TwoCents | RIGGING 101 - by Tari Ogbowei

If you're a Nigerian, you must have heard people say, "our votes don't count", or maybe you've actually said it yourself. The truth is that, it isn't true. The world over, there is a constant tussle between the people and the government, the elites and the masses, either overtly or covertly but in Africa it feels like the ever raging war between light and darkness.In many, if not all African countries, politics is more lucrative than any other industry. That's why politicians care less about every other area and let them go to ruins which in turn leads to economic dearth and poverty. It's also the reason they're willing to go extreme lengths to perpetually maintain their hold on power. They've also recruited the brilliant strategy of psychological warfare. As it is said, everything starts from the mind, so they go the extra mile to make sure the masses continually believe their votes don't count. I've been involved in a few elections and I might know a thing or 2 about the fundamentals of rigging. On the average, we have between 500 and 1,000 voters per polling unit but for this illustration, let's go with 500. Election materials for 500 voters will be sent to this unit by INEC and let's assume that of the 500 voters, 150 come out to vote. 100 vote PDP, 40 vote LP and the remaining 10 vote APC. Normally PDP has won this unit but instead of returning the results with the unused ballot papers, the machineries go and thumbprint the remaining 350 unused ballot papers in favour of the APC. APC which normally has just 10 votes will now have 10 plus the additional 350 false votes which automatically makes APC the winner in that unit, with 360 votes. Imagine if this is replicated all over the LGA, state or country. Definitely the party you didn't vote for will win so long as they've got the bravado and machinery to pull this fraud off, as politics down here has been proven to be a game of bravado and machismo and not intellect. Ever wonder why the electronic machines never work on election day and election officials always resort to manual accreditation at polling units after the billions spent to acquire these machines and the additional billions spent to train its operators? In a country where 8 is greater than 24, imagine how long it will take to verify those fake fingerprints. Most likely,never. If we all come out to vote and fill our spaces, it might just be difficult to rig. YOUR VOTE ACTUALLY COUNTS but they want you to believe it doesn't. Most times, the schemes go beyond this, but then, this is RIGGING 101 😁

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