Legalise vote selling: Should we?
As Karl Marx would say, “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” In today’s Nigeria, the voting exercise has been reduced to an event of validating the oppressors of the citizens. And the voters have been conditioned to offer […]
As Karl Marx would say, “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
In today’s Nigeria, the voting exercise has been reduced to an event of validating the oppressors of the citizens. And the voters have been conditioned to offer their votes to those willing to buy. Luckily for the sellers, there are desperate buyers of their services. So, why make the transaction difficult or illegal? After all, the only person that will be shortchanged is the seller. If you are struggling to comprehend my perspective, just take it as sarcasm.
It is not wrong to declare that vote-selling in Nigeria is a conventional trade on election days. It is becoming like giving tips to the regular policemen and army officers at checkpoints. But in this case, the vote sellers make an extra effort to negotiate a decent price.
And the predictable outcome is that voters are willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder. From the past trends of vote selling, one would not be wrong to say that the super-majority of vote sellers are never interested in voting for the right person. They just want to cash out. And to an extent, one would not scold them badly for doing so. In fact, even the law enforcement officials deployed to polling units tolerate the vote-transaction market. Recent evidence is that of the by-elections.
As a participating witness of the by-elections, I have concluded that vote-selling has become a permanent fixture in Nigeria. The key reason for selling votes is mainly the ongoing hardship in the country, with the high unemployment rate and inflation as the underlying indicators. The worrying thing is that the government is not willing to change its policies to make life easy for the people, especially those who voted for them.
Businesses are closing. And with the devaluation, the salary from existing jobs is not enough. People have resorted to begging to survive. The government is aware of this, knowing they caused this hardship since the removal of fuel subsidy. They have also failed to provide security for farmers in the areas that are needed most. With rising costs of farm inputs, farmers are finding it difficult to cultivate their land. In short, life is very difficult for the super majority of the population.
So, for those who have spent the last 27 months begging from one doorstep to another to augment what they have for survival, they cannot be faulted for trading their votes for cash or a cup of rice. They see their vote as their only valuable asset, which can be exchanged for money in a time of hardship. Their vote is the only commodity that will prevent them from begging their oppressors for a few days. This is why they hope to sell it for a decent price. The irony here is that the political elites are aware of this, and they end up being the buyers.
Frustratingly, whenever you hear the political elites and the ruling classes talking about this hardship, they quickly end up with one solution: providing “safety nets” for the people. Their understanding of a safety net could mean something different to different groups. As for the current administrators of the Tinubu administration, they interpret the safety net as a way of giving out rice and money to selected individuals who are loyal to them. And, yes, they used the safety net to buy the votes from those who were selling their votes during elections.
Obviously, the safety net is not a solution for this hardship. It is only an avenue to keep the people repressed. This group of elites are complicit in selling incremental, tiny changes as an end to injustices in the country, but all the while the massive oppression continue.
Without sounding like a philosopher, I have concluded that Nigerians will get used to anything and are now comfortable selling their votes. They have been conditioned to think less about oppression, and their tolerance for it is growing at an alarming rate. People have accepted selling their freedom and rights despite knowing that the money they receive is also their entitlement.
The politicians have commodified access and supply of basic needs like clean water, food, farm inputs, roads, etc. And where these are afforded, they can be taken away. Some term this as the weaponisation of poverty. They have downgraded the social contract to what sane societies will term “wage slavery”—where people beg to surrender their lives over payments that would not last for more than a few days. This is the original sin.
Sadly, most of the people affected are the traditional voters of the ruling party, mainly in the North. The singling out of one region is not to deliberately water down the hardship being experienced across the board.
Many would blame the vote sellers. But they forget that these are vulnerable people who have little to no option other than selling their votes to survive. It is the ruling class who have institutionalised the poverty and hardship that forces them to sell their votes. Again, this is more widespread in the North, where Tinubu got the majority of his votes. Of course, many predict that this weaponisation of poverty is a deliberate attempt to make them vote for him by selling their votes.
My appeal here is that if people are conditioned to sell their votes, I urge the oppressors to legalise it. The least the oppressors could do is to allow the vulnerable oppressed to serve and validate their oppressors in a legal way.
It is true that many take offence at the voters. But we need to stop blaming the oppressed—the electorate. All focus should be on the oppressors—the bad leaders in Nigeria.
Yes, we must keep discussing the oppressors and sympathise with the oppressed. By exposing the oppressors, maybe we can change the course of the future of Nigerian democracy, which for so long has been corrupted and perverted. The oppressor is the problem, and the Nigerian political ruling class must own their guilt.