Get informed – ignorance is not bliss!

The 2015 general elections are about six months away, and aspiring politicians have upped the ante. They are using disingenuous means to obtain a mandate from the electorate, without clear articulation of the social engineering design with which they intend to uplift the people out of poverty, and confer on them life in all its fullness.

In Chinua Achebe’s epic novel, Things Fall Apart, he wrote that when Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing, Eneke replied: “Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.”

We are aware that politicians substitute campaign speeches with cash and material inducement to the electorate at stops in town hall and village square meetings. Like Eneke the bird, politicians have found out that elections are now won or lost in Nigeria on the basis of ‘stomach infrastructure’, thus they have resorted to sharing branded and unbranded foodstuff instead of a clear blueprint of plans on how to take the people and our nation forward.

Ilya Somin, a political analyst of the CATO Institute said: “Democracy demands an informed electorate. Voters who lack adequate knowledge about politics will find it difficult to control public policy. Inadequate voter knowledge prevents government from reflecting the will of the people in any meaningful way.”

This phenomenon of ignorant voters is commonplace in Nigeria. Since the advent of the third Republic, the Nigeria electorate have not demonstrated adequate knowledge of how voters can control public policy.

Public policy is the action taken by government to address a particular public issue. All over the world, local, state, federal, and international government organisations all develop and implement public policy to protect and benefit their populations. The question is: How can we, as Individuals and groups, shape public policy through education, advocacy, or mobilisation of interest groups in the run up to the 2015 general elections? Do we even know what the issues are in our constituencies? Gone are the days when ignorance is bliss. The consequences are dire, as voters who lack sufficient knowledge may be manipulated by the political elites.

Political ignorance endangers democracy. Such ignorance also raises doubts about how democracy can really serve the interests of the majority. Politics in Nigeria is often seen as a dirty game and good men will rather stay away from it, for fear of tainting/destroying their good image and reputation.

Oscar Ringer, who is famously referred to as the Mark Twain of American Socialism, described politics as “the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.”

Nigeria’s political terrain is being re-calibrated with freebies generously provided by wealthy party members. When we examine what is going on in the country — from Ekiti State, to Osun State and beyond — we can see that democracy, as practised in Nigeria, is an aberration; and it is simply about getting votes from the majority poor, and campaign funds from the minority rich, with the politicians promising to protect each group from the other.

We have seen the outcome of the gubernatorial election in Ekiti, where many Nigerians are shocked about the emergence of Ayo Fayose as the governor-elect. One is tempted to ask the question, “Does Fayose really have any grassroots appeal?”

This is debatable when it is realised that he won with a majority of 203,000 votes in a state with a voting population of about 2.3 million voters. According to the ancient Greek Philosopher Plato, “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”

Obviously, the outcome of the election would have been different if those who refused to participate in the process had turned out to cast their vote. If I may re-echo the view of Charles de Gaulle, the soldier-turned-statesman, in this era, politics is indeed too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

The role of the electorate in ensuring that only politicians who have a solid track record of performance are elected into office in 2015 and beyond cannot be over-emphasised. The Nigerian electorate have always come up with one excuse or the other to explain their disinterest and non-participation in political process and leadership succession.

Instead of coming out to exercise our right to suffrage, we sit down, watch like spectators and then grumble from the pit of our ‘spectocratic’ darkness — in our living rooms, from football viewing centres, in commercial buses, in motor parks, in the markets, in our sleep, on social media, inter alia — that our vote does not really count during elections. So, because we think our vote does not count, we are apathetic about exercising our fundamental right to vote and be voted for during elections.

We make a huge mistake when we think of our single vote as worthless. Don’t underestimate the power in your thumb, as it is much more powerful than you can think. This is what ignorance does to the mind of a ‘spectocrate’ — someone who does not believe the electoral process in his country offers citizens the right to really choose their political leaders.

I speak to those who are in this category. Are you often dispirited during elections? Are you not you sick and tired of that familiar ennui. You believe that the oft-repeated line that the rational voter has little incentive to gain from his participation in the political process because his or her vote is unlikely to affect the outcome. To you, the winner has already been pre-determined and your single vote will not make any difference in changing the outcome of the election.

However, I urge you all to be involved in the process. The process will continue to be plagued by faults and defects if we all abdicate our duty as the ‘ELECTORATE’, sit on the fence as ‘SPECTOCRATES’ and leave the space for politicians to ram their choices down our throats! The solution is up to you and me.

We have to come down from our Olympian high and lofty mountain, get involved in the process of choosing political candidates with the right credentials, and then fight to ensure the nation has free and fair elections. Our ignorance and apathy has kept us backwards, as only a knowledgeable electorate can exercise any informed control over policy.

The question is: are you willing to be involved?