NIGERIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION; PLAYING MY PART AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CHANGE

The citizens of Nigeria get to decide today who'll be their new president for the next four years; this has been an exercise that we've all looked forward to, given the amount of discussion it has received on social media, but unfortunately we had pretty fewer voters than expected. Although I didn't vote, I worked with the electoral bodies to ensure free and fair elections.

My displeasure about each of the candidates contesting from the major parties isn't hidden at all. I saw Atiku of the PDP, Obi of the Labour Party, and Tinubu of the APC as renounce thieves who are all just sugarcoating themselves to get our trust, so in order not to have to choose between them, that's why I decided to let other citizens decide while I work on the other side of the voters to monitor and ensure free and fair elections hold anywhere I am posted.

I was appointed as the presiding officer of the polling unit. I was to work alongside three other subordinates who'll supervise the voting process. On getting to the polling unit location, we only met a few voters who came before us, so before addressing them, we tried to set up everything we'll need for accreditation and the voting process.

After the arrangement, I addressed everyone and guided them on the necessities they should take note of before voting. We have a total of 261 registered voters who are eligible to vote at my polling unit, but at the end of the day, after waiting for nearly 6 hours, we only had 34 people who came for accreditation and later voted.

This year's election was kind of strange, I must say, because never have I ever had such a low turnout or small amount of voters ever since I started working with INCE in 2011. Well, the reasons why many don't come out to vote can't be far off, as most are a result of the money scarcity, although others were afraid and didn't want a situation where the polling unit will become bloody when party agents ignite a fight.

Well, nothing of the sort happens here, and the voting process went smoothly, although some tried to bribe me to help them rig the election, but I stood my ground and insisted that nothing of such would happen under my watch, and since I'm the presiding officer, that means no one can vote without me being certain that they're legible before I issue the ballot paper to process into the cubicle to thumbprint and then drop their ballot paper into the various boxes.

That's about all of my experience today at my own polling place, where the APC came out victorious with 23 votes and the Labor Party came in second with 8 votes in the presidential election; the other 3 votes were rejected because the choices of the voters were certain. After the election, we processed to the RAC center to submit our equipment and results, although we went through some inhuman treatment from our superiors, but that will be a write-up for another day.

it's my prayer that the best candidate who will favor me and all the masses will win this race so the country can be led in the right direction. i'll still need to wait for the collation of all results from every state before we'll know who wins overall and will become our next president.

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/vickoly/23t76oRc3zjSnyfgC6F2V79yxUuq7CDvbvCH72sfweFTqZLzbJH6hBHqwKC3TkJ7GPGAs.png

NOTE: All pictures used were snapped with my smartphone Redmi Note 9.

Thanks so much for reading through, have a blessed and productive day ahead.