The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has noted how money politics is threatening Nigeria’s democracy.
Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC Chairman during an event organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) in Abuja on Wednesday, May 25, alerted
that they are facing challenges of insecurity, fake news, and money politics ahead of the 2023 general elections.
“My third area of concern is the influence of money on politics and is becoming more present and the risk is that ours may soon become a plutocracy for the rich rather than a democracy for the people.
The way money is exchanging hands is a source of concern, yes, we have collaboration with ICPC and the EFCC and only recently we renewed our collaboration with the EFCC, saying that we are going to do something together.
However, there are two dimensions to it, when you have willing connectors it becomes a bit more difficult to contain the situation.
On the one hand, you have brilliant examples, we all saw this on the social media in Anambra when there was an attempt to bribe voters and the women refused to accept the money and voted their conscience.”
Yakubu added that they’ve been meeting with security agencies to address the issue of insecurity.
Also, he affirmed that the commission would try as much as possible to be transparent during the elections and to avoid fake information.
