Mahmood Yakubu, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) chairman, has advocated against the practice of purchasing votes in party primaries.
According to reports, Professor Yakubu said the practice was demonic and undermined democracy.
This was said on Tuesday in Abuja at the Commission’s first Regular Consultative Meeting with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for 2025.
The chair of INEC urged CSOs to keep an eye on party politics, especially the primary elections.
Yakubu also praised the CSOs for their assessments of INEC’s election-related behavior and recommendations for improving the nation’s electoral transparency.
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He said: “I want to encourage civil society organizations to take an equal interest in party primaries as you do in actively observing INEC’s secondary elections. After all, on election day, voters may only select the candidates whom the political parties have nominated.
You have continuously voiced concerns about vote-buying at polling places during elections, according to your monitoring reports as authorized election observers.
“The Commission has taken into consideration some of your practical suggestions for reducing the threat. Now is the moment to broaden your scope by concentrating on the prevalence of hopefuls purchasing delegate seats during primaries.
During party primaries, some delegates publicly boasted about the large sums of money they had earned from candidates. You ought to step up your efforts to support the sensible actions that the appropriate law enforcement and security organizations are taking to combat this evil conduct.
