THE NIGERIAN POLITICKING GAME The Nigerian Politicking Game A satirical view of the random issues of Nigerian Politics in the 2015 Elections Nigeria plays a big role in Africa setting examples in many aspects of governance and administration which also includes politics Other African nations and even the advanced nations always look forward to the outcome of the electoral process of Africa s largest economy They have no choice except they don t want a share of the economical benefits of our land flowing with milk and honey Someone said that If Nigeria sneezes other African countries would catch cold I just hope she doesn t sneeze because if she does I m afraid she would have to nurse about 54 children with Pro cold and Mixagrip Issues of politics and the electoral process In some particular order let s review certain issues that surrounded influenced and in fact determined the outcomes before during and after the 2015 elections Campaign tours No doubt the Nigerian politics this time around has been escalated to a stretching extent As political parties set off their road map touring across all regions in the clamour for one thing Yes one single but extremely important thing our votes We saw hundreds of campaign organizations in the flagship of different parties working it out to get the support of the populace One thing is for sure if your campaign train isn t loaded with goodies you got nothing to sell Some adopted cash goodies while some used food and material items and a few others well gave what they had to offer which was the manifesto of promises That been said what baffled me was the excessive rate of media and social network advertorials which ran into billions of naira Trust me that was the best time ever to own a media house because if you know how to ply your trade you will make your entire set up money and even more in a few months If you ask me what these guys read from their manifestos are not too different from what others have been reading to us in time past They make heaven and earth promises but pay lip service when they get into office If all previous manifestos were actually fulfilled what we would be having now will be new sets of manifestos to tackle new developmental areas For instance instead of still hearing promises of power supply good roads health education etc we would be hearing things like promises of valentine money alerts for boys and subsidized price of Brazilian hair the girls I know it s hilarious but if all the major issues were tackled what would be left now would be improvements maintenance and other minor or developing issues Social and news media For me this was the most interesting part If you get easily bored with Tv news or haven t outgrown your childhood frustration when your dad suddenly grabs the remote and tunes to the news at 9 then it s high time you got your apartment and buy your own LCD Just kidding but I guess youths are very much involved now and even if you don t like the Tv news you could at least get news feed on your facebook page while checking your friend s latest updates of lies and hypes This is no doubt one of the busiest times for the social media You are sure of getting headlines faster now on Facebook Twitter Blogs and various News app There were a lot of news and discussion threads and forums of mixed reactions criticism and counter criticism from supporters often accompanied by funny but sometimes taken too far photoshoped images and caricatures of public figures who spits anything sensitive or acts in a way that raise eyebrows Oh I almost forgot we learnt new words like Orubebe and Jega ed These words trended the social networks as many people turned what would have been a national disaster into a widespread online jocular gimmicks of grammatical expressions Well what really caught my fancy was the use of social media such as Facebook Blackberry Messenger WhatsApp Twitter Blog MySpace YouTube and Instagram as an important means of electioneering and policing election results Just imagine your father trying to call a REC to change the results in his favour and you bump into him in the sitting room with the iphone 6 he bought for you to show him he only got 12 percent of vote cast He will either disown you or break the phone You should have seen how we sat down to compare the figures already on our phones with whatever those Professors had to read out and everything tallied My aunt couldn t help but to add her exclamation of sarcasm saying Chai Diaris God in this results we are sharing ooo Come to think of it we ve been hearing talks about electronic voting system that will finally rid out rigging patapata So I think the social media has indirectly experimented the beauty of the electronic voting system since the idea is to have everyon