By Sunmola Olowookere
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It was a day to the botched presidential election which was billed to take place on the 6th of February, 2019.

Sunday was deep in discussion with his group of friends about the upcoming election. They stood at a T-junction in a group of four. The discussion was heated. Their voices were bitter and the disappointment in their voices could not be masked.

“That is our people for you. After all the promises they made to us, is this how they are going to treat us?” Sunday hissed and the bitterness in his voice was palpable.

Sunday is one of the youths in our neighbourhood who never got admission into the university. He is one of the youth leaders. He seemed to have given up on getting a university education after several tries at JAMB with nothing to show for it.

 In spite of his challenges, he still managed to deceive gullible ladies into his bed with the claim that he was an undergraduate at UNIBEN.

The second guy, Kasali, a polytechnic graduate who was still looking for job, spat derisively on the ground and spoke through gritted teeth, “I have always suspected that the coordinator was up to no good.

 “I heard he had settled the other group in the next neighbourhood. He even shared rice among them. So he thinks he can use our name to collect money and “die” it. I can waste him if he dares to try it,”he threatened.

Kasali is a very angry youth. He is angry at his parents who do not realize his worth and send him abroad where he was sure he would quickly “make” it and be sending dollars home.

He had no regard for the young couples on his street who flaunt their good jobs, cars and wives before him. “Who told them I can’t do better if I have such opportunity?” He would rant before anyone that cares to listen.

The third guy shrugged his massive shoulders as if he was less concerned about the whole development “well, I have my voters card with me and I am going to sell it to the highest bidder. This is the time to get our dividend of democracy. We have been patient all these while with nothing to show for it. If they will not cooperate, then we know what to do”.

The fourth person was the only calm voice among them as he sued for patience. He advised that it was still early in the day and that the coordinator would likely still come to give them their share of the allotted goodies.

As they meandered down the street, they could not help devising other means of “getting something in this election”.

Unfortunately, the election got postponed in the early hours of Saturday morning and the haggling coupled with the agitation was put off till another day.

These are upcoming youths who had no qualms of selling their future and integrity for a few morsels and the above narrative was not a fiction. It was an interaction that actually took place on the friday preceding the postponed election.

 Unfortunately, no matter how long I listened in on their conversation, they were careful not to mention the name of any political party.

It was obvious that these young men were angling to sell their votes to the highest bidder and they do not have any preferred candidate. No ideology?! Nothing, How skewed! It makes one afraid of what the future hold in store for the upcoming generation.

Their frame of mind represents the thinking of most of the electorate. All the development that they need in their environment, which have not materialised they want it monetised. They have no self respect. Can a paltry sum of money cushion the effect of years of neglect?

A doctor of Philosophy at the Ekiti State University, Prof Wale Olajide during a seminar for preparations towards the election once expressed fear towards the current youth having a change of attitude from their pecuniary attitude. He could not shake off his pessimism about the current generation as he advised that Nigerians should focus on the growing children with the hope that they can be nurtured aright.

Now to the crux of the matter, who are the electorate? According to the dictionary, the electorate is the number of the citizens of a country that are eligible to vote.

However, in the Nigeria context, the word “electorate” has a somewhat slanted meaning. It consists of those that will actually go out to vote on election days. It is unfortunate that most elites do not go out to vote on these days.

Most of them could not see themselves trekking a long distance to the polling unit and queuing in the sun to vote. Studies have revealed that it is the poor masses; the artisans, the market people and the street people who vote during elections.

Civil and public servants simply stock their food supplies, fill up their generating set with fuel and while they spend the day monitoring the election over the television. Most of them don’t vote.

Hence, one can safely deduce that those that vote at elections are those people on the streets.

Crafty politicians who are aware of this fact reach out to these people through gifts and foodstuffs in a bid to sway their thinking.

Despite the fact that among these public office seekers are those that have spent a term in public office with nothing to show for it in terms of bettering the lots of the people, yet when they come, cap in hand, begging, with plenty goodies in their bag, they are given audience by the gullible electorate.

And when you look at the type of gifts that would be distributed, they are ones that should ordinarily be rejected by the electorate. However, the electorate never knew better as they would still accept it. It is like a case of biblical Esau selling his birth right for a bowl of porridge.

The worst of such gifts was one which was distributed somewhere in Oyo state last year. A politician had distributed 5 cups of gari packed in a nylon to a group. The picture trended on the social media showing a picture of some local women holding up their “gifts” while grinning into the camera.

The picture had sparked an outrage across the nation as it appeared demeaning and dehumanizing. Curses and abuses had trailed the distributor of the gift and the originator of the idea of the distributed gift.

How could this happen? It was as if the people were regarded as refugees from a war torn area.

Year after year, unscrupulous politicians have devised means of giving a little part of their vomit after gluttonous consumption back to the society.

They try to outshine themselves in the demeaning kind of gifts they creatively design to give out to the populace such as a bottle of kerosene, packaged foodstuffs, recharge cards, the list is endless.

The electorate too have become prey in the hands of these predative crop of politicians. Their pecuniary expectations made them to lose respect before the politicians who have no qualms in giving out meagre gifts out of the plenty that had been stolen.

Why has the thinking of the electorate gone so skewed? Unfortunately, the elite that should bring about a change in the status quo by not being affected by the senseless gift and ensuring that their votes count do not feel the urge to vote unless, they have something at stake in the election.

The INEC too has a role to play in giving the electorate’s wider access to exercise their franchise. The polling units are too few and far in between.

Some new areas are springing up in towns all over the country. New polling units need to created in these areas.

INEC must be dynamic in its operations and must ensure that they are up to date about the development in their environment so that they can be better equipped to serve the people.