Emmanuel Thomas
May 21, 2015 – Award winning R&B Crooner, Innocent Idibia better known as Tuface Idibia has revealed that he lost not less than N114 million which could have accrued to his musical carrier in order to prosecute the ‘Vote, Not Fight Campaign’.
The campaign involved both physical mobilization of youths and television commercials which ran on several television station for more than one month.
Speaking at an event to review the campaign, the African Queen crooner said the review was to recognize the positive side and short comings of the campaign with a view to re-enacting it before the next elections.
He also revealed how he had to reject an offer to contest for a House of Representatives seat and numerous offers for shows (partisan and non-partisan) which ran into about One Hundred and Fourteen million naira (114,000,000).
The ‘Vote not Fight’ campaign which was an initiative of the 2Face Foundation and Youngstars Foundation is a voter education campaign targeted at the Nigerian Youth.
Its major goal was to sensitize Nigerians to shun violence and embrace dialogue before, during and after the 2015 elections. Aside from regional tours and grassroots engagements across the country, there was a special musical video and PSA that was shot with support from Spinlet and a lot of social media activities.
Findings from a research carried out by the National Democratic Institute shows that the Vote not Fight campaign reached sixty eight million (68,000,000) Nigerians through the media.
The Transition Monitoring Group (a coalition of Nigerian societies who observed the elections) also reported that the ‘Vote not Fight’ was prominent in the seven hundred and seventy four local governments in the country.
The hash tag #VoteNotFight was a trending topic on Twitter on the days before, during and after the 2015 elections.
Notable guests at the event were Hip TV MD, Ayo Animashaun, country director of the National Democratic Institute, Mr. Jasper Veen, Director of Youngstars Foundation,Bola Abimbola,960 Music CEO, Mr. Mark Redguard, Founder of the Enough is Enough initiative, Yemi Adamolekun, Solabomi Okonkwo and Pamela Braide .
