The Country Director of Action Aids Nigeria, Mrs Ene Obi has charged Nigerian youth to resist the attempt by the Political class to commercialize the electoral process through vote trading.

Mrs Obi was speaking at the opening of a two-day training for election observers ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State.

She told the gathering of more than 300 youths, that young persons occupied 62% of Nigeria population, hence they have sacred responsibility to partake in the process of shaping the electoral dynamics.

The civil society activist charged Nigerians youth to stand upright for Nigeria and for Osun state and be guided by their conscience in any of their Conduct.

Mrs Obi who is also the convener of the Civil society election situation room advised the trainee to collect their PVCs, vote and observe the election in their localities.

She described Osun Governorship election as a very significant one considering the fact that it is the last one-off cycle election to next year general elections.

” It is a very significant election because it is the last major election to the next general election. The improvement that we have we make lead us to handling it better for 2023. From Ekiti we want to see more improvement in functioning of the BVAs and other issues surrounding the election. We believe it’s very important”

In his own contribution, the Programme Manager in charge of Governance at the Action Aids Nigeria, Mr Celestine Okwusili explained that civil society groups in Nigeria were worried about the vote trading as witnessed in Ekiti State.

” Vote buying is like taking away the legitimacy of the process. It comes in different format. There was no issue of vote rigging or Election rigging, but people voted and people vote counted, but the question is the legitimacy of the process”.

Mr Okwusili said engagement was already ongoing with INEC and security agencies on how to tackle the menace of vote buying.

Adenitan akinola

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