Vote For Me

Emeka was a hard-working, honest man. 

He was head prefect of his school in SS2, got several positions of leadership in his SUG, held several posts in various NGO' s, both national and international. He always inspired people to follow him to do the right thing, and always did his best to curtail corruption anywhere he saw it. Soon enough he met a man, Mr. Tunde Adebanjo, who was making waves as a statesman and champion of the people. He worked in the government, and did so much for his people.

Tunde inspired him to enter the government too. He could change the country!! He could fix all the problems that the past leaders had been dumping on the system for years since. All he needed to do was win - and by the grace of God, he did...


He met another like minded soul, by the name of Musa. A man who was strong-hearted and passionate for the people.

Time went on, and Emeka was attacked at almost every angle on his work because he kept honesty and fairness in his dealings. He wasn't interested in kickbacks, or helping people cause problems for others that refused to "play the game". After working for long, he understood how tough things had been for Tunde, and why he had always said that he hadn't done nearly as enough as he should have. The opportunities for amazing progress were vast and many. But the bottlenecks in the system were incredibly frustrating. To pass them you always needed to either grease palms, grant favours or know somebody "in the above".

In time Emeka was demoralized about the government. All his beautiful work didn't come to fruition because the people in the system were exploiting it to enrich themselves in various ways - even the people at the smallest of grassroots. Even his friend Musa had been bullied so much and threatened, that he had started to give in little by little, until it was a regular thing, now he had even become one of them.

Emeka was tired. Tunde had already left. Musa would soon be a lost cause, and he could find nobody that was honest or trustworthy like himself. The few people he knew were people with either no influence or power, or no ambition. He had tried to elevate them, but was frustrated at every turn.

The system had betrayed Emeka. He could work for it no longer. The people he had been elected by had divisive opinions. Some believed he had done extraordinary work, some hated him because he didn't siphon anything to share with them, and some believed he had done nothing of worth - since the things he had managed to accomplish didn't reach them.

Emeka decided once his tenure ended, he would leave. He was afraid that if not, he might become like Musa because of the compromises he had been sometimes forced to make. He was afraid of the threats he had been given. He was tired of not seeing his hopes and dreams not go anywhere. He was tired of fighting alone. No one else wanted to fight with him, all they said was "keep up the good fight" and then stare as he was beaten left, right and sideways. It was almost like they enjoyed the show.

Enough was enough. From now on he would live and fight for himself. Since trying to do so for others only seemed to end up in suffering.

Unfortunately.... this is the story of many a good man in our beautiful country. I talk even from personal experience. Not from being in the government, but from political systems existing everywhere in the nation. From the simplest things like school prefectship, to student unions and labour unions, and NGO's.

Where seniority is a more important qualification than experience, zeal, character and accountability. Where it matters less of what you can do, and more about how connected you are, and how many people know you.

Where "my guy, my guy" is the method for getting awarded contracts instead of quality control.

But please don't get me wrong. I'm all for familiarity and all that, when it involves choosing the best. If you're equal in what you offer, but person A knows me, then person A has a much higher chance of scoring the contract. Honestly. But not when person B has much more experience and quality to offer, and I throw away the proposal because I know person A will give me "something for the boys".

Imagine a system where even in a school; when the high ranking member of the executive council does something wrong, the members of the Senate in his class will stand up for him; because they don't believe that seniors should be punished by their juniors for anything. And when the event van't be waived away, they ask for leniency instead of correction.

But when another high ranking member of a junior class does something less implicating, it's fire on the mountain, and "the boy has no right", "he must be punished" becomes the order of the day.

Things like all of this discourage good people from wanting to work in the system. When you're not only fighting against the corruption in the system, you're even fighting against the people meant to be helping you do it.

Good people go in the system, and either go bad due to excess pressure or weakness, or leave the system because it's too dirty for their hands.

And don't tell me they should make sacrifices for you, because they've made them all and lost for it. Good people aren't looking for their own benefit, they're looking for yours. Because not only do they know how it feels like to be in your position, they ARE in your position. You can only fight properly against a problem you understand after all.

We have complained for years against the corruption, yet we are the very ones promoting it. How can you say you don't want corruption but those of you in secondary school won't write the names of your friends in the "names of noisemakers", there are those of you who vote for people in elections because of money they gave you, or because they have "fine face", those of you who are carrying expo into exam halls, those of you that throw away pure water satchets and drink bottles on the ground, instead of looking for trash cans; those of you who support your peers for clearly wrong things, because you want to save face in front of your juniors; those of you who vote based on tribe and family alone. You are wrong if you believe corruption is only when it comes to the mismanagement of money. I haven't even started on examples sef.

You are 'saying no to corruption', but yet actively engaging in it. You are the problem. All the complaints you have, are thus a lie.

You might think this is petty, and unimportant, but it's all corruption, and it ALWAYS grows. The same way many armed robbers started stealing from their mothers purses or their best friends bags, and never stopped. Yeah, sure we've all done one or two corrupt things in our life. Some small, some big, some many, some few. The important thing is whether you've stopped; whether you're still going hard; or if you've actively helped people to avoid falling the way you did.

Saying no to corruption isn't enough. Words can be said by anybody. Walk away from it. Speak out actively against it. Support voraciously those who genuinely fight against it. Give them a reason to keep on fighting. Because I could almost swear to you, it's not an easy fight. It feels like the weight of several worlds on your shoulders, because the people who want corruption are fighting and kicking you; while the people who hate it just watch you quietly.

Tell me. What does the winning team look like in this situation? And when you don't want to join the "winning team", when you limp away with your career ended, but your integrity intact, people insult you. They call you weak for giving up, or call you stupid for not giving in, after all can you eat your integrity? How do you support your family. Will you live on meals of honesty and truth?

The truth is; encouraging us simply isn't enough anymore. We need fighters to get into the system. We need people to get busy, and put their hands in the system to clean it up. Without a proper, strong and functioning support system, a single man's effort will fail and be in vain.

The nation must do more than "want" better change. They must actively implement it. And I promise you - it does NOT start with the man in the mirror.

It starts with the man staring into it.

Don't vote for us, if you won't help out.
You are throwing us into the fire to get burned, and wonder at our own foolishness, to fight an army with tools of only 'hopes and dreams'.

Don't vote for me.
I've got enough broken dreams that I'm carrying already.



Thank you for reading.
Love, Stars and "For the people"


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