A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dr. Ibrahim Mani, has alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) engaged in more vote buying than any other political party during the recent by-elections.
Speaking on Trust TV, Dr. Mani said his party monitored polling units in different states and observed widespread voter inducement, with the ruling party being the major beneficiary.
“In most of the places we monitored, it was the ruling party that benefited more from vote buying. And in Kano, the ruling party in the state also bought votes,” he said.
According to him, the practice was possible because politicians had weaponized poverty and deliberately impoverished citizens to make them easy targets during elections.
“And what we have seen as a clear indication of what a government can achieve if they made poverty to be this widespread and rampant in a country.
“They have so impoverished the people to the extent that the end game is to use this poverty against them and then bring out money to induce voters during elections,” Mani explained.
He claimed that in some polling units, voters were given as much as ₦20,000 each.
“At least now there is a little improvement from the last elections, where they were just giving spaghetti and macaroni. In some instances, they are now giving as much as ₦20,000 per voter,” he added.
The ADC chieftain, however, said his party was still in the process of building its structures and testing its strength.
He noted that participating in the elections gave them firsthand insight into the electoral process.
“We are still rolling out structures, mobilising and creating an environment that will make Nigerians have confidence in the electoral system. For us, these by-elections were about testing the waters.
If we didn’t participate in the elections, I wouldn’t be sitting here and talking about what we have observed. What we saw is a clear indication of what a government can achieve if it deliberately spreads poverty to make people vulnerable,” he said.
