Your Vote Counts. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s 2022 and most Nigerians still think their votes don’t count.
This idea has done nothing but encourage our nonchalant attitude toward the electoral processes because why spend hours in a long queue waiting to cast a vote that ultimately ends up in the toilet?
The ones who vote feel trading a worthless ballot paper destined for the toilets for a few naira notes is a big bargain.
It’s been 23 years of democracy, 23 years of our nonchalant attitude towards the poll, 23 years of being press-ganged into believing that our decision at the polls doesn’t count as “they” have already decided who our next president or governor is.
What nobody cares to ask is who are the “they”
Who are the they?
The same people who can not agree on fielding a consensus candidate to represent their parties at the polls?
It is so disheartening that even after the landslide defeat of an incumbent president in 2015, so many of us still believe this lie.
Who were the “they” that were more powerful than an incumbent president that decided he should vacate the Aso Rock office?
The way I see it, the only one with that power is you, me, us.
We are the they
What logical explanation do you have for a politician spending millions of naira to get his party delegates on his side for the opportunity to make it to the polls where he even spends more to buy your worthless vote that doesn’t count?
Nobody is that stupid, the ones who are, trod a different career path that doesn’t involve politics.
What if our votes do count? What if we can make we can make real changes at the polls with our ballots?
It has been two decades of believing the disempowering lie that our votes don’t count, that even if it’s true, we lose nothing by approaching the polls in 2023 differently, and voting for the candidate on whose manifesto we are sold.
You can make a case for electoral malpractices like Underage voting, snatching of ballot boxes, etc, but if you cast your vote and protect it, it will surely count.
