation — manipulation of people’s minds.
“In fact, most of the people that are expecting cash don’t
get it so they create expectation fantasy that the cash is on its way, and they
never got it and those who got the cash, it never lasted them for a week.
“In terms of money, those of us who are not mainstream, the
way we manage our affairs is through ideas, because that should ordinarily be
the currency of the democratic process in Nigeria. People have ideas to protect
them, defend them. So, we try very hard to spread ideas and it’s very difficult.
“In terms of how much
money is needed, my experience in 2019 is that if you have great ideas, you
don’t need too much money. People actually listen to ideas but the problem is
on the day of voting, can you take ideas to the polling unit and vote based on
the ideas you were told or the money or the violence? That’s why a lot of
people don’t vote.”
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