Nigeria: Rational Choice Theory and the 2015 Elections

analysis

The 2015 General elections present an ample opportunity for the poor majority in Nigeria to use their votes to sanction people to stay in office or send them packing. In a setting of enshrined corruption like Nigeria where the cabal boasts of enjoying the collective patrimony; where a small percentage takes what belongs to the majority without apologizing or even realizing the need for it. It is only during electioneering campaigns that they come back to us begging us to give them another chance to keep us down perpetually. Please say it loud with your votes: NEVER Again! How long shall we allow these 'political robbers' to continue to milk the nation dry? We mean so much to them before elections but after electing them, they become total strangers. We need to send them packing with our most precious votes. Both leading political parties contesting the presidency are not better than the others but we need to make a choice. This is where the significance of history, personality of candidates and rational choice is needed.

If it is based on the people surrounding the candidates, we may not pick either President Goodluck Jonathan or Mohammed Buhari because most of them are people of no principle. They were with PDP and now with APC. They have cross carpeted severally but they think of themselves each time they do this and not national interest. Let them not tell us they have suddenly become 'change agents' after participating in the, now tagged, corrupt party. These are opportunists and lack sound political ideology. They may eat with APC today and talk ill of it tomorrow. They are consistently inconsistent. They are not the change agents we need. But we still have a choice to make. Politicians that both parties have accused of stealing Nigeria's monies are among those that they have embraced and leading their campaigns. They have embraced them for political gains. Even the APC brandishing transparency failed to ask their national assembly members to declare how much they earn. This is insincerity. How are they different? Yet we still have to make a choice. It is so unfortunate!

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