By Oghenefego Ofili
In recent times I have wondered about who really decides on the quality of candidates that are presented for elections by different political parties and those who finally win elections. My interest in this matter got me to look at data from Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) collection by States published in March 2018 and compare with the National Literacy Survey report of 2017. The results showed that most States categorized as illiterate had more people who had collected their PVCs compared to those who are classified as highly literate.
Yobe State which ranked lowest (7.23%) in literacy level had 74.95% PVCs collected; Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and Kastina had 19.16%, 15.01%, 20.51% and 10.36% literacy rates with 95.97%, 94.73%, 93.34% and 92.65% PVCs collected respectively. While States with higher literacy rates – Edo, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos with 90.53%, 80.25%, 81.76% and 96.30% respectively – had less than 70% of PVCs collected.
This has led me to conclude that the so-called illiterates decide the fate of Nigeria’s leadership. They are actively involved in the political party system, they have their PVCs and on election days, they come out to vote. The literate Nigerians who make up the middle class expend their energy on arguments on social media, do not have their PVCs and even those who have their PVCs, monitor the elections from the comfort of their homes.
Until every citizen of Nigeria who is eligible to vote takes the process seriously, this cycle of incompetent leadership, snail-speed development and fast-paced retrogression in some cases might continue for a very long time.
