Greetings!
One thing that has always helped us to maintain a better society is what we all know as freedom. Without freedom, then people would be forced to do things against their wish and will but because we all have our right and freedom to choose and do some certain things that's why we have our right to self determination.
Having said so much about freedom and rights, I would like to delve into the topic of the prompt in the Hive learners community which is all about, “Voting by force.”
Voting for me is our right as a citizen of a country to choose which kind and type of a leader we want and need to rule and govern over us and to me, it would be good if everyone who are qualified to vote at an election to vote for the candidate of their choice.
However, in as much it's good to vote at an election as a qualified voter, one thing that should not be done is that of people being forced to vote at an election, most especially against their will and wish, although what we now see today in our electoral system is political apathy which is grossly caused by the fraud in our electoral system and process, but even at that, people should endeavour to vote at an election.
To me, there's no point in forcing an eligible voter to vote for the candidate of his choice at an election if the vote would count most especially in my own part of the world which is Nigeria, but because people have now realised that their vote would not count just because of the partisanship of the electoral body and the security agents, they have decided not to exercise their civic responsibility when it comes to voting on an election day.
One thing is that everybody wants his or her vote to count without any form of bias and what's now the point when one would go to his or her polling unit queuing for hours and at the end his or her vote would be manipulated in the favour of someone he has not cast his or her vote for.
So, forcing people under this kind of a situation to vote for me isn't worth it and I don't even think that there's a need for people to be forced to vote at an election even if things are done right, forcing them to me would only amount to dictatorship. However, if there's anything that should be done in order to make people cast their vote and exercise their civic responsibility at an election, that should be the proper orientation and sensitisation which should be given to people, most especially the eligible voters and believe me sincerely if this is done with the the neutrality of the electoral body, then people would only be willing to vote for the candidate of their choice without being forced knowing fully well that their votes would count at the end of the electoral process.
In conclusion, forcing people to vote is not the proper thing to do as these would amount to trampling on their freedom and right, instead, there should be free and fair elections without any form of manipulation and the people should also be sensitised on the need for them to vote at an election day.
This is my entry to week 229, episode 03 of the weekly featured contest in the Hive learners community.
Thanks for reading.
Picture sourced from metaAi.
