13/07/2025
STEMING THE TIDE OF VOTER APATHY
The poor voter turnout at the local government election in Lagos southwestern Nigeria which held 12/07/2025 has further confirmed and reinforced the urgent need to halt the steady decline in voter turnout in Nigeria.
Democratic practice without the people’s participation is dead on arrival. The ugly development calls for an aggressive orientation of the people.
According to Franz Fanon, “To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people”.
Having said that, we at Save Democracy in Nigeria Forum (SDNF) are quick to add that the pervading insipid and unenthusiastic attitude to the polity by most Nigerians is highly condemnable if not a shame.
Let all be reminded that it has been observed that right without responsibility is a social sin. Political apathy is in conflict with and contradictory to the principles that deliver democratic dividends.
The inescapable fact is that political apathy amounts to the individual shooting themselves in the foot.