A Bill to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to force all eligible Nigerians to vote recently passed the second reading in the House of Representatives. If it becomes law, an eligible Nigerian who fails to vote could pay a fine of N100,000, go to jail for six months or both.

The Bill, which enraged a cross section of the public when its sponsors, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas (APC, Zaria Federal Constituency) and Daniel Asama Ago (LP, Jos/Bassa Federal Constituency) introduced it in April this year, will only exempt “offenders” who justify their failure to vote in court.

Compulsory voting is part of the democracy practised in some parts of the world. There are no less than 22 countries where compulsion is imposed with heavy or insignificant penalties. Some of these countries include Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Peru, Cyprus and Singapore.

Failure to vote in Brazil could lead to fines, disqualification from taking professional examinations and denial of application for passport or loans. In Australia, failure to pay the fine could lead to imprisonment. In these countries with compulsory voting laws, failure to vote often leads to disqualification from standing for elections.

The question as far as Nigeria is concerned is: what is the necessity for making a law compelling people to vote? Its sponsors argue that voting is a civic responsibility under the 1999 Constitution as Altered. For them, vote dodgers should be treated the same as tax dodgers because an eligible citizen’s refusal to vote is failure to uphold his civic responsibility.

As we see it, sponsors of this Bill are just trying to copy and paste democratic practices that do not necessarily fit into the Nigerian circumstance. They just want to have a bill to their names without minding about the relevance. Agreed, voting is a civic duty. But the same Constitution gives the citizens the right to choose to vote or not. Even the military with all their impunity never contemplated compulsion.

In most of those countries, votes count. Power belongs to the people, and the citizens are made to vote to ensure that as many citizens as possible participate in choosing the leadership. But here in Nigeria, especially in recent years, voting is increasingly seen as a fruitless exercise.

Nigerians voted en masse in 1993 for Abiola, but the election was annulled and the winner died in detention. Increasingly, courts now determine winners of elections, ignoring the effort Nigerians put in to cast their votes.

Our lawmakers should work towards restoring the faith of Nigerians in our elections. When votes begin to count, Nigerians will come out and vote. If this law is made, which justice system will implement it, anyway?

Kill that Bill!