ACTIVE SUFFRAGE (THE RIGHT TO VOTE) IN NIGERIA: SHOULD IT BE LIMITED TO LITERACY TEST AS WELL OR JUST TO AGE ALONE?

In 1961, when the literacy rate was low In U.S, voting in some U.S. states was restricted based on education requirements until certain literacy rate was achieved. In Natal, south-Africa, during the impending fall of the apartheid era, only black men who met certain education criteria were allowed to vote. Currently, while the U.S are, by most standards, the giant of the world, South Africa is arguably the giant of Africa. Other advanced nations such as The Great Britain and New Zealand had in time past limited the right to vote to owning properties which was at the time a yardstick of ascertaining a really working brain. All the above nations practised limited active suffrage until a certain general level of literacy was achieved. It can be recalled that voting right was restricted in Nigeria initially to taxpaying adults earning 50-100 Pounds who were mostly literate Nigerians working on white collar gigs and it can also be recalled by our fathers that leadership and state of Nigeria then were way better than we have it now.

Today, by the combined effect of Chapter IV of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria and Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right by the United Nations, everyone above the age of 18 regardless of their backgrounds are now eligible to vote in general elections. Their appreciation or knowledge of politics notwithstanding and it is a well established fact, that Nigeria has one of the lowest rate of literacy. It would appear that the inclusion of all categories of person above 18 to vote seems to have done more harm than good to the once promising Nigeria.

Aside election rigging/thuggery, poverty and illiteracy are the major challenges in electing good leaders across Africa, especially in Nigeria. Previous elections in Nigeria had shown that those whose votes were too easily bought by politicians were poor illiterate folks who do not really appreciate the importance of governance except to the extent of what they could get into their stomachs. The viral video footage of obviously illiterate poor women in a polling unit sharing money in the just concluded gubernatorial election in Ekiti is just a dot in the maze of the many examples of these problems. This has made it very difficult to elect the right man for the job by literate minds as there seem to be more poor illiterate voters(no degradation meant) willing to sell their votes to feed than there are others though poor but literate enough to vote rightly. Having this understanding, politicians in a bid to keep buying votes rather than earn it, have learnt that leaving education in shambles and doing nothing about the staggering rate of unemployment are sure-fire ways of keeping the electorates perpetually sheepish and susceptible to being bought with a few wads of naira every election year. While we cannot limit the right to vote to social class and wealth which would see the rich electing only those who will implement polices to further make them richer at the expense of the poor disenfranchised folks, limiting the right to vote to some literacy test seems to be a little safer.

Against this background,

Should the right to vote be limited to people who had achieved a certain level of education e.g HND or degree holders or who has passed a certain "literacy tests" good enough to understand the importance of electing good leaders or it should still remain limited to just age?


Lordtosan
Writer, blogger and diarist.

I think it should.
It would however disenfranchise 90% of Sai Buharists.

Age btw 30-60 should be eligible to vote.
And strictly with sanity test,
Like the terrorist above.

You can't imaging a sane Nigerian will vote PDP again, not to talk of thief saraki or thief atiku.

None

Nigeria was founded by illiterates

How can we deliberately desolate the legacy of our founding fathers and ancestors

Age is also not a reasonable criterion

Cuz underage people too are humans and Nigerians

Restricting them from voting is like illegitimately terminating their Nigerian citizenship

That's not just unfair but unethical, uncultured and sheer wickedness

That's one thing I love APC for

They hate inferiority and love equality