So You Want to Contest an Election in Nigeria? Here’s What It Really Takes

So you want to contest an election in Nigeria?

You must invest.

Your time, your money, your connections, your emotions… Years before.

YOUR TIME

1. Attend weddings, burial ceremonies, naming ceremonies, album launch of locals.
2. Support their programmes.
3. Support community building efforts and initiatives.
   Identify with your people.

YOUR MONEY

1. Pay school fees
2. Help out with genuine needs
3. Some need help with medical bills, show up for them.
4. We all deride stomach infrastructure right? Well, NEWS FLASH: hunger is real. Food is the panacea to hunger.
   You must be seen to be a solution provider. Elites on social media will make a mockery of this. Remember, all
   politics is local.

YOUR EMOTIONS

1. You must love your people genuinely.
2. Feel their pains.
3. Rejoice when they do, they are mourning you are too.

YOUR CONNECTIONS

1. Who can help fix one or two people up to reduce the number of unemployed? Link them up.
2. What opportunities can you open up to them for sustainable empowerment? Do it!
3. Who can fix that community problem? Get the person, lobby the person/process, fix it!
   You see, when you do all these… (And more, of course), AND MORE OF COURSE… you would have forged and
   cemented a relationship with your people. You will have a bond. An unspoken contract…

Then of course, join a major party. Major in the area where you are contesting o. If a small party is strong in your
area, join it. Support it financially.
Na them go tell you to run sef. They will beg you.
Before we begin talk manifesto.

Don’t just wake up one morning, write a flowery manifesto with big grammar, a year to the polls and say you ate
running. Running. To where? Elections are not track events. Politivs is a process. Learn it. Be humble, yoyr political
teacher might not be formally educated but knows shege in politics. LEARN. From him. Add ya own insight.

If you don’t do the work, if you like bring a billion dollars. They will hail you, call you ‘honor’, finish your life savings
then ask where you are coming from and who you think you are.

In politics, you work with the people. Politics has a psychology. Learn it.

Politics is local. Come down from yoyr high horse.

You need money in politics. But strategically. Money ALONE is not enough. Just like love alone is not enough.

Finally, don’t try to climb a tree from the top