Festus Adedayo, a Nigerian columnist, has condemned the manner at which politicians take advantage of unemployment in the country to lure youths into causing violence during elections.
Adedayo noted that election violence had become a major strategy deployed by disgruntled politicians to smuggle their ways into power.
He made the comments while delivering a lecture during Trace Magazine Award in Akure, Ondo State, noting that electoral violence in Nigeria had reached a disturbing rate.
He said, “Since Nigeria’s independence, elections have become grossly characterised by high scale electoral malpractices, violence, high dosage of money politics and the deployment of ethno-religious divide as weaponry for influencing voters to the side of those who use them as weapons.
“Thus, there is a massive deployment and purchase of unemployed youths, manipulation of the situations of illiterates in society and massive corruption of the electoral process to gain political advantages.
“Sensing that people have been so pauperised that their willpower has led them to the point of trauma, politicians have now devised all sorts of means to win elections.”
