Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that any politician deploying vote buying and violence during elections is no different from an armed robber and con man.
Jonathan said this on Saturday while briefing journalists after casting his vote at Unit 39, Ward 13 in Otuoke, Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
“My wish for Nigeria is for us to conduct a peaceful election.
“For us who are politicians, our conduct matters a lot and I always tell politicians that yes, you can win the election through unorthodox means or not. Like using violence to win elections or buying votes and so on but when you do that, you are behaving like an armed robber or a con man.
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“Armed robber makes money through robbery, but everybody knows he is an armed robber. A con man makes money through deceiving people, but everybody knows. They are not decent members of society.
“Politicians are supposed to be decent members of society. So we must conduct our prayers clearly, and very creatively so that our supporters, relatives, and so on will know that politics is a clean business and allow people to vote who they want at any level of elections.
“My plea with the politicians, the security agencies, the INEC workers, is to do their best for the country. The whole world is looking at us,” Jonathan said.
The former president hailed the deployment of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), describing it as a significant improvement.
“I don’t think we’re moving backward. We may still have some technical problems. I am not expecting that the BVAS would work perfectly. But it is a significant improvement and that is an attempt to improve on the methodology.
“The only thing I request from INEC is that in terms of distributing materials, they should improve on that. It appears that they are using the same method to distribute materials,” Jonathan said.