A GHANAIAN national Ebenezer Agbey Quist, who closely monitored the just concluded Nigeria Presidential Election, has listed five lessons other African countries should learn.
Quist, a copywriter, said many of his compatriots took particular interest in the election and what the verdict of this poll would be.
“For the first time, I wished the whole of Africa were allowed to vote in a Nigerian election. Whatever happens to the giant of Africa affects all of us,” he said.
The Ghanaian citizen went on to list the following five lessons that other African countries should learn from Nigeria.
Apparently referring to the impact made by Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi, he wrote:
- You do not need a coup to cause a revolution, you can do it at the polls.
- Do not compromise with a bad choice. That means if you have only party A and party B who keep changing hands in your country, you don’t have to always settle for them. There can always be a third option. Just choose different. You don’t have to choose the lesser of two evils.
- Take a personal decision to support who you want.
- Don’t look at political structures to make the choice. Don’t look at the parties that have the best structures. Look at the leader and the competence of that leader, because the right person would set up the right structures.
- Never give up. There were people who were injured when they went to the polls. They went home, cleaned up the blood and went back to vote and that inspired a lot of people to also insist on making their vote count.