Prof. Ephraim Avea Nsoh, founder of Teere, a Non-governmental Organization into local governance, is urging the media and Civil Society Organizations in Ghana to lead the campaign against vote buying.
He believes that a sustained campaign by the media and CSOs on the impact of voting buying on the economy and the country’s development will largely help in reducing attempts to induce voters.
Though Prof. Avea strongly believes the campaign will not immediately yield positive results, it would in the long run get many to understand the need to ensure they do not trade their votes for cash.
Apart from the call for a vigorous campaign for attitudinal change, he is equally calling for changes in the legal framework of the country to deal with the cancer.
“If the media, the CSOs come together and say we are going to fight this, we may not succeed immediately but with time people are going to understand. First of all, let’s deal with it internally within the parties but also let’s deal with it at certain level and then in terms of our cultural sense, if we begin to tell people what that does to people by trying to induce because you think that is the way we do things, when people get to understand, it will change,” he stated.
“It means that we need serious education and it means that we also have to develop laws, parliament must pass a law that makes seriously criminal that if anybody comes inducing people in election, that person should be disqualified. So we need for a legal framework to try to deal with It, we need to have education framework to deal with it”.
His comments come on the heels of public utterances by some delegates who took part in deciding who leads the NPP as Flagbearer, admitting they received 400 from the Vice President with Kennedy Agyapong giving them 300 whiles some delegates questioned why such monies never got to them.
There have since been calls for state Institutions to take up the allegations and properly investigate such matters.
Speaking Tuesday on the State of Our Nation, Prof. Avea Nsoh explained that an intensified campaign coupled with the right legal framework will help to significantly deal with issues of vote buying.
At the party level, Prof. Avea, is calling for major changes to how people interested in positions are made to make huge payments before they can join the race.
