April polls: How parties bought women’s votes in Kano

Women’s vulnerability and high level of poverty were heavily exploited by political parties during the just concluded election. Investigation by our reporter revealed that during the election, the two most prominent parties in the state, PDP and ANPP, used money and other items like wrappers, soaps, Indomie noodles, matches, plastic plates, shoes to buy women’s votes.

The amount of money given by candidates in each of the two parties varied. The two parties which are next in strength, CPC and ACN, were also known to have given some incentives to get the votes of the electorate, especially the women.

But what they gave was insignificant compared to the big two. Soaps, brooms and a token amount were given by these two parties mostly before election. Daily Trust findings revealed that distribution of the items was higher during the governorship election when the PDP and the ANPP slugged it out, running neck to neck.

It was gathered that the two parties also distributed clothing materials and other items to women in some houses across the state before, during and after the election. Before the elections, some houses were used as centres for distributing the cash and materials.

Some women who spoke to our correspondent but do not want their names in print, said they were lured with money and assorted gifts to vote for the parties.

The strategy adopted by PDP before the election was to showcase the items they intended to give any woman that would agree to vote for the party. After the display, the woman would then be asked to vote for the party so that she would share from it.

Wives of Kano businessmen were said to have played significant roles in this respect. What they did was to assign an agent at the polling unit so that any woman who wants to get the item would tactfully show the agent the party she had voted for before dropping the ballot paper in the box and the agent would then tick her name and signal another group nearby to confirm that she had voted for them. From there, she would be asked to go somewhere to collect what was promised her.

Another strategy used by PDP to woo women was to distribute forms to them, promising to give any person that fills the form a certain amount of money as assistance if their candidate wins the election.

During the governorship election, money and other edibles such as Indomie, ice cream and variety of foods were also distributed to women, luring them to vote for the party.

Like PDP, ANPP was said to have also distributed money and other things to voters, especially women during the governorship election. There was distribution of money, soaps and local plastic fans, among others.

Cooked maize and other edibles were also distributed at some polling units. Maman Hadiza was among some of the women that benefitted from the sundry gifts distributed by different political parties before and during the election. She disclosed that PDP and ANPP were at the forefront of giving out money and items.

“Although I was given soap and a locally made body lotion by CPC and a broom by ACN, my biggest catch was from the PDP and ANPP.  I got wrapper, money, soap, shoes and plates,” she said.

She disclosed that she had collected from almost all the political parties, adding that they had moved in groups, promising to vote for the party that was giving them but after receiving it, they moved to another party promising the same thing. She said the voting exercise was brisk business to the womenfolk.

According to her, she and her group had decided to make the best use of the time to get what they could get from the politicians. She said the women might not have the opportunity of seeing them after the election.

Another lady that voted in Dala local government Fatima Ibrahim said she had seen many ladies that had a field day during the exercise going from one party agent to another in their quest for the largesse given by these parties.

Fatima said she had heard some ladies saying they got about two thousand during the governorship election from PDP and ANPP. She confirmed that the patrons hid inside some houses waiting for any woman that voted for their party to come and collect money, shoes and other items as the case might be. She added that during the governorship election there was no single party among the first four that did not give out money and other incentives to women especially with a view to wooing their votes.

Daily Trust also observed in some polling units how women leaders of these two parties wooed their folks to vote for certain parties with a token fee of N50, N100 and N200. Some of the male agents would buy ice cream, yoghurt, and snacks for the younger girls all with a view to wooing them to vote for their parties.

What was apparent at the polling units was that money played a major role in making women to vote particular parties. Small as the money was, some women said they had voted for the party that gave them money against their initially preferred candidate who perhaps gave a lower amount or failed to give at all. And yet there were those that said despite the money given to them, they still voted for candidates that were already in their minds.

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