It was a Jungle Justice
Hello People!✋
It's a hot afternoon here for a Monday that's loaded with lots of work. How is it going over there? Hope the Monday is treating you fine?
I was checking my Twitter earlier this morning when I saw some trending news about one of the presidential aspirant in my country. Well, I'm not into politics and as such I seldom pick interest on political stuffs.
I knew People would lament so much so I clicked to check tweets and comments to laugh at their rants. And ofcourse, it was not surprising as what I expected. A lot of people dished out their unsupportive words towards the "young man". The man in question here just celebrated his 70th birthday and a lot of people turned out to celebrate him, which really got people talking because it looked more like a campaign tactics. A novelty football match was organized and all the football legends in the country assembled to participate.
This is not my bone of contention, my own is that no matter what people are saying on social Media, this man that lots of people don't want to be the next president would still win unless....if maybe he steps down before then. Why am I saying such? I was an ad-hoc staff during the general election of 2019 and I saw a lot of things.
Let me share my experience
I was posted to one of the Eastern states of Nigeria (Imo state) for NYSC and luckily that was the year for the general election, so we were happy that we would make enough money. You know how it's done na!🤪
[For the sake of non Nigerians, NYSC is a "must" service for graduates in Nigeria versities. It's done for one year and candidates are being posted (scattered) all over the country). NYSC members are commonly called CORPERS)
The state was among the states that opposed the ruling party(APC) then and they were all United to let the political party they want to win. How United were they? Keep reading.
[our current president was on seat then and was going for his second tenure]
As government officers(NYSC), we are not allowed to vote because it's against the mandate, so ours is to coordinate and make sure it's clean and fair.
At the initial stage, were happy because we would make money(that has been the Custom of election) and also with the juicy part that, the state is United majorly in one political party,,,this means that issues won't be much. But was that the case? keep reading...
Campaign started as as usual, promises here and there and lots of party(gathering) everyday. That time the ruling Governor of the state was stepping down and want his in-law to replace him. Haaa! My Nigeria People know what that man is capable of. Politicians were treating us well as corpers. That period if there's any official function(gathering) in the community, the indigenes would carry us along and make sure we have representatives, we sat with top People in the state and ofcourse money was coming out and we were enjoying. They were days that these people would come and meet us at the Local Government Council when we are having our clearance just to come and be nice to us, they'd offer gifts and free Transport to our various homes.
[Meanwhile, in all these approaches they were only being kind to us and never opened up to a particular subject of "please do this or that for us". But we knew that those were baits and we were playing smart too.]
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They brought out our names for TWO WEEKS TRAINING.
The election was fast approaching and everyone of us were called for the training. The training started with those preambles bla bla, telling us the basics of election and how it's being conducted in the country at large. I must saying, it was a tiring process because we were going everyday with our personal money for transport fare and at the end they gave us biscuit and a bottle of Coca-Cola as refreshment, promising us for a pay at the end of the training. At some points we were bothered because our government knows how to promise and forget to keep to the promise. We prefered daily pay but that didn't worked.
THE TRAINING BECAME SCARY.
The training continued to a certain point where they started telling us the reality of elections. The teacher that taught us was so plain that he didn't hide anything at all. He told us basically that conducting an election in dangerous and there's possibility of someone being shot, kidnapped or matchetted. You know na, a lot of us became scared especially the ladies and the next day, some of them back out. Omo! To make money is not easy! We asked him why is it so and why did they choose to pick corpers to conduct the election knowing fully well that election is a war zone. He answered and said that the training they gave to us at the orientation camp of NYSC was to be used in this field 🤣🤣. (Yes, during the orientation camp(First stage of NYSC, we were taught how to run in a jungle and self defense with soldier skills 🤪🤪).
We were up to 100Corpers in that local government and almost 20Corpers dropped out after hearing's the examples they gave about corpers that lost their lives during election. I'm a guy that needs money and thank God I hardly get scared of this kinda thing, I go with "People have done it before and they succeded, so I can do it too".
I stayed and continued with the training with my fellow guys from my street....
[Funny enough, the pay we were to get as salary for conducting election was very poor, it was below $30 per election. But this was not what was driving us, it was the hooooge amount money that's coming as compensation from these political parties 🤸🤸🤸].
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TRAINING ENDED AND MONEY SHARING KICKED OFF
The training ended with just limited number of corpers available for the job. I believe a signals was sent to these political gurus in town that they've known the corpers for the job. So they started sending delegates to meet us with their enticing gifts and promises.
Now this is the point I'd like to buttress a little. You remember I said the state is thickly United to vote against the ruling party, right? The ruling party came out from their hidding places, organizing massive campaigns that pulled down communities and cities. We were like, is this not that party that these people are not in support? How come they have these masses following them?
Fastforward, one day I was in school teaching when I got a call from our corpers liaison officer asking if I'd be available for another meeting with for a political talk, and of course I concurred and he gave me the address. Unbelievably, the address was in an incompleted building, in a bush at the outskirt of the town. I got scary a little bit though but one thing stitched my mind, "these people can't harm us because they need us". So I moved straight to there from school. I got there and met other corpers there with just a lady. A brave lady! Yeah, they talked to us on what and what they need from us and what they would offer as the job is successful. After the meeting, they brought out refreshment from the car and gave us a nylon filled with money too...amount I can't mention🤪. None of us ate the food they gave to us because... ofcourse it's not ideal to eat it but thank God the physical money is not edible..maybe we would have thrown away too. Lol🤣🤣
After that day, another party called also for a meeting and told us what they want us to do for them and for sure with their promising returns once it's successful.
Why did we attended all these meetings? Yeah, we were well oriented with real life experiences, they told us to always avail ourselves whenever they call and nod our heads to their requirements and collect their offers(money) because if we don't, they'd keep disturbing us and might go the Negative way to get our attention. The money? Yeah, we should Collect the money because the money is a national cake.
To be continued...
A lot happened before, during and after the election that I want to share. The war, killings and kidnapping. Watch out!
Special thanks to @MichaelBCH for being my first sponsor. God bless you abundantly and your wallet no go go dry. Amen!
Thank you for reading
21st March 2022
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That sounds like a dangerous job. Here, election can be deadly too.