The Menace of Vote Buying and Selling in Nigeria and Ways Forward
This article presents an in depth analysis of the Menace of vote buying and selling in Nigeria and ways forward. It is a product of deep socio political and socio economic analysis based on personal experience, sample opinions across quarters and observation of the trend. The paper identified that the occurrence of vote buying is understood as incentives or gifts given to voters before elections in exchange of their votes. Vote buying is rarely an isolated action and it perpetuates corruption throughout the entire political system. One of the major consequences of vote buying and selling is that it pave ways for the wrong persons get the job and get the works done wrongly, causes series of loss, disruption of the economy and harmony of a community or country. The paper recommends that to nip this menace there must be strict rules and laws for offences of electoral malpractices. Voters' education and reforms in the infrastructure and resource in the election process.