My Vote is For Sale

(I have hurriedly put this together because I want you to see it before you vote. I have had a crazy two weeks, but my mind wouldn't let me rest until I penned this down. Bear with any errors, please.)

I used to scorn those who sold their votes for sachets of rice, noodles, and some change, until I realized that everyone sells their votes, consciously or subconsciously. Whether it is for rice, noodles, five hundred naira, five thousand naira, family peace, juicy contracts, ministerial positions, improved health care, or restructuring, elections are transactional. Everyone has a price. We debate passionately with family, friends, and even strangers about our preferred candidates, not because we just love them and want to see them realize their ambitions, but because of what is in it for us.

We all sell our votes. The real question is, what is your vote worth? What is your price? Are you selling your vote for profit or for loss? Consider the amount of investment and the cost price of your vote. Consider the time you spent registering for your PVC. If you did not have to wait in a long queue or even go repeatedly, did you have to spend some money to tip someone so you could get ahead of the queue? Did you have to wake up very early to get there very early so that you would be one of the first people in line? Think about the opportunity cost of your registration – the time that you could have spent pursuing money, leisure or other passions. Precious time. And then, you repeated that process to collect the PVC. Those are just two cost elements – registration and pick up.

Another cost element is the election day. You will leave every other thing that you could do with your time to walk to your polling station and queue first for accreditation and then to vote. And if you are like me, you will wait behind until the votes are counted at the end of the day.

There is another cost element. This one, everyone pays, whether you vote or not. This is the cost of citizenship. We incur this cost from the government’s actions and inactions. In Nigeria, this cost has been suffocating for the past eight years. I have written about the woes in different pieces. You know them. I don’t need to recount them. In case you have forgotten, you can check them here:

·         Our Silence Will Consume Us

·         What Shall We Call This Day?

·         Not The First Time

·         Monsters They Make

·         Independence? Not Yet

When you count your costs, how much are you willing to sell your vote for? An election is not gambling. It is not about betting on the winning team. It is about voting for the person you prefer to entrust Nigeria’s governance to, whether yours is the lone vote or note. Your vote should be expensive. It should be beyond food for a few days. Think big. Think of how Nigeria happens to people without discrimination. Think about the people in the articles above and the ones not written about. Is that money, that contract, that political appointment enough?

The election for the President of a nation is not the election for the Saviour of the world. We do not need a saint to govern our nation. Also, project Nigeria is complicated and a long-term project. We need someone who can get us started in the right direction. We cannot afford to lose another four years.

My vote is for sale to the highest bidder, but I do not have a PVC. I wrote about my PVC woes four years ago, The Leaders We Deserve. I tried again, and I still do not have my PVC. What is left is to sue INEC. If I had my PVC, I would have sold it to Peter Obi.  For the first time, we have a formidable third force, and I wish we would give Nigeria a chance.

As you face the ballot, who is worth your vote? Sell it wisely.