Election: Don’t sell your votes, group advises Plateau residents

By Polycarp Auta

The Plateau Peace and Mediation Working Committee has advised the residents of the state not to sell their votes during the forthcoming Governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state.

The committee which was inaugurated on Feb. 16, through its Chairman, Dr Dinshak Dajahar, gave the advice in a press conference on Wednesday in Jos.

Dajahar said that the committee had moved round communities in the 17 local government areas of the state and sensitised stakeholders against electoral violence and other electoral malpractices.

“As a build up to the presidential elections, we have reached out to not less than 255 stakeholders in all the local government areas.

“In the engagements, issue of vote buying came up in almost all the communities, with denial of campaign grounds for opposition parties by the ruling party and recruitment of thugs, among others.

“This is why we are calling on the people to resist buying or selling of votes; no politician who is aspiring to provide governance will want to buy votes from you”, he said.

Dajahar said every electorate should know that politicians have their own interest which is to win elections and achieve their life time ambition.

“Therefore, electorate should not allow themselves to be used to further this ambition but ensure they provide good governance and provide environment that will make them flourish,” he said.

Dajahar, who commended the residents of the state for conducting themselves peacefully during the last presidential election, advised them to do same in the forthcoming polls.

He called on politicians, religious and community leaders to desist from making offensive political utterances capable of throwing the state into chaos.

He also advised them to also caution their followers to stay away from electoral violence.

The chairman also called on the media to resist the temptation of doing the bidding of the politicians, but report happenings objectively and in a professional manner.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee is a brainchild of an NGO, Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse (YIAVHA) under its project” Violence Monitoring and Mitigation.”

It aimed at ensuring peaceful elections in the country.

The NGO constituted a seven-man Peace and Mediation Committee to stave off electoral violence and ensure peaceful and credible polls in the general polls in Plateau.

The project currently ongoing across the six geo-political zones of the country is in partnership with Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), International Republic Institute (IRI) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

(NAN)