Last Saturday’s Ogoja/Yala Reps by-election came with the expected bang. The closest inter-party election that generated this near enthusiasm in the region in recent time is arguably the 1998 election, when PDP and APP had near equal strength in the field. And that is progress for our hitherto, very docile political environment, usually with walk over elections. The squabbles arising from the elections will be resolved by the gladiators directly involved in the election in the coming days and weeks.
Nevertheless, there are other pertinent issues of public interest that, like a sore toe, stuck out boldly from the election and call for concern and urgent action. Even with lavish claims of grassroot domination by both parties, it is still a Herculean task to get a significant number of voters to come out and vote on election day.
While announcing results of the election at the INEC Area office in Ogoja which was transmitted LIVE by CrossRiverWatch, officials said there are, 193,618 registered voters in Ogoja/Yala federal constituency. Only 45,877 (23.6 percent), turned up for accreditation to vote last Saturday. Where are the remaining 147,741 voters? Why did they not turn up? Does that percentage that is left out, not even put a question mark on the legitimacy of whoever the winner is considering the disparity between voter turnout against registered voters?
20-40percent is the national average for voter turnout. These numbers are disturbingly low but they present an opportunity to find new ways of harvesting this vote-mine as we approach 2023. We must be deliberate in fishing more voters to come out and vote on election day. Numerous academic studies and electoral analyses show that voting is habit-forming. Once you vote, you are more likely to vote again and again and again and again. The younger you are when you start voting, the more likely you are to continue voting regularly. So how do we get our own voters excited about voting, despite the challenges against it?
Few countries do have compulsory voting. Australia, for example, levies fines on any citizen who does not vote in an election. This will be a hard sell and maybe contrary to the democratic traditions of political freedom and choice.
Several experiments have also shown that cash incentives by government or NGOs, work to change voting behavior. Formerly Fordham University and (now Northeastern), political scientist, Costas Panagopoulos has researched the impact of paying cash rewards to people who vote, conducting two separate studies in California communities in which voters were randomly assigned to receive one of two postcards: a reminder to vote or the option to receive a financial award for voting. Both studies found that the incentive increased turnout in municipal elections by 5 percent.
NGOs in Philadelphia and Los Angeles have similarly experimented with “lotteries” to incentivize voting. Both efforts appeared to meaningfully increase turnout in local elections.
Without attempting to encourage copying and pasting these methods, which may be difficult to implement here, it’s however safe to say that incentivizing the need to vote early, could nurture a long-term pattern of regular voting, particularly in our local elections. It is possible to tie our voting incentive to benefits from say, a health insurance program or tie it to a constituency student loan if you vote twice before you turn 25 or 30, as a strategy of creating a life-long habit of voting. There are many incentives that could be curated if adequate thinking is put into it.
How do we sensitize, mitigate and immobilize the fear of militarization of our elections to embolden more voters to come out in the face of tanks and tear gas and cast their votes? There is an answer to this too.
But what I am saying in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen, is simply that: Now is the time for the parties to sit down and do some strategic thinking and meetings. Beyond the regular “collect money, go and mobilize your constituency”, there is a need to do some critical strategy thinking and statistical planning that will lead to an infusion of new voters into the result sheet in 2023. The election contests are getting hotter and even the strategies for winning too must change.
Good morning.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.
