With poverty and even ignorance competing for honours in Nigeria, there was always a chance that pecuniary considerations would trump common sense for many Nigerians in this election season.
Now that the elections are just a few months away, that chance is slowly becoming a full-fledged possibility.
The return of democracy also meant that for the first time in more than a decade, Nigerians could go to elections to decide those who would rule them. Beyond the rituals of elections, the symbolic return of power to the people was not lost on anyone.
Since 1999, Nigeria has had six general elections. There have been many challenges along the way to go with the elections. As the years have passed by, the Nigerian electorate has become more aware and less gullible to the antics of politicians and election riggers.
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The Independent National Electoral Commission, which is the body tasked with conducting free and fair elections in Nigeria, has also grown in capacity and experience in the conduct of elections.
Thus, in essence, it has become more difficult for elections to be rigged in Nigeria.
However, it appears that there is a new challenge to the integrity of elections in the country, namely vote buying.
Recently, Mr Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman recently raised the alarm that some Nigerians were selling their permanent voter cards ahead of the 2023 elections.
Reports also have it that many of those selling are selling for just N20,000.
It begs the question of how gullible people can be given all the opportunities that bad governance has robbed Nigeria of. If Nigerians believe, as they do, that every good product necessarily sells itself, just how much of an effort does it require for those giving away their permanent voter cards for a paltry N20,000 to understand that those who engage them in that merchandise of shame are necessarily buyers and sellers of bad products whose only hope of selling their rotten wares is the black market?
If they come to this realization, would they need any other incentive or motivation to avoid people who do these things like a plague?
It figures that Nigeria is where it is today because about two decades ago the future was mortgaged when some people first exchanged their votes for sachets of salt, measures of rice and a few cheap wrappers.
Over the years, those people who cast their pearls before swine have watched in horror and no little shame as those who bought their votes went into the corridors of power and shut out not just them but their children too.
Nigeria is at a critical juncture today and the choice in February 2023 will be a startlingly clear one. Nigerians would have to decide if they want to continue with the old ways of doing things or if they want to embrace new realities so that the country can move forward.
If those who would readily sell their birthright and even their brothers for a pot of porridge choose to continue with the old order, the country would take another forcefully fatal step towards the precipice.
If Nigerians choose to elevate new realities above the lure of filthy lucre, those who seek to take Nigeria to a time long forsaken would discover that there will no longer be space for them in the new Nigeria.
Kene Obiezu,
Twitter: @kenobiezu
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