The Candidate We Already Know

In my state, the gubernatorial election is in August this year, and the presidential election is also around the corner. But real quick, let me say something real but might be uncomfortable to most people. In some of the Nigerian elections that I have grown old enough to witness, and even follow, a lot of voters, if not all, already knew who the wrong candidate was before they left their houses to cast their votes.

This has not even been a secret because I always hear people say it, and they have started saying it now. It was not even top-secret information buried deep in a policy document. We can all see that the evidence is very clear, talked about within families, friends, marketplaces, group chats, church, buses, and even between strangers; the conversation never stopped because we all know. But still, they voted for him anyway.

So what we should be faced with at the point is not if the voters should be told who to vote for, but whether that is the right candidate. I believe the question that no one has decided to boldly ask loudly is why accurate information and obvious choices still give the same results election after election.

I watched this closely during the last presidential election in my country about three years ago, in 2023. A candidate whose history we know has nothing to offer, even from his campaign, talks and unclear answers to questions during interviews, even with his health challenges, is no match for someone more competent with verified records of actual delivery. A lot of people I respected and some friends played the tribal game of saying, "he's our own" "it is his time" without even thinking through if he can deliver, despite the fact that they complained about him before voting. And when I asked some personal questions, I got a consistent answer from all of them, as if they had been brainwashed. Some went online to say it is their turn for their tribe to rule, others said they have been given a brown envelope with four cups of rice and garri. Something that arrived in person and felt real in a way a better future didn't.

And what I said right there is the architecture of the whole problem. So if we go about telling people who to cast their votes for won't change anything, specifically if the circumstances surrounding the real situation make the wrong candidate feel like the rational choice, remain untouched. A hungry household will always go for the cup of rice and other things that they are promised over a promised road next year, and the math here is not as foolish as educated commentators pretend. In this circumstance, it's something that is very logical.

The solution is not explicitly to tell the people who to vote for, because if we look closely, we are going to see that they do not vote that way already. They also have the right information and full awareness of the situation. But what we are missing here is the economic stability, and this popular saying that "they are all the same" because the genuine, real belief of a few of us is that the right choice will definitely give a better result than all the previous ones thathave changed nothing. And from what I have seen so far, democracy does not fail on the election day when we are holding the ballot for who to vote for. It already failed right from this moment before setting foot to stand in that long queue to vote.

Thank you for reading.

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