By
JF. Dabo
jubalfreeman4u@gmail.com
Imagine a man working for years to gather capital for his business when he eventually gathered after 18 years he was ready to invest, there were many businesses to invest in but he chose to invest in a particular one, his words, "I know this business will not prosper, I know it will fail but I agree to waste my capital in it because all the rest are bad..."
If I ask you to give a name to this investor you will call him most possibly a foolish investor right? You will be right because even Investor Sabinus will be wiser than this. But before you pass your judgement listen; the investor there is a Nigerian Voter, the Capital is his vote and the businesses the different canditadtes he has to vote from.
Your vote is a talent, it is thesame as a capital for investment. For those of us who are Christians you read in the Parable of the talents (also called the Parable of the Minas) found in two of the synoptic, canonical gospels of the new testament (Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27) in that parable the servant who is called "wicked and lazy servant" wasn't so called because he squandered the bag of coins that was given to him but because he failed to invest it where it will yield fruits.
The first common thing about that servant and the Nigerians saying they will waste their votes is that they both sound angry, as recorded in verse 24 & 25 of the Mathew's account of the parable the servant reply thus to his master... " ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you."
This brings us to the second common thing between this servant and the Nigerian voters shouting "we will rather waste our votes" they both channel their anger negatively. In nation building one feature of those who change things for better is that THEY ARE ANGRY PEOPLE, they get angry at the system but they are different because their anger guides them into taking positive steps like getting involved and being part of the system where they have the opportunity to radically change the bag about the system that angers them. They are smart even in situations where they have no good to choose from they settle for one that has an opening for them to cash in, squeeze through and gradually begin steering the system to the right direction.
The third common thing about them both is that they all loose at the end, it feels alright for them because from the start failure was what they chose. See what the servant got in the parable, in verse 28 of the same Mathew's account the master commanded “...take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags..." They will always loose and in their loosing they will enrich the richest. They are those who continually increase the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the wealthy. If he had invested the one bag, he would have had one bad extra and a promise of more like the other two servants. If only they invest and not wast their votes they will have a place to bargain for good to be done or a justification to criticize when the wrong is repeated.
As I close, the book of James 1:17 tells us that "every gift is from God" and part of Romans 13:1 Says, "...for there is no authority except that which God has established" and his command to us in Genesis 1:28 is "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..." Your right to vote is a free gift from God through which he the Lord uses your thumb to establish authority and through the right use of your thumb you participate in the mandate of goodness finding fruition and dominion over the earth. When you say you will waste your vote you mean you will waste both God's gift and God's tool of establishing the right Government. I am not telling you to vote anybody, I am telling you that if in your heart you know that a candidate is not going to win and you resolve to cast your vote just to waste it, verily I say on to you YOU ARE A REPLICATION OF THAT SERVANT THAT NOT I BUT THE BIBLE CALL "WICKED..." SERVANT.
Where there are 14 bad people, there is one relatively good or one whose badness is not hopeless. One thing that is bad bout the 2023 general elections is the candidature of same faith, it is so bad because Nigeria can never be stable under same faith ticket, not because the party or candidate is bad but because they made a wrong calculation which may not be intentional but because they actually didn't see the danger in it of which you cannot blame them but you MUST NOT join establishing that consuming fire too. If you fear to attempt establishing a mixed faith ticket in Kano, Sokoto, Borno, Bauchi, Zamfara, Jigawa, you should imagine what a same faith ticket in the entire nation will be given our already existing religious hostilities.
Take into consonance too our complex nature as a country where the entire 7 states that make up the North West today run a Muslim-Muslim Governorship ticket, in the 6 states of the North East apart from Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba with mixed ticket all others have Muslim-Muslim Governorship ticket, in the 6 North Central States you have 2 (Benue and Plateau) with Christian-Christian Governorship ticket, and 4 with Muslim-Muslim Governorship tickets, in the 6 states of the South West you have a mixed ticket except in 2 states with Christian-Christian Governorship ticket, in the 6 South South States and 5 South East state you have all Christian-Christian Governorship tickets. Making 11 state with Muslim-Muslim Governorship ticket, 15 state operating Christian-Christian ticket and 10 States operating a Mixed (4 Christian-Muslim and 5 Muslim-Christian) tickets. Being a nation where religious intolerance remains high with this statistical revelations you think a same faith ticket is anything less than a bomb to this nation when states that are Christian higher no Muslim can be deputy, states that are Muslim higher no Christian can be deputy and states that are appreciably mixed it is always mixed ticket otherwise tension is high and you want to operate I same faith ticket in this nation with three "tense" pillars? This is the reason why I will only tell you in this NO TO SAME FAITH TICKET.
#2023_VoteWISELY
