Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba, has criticised the proposed bill seeking to make voting mandatory in Nigeria, declaring that he would rather be jailed than comply with such a law.
Speaking on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, Agbakoba condemned the National Assembly’s attempt to enforce compulsory voting, arguing that it fails to address the root causes of voter apathy in the country.
“Look at the ridiculous one in the National Assembly about voting being compulsory. If that bill were to pass, I would say, ‘Agbakoba, we will not obey it.’ I’ll plead conscientious objection. I’d rather go to prison for six months than to obey it,” he said.
He questioned the rationale behind the bill, stating, “Why would the National Assembly want to impose compulsory voting? Why don’t they reverse the question and say, Why are Nigerians not interested? What is the apathy about?”
Agbakoba maintained that voter disengagement stems from years of exclusion and unfulfilled political promises, not a lack of civic responsibility.
“The apathy is that they don’t get anything. If I know that I’m going to get something—there’s an aspiration, there’s an interest—you will find people coming out to vote. But then people see the same old trick. You come, you take my vote, you disappear till the next four years. There’ll be apathy,” he said.
According to the senior lawyer, exclusion is at the heart of Nigeria’s democratic failure.
“Right now, we have a big problem with having a system that excludes. I think you will find the biggest problem we have in Nigeria is around exclusion. That, I think, is the biggest problem—around exclusion. People are not taking part in the process,” he noted.