ICPC partners INEC to stop vote-buying

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences
Commission on Tuesday said it was working in collaboration with the
Independent National Electoral Commission and an international body
to stop vote-buying ahead of the forthcoming general elections.

The commission’s spokesperson, Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa, disclosed
this in Abuja during an anti-corruption essay competition organised
by the ICPC and Youth Alive Foundation.

Okoduwa, who represented the commission’s acting chairman, Musa
Abubakar, said INEC and ICPC had evolved strategies that would deal
with peddlers and buyers of votes during the elections.

She said the Department for International Development was also
sponsoring a similar campaign.

She said, “ICPC continues to march forward in its three-pronged
mandate of enforcement of the law, corruption prevention which is
also system study and review of corruption-prone system in
government organisations, and public education and mobilisation
against corruption.

“Part of the project that DFID sponsors is the campaign against
vote-buying and selling.

“ICPC does not support this crime and we already having a robust
collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission so
that we do not allow this to go unpunished.

“Through the collaboration with INEC, we assured it that we will
be looking out for issues of electoral malpractices especially with
respect to vote-buying and selling.

“Buying and selling of votes during election is bribery and the
Nigerian law is against such practice. Also, the electoral law does
not accept it; it sees it as an offence. ICPC and INEC will check
the practice in the coming elections.”