Voter Reactions to Last Week's Election

The average voter is incredibly politically savvy. Listen to the third speaker. Times are changing. My favourite quote is from the fourth guy: "A credible candidate should not need to canvass. He should be able to show what he has done... If you do good, good go follow you. If you no do good, good no go follow you."

Politicians, you have been warned.

The Future

The Future from Joel Benson on Vimeo.

And here's the actual video.

CNN on the Election

Photos, Commentary and Results FromTodays Elections

First of all, let me start by saying that this polling post is perhaps the smallest election centre in the whole of Nigeria. However, the elections were carried out in a orderly manner. If this polling station is a microcosm for the whole electoral procedure, then Nigeria is on its way to having its first free, fair and enjoyable election in Nigeria.


The day kicked off at 8am with a process called accreditation. Voters must go to the polling station they registered at between the hours of 8 and 12. They present their voting card to the corpers who then check that the name and face on the card match the name and face they have on their list. Below is the list with voters' details.

Next, the voter has his thumb marked with special ink to show that he has undergone accreditation.



Commendably, the corpers and INEC officials arrived by 7am and were ready to start the accreditation process at 8am sharp when people started queueing.


During the accreditation period, the voting process was explained by the INEC officials. This explanation had to be done in English, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. There were no Hausa speaking officials so one of the voters stepped up and did the translation.


A trendy corper showing voters how to 'pless their thumbs.'

A woman giving the Hausa translation. I wonder how you say pless ya thumb in Hausa.

It was noted that the Labour Party's insignia was listed under the National Assembly Voting papers but was absent in the list for the Senate. This left some wondering if the omission was because there was no Labour Party candidate for the Senate.
I only recognise the umblerra and the broom. How many can you spot?

After accreditation came voting. At all polling stations, voting started at 12.30pm and at this particular station, it was decided that voting would continue to 4pm. This was actually an anomality as voters should not have been allowed to vote if they were not there by 12.30. This will be ammended for next week. All accredited voters must line up and be counted at 12.30. If any arrive after 12.30 when the voters have been counted, even though they have been accredited, they cannot vote.
Some people who had registered to vote but missed the accreditation process, turned up at the polling station to cast their votes at 4. They were driven away. Not only by the INEC officials but by the voters themselves. For the people, by the people.

At this rather late stage, the local councillor for the area showed up.

The local councillor being given a grilling by the members of her constituency. For this one day, they were the ones in power.

A voter being given his privacy as he makes his choice.


The first vote being cast in the transparent ballot boxes. Nigerians are quite big on symbolism.

All the votes are cast.

The counting begins.



The man in the blue and white shirt is filming the votes being counted on his blackberry. He arrived early in the morning and did not leave the polling station until the votes had been counted. He also bought water for some voters to encourage them to stay till the end and hear the results announced.
A close up photo of the blackberry journalist. He is part of the Enough is Enough generation. They do things differently.

Voters watching intently. No wayo here.

For the House of Assembly, ACN and PDP tied with 23 votes each. CPC had 11 votes. For the House of Senate, ACN nosed ahead with 27 votes, PDP had 24 and CPC had 11 votes. The voter turn out was abysmal. Only 72 people voted while 800 registered at this polling station. Less than ten percent! Hopefully next week, at least half will come out for the Presidential elections.

Once the results were announced, the party agents texted them to their headquarters.

And the day was officially over. At this small polling station and for these 72 voters, INEC had succeeded in carrying out a free and fair, though long winded election. Next week voting will commence at 12.30, thirty minutes after accreditation is done. This will reduce the time spent at the polls.


A more general comment on the results. From this small polling station (and as you can see from the numbers it was indeed very small) it seems that ACN is losing some of its grip on Lagos. Usually, the results would be more of a landslide. The waning influence may be because Bola Tinubu's wife, daughter, son-in-law and sister-in-law are all going for positions in the House of Rep and Senate. There reaches a point I suppose, when the electorate says, Haba.


Join us again next week for more pictures from the smallest polling booth in Nigeria. Hopefully numbers will have grown drastically. I'll try and ask people to take pictures from other parts of Lagos as well. My name is Chibundu Onuzo. God bless and goodnight.

Email Going Round: How Much Is Your Vote?

I watched as a politician, frantically trying to convince a voter to cast his vote in his favour, brought out a bundle of brand-new N200 notes and dangled it in the man's face.

"How much is your vote?" he asked, with a deceptive smile on his face.

The man hesitated for a moment, and then handed a piece of paper to the politician saying, "This is the value of my vote."

The politician went through the paper briefly, crumpled it, threw it away in my direction and hurried away, muttering loudly that the man wasn’t being rational.

The man, realizing I had been watching, asked, "Am I being irrational?"

I picked up the paper and took a quick look at it. He had written on the paper the breakdown of his family’s expenses, which the government (according to him) had so far failed to provide or make available for its citizens. He then multiplied everything by four (4) years (the period he is committing his vote to).

Something like this:

Security - N20,000 per month x 12 months x 4 years = N960,000

Generator - N40,000 per 2 years x 2 = N80,000

Fuel for generator - N1,000 per day x 365 days x 4 years = N1,460,000

Portable water - N500 per day x 365 days x 4 years = N730,000

Health care Insurance - N10,000 per month x 12 months x 4 years = N480,000

Education - N5,000 per month x 12 months x 4 years = N240,000

Housing - N500,000 per year x 4 years = N2,000,000

Total = N5,950,000 (five million nine hundred and fifty thousand Naira)

"Well," he explained as I continued to stare at his breakdown, "if asking for the basic necessities of life is not being rational, I wonder what is rational?"

"I wasn’t trying to be difficult," he continued, "I believe this is a modest breakdown of expenses considering I have a wife and a kid. If you have a larger family, the value of your vote may be much higher."

P.S

God rest the corpers and INEC officials who were killed in Suleja. Tomorrow is round one. No matter what tricks they're trying, it seems Nigerians are still coming out to fight.

Goodevening Girls

My parent's hospital shares a wall with one of the most popular night clubs in Ikeja. As a result of this popularity, the area surrounding the night club has become a hub for prostitutes. On any given evening, you can see at least six girls in skimpy clothing waiting to be picked up. One of the hospital's employees has a special name for these women: goodevening girls. The nickname arose from an experience he had.

One evening as he was waiting for the hospital gate to be opened for him, one of these girls opened the door of the car he was driving and slid into the passenger seat.
"Good evening Sir," she said.
"Good evening," he replied.
When he told the story later, he insisted that he had no intention of paying for her services. It was only curiosity that drove him to ask, "How much you dey charge?"
"Five thousand Naira."
At this point,he had laughed long and hard.
"Five thousand Naira for what? Are you going to follow me home and cook and clean for me?" They haggled for a while but it soon became clear that they could not agree on a price. She climbed down from her car and went to wait for her next customer. From then, all the women that stood around the night club were dubbed 'goodevening girls.' He was shocked at how polite the girl had been,how well spoken.

I remembered this story a few days ago and it got me thinking of the good evening girls. Generally they are reviled. They are called gold diggers, husband snatchers, ashewos. Once, I saw a woman throw a bag of rubbish at one, cursing her as she did so. The consensus is that if you are a goodevening girl, it is always your fault. Goodevening girls are never the victims. After all they carried their two legs to stand on the road, they used their two hands to wear those skimpy clothes. In fact, it is the men that pick them up that should be pitied. There they were driving down the road, minding their business when gbosa, they turned and saw all that flesh on display. They say the good evening girls have agency but how much agency can one have when the choices are so limited.

There must be something wrong with a society that drives thousands of young women into prostitution. There must be something twisted when the only ones to blame are those that should be most protected. Most good evening girls are not Jenifa's, looking for Brazilian hair and blackberries. This is the myth that we like to tell ourselves. They could be doing other work if they wanted to. It is only because they are greedy and want fast money. Yet how can this be, looking at the economic demographic of Nigeria. There are goodevening girls in rich areas and in poor areas. As the poor parts of Nigeria vastly outnumber the rich, we must conclude then that many of these goodevening girls are subsisting and living from back to mouth. All over Nigeria, women are selling their bodies to eat, to buy medicine, to buy clothes. In England and America, people were shocked when the writer of The Secret Diary of A Call Girl revealed that she had become a call girl because she was struggling with her finances in college. In Nigeria, this is everyday news, not even worthy of the back page of the most local newspaper.

Young men, even graduates, are becoming armed robbers. Young women, even graduates, are becoming prostitutes. Something is wrong with this system.

Lagos

Nostalgic description of Lagos by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. Read here. It seems he's been growing the afro for a while.

Dbanj: "The Last Thing Wey We Need Right Now Na Bad Luck"

The song is catchy, I'm bobbing my head and tapping my feet. Whatever you have to say about the Goodluck/Sambo ticket, they certainly know how to use the media. The irony is that in the American campaign (from which they have obviously taken their cue)the stars came out to oust the establishment: old white men from priviledged social backgrounds. In Nigeria, the stars have come out to further entrench the establishment. The main question is, have they come out because the establishment pays well or because they believe in the ideas of the establishment?



But the song is catchy sha.

The Most Star Studded Elections Nigeria Has Ever Seen

P.S

Just in case you thought I did a Jega on you by postponing my post about the Monday elections, Jega postponed the elections again till Saturday. More pics then.

CNN on the Election

Photos and Commentary From the Postponed Election

My mother woke up this morning like millions of other Nigerians: ready to vote. Unfortunately INEC officials slept last night knowing they were going to postpone the elections for the House of Senate and House of Representatives. Things being the way they are in Nigeria, communication between the head and the tail was slow so not only did my mother think she would cast her vote today, the polling officials thought so too. Thus, they showed up with their equipment and paraphernalia.


Here is the table for casting secret votes:





My mother jokingly dubbed it an 'open secret' station. In this semi-enclosed space, you press your thumbprint next to the 'umblerra' or the broom or whatever symbol takes your fancy and then you proceed to cast your vote in the ballot box. I would like to know the distance between the ballot box and the voting station. Is it enough for someone to snatch your piece of paper and check that you have voted for the right person?

By the time my mother had reached her polling station, which incidentally is very close to where she works, the news had reached her several times that there would be no election today. She tried to make this clear to the polling attendants but rather commendably, they were adamant in carrying out their duties. No news had reached them that there was no election so the election must carry on. They proceeded to mark people's thumbs.

Here is a photo of the dutiful ex-corpers, refusing to close their station.

Here is a photo of a thumb being marked.

In fact, ten votes were cast before the news finally reached this small polling station that indeed, the election had been postponed. When my mother left, it had been decided that the ten votes would be destroyed but she did not actually see this happening. Another concern of hers is that the ink used to mark their thumbs will not have worn off by Monday when they come to vote again. Will they be accused of trying to vote twice? This is a small polling station so the chances of this happening are slim but in a larger station, where a hundred people may have cast their vote before the station closed, will these people lose their votes? And if they don't, could this be a loophole in the system? One person may vote twice or even three times at a large polling station and each time the ink on the thumb is pointed out, he/she will say that they voted on Saturday.

As to more general comments, my mother reports that the atmosphere was peaceful.

A policeman watching the proceedings.
A semblance of a queue as voters stand around, trying to understand what's going on.

My mother and I put the low turn out down to the fact that many people in the area knew that the election was postponed. Hopefully on Monday, the numbers will be higher. More news on the elections then.

Naija o ni baje.

Area Girls

I wonder why this programme never made it to T.V. All we have is this short clip.

Genevieve on CNN: "I can't diss my country"

I suppose on principle I object to people making positive generalisations about a place: e.g Nigerians are warm, Nigerians are friendly, then refusing to make negative generalisations about this same place e.g Nigerian are cyber crime artists. But when Genevieve does it, we have to allow. After all she is our Julia Roberts.

What About Us? Presidential Debate

Jerusalem

I rewrote this hymn some time ago because it's one of my favourite ever. William Blake was the original genius who penned it and I thought, if you altered some words, it could be about Nigeria. So here's my version which I feel is particularly apt at the moment because of elections. Its our time to build a new Nigeria. Read the original.

Jerusalem

And did those feet, in ancient times,

Fish upon Lagos’ bounteous seas,

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Jos’ verdant mountains seen?

And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our dusty plains?

And was Jerusalem, builded here,

Among those dark satanic rigs.

Bring me my bow, of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire,

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariots of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

On Nigeria’s green and pleasant land.

P.S
Listen to them sing it in the brilliant movie Chariots of Fire.



And of course the famous opening scene.