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With the way things are going in my country, I don't think we are still in the democracy era because this is now really a government for the people and by the people which is what were taught in school, we always think we have our right to vote and make decision intact but it is the other way and this is the major challenge we have in this country, we don't have the right to vote who we want or even voice out without consequences or aftermath, we aren't in democracy but despotism where one political party always want the power to themselves and doesn't care if they take it violently. I can't even remember when we have a free and fair election, since the time of Obasanjo/Yar adua, everything have been by fire by force.
One of the challenges we are facing is the electoral corruption and rigging, which is the main problem when it come to democracy, it is really much and hurting, it even end up discouraging lot of people who which to vote but what is the essence of voting when some people in power already pick who they want ( what most people do say), this year election was where they really draw the line, almost everyone was brought right from the election officials, to the security and even the judicial authorities. The most crazy thing about this corruption is the vote buying stuff, this people in power have master the act of using poverty and illiteracy as a weapon to boost their act of corruption, they can easy sway people with chicken change or peanut, it is even worse here, they can easily buy people over with stuff not up to a dollar, at times, if I pass through a political party people meeting and see people sitting under hot sun waiting for someone that is still in his house enjoying chicken, I will just laugh, you will later see them jubilating on top 2 spag and one derica of rice as if they haven't eaten for a whole year.
The most interesting part was the manipulation of results, before the election start, there are measures put in place to either steal the ballot or manipulate the result. A friend of mine happen to be among the inec officers this year and he came back with news about how the whole process went, how people in a poll unity weren't allow to vote, the violence and brutal forces from political thugs and all, and at the end of the day when few people voted, the election ballot box was full with fake (already filled) paper which they had to transport, this happen in different voting unit, lot of people complain about it yet nothing was done, even on the provided Inec website, the result were not in line with the one provide.
There are things we ought to be put in place so as to restore the confidence in this political thing we call democracy, one of it is to review and reform the election process, they need to address the flaw in the country voting process and also find ways to make rigging very difficult but firstly, they have to strengthen and remove the bad eggs in Inec or we won't have any progress. Also the rule of law need to be strengthen especially the judiciary arms of government which now look like group of puppet which do fail to resist political pressures, and if anyone default, there should be severe punishment, also the security of voters should be the utmost priority, unlike this year where voters life were at staked, people were injured just because they want to exercise their voting rights. This few things if put in place will go a long way