Tales from the Nigerian 2019 Presidential/Senate Election Front Lines
Justin Ebuka Muodebelu and the Day of Daggers
by
Justin Ebuka Muodebelu
Presented and Slightly Edited by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Justin Ebuka Muodebelu is a Youth Corper, a National Youth Service Corp member, the compulsory post-tertiary national service scheme in Nigeria, serving in Kano state, in Nigeria's Muslim North.
Click link on Facebook post date to go the original post
They ask you why you risk your life.
Why you are involved in an electoral process for a country that doesn't give a damn if you die.
I don't have any altruistic reason.
For some persons, they need the money to help with certain needs. People on social media who question their actions won't send them the money.
For some others, like me, it was made compulsory.
Missing out of it, will have consequences that would involve the monthly allowance. And so we brace it.
We do it.
Because it's just three weeks to getting the discharge certificate and nobody wants to hear stories about extension for some dumb reason.
My polling unit is two hours away from the local government secretariat of the area.
Away, basically from civilization.
A village with no electricity, bad roads and no clean water.
The first person we met was the village head. Asked him about the usual location for election and he pointed at his house.
We swept and made sure the place looked neat, without any paper showing an emblem of a political party.
The village head and some persons came to ask "How much will make everything work for a particular party."
I pretend not to understand the language. The APO attached to me says Corps members are not allowed to take anything from anybody. They laugh and go back to form a long queue.
Voting started.
Preference was given to old persons and people with disabilities.
An hour gone and someone sneaked into the place arranged for thumb printing and tries to persuade the old woman who was about to go in.
The others revolt.
A middle aged man dragged him out and almost immediately everyone starts fighting.
Daggers are like a part of clothing here.
I really don't know why I was calm when I saw them whip them out from their waists.
I stood up and begged everyone to stop fighting. I begged like my life was involved. Because it was.
And after a few "yi ankuri" and "dan Allah", voting resumed.
INEC [ Independent National Electoral Commission] says to stop at 2pm. But considering the number of persons on the queue and their culture that allows women to only come out after 2pm, I extended the time by an hour.
At 3pm, I saw the councillor sharing 100 Naira notes to some young persons who I later saw on the queue.
Realized what was happening and decided to stop at some minutes past 4. What ensued shook me.
He entered the place I was seated, asked the police man attached to us to give us "privacy", which he did.
Man threatened that I wouldn't leave there if I stopped.
Confidence that didn't come to me during my project defence in the university, sneaked into my mind and I told him I couldn't continue. I'd need time to count the ballot papers. He offered money again. This time to my assistants and they told him they couldn't without my permission. He stormed out and a few minutes later, the area was filled with young boys.
He pointed at me and kept shouting.
I dropped everything I was doing, walked to him and told him I couldn't continue because they'd sent someone to supervise and they had seen him giving money to people. If I continued, the result will be cancelled. That seemed to make sense. He called the hyper ones who were already tearing out "Voting in Process" posters and they left.
I counted the votes openly.
APC [ All Progressive Congress, the government party] won by a 100 votes margin.
The party agent for PDP [ People's Democratic Party, the opposition party] refused [ to accept the results].
Said APC agents bribed the people and I never said anything.
Don't forget I had a policeman attached to me.
He decided that was a good time to take a walk.
And so I begged them to understand that I would never do something that would cause problems for me.
The village head told them I rejected their money too.
Eventually, they agreed.
When I packed up to leave, they wanted to get into the bus. I refused. Told them if INEC discovers them inside the bus, they'd say we were bribed.
They came down and started throwing stones at the bus.
After a few hours, we got to the RAC [ Registration Area Centre].
Driver even got lost. Twice he drove into a different village.
I'll later open Facebook and see that corps members were killed in some places in the South South.
This country gets tiring.
Really tiring.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment