While the registration of kids as potential voters in the coming elections in Kano State is trending, I want to revisit pictures of actual voting by kids in the same Kano State during the last Presidential election in Nigeria that I shared on my Wall on March 30, 2015.
Though, I didn't support President Jonathan during the election; nevertheless, I considered it undemocratic and a perversion of the electoral process to mobilize kids to vote in the Presidential election, any election. So, I took the pain to share the pictures on my Wall for future references. Then, no one really cares, because the guy that they mobilize the kids to vote out of office (apology to Governor/Senator Kwankwaso of Kano State) is Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Today, it's trending. And that's okay. The crux of the matter really is not the degree of its worthiness as news, but whether we can (1) arrest the practice and (two), made the perpetrators suffer judicial punishment and the benefiting candidate to suffer disqualification? And the answer is NO.
Under-age voting is fast becoming a pattern in Kano State - assuming the mode of a cultural phenomenon. We are helpless. And INEC is helpless. Nigeria, that is the tragedy of our Electoral Process.
After the 2015 Nigerian Presidential election, Governor/Senator Kwankwaso boasted in a celebrated, but a defiant mood, you, that's President Jonathan, gave them, that's the Almajiri and Talakawa, good education, but we use them to vote against you and to vote you out of office. Did anyone take him up, challenge him or criticize him for his utterances and actions? Nope. Was there any protest? Nope.
Today, the same Kwankwaso remains a Nigerian national figure, and one under consideration for yet another higher national office. It can only happen in.
The reasons for that are quite obvious. (1) Nigerian ruling class careless. (2) Accountability is alien in Nigeria, and (3) The so-called public affairs commentators and bloggers, suffer massively from a chronic memory disorder. Even in cases where their memories serve them right, they cannot tie the knot to make a coherent case for disqualification or accountability. And that's the biggest tragedy of all.in
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