It seemed like the day would never come. I had talked about leaving with everyone I knew, said farewells, even cleared out my apartment, but the thought of boarding an airplane not looking back seemed far fetched.

Here I am though, a month later feet firmly planted on Nigerian soil, staring destiny in the face. Now more than ever understanding the importance of Vote or Quench in Nigeria’s future.

This understanding reinforced everyday, as I watch the country’s future standing 3 feet tall, an average of 7 years old hawking unwanted goods in traffic for chicken change. The countries past plastered across the walls with vague declarations of why they are deserving of an uninformed vote.

The space between rich and poor isn’t vast but the disconnect is immense. One neighbor’s compound holding a palacial home, personal mini-mosque, peacocks and pigeons as ornaments, and manicured lawns. My neighbor on the other side a decaying building that used to serve as a government run clinic, which is now a squat. Kids not older than four years old balancing jerricans on their heads to fetch water.

I’m not trying to paint a picture of doom and gloom, because as those kids do jobs, reserved for grown men in certain realities, a smile remains on their faces.

What we’re looking at is a country of underdeveloped human capacity. Kids who in another world could be doctors, engineers, architects, but in this system, aren’t standing far from their fate of street life. Taking up a life of crime if the desperation of a hard life gets too much to bear.

If you are currently reading this you undoubtedly have a sense of right and wrong. What would be right would be to take a deeper look to what personal steps can be made towards a greater Nigeria. The wrong steps would be to sit back, and allow a failing engine to continue to steer our nation deeper towards a completely failed state. So I ask, will you Vote or watch our nation Quench?

A lot of people don’t really see how these disenfranchised kids affect them. Understandably so, when your compound is fully equipped with a generator, a borehole, and imported electronics. What the apathetic rich forget is that crime does have legs, and guns are mobile. Vote or Quench.