Author Archives: Ola Oladipo
Awosiyan Segun – The Baby Is Fine… (2019 Elections)
There is always a sense of fear and anxiety during the months preceding general elections in Nigeria. This cartoon is a pictorial representation of that feeling.
In this cartoon, there is pregnant woman and a man who represents the masses. “2019 Elections” is written on the pregnant woman’s baby bump. This is a symbolic move. For one, there is sometimes a sense of uncertainty that comes with being pregnant. Before technological advancements that have made it possible for people to know the sex of their child prior to delivery, expectant parents often just resign to fate. Awosiyan Segun draws on this.
The man in the picture happens to be a doctor, albeit a confused one (based on how he looks). As we can see, he is trying to access the “health” of the “2019 Elections”. After his examination, he believes that the “baby” is fine; but, he does not know “if it is a boy or a girl”.
In summary, it seems that the cartoonist, Awosiyan Segun, is implying that the masses of Nigeria do not know what to expect from the 2019 elections.
Awosiyan Segun – 2019 rAPC vs APC…
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is the ruling political party in Nigeria. The party formed in 2013 as a coalition of aggrieved members of other political parties. Members of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC, with a large following in the North), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN, popular in the South West), and some aggrieved members of the incumbent (in 2013) People’s Democratic Party (PDP) agreed to form an alliance that would wrestle power from PDP.
As the 2019 elections draw nearer, certain members of the APC are being considered as threats to the victory agenda of the party. Seeing this, those members decided to call themselves Reformed APC (rAPC). This is what this cartoon reveals, showing two brooms (the logo of the APC). The difference between the two, however, is that one broom is bulkier than the other. The bulky broom is the APC in its original state. The non-bulky one represents what has become of the APC as some of its strands are falling off. Those strands, one may argue, are the aggrieved APC members (rAPC) who are trying to dissociate themselves from some of the allegations of corruption leveled against some APC leaders.
