How Politicians Are Copying Wike's Strategy To Beat Naira Scarcity & INEC's BVAS - Media Source
Amid palpable tension in the country's political landscape occasioned by the contentious naira redesign initiated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as well as the newly signed Electoral Act being implemented by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the general elections, a media source has come out to reveal how politicians have begun to draw inspiration from the unconventional strategy that was recently deployed by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike to secure victory for his party in the state.
According to a report by The VANGUARD, the source, who happens to be a top leader in a major political party, revealed that INEC's introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has forced his party to deploy Wike's strategy in which he appointed 200,000 political aides at once, adding that they are doing it on a much larger scale.
He said; "Wike appointed two hundred thousand aides, we are doing a similar thing but on a larger scale. We mobilized over 1 million people for voter registration and ensured they got their Permanent Voters Cards (PVC). The 2023 elections will be different from the past because of the BVAS and the redesigning of the naira. In the past, an officer in charge of some polling units in a Ward may be given five hundred thousand or one million naira. From the money, he will take care of agents and INEC officials and we will take charge of the process.
With BVAS, things have changed. But we are politicians and we know how to play the game. We have mobilized real people, real voters, up to one million in some Local Government Areas. We have started giving them allowances of 10,000 naira every month and it will continue till the end of the election. We transfer the money into their bank accounts."
On the issue of the naira redesign policy, the source pointed out that though politicians will be seriously affected, he believes, however, that voters will be affected more due to the hardship and desperation created by the scarcity. According to him, in the past when as much as 5000 to 20,000 naira may have been required to buy votes from an opposition stronghold, the currency scarcity may force some electorate to sell their votes for as low as 1000.
