2023 Elections: Here’s what the law says about vote selling, buying and number of years offenders may spend in jail
Ahead of the 2023 general elections scheduled to hold on February 25, 2023, for the Presidential and National Assembly and on March 11, 2023, for the Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly elections, some Nigerians believe the hard times being faced by Nigerians over the fuel and Naira notes scarcity will likely give room for vote buying on the election day.
In October 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN) announced that the country’s higher denominations; ₦200, ₦500, and ₦1000, will be redesigned. However, after the new notes were launched by President Buhari on November 23, 2022, access to the newly designed notes has proved difficult for ordinary Nigerians, putting a strain on businesses across the country. The worrying hard times cost by the unavailability of cash is compounded by fuel scarcity which has lingered for over three months.
With 133 million people living in multidimensional poverty according to the National Bureau of Statistics, vote buying is a major concern in Nigeria and has become some of the identified electoral malpractices indulged by over-zealous politicians.
Before the introduction of the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) in 2015, reports of ballot snatching on election day were widespread but there appears to be a notable decline in ballot box snatching and an increase in vote buying/selling as witnessed in the 2019 general elections and some recent by-elections.
In 2022 during the Osun State gubernatorial election, the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested four persons for alleged vote-buying. While they risk two years in prison or a fine of ₦500,000 for offering monetary gifts to voters “in order to induce them to procure the return of Adegboyega Oyetola to an elective office of Governor of Osun State,” vote-selling is equally a punishable offence. With the heightened financial difficulties as a result of CBN’s naira redesign policy, electorates might likely trade their votes for money to cushion their immediate living conditions.
NOIPolls, in a recent survey, found that 45 per cent of respondents will accept money from politicians or their agents in the 2023 elections. In a country where 82 million live on less than $1 a day, it is not surprising that almost 3 in 10 Nigerians are likely to sell their vote to politicians in the coming election.
Chatham House, a world-leading policy institute based in the UK, correlated NOIPolls findings that poverty is one of the major reasons Nigerians sell their votes. Low-income earners are much more likely to sell their votes than middle or high-income earners. In their research on Vote-selling Behaviour and Democratic Dissatisfaction in Nigeria, more than 45 per cent of the respondents in Sokoto, one of Nigeria’s poorest States, agreed that people should sell their votes for money or other gifts, “possibly reflecting the relatively severe economic realities of most constituents in Sokoto.”
However, despite the widespread poverty, penalties for selling one’s vote during elections in Nigeria can be severe, ranging from fines to imprisonment. According to section 22 of the 2022 Electoral Act, individuals convicted of vote-selling can face fines of up to ₦500,000 or a maximum prison sentence of two years or both.
The law states: “Any person who sells or attempts to sell or offers to sell any voter’s card whether issued in the name of any voter or not commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not more than ₦500,000 or imprisonment not more than two years or both.”
Vote-selling compromises the integrity of elections and undermines the democratic process. By agreeing to sell your vote, an individual has aided political parties and candidates in the manipulation of election results, which can lead to the election of officials who do not truly reflect the will of the people.
