Nobody ever knows how they get broke. One minute, you’re gallant, then you sneeze and you have only one thousand naira left in your account.
Just because we care, we’re here to help you figure how to stay alive in those trying times.
200 naira worth of garri. Four bags of pure water. 100 naira airtime for your phone. 100 naira for transport. 200 naira for contingencies.
Should keep you alive for a week or two.
Do you know what’s waiting outside? Bills. Invoices. And that woman on your street that suddenly remembers you took a crate of eggs from her on your way home from work last week.
If there’s ever been a time to be ill, it’s now. Except this is an illness that is completely within your control. It will help you avoid spending money on transport to work, and depending on how serious your matter is, you can use it to crowdfund yourself out of poverty.
Featuring everything that Brymo and Ade Bantu have ever made. Why? Because Wizkid and Davido will remind you of all the money you don’t have.
Think of it as putting your phone on airplane mode to conserve your battery. Be guided. Broke people don’t have any right to be energetic.
Please remain guided because some people are funny and that’s when they start doing somersault in their living room.
Eat when real hunger is actually finishing you.
Because at this point, only your God can help you.
Track where your money is going, so you can plan more effectively. That way, you know how to prepare better.
Don’t say we never did anything good for you.
Come February 2019, the elections will be here again, and for the third time since I became eligible, I’ll be on the sidelines.
Considering how much noise was made about registration in the months before the deadline, I feel like trash. I know there are a lot of us out there.
The good old question remains; how do you get young people to vote? Everybody wants to be 18 so they can cross many things off their bucket lists – but voting is hardly ever one of them.
Young people have an attitude to voting that sits somewhere between ‘Wetin concern me’ and ‘Call me when they start sharing dollars’.
Keep in mind ‘young’ here means persons between the ages of 18 – 25 –definitely not Dalung.
Voter turnout in Nigeria has consistently dropped over the last three elections.
It’s almost the same case with SUG elections. Good luck remembering the days when student unions could shake the country.
Now the average student is like my colleague Eniola, who described her feelings for campus politics with this short expose –”I didn’t give a shit. It didn’t matter.”
None of this makes me happy. So in an effort to nip the problem at the bud, I’ve looked back at my attitude to elections over the years.
Election season usually starts like this:
Segun to the world: “Guy. Dem don dey ring bell for this guy. INEC says election na February next year.”
World to Segun: *crickets x 3*
In Nigeria, elections start when posters go up. It’s in the Bible. Unfortunately, my brain becomes shy when it’s time to remember this.
INEC’s electoral calendar says campaigns are not allowed until roughly three months to the elections. But I can swear nobody follows these rules.
Imagine coming home nearly a year to the election and having to confirm your house address because posters have turned the entire street into a collage. That’s how I feel every four years.
Between that and the Atiku trends on Twitter, there’s no other way to know elections are here.
I really wanted to register to vote ahead of 2019. I talked to people and planned my weeks around it.
Except something always came up. A football match, a new album, food, sleep. Over the years, I’ve found that my scepticism has gotten the better of me.
If you say it’s a case of wondering if my vote would really count, you’ll be right.
Not having a voter’s card has never stopped me from talking about governance around election time though.
What I’ve noticed is that people like me have these conversations for different reasons–to compare opinions, to hide mouth odour, or to just appear smart.
Not everyone’s really interested at this point and it shows.
You know when they offer you rice at a friend’s house and your self-respect says no, then you smell it and your priorities somersault?
Few months to the elections, after Olamide makes the first election jingle, the buzz builds to the point where FOMO sets in and everyone becomes a pundit.
Maybe it comes from worrying that people are doing something way more fun than you are. Or that they’re selling us at dozen price in one Whatsapp group. Either way, the noise gets louder with each election year.
Unfortunately, all the hot takes never really convince us to do the deed-voting.
To be fair, there are reasons – like the fear factor.
No one wants a situation where one moment you’re exercising your civic duty, the next minute you’re channelling Usain Bolt and wondering if you’ll ever see your slippers again.
Fun fact: I’m one of these people.
So we stay at home–but when results are announced, the country sings the same old song.
Soldier go. Soldier come. Barracks still dey.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that elections go as fast as they come.
And because nearly 1 in every 2 Nigerians lives in abject poverty, earning a living or working towards one matters more than anything else.
It’s all good to care about your country’s politics but in the end, survival is the most abundant Nigerian instinct.
In the immortal words of the urban philosopher, Victor AD, “if we no get money, wetin we gain.”
If Eedris made this song today, few people could argue with him.
It’s hard not to see elections in Nigeria as a contest of power and influence, and votes as an inevitable distraction.
But accepting this reality as our fate is the reason even Fela’s songs still sound like prophecies.
Losing faith in the process has limited our belief in our ability to change things.
2015 was a very interesting year – depending on what side of the fence you sat on, young people played a big part in deciding who became Nigeria’s president.
How?
We talked, tweeted, wrote on Facebook, created memes and sent BCs on WhatsApp – all the things we’ve been made to believe don’t matter. And they made a difference.
That’s why we need to sit up and do things differently. Don’t overthink it.
Someone once said the best way to get young people to vote is to throw them a literal party.
It could be that easy or even less expensive, like hosting group conversations on WhatsApp.
That way, we can start talking about the right candidates and holding office holders accountable.
Will we change everything at once? No.
But I’ve found that talking to the people around me has gotten them more interested in changing things; some of them want to help their favourite candidates with their campaigns, others just can’t wait for election day.
It’s a long way from getting all young people to change their voting habits, but it’s definitely a good place to start.
Nigerians are famed around the world for our determination and ability to spot an opportunity, and for good reason.
We can sell bibles to the Pope, and we’ll even rent your own property to you at a small discount. One Nigerian by way of the United States is trying to be the Thanos of taking chances as they come.
Nigerians go to the polls to elect new leaders in February 2019, as we do every four years.
Jos-born Vitalis Lanshima is running for the Federal House of Representatives as a member of the All Progressives Congress.
The only problem is that this living legend is also a member of the city council in Louisville, a city in the US state of Kentucky.
He lost his arms in a freak accident before moving to the US and qualifying for the 2012 Paralympics as a US athlete. He’s lived in the US since then.
But things have not been perfect of late – since he turned his focus to Nigeria, lawmakers in Kentucky have been calling for Lanshima to resign immediately.
Lanshima lost council elections and has to vacate his seat in November anyway but apparently, the future is too far for these people.
In his own words, “there are many things for us to worry about… we do not have to be obsessed with me. Please stop being obsessed with me”, he told a Kentucky newspaper.
Like all serious candidates, he’s appeared on AIT. His campaign website says “I believe in Nigeria, and the immense potential that permeates our country, as well as the tenacity and ingenuity of our citizens,”
See what I was saying?
During that period, Lanshima has been paid 40,000 dollars of American taxpayers’ money. Can someone say ‘Awoof?’
It’s not clear if he’ll be the APC’s chosen candidate in his constituency but we stan an icon with follow-come work experience and multiple streams of income.