Important Things you should do before the Forthcoming General Elections

The 2019 General Election is a few months away and the campaign has officially started on the 1st of December, 2018.

All aspirants have started campaigning officially even though they have been working in silence since.

We should inform you that this article won’t be concentrating on only the Gubernatorial and Presidential elections but for every election that will be held in February 2019.

One of the first things to do prior to the election is to understand what is at stake.

Elections make or mar a country as decision made by political office holders will directly or indirectly affect you.

To know what is at stake you have to first understand who and who is making the decisions that are affecting you.

A common occurrence in past elections in Nigeria is that citizens only pay attention to the Presidential and Governorship election while treating positions like Senator with levity, not minding who is vying for the House of Representatives and ignoring the House of Assembly.

This can be attributed to the fact that the people holding this positions are not always in our faces but this doesn’t mean they are not part of the decision makers.

In fact, the legislative arms of government are as important as the executive arm. Confirmation of Ministers, Approval of Budget and more are done by the legislative arms. They are powerful enough to shut down the government if the need arises. The legislative arm in the Federal level is the Senate and the House of Representatives while the House of Assembly is the legislative arm in the state level.

Another of their role is to facilitate developmental projects to their constituency/locality.

This and much more reason are why you should pay attention to every position that concerns you either locally, your constituency, governorship, and the presidency.

Now that you are paying attention, You also need to be informed, this means that you have to be aware of things going on in your locality, constituency, state and the country at large. To know this you need to expose yourself to News either through the conventional means or the new media means. When you are properly informed then you will know what to demand from candidates that are vying for positions.

To be informed also means to listen/read candidates manifestos, know what their plans are for you or for the position they are running for.

To be informed also means you should listen to debates to study and understand each candidate and how they want to run the office when elected. Although not all political office has a debate, ensure to pay close attention to the ones that do which are the Presidential and Governorship.

Now that you have been informed, you have to ask the right questions. You might be thinking how can I ask questions from someone I don’t know or someone who is far away. Well, it is easier now than you thought. You can do this via Social Media, most candidates vying for a political position now have a social media account, some even have for their campaign team, volunteers, etc. You can ask questions through this medium. Another way is via their campaign train, most aspirants now have volunteers who help them with Door to Door campaigns you can also ask any of these volunteers you come across. Now that you know who to ask you are left with what to ask. You will definitely know what to ask when you are well informed.

After asking the right questions what you have to do next is to demand the right Answers, doing this is easy when you relate with the candidate either via social media or via representatives or volunteers they will have to answer the question asked and if you are not satisfied with the answer given make it known.

The final thing to do is to use all the information you have gathered after following the above steps to process and determine who is best for which position in the forthcoming elections.

You can do all this without engaging in arguments or criticizing a particular candidate or party.

Although an article on ‘what not to do before the election’ is coming soon let us just put the important one here. Desist from any form of public arguments or public criticism of a candidate or a party.

 

Thanks for reading.