For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Is. 9:6-7 (KJV)
Pro Deo et patria meaning for God and country,
according to google translate. History is littered with men who sacrificed
their lives because of a strong desire for either God or country and there were
those that did it for both. Nigeria as a country is currently in the middle of
an election season and one thing that came to the forefront as results of the
federal elections were been announced (among other things) was the apathy of
Nigerians towards government and participating in the exercise of an
inalienable right, the Right to Vote and be Voted for. In a country of over 190
million people (the running joke is that no one knows the real population count),
according to INEC, there were 82.3 million registered voters with 72.77 million
PVC’s (Permanent Voter’s Card) collected. Let me break this down for you based
on INEC data(I can assure you that the data for voter turnout would look even
worse when the gubernatorial elections hold on the 9th of March):
·
Total population: 190,632,261 (July 2018 est.)
·
Registered voters:
82,344,107 (43.19% of the total population; this is below the estimated 51% -
53% of eligible voters, meaning there are those that didn't even bother to register
to vote)
·
PVC’s collected (those
that can actually participate on election day): 72,775,502 (88.38% of
registered voters)
·
Accredited voters (those
that bothered to turnout on election day): 29,364,209m (40.35% of those that
collected their PVC)
·
Valid votes: 27,324,583m
(37.55% of those that collected their PVC).
Scary how the numbers
keep dropping as you drill further. When stretched out across the entire
population, you have just 43.19% of the total population (82.3m) registering to
vote, an estimated 12.97m less than the total number of eligible voters in
Nigeria. Based on the total number of valid votes, 14.33% of the entire
population (33.18% of those that registered to vote) decided the fate of the
country. This is simply not good enough in a country in which more than half of
it is eligible to vote.
As a Christian, in which of these data set do
you belong? What are your plans to be more active by time the 2023 election
cycle comes around? We are called, not just to follow Christ and win souls but
to also take charge and dominate every area of the world, including the
government (Gen. 1:28). The charge is simple, begin to
participate in the running of your country by voting; I’ll take it a step
further and say (like Pst. Sam Adeyemi said) register with a political party
today. I procrastinated and could only participate at the finish line (election
day) because I had my doubts about which party to join but the 2019 elections
taught me a very valuable lesson and by time the next election cycle comes
around, I will be an active player as a member of a political party. I hope to
see you there! Engage on political issues on a daily basis because like it
or not, it influences every single aspect of our lives. As Aristotle said
"..... man is by nature a political animal". Don't wait for the end
of every 4-year cycle to engage in politics and governance. Engage now, engage
tomorrow, engage every day for God and country!
Source: @inecnigeria
Photo credit:
@inecnigeria
Photo credit: Sage
Onomsky
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