Elections 2019: My voting experience - The Good, The Sad, and The Lessons

My marked thumb to indicate I had voted

Hello everyone, how was your weekend? How did the elections go in your area? Did you vote?

My area was very peaceful. Yes, there were loads of people, but that was the only unpleasant part. As we proceeded to our polling unit, it struck me how people were having different experiences trying to cas their votes at their polling units. At mine, we had tents, chairs, people taking and calling numbers and names with megaphones, all in an orderly manner. The estate's management and resident volunteers went through great lengths to make sure that the whole thing was conducted well. A former classmate of mine said this was also the case in his estate, only that their estate shared packs of rice and smoothies to all voters. All INEC officials were just doing in my estate was accreditation, and handling of ballot papers. They arrived late though (around 10.30am when some voters had been there since 6.00am).

My experience was the complete opposite of some other people's. Some got to their polling units at 11am, and both INEC officials and residents were confused as to what to do to organise themselves. After sometime, it would occur to someone to take numbers, and eventually, they would find their way through the chaos, and eventually vote. I even saw a video where some ballot boxes and papers were scattered on thr ground, and burnt, but I cannot ascertain the authenticity of the video, when it comes to date, time, and location, though it was rumoured to be on Saturday at Okota.

Seeing these contrasts, I came to a conclusion that an environment is basically shaped by the kinds of people in that environment. It is no wonder some parents will pull an arm and a tooth to make sure their children are raised in specific types of neighbourhoods, even though it is not very convenient for them.

Your Passion is BULLCRAP if...

Hello beautiful people, how are we doing? If you are in Nigeria, I hope you have recovered from last week’s heartbreak. No, I am not talking about Valentine ’s Day, lol. I’m talking about the elections that were supposed to hold on Saturday, February 16^th. My heart goes out especially everyone who made unimaginable sacrifices to make sure they could vote last Saturday, such as travelling across the country, shutting down businesses, sleeping in terrible environments, travelling in from outside Nigeria, etc. Please, don’t give up or get tired. We will prevail in the end.

I belong to a WhatsApp group of my former classmates in University. For some time now, nothing serious or life-changing happens on that group. The only thing worthy of note on that group is that one lady terrorises us with political broadcasts, mainly highlighting her anti-Buhari sentiments, and how bad the country is. It is really annoying because the group consists of all kinds of people with different political leanings, but this lady doesn’t display social media etiquette, so I guess it doesn’t matter to her.  Most of her broadcasts are ignored by everyone on this group, but I can guess people are always inwardly rolling their eyes when she posts. As for me, I just wished she would know better and stop. 99% of what she forwards can’t be verified, and are inflammatory.

This morning, this lady put up an online voting poll where people where voting for their preferred candidates, indicating that Buhari was going to lose, and Atiku would win overwhelmingly. A friend of mine replied her saying, social media polls can’t be taken with a pinch of salt because most people on social media don’t have PVCs, and many of the voting population are on the streets, not on social media.

Imagine my shock when she responded saying, even she doesn’t have a PVC.

Let's get real: Why you should or shouldn't keep your maiden name

In last week's blog post, I mentioned the controversy generated by my instastory about women having to take their husbands' surname upon marriage. What Chimamanda was saying was that a woman should have a choice to keep her maiden name or take her husband's surname.

What I mentioned in my instastory was that many people talking about why a woman must take her husband's surname do not even have an idea about where this tradition came from. Since this is a blog post, I will just write a comprehensive opinion here.

Firstly, anyone who knows me knows I didn't take my husband's surname after marriage. As of now, I still bear my maiden name. I don't know about tomorrow, things might change, but I strongly doubt that they would. When I got married, most people started asking for my new surname, so they could "properly" address me. And when I told them I don't have one, I got varied reactions from "Why???" "How could you?" "You just want to be a rebel." Not in those exact words, but along those lines. But one thing every single person who raised an eyebrow couldn't tell me was why I HAD to change my surname. They didn't even understand the culture behind it

Is it for religious reasons? Pardon my ignorance, but I am not currently aware of any religion that says a woman must take her husband's surname upon marriage.