Akin Fadeyi Foundation to Nigerians: Put on your thinking cap — don’t elect pretenders

March 11, 2022 12:16 pm

An electoral officer hands a ballot paper to a voter at a polling station in the village of Tumfafi, near Kano, in northern Nigeria Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019. Nigerians are going to the polls for a presidential election Saturday, one week after a surprise delay for Africa's largest democracy. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The Akin Fadeyi Foundation (AFF) has launched a project known as the “Put on Your Thinking Cap” ahead of the 2023 general election.

The project is targeted at encouraging Nigerians to elect candidates who have capacity to cause a change.

Speaking at a virtual event to launch the project on Thursday, Akin Fadeyi, executive director of the foundation, said Nigerians should not elect “pretenders and accidental democrats” during the polls.

“We had 82 people on Zoom and I asked them; ‘Is there anyone here who thinks we should shut down our democracy and go back to the colonial days?’ People were saying ‘yes, yes yes’. While we will not say the 82 people in the house could speak for Nigeria, they could end up as the aggregate indicator that something is wrong with confidence in our leadership,” he said.

“What do we take into consideration in our budgeting, how is our budget participatory, how do these monies get spent, for procurement and contracts.

“This is why you must put up your thinking cap, friends. Putting on your thinking cap will ask questions, it will create the environment to move citizens away from the default mentality of electing pretenders and accidental democrats.

“This won’t be an Akin Fadeyi Foundation initiative alone. It is our initiative.”

Also speaking at the event, Simon Kolawole, board chairman of the foundation and founder of TheCable, said it is not too late for Nigerians to rally around a candidate who they think will “deliver the goods”.

“What is the guarantee that if we don’t collect money, rice and loaves of bread at election time, that the person is going to deliver the goods when he gets to office? How do we know who is going to perform, is it the way they are dressed?,” he said.

“I don’t believe that it is too late anyway. A movement brought in Buhari in 2015. It was a movement that said ‘enough is enough, we need a change’ and everything happened between one year. It was a movement that was everywhere, not just on social media. The bankers, professionals said no ‘enough is enough’.

“So how do we know who is going to do well in office?”