By Fr. Victor Makinwa Ogunyemi
This picture attached to this piece fully depicts what’s happening with the electorates today in Nigeria.
Money being dished out on election days, voters being induced heavily and even now voters have got the courage, if you like call it no sense of shame to demand for money to vote for their preferred candidates. It is a case of promiscuity, or a trade in prostitution that’s better described in a Yoruba adage “owo lowo eyin nile” better literally translated as “money for hand ,back for ground”.
A school of thought came out to justify the collection of money from politicians that it is okay to collect the money, since the money being given out is a stolen commonwealth of the citizens. You get to hear at campaign grounds, “If they give you money, collect it, and don’t vote for them,vote for our party because the money they are offering you is your money”.
Truly, the money the politicians throw around to induce, bribe , buy and manipulate the electoral process belongs to the state, which is actually the people’s money, stolen by the politicians in all the party divides .
It is an open secret that majority of political parties are involved in vote buying especially the big parties in a particular electoral environment.
In the just concluded Presidential primaries,many of the aspirants used money to buy the delegates to elect the flag bearers of their parties and it became cases of highest bidders who got the tickets which has resulted in to post Primary crisis in some of the parties due to sentiments that such votes buying generated.
It is also what is true from what is seen at the field that you can rig where you are popular and have some upper hand, which means it is the more popular parties which are into heavy vote buying.
Social media is awash of boasts for example at Osun state election today that PDP can match APC money for money, naira for naira, dollar for dollar and just before I started writing this piece a voter updated his twitter handle thus: “they gave me 7k and I still voted XYZ party.”
Yes you collect the money, you collect the food items, you collect the materials and the rest they offer which are categorised as bread , of course, that’s “stomach infrastructure” but and but will that open a door to your freedom?
Collecting pittance in cash and kind is absolutely collecting bread which surely is ephemeral and will never last for ages , which at most last hours, days or at most weeks. The politicians are really taking advantage of poverty in the land to oppress the downtrodden and make them to see the pittance as big deal.
The disaster the poor people are bewitched with is the disaster of being blind of the vision of the future, being okay with immediate gratification, just accept what is for the moment and forgetting that there is what is called a future which the politicians don’t bother about, of course like someone said “a politician always prepare for the next election and a statesman builds for the future”.
It is high time there was serious and aggressive enlightenment on the implications of collecting pittance in the name of bread, to ask the citizens which one is better, bread or key to their freedom?
Learning to reject the bread now is to reject money from any quarters, shun sentiments of considering a candidate because he belongs to their tribe, party, he is a money bag or their religions, when it is crystal clear that the candidate is not credible.
For how long is the country going to remain in bondage, hunger, lack of development, being in a situation of lop-sidedness and non-functionality?
When the people of the land collect money from politicians to vote, they have eaten their future and won’t have the moral rights to ask such politicians to give them dividends of democracy.
It is better to refuse immediate satisfaction that gives long term hunger and wait with a credible candidate that’s visionary and purpose driven.
The only saviour of Nigeria are Nigerians and not just Nigerians but sensible Nigerians.
No doubt the key is better than the bread.
#thekeyisbetter
Fr. Ogunyemi wrote this from CESACC, Catholic Institute of West Africa Port Harcourt, Nigeria