Owasanoye stated this in Keffi, Nasarawa State at the National Policy Dialogue on Eradicating Electoral Corruption with focus on votes buying and selling. He argued that in the Nigerian environment where defence counsel could raise objections anytime a prosecutor breathes, objections to prosecution of electoral offences by any agency other than the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a clear and present danger. “These and other challenges bring to the fore the imperative of policy and strategies for cleansing the electoral process in Nigeria and devolution of enforcement machinery under the Electoral Act 2010,” he said. “INEC has said a separate framework should be formulated to deal with this, but we don’t want to have it because we cannot deal with it,” he stated. Speaking, Director, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Idayat Hassan, alleged that the security votes allocated to political office holders were used for votes buying during election.

Source: The Guardian April 20, 2019 03:56 UTC