Foundation wants N/Assembly to legislate against vote buying

CLEEN Foundation has urged the National Assembly to pass legislations against vote buying as part of measures to ensure the success of the off-cycles and the 2023 general elections in the country. The chairman, board of directors of the foundation, Prof Etannibi Alemika, made the call on Wednesday in Abuja at the formal presentation of […]

CLEEN Foundation has urged the National Assembly to pass legislations against vote buying as part of measures to ensure the success of the off-cycles and the 2023 general elections in the country.

The chairman, board of directors of the foundation, Prof Etannibi Alemika, made the call on Wednesday in Abuja at the formal presentation of the 68-page “Report of the 2019 General Elections in Nigeria”.

According to him, vote trading is a serious electoral fraud which deserves special punitive measures, same for persons engaged in electoral violence.

He said all electoral offenders in the just concluded 2019 general elections should also be brought to book, including security personnel, to serve as deterrent to potential electoral offenders in the future elections.

He explained that the foundation’s mandate in monitoring elections in the country was largely in the areas of the conduct of security personnel.

“We recommended that oversight agencies should enforce their mandate in the areas of discipline of security actors for professional misconduct on election duties,” Alemika said.

On his part, the Executive Director CLEEN Foundation, Dr. Benson Olugbuo, expressed worry over election violence witnessed in the just concluded 2019 elections.

He urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve on the process of collection of the permanent voters’ card (PVC) to reduce the challenges encountered in the collection of same in the build up to the 2019 general elections to the barest minimum.