Reduction in salaries’ll curb do-or-die politics –Murray-Bruce

The senator representing Bayelsa-East senatorial district, Ben Murray-Bruce, says the huge salary of politicians is responsible for electoral violence. Murray-Bruce asked Nigerians to advocate for a reduction in salaries for political office holders. Reacting to a statement credited to a former governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala, in which the former governor reportedly said he was happy to have lost in the last election because of the dwindling allocation to states, Murray-Bruce said it was apparent that money was the major reason why politicians contest elections. In a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Saturday, the senator said, “This (Alao-Akala’s statement) vindicates my argument that money drives do-or-die politics. Close the treasury and do-or-die politics would end. “If you really want to bid farewell to do-or-die politics, Nigerians must vehemently push for a ‘demonetization’ of politics at all levels. Money drives do-or-die elections. Those states with dwindling federal allocations will soon experience a decline in do-or-die politics. “Do-or-die politics thrive because the president and governors have too much power over the treasury of their states. Remove that and it will end.” Meanwhile, a political counsellor with the British High Commission in Abuja, Ben Llewellyn Jones, has asked the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress to investigate their members’ involvement in the violence that marred Saturday’s rerun election in Rivers State. Jones, who described the violence as unacceptable, said the Edo State governorship election should be better than that of Rivers. “Both major parties should investigate the disruption in the Rivers rerun and discipline their supporters as involved. Either way, what can be done now to make conduct of Edo September governorship election better? “If legislators salaries were cut, would the desire for violence at Rivers rerun collapsed like the tent of the Independent National Electoral Commission yesterday (Saturday)? The violence yesterday was unacceptable. In places, I saw only 10 percent of people willing to risk voting during the election,” he stated on his official Twitter page on Sunday.