I had been trying hard to get permission from my boss in order to exercise my civil right to do voter registration which I failed to do for years now. I successfully got one day permission to do that, I got to Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government in Ogun State (which is the local government where I reside) in the morning. We were abandoned on the queue where we were supposed to get a form to be filled before going for the registration and capturing. The man in charge was bringing the forms in piecemeal giving few people each time. After some time, the man walked away, some of the people on the queue followed him and after some minutes he gave the forms out to them. I accused him of issuing forms to people not on the queue and he assured me that we will all get the form. Some other set of people went to meet him for discussions again, then I became curious and walked up to them only to discover that the man demanded N2,000 each for the form, within one minute, they were given the form. To satisfy my curiosity, I also called the man and he told me that “ehn ehn, now you know what you should do instead of queuing there” he said how much do I have, that I should just bring N1,000 and he will give me the form then I told him that I can’t offer him anything that his cup will soon be full. I ended up not getting the form let alone do the registration. This is the ordeal faced by citizens in a bid to get voter registration or PVC hence the reason why they are being disenfranchised. How do I tell my boss now that I wasted the whole day? or how do I take permission again for the same purpose?
If the government and other civil society organizations are campaigning everyday in the media for people to get registered and for those that have registered to go and collect their PVCs and this is still happening, then where are we going from here!

too bad

The hustle to make money by all means and at all cost is real !

God help us!