The past failures and the needed reforms

Greetings!

Looking back into the past, all I see is failures and mistakes of both the leaders and the followers in the society which has led to one regret or another. These past failures and mistakes can be mostly felt in my country's political arena.

One thing that I have learned about mistakes and failures is that the failure or mistake of yesterday is the regret of today and that of today will surely lead to the regret of tomorrow. So, in lieu of this, we must try our best to learn from the mistakes of yesterday to correct our lives of today and avoid the regret of tomorrow.

Having said all of these, I would like to talk about the past failures I have witnessed when it comes to the political affairs of my country which has led us to where we are today, which is a place of regrets.

Though, I'm a young guy, but with what I have heard and learnt from the history of my country which was once a land full of milk and honey, it's crystal clear that the past mistakes of our leaders and the ignorance of the citizens cum voters has really affected us by taking us out of the land that was once fertile to a barren one.

During my secondary school days, we were taught government. Then, in the subject, we were taught a topic which has to do with voting. Under this topic, we were taught what voting is all about and how it concerns everyone of us as citizens. Also, we were taught types of voting and its features, but that's not actually where I'm going. Where I'm going is that of voting apathy.

Under the sub topic, voters apathy, we were made to know that this has to do with people not coming out to exercise their civic responsibility. We were told that not exercising our civic responsibility of voting could be caused by a series of things such as violence at the voting centre, snatching of ballot boxes, killing and so on and so forth.

So, when I heard this back then, I saw the main reason why people would not even want to come out to vote for the candidate of their choice. Though this voter apathy is not a good thing for a country's democracy, even at that, everyone will want to preserve their lives and to me, that's the best thing to be done for anyone that loves his or her dear life.

In that same class, we were told how this would affect the voting process if not properly guided against as there would be no true winner and that there would be manipulation in the voting process. All these were what we were taught.

So, when I came of age, I too witnessed the same thing I have been taught about voting and voter apathy and it's then I got to know it's real. Back then it's the theory aspect of it that I witnessed, but not what I'm currently experiencing is the practical aspect of it.

So far so good, I have witnessed in my adulthood 5 election cycles in my country Nigeria. The election cycle in my country is in four years and by the grace of God, I have witnessed five and out of the five, I have been able to preside over a polling unit twice and on those two occasions, what we learnt in theory has come to reality.

My last and current experience was that of the 2023 general election which witnessed a very low turnout of voters. This low turnout of voters really marred the election and its result and this low turnout of voters was connected to the past experience of people to what had happened in the past election where people were killed due to election day violence.

Though, this time around, the security people were on ground to ensure peaceful election but all their effort were proved abortive and on the election day, lives were lost as usual and when I saw the happening that day, my mind went down to what we were taught in the government class and every was so clear to me about what voters apathy means.

So, these were the past mistakes and failures that we are still witnessing in these current days. Nothing has really changed about the past when it comes to how elections are conducted here in Nigeria. Though, it may seem as if it's normal, but it's not as this kind of an election has not only drawn us back millions miles but given us the kind of leaders that are not even close to the choice of what people would have bargained for.

But, in my own opinion, I think for things to make sense in our electoral processes, everyone including the political leaders, their followers and the citizens must be ready to work things out. Power should not also be the ultimate in the land and people should also be sensitized and orientated on how proper free and fair election should be.

Also, our electoral body should also be overhauled and there should be political reform in our land. By doing so, things will change and we will move out of our past failures and regrets into a new political and voting life.

This is my entry to the week 171, Edition 02 of the weekly Featured contest in the Hive Learners community.

Thanks for reading.

Pictures sourced from metaAi.