Expert Lists Ways To Tackle Vote Buying

A university don with the state-owned Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IEOU), Dr Iwarimie Uranta says one way to curb the rising vote buying among the electorates is to sensitise the citizenry.
Dr Uranta who is an expert on political theory and development in the Department of Political Science opined that vote buying is becoming rampant because lots of the electorates are ignorant of the consequences of selling their voters card for money.
In addition, he was of the opinion that the rising poverty level was also responsible, as the citizenry see their PVCs as a means to survive the harsh economy.
Uranta lamented that the current electoral process is also exclusive, as a lot of people are disenfranchised politically due to high cost of campaigns and purchasing of nomination forms by the various political parties.
As a result of the high cost of purchasing nomination forms, the political scientist argued that many capable and potential aspirants were deliberately denied the chance to participate in the electoral process.
For him, such scenario only allows money bags and corrupt politicians to dominate the political space, which often lead to poor governance and oppression of the citizenry.
Further commenting on the ills of vote buying, the university don said the current situation breeds political distrust as “the people see it as a way to get something from the politicians, because when they get there they forget those who voted for them”.
In the light of this, he urged the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to double its effort in enlightening the populace on the ills of exchanging their voters cards for money.
He maintained that such campaigns should be directed at the rural poor who are majority, the ones that fall prey to corrupt politicians who compel them to sell their votes.
Uranta believed that once the people understand that selling their votes would further worsen their situation they would desist and use their votes positively to improve governance.