Until she got a text message from her New York-based boyfriend, Shalewa Ayobami, 25, had never heard of Nuhu Ribadu, a fiery anti-corruption fighter, and one of the most popular Nigerians alive.
That morning, Ms Ayobami’s boyfriend, Adesina (who prefers that only his first name is used), walked into Western Union’s shop on Times Square and wired $100 (approximately 15,000 Nigerian naira) to his girlfriend, an agricultural economics student in a university in South-West Nigeria.
After sending the money off, Mr Adesina typed out a text message for Ayobami. “I have sent 100 dollars to you,” he wrote. “The test question is ‘Who will you vote for? The answer is: Nuhu Ribadu.’” He then pressed the send button.
The following day, Ms Ayobami, who was receiving money from abroad for the first time, walked into one of Western Union’s more than 1,900 agents in Nigeria, to claim the money. When she handed over her form, the paying agent behind the counter took a long look and then suddenly burst into laughter. Ms Ayobami was alarmed.
“What’s the problem?” she asked, worried that the information she provided was wrong.
“You guys are beginning to play politics with Western Union,” the cashier said, smiling.
Ms Ayobami still didn’t understand. The cashier then explained to her that Mr Ribadu, Nigeria’s former anti-corruption chief, was a presidential hopeful and that the test question was a “very clever” campaign strategy.
Mr Ayobami is just one of many Nigerians who have, in the past weeks, walked into banking halls across West Africa’s most populous nation with the “who-will-you-vote-for” test question to claim money wired through Western Union by US-based supporters of Ribadu.
It is not clear how many supporters of the politician have so far sent money home that way. Western Union declined to disclose records, saying it does not comment on specific transactions. But Olubunmi Aborisade, coordinator of the Ribadu Coalition for Nigeria, a group campaigning for the election of the anti-corruption czar in the presidential election fixed for April 2011, said most of his members across the 50 U.S. states regularly follow that procedure in wiring dollars to their relatives and friends in Nigeria.
Mr Ribadu, 50, was an assistant inspector-general in the Nigerian police and former head of the country’s anti-graft commission. In 2007, late Nigerian President, Musa Yar’Adua, removed him from his post and dismissed him from the force after the commission arrested ex-governor James Ibori, on corruption charges. After unknown gunmen shot at his car, Ribadu fled to the United Kingdom. He then moved to the United States where he was a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development.
After Yar’Adua died in May, the federal government withdrew charges against Mr Ribadu and retired him him from the force. He arrived back in Nigeria in June and joined the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria where he is a leading presidential aspirant.
“Those of us abroad remit billions of dollars home every year, yet we are not entitled to vote in elections in our country,” said Mr Aborisade, shortly after a meeting of his group one recent Wednesday night. “So, this time, we are trying to influence our relatives at home to vote right by voting for Ribadu in the election. We are passing our message across in various forms, the Western Union campaign being one of them.”
Making their voices heard
The idea behind the who-will-you-vote-for remittance question only came by chance. In early November, Mr Ribadu visited New York and held a late-night meeting with about 50 of his supporters based in the city. During the meeting, held at a popular Nigerian restaurant in Brooklyn, a pro-democracy activist, who requested that his name be withheld because he does not want to be seen as aligning with a candidate, suddenly had a brainwave. He whispered it to other supporters and, before long, a new and completely novel campaign strategy had been born.
The following day, Mr Aborisade sent emails to representatives of his organization in 30 of the 50 U.S. states, urging them to inform members in their states to “call their families and friends in Nigeria frequently, asking them to vote for Ribadu as the next president of Nigeria.” He also requested them “to generate questions and answers that remind people about the “Nuhu Ribadu for President” project in the Western Union Money Transfer.
“That is a good way to remind their loved-ones to campaign and vote for Nuhu Ribadu in the 2011 presidential elections,” he said.
Mr Aborisade himself has wired money home that way in the past month. In fact, while Ayobami was claiming $100 dollars in her university town in Oyo State, 30-year-old Gbenga Akinyede, strolled into a branch of First Bank of Nigeria in Ado-Ekiti, less than hundred kilometers away, to process a $500 transfer sent to him by Mr Aborisade, who is also an adjunct professor of communications at the State University of New York.
Mr Akinyede was armed with the same test question as Ayobami. But unlike her, Akinyede, a soft spoken, unemployed graduate of Business Administration from the University of Ado Ekiti, was politically up-to-date. He knew Ribadu was running for president and that the question was a campaign message. He however did not foresee the “excitement” the question generated in the banking hall that day. After looking at the information provided by Mr Akinyede, the paying cashier smiled and then invited three of his colleagues over. The four bank staff laughed.
“As we got talking, they all became interested in Nuhu Ribadu and his campaign,” Mr Akinyede said in a telephone interview.
“They wanted to know how to get involved in the campaign. Two of them requested souvenirs like caps and T-shirts. They were excited when I promised to get it across to them.” Doba Afolabi, a New York-based painter who himself has, twice in the last month, sent money home to his aged mother using the “who-will-you-vote-for” test question, said the campaign strategy is paying off.
“We are trying to tap the power of our remittances,” Mr Afolabi said one recent Saturday afternoon as he drove towards the venue of a campaign meeting. “My nephew, through whom I sent money to my mother, did not know about Ribadu and his campaign. But he is now one of the most vociferous supporters of Ribadu. He’s passing the message along to his friends and other family members, telling them about the importance of a Ribadu presidency to our country
Dictating the tune
Nigeria is the number one remittance receiving country in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank’s latest Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 released in November, the country of 150 million people received $10 billion (about 1.5 trillion Nigerian naira) from remittances; followed, in a distant second, by Sudan, with $3.2 billion. The bulk of the money is believed to come from the United States, where Nigerians are the single largest contemporary African immigrant group with a population of over 165,000 people, according to the year 2000 census.
“There are several thousands of us here and we send home billions of dollars,” said Bukola Oreofe, executive director of the pro-democracy group, Nigerian Liberty Democratic Forum. “It is high time we realized the importance of our remittances and take advantage of it to be more economically and politically relevant at home.” Nigerians at home generally regard their compatriots abroad as more sophisticated, better educated and successful and thus think highly of their opinions, said Omolade Adunbi, an assistant professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Mr Adunbi is intrigued by the who-will-you-vote-for campaign.
“The fact is that most people who send money home are breadwinners of their families and their opinions carry a lot of weight,” he said in a telephone interview. “If I am sending you money and I request you to campaign for and vote for Ribadu, you most likely won’t do otherwise because you won’t want me to stop sending money.” Ms Ayobami obviously wanted her boyfriend to keep the dollars coming.
After she left the bank that day after receiving the money sent to her, she rang Mr Adesina who informed her at length about Mr Ribadu’s track record and the edge he has over other presidential candidates.
On a visit home that weekend, the university student said she discussed Mr Ribadu with her grandmother who happened to know more about the anti-corruption activist. By the time she returned to school two days later, she had become one of Ribadu’s staunchest supporters. “Corruption is the biggest problem our country face and we need a man like Ribadu to fight it,” she said. “If the election is free and fair, I am sure he will win because most Nigerians want him.”
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