In a few days, Nigerians will besiege polling booths the country over, to make a decision on who gets to call themselves as “The President of Nigeria” for the next 4 years.

But before then, we thought to answer any questions you might have about the upcoming elections. Like say, what finger do I use to vote (the forefinger), and can I watch a KUWTK marathon before heading out to my polling unit? (you can, provided you take a little break to in-between to vote between the hours of 7 am and 5 pm).

Here are the answers to any other questions you might have about the 2019 elections:

When exactly are the elections?

The Nigerian general elections will hold on the 16th of February, while the Governors will get their moment to shine come March 5th, together with the candidates for the state assemblies and area councils.

What do I need to be eligible to vote?

First things first, you must be at least 18 years of age, so if the words — ‘Scrap Palace’ don’t mean anything to you, sit this one out kid. You must of course be Nigerian and must have registered for and collected your PVC.

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Oh man, PVC! I keep forgetting to get that. Can I still get mine?

About that. February 11th is the very last day for PVC collection. So if you missed it all this while,you have a final chance, come Monday the 11th. Head to INEC Local Government Office, closest to the location you registered — then you just might stand a chance. A small one though, but try sha.

How many parties are contesting the 2019 elections?

Final figure locked, a total of 74 parties will be contesting for the post of president. Something about Nigeria’s dwindling economy and lackluster policies on education really got the candidates going.

Those are a lot of parties. Who should I be voting for?

Whoever you feel honestly and truly has the range to bring the dollar back into that 140-naira side, please dear. But really, any candidate you feel has Nigeria’s best interests at heart. Good luck finding one.

Got it! What are 3 things I absolutely have to bear in mind on voting day?

Do not forget your PVC. Make sure to have checked these INEC guidelines to know what to expect at your polling unit. And of course, leave your drip at home.

You do not want to ruin your favourite shoes if your polling unit happens to be attacked.

When can I start tweeting about Nigeria’s next official president?

The results for the presidential and senatorial elections will be released between 3 to 5 days after voting has been carried out. So mark your calendars for anywhere between the 18th and 21st of February.

When will the next leaders of Nigeria be sworn in?

Despite Democracy Day being moved to June 12th, the 29th of May will remain the valid date for the swearing-in of elected officials.

What else would you like to know about the 2019 elections? Let us know!

The 2019 general elections are a little over a week away. On the 16th of February, some 84 million registered voters, will defy the pull of Saturday morning television, to make their way to polling units scattered country-wide. They will make a choice as to who gets to most likely, but hopefully not — screw us over for the next 4 years.

As with everything in Nigeria, the electoral process for the 2019 elections, has been nothing, if not a struggle. And sure Nigerians have dissociated struggle with being well… struggle, slapping words like sacrifice on it, and extolling it as some kind of test in virtue.

But there’s only so much lipstick you can put on a pig, struggle is struggle, is struggle.

Take the PVCs for instance. These bad boys are so important, they have their own catch phrase- ‘no PVC, no vote’.

So riddle me this, for something that important, why does it appear as though INEC officials, in their little Whatsapp group, had a running bet as to who could make life the hardest for intending voters?

Despite having 4 years to plan for the elections, the majority of INEC officials were grossly under-resourced for the PVC registration process. There were centers with single (malfunctioning) laptops to cater to teeming crowds. These, among other things, produced queues long enough to test even the most ardent voting-activists. Are current fuel prices being double the cost they were in 2015, really worth attaining middle age, on a never-ending queue? Arguable, but I’m leaning towards a no.

Nigerians far and wide felt the stress of this process. Registering was hard, collecting- equally as bad.

And yet, while registering and collecting PVCs are crown struggles in their own right — no struggle is more apparent than the fact that despite shining our eyes, like all the music videos tell us to, Nigerians have been backed into 2 opposing walls emblazoned with an umbrella and broom respectively.

As it stands, Nigerians do not have the option of choosing between the devil we know and that which we don’t. We know them, their avoidance is the real issue.

This is because despite having 74 parties in the running for the presidency — when it boils down to it — the elections are really a struggle between 2 parties alone – The APC and The PDP.

These parties, with no real ideologies to begin with, are the outcome of so much in-breeding and cross-carpeting, it’s hard to tell where one ends, and the other begins.

Their front-runners are Nigeria’s current president and a former vice-president; 2 persons whose abilities in democratic governance, Nigerians are very well aware of.

While Buhari’s track record has seen him do everything from running the country perched in a sick-bay of sorts, to throwing hands and a tantrum with the laid down law. Atiku’s has seen him embroiled in corruption sagas so twisted, a US lawmaker lost his job on one occasion, and the United States had him banned from visiting their country in another.

And while yes, there is the option of voting with your heart and choosing a third force candidate to represent the country, the sad reality is, these parties just do not possess the range to compete against these super-powers.

Worse still, if PVC struggles and mirror-image candidates aren’t enough to contend with, voting day brings with it, the opportunity to play the most involuntary game of Russian Roulette yet.

Will your unit be the one to get attacked? Is someone going to run away with the ballot boxes? Perhaps your center will get shot up.

Trust the Nigerian voting process to always keep things spicy.

Like clockwork- every election suffers though some violence or other. In 2011 alone, about 800 Nigerians lost their lives to election violence that followed the victory of Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s president.

And with news of arms being impounded every other day on Nigerian roads and borders, it’s hard to not view the upcoming elections with more than a little trepidation.

But that’s the repeated story of Nigeria. Why afford the people real choices and ease of life, when life can be made as difficult and unpleasurable as is possible?

Will the 2019 elections break the chain? Clearly not, but being the eternal optimists that religion and delusion have afforded us, we’ll continue to hope for better in coming years.

It isn’t exactly clear when it started. But somewhere between all the off-colour, colourism jokes, Jollof rice comparisons and pronunciation riffs, Ghana dusted their slippers from Nigeria’s side of mediocrity and are currently winning at life.

As it stands, our neighbours from the west are staring prosperity in the face, and all we can do is tight Jollof rice to our chest. Cue clown music.

For some reason, Nigerians operate under the assumption that other African countries are the abysmal fuck-ups that we are.

We’ve probably been carrying shoulder for Ghana because of that time in 1983 where we had it so good, we kicked them out of Nigeria. Or may be because of that random story that Nigeria gives Ghana electricity (it’s actually just gas), we think they’re operating on our one-day on, one-day off light antics.

Well, jokes on us because, that Ghana we’ve been using small eyes to look at, they are not our mates. At all.

They don’t have to use almighty formula to know when NEPA will bring light.

For starters, while Ghana doesn’t have 100% uninterrupted power supply, it’s still such a strange phenomenon to its people, it has its own name – Dumsor.

Some parts of Ghana, however, enjoy 24-hour power supply, which is 20 more hours than most Nigerian parts can boast of.

To burst heads further, to make sure nobody is flying to turn the gen on in the middle of Arsenal’s loss, Ghana has an actual time-table that schedules when power-cuts would be made to shed the country’s power-load.

Nigeria, can you see your mate?

Their economy is going waaay up.

While Nigeria continues to break records with her unemployment rate, and reach new-lows with her high poverty rate, Ghana is on the verge of becoming one of the world’s most promising economies.

In 2018, The New York Times cited Ghana as having one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This is because, instead of accepting oil as their Lord and master (yes, they have oil too) like Nigeria currently does, they have a reasonably diversified economy.

A key sector the country has chosen to focus on is agriculture. Agriculture makes up to 54% of Ghana’s GDP, which makes Nigeria’s 18.78% contribution in 2018, pale in comparison.

They even have tourism on lockdown.

Now this one really hurt. While Nigeria’s 2018 Detty December involved going to pretty much the same concert 5 times, with the same performers and audience; Ghana took theirs several notches higher, giving the people the rocks they deserve, and promoting their tourism sector with a single event- The Full Circle Festival.

Everyone was there, and I mean everyone. American celebrities like Boris Kodjoe, Anthony Anderson, Jackie Aina, Cynthia Bailey, Mike Hill, Naomi Campbell, Edward Enninful, Idris Elba, even my baby-daddy who is yet to know my name- Diggy Simmons was present. He was so touched, he waxed lyrical on the finer points of Ghana in an Instagram post.

Man, even Wizkid and Burna Boy look happier in Ghana?

So, improving electricity production, stellar economy and now it looks like they’re ready to have their tourism industry take center stage.

But here we are, bragging about how our pronunciation of “pastor” doesn’t sound like macaroni.

Guess who’s getting a national airline? Hint: It’s Not Nigeria.

Back in 2018, Nigerians got very excited, then swiftly unexcited, when the news that we would be getting a national carrier was quickly shut down with the news of an indefinite halt on proceedings.

This is despite consultations having been made, and a dubious logo being promoted. All of this cost us ₦1.5 billion btw. No big.

Ghana, on the other hand, is on the way to having its own national carrier. It has done the workings and has seen the need to partner with Ethiopian Airlines, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding to assist in flying the country’s national carrier.

The airline is yet to kick off but tentatively plans to begin operations in 2019.

So which arline do you think will hit airspaces first?

Wrong answer if you picked Nigeria Air.

So there you have it. Ghana is currently living life on the prosperous edge, while we get to watch it live, decked in our shitty economy, volatile safety and no-airline having positions.

If nobody else is going to say it, I will — “Ghana please come back. Or at least show us the way.” Plis dear.

Scratch that, you and I know who he offended. Insert ‘allegedly’ where necessary. Moving on…

When Ambode picked up that APC nomination form in 2015, I bet there was no way in hell, he could have conceived a reality in which he would be exiting the governorship — impeached and defeated, with just one term under his belt. Yet here we are, four years later, and our guy is staring the embarrassing record of a single, unpopular tenure and the harsh reality of impeachment in the face. Life does come at you fast when you’re waist-training.

The gist of the story is, on January 27th, the Lagos State House of Assembly put things in motion to make it really, really hard for Ambode to leave office with even a third of his dignity intact. They announced a plan to impeach the Governor for offences they stated to be gross misconduct and illegal budgetary spending.

The “gross misconduct” and “illegal budgetary spending”, is actually Ambode incurring expenses on the Lagos State 2019 budget, which has yet to be passed. Yikes!

So here’s what happened, Ambode has been trying for a little bit to present the Lagos State budget before the Lagos State House of Assembly for approval.

Back in December 2018, Ambode avoided directly presenting the budget before the house as is the custom, and instead sent a verbal communication of the ₦852,317 billion budget proposal to the house. This was followed by a formal letter, with the proposed attached and sent to the House of Assembly on the 24th and 28th respectively.

Now we can’t say for sure why he didn’t grace them with his presence, but a quick guess would be that little business last year, where the ENTIRE HOUSE went against Ambode and supported Sanwo-Olu during the APC primaries. But we can only guess.

Anyway, the House was on recess, so the budget could not be presented.

Fast forward to January 10th. The House of Assembly specified that Ambode must appear before it and present the Appropriation Bill in person, none of that proxy shit.

So he tried again. On January 21st, he attempted to present the budget before the House of Assembly. To get things rolling, he sent out a prior week’s notice to the House, to avoid any cases of had thy know.

On D-day, the pressmen had gathered outside the house, Ambode’s advance crew was also present, and it seemed like this budget was finally going to be presented you know.

Only, it didn’t happen. Officially, the House of Assembly denies being informed of the Governor’s plans to present the budget to the house. But I believe that, as much as I believe in my abilities to finish my monthly squats’ plan.

Ambode’s administration now holds the record for the longest a Lagos state governor has gone without presenting the state budget for the year. Uh-oh

With the delay in having the budget presented and passed, expenses are still being incurred by the state which the government has to offset. But the State Assembly? yeah, they don’t like that.

The House of Assembly currently wants Ambode’s head on a spike because of his spending money out of a budget that is yet to be passed or even officially presented.

So much so, 28 out of 34 members of the House want him impeached. While 6 want him to resign.

According to the speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly – Mudashiru Obasa, “The most important thing is that we should let the people know that a budget that was yet to be approved was being spent.”

Ambode currently has a week to get his plans together and explain before the house, the reason the 2019 budget is already incurring expenses.

Will he have past next week? We wait.

He’s on the street, he’s where you eat, he’s around the corner, and on the walls of Ipaja. Coming to a square-space near you: a poster, billboard, lifesize cut-out, blimp and app (yes, even the PlayStore isn’t safe) of the Lagos State Gubernatorial candidate- Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu.

I have to call out his full government name because this man has tried in my life. I sneeze, the Sanwo-Olu poster to my right blesses me. I eat and forget to clear the dishes, the Sanwo-Olu pop-up ad on my phone reminds me to clear up. I have seen way, way too much of this man for someone I am not having relations with. So Saturday last week— I put my foot down. Enough was actually enough. No longer would his and Hamzat’s vote-pleading, death stares trail me as I rode to work, I would simply look away, or cross my eyes until whatever campaigning gimmick employed was obscured in my vision.

And it worked! Posters lining the streets? Too bad my eyes are closed to that BS., life-size cut-out jumps at you in traffic? Great thing I’m too busy staring at my nose to take notice then. For about 2.5 days, I was Sanwo-Olu free and couldn’t have been happier. It all came to a screeching halt however, when I decided to cross the bridge to see how the other side lived. That’s when my problems started.

While driving back from post-work drinks at Bourdillon last week Tuesday, my colleagues and I started a game called: “is that a bank or someone’s actual house?”, which, If you’ve ever been on Bourdillon, you’d completely understand.

I love Ikoyi. It’s aspirational, the air smells like new Benzes and the streets look like they were paved with dollars. It’s also Sanwo-Olu central, a fact which, until it was too late, I sadly forgot.

We joked and pointed at a lot of buildings, deeming them non-residential for our own peace of mind. When it came to my turn, I attempted to get a better view of a duplex that looked like it could house a family of no less than 22 — when I made the mistake of locking eyes with one Sanwo-Olu poster. Just one. Before I knew it, I was staring transfixed at the hundreds and hundreds of hypnotising posters that lined the streetlights of Bourdillon as our car sped past.

I didn’t feel so good after that. Strange thoughts filled my head when I eventually got home. “Is his campaign really that aggressive?” “What would his voice sound like saying Igbega Eko?”.

By morning, my condition had worsened.

Where formerly, I would roll my eyes at, or just outrightly ignore the deluge of Sanwo-Olu posters on the road, I started to notice new, worrying things. Like how blue is actually his colour, or how he really should stick to the bearded look and dump the beardless one for now. How his eyes crinkled when he gave us that side-smile in the agbada campaign shot. How I couldn’t decide if the framed or frameless glasses suited him better (I’m team frameless now though). Guys, I was so lost in the weird sauce, I actually started looking out for new places he could put his posters.

My crush (?) grew even stronger when the photos of him visiting the phone repair-shop and the hair salon dropped. Instead of acknowledging them for the terrible mess of photo-ops they really were — I, and I alone deciphered the inner meanings of his actions.

Like how him tending to this lady’s hair simply meant he was ready to wash and set Lagos for better times ahead.

Or how his aggressive handling of this poor tire, simply meant this was the energy he’d adopt in solving most of Lagos’ problems.

And these squeaky clean mechanic overalls? Obviously, they implied how he’d take care of Lagos’ finances and other problems without any corruption stains on himself or Hamzat.

Lmao, I actually can’t continue writing this with a straight face. Can somebody please beg Sanwo-Olu to relax on this campaign before it turns to fight here?