...The SaintsAwards Project...

Such painstaking efforts no one in my entire community knows of this Chief apart from he drives big cars and owns this and that properties, go to church on Christmas day and give gifts to the church, in order to prove his competency and magnanimity he had to convince us a little further and he did knows how vulnerable poverty could hold its victims captive.

In those days frozen mackerel fish was a luxury, a whole family could barely afford one good size. We got one whole carton and it was shared by few hoping to have better foods or even eat more than this if Chief eventually won the election, he has portrayed how much he loved his own people by this unsolicited magnanimity.

Like the proverbial biblical Esau, as far as there is enough food to quench our unending appetite, some perks to portray Chief's kindness and service to the people even though restricted only to his favourites who brings the messages home as rubbed into their sticky greedy fingers, this Chief should rule us!

This has been our situation as people who could barely differentiate between a right and a privilege, from one toggle of leadership to the other, regime after regimes, generation after generation we remain the same retarded society of peoples because like Esau begged what use is the rights if he die of hunger, therefore what to eat, what to put on and what to flaunt for the petty perks both nature and greed has awarded us rule our desires and control our wills.

Indeed our imagination is right because your right is meaningless unless it is backed by law and laws that are run by the likes of this Chief mentioned above could summarily reduce your right to a privilege. Anyway, this Chief won at the end of the election with only a handful of voters voting him in, I learnt the cartons of fishes could not go round although it did get to the right target卆nd that was all my people heard of Chief until the four year tenure was over, the roads, amenities and entire communities remained in the same deplorable conditions while Chief bought more cars and took more Chieftaincy titles from nearby communities.

The right to vote and the privilege of electing a candidate
The right to vote could be viewed by some as a mere civil right dependent on law But from other commentators on public opinion, it is a fundamental political right as it produces the most direct verdict by the citizens on the performance of those who govern them, as a political right, it guarantees all eligible Nigerians of voting age the equal power to vote and be voted for irrespective of background or societal affiliations while Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary described Privilege as a special right or advantage available only to particular person, class or rank or the holder to a certain positions by a particular person, it means new selected individuals, or a group of persons belonging to a particular ideology not bounded by any common written agreement or law but sheer favour and familiarity! In order words, if you did not measure into this classification, you are out of the count and ineligible to participate in any affairs that concerns that group unless given the special recognition.

The difference between rights and privileges
If you belong to any institution or organization by means of a privilege, you are at the mercy of the leadership of such group that gives you that opportunity, and such grace could be striped off you at any point in time because it was a special grant in the first place those who didn't get a carton of frozen mackerel fish from the erstwhile contesting Chief did not fall under his list of privileged few so the opportunity to own a whole carton of frozen fish as at that austere time was denied them

and because those that got some extra frozen fishes considered themselves privileged, when Chief won the election and could not live up to ANY of his thousands of promises, None of us could muster the courage to ask him why on earth is the road leading to our community still untarred after 3 years of resumption of office as an elected government official, there is no single sign of any structural development!

Simply put, we have no rights as members of the community which our dear Chief rules but merely privileged to be under his leadership卪eaning; we have been bought over with those cartons of frozen fishes!

For every legal institution or organization you belong to you don't need any special recognition or grace to exercise your right of membership and to challenge any form of infringement or lawlessness. Without digressing, the court of law will testify that no right is more precious in a free country than that of having a choice in the election of those who direct the affairs of the state, under which, as a good citizens, they must live, other rights even the most basic are illusory if the right to vote is undermined, this is the difference between exercising your right and using an advantage over others?

Voting Rights and Electoral Privileges
As members of a larger community called Nigeria, each of us is responsible for the growth or downfall of this nation either by contributive efforts or sheer individual negligence as we are all bounded by that singular law book called the Nigerian Constitution to defend and protect our national interest but a privileged member of an organization can shrink from his responsibility if he finds it inconveniencing likewise the giver of the special grant or advantages?available only to particular few individuals? might decide to withdraw his deceptive and false gestures of kindness and promises whenever he deems fit, but when we are all bounded by one common principle of agreement there will be a limit to every lawlessness and brazen idiotic abuse of offices.

There have been mounting opposition against former Nigerian president, General Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) as rumour spreads that he is forging a comeback bid to rule the same nation he runs for eight good years without any visible progress except those visible to his favorites until he stated categorically when he made a formal declaration before the Nigerian Law makers soliciting their support that he has decided to exercise the democratic right that our constitution guarantees to all eligible Nigerians namely the freedom to vie for elective offices. With this declaration, there is little any individual could do as IBB is voluntarily exercising his voting rights with about N700 Billion Naira said to have been earmarked for campaign purposes alone.

By casting a vote in favour of anybody, you have automatically assume the position of a decision maker for your community, and the type of person you have voted for means that is the kind of person you preferred should take the position of leadership, the choice is voluntarily yours! That is what your rights entail without any form of infringement or coercion. The problem is applying your rights to proper use without any admiration of persons over an advantage.

The Nigerian rich man sure knows how vulnerable poverty has incapacitated his people; he knows when to use them and how to dump them...during the Late Abacha era, they gave a lot of gifts to influence his continuous stay in power, there was supposed to be an evangelical group preaching the Abacha agenda that will later reward every member the sum of N10,000 Naira for every new proselyte dragged into the group, I backed out on impulse when the fellowship as we nicknamed it in UNN was at its inception; a great number of young people were mobilized as support group for the 2 million man march, after the rally in Abuja, so many were stranded and could rarely afford the trip back to Nsukka, they have been used and dumped as soon as possible, just like that!

Nigerians, especially young Nigerians who are most times a direct victim of this abuse of rights and privileges should get one idea right, anybody who gives you a gift either in cash or material to obtain your consent or to curry favour has bribed you into accepting him into a position you will literally not allow him either by vote or any other means, this is what is going on in Nigerian politics, it is not what is obtainable like we'll quickly quip in, but a crass mis-education of values

The money and gifts the politician gave you while aspiring to take control of a particular elective office he has used to literally bought you over as a slave like my erstwhile Chief and the frozen cartons of fishes did, this is business, he must recoup his investments first before he thinks of any tangible contribution to the development of the society or the progress of the people that elected him into office, that is, if greed will let him consider that.

Get wise young people! If you must take any form of gifts, cash, kind or materials, don't sell your mind, you'll be selling yourself cheap to the modern slave master, the Nigerian Politician is one! the N700 billion Naira said to have been earmarked for campaign purposes alone is enough to initiate one decent development in the state but for each N1000 Naira given out as gift to would be voters has denied the community one decent project, it could be power supply, road rehabilitation, health or education.

As a matter of sincere opinion, I would suggest that you collect the gifts and still vote against the giver, anybody who comes with gifts to induce your consent even to exercise the only rights you have does not mean well for you and the community, he is directly giving you the impression that you have no rights but a mere privilege to vote. This is why Politics in Nigeria has become business of a sort, and you can imagine the extent of downward progression the whole nation and peoples is sliding into.

According to Kayode Fayemi, an Ekiti state governorship aspirant we have allowed our politics to be so debased by money and violence that of course nothing but misery can come of it," it is the politics of the belly, and it is destroying us." the average Nigerian voter needs to get the fact clear that voting for one old politician because he has cash to spray around will keep us all getting the same old results and this could be the worst decision any one who loves his country could make.

Your vote is your power, don't waste it, the blind man sees no road!

May God give you wisdom to exercise your God given political right.
Long Live Africa
saintjerry75@gmail.com