2023 election: CYMS trains volunteers to track vote buying

Committee of Youth on Mobilization and Sensitization (CYMS), a renowned youth Organization has commenced training of volunteers who will be responsible for vote buying tracking and policing inorder to curb financial inducements during the general elections.

In his address at the occasion of the 2023 pre-election conference and training on Thursday in Abuja, the Director-General of the Organization, Chief Obinna Nwaka said his organisation will be collaborating with security agencies to ensure enforcement on offenders.

He said individuals caught in the act of vote buying will be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) through an official report for prosecution.

“We are reaffirming our support for the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the fight against corruption and also joining force with them to say NO to Vote – buying to avoid trading of our future, international embarrassment especially now the international community’s/foreign observes are on standby watching”, he added.

Chief Nwaka who commended Nigerian youths for the eagerness to participate in this year’s general election urged them to desist from all forms of unpatriotic and undemocratic activities.

“Looking at the demographic, age group and occupational registered voters of total 93,469,008 the youth between ages (18-34) is 39.65% with total number 37,060,399 while the ages between is 35-49 is 35.75% with total number of 33,413,591 now comparing to the present status quo of youth political description gives us the total number 70,473,990 which is equivalent to 75.40% votes of young people from the entire 90,469,008.

“We would like to commend the young people of this great country for their involvement in voters awareness programme, resilience in participation and PVC registration while urging them to use same energy to cast their votes in the forthcoming election, it is now obvious that young people shall never be taken for granted especially in democratic engagement, we are the true heroes of democracy.

“On the general elections, looking at the collective strength of the young people who are determinants of the election and also the instrument of carrying out unpatriotic and undemocratic activities by the politicians especially VOTE-BUYING, violence and thuggery following our collective voters strength, we have been charged and determined to be used only as the instrument of positive socio-economic development of our nation.

“While commending the presidential candidates for signing the peace accord, we wish to state categorically that we align ourselves with such and calls for integration of VOTE-BUYING into the next process with the participation of the EFCC to assist in reawakening the consciousness of office of the president, Federal republic of Nigeria since vote-buying form major reason for bad governance”.

Speaking on the Naira redesigned policy, Obinna said, “We have been following with keen interest the state of the nation as it affect everybody especially the new monetary policies introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the circumstances surrounding the naira redesign and activities of groups and political actors which has triggered reactions in many states.

“With all sense of patriotism, we commend President Muhammadu Buhari for this laudable initiative; although its not timely, the process of its implementation would have commenced a month after the general elections or better still four months before elections. We are aware of the good intention of the policy but the suffering in the rural areas, inability to assess cash, low patronage of petty business or traders is currently affecting the movement of people to exercise their civic responsibility as citizens (Nigerian currency is now invincible).

“The CBN should endeavour to make cash available for citizens through commercial banks rather than encouraging our busy security agencies to arrest the Point of Sale (POS) agents who are only taking advantage of scarcity of cash created by the same CBN, the experience is similar to what the fuel black markerters do during fuel scarcity, who do we blame?”.

A staff of the EFCC in the Public Affairs Department, Mrs Aisha Mohammed further stressed the need for collaboration in the fight against vote buying.

She stressed that vote buying is a crime and urge Nigerians to adhere to the rules during the elections and vote their conscience.