Election is here again. Be Selfish, Be Responsible : USE YOUR HEAD

NOTE: This post was originally published on 21/10/2018 and was later migrated here from my old blog

Politicians will always do politics as much as they can, morally right or not. I will, therefore, say you must do the same with your single and precious vote in the next coming election. This season of election is upon us all, do not allow anyone to give you something to hate thereby doing the thinking for you, your focus should solely be on what you want to achieve via the government in the next four years, they (politicians) are doing or have done the same. Anyone telling you who you should vote for and why you should vote for them is nothing but a politician and I can assure you, they have done a similar evaluation. So, I say again, you must also be selfish even as you prepare for the election.

It is very easy for an average human being to point out what they don’t like or want, but clearly stating what they want and why they want it (them) is much more difficult. Your favorite or most disliked politicians have done almost the same thing and that is why some of them present themselves as if they are only passionate about solving your problems while in truth, their first priority is actually solving theirs or to put it in a better way, achieving their dreams. Therefore, your main focus should be on which of them possesses the highest potential or presents the highest probability of helping you in fulfilling your dreams while they fulfill theirs, positioning yourself accordingly and I must say, voting for them is one of the easiest ways in achieving that.

Do a list of the things (top three) you want to achieve via the government, carefully evaluate and rank each of the candidates based on that, and see which of them is likely to help you in achieving those three things. Evaluating each of the candidates is not as complex as many might like to think and these are some of the points I think may be of help:

o    Who is the person?

o    What has he/she done about your listed three points?

o    What has he said about the three points?

o    What is his/her political party saying about those three points?

o    What has his/her political party done about those three points?

o    What is his/her party doing about the three points?

The evaluation weight attached to those questions is clearly your choice.

Taking a use-case, let us assume you are still in your early twenties, about rounding up your first or second degree. Therefore, there is a likelihood that stability of education and job creation is going to be on your top three list as both are likely going to be your focus in the next four years. Therefore, you need to do the hard work of evaluating which of the candidates is educated? Cherish and respect education? What has the person done about education before? Has he/she created the kind of job you would like to have before? Will you prefer the kind of jobs he/she has created (if he/she has created any) or promising to create? What is his/her party saying as regards education or job creation? What has his or her party done as regards education or job creation?

To some, issues like affordable health care, adequate pension payments, easy access to forex, getting government contracts, the possibility of a political appointment, free primary education, adequate power supply, freedom of speech, tax clearance, etc are going to be in their priority list and they are all valid.

You can see that this is not going to be the same as that of your Uncle/Aunt who lives in Manchester and has been trying to tell you who you should vote for or support. It is also not going to be the same as that of your Pastor/Iman/Babalawo. If you are in doubt, the next time they try to pull the same campaign stunt on you, bring out your list, roll out your set of questions, and ask them to provide answers to all of them before you buy whoever they are selling. I will say again, USE YOUR HEAD.

 Religion, age, ethnicity, societal perception, and family background of the candidate are going to top or be part of the evaluation criteria of some people and there is absolutely no problem with that in as much as they can achieve their (next four years) dreams with that and it is also their constitutional right. However, if the case is not the same for you, there is no point in joining issues with them, at least politically. Again, USE YOUR HEAD.

Once you have properly evaluated and concluded about your candidates, if you can, you can seek additional people that your list is similar to theirs and you can project your candidates as much as possible. Campaigning solely against another candidate is nothing but political vanity, your focus must majorly be on projecting yours.

Whether your candidate finally wins or not, one thing I can assure you that you will gain from this kind of exercise is that you will have things to stay informed about when governance starts and criticize in case your candidate starts derailing (as usual) from what they initially said or promised. It also helps you to seek alternatives if and where possible as time passes.

The most important point I actually want to pass across is the fact that “Election decision has consequences and we need all to be more responsible when making that decision”