Elections, Politics, Electorates and the Importance of Exercising Your Rights in a Democracy: A Pre Election Guide for Nigerians

Exercising one’s rights is very important in a polity/country or state, but the importance of exercising one’s political rights is even more important as it is a sine qua non in a political democracy.  In other words, if the benefits of political democracy are a people’s desire that have to be realized, it is an indispensable condition that the people must exercise their rights to vote in elections, speak out when there is a need to do so; assemble to discuss any affair or affairs of the country, and move about freely within the state without any hindrance or constrain.    

The year 2015 is here when the Nigerian Presidential and Gubernatorial elections will be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).   Reliably, the elections have been scheduled to hold in the month of February, 2015.   It is very important to remind Nigerians that they have very important roles to play in the elections if democratic political success is the goal of the people and the country.  The roles include, but not limited to conducting free, fair, and credible elections in which every adult registered Nigerian, male and female voter exercises his or her right to vote at the ballot box.  Nigerians need to know that the eyes of the international communities, the world, are on them.  More importantly, Africans everywhere look up to Nigeria and are expecting that this election achieves the desires of the continent.  Therefore, Nigerians and Nigeria need to be reminded to demonstrate their maturity and show that political democracy is native to African people as the progenitors of the game.

The purpose of this discourse is to assist some of the people who need a little help in Nigeria to clearly understand this game called politics with a view that they may properly follow up in the playing of this game in the upcoming elections in the country.  Consequently the first question is what is politics? Before explaining what politics is, there is a need to disabuse the mind of many people who many a time claim that they do not like politics; they do not believe in it, neither are they politicians nor do they know what it is.  We play politics every day as there are many types and forms of politics which we play without knowing. There is bedroom politics; dining table politics, church politics, there is politics of science, engineering, politics in interactions between friends, relations and colleagues, etc.  It is the basis for the claims that humans are political animals (Aristotle).  However, the politics we are referring here is that of a state or country in which two, three or more political parties participate in the conduct and discussion of affairs of the country.  It is through such discussions that common decisions are made that affect the lives of the people of the country. Therefore, those actions that contribute to the making of a common policy/decision for the people of the country constitute politics. In other words, politics involve the making of a common uniform decision for the people of a country, and politics has to do with the use of power either by one person or a group of persons in order to affect the behavior of one or more people within a state or country.

You may want to remember or know that a government is a group of people within a country who possess the ultimate authority to act on behalf of the country. The unique group of people within the country, only has the right to make decisions that everyone in the country or state has the duty to accept and obey. In a political democracy, government is of the people by the people and for the people because it is from the people that government derives its power and its authority from the constitution.  It is one of the reasons the people must pay attention to government with a view to be in a position to constitute a check on government excesses should they occur.  The concern of this treatise is more on the upcoming elections and the politics that brings that about so that Nigerians will properly know what is at stake and what to do during the exercise.  It is the reason the Nigerian people need to know what politics is and what elections are.  Politics therefore, always involves the making of common decisions for the people and such decisions are made by some members such as members of parliaments who exercise power over the people of a country. Power is the ability of one person or group of persons to cause another person or other people to do what the first person wants by whatever means.

The power being exercised by members of the houses of representatives or senate is conferred or given to the representatives who are politicians and elected by the people through elections. This political power properly understood can be used or exercised either by the elected representatives or the people who elected the representatives.  The proper and judicious use of this power by the Nigerian electorates is what is crucial at this time in our national life.  The coming elections are such that the masses of Nigeria, especially the popular at the grassroots cannot afford to waste their ballots for “stomach infrastructure.”  Stomach infrastructure is a temporal hunger relief method which many African politicians use to buy votes from the starving masses only during elections.  The method involves the distributions of edible commodities such as bags of rice, salt, or tins of Oil to market women only when elections are near.   

A vote cast or given to a stomach infrastructurist, (one who gives out edibles only to win votes) is a wasted vote and effort that goes with it.  It is a wasted vote and effort because stomach infrastructure does not last, it is temporal. Once digested it leaves the body.  Desirable infrastructures that should attract votes for a politician or political party are lasting physical infrastructures such as good roads, schools, industries that generate employments for citizens, dams and solar power projects that produce stable electricity, market places portable water, healthcare systems and hospitals, etc, etc.  A politician or a political party that promises amenities that provides the means for purposeful living to the citizens on the long run is one that deserves to be considered for a vote from an electorate or a voter.  A builder of stomach infrastructure is the equivalent of a politician or a political party who promises to provide things that are not possible in a century; such as promising to install air-conditions units on the roads to make sure that if he or she is elected no one will ever again be a victim of heat of the hot sun of the tropical Africa.  
    

Your ballot and your vote are the means by which a citizen demonstrates that he or she is a good citizen and a participant in the political process.  More importantly, your vote is your power in a political democracy; it gives you the audacity to query or challenge the system, elected rulers or leaders who represent you at the forum or place where policy and common decisions that affect where you live and your life are made.  In a democracy, everyone is important because everyone has an idea or ideas on how things may be done for the good of all, and hence everyone should endeavor to participate.  Democracy as here discussed is an African Democracy and not western.  There are differences, but it is not the focus of this pre-election guide.  Participation comes in many ways such as voting, interacting with your elected or appointed political office holder through writing letters on prevailing issues; discussions or complaining and or calling attention to an issue or issues.   

The manifesto of a candidate or a political party is an important guide to the electorate.  The manifesto allows the electorates to know part of the mind and seriousness of a candidate or the party.  A manifesto is where the candidate will state what he or she is going to do for the people when elected.  This is not a matter of or for “stomach infrastructure.”  A candidate’s character and behaviour also are very helpful to determine if such a person should be trusted with state’s responsibility.  In this wise, the representatives are particularly the state’s eyes at the grassroots levels just as the people are equally and generally the eyes of the state, which is why the people must not keep quiet or aloof while putting all the blames on government. All in all, a government is as good as the people it governs. Good citizens interact with their government.  A foreign religious fanatic may hardly serve the common interest of the Nigerian nation and its citizens who have already suffered so much untold hardships from foreign cultural indoctrination.  Nigerian electorates need to watch and avoid such politicians; for after all Africans/Nigerians knew and know the One God who created humanity and worship “HimHer” before any other human spices on this Earth.  Nigerians need politicians who can help to manage our mundane earthly infrastructures.

In the coming elections, Nigerians need to become more sophisticated than they have ever been.  The elections are crucial. These elections are not for those who are enemies of Nigeria and it peoples.  It should not be for those who think that without them Nigeria would collapse with Boko Haram over running the nation.  Nigeria should not be for those who think that elections are a matter of do or die.  No one person should hold Nigeria to ransom, that unless they are elected otherwise Nigeria will go up in flame.  If you love Nigeria and its people you cannot say that unless you are the one elected, otherwise Nigerians would not sleep.   By now it has been made clear to Nigerians by most of the politicians that they only want to be elected not because of the people and the good name of Nigeria, but for themselves and their family only.   Nigeria is in the hands of Nigerians; its success and failure rest with Nigerian electorates; it does not rest with the Chinese, the British, Americans, Canadians or the Indians.  Most foreigners in Nigeria for one reason or the other are there to exploit to further their own national interests for which no one can blame them.  It is therefore necessary for Nigerians to sit up and start to think, think and think of how Nigeria can be made to be the homeland that people desire to settle down.

It is through elections that people in a democratic set up elect men and women that care for the country and its people; men and women who would propose and enact long lasting policies and laws that bring about, ideals, progress and development which constitute meaningful dividends of democracy.  Stomach infrastructure, like the distributions of commodities, like bale of clothes, sums of monies, and edible items, etc., are nothing but fraud, and buying of votes.  If you sell your votes, you are delaying the progress of the country, and you are causing the reason there will be no industries to provide employment for the youths of the country which your child could be one of.  Once the politicians have bought your votes, they no longer owe you or the nation any obligation, but to the bank where they borrowed the money with which they settled your “stomach infrastructure.”