Pictures Don’t Lie: Abuja Municipal, Bwari Federal Constituency, And The Dangers Of Vote Buying -By Omagbitse Barrow

1) In the 2015 elections, the winner of the House Of Reps Seat In Abuja only got about 77,000 votes. Till now, I have not met anyone who lives in The most urban parts of AMAC that actually voted in that election. So, where did the 77,000 votes come from, and why such a small number?

2) It can be deduced that most of the votes in HOR elections always come from the most rural areas in Abuja where vote buying and results manipulation can be done with impunity – there is no GSM service for example in Shere, IGU and KAWU, so your polling unit agents cannot report any malpractice that takes place.

3) Once I was told by a merchant of politics in Orozo that he can arrange 100,000 voters for me, if I was ready to pay. Well, there are only 30,000 registered voters in Orozo.

4) People in the more rural and semi-urban wards believe that they are the ones who determine elections – clearly not because they are more in number, but because they are the ones who actually go out to vote, and perhaps there is so much mail-reactive in those areas that goes unchecked.

5) The truth, there are more people in the more urban areas than there are in the more rural areas. AMAC is more than twice larger than Bwari – numbers do not lie

6) The people in the city who actually are higher in number have prior to 2019, hardly voted in HOR elections or voted at all. They complain and whine a lot, but have never really organized themselves to stand behind forward-thinking candidates.

7) The so called popular political parties have been winning elections in the last 20 years without ever getting votes from the largest population of FCT residents. It is wrong – the minority determining the future of the majority

8) The word on the streets is that vote buying, cheap inducements and result manipulation in the more rural areas has been the order of the day in years past. Whereas in the more urban areas, these things cannot happen, but who cares – the city slickers do not vote.

9) Unfortunately, when cheap inducements, cheating and violence are the basis for election victory, it is no surprise the quality of governance that we get and will continue to get if you English speaking folks in GARKI, WUSE, CITY CENTER, GWARINPA, USUMA and KABUSA leave voting to the more vulnerable people who are easily manipulated. These 6 urban wards are bigger than all the wards in Bwari.

10) If you want better Governance from 2019, then the majority of people must get behind forward-thinking candidates from political parties that eschew god-fatherism, vote-buying, violence and manipulation.

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