Naira crisis may worsen vote buying – CODE

The Connected Development (CODE) has said that the lingering cash crunch occasioned by the naira redesign and swap policy may worsen vote buying and make this year’s February 25, and March 11, general elections “transactional polls”.  The Chief Executive of CODE, Malam Hamzat Lawal, said this on Wednesday at the formal launch of an Election […]

The Connected Development (CODE) has said that the lingering cash crunch occasioned by the naira redesign and swap policy may worsen vote buying and make this year’s February 25, and March 11, general elections “transactional polls”.

 The Chief Executive of CODE, Malam Hamzat Lawal, said this on Wednesday at the formal launch of an Election Intelligence (EI) platform, “Uzabe”, and a pre-election security assessment report titled: “Same Currency for Violence: Troubling Elections”.

 He said, “The coming elections may be worse in terms of monetisation and can lead to them being transactional elections as the naira crisis may be exploited by politicians and voters made to sell their votes due to the current cash crunch in the country ahead of the elections.”

He further said that the launch of the pre-election security assessment and electoral intelligence technology was to uphold the integrity of the elections.

The event also witnessed a “drive meeting” of collaboration between CSOs and the media for election coverage.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was later signed between CODE and media organisations to facilitate collaborative efforts towards tackling fake news, misinformation and disinformation that have the potential to significantly impact the elections