The Obidient movement has reacted to the just concluded by-election in the country, saying it’s painful that many Nigerians still sell their votes to highest bidder, while somehow expecting good governance in return.
The movement that supports Peter Obi, the 2023 Labour Party Presidential candidate, in a statement released by its National Coordinator, Dr.Yanusa Tanko said this shameful cycle must end, adding that elections are not supposed to be an auction block for politicians who loot the country’s national treasury.
The statement titled Cash And Carry Election reads: The by-elections of yesterday have come and gone, yet the painful reality remains that many Nigerians still sell their votes to the highest bidder, while somehow expecting good governance in return.
“Once again, our democracy was reduced to a cash-and-carry affair…. an open market where stolen public wealth is freely deployed to buy silence and compromise the will of the people.
“This shameful cycle must end. Elections are not supposed to be an auction block for politicians who loot our national treasury. Until we collectively say no to vote selling and buying with demand for accountability, those who plunder our commonwealth will continue to rule us without fear of reprimand.
“It is important to note that Peter obi will always say that those who buy vote are only buying their way to the treasury to steal public money they are not better than the killers, armed robbers and kidnappers because they are doing the same thing in different ways.
“And those who sell are selling the schools their children should have gone to and the hospitals that will take care of them and their families and the roads that would have worked for their access because those who buy the vote are only buying it to make profit from the seat.
“The message is clear: we are mortgaging the feature of the children living with NO JOBs and HUNGER in the land. if we keep trading our votes for peanuts we will have no country to call our own.
Meanwhile, it was reported that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) reasserted its dominance as it won an overwhelming majority of the seats at the legislative by-elections and re-run polls held on Saturday across 12 states of the Federation.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted by-elections and re-run polls to fill some vacant national and state legislative seats across 14 states, comprising a total of 7,324 polling units.
While the by-elections were held in 16 constituencies across 12 states of the country, two outstanding court-ordered re-run elections in Enugu South I state constituency of Enugu state and the Ghari/Tsanyawa state constituency in Kano state were also conducted.
The vacancies for the by-elections followed the deaths and resignations of lawmakers, while the re-run polls followed the earlier violent disruption of the exercise.
The results declared by INEC showed that the APC won in 12 constituencies, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) won in two, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in one, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) won in one.
