The United Nations (UN) Women Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Beatrice Eyong, says poverty is a major cause of vote-buying in Nigeria.

Ms Eyong said this when she received the national officials of the women wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (WOWICAN) in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that CAN women representatives were at the UN House in Abuja to seek for collaboration to end gender-based issues in Nigeria.

“We have talked about buying and selling of votes, and that is a challenge. I tell you, poverty is one of the things that is promoting buying and selling of votes, and we are thinking that if we do programmes, we may improve women’s income status and other people in the villages.

“I’m happy that you people also work with rural women,” Ms Eyong told the CAN women. “The second one is the market women transformational initiative. I saw that people are working on market women. They are working on petty traders. These are some of the things we are interested in.

The National President, WOWICAN, Deaconess Victoria Ihesiulor, said they planned to run programmes to ensure women and youth shun all electoral ills.

“We have planned sensitisation and mobilisation, we need to sensitise our women, call them together and let them know. We then organise training that vote-buying and payments make one to suffer for many years.

“By the time they come and give you N5,000, N10,000 or even N20,000, after spending that money, the person enters for four years and takes another four years, that’s eight years.

“You will suffer for eight years If you don’t vote for the right people,” (NAN).