“Nigerians are being steadily forced into slavery in their homeland through the democratisation and weaponisation of poverty. The electorate, cutting across ages, sexes and religion biases, are now openly selling their votes, unencumbered, in exchange for a plate of porridge.”
The Ondo State governorship election has come and gone. The winner is reveling in his victory; the losers are licking their wounds. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa emerged victorious. He was elected to serve his first term, having completed the joint second-term tenure of the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (Aketi) administration.
As things are, nothing can stop Aiyedatiwa from being sworn in as the successor of himself, protests and allegation of election malpractices notwithstanding. As it was with other elections conducted so far under his administration, President Bola Tinubu has advised aggrieved losers to go to court to seek redress…an effort in futility such a venture may turn out to be.
Takeaways From The Ondo Election
As the people of Ondo State await the swearing in of the governor-elect, allegations of snatching of ballot boxes and elevation of poverty abound, as voters were openly induced with money to cast their vote. This was across party lines.
With the advent of democracy in 1999, election campaigns and voting were characterised by glaring violence and snatching of ballot boxes. There were cases of financial inducements, but vote buying was not flagrantly done in the open then as we have it now.
Twenty-five years down the line, physical intimidation and harassment of voters have given way; snatching of ballot boxes has been replaced with another weapon which is fundamentally inimical to democracy and its ethos- democratisation of poverty. Today, we have middlemen who collect millions and billions of naira in Ghana-must-go bags from vote seekers. These middlemen approach the retailers who, in turn, reach out to the poor and the vulnerable in the streets to buy their votes with peanuts and beggarly sums…all in the quest to win elections.
Nigerians are being steadily forced into slavery in their homeland through the democratisation and weaponisation of poverty. The electorate, cutting across ages, sexes and religion biases, are now openly selling their votes, unencumbered, in exchange for a plate of porridge.
During the Ondo governorship election, an obviously innocent elderly woman at Igbotako unashamedly, told a television reporter in video clip that she voted after her palm was greased. She said she and everyone around her collected money. “We have voted. Voting is going on peacefully; there is no wahala; no fight. We voted and we collected money. All of us; we collected money; money for our votes…,” the woman said in Yorùbá before she was stopped from revealing more sordid details of what transpired in the course of the election.
A friend and journalist-colleague who was present in the state to monitor the election lamented to me the degrading democratisation of poverty. “I give up on agitations for good governance and election matters in Nigeria. This election has taught me a big lesson-that I should not be too willing to lend a helping hand to anyone asking for financial assistance.
“I saw people, including retired secondary school principals, openly selling their conscience in exchange for as low as ₦3,000 and ₦10,000. It is very incredible and ridiculous that people who are complaining of hunger, pains, hardships and poverty due to bad governance can, without shame, openly collect peanuts from these politicians in exchange for their votes,” he said.
How Did We Get Here?
It is a fact indisputable that virtually all the political parties in the land today are involved and are guilty of inducing eligible voters with money, especially during elections. Depending on the size of the pocket of the spenders, the democratic space has been taken over by the democratisation of poverty for a desired end- winning election by all means and at all cost.
A former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, then ingeniously called it “stomach infrastructure“. The cliche, “dibo ko se’be” (vote and cook a pot of soup) was elevated to a stinking high during the 2018 and 2022 governorship elections in the state. In an obvious democratisation of poverty, voters were openly enticed with various amount of money, ranging from the ridiculous, depending on the pocket of the buyer and the worth of the seller.
Are Nigerians patently corrupt or were they boxed into their present precarious situation where they were left with no other option than to eat the crumbs falling off the tables of those seeking for their votes? What could make a people to sell their conscience by selling their votes for peanuts to a set of politicians who they knew will only subject them to hardships, pains, agonies, abject poverty and hunger? Why would the electorate choose to willingly sell their votes to politicians who cannot be held accountable for their deeds, misdeeds, bad governance, misgovernance and the subsequent under-development of the country?
Weaponisation And Democratisation Of Poverty
The blame for the precarious situation of the poor and their penchant for selling their votes can be laid squarely at the doorsteps of the elected who deliberately choose to impoverish and pauperise the people with their anti-progressive policies that cared less for the welfare and concern of the hapless and helpless Nigerians.
What is going on in contemporary Nigeria is a gradual but steady weaponisation and democratisation of poverty; empowerment and poverty alleviation programmes that placed premium on the distribution of grains of rice, beans, loaves of bread, sachet tomatoes, noodles and spaghetti. President Bola Tinubu is seen in many quarters as a symbol of the poverty elevation programme. He has been called President Rice Kimono in some quarters for his penchant for distribution of trailer-loads of rice as a way of addressing shortages of food commodities.
Nigerians As Willing Complict?
Some people have argued that the mass of the people should be blame for weaponisation and democratisation of poverty. They believe that a people and the society deserve the type of leaders they get. Those who subscribed to this school of thought are of the opinion that the common Nigerians are as guilty as the leaders they elected; that the people should be held responsible for the arrested development and stunted national growth which engendered the pervading hunger, poverty and lack across the land.
While they may be right to some extent in blaming the people, here are some potent questions begging for answers: Can the hapless Nigerians be blamed for taking such food items and paltry sums from the politicians? Can you dissuade a poor man who has no hope for survival not to sell his vote? Can you convince a poor widow with starving children not to sell her vote for a pot of porridge?
The obvious answer to the three questions above is no. Yorùbá will say “ẹni ti ebi npa ko gbọ ìwàásù” (it will be difficult for a hungry man to listen to a sermon). There is no way a responsible father who needs ₦5,000 to attend to the medical need of his child on the sick bed can resist an offer of ₦10,000 to sell his vote during election. It would be near impossible for a poor mother who has no idea of where the next meal for her children to come from to turn down an offer of two kongos of rice and ₦5,000 in exchange for her vote.
Situating Poverty In Visionless Leadership
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his highly criticised keynote address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, on 15 November, 2024, absolved the masses of blame in the malfeasance called voting buying but which I called weaponisation and democratisation of poverty. He dwelt extensively on the quest by the leadership and the political class to permanently subject Nigerians to slavery and their whims and caprices as a means to ensuring their continued hold and dominance of the country.
While one can rightly fault Obasanjo, being part of the problem, he was quite right and precise on the issue of Nigeria and leadership failure. Quoting the late literary giant, Professor Chinua Achebe, Obasanjo said: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
Members of the Nigerian political elite, rather facing the challenges of nation-building and ensuring socio-economic and infrastructural development, are fixated on exploiting and further aggravating the pervading hunger and poverty in the land.
Rather than dwelling on how to engender an enduring national development as campaign issues, they mobilise voters with food items in miserable small packages and dole out few naira notes to them.
The severe criticism that attended the Obasanjo position at the Yale University notwithstanding, the former president was right when he said what we are witnessing in Nigeria is a case of state capture. We are, indeed, in a situation whereby almost all decision taken were no longer in the public interest. We are witnessing a situation whereby members of the ruling class are feeding fat on our collective patrimony, to the detriment and against the welfare of the ruled. Instead of deploying money to critical infrastructures that can facilitate economic development, ensure quality education, improved health services and promote the general well-being of the people, what is happening is spending humongous amount of money on projects that would further promote the interest of a few people in power.
What we have operating is cosmetic approach to an enduring national development plan, if there is any. We are witnessing a systematic killing of attempt at industrialisation with the almost non-existent cottage industries. What we have instead is the elevation of mercantile economy in which we are no longer producing. Commercialisation of politics by selling political offices to the highest bidders have eroded values and ethics.
Who Will Bell The Cat?
After eight years of hellish living on earth here in Nigeria, President Tinubu rode to power on 29 May, 2023 on the crest of a Renewed Hope Agenda. During the campaigns, he confidently told Nigerians “Emilokan”. The former helmsman of Lagos State assuredly and re-assuredly told us “Elofokanbale” Some 18 months into the life of his administration, it is now a case of “Enikanlomon” as “ara everybody ti balẹ” Hope and assurance have taken a flight; reigning supreme among hundreds of millions of Nigerians is a pervading dangerous air of despondency, helplessness and hopelessness.
For how long shall Nigerians be patient to get to the Promise Land? How soon will Nigerians get to enjoy their country, a nation said to be flowing with honey and milk and limitless opportunities?
Until we have such visionary leaders who are imbued with the true essence of statesmanship and quality leadership in the molds of Lew Kwan Yew of Singapore and Suharto in Indonesia, Nigeria will continue to be a country where the weaponisation and democratisation of poverty will continue to be our way of life; vote buying will remain the norm, rather than an exemption. Nigeria will continue to remain a country with stunted growth and under-development, due to the deficient characters of the leaders elected into public offices.
Until we are able to put in place a leadership in word and action, the long dead globally-recognised iconic Reggae musician, Robert Nesta Marley (Bob Marley) will continue to live, singing for Nigeria and Nigerians from his grave the lyrics of his song, “WAR”…
“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.
“And until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war.
“And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained… now everywhere is war.”
•Falade is the Editor/CEO, Newscoven.com
