WHO IS THE PROBLEM?

One sunny afternoon, I had the rare opportunity to overhear about 5 “valiant” youths having a discussion about the upcoming Nigerian Presidential Election and which candidate to vote. One young, muscular man among them then touched on the subject of vote buying and voiced out his opinion that he would, without blinking an eye, sell his vote for whatever amount was given to him. The punchline I would like to draw from his words were; ‘I sold my vote during the last presidential elections, am I dead?’  My emotions immediately got stimulated and I decided in my mind that this guy must be mad to say such a thing. However, after a few minutes, I thought about his words again & again and I could help but ask myself what really made him have that kind of view and would I have done any different if I was in the same circumstances?

The truth is we’re all really hypocrites and we may outrightly condemn an act by another meanwhile given the same circumstances we really wouldn’t do any better. I am sometimes abashed when I realize that most of the things I do today were acts I had vowed to never embark on no matter the circumstances. Therefore, I take utmost care before condemning anyone for whatever he or she had done or did or is doing.

Back to the issue at hand, the burly man’s word really made me ponder about the reality of life and if I am to be sincere, life is not a bed of roses. Every day, on my way to my daily destination I see different people in different colors with different lives and stories to tell with different beliefs and it’s really sad that I won’t get to know a third of them. So, although, a lot of us might see vote buying or selling as something that is barbaric or something which should be shunned upon, how about the man who has a family of ten who can barely have feed his family a day? How about the beggar on the streets whose only source of income is gotten from mercy from others? How about the less privileged and the homeless whose bed is the cold hard floor under bridges and in uncompleted buildings? What about the thugs and “bad boys” (popularly known as agberos) whose only source of income is the “allowee” gotten from carrying out the alleged barbaric acts? The veracity of the matter is that these sets of people don’t give a damn about what is right or wrong as far as it favours them and same is true about every single one of us in Nigeria and I dare say the world at large. We only protest about an act when it doesn’t manifest in our favor. 

We all have undeniably stood in a queue and most likely complained if someone jumps the queue because he knows the organizer of the event or the seller in a supermarket. However, if given the same opportunity we would, without question, take it.

Therefore, I have come to accept the disappointing conclusion that although I wouldn’t sell my vote, there a lot more people out there who don’t care about a better tomorrow but only a better today, that there are people out there who are hungry and need “urgent N20k”, that there are people who probably haven’t eaten for two whole days somewhere and wouldn’t hesitate to do away with their voting rights, that there are also the uneducated ones who can be easily swayed or won over. It’s your choice to determine where the burly man fits.

The question which also kept popping in my head was “who is the problem?”.  Many would be quick to reply; ‘It is the government na’. The flood season is here again and the bridge leading to the access road to my street is almost flooded with heaps of rubbish of whatever you can imagine at each side and guess what? I still see people throwing dirt and rubbish into the water. I guess the government gave them the order to throw those dirt, what do I know?