Still taking lessons from #OsunDecides2022 as a guide to citizens' approach towards 2023: Osun State had the highest number of newly registered voters nationwide - 708,771. Did they turn up in the election? If yes, how did they vote? The answer is empirical, not phantasmagoric:
Total votes got by the 3 leading candidates in #OsunDecides2018 was 638,577. Total voted got by the 2 leading candidates in #OsunDecides2022 is 778,398. The increase is around 139,821. 139,821 out of a possible 708,771 newly registered voters is not exactly a gamechanger.
There are many barriers to voting in Nigeria and anyone who has been part of an actual political structure has come up against them before. It is one thing to get people to register, another to get them to complete the process, another to get INEC to release their PVC etc.
It is still another thing to get people to pick up their PVC then after they pick it up, another struggle to ensure they show up on election day and vote in the direction that you want them to vote. Getting them to even show up is in fact my own personal worst nightmare.
In 2011, I guided friends to the final stage of getting their PVCs in my hood so I could deliver my PU, only for them to decide to hangout with chics in the long election weekend of no-movement from Friday night. Election day for many Nigerians is another public holiday.
Things like getting people to register to vote is basic political operations that nobody who is part of an established political structure comes online to talk about. Dark operatives in fact ensure that the PU of an opponent is filled in a way as to make them lose their PU.
The INEC staff that didn't resume on time to register voters is probably in the house of a major party chieftain conducting registration for new voters. When they resume, a chieftain also provides them with canopy, generator, refreshments - these things are basic to politics.
Regardless of that, nobody goes into an election banking on a voting base that has never voted before - it's like going to war with untested soldiers. And there's a psychological dimension: someone who didn't bother to register to vote in previous cycles is less likely to vote.
There's an old woman somewhere around Shitta who has voted in every election since the 1970s - hers was a generation that took voting as a civic duty and responsibility. Even on days when she's ill, she still comes out to vote. Understand the psychology behind the numbers.
Having your bath on a Saturday morning when you're not going to work is difficult. Having your bath, ignoring Netflix and stepping out of your house is more difficult. Then you now have to queue with people in your hood that you don't flow with...under the sun or rain, lol.
Explaining this so that we all understand why the system is the way it is and why 5,000 Naira can motivate your local vulcaniser to go and vote for established parties while you're using that election day as a holiday or having good sex with your partner.
Balance this fact with the understanding that established parties have chieftains in every locality who are registering sure voters that will turn up to vote, but they still won't rely on them as game-changer. Now go back to the numbers in Osun and check where the numbers went.
Osun did not have the highest number of newly registered voters by happenstance or any online movement or by coming to complain about INEC. PDP and the candidate realised a need to expand the voting base because only a close election such as in 2018, can be rigged by APC.
The numbers you saw from Osun were the result of massive local operations to register new voters. APC only caught on to it when INEC released the stats. No noise. No fanfare. No complaints. Just see the problem and pursue the solution by putting in the work.
Even with all that: 708,771 people registered to vote. 360,548 bothered to complete the process. 335,298 actually picked up their PVCs. Only a guesstimate of 139,821 turned out to vote on election day with #OsunDecides2022: these are things to learn from.
Its very possible a percentage of that number previously had PVCs but just didn't bother to vote in 2018. The thinning out numbers from newly registered to actually voted cannot be a surprise to anyone who has been part of a political structure: human nature is very consistent.
It's even possible that the new voters who voted, only turned out in 4 or 5 LGAs because leaders there ran a very smooth Mobilisation operation. And that's the problem with these things: you can work off your head in 29 LGAs and still lose because 1 compromised.
To scale such a plan nationwide requires deep commitment that only comes from a sort of relationships forged over the years. I will deliver my PU and Ward for PDP in Lagos, I trust Ehilebo and Ose to do same in Edo, I trust Hayatu in Borno etc - that's the structure.
My trust in them is not based on online interactions or zoom meetings, no. They've delivered before as I did, and so we trust that when we say we're voting PDP, we won't be alone. These things are deep and I wish I could communicate it better. Cos one lacuna and it all crumbles
If I tell my leaders that I failed to deliver my PU because thugs shot in the air, they'll sympathise with me but remember not to rely on my PU for victory next time. It's up to me to do whatever it takes to contribute to the numbers: that is political structure.
