Under the auspices of Advocacy for Good Ethics and Accountability for Development, a civil society organization has urged politicians to avoid vote buying and focus on issues that would attract voters.
Comrade Henry Thomas, the organization’s executive director, made this statement in Abuja during a program to educate the public titled: “Vote in Peace.”
Thomas, who urged electorates to vote based on competence of the candidates, explained that it was wrong for politicians to prioritize vote-buying at the expense of quality representation.
“Vote buying is caused by bad leadership, and when people lack resources to their demands such as good roads, hospitals, education, and most importantly hunger because when people are hungry they have no other choice than to sell their votes to survive.
“If you are selling your vote, you are worsening the situation because every electoral year is an opportunity for us to bring what is on the table and also look at the various people contesting what they have to bring to the table. We should go beyond ethnicity, religions, and other sentiments attached to voting,” Thomas said.
