The Youth Society for the prevention of Infectious Diseases and Social Vices (YOSPIS) has praised the newly introduced Naira policy in Nigeria for hugely discouraging vote buying in the just concluded presidential elections.
The Executive Director of YOSPIS, Zainab Nasir Ahmad revealed its observations on Thursday while addressing journalists in Kano.
Zainab also said YOSPIS received recommendations from its election situation room, praising the government for not interfering with, or intimidating the voters in the choice of political parties to vote for.
“The presidential election is one of the cleanest elections in which money didn’t play a vital role in influencing and diverting voters’s choice.
“The incumbent government from what we observed and what was reported did not interfere and intimidate the voters to vote their parties.
“Vote buying was hugely reduced, due to the new Naira policy implemented by the Federal Government.
However, YOSPIS observed that there were cancellations, overvoting and patches of violence in no fewer than eight local governments in Kano. It also observed that the turnout of voters was lower than the earlier elections of 2015 and 2019.
It therefore made recommendations to better the output of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in subsequent elections.
“INEC should address the high level of technical problems of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
“We call on anti graft agencies to recruit volunteers within our respective communities to address the issue of vote buying and corruption.
“INEC should make sure that election logistics are intact before departing to polling units” among other recommendations.
