It sucks to be a Nigerian voter. Now more than ever before in our history, possibly.

I know, because I’m one of nearly 69 million people who will go out on Saturday, possibly under searing heat and cloying humidity, if not pouring rain, to cast my vote for my choice of candidate to rule this country for another 4 years.

And what are the choices we have. Essentially, it resolves to just two. An incumbent who, for a lot of the good work he has done in trying to reset our governance structures, has essentially failed in critical areas of leadership.

The other, a septuagenarian former dictator who is not only tainted by the draconian nature of his first iteration, but sings a message of change while hobnobbing with people of questionable means and motives.

And we have to make a choice between these two.

Choice.

It is what makes us who we are. What shapes us, what defines us. Ultimately, it is what kills us.

From what clothes to wear, what food to eat, what school to study at, what career path to take, who to marry.

The only thing we don’t really choose is when to be born. Or, in most cases, when and how we die.

Everything else in between is choice. Forced or voluntary.

At no better time in our adult lives is our slavery to choice better illustrated than when performing our most important civic duty: voting.

We’re all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, as Woody Allen nails it, the sum total of our choices.

So, to be in a position where we are forced to choose between Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, is like being asked to choose between having your hand amputated at the elbow or at the wrist. Long sleeve or short sleeve. Either way, that limb is getting chopped off.

There are two classes of people in every election. Those who will vote whatever candidate their party tosses in front of them. A rat, a monkey, a fly, even a dead goat. It matters little.

Then there are others, the neutrals (I call us the Undecided), who will assess individual candidates on the basis of their competence, capacity, present and current antecedents before making the decision to cast a vote.

In 2011, I strode out, undeterred neither by baking heat, long queues nor fierce-looking area boys and stood for hours to cast my vote. For PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan as president. And APC’s Babatunde Fashola as governor.

Four years on, it should have been a straightforward march to consolidation. Not just for me, but for millions of others who did the same. With the Lagos governorship, it is. Fashola’s good works tip the balance way more than his failures.

Unfortunately, for President Jonathan, it is the other way around. And our President only need look inwards as to why.

Leadership is not just about leading. It is also about the perception of leadership. And this is where Jonathan has not only fallen short, but allowed Buhari to become a decisive factor that four years ago, he wasn’t.

Jonathan has neither led, nor shown himself to be leading. When the bullet-proof BMW scandal broke, one expected the President to take action. He didn’t. Even though one of those cars was so overvalued it cost way more than US President Barack Obama’s vehicle, nobody was fired.

One almost pukes to think of the state pardon granted to international fugitives Diepriye Alamieyeseigha and Buruju Kasamu. Both men are even running for office with Jonathan’s blessing! Give me a minute while I throw up. . . Seriously.

Interior Affairs Minister Abba Moro oversaw a nationwide job scam where millions of job-seekers were not only duped of N1000 each for a job application, but ended in the tragic deaths of 23.

The President said nothing. Abba Moro is still in office.

A day after 59 schoolboys were slaughtered like animals at Buni Yadi, the President not only failed to lead a national grieving, but went ahead with centenary celebrations.

Similarly, he was photographed dancing in Kano a day after over 100 citizens were killed in a terrorist attack.

Need one mention his inaction over the kidnapping of over 200 girls from Chibok, or the destruction of Baga?

In all of these, and a few more, our president pressed the mute button. Not once did he address the nation, or take action befitting of a president. A leader. A statesman.

Instead, these incidents, tragic as they were, were blamed on politically enemies. Well, my fellow countrymen who died are hardly in a position to care about politics.

Compare that with the action of the French president when 12 citizens were killed. Oh, and that happened within hours of Baga, with Nigerian government officials sending condolence messages to France.

Or perhaps we should compare it to the action of the Jordanian leader when one, yes ONE citizen was killed by ISIS. Not only did he cancel an international trip, he flew home, addressed his people and took immediate action. That is how a leader leads.

In speaking with people within the Jonathan administration, many concede that these were grave errors borne of listening to, and taking wrong advice.

But one thing that has not come out in all of the PDP campaign stomp, is an admittance of these errors and a roadmap of how things will be done differently.

A real leader will accept his missteps, and offer ways to do better. Not this one.

Buhari is hardly any better. True, the general has not the stain of corruption on him. But the people around him hardly pass muster.

And if he is going to be president, he will have to start his house-cleaning from within. But can and will Buhari have the cojones to call out the people who helped put him in Aso Rock if he gets there?

I doubt it.

In his last iteration as leader, Buhari wielded a cudgel with which Nigerians were bludgeoned into submission.

His record as a dictator inspires little hope for the future. Selective jailing and imprisonment does not do him any credit.

A particularly sobering example is the case of Professor Ambrose Alli, an honest, visionary man deliberately targeted and jailed for doing the right thing.

The professor returned from gaol blind, and died soon after.

Actions like those are near unforgivable. And remain a permanent blot.

Then there is the matter of his calls to Islamize Nigeria, and his violence-inciting statements after the last elections.

 None of which have any place in a country like Nigeria.

While he has admitted his mistakes, Buhari still needs to make restitution to the families of Alli and others like him. Whether he is elected or not.

And therein lies the difference between the two men. The difference that has proved the difference for me.

At Chatham House, and in his final speech on Thursday, Buhari took responsibility for his actions and made a pledge to do better.

Jonathan has not.

I’m voting tomorrow. And as much as it pains me that I have to do so, I have to vote one of two candidates who have not really convinced me at all. Let me not even go into the parties and the malfeasance that runs within them.

That said, my vote, your vote, our vote this cycle must prove one thing to the politicians. That missteps in leadership have consequences.

And the consequences of Jonathan’s mistakes this time, is that he loses my vote.

Just like I trudged out to vote GEJ four years ago, I will go out to vote Buhari this time even though it sticks in my craw.

And that’s something else I blame Jonathan for. That for all the good he has done, it is his fault, and his alone, that I choose Buhari. Not for what Buhari has done, but for what Jonathan has not.

Consequences.