Getting our votes in coming elections !



You have to love Nigerians for the E-factor. E is for Efizi which roughly translates to extra panache or pizzazz. In recent times, efizzi has become synonymous with the ubiquitous term 'swagger'. It is what separates you from everyone else and makes your market value go higher. Just ask the average Nigerian woman for her top five and you will find swagger on the list. But what does efizzi have to do with getting our votes in, you may wonder? It has a lot to do with it especially when combined with the creatively entrepreneurial Nigerian mind. Let us start with what the youth are doing to make sure we exercise our electoral duties.

The R.S.V.P. (Register Select Vote Protect) campaign which is a part of strategies employed by the Enough is Enough coalition was one of the first youth-led initiatives to get every Nigerian to the polls. They have used mainly images and text to spread their message and they score efizzi points for having a well thought out acronym: R.S.V.P. It breaks down the whole process into four memorable and easy steps. Then the musicians got together and did their own thing. They not only wrote a song but put together a cool music video to boot. It was all about sensitising the populace about the election process and urging them to get involved. They too get efizzi points for delivery but their strategy is neither new nor unique, as the American musicians did the same thing a few years ago.

Then the 'Get Nigeria Voting' wind swept across the emerging fashion industry. Now voting is the next big thing, not Vlisco's ever-changing 'African' prints. Thanks to fashion blogger Terrence Sambo, and photographer Toni Tones, we have the 'Vote. It's In Style' campaign, which encourages electoral participation at all levels of government; local, state and presidential. It gets efizzi points for its tag line and its black, green and white T-shirts modelled by celebrities who all have their individual one liner followed by 'Vote. It's In Style'.

While I agree that getting the Nigerian youth to vote is a great thing, I can't help but feel that the whole exercise is also self serving for individuals and organisations. They too can do their own Corporate Social Responsibility as well as promote their brand and perhaps even make money.

So while we can all laugh our heads off at the antics our politicians are using to woo us to cast our vote in favour of their parties, most notably the PDP machinery which is bringing out all the stops, let us not forget that they too are not as different from those trying to get us to vote. The fact is that there is an election cake being shared out now and everyone is trying to get their piece, both those on the outside and the inside. They are all scrambling for some of the spotlight.

I am thinking of what my own campaign would be. Perhaps something to do with reading or books but I forget that Nigerians are still waiting for the book to be brought back, so it wouldn't have any appeal. So let me add my own tag line; 'No Vote, No Swagger'.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.