Congratulations to the governor-elect of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi. I sincerely hope he will use the opportunity the next four years presents, to restore dignity to a once prideful people and build an enduring legacy. The vote buying in the recent Ekiti State gubernatorial election of July 14, 2018 by both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) is very shameful. It is a clientilist jujitsu that contextualises our failings. For those who think beyond the urgency of Nigeria’s current political chess game, for those who think beyond the shaku-rity (the deployment of banal music at rallies, instead of manifestoes) of political rallies and political ideology, it is an ugly development. What started as the distribution of food, clothing and party memorabilia has graduated into offers of money dubbed as, “vote and fill your soup pot.”
On Saturday in Ekiti State, voters were heavily induced by both political parties. Before handing out the money, voters were required to prove that they voted for the candidate on offer. They were asked to show the thumb printed ballot or show them a picture of the ballot taken with their cellphone cameras. The lessons learnt in the Ondo and Ekiti elections is that the poor are targeted to sell their votes. Apart from socio-economic factors, elections in these two states show strong indications that vote buying is a feature of tight elections, while non-monetary offers such as food and clothing is more common when the population tilts overwhelmingly towards a candidate. My take away from the elections is that our politicians are more sophisticated than we give them credit for. They are very smart people. Our underdevelopment and bad governance is a deliberate strategy. It is all part of a grand design of clientelism and patronage. The political elite prefers a system of dependency and loyalty punctuated by election time handouts.
The hunger for power is the reason why politicians buy votes. The lure of power is intoxicating. Politicians fight for power because of the influence and control they will wield over others and as a way to fame and fortune. For what it is worth, we the people, are losers in this game. Why? Politicians who buy votes have no sense of responsibility and accountability. Senator Olujimi of Ekiti State once said she owed no one her position because she paid for it. That is true, unfortunately. She is right because there are distributional consequences when votes are traded for money. A people who sold their votes may receive no post-election government benefits and what moral ground do they have to question their leaders? Do we wonder why the vote buying politicians often renege on campaign promises, which in turn leads to underperformance of their political parties? The answer is in the transactional nature of our politics. It is the reason why we are stuck in clientilist politics and a hinderance to the emergence of programmatic forms of electoral competition.
In politics, a candidate’s popularity is not enough to win. Money plays a major role in deciding the chances of winnning. In Nigeria, whose money? Elections are mostly financed with public resources that are meant for the provision of public goods. In other cases, it is financed by godfathers and contractors who exchange their monies for access and juicy contracts. The Ekiti election has revealed to all that the South-West has succeeded in squandering the legacies of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in a little over a generation. It shows a regional failure in education, a systemic loss of values and a pointer to endemic poverty. Our political system has become more corrupted and the mentality and attitudes of the electorate debased. Vote buying has become institutionalised in our political system, as voters themselves flock to politicians asking for money to pay school fees, sponsor weddings and naming ceremonies, embark on pilgrimages and to avail them employment slots. The political elite understands and exploits our peculiarities and hardships. The majority of Nigerians are poor. With limited opportunities, little or no education or skills, and diminished means of livelihood, they resign to taking handouts.
On another thought, is vote buying and vote selling as asymmetrical as we think? We often see it as an economic transaction between those who sell their future and those who buy them in the hope of regaining their investments when they get into power. However, for the working poor, elections times are when they get a measure of equality as their powerful patrons come begging with money for votes. Sadly, there is a socioeconomic dimension to this democratic tragedy. In Ondo and Ekiti States, as it is in the country, the population of the lower class is greater than the population of the middle and upper middle classes combined. Wisely, the politicians focus their strategy on those in the majority – the socio-economic classes that are financially challenged. Since numbers is destiny in politics, their campaign is laser-focused on them. For people in higher socio-economic classes, education makes it possible to see vote buying as an immoral behaviour. Without education and with grinding poverty, it is not surprising that the working poor see funds from vote buying as “free” money. Many see the offer as an opportunity to get their share of the money stolen by the politicians. Either way, we are all losers in robbing our children’s piggy bank.
The Ekiti gubernatorial election and the Ondo one before it has shown that a single vote can cost N4,000 to N5,000. The way out of this shame is to fight to protect each vote with voter education. Redemption from cash-and-carry votes is in the hands of the elites and those who pauperise the lowly. Unfortunately for all of us, each vote costs a lot more! Individually, in our communities, we must engage the needy and the greedy among us; that the real value of every vote is our future, the future of our families, our communities and ultimate our country. This trend must be killed, it must not be allowed to live. If we must reform our electoral process, every effort must be directed to the smallest unit in our community, which is the family. Parents and influencers should inculcate the values of integrity, honesty and transparency. Change must begin with each one of us. To everyone, we must stress the right to vote a candidate we believe in, a candidate who represents our values and someone who represents our interest. We must emphasise voting as a basic human right. Selling our votes, is allowing that fundamental right to be violated. Every election is either a corfirmation or a change. We must not tolerate this atrocious practice of exchanging votes for money. It corrodes the idea of representation and it is destructive to our democracy.