How I found myself in jail
The Nigerian government wants to force you to exercise your civic duty
Good morning, Big Brains. Happy pre-salary week to you and yours. It doesn’t sit well with me that salary day falls on a weekend, but I’m happy regardless.
This Week’s Big Question: ”Are you voting in 2027 or would you rather go to jail?” Share your responses with us, and if we think they’re fun enough, we’ll feature them in the newsletter :) so be on the lookout.
- Margaret
Word count: ~ 1 000
Reading time ~ 5 mins
Let’s get into the news you missed during the weekend:
The Nigerian government wants to force you to exercise your civic duty
Lagos wants to control how AI works in Nigeria
The Big Deal
The Nigerian government wants to force you to exercise your civic duty
You might not know it yet, but 2027 will most likely be the year we see a ridiculous number of “How I found myself in jail” vlogs all over our timelines. If you’re wondering who we need to thank for this, it’s Nigerian lawmakers.
While other countries are trying to figure out how to make voting easier, our lawmakers are considering making it mandatory. According to a proposed electoral bill, which has now passed second reading, every Nigerian of “maturity age” will be required to vote in every national and state election. If this bill is officially passed, anybody who refuses to vote will be sentenced to six months in jail or forced to pay a fine of ₦100,000 and above.
The bill, co-sponsored by House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas and Labour Party representative Daniel Asama Ago, is supposed to “solve” the problem of voter apathy and stop people from selling their votes.
Some other lawmakers were gracious enough to point out the obvious: the voting system in Nigeria is still a mess, and the average Nigerian has lost hope in it.
Why is this a big deal?
Compulsory voting (as crazy as it sounds) isn’t a new concept. It’s a thing in at least 21 countries, including Singapore and Brazil, but most of these countries have less strict sanctions than what Nigeria is proposing. Australia, for example, imposes an AUS$ 20 fine (about ₦20,700) on first-time offenders. But Nigeria’s own is always different.
If lawmakers proposing this bill truly believe that it is the solution to voter apathy and transactional voting, they need to touch grass more often. We can spend an entire day talking about why Nigeria has a voter apathy problem, but we’ll keep it sweet and short – widespread violence, bribery, intimidation, corruption and results manipulation. Unfortunately, these problems go way back to the 90s and have remained unaddressed since then. But sure, let’s add jail terms and fines to the mix and see if that helps.
Now, let’s get into the transactional voting problem. During the 2024 state election in Edo State, citizens were reportedly seen selling their votes for loaves of bread (we can’t even confirm if the bread was soft and hot) and as little as ₦5,000. That was a new kind of low in Nigeria’s history of transactional voting, which is typically sponsored by thicker naira bands and bags of rice.
People are not selling their votes because they love how cosy their homes are; they sell them because they are hungry. And judging by how difficult the Tinubu-led administration has been for average Nigerians, we’ll most likely have more hungry voters in 2027. But this time, they’ll have more reasons to sell their votes because some geniuses in Abuja think it's smart to threaten people who are still looking for their daily 2k with a ₦100,000 fine.
We’re not sure what the future holds for this bill, but we’ll keep following the news.
Lagos wants to control how AI works in Nigeria
Every Nigerian seems to be obsessed with Artificial Intelligence or the idea of it for whatever reason, but Lagos state wants to make sure we don’t get into trouble with that obsession.
According to the Lagos State Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Olatunbosun Alake, Lagos is preparing to drop Nigeria’s first-ever AI guidelines in the coming weeks.
The goal is to create functional, safe AI that doesn’t make headlines for the wrong reasons. And this isn’t just a Lagos State thing. Tokoni Peter Igoin, the President’s Special Assistant on ICT Development and Digital Innovation, confirmed that the federal government is involved in it too.
It’s hard to predict the guidelines, but we rate the thought behind it.
Your next big read
→“My Parents Shipped Me Off To Canada at 14. It Left Me With A Mental Disorder and Some Perks”: Kiki was made to relocate to Canada on her own at 14, without prior information. In this episode of Abroad Life, she shares how she shuffled between six foster homes, two universities and a whole lot of racist experiences that left her with a mental disorder before the age of 18.
→How Do You Stand Up to Your Nigerian Parents? We Asked a Family Therapist: Last week, the viral tweet on “how to cope with a nagging mother” quickly became a funny quote-tweet war. But beneath the jokes lies a shared reality: many young Nigerians are scared to speak up to their parents, even when it affects their mental health, peace, or growth.
The Big Picks
Tinubu Meets With Obi, Fayemi At Pope Leo’s Inauguration: President Bola Tinubu on Sunday met with the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, and a former governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, during Pope Leo XIV’s installation service at the Vatican, Rome.
UK To Strike New Deal With EU In Coming Days: The UK government has deported 43 individuals, including failed asylum seekers and convicted foreign offenders, to Nigeria and Ghana.
Let’s settle this thing…
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