2027: Why Nigerians must vote for working system

By Prisca Sam-Duru

A 33-year-old Cameroonian woman living in the UK recently shared an experience that stayed with me.

Thirty weeks pregnant and home alone, she felt what she thought was labour pain and dialled UK a emergency number. In less than three minutes, she said, four medics were at her door with full delivery equipment, ready to deliver her baby in her apartment. It turned out to be false labour alarm. They still took her by ambulance to the hospital for checks.

That is what a working system looks like.

Now place that beside Nigeria’s maternal mortality reality, where women still die because help comes too late, or never comes at all. Then you will understand how far behind we are.

A few months ago, my neighbour’s house caught fire at night. The entire street came out shouting to alert the rest of the residents, fetching water, breaking walls to stop the fire from spreading. People called emergency numbers they knew. No fire service came. Through the night, it was residents and local vigilante who did the job of trained firefighters. At the end, we lost the brother of the house owner.

In the UK for instance, fire alarms are checked routinely. Once a fire starts, the alarm triggers and within minutes firefighters are on site. In Nigeria, we have heard too many stories of fire trucks arriving after everything is burnt. Even when they do, they arrive, with no water in their tanks leading to reports of their being chased away by an angry crowd. What a country.

In most English cities, you’ll hardly see police officers chasing bad guys on the road and creating trouble for road users. Also, you’d be surprised to find out that there are roundabouts without either traffic lights or traffic warden, yet, there is hardly any chaos. Road users, even cyclists, obey traffic rules. In Lagos, we have LASTMA, Road Safety officials at junctions that already have traffic lights, and the roads are still chaotic; drivers cursing, danfos blocking and driving one way, Korope bus and keke drivers driving like there’s no tomorrow while okada riders weave through like snakes, causing confusion.

The difference is not magic. It is system.

Another general election is approaching.

What do we really want as Nigerians? Our politicians travel abroad as if it is their ancestral home. They enjoy 24-hour electricity, prompt emergency response, good roads and functioning hospitals. They return home, loot the treasury, and travel out again to spend it. And the cycle continues.

It is high time Nigerians asked a simple question: Do we want to start walking the path of development, or continue serving politicians who impoverish us?

Recently, we saw political thugs stopping a presidential candidate they oppose from campaigning in some states. The same thugs who are impoverished by bad governance. The same young men whose purchasing power has been reduced to almost nothing.

In Benue, where communities have been repeatedly attacked and people massacred at different times by killer herders and bandits, we saw a self-styled strongman declare that Benue belongs to the President, while many of his people cry out to foreign countries for help. Where is the democracy in that? Why should any Nigerian be prevented from campaigning anywhere in his own country? Will stopping a presidential candidate from campaigning give Benue State people better life?

Ask anyone who has lived in the UK, when last power blinked, let alone went out for hours. The answer would be never.

In my own community in Lagos, we have battled epileptic power for over 15 years since we moved in because of an old, weak transformer. Last year, residents levied themselves over a hundred thousand each to buy a new one. We celebrated as if we had won the World Cup. From the transformer, cables, poles, everything was paid for from our pockets. Sadly, one year later, that transformer is yet to be energized by the electricity distribution company. Yet, people still receive outrageous bills.

In saner climes, you simply enjoy uninterrupted power and pay at month-end. How the power gets to you is not your business. Here, we buy the equipment and still pay for darkness. In my street, we grade the road ourselves. Every house digs its own borehole.

This has gone on for so long it now feels normal. It is not.

At 66, Nigeria is experiencing more retrogression than progress. Insecurity has made people unsafe in their homes. Hunger has eroded the masses’ purchasing power. Corruption has spread from the political elite to the streets. People adulterate food with poison just to make profit, fueling strange illnesses. A working system would have checked that. At least the late Dora Akunyili proved that Nigeria can work when patriots are in charge.

In Nigeria, citizens provide for themselves every basic amenity government should provide — light, water, road, security. And instead of demanding good governance, thugs fight fellow citizens for politicians who will never remember them after elections.

We throw refuse into gutters and block drainage. We eat in moving vehicles and throw the waste out of the window. Perhaps, what is left is for Nigerians to throw waste from an aeroplane mid-air; that is, if its possible. We have lost regard for the rule of law because those who should enforce it have thrown morality away. A hungry, angry, hopeless people will hardly act orderly. If the system works, people will behave better.

Come 2027, we need a

fresh start

Nigerians must vote without tribal or religious sentiments. We must vote for good governance. For a government that will reorient the people, restore our image at home and abroad, make politics less about profit and more about service. A government that will put Nigerians first, not the pockets of a few.

We have a choice to make: continue with the status quo, or vote for a system that works.

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