Choices

It has been bugging me for a while now, how people choose, how do you understand how our minds makes decisions, what fuels our ignorance,are our choices based on our societies, religions or history. The idea of freewill from the perspective of most liberals is based on total freedom, freedom of thoughts, freedom of ideas, freedom of speech, freedom of religion,basically freedom to be human. From my perspective freedom doesn't truly exist, if it does we will not have to define it, defining it takes True away from Freedom away and so does the social factors that exists simultaneously with it, religion, history, society, political ideas e.t.c are factors that are suppose to lead the campaign for freedom instead they buried it. It is understandable that this institutions exist to keep mankind in check because absolute freedom might breed barbarism,though it leaves a hole in the modern definition of freedom. Regardless, i want to talk about choices, tell you a story actually, a story portraying how people chose to use their form of freedom of choice based on the options social institutions have given to them.

I witnessed two gubernatorial elections as an adult in my hometown (Ado-Ekiti), the elections were 4 years apart based on the structure of the constitution, although this fact does not matter to the story here. The first election i witnessed was in 2014, i just got back from Cape Coast, Ghana and i was excited to observe the differences between an elections in Ghana and Nigeria. The story behind the choices of candidates and the political parties is not so different from those of other place, it is not complicated either, everyone in the region knows these stories, because they made it too obvious. There are only two candidates important to this story, both from the most popular political parties in Nigeria; PDP(People's Democratic Party) and back then ACN(Action Congress Of Nigeria) now APC( All Progress Congress), Nigeria runs a multi-party system but besides PDP and APC( APC had different names or abandoned names over the years) the rest are basically irrelevant. The PDP gubernatorial candidate of 2014 was Ayo Fayose whom was a former governor of the same state,some people might say he forced his way into becoming the party nominee but the truth is he was the only candidate popular enough to go against the incumbent state government held by the ACN candidate Kayode Fayemi. There was a rumor surrounding both candidates, that Fayose helped Fayemi to take the mantle from the impeached governor Segun Oni, that Fayemi was suppose to give a senatorial position to Fayose but he did not, i guess it bruised Fayose's ego and he needed to prove that he was the superior politician. Fayose having the federal government of his side had over 1000 armed men deployed to the state under the pretense of protecting the voting right of the people, this armed men and women started making arrests close to the election, arresting only members of PDP's opposition and taking the money that the ACN prepared to sway people to vote for their candidate, those that were able to give money to people did not get the votes they needed, most of the population took the money and voted for PDP regardless, Fayose ended up winning in all the 16 local governments in the state.

The 2018 gubernatorial election differed a little from the one in 2014, according to the Nigerian constitution, a governor is only entitled to two terms in office and Fayose just came to the end of his second term, he decided to endorse his deputy as the new PDP candidate. ACP( ACN as at 2012) chose Fayemi as the only candidate strong enough to go against the Fayose, because the battle was between them as always. Between 2014 and 2018, ACN fused with CPC(Congress for Progressive Change) to form APC, they won the presidential election, and Fayemi became a federal minister, a position he held till his nomination as the gubernatorial candidate and probably after. Having the federal government on his side Fayemi was going to go after Fayose harder than he was able to before, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was already brewing a case against Fayose because they knew he would lose the election, which he did gracefully. The election was probably the most ridiculous thing i have seen yet, at every polling unit there were representatives of both the PDP and APC there, holding bags of money, paying those that voted for their parties, now instead of paying before you vote like they did in 2014, they started paying after, this way it was easy to sway the public their way without obstructiion from the police or anyone in uniform not like they would be disturbed . The trick was, news travels fast, whenever PDP pays #5,000 to anyone that voted for their candidate APC would pay #10,000, APC willing and able to pay more money quickly gained more popularity and they also implemented the use of men in uniform to tackle their opposition.

The notion of freedom of choice here was corrupted by a porous form of animalistic act of meritocracy, the voters sold 4 years of there future for money they spent on beer and pepper soup immediately after they voted, ignoring the fact that for the next four years the governor elect would fail to fulfill his campaign promises like all Nigerian politicians usually do, salaries would not be paid, the economy would crash and the cycle of poverty would continue. About 40% of the population voted, the other 60% goes to churches and mosques to pray for a good leader instead of voting or protesting when it needed and it is always needed because nor of the political institutions works. We make rational and irrational decisions based on the options we were provided with, although our decision can be based on immediate needs which might see logical but not looking ahead becomes the illogical or irrational attribute of our decisions, the big picture eludes most of us or it sometimes bear a different interpretation. It is really riveting when you really think about it, it summaries how the human mind makes decisions, it is based on what is provided, it takes minds like Soyinka, Da vinci, Einstein, Marx, to see through the veil.