BANKY W, 2FACE JOIN PROTEST IN LAGOS STATE

Popular Nigerian singers, Tuface Idibia and Banky W, on Friday joined dozens of civil society activists in Lagos to march for voter education of Nigerians.

The activists converged on the National Stadium in Surulere and marched for about four kilometres to the Lagos office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

EnoughisEnough, EiE Nigeria, the organisers of the rally, said the mass voter mobilisation drive, which was taking place simultaneously in 18 other states across Nigeria, was to encourage citizens to protest at all tiers of government with their votes.

“We are here to mobilise as many new voters as possible,” Banky W told newsmen.

“We feel like Nigeria has remained facing some of the same issues Fela sang about 40 years ago and the only way to cause real change is to get involved, we want every person that is eligible to vote to go out and register to vote,” he added.

Banky W said he had issued a challenge for 100,000 people to pledge to get at least 10 people each to vote.

Now the first 100 people that actually get a 100 people, like a 100 new registered voters, we’ll give then N10,000. We are not telling you who to vote for, we don’t even care who is running at this time, we just want a new voting bloc. We want millions of new voters to be registered so that now they have to pay attention to what the people want.

“Nigeria is the same way because of failed leadership, but also because of citizen apathy, citizens just don’t care, we are used to it, we are used to the same problems but insanity is doing the same thing all the time and expecting a different result.

“So if we continue to sit around and complain and tweet and talk, and that’s all we do, there’s never going to be any change. 40 years from now our children are going to be facing the same problems.”

On his part, Tuface said, “We are just here to encourage Nigerians to encourage Nigerians to go and get their voter’s cards, make sure that they vote during the election.

“Many people sit at home, at the end of the day they complain, somebody that doesn’t vote, you don’t have any voice to speak about who was elected or what they are doing but when you vote, if the person ‘dey’ misbehave, you fit talk, so let us be involved.”