‘I’d rather go to prison,’ Agbakoba criticises bill to jail non-voters

Olisa Agbakoba, a human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has condemned a bill in Nigeria’s National Assembly seeking to jail non-voters for six months. 

While criticising the mandatory voting bill, the senior lawyer disclosed that he would rather go to jail than obey it if it eventually became law. 

Agbakoba said this while speaking on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, arguing that the National Assembly fails to address the root causes of voter apathy in the country.

While describing the bill to jail non-voters as ridiculous, the legal luminary said, “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 obey it.

“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?” he queried.

Continuing, Agbakoba highlighted factors responsible for voter disengagement, condemning how political leaders disappear after securing votes from the masses every four-year cycle.

According to him, the situation stems from years of exclusion and unfulfilled political promises, not a lack of civic responsibility, adding that exclusion is at the heart of Nigeria’s democratic failure. 

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“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.

“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.

Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the senior lawyer stated that Nigeria’s democracy cannot succeed if it continues to be fixated on the select elite. 

According to him, the big issues of coalitions and defections were never people-centred, but self-interest and an aggressive quest for power. 

“Suddenly, you have a big issue of coalitions and defections. Why? I have not heard many politicians talk about people—about the welfare of Nigerians, about their suffering, about their inadequate opportunities. I have not heard that.

“All I hear politicians do is, every four years, they jump up; they become active. Once they get power, they disappear. So for all these reasons, I think we need to look for a new model,” Agbakoba stated.

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