The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has raised an alarm about money politics threatening Nigeria’s democracy.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu who spoke at an event organized 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, disclosed that some of the challenges they are facing ahead of the 2023 general election are insecurity, fake news, and money politics.
He said;
“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.”
Asides from revealing that they’ve been meeting with security agencies to address the issue of insecurity, Mahmood also said the commission would try as much as possible to be transparent during the elections in order not to give room for fake news.
