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How To Win An Election In Nigeria

How To Win An Election In Nigeria
In few months from now, Nigerians will be heading to the polls again to the polls again to vote for the candidate of their choice and every politician will be looking forward to be voted in as the winner of his/her respective posts.
There are many working ways to win elections in Nigeria, counting from the illegal ways politicians use to the very legal ways, they all work it's all about applying the best strategies.
Whether you are contesting for the post of Presidency, you are a governorship aspirant, local government aspirant, or even the post of SUG and/or course reps in the universities, your goal is to conquer your opponent and be declared the winner.

I'll first present the legal ways that have worked for Nigerian politicians in previous years and it's still working.


Legal Ways To Win Elections In Nigeria

1) Go Social: As an aspirant for any electoral post in Nigeria, it's very necessary to have an official website and social media handles (verified). Below is a photo of a Twitter account created to blackmail President Buhari.
President Buhari's fake Twitter handle
President Buhari's fake Twitter handle
2) Get A Website: You can buy a .com.ng domain from Whogohost for as low as #1,250 or even get a free domain for life when you purchase a hosting plan from them. With just these, you'll have a platform for communicating with your supporters, after all, this is far cheaper than bill-boards and posters, and will still make you to reach more people.
You can also pay for advertising spaces in news websites that will be live on the site till the election is over.

3) Start A Conversation: There are more than 8 million Nigerians on Facebook alone, imagine if you can win the minds on 8 million people. Create a fan page, make it active by starting competitions and giving prices. Trust me, Nigerians like free gifts and will work their way into winning the gifts. 
A good example of competition to start is, give 10 importance of education to you as a Nigerian youth, invite you friends to like and comment on the post, use a hash tag #SampleHashtag, the comment with the highest like wins. You'll see Nigerian youths inviting there friends to like the posts, when their friends come, they'll also be interested in the post and boom...they'll also join the competition.

4) Good Works: If you are a good person, your good works will speak for you. If the money is there, award scholarships to qualifying students, build good schools similar to the ones abroad so that students won't have to go outside the shores of the country to school, donate to orphanages, build boreholes for villages, there are more than a thousand and one things to do to win the people's heart.

5) Campaign Agenda: I praise Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State for this. Use the best campaign strategies, come down from that your Rolls Royce and Limousine and ride the Kekes. Make the people know that you understand their plights.
Be careful of the words you use, don't use the word 'God' persistently when you are addressing the Muslims, instead use 'Allah' and NEVER use 'Allah' when addressing Christians. Nigerians value religion so much and try using that advantage when addressing them, make them know that you believe in God.

6) Connect With Bloggers And Influencers: This is one of the easiest ways to reach Nigerians, through the media. According to epower.ngJapeth Omojuwa and his goons are one of the major reasons President Buhari is on the seat of the Nigerian presidency today. They set Twitter on fire for the Buhari/Osibanjo tickets.
However, he too is disappointed with the Buhari's regime, you can see that in his recent tweet.


To be honest with you, it's not that easy winning an election legally in Nigeria but it's the best. If you are the People's person, you'll see yourself smiling to the seat after the election.


Illegal Ways To Win An Election In Nigeria

1) Rigging: According to Wikipedia, rigging of election can be defined as any form of electoral manipulation or fraud. It can also be defined as the illegal interference with the process of an election whether by depressing the vote share of the rival candidate or increasing the vote share of the favored candidate or both.

2) Exploit Religion: In this case, it becomes very important that you become a member of a populated religious organization and/or denomination. If you are a Christian, make sure you win the heart of all Christians and same goes to Muslims.
I've seen Christian politicians attending Mosques during the course of their campaigns, this is also a political strategy. Give tithes, offerings and even donations to churches. Infact, offer to build churches if you have the money, afterall you'll still get it back when you eventually enter the seat.
Vice-president Osibanjo in Sen. Saraki's daughter's wedding ceremony
Vice-president Osibanjo in Sen. Saraki's daughter's wedding ceremony
3) Thuggery: Sorry to mention, but this has been a strategy applied by candidates over the years. It is said that every  thing has a season, so election is the perfect time to utilize the yan’ iska or yan’ tasha for your election preliminaries. Call them together, give them money and something that will make them high, an boom, they'll work for you. Afterall, if they had jobs they wouldn't have been in that state.
But when you enter the seat, try as much as possible to give them jobs, if for no other reason, so your opponent won't have anyone to hire during your second tenure...lol.

4) Money Palaver: There is a saying that a hungry man is an angry man. If you really want to win an election, you need to give to the masses, I know of a candidate that has already started sharing power banks to indigenes of his state.
His opponents turned the whole thing into evil, saying that 'sharing power-banks to us means promising us a full term of lack of electricity.
There is also a record of a former governor of Imo State that gave the Imo State youths money and still lost.

5) Stomach Infrastructure: Like I said earlier, a hungry man is an angry man. It's also similar to the topic discussed above, if you feed a stomach well, it'll have no reason for not voting you in in the polls.

6) False Promises: This has been working in Nigeria and I can't tell when it'll stop working. During President Buhari's campaign, he promised to give Nigerians 'One Meal A Day', and when he won, it became  obvious that Nigerians misunderstood the promise, maybe the APC government actually meant one square meal a day for us...lol.
APC One Meal A Day Billboard
It's not always the best to do things illegally, try as much as possible to be the best in whatever you're struggling for. You might get to the seat but you'll never be happy on the seat.
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