The last two weeks have been very tough in my country and this includes the weekend that we just had our gubernatorial election as well as state legislators. Election in my country or anywhere around the world is a very vital period as it determines those who will make laws and policies, and adjust or create an entirely new constitution (in a democratic country). While democracy is still very new to my country as we became a democratic country again in 1999 after a bloody civil war, and military rule even though we got our independence in the year 1960. This shows that we are still very new when it comes to democracy compared to countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, but then in my country, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Join me as we dive into the nitty gritty of my country's election, using the elections held in 2015, 2019, and that of this month (March 2023) as references, since we run a four-year tenure system..
In my country, the election has always been a business of deals between the parties involved. When we regained democracy in 1999, the ruling party then was the People's democratic party (PDP), and they ruled for 16 years with 3 presidents from that party. Fast forward to the 2015 election, the people wanted a change of power, and there was a coalition of three opposition parties which are Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), to form the All Progressive Congress (APC). At this point, there were only two major parties which were the APC and the PDP, and other parties didn't matter.
The PDP was in power and was willing to buy votes at all levels. There were viral videos of party members of the PDP going around with cash of money to buy votes. They were going to win the election without any violence, rather they would use the money to buy the conscience of people, so they thought, but at that point, we were experiencing a rising degree of insurgency, and the value of our currency had reached 300 Naira to a dollar, and the price of fuel was 75 Naira per liter, and we wanted a change (actually, that was the slogan of the new opposition party the APC), so the ruling party lost and I can say, that was the first time vote buying didn't win an election in my country. Vote buying is wrong on all levels but you see politicians in my country can buy anyone and anything when it is election time.
The All Progressive Party became the ruling party in 2015, and they were unable to fulfill their promises as expected but then the 2015 election was a very brutal one where ballot boxes were stolen by armed thugs and even the police and military.
Voters' oppression was extremely high and people were unable to perform their civic duty. In states like Kogi, any poling unit the ruling party wasn't winning, they were going to shoot sporadically, and steal the voting ballot boxes thereby declaring that the polling unit canceled and votes in that region void. This didn't mean that they wouldn't be declared winners since other units would be counted. The ruling party still held its mandate and the opposition wasn't really contending, since there is always a way to compensate themselves with deals and positions so they can still have access to the public funds even though not directly.
In 2023, the entire election norm changed, as there came a third party which was birthed by bitter and angry youths who cannot bear the fact that they cannot protest in peace about the bad government without being killed, the fact that they cannot transact in foreign currency as a result of policies that makes it impossible for them to purchase goods abroad or transact with foreign currencies, Police brutality, a devaluation of our currency where 1 dollar is now 750 Naira, insurgence which has now upgraded from the normal terrorist group in 2015 to banditry, Kidnapping, herdsmen attack and so many types of insurgence (in fact, if you want to learn a new name for an insurgence, I guess my country is good at giving names to insurgence).
In this year's election, there are three major parties which are the previous All Progressive Party (APC) which is the ruling party, The People's Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP). This is the first election I will see people coming out in mass to perform their franchise, and most of these people were youths who have the intention of voting in the Labour party (LP), but as expected they were disenfranchised. People were prevented from voting by the ruling party, ballot boxes were destroyed to prevent the votes from being counted, vote buying was done via electronic transfers, and the officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were compromised. Well, A president was eventually announced, and while I do not agree with this election result and this goes for a lot of people, we only have to watch the parties involve drag it into court, or settle out of court to cut deals as usual.
Two days ago was the gubernatorial election and there has been a lot of voters oppression, violence, and rigging of elections as usual in so many states hopefully, the independent electoral body will impose those who have been able to play the game of politics best to us rather than the people's choices. Election in my country is a do or die for the politicians, but once the result has been announced, it becomes a deal bargain between the winners and the losers, while the electorates suffer as they are the victims who would be mishandled during elections, whose resources would be stolen for personal gains by the people in offices, and then they will be shot at for protesting if they ever try to.
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Definitely true, things are not going well. But we are hopeful, preyerful and will not rest until all is well.
This user isn't me please. This user is a fraud who stole my content from Steemit.com and pasted it here so he can steal from the reward pool meant for honest users.
I think the problem of your country is bad leadership
This is really sad