The Saturday February 23,2019 rescheduled presidential and National Assembly elections which were characterized by violence and large scale electoral fraud, also witnessed widespread voter-apathy that, analysts say, is a reflection of citizen’s discontent and disconnection with governance at all levels.
Though this comes with grave implications for the same citizens, the truth remains that a large number of Nigerians are excluded from what is now termed ‘dividend of democracy’ as they have nothing to show as government presence of impact on either their lives or their businesses.
“Why should I waste my time to vote for somebody who will not, on getting into office, remember or think of me; somebody whose actions, programmes or policies will not have any direct impact on my life, those of family, or my business?” queried a young man, who chose to play football with numerous others on the election day, in response to a question posed by BusinessDay.
The young man, a business man, who introduced himself as Christian Ejiofor, may have spoken the minds of many other Nigerians, young or old. And this is at individual level.
Though the results of the presidential elections received so far show that the voter-apathy cuts across many states of the federation, a closer look at the results also reveals that it is more pronounced in a certain section of the country which is the South East region.
Notwithstanding that their son, Peter Obi, is a major stakeholder in this election as a vice presidential candidate on the platform of the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), voter apathy was quite obvious in Anambra State as was reflected in the results of the polls in the state.
Out of the 2.4 million registered voters in Anambra State, only 675,273 voters, less than 50 percent, came out to vote. A breakdown of the voters shows that 524,738 votes went to PDP while APC polled 33,298 votes. This figure, according to analysts, could have come from Onitsha alone, the state’s sprawling commercial capital.
The Anambra results are a big improvement on the results of the polls in Abia State where the total votes cast is less than 300,000 votes. While PDP got 219,689 votes, APC polled 85,058 votes. Though the total number of registered voters in the state could not be ascertained as at the time of filing this report, it couldn’t have been less than 1 million voters. Aba, the state’s commercial capital, could have given these votes recorded for the entire state.
“I share the view that many people, especially the South Easterners show apathy to electoral process in Nigeria for obvious reasons of being excluded in virtually every scheme in Nigeria, but it seems to me that majority of them do not even know the implication of voter apathy at a time like this”, noted Ayodeji Adediji, an ex-banker in an interview with BusinessDay.
Adediji pointed out that bad people find their way into government because the ‘good’ ones refuse to come out to be part of the process that throw such people up. “The only sure way to bring down an insensitive and oppressive government is through the ballot box; similarly, the way to get ‘good’ people into government is by supporting them when they join the fray”, Adediji posited.
He noted that the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was failing in very important aspect of its duties which is voter education, insisting that “it is only through voter education that negative mind sets such as we have seen can be changed”.
Generally, when a government proves to be overtly bad, it undermines not only effective governance, but also the growth of the economy. And it becomes very bad when government policies and programmes fail to support private enterprise by making business environment un-enabling.
BusinessDay had, in an earlier report, noted that Nigeria might see worse days ahead if Nigerians failed to use the power of the ballot box to put an end to the prevailing hunger, widespread poverty, mounting unemployment and economic stagnation in the country.
It has been observed that many companies and industrial concerns have left the country in the last three years for what experts attribute to “government’s anti-business stance” that does not support growth in both the services and productive sectors of the economy.
The fear is that these developments might increase in tempo if the status quo persists and, for real estate, this has grave implications as the sector, at the moment, is struggling.
“The implication of these developments for the property market is that the high vacancy situation in the market will become worse; more buildings will be empty and that will affect their market value”, Roland Igbinoba, President/CEO, Pison Housing Company, affirmed in a telephone interview.
“The upper residential market will suffer the same fate because it is only the corporates and expatriates that rent houses in that segment of the market”, Igbinoba added, pointing out that even retail market would continue to struggle because of the drop in consumer purchasing power which is affecting that space now.
