‘Tradermoni Is Vote Buying’ – Transparency International

Transparency International Nigeria has said the TraderMoni scheme, a collateral-free loan initiative targeted at petty traders and artisans as part of the National Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government, is a form of voter inducement.

The chairman of the
anti-corruption organisation, Awwal Rafsanjani, who spoke on Lunchtime
Politics, a programme of Channels Television, noted that the initiative
was an “official use of public funds in the name of TraderMoni to
actually induce voters.”
Rafsanjani noted that the TraderMoni scheme
was not a programme that was “part and parcel of the manifesto of the
ruling party and it is not in Nigerian constitution.”

He added,
“It was not done three years ago. It was only started close to election
time. So, the allegation by many Nigerians that this is clearly a case
of vote buying using public funds goes contrary to our constitution and
to having a free and fair election.
“That is why the Independent
National Electoral Commission itself has seen this danger. The vote
buying we are seeing has transformed to have more official recognition
through the acts that unfortunately we are seeing performed by some of
the agencies using public funds.

“This is despite the statement
by the President that public funds will not be used for his re-election
campaign. But this, unfortunately, is contrary to what Nigerians are
seeing.”

The Federal Government had, however, argued that the
TraderMoni was an empowerment initiative designed to meet the financing
need of at least two million petty traders across the country.

But
Rafsanjani said if the government had TraderMoni as a policy plan, it
should have begun its implementation earlier than a few weeks to the
elections.

He stated that, no matter how well-intentioned,
implementing the scheme close the elections would give different signals
to Nigerians across the federation, adding that if the government was
sincere about the scheme, it would have started before the elections
drew this close.

According to the TNI chairman, mixing election campaigns with “distribution of money” is ill-advised.