2019: IPAC to Constitute Body to Interact with INEC to Curb Vote Buying

By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

Ahead of the 2019 general election, the Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC) has said that it will constitute a legal body to interact with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as part of efforts to curb vote buying that has characterised the country’s election in recent times.

IPAC also said that it has secured a meeting with the Senate President Bukola Saraki to prevail on him and other National Assembly members to remove all the grey areas that the president have raised in the recently vetoed Electoral Act Amendment Bill and send a clean version back to the president for assent.

The Chairman of the Council, Chief Peter Ameh, disclosed these in Abuja Monday during the inauguration of the newly elected officials of IPAC.

Ameh, who was last week invited by the police, however questioned the rationale behind the invitation extended to him, but stressed that he would honour the invitation.

He said: “There are more than three lawyers in this current executive committee of IPAC. This team was strategically selected because we need brain of legal luminaries who will be able to benefit us on issues like vote buying. So, the executive was specifically selected to function in a way that the laws of the land permit us to work for the benefit of Nigerian people.

“We are going to have a legal group with the Inter-Party Advisory Council to create a way that INEC will see as the way we can solve this menace of vote buying.”

Speaking on the invitation by the police, Ameh said that while he did not want to speculate, he said there are suspicions that his invitation by the police might be related to the IPAC election.

“So, I will go there and answer the call of the Nigeria Police as a law abiding citizen of this country and I will tender my case effectively and see how it goes. If the case is not politically motivated and they get my statement, I will be out in the meantime.

“It is my interaction with the police and how civil they will be that will determine what the police are pursuing. Whether they are genuinely pursuing a case or they are pursuing me because an election has been won and lost,” he said.