By Lolade Sowoolu
Perhaps one of the biggest things this six weeks postponement has done is to successfully lower the tempo of political discuss as pertains to elections in the country. Many campaign offices aren’t as boisterous as they used to be and there are fewer election conversations in offices and motor parks. Save for the several paid social media influencers, and perhaps a few genuine activists, conversations around March 28 have generally declined. Is this a good thing?
Yes the major contenders – the popular presidential aspirants have been busy. They’ve had to come up with activities to sustain their campaigns. GEJ for once has spent more time in Lagos doing more charity as a reaction to the feedback of his team on the pulse of Nigerians pre February 14. With no new grounds to conquer in Nigeria, Buhari has taken his campaign to Chattam House, London in the midst of opposition who insist that the trip is more medically informed than elections.
There have been no new billboards or posters, the campaign jingles have intensified, but the conversations have reduced – on TV, radio and even new media. People are slowly getting tired of calling ‘friends’ with opposing views names, the torrents of election memes, cartoons and display pictures have reduced significantly, even the PVC collection noise has reduced. The huge lot of the electorate that were successfully ‘transformed’ from ‘indifference’ to ‘Vote4Change’ are slowly returning to status quo while the other half are being sufficiently mesmerized with branded rice bags and yam. Is it good to be at this point now?
It’s about four weeks to elections. The current mood of the electorate is unfavourable to democracy, the fledgling type we still have in Nigeria. Nigerians are an emotional people. More of us will act while our adrenalines are high, only a few will go out of their way to fight for a just cause while the rest will act with just the right size of bread or envelope. That’s how we are. So now that our adrenaline has been doused and our ‘change/transformation’ chants have been suppressed by fatigue, how many of us will still vote?
It’s fantastic that many of our brothers who escaped abroad to avoid the Feb 14 ‘mayhem’ are back but how many additional votes does that translate to? Yes a lot more people also have their PVCs now yet the reality is that a lot more votes have been paid for in these added weeks. Unless we revive the conversations again, by the time it’s March 28,2015, only the regulars will vote. Most of the new ‘converts’ would have lost interest completely or forgotten their new conviction on facing the polls. The truth is that the chance for a real change in the coming elections is now slim.
