Political parties and their followers have been telling Osun voters since April benefits they would gain if they vote a particular candidate on July 16, 2022. The two months of intense campaigning on digital platforms and in different parts of the state show that the political actors’ priorities were very different from what the voters wanted parties and candidates to talk about or address. This is the main finding from the continuing monitoring of the election campaign by our analyst and his colleagues at Positive Agenda Nigeria.

Because of the failure to address pressing demands and difficulties in the state, some voters are likely to abstain from voting for both the ruling party (APC) and the main opposition party (PDP). According to PAN’s week 8 assessment, parties and candidates are focusing more on personal attacks than on topics. Consequently, voters are thinking about avoiding the two parties.

PAN detected discussion of vote buying by political actors on traditional and new media as well as during campaign rallies as the critical danger to reliable polls on July 16. In order to examine how voters believe vote buying and selling occurred during the 2018 governorship election in the state and ongoing tactics being used by the perpetrators prior to the July 16 election, this piece relies on the preliminary results of the survey component of the PAN’s campaign monitoring project.

Trust as an Elusive Commodity

The Positive Agenda Nigeria asked Osun voters whether they trusted politicians and other people because a lack of trust in the political elites has been the main issue in Nigeria since 1999 that the country returned to democratic governance. According to analysis, the majority of the 262 electorate who took part in the study trust their relatives more than they do their neighbors, fellow ethnics, people from other ethnic groups, and work colleagues. More than 50% have no trust in politicians at all, and 32.06% feel the same way about party representatives. Our analyst notes from these results that voters are more inclined than other stakeholders to believe that their relatives won’t participate in vote buying. Additionally, it shows that Osun voters, like those in the rest of the country, think that political parties and politicians won’t keep their campaign pledges.

Vote Buying and Selling Patterns

PAN returned the sampled electorate to the state’s 2018 governorship race in order to learn more about how players engage in vote buying and selling. It was found that 35.11% and 24.80% of the electorate received money from political parties and candidates, respectively, while 38.54% collected money from party representatives. Additionally, more than 40% reported receiving food supplies before the election. More than 75% of the electorate observed that voters received gifts from political parties in order to vote their candidates. Only 51.10% of respondents claimed that voters had actually accepted gifts from campaign officials prior to the 2018 governor’s race. For the current election, these outcomes stay unchanged. The majority claimed that political figures had contacted them with various incentives, particularly the provision of food items such as bread, beans among others.

Strategies for Buying and Selling Vote

In addition to using first-person strategy as the second strategy to identify the sampled electorate’s selling of their vote, the first-person strategy was used to discover that 56.87% of the electorate reported receiving money or gifts from political parties to persuade them to vote for the parties’ candidates. In addition, 57.63% of the electorate said they knew persons who had their votes offered for sale. Overall, more than 54% of the electorate claimed that party officials solely gave money to voters throughout the election. Who offers electorate money most? The PAN further investigated this result and found that vote purchasers identified by the sampled electorate included ward party youth leaders (56.87%), the ward party chair (55.72%), ward party candidates (46.94%), fellow voters (45.03%), and family members (35.49%). When comparing these results to the prior results, our analyst observes that it is clear that the electorate’s lack of trust in politicians showed up in their selection of important vote-buyers during the 2018 governorship race. With less than 12 days until the 2022 election, our analyst observes that there is a trend for vote buyers to purchase votes at houses and polling places in the order of the electorate’s preference.

The Great (In)decision

It is obvious that some voters received financial rewards or tangible benefits during the 2018 election. Can we argue that the majority, though, altered their minds about whether to support the politician from whom they received gifts or not? PAN investigated this using a second-person approach by posing the following question to a sampled electorate: Did any voter discuss with you that he or she changed his or her decision by supporting the candidate from whom he or she received no funding? 33.60% of respondents chose yes, while more than 43.0% disagreed. In contrast, 53.80% of electorate claimed that some voters admitted to them that they voted candidates based on the money they had received. Making such decision could be linked with the fact that most party representatives asked the voters to pledge that they would vote the candidate who gave them money, PAN’s analysis reveals.

Our analyst spoke with a few social commentators and public affairs analysts in order to elucidate potential enabling factors for selling votes. These analysts collectively hinted that voters accepted money and materials from politicians because of the challenging economic conditions that predominate during election periods and the failure of the candidates to keep their campaign promises. Results from the PAN show that the bad economy appears to be in line with the fewer than 50% of voters who stated that their households were doing better before the 2018 governorship election, while 41.60% stated that their households’ living standards were the same with every other household in the state. Less than 40% of electorate said that, three years prior to the 2018 election, their family’s quality of life had significantly improved.

The PAN’s findings, which show that more than 90% of the sampled electorate are willing to return favour to anyone who aided them, assist us understand accepting cash and material rewards. Regarding this, our analyst points out that voters who received incentives are more likely to support the party and the candidate who made the gesture to them. Only 30.6% of voters are likely to vote against the party and the candidate if they believe that they have suffered economic hardship as a result of politicians’ failure to keep their campaign pledges.

Strategic Options

Concerned stakeholders should investigate the conclusions from this article as the election in 2022 approaches. The pattern of buying votes reported by the electorate should be carefully examined by the Independent National Electoral Commission, security agencies, and organizations in charge of controlling financial crime in order to develop an intelligence gathering tool for the arrest and prosecution of offenders. For instance, it is imperative to carefully observe major party figures at the ward level both before and during the election. This is required since it has come to light that parties and candidates are using ward-level youth leaders, chairs and candidates to buy votes.