Congratulations, Nigeria! Our ‘demoncrazy’, aka democracy, has reached a new milestone. Nigeria’s ‘demoncrazy’ is, without doubt, a dazzling display of innovation and buoyancy. So dazzling, in fact, that its elected representatives have cooked up a brilliant new idea.
While other countries spend decades nurturing electoral integrity, Nigeria’s lawmakers have hit upon a revolutionary solution to voter apathy: punish the citizens who dare refuse to vote.
Yes, you read that right. Rather than tackle the systemic corruption, rigging, violence, and rotten governance that have robbed millions of Nigerians of faith in elections, some lawmakers believe that the best way forward is to get them to vote by force; fine, jail, or publicly shame those who skip the polls.
Welcome to the future of Nigeria’s demoncrazy, where voting is less a right and more a compulsory civic chore backed by threats of punishment. Because nothing says “freedom” quite like coercion, right?
The “problem”, according to our lawmakers is lazy voters. Forget everything you’ve heard about stolen ballot boxes, rigged results, and armed intimidation. Those are just inconvenient details. The real problem is Nigerians’ stubborn refusal to vote, presumably because they’d rather sleep in, watch football, or scroll social media than take part in the great Nigerian election theatre.
According to this brilliant logic, voter apathy stems from indifference or disloyalty, not from a rational calculation based on decades of electoral malpractice.
So, what’s the solution?
Punish those who refuse to cast a ballot, regardless of the quality, fairness, or safety of the election itself. The assumption is simple: If you fine citizens enough or threaten jail, they’ll come out and vote.
Never mind that many Nigerians have learned, often painfully, that their votes rarely count. The new mantra is participation at all costs, because the number of votes cast apparently matters more than the integrity of the votes themselves.
Nigeria’s electoral history is littered with stories of stolen elections, rigged results, and violence. The 2007 general elections were so disastrously fraudulent that even the international community openly condemned them as a “sham.” In virtually all the previous elections, reports of vote-buying, intimidation, and result manipulation were rampant, with entire communities too scared or disillusioned to participate.
Yet, despite this well-documented chaos, lawmakers are not focused on cleaning up the mess. Instead, their grand plan is to punish the people who, fed up with rigged games, choose not to waste their time anymore.
This is a little like a casino owner fining customers for refusing to gamble at a table where the dealer controls the cards. The problem is not the voters; it’s the rigged system designed to serve the interests of powerful elites.
In many parts of Nigeria, Election Day can feel more like preparing for war than a peaceful civic exercise. Armed militias, thugs, and political henchmen terrorise communities, forcing voters to choose between their political preference and their personal safety.
Remember the horrors of the 2011 post-election violence that left hundreds dead and thousands displaced? Or the ongoing violence in volatile states across the country? The threat of violence keeps voters away; not laziness.
But our lawmakers’ wacky solution? Jail or fine those who don’t risk their lives for the vote. Because in Nigeria, democracy obviously functions best under threat of violence and incarceration.
For many citizens, refusing to vote is a form of political protest; a way of saying “enough” to corrupt, inept, and self-serving leaders, who have repeatedly failed to deliver on their promises.
Yet, instead of addressing this cry for change, lawmakers prefer to criminalise dissent. They treat abstention as a crime rather than a symptom of a broken system.
This draconian approach not only fails to address the underlying grievances but risks deepening political alienation and undermining trust in democracy altogether.
Another reason Nigerians may stay away from the polls is the lack of credible political alternatives. Many elections revolve around ethnicity, patronage, and personality cults rather than policies and governance.
Without meaningful choices or voter education, the ballot box becomes a hollow exercise. Forcing citizens to vote under threat of penalty only amplifies this hollowness.
Compulsory voting in a rigged system is absurd. It only works where elections are free, fair, and safe, not where outcomes are predetermined, and voters risk intimidation or violence.
In Nigeria’s case, compulsory voting enforced by fines or jail threatens to reduce democracy to a dystopian farce where citizens vote under duress and elected officials owe their legitimacy to coerced turnout rather than genuine support.
The real solution is to fix the System, and respect the people. If lawmakers genuinely want to increase voter turnout and strengthen democracy, they must reform electoral bodies. They must give the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, real independence, adequate funding, and modern technology to prevent fraud.
They should clamp down on corruption and enforce anti-corruption laws and ensure that politicians are held accountable for mismanagement and embezzlement.
They must crack down on vote buying, intimidation, and electoral violence on Election Day and promote transparency and accountability among politicians.
They must enact laws to guarantee voter safety and see to it that only impartial security forces are deployed to protect voters and polling units.
There is a need for the promotion of political education: Inform citizens about their rights and the importance of issue-based voting.
Furthermore, instead of chasing shadows, the lawmakers should contribute to encouraging credible political alternatives, support reforms that reduce the dominance of patronage and ethnicity in politics. Above all, they should make laws that would enthrone good governance for the common good and jail politicians who fail to do so.
Nigeria’s path forward is not through repression but reform. When elections are free, fair, and safe, Nigerians will vote because they believe their voice matters, not because they fear punishment.
Until then, the best way to respect Nigerian voters is to fix the system, not punish those who have lost faith in it.
True democracy is built on trust and choice, not on coercion and fear. Punishing Nigerians for choosing not to vote in a system rife with fraud and violence is like fining customers for refusing to buy from a store that sells spurious goods. It’s ruinous, unjust, counterproductive, and tone-deaf.
Until the electoral system is genuinely reformed, forcing citizens to vote will only deepen cynicism and disillusionment.
Nigeria’s democracy is at a crossroads. Lawmakers can either listen to the voice of the people and fix the broken system, or double down on punishment and repression.
Voting should be a right, not a burden enforced by fines and jail cells. The time to reform, not punish, is now.
Non-voting is a language of protest. It’s a loud, unambiguous “No” to a corrupt and broken system. The audacity of lawmakers to threaten penalties for abstention shows a deep misunderstanding of democracy. Voting is a right, not a compulsory chore enforced by fines or imprisonment.
Here’s a truth our lawmakers conveniently overlook: Voter apathy is a symptom of a broken political system. Citizens don’t stay home because they dislike voting; they stay home because voting has been rendered meaningless.
By the way, what are the people being forced to vote for? Entrenched corruption, hunger, injustice, inequities, barefaced nepotism, cronyism and rudderlessness? Haba! Naija people say their mumu don do.
Democracy is not a crime, but refusing to invest time for hustling in a doomed, sinking ship and a rigged election isn’t a sin either.
In fact, the ‘lawbreakers’, sorry, lawmakers, should be the ones heading to jail because of their intellectual limpness and distortion of power. It’s like they are only in Abuja, lazing about with thoughts only on enriching themselves as the country rots. No wonder they even have time for such puerile piece of legislation.
However, if they insist and this ‘madness’ comes to fruition as a law, they may have to expand the jailhouses to accommodate the greater number of Nigerians, who have resolved to consistently keep away from the charade called (s)elections in this land of absurdities.