 Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to CSIS. I'm Jennifer Cook. I direct the Africa program here. And welcome to what is our final session of the Nigeria election forum. Not our last event on Nigeria, but the last of this series that we've held over the last year and a half in the run-up to the Nigerian elections, looking at some of the challenges, some of the risks, I think, and then ultimately at really the relative success of the elections and the, you know, to our pleasant surprise. The series is being funded by the Ford Foundation, so I just want to say we're very grateful to them for that support. And as you may see from the agenda, this last forum has changed a little bit. We had had originally a second panel planned with some of the party leadership from both sides, governors and senators. Things are fairly fluid in Nigeria right now, so our sense is that people are trying to stay close to home base while things get sorted out. So we ultimately will have that session, but probably later in October, perhaps, so where we get the right political and regional mix. But today I think we have a very important session, looking forward a little bit at some of the groups and individuals and organizations that played a really critical role in the election run-up, in ensuring public participation, in helping ensure security, ensuring civic education and peace messaging and so forth. And what we'd like to do today is take a little bit look back. We've had Chairman Jega here last month who talked about kind of what went right, what went wrong with these elections, what were the lessons learned. So do a little of that, but more importantly, looking forward now on how to build on the successes of the 2015 elections. What are the priorities for civil society and others in terms of consolidating democratic progress? The leaders are now elected. Now how best to hold them accountable? How to strengthen democracy? And how to bridge some of the divides that emerged and deepened during what was a very bruising electoral process. So we're delighted to have with us today Zeke Ibrahim, who's Executive Director of the Resource Center for Human Rights and Civic Education and Chair of the Transitional Monitoring Group. He was elected Chair of the Group in 2012, re-elected in 2014. Many of you are familiar with the TMG which conducted, I don't think you're supposed to call it this, but essentially a parallel vote count that gave I think a lot of public confidence in the ultimate results that were announced. It's a very well designed project that had observers in every local government area with a kind of scientific sample and has in the last two elections come very close in terms of what the ultimate result that was announced. I think thereby giving public confidence in the results and in the process more broadly. So we're delighted to have Zeke with us today. We also have Kingsley Bangwell, who is Founder and Team Leader of the Young Stars Development Initiative. Kingsley started this in 1995. He still looks very young, but works on engaging youth in the political process, encouraging and educating them on participation, and has done some very interesting work with media and social media and is going to talk a little bit about, okay, now what? After the elections, what are their priorities? And finally, we're really honored to have with us Dr. Fatima Akilu, who is currently Director for Behavioral Analysis and Strategic Communication in the Office of Nigeria's National Security Advisor. Dr. Akilu is responsible for Nigeria's comprehensive counter-terror approach, the soft power approach. She's focused most immediately on de-radicalization and counter-radicalization programs in prisons, working on strategic communications in the Northeast, and on offering support to some of Boko Haram's most vulnerable victims. Dr. Akilu has done a lot of work in psychology over the years in research, but also in advocacy for some of society's most marginalized groups, the mentally ill prisoners, homeless people living with HIV AIDS. I think this program has perhaps not gotten the kind of profile it should have in these last years. It's been going on for some three years, and we hope and we believe that Dr. Akilu will continue to lead this under the new government, and that there will be more openings and opportunities, I think, for more global and U.S. support to the program. So what we'd like to do is start with Zeke, who can talk a little bit about the TMG and his own organization and what he sees as the priorities now in terms of kind of post-election democracy building. So Zeke, you're welcome to stand here or speak from your chair, whichever you prefer. You want to come up here? Okay, it's your choice. And just to let you know, this is being webcast. We'll keep our presentations fairly brief, so there's maximum chance for questions and answers. But Zeke, welcome, and thank you all for being here. Thank you, Jennifer. I'm not going to take much of your time. I'll bring you warm greetings from Nigeria. Let me start by thanking you for inviting me to this program. And I think it's one way of showing appreciation over the work we'll be doing over time in Nigeria, which you have also been part of. Having said that, I think there have been a lot of discourse around Nigeria's election, and so I would not want to take much of your time in talking about how Nigeria election came about. Meta-Civil Society Coalition, the Transition Monetary Group, plays a very prominent role in enhancing the credibility of the election. TMG is a coalition of over 400 civil society organizations in Nigeria funded in 1998. TMG has observed all elections that has taken place in Nigeria. But the 2015 election was one election that stands TMG out in many respects. This is because the election was not only hotly contested by the political parties. It is one election that Nigeria was not, Nigeria was almost like going to the brink because of a lot of predictions that women will get it right. And of course, the political gladiators. We also, there are Chenanigans around the campus and all the rest. And then there was a total darkness that was be clouding the political space of Nigeria. And therefore, as the desperation of the politicians was becoming more sophisticated because the election, I must tell you, apart from the fact that the Nigeria people were tired of the way business of governance was conducted and they were ready that come that election, they are going to, they are going to cast their ballot to vote out some of the officials they don't like. I can tell you that most of the candidates were not out to, because they want to serve Nigeria. They were there because of the way we have make a politician look. Politicians in Nigeria is a big business. If you are a politician, it's an easy way of becoming a billionaire. And therefore, everybody, whether you are the grassroots or you are the, you are an elite, all you want is to say that you are able to cash phone during the election. That is those that are there on the top. This is the time that we bring back returns of what of the loot they have made in the office. So this became a huklean task because you need to also educate the people to let them know the danger of taking the spoils of office and abdicating their responsibility of casting their ballot rightly. And so for that, TMG embarked on civic education in enlightening the populace as regards how and why they should cast their ballot rightly. And the most beautiful aspect of our observation was the use of the PVT, the Parallel Vote Abolation. That is the, what we call, quick hunt in Nigeria. The quick hunt, of course, I know that there have been a lot of discussion on it. I'm done it to let you around it. But I think for the first time in Nigeria, Nigeria people begin to have confidence that their vote we can't. Because they know that the election management body, INEC, is open to official interference and anything could happen at any time. Because even the constitution itself that pulled the commission in place makes it open to interference by investing the power of appointing all the commissioners in the hands of the president. And of course, the president will not appoint his enemy. He will always put people that we do his bidding. Of course, because of the credibility of few individuals within the system, within the election management body, we also see how things play out. So both the work of the Transition Monetary Group and the tenacity of Professor Atairu Jega, particularly in INEC, who were able to take Poon Nigeria through the election. So the critical challenge now is where do we go from here? The election is over. Yes, people have jubilated, people are now with a high expectation, people are waiting that the Bawari is going to perform miracle. So before us in the civil society, particularly the Transition Monetary Group, wish the group were very happy that it provided the leverage within which they have confidence in the 2015 election. And TMJ was able to verify the election and expose fraud in some area where the election did not go the way it should go. So what next are we going to do to help the new administration? So first, just as before the election, TMJ conducted a pre-election observation probe in looking at critical issues such as security, the hate speech and all the rest. So we will be focusing using our observers across the several hundred and seventy-four local governments to monitor governance at the local level. Because this is one level of governance in Nigeria where corruption is most pronounced. So TMJ will be monitoring governance at that level. We are also going to work seriously to ensure that there is reform of the local government system in Nigeria. Presently the constitution in Nigeria, while it recognized the local government as third tier of governance in Nigeria, at the same time the constitution bestowed the life and death of the local government in the hands of the state governor. And therefore what we see over the years is a governor waking up and just throwing out the local government council by fiat, just then start appointing a ketika committee. And what they do with these ketika committees is that the federal location never really get done to the local government. And so they put their loyalists as the forth comes, they make them to sign out the money and the money goes back into the pocket of the state governor. And so the people that this fund is meant to really enhance their welfare never really get to them. And so there is no also room for the citizens to take the local government into account of what they have, of their stewardship. And therefore this is one critical area that we will be focusing on. And we also mobilize other civil society to focus on that, on the reform of the local government. Because we cannot say that we are getting it right at the top without getting it right at the bottom. So it is very, very critical. That is where poverty is so pronounced. That is where degradation, illiteracy, when we talk about insecurity in Nigeria today, that is where it resides. And so that level needs serious reformation. And so we will be working in that direction. And then again we are going to work on the reform of the Electoral Act. Because while we have been able to deliver on 2015 general elections, I say it again that because of the courage of Professor Atahil Jigar, that was why we were able to pull through that election. If not, there were a lot of bobo traps on the way for INECs to fall and for them to do the biddings of the power that be. So but then can we begin to talk about Jigar? Jigar is now out. So what next? That is why we will be advocating for the reform of the INEC itself. They have been, we don't need to revend the will because they had big commissions in the past like Justice Will's report, which recommended that INEC should be unbordled so that some of the functions of INEC today should be given to other commissions, such as prosecution of electoral offenders. So 1999, if you ask me, there have been a lot of electoral offenses, but no one has been prosecuted. INEC, we said, well, they reported to police and the police did not do anything. So I don't think that is how we continue. Because of the punity, we wish we do a lot of things back home. That is why year in, year out, we keep re-eventing the will. And I think this is not what we want as we move forward. And therefore we want INEC that is truly independent, that is to channelize in such a way that whoever comes in will be able to do what we further improve on the work that Professor Atayu Jigar has done. So if not, if it's running on the details of whoever is there, we will not be surprised when we are returned to the era of Professor Morris Iwu, when even our voter register, we are finding Markejasi Nesimadela and going in our voter register. So that is one key aspect that I think as we move forward, we need to focus on the reform of that aspect. So then the security, of course, that is, I know that there are some of our groups, some of the affiliates of TMG specialize in working on security issues. So the Chibogas are still there, they are still not released. So the government are doing what they think is necessary to curb the essences of the insurgents and see if they can get the Chibogas released. I think the campaign need to be intensified, not just at the local level, even at the international level, because we see that the energy, the resources that the international community deploy to 2015 election. Doing same on this particular aspect, I think it will go a long way. I'm really happy to bring back our guests. So we are calling on you to also give us the necessary support in that direction. So the Nigeria election has come and gone. The president has set a task, but I can tell you that it's not going to be business as usual, because every step of the president will be taken into account. Good enough, he has given us his own manifesto, apart from the party manifesto, he has told Nigeria publicly that these are areas he's going to focus on, and that is security, unemployment, corruption, fight against corruption, and then, of course, assuring that there is accountability in his administration. And so we are taking this statement very, very serious. And during his inauguration speech, he has also made proclamation about saying that the things are done well, the local government resources must go to local government. Now one month is over, we begin to take stock, as regards how much resources actually get down to the local government in the last month. So we begin to use that to measure what we call in the future. But I can tell you that Nigeria people, given the fact that over the years, a lot of national resources has been embezzled by individuals. They are also very important, they want to see how many people will soon be going to jail. And so the anti-graft commission is one area that we feel need to be strutting. So they need to be put on track as soon as possible, so that those that are be siphoning the collective resources of the nation will be put to trial. On this note, how we wait for the questions that may come up, so that I will be able to address them. Thank you. Thank you, Zeke. I have questions on the local government reform, which I'm glad you brought up. But let's turn to Kingsley Bangwell to talk about the youth stars. Kingsley, are you going to remain seated there? Okay. Good afternoon. I'd like to start by thanking CSIS and Jennifer. Thanks for recommending me to come speak and bringing me all the way. I can also see some familiar faces, NDI, the NED and a few others. Thanks for coming to show solidarity. I have a slide to make my presentation. All right, it's up. Okay. Thank you, Ben. Primarily, I'll be looking at young people, the role of the plate, 2015 general elections and beyond. Next slide. The purpose of my session, well, okay, you've just got up. All right. The purpose of my session is actually to share some insights on a model youth project that contributed significantly to the 2015 election, promoting peace, because it was a lot of speculation about the possibility of violence during the 2015 election based on the backup to what happened in 2011. So we championed an innovative campaign, which is primarily what I want to talk about today. Okay. The next slide, well, I don't want to say much about that. If himself, Professor Jega had come around to talk about the elections, so let me quickly jump on to my session. It's one of the reasons we saw and witnessed significant peace during the 2015 election. I would say it's a result of different things that young people, civil society groups did to promote peace during the election. But one of them that that was very prominent, which is why I'm standing here today is the Vote Not Fight campaign. It was a collaborative effort between the Youngsters Foundation, the Two-Face Foundation, and the National Democratic Institute, with support from USAID. It was a very, very out-of-the-box campaign that leveraged celebrity culture, grassroots by then traditional and social media. Next slide. The strategy, like I said, it was, it's predicated on three key strategy approach, which is celebrity culture. So we worked with a celebrity. His name is Two-Face, prominently Nigeria's, one of Nigeria's rated A-class musicians and Africans also. Youngsters worked with him. My organization worked with him in 2011, with support from IRA also. So he's a celebrity we're familiar with, and he also has his own personal initiative on promoting peace in the country, and he's been non-partisan. So it was easy to work with him again in the 2015 election. And he worked on pro bono. And the strategy was also to deploy, explore crowd-pulling events across the country where we could have him come speak. And pass on the message of non-violence. And to ensure that this was grassroots and nationwide in terms of spread, we also worked with local partners, youth groups that have worked with youngsters in the last 15 years or so. So we identified about 12 of them from the Sixth Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. Nigeria is divided into Sixth Geopolitical Zone. So in each of the zones, we selected two youth organizations. We co-opted into the working committee to implement this project. Next slide. And then activities included. The first thing was to launch the campaign. We launched a campaign in two cities, in Lagos, representing the South, and then in Kaduna, representing the North. And in each of those events, Tufiz himself was there. The first picture up there where we launched and he was speaking. And then right after the launch, we started the rest of the activities, which was to get our local partners across the Sixth Geopolitical Zone, look for crowd-pulling events, and get into those crowd-pulling events, wearing our branded t-shirts, wristbands, and all kinds of IEC materials we produced, getting young people to make a commitment that during the 2015 election, they would go out to vote. But beyond that, that they would be peaceful. They would show all forms of violence. And that was our message. And that was why the campaign slogan, name, and title was simple, straight to the point, speaks to the issue, which is vote and not fight. And then we added a local parlance, which is election no-b-war. In Nigeria, Pigeon English is some kind of like lingua franca. And election no-b-war simply means election is not war. So you come to vote, you know, coming for war. And that phrase just resonated and bought very strongly with people, both very educated and not very educated. And so the moment we launched in the two cities, activities began all over the country. One key tool we used during the campaign is what we call the pledge, the peace pledge. We printed a small pledge that had a stored where when our volunteers and local partners go to any crowd-pulling event, they will have a chance to speak. And then after speaking, they ask people to sign or endorse this campaign, endorse that you stand for peace during the election by just signing, like you, you know, trying to raise signatures. But the difference here is that there was a stored. When you sign, you take the bigger part of the pledge and then you leave the stored with us, which had your name, your phone number, and also states and email, which we used during the election day. We send out thousands of SMS to people who had signed, reminding them that they had made a commitment that during the 2015 election they would go out of vote and then they would not fight. Now, while that was going on, social media was massively deployed to help create visibility and keep the campaign in the face of people, both at the city centers, at the grassroots community, all over the place, even internationally. So that was a strategy. You get a celebrity, because people know celebrities and know this guy, and then he's also using all his concert. He made a commitment to use all his concerts to speak about this. And so we were using all of that and having our different partners across the six geopolitical zone, looking for crowd-pulling events, going to those events, whether Too Faced was present or not. Just look for any event, go to those events, religious centers, sports centers, campuses, they were just all over the place wearing their t-shirts, moving around and asking people to sign. You can see a traditional ruler also signing the pledge. You can see one of the roadshows. Someone volunteered his car and branded the car Vote Not Fight and all of that. In terms of using social media, we also put together some short videos. We had about four or five of them, but Ben is just going to play one of them. Yeah Yeah, that's that's what okay, do you want just please? All right You I just did not kill agenda. And know how your agenda will fit past my agenda. Because my agenda is strong. For this election, for this election, it's our future. Just vote. Set the agenda. Set the agenda for these elections. No violence. Just vote. So those are also supportive promotional videos that we used. It was on YouTube, it was shared through cell phones and all of that. And a lot of media houses used this material. As a matter of fact, just a few days to the election, precisely on the 27th of March, there was an agreement. There was a parked sign with the National Union of Journalists that there will be a peace date dedicated to the election. So on that day, 27th, all of them agreed to play this video and others to promote the election. So in terms of visibility and reach, this is what we can report. On Facebook, we had over 102,000 likes that was recorded and over 4 million reached via the Facebook updates. Over 25,000 went on the project website to sign up to become peace ambassadors for the project. Over 28,000 views of the short video on YouTube, over 62 million reached via the adverts and the promos that were shown on different television stations in Nigeria. And I think the 62 million is very conservative because there was so much airplay on local televisions, on national televisions, on satellite televisions also. So I think 62 million is very conservative. Over 6 million Twitter feeds through the hashtag vote not fight, which actually trended. It was like the highest trending phrase on the election day. The elections were televised, especially the moment they went to Bios and then there was a failure of the card reader when Mr. President was trying to get accredited and all of that. And then phrases started coming up, everyone just started saying, you know, you need to cool down. We're going to vote and not fight. So it was just a very, very strong phrase that was resonating. When there were delays in any section, people started tweeting and, you know, posting on Facebook, we're going to make this work. We will vote. We're not going to fight. Even while we're waiting for the result, the phrase was very, very strong and resonating with people. Even TMG reported through his own surveys that the campaign was visible across the 700 and 74 local government where they worked. In terms of buy-in, just have some... All right. Right? Okay, yeah. In terms of buy-in, we had massive buy-in from different segment of society. When these pictures come up, you will see Professor Jagger himself who paid a cost of visit where he also endorsed the vote not fight, traditional rulers with two-faced endorsement of vote not fight. Notable Nigerians like the leader of the Bring Back Our Girls, Dr. Orby also endorsed the vote not fight. We also had a then-Senate President, David Mark, you know, with a hashtag, a T-shirt, endorsed the vote not fight, the speaker, and the current Senate President of Nigeria, Dr. Bukola Soraki also endorsed vote not fight. We saw politicians like one of the Gobernatorial aspirants in the 2015 election in Lagos, Jimmy Agbaje also signing up the days. We also saw grass roots, massive grass roots. We saw people who ride the local bicycles for transportation. We saw the Ocata riders also signing up. We saw market women. We saw the physically challenged persons with disability. So women, if the pictures come up, you need to back up a bit. Maybe like the tenth slide. Okay, yeah, 12. Thank you. So those are some of the pictures of even sort of football, players, traditional rulers, and different people. But the next slide, I have this interesting, one very interesting group that's right, the next slide. Okay, can you see the police officer? That's the police officer signing the story saying, well, I'm not sure he was going to vote, but of course they are going to support non-violence women. These are all local partners across different states and community going out there to also endorse this. And then here is my good friend from the World Movement for Democracy here, Ryota. Also, when we met in Senegal, different people from different parts of the world also signed up and endorsed that. So that was real, real buying. In terms of challenges, and it could be put on record that the Vote Not Fight campaign, you know, after the election, I started getting people calling to say, Kingsley, it's like you were, you know, in Nigeria we're very religious. You were prophesying. You were prophesying and your prophecy worked. Now for those of us in Nigeria, we understand what that means. It means you spoke, you made a prediction and it came to pass, you know, that the election was very peaceful and something would remain grateful to God about. In terms of challenges, in terms of challenges from the first picture there, you could see one of the road shows. We had road shows all over the country. It was amazing. Even on the New Year Eve, while people were on holiday, we were in Lagos, there was a big event where there were about 100,000 people and two faces were speaking. We were there in the middle of the night, the cold and all of that with volunteers getting people to sign up for the campaign. So it was really, really huge campaign. We had challenges, late commencement of the program and release of funds, which was like general, most of the donors of course started releasing funds very late. And then for a project of this magnitude, we had very limited funding to implement a project like this. It was a lot more we could have done. It got to a point where receiving calls from different parts of the country. We wanted to come, we wanted to bring those materials. Within two months of starting the campaign, it was a six month project. Within two months, we had run out of the printed materials. We had about 37,000 stores. It was finished. We had about 1,000 t-shirts finished, 5,000 wristbands were so finished. Within two months of the campaign, we had people driving from local neighboring states coming to pick up money. We don't know them. People just driving, young people driving from different states. We want materials and we're like, wait a minute. And for us, that was real, real, real challenge. It became a bit frustrating. My high cost of working with celebrities. I'll give you an instance. Two-phase we move around. As a star, he flies business class, right? But it's not an allowable cost, right? And he tells you, Kingsley, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't work. We're not an angel. I don't know what you're talking about, right? And that was real tension. You have to go back and fought with him on this. And then he tells you, I can travel alone. Minimum I travel with this number of people. And you're telling him there is a budget for just you and somebody else. He goes like, what's happened? So these are challenges we had to find out a way around most of these challenges. I'll give you an instance. We got to Kaduna and then he needed a kind of car for us to move around with him. And the cost of the car he needed was maybe two times what was provided for the 2D activity. And he needed just a few hours to move around, you know. So these are challenges faced working with those kind of people. And then working also with the local partners. The local partners across the six-year term, we worked with them as volunteers. That was really challenging at some point for them to keep up with the pace of what we wanted them to do. And in suspicion with citizens, we go to places to talk about the campaign, from the feedback we got from our volunteers, and people are demanding money. Because during the electionary, politicians dispense, my time is up, all right. Politicians dispensing money, right? And then we are coming to tell people to, you know, sign up and endorse the piece and they tell you, okay, to do that is my 5K. 5K is like 5,000 Naira, or my 2K. And you're telling them we don't have any money to give to you and they say we're not going to be part of this. And a lot of them believed we were funded by a political group and that later on we were actually going to make known our position and whoever, you know. So those are challenges that we faced. And then apathy among young females, we flagged this in our report to sign up for the campaigns. We saw more of males signing up for the campaign. And then going to crowd-pulling events, asking them to let us use their platform, typically to have two-phase in your event, you needed $40,000 to have him come for your event, for him to feature. So we are assuming that when we go to big events and say two-phase is willing to come speak at your event, people very happy and open up their hands but were surprised when people started saying, well, you need to pay us something to let you use this platform to let two-phase come to our platform. So that was an expectation, I mean, that was a development that we didn't expect. And then we didn't, when able to work with the hardcore young people that perpetrated violence, gangs and talks, the high cost of getting security, for you to have that crowd moving, we needed a lot of security to police the road safety and all of that. At that time, most of them were attached to politicians. So it was so difficult for us to get the policemen to come out for our events. And sometimes we had incidents in Lagos, they were there and they couldn't do anything. So we had to work with them and we had to work with private security also to safeguard ourselves. And on and on. Now elections is over as I wrap this up. Moving forward, for me the question is how do you sustain increasing youth political activities? Because we have seen significant increase in youth activities in our political space. Youngsters have been working on elections since 2007 and then we have seen significant increase in young people's interest in the entire election hearing process. So how do we sustain that as a question we are asking? To drive innovative initiatives that will promote smarts that's the concept we are using now. So for those of us who are familiar with smarts specific measurable, attainable, realistic time bound. But adding I which is innovative. I always tell people right now in Nigeria we need more than good governance. Because of the level of the development if you want to leapfrog that you need good governance and innovative or entrepreneurial governance. And so for us as an organization that's one word we are now beginning to push. Our youngster is thinking about a few things in terms of programming because that's our strength. We are known for programming and innovative result oriented program. We are looking at a 60 minute short film after the election. We haven't decided what is going to be called. The last time we did one was called after I voted now waiting. That means I voted what next. Trying to get young people to decide after the election you do not wait for another four years. You remain active. We are still thinking what to call the next film. But we have concluded a discussion with TwoFace and he has agreed to feature in that short film so that we can build on what we have started. And the target would be to use the short film to go to campuses. And then the National Youth Service call which is spread across the whole nation as part of their tool kits to get young people to know how to engage. We are working on another project. One of it is called Canvasity. We are developing that now and fundraising for that. And the whole idea is to get young people to begin to engage government institutions. And it's from a survey we have carried out that most young people do not visit or engage government institutions to know how they function and how you could help them. You just sit down and complain if things are not working. So we want to begin, we want to create a culture where young people can engage with government institutions at all levels, states and the local government. We also launched a flagship project called YOD. We are concerned that young women are not interested in these issues. We are concerned they are not interested in governance and leadership. And so as a group, we want to build on that. Beginning just July we are starting a monthly forum in Abuja called the podium where young people can just converge once a month and ventilate, make their voices heard on the issues of food strongly about, especially at the policy level and bringing policy people also. We see that there is that energy, young people want to speak. They want space to add their view and contribute to policy. So we are starting that platform just July in Abuja. And then sustain an activity we started three years ago called young aspirant leadership fellowship which the first of its kind in the country where we are training young people that want to run and we succeeded in training about 150 of them and we want to sustain that as a buildup to 2019 election because we have seen significant interest in wanting to run for office but how to becomes a challenge, how to fundraise, how to set up a campaign team and all of that. So we have seen very, very significant interest and good feedback from the last two editions and there are staggered elections from now up until possibly 2018 or so across the country. So we want to keep deploying the vote not fight campaign and then also activate our online TV channel. We have just started that. We have been piloting it an online TV channel where we can put content that is youth based, youth focus related and get young people to be part of the national conversation. In closing I would like to appreciate our co-partners. We had, like I said, 12 partners across the six geopolitical zone, not central, not east, not east, south, south, south, east. We had two partners in each, even though we had several other partners who just joined up along the line as a program brand. I also want to appreciate our key partners, especially two phase. I want to say that two phase has really set a standard in terms of deploying their goodwill to advance something of national importance. They told me confidence that it had turned down possibly maybe 150 million Naira in terms of programming, in terms of concerts and all of that, especially in the political space. In 2011 we worked with six of them in 2011 in 2015 only two phase among the six of them has still remained non-partisan. What it meant is that all the other celebrities we worked with in 2011 had signed up to endorse a political candidate in 2015 because they were being offered the minimum of 50 million Naira each, and that was huge. And two phase turned that down. So I think it's something to really celebrate, and had commitment to this. Also the NDI team for making the funding available, youngsters, the media, young people in general. In closing until now 2015, partnership is important. I put this particular picture here of time, people running on time. And for me the reason is I always tell young people we can vote for them and watch to see if they don't perform. There is a phrase, if they don't perform we vote them out. I tell people four years is a lot of time to waste. Four years is a lot of time to just sit down and watch if they will perform and if they don't perform we send them out. I say no, if you've ever got into that office, if you ever stood up to campaign and to converse for vote and now we've voted you in, you must you must perform. And the role of young people is to work with the elected representative to support them, to engage with them, to also offer expertise, innovation and concepts to see that the campaign promises are delivered. And so yes, we're already counting not if they performed or not we're counting between now and 2019 how much you will have delivered and how much we can contribute to help them do that. And the role of our partnership is very critical. I want to thank all the partnerships that has come in Thorsfall and we look forward to continued sustained partnership as we continue to engage. Thank you very much. Thanks very much Kingsley. Dr. Keeley, would you like to stay or stand? Okay. I'd also like to thank the organizers of this conference for the invitation. What I'd like to talk about really today is a story of despair, hope challenges and opportunities. It's really what we're trying to do to combat Boko Haram. About three years ago the office of the National Security Advisor led by the National Security Advisor himself decided that we must have another approach to the counter insurgency. Prior to that there was only a military option, a military approach and he felt that they had to be another way and I was hired in effect to really look at what they were doing and come up with a plan for the country. The first thing that we did was we looked at what other people had been doing and I'm sure that a lot of you here know and are probably familiar with some of the programs around the world we looked at the Algerian model we looked at the Saudi program we went to Singapore we even went to Australia we talked to the Americans we talked to the British we looked at what Morocco was trying to do and then we came back and we really spent about a year conducting research and commissioning research on Boko Haram in particular and other terrorist groups at the end of all that we came up with what the NSA launched last year as the soft approach to counter insurgency which we call our counter violent extremism program the program in essence consists of four main platforms the first platform is de-radicalization then we have a counter radicalization thirdly strategic communication and finally we have what we call a framework for psychology so I'll begin by talking about the de-radicalization program we found ourselves with a number of Boko Haram terrorists that were either convicted or suspected in the group across our prison services and some of them had been held for about five years without engagement without a program so we felt the first thing to do was really to engage the people in our prison population now the prison service did not have a model for engagement and they didn't really have a model for rehabilitation within the prison service we were adamant that they had to be conducted through the prison service because we wanted to institutionalize it so that it wasn't personality driven so we also spent a whole year training a whole cadre of staff within the prison service luckily for us they did have all the different types of staff that we needed what we needed was we needed imams we needed psychologists we needed vocational counselors we needed teachers therapists so they were already existing within the prison service where they had not worked in those professions so we developed curriculum and we did a year training program and we designed this program the program began this year and what we have found since we started doing this program is that there was a lot of misconception on our part really in terms of how we approached the problem and how we decided to design the intervention based on not much understanding of Bok Haram themselves because we were reading about them commission research about them but we weren't talking to them once we got into the prison we started to talk to them and we began to see it in a completely different light first of all the reasons that a lot of young people joined Bok Haram was not what we thought it wasn't because they were poor and on the street and marginalized sure that was the experience of some but it was a minority most of them the reason was that Bok Haram spoke to them in a place that mattered in their heart they were all searching and the more we talked to them we began to realize that there was this connection between these young adolescents sort of transitioning into adulthood where they were searching for meaning in their life and they were not that many spaces that forms for you to thrive and unfortunately they came across somebody who was a member of the group or the leadership of the group themselves and they had a message that resonated that made them feel that they could belong so that was the reason that a lot joined not all but a lot joined the group and we also found to our great surprise that a lot of them didn't really have much Islamic knowledge most had never read the Quran it was very easy for them to believe the message of Muhammad Yusuf and Sheikhul, Abu Bakr Sheikhul after that on the ideological component the first thing we do is we teach them the Quran and then we engage them in dialogue in terms of the narratives of Bok Haram what they believe and really what the Quran actually says and also we teach them about the Hadith we expose them to a wider understanding of Islam and so on the psychological component we engage them on we have a cognitive behavioural model which again is similar to the ideological component because it again engages the mind we have offered education to all of them we have a variety of educational attainment in the Bok Haram members that we have we have a guy who has a PhD we have some that have postgraduate degrees and then we have some that don't know how to read and write but everybody is offered an education so we have literacy classes and one of them wants to join the open university so we are trying to make that happen for him we also have arts classes we have sports and I think they're just about to start a music group the reason that we included arts and sports and we also have literature is because those are some of the things that they are so against and when we began to understand them more and understand why they were so specific about those particular aspects of secular education we realise is because those are the things that allow you to think and become a more rounded person so of course it made sense for them to prohibit those and say that it was Islam that was prohibiting them when we started this programme we only had a few members that were in the group luckily for us one of the leading imams was a protégé of Muhammad Yusuf and had also lived with Shekho very early on really embraced the programme and worked really hard to get all the other members to join the programme so now everybody is actually in the programme and the kinds of things that we hear from them is one of them said really I didn't know I was blind till somebody gave me a stick and we also have the imam who now wants his children to go to school he got married in 2000 and he has four kids and prohibited them from attending western schools so now we have enrolled his children in school and he is also one of the leading Bukhara members who was against sports and yet now he is playing both soccer and volleyball so there has been some measure of success not everybody has embraced this programme all of them attend but some of them still hang on to their belief system which is fine because we understand that it's a long process and it will take time so that's one aspect of the programme that happens within the prison lately we have developed what we call a national security corridor basically what that is it's a programme that allows for Bukhara members that want to leave a group to enter into our programme through so these are people who voluntarily want to leave the group we have 47 currently in that programme and they are offered similar things imam engagement, psychology sports art, music but the difference is that there is going to be a reintegration component so we have social workers in that programme in a way that we don't have with the prison programme we don't know how long it will take to get them to reintegrate back into society for two reasons one, it's going to depend on the individual everybody disengages depending on their level of radicalisation at a different pace so that will be determined by a clinical multidisciplinary team who conduct risk assessment and risk management but I don't presume that it's going to be anytime soon and number two the communities in which they would return to no longer want them back so you can't really take that perpetrators in a community where there are so many victims I think it would really not be good so we will have to think when the time comes they might have to be reintegrated in a different community if that community would have them but luckily we have some time to figure that out so that is really the prison radicalisation programme third component which we have designed but we haven't started only because we are looking for a facility and that is really to work with at risk young people who are at risk of radicalisation so even though the programme has been designed by our de-radicalisation team it will be implemented by the second group which is the counter radicalisation which is what I'll talk about next along all the different departments under me there is a lot of interaction and overlap counter radicalisation work with people in the community so we are hoping that that programme will be actually run by them the counter radicalisation programme essentially as I said is community based it's really probably the biggest programme that we do even though the de-rad is fairly big because we have about now about a thousand or more in the de-rad and it's growing every day but the counter radicalisation is even bigger this programme essentially is the preventative bit of what we do it's really to stop young people joining Boko Haram and becoming radicalised we are in six states across the north of Nigeria, two in the north-central to northeast and to northwest this is a pilot at the moment because we want to see what works and what doesn't and we're hoping to scale up to 19 states probably at the end of next year but essentially what they do is we have staff in those six states and 18 local governments and they work with a whole group of people from the state government to the local government chairman traditional council we have a network now that we have formed a security sector and civil society network called PAVE People Against Violence and Extremism and we have about a hundred NGOs that we work with in those communities in those six states their job really is to identify the signs of radicalisation amongst youth and to create with our support programmes to stop people becoming radicalised one of the things that we are doing is that we when you identify somebody who is at risk of becoming radicalised you've got to offer them a programme so one of the things that we're doing in those six states is building what we call centres of imagination essentially they're really like the Boys and Girls Club here or the YMCA in Europe for example they are safe spaces that youth can come where they can be mentored there will be sports, there will be art there will be educational support there will be leadership classes so all these components have been developed and in Kanu we have already started engagement with youth through sports programme there's about a hundred different football clubs that we now support of young people who are at risk and so those are some of the things that they do but in addition to that we found that there was a lot of problems with the way that some people use the pulpit in mosques and also in schools we found that there were a lot of schools where the teachers were so inciting in term and really helped radicalise youth one school in particular in Kaduna we found a lot of the people that came to us in the prisons happened to come from that school so we started to really look at the schools and see what was going on and we have now started a mapping exercise where we are mapping in those six states that we're working in all the different voices in the mosques and in schools and communities to see where the most extreme voices are so that we can intervene we have also engaged with religious leaders and also religious scholars in terms of defining what their role should be in preventing radicalisation there's going to be a big conference really on that in Nigeria sometime this year where we're inviting scholars from all over the world not just Nigeria and when we started to engage with a religious environment we found that really we can map where all these extreme voices are coming and then what so we felt that we had to go beyond that so one of the things that we've done is we set up an institute an imam training institute it's the first of its kind there's about five major Islamic branches in Nigeria we had to get the leadership of all of them to in principle agree to what we're trying to do for the training institute and what we want to move to is the kind of registration for imams and the registration for us in Nigeria would be very helpful because all the imams that would be on that register would be imams that we have vetted and who have been trained and so that the list will be published so if you as a parent want to hire an imam you know an imam that would be safe for you to hire and also in schools and in mosques so people cannot just go to a mosque and take a microphone and start to preach which is what happened with Muhammad Yusuf and other radical preachers once we engage with the Islamic religious environment we realize that we needed to also do a lot of interfaith work so we've developed a lot of interfaith platforms that we're working on in the states that we currently in there are a lot of programs on the counter add but in the interest of time I won't go into all of them but in just so much to say that all of them really are aimed to prevent young people becoming radicalized I will mention one program in schools that we do we have a program now in schools in Kaduna and Kanu it's again a pilot program what we intend we developed what we call a creative curriculum basically it's really a teaching method how do you teach children to be creative thinkers across the curriculum so basically how does a teacher who teaches geography or science or literature or math how do they expand a child's imagination and make them think and also to reason logically so we've had to train teachers in both primary and secondary schools and why that is very important to us is because when we talked to a lot of the Boko Haram members that we have in prison we found that their ability to think critically and logically is stunted so it was very easy for them to imbibe a very linear single narrative they couldn't say well hang on a minute that doesn't sound right they just didn't have that ability so we felt that we needed to do that in schools in the Ministry of Education in Nigeria if our pilot is successful hopefully they will scale it up that is the idea but they have been working with us from day one on the third aspect of my work is strategic communication in essence what we do strategic communication is research and analysis we commissioned a big piece of research pathways to radicalization that came out was published this year which helped us better understand why young people in Nigeria would join in Boko Haram we also looked at things like why the north east, why not somewhere else and sort of tried to find answers for why this particular conflict happened in that particular area we also did a documentary on Boko Haram which traces the history of Boko Haram and also traces the history of that region because that region has always had combustible like religious tendencies from the 19th 18th century or even further back when I talk about the region it's the wider region including Chad and Nigeria not just north eastern Nigeria so we tried to analyze that through the medium of them but some of the most interesting things that we do is really analyzing the narrative of Boko Haram and trying to get a better sense of really what they believe and we have now analyzed nearly all the videos that Boko Haram have put out in the public space and the ones that are not in the public space but we have received through our intelligent services and one of the things that we found is that even though Sheikoh seems like he's Raven Lunatic on those videos it's so far from the truth when you analyze the videos what you find is he makes a lot of reference to history, to literature there's poetry in there and he makes references to the early Caliphate and really it's a way to rally supporters and stuff he talks to them on an emotional level he makes references to sociological and cultural it's really a call for people to join the group so it wasn't what we really thought that it was just a ramblance of a man that was unstable it's much more targeted than that and we also analyzed the book of Mohammed Yusuf who was the leader before Sheikoh in which he lays down the philosophy of Boko Haram and it's very obvious that the philosophy has not changed at all under the two leaders but their mode or method of achieving it is what has deviated but all those really gives an understanding of the group itself and on the fourth and final area that we work when we started this work we really realized that there was so much trauma in communities across not only the northeast where the conflict was but across the country if you like so we started to look at how we can provide trauma to the people in the region and we also did a report. We don't have a huge pool of psychologists social workers really there's only like three or about three maybe four universities that offer psychology in Nigeria it's a new and emergent field and especially in those areas where the conflict was they just want people there so we realized the interest one of the things that happened that was positive for us in on this platform is that the bring back our girls movement did bring a lot of attention to psychosocial support PTSD needs and that meant that a lot of NGOs came forward and said that they wanted to provide this kind of care and support so we formed a network where we offering them training and we're offering to have a minimum standards for provision of care in those areas since a lot of them are already in the northeast but we found that that was not enough so we also established a center of excellence for training in psychology which is going to be in Kaduna and that center is essentially just to do research look at instruments normalize instruments that are probably not Nigerian but also to train a whole cadre of counselors and people who can provide support and while we were doing that the military approached us and said really even though we had approached them three years past but they were not open to it at the time but they now approached us and said that they wanted PTSD services for their troops on the ground so we're now working to establish a post-traumatic stress disorder center for the military they already have a small unit that they for the people who have brought in from the northeast the troops who are in the war front so that's been a really good thing for the military in concluding I would like to say when I said that it was a story of hopes challenges and opportunities the opportunities were that we really could remake a lot of our society we could build capacity in many areas the CV program is both vertical it involves all three tiers of government federal state and local government and it's horizontal we have a huge number of civil society that are now working in CVE so that we've had to build the capacity of all these people so those presented opportunities for us to join up government security sector doesn't normally work with civil society but here we are working with not just civil society we're working with Ministry of Education we're working with Ministry of Youth Ministry of Women Affairs Ministry of Sports so it's broad and our security approach and our security architecture we have challenges a lot of the challenges are to do with funding my program is very very expensive so there's a lot of funding gaps but also we need a generation of practitioners so all this will take time to get the level of people we need in the right places it's not going to be an overnight work it's going to take many many years so really this is where we are thank you for listening thank you very much and actually to all our speakers for this I'm going to open up for questions and answers one thing maybe to think about I mean listening to each of these presentations you know I think of the broader West African region one that has a lot of contentious elections coming up and two that is facing some of the security challenges that northeast of Nigeria is facing in terms of radicalization particularly among Nigeria's immediate neighbors and so maybe we can return to this but in terms of reaching out to kind of broadening for example what young stars is doing to a West African focus and I know Two-Face is continentally known the PVT process and how you made that work and some of the counter radicalization and radicalization prevention de-radicalization schemes how that might work and how possibly to build kind of regional platforms and connections on these various things maybe we can get back to that towards the end but I want so let's take a few questions we'll take four at a time so we don't overload you and then come back for another round okay we have one here we have me one in the far back and one in the very far back there too so start here in the front hello my name is Simon Nadeji I'm a Nigerian and it's interesting to hear a whole lot of what's going on I did live in Nigeria like 10 years ago and I have an experience in having to live in the north which I did go to school as well one of the things I wanted to bring forward which would be directed to Dr. Akilo and also to Kinsley is a situation of now that we have some of the insurgents do we have any situation that has to do with biometric identification to actually trail these individuals because you're talking about having to let them go back into the society what is the yardstick or measure put in place to actually say okay you know what this is the situation we identify these people in case anything like this does happen and however I did pay a visit to Nigeria in 2013 and I went all the way to Kaduna Kaduna had a YMCA in Tudunwada and this is Tudunwada is supposed to be the most like Islamic or more of the northern they're much more there and I grew up there when I went back in 2013 the YMCA was for youth to develop in terms of culture and the rest of it innovative way of thinking and logics when I went back in 2013 YMCA has been bought turned into a gas station and been developed into real estate for people in government these are the challenges we face because even if you say you're developing the system in the prison right now what about the young and upcoming ones they will still be void of self what and still have room for much more development so it's like you're curtailing the problem but what about what's the solution for the young and upcoming ones which will be vulnerable in the same manner the ones being locked up have pretty much that's my question a whole lot but I don't want to go into that for for mistake Brian alright alright thank you very much my name is Nia Cuete I actually lived in Nigeria when we were starting the George Soros Foundation and I've kept up with events there my question is for Dr Achilo two parts to one quick part is is your work accessible on the internet can people look up your work because there are so many interesting facets to it the other part of my question is the attitudes of mothers because my work I've done in West Africa if you want to get the votes of mothers education they see education as a very important institution for for their children making progress so when I hear about Boko Haram I've always wondered how I mean ordinary mothers as well as those whose children have fallen into Boko Haram do they buy the Boko Haram message that western education is a problem if not western education then what thanks yes the lady in blue hi my name is Amaka and I thank everyone for the presentations I was particularly fascinated by Dr Achilo's presentation because I wasn't previously familiar with the soft approach to counterterrorism I just have a few questions you mentioned that there was a program for people with people potentially in Boko Haram who want to voluntarily enroll in this de-radicalization program and my question is how what are the the methods sort of for reaching those people if I were in Boko Haram I would probably not trust any state operatives that might just kill me off and throw me somewhere so I'm curious as to how you reach out to them and build some sort of trust that they would actually come voluntarily come forward and while they're in the program where do they stay, how are they housed how does that work logistically my other question is that there's been a lot of reports in the media about certain Boko Haram prisoners being sent to Anambra State what's happening with that are those people prisoners part of this program are they going to have the same sort of program orientation in Anambra thanks and then we have one in the far back and I know we're going to go over a little time here so please do leave if you have to but if you can bear with us a little bit so you can get another round of questions in hi good afternoon my name is Crystal Noachu and I'm with an organization called Act for Accountability we work on we're working on building the capacity of African diaspora specifically Nigerians here to engage in ways that will build transparency and accountability in Nigeria and my question is for all of you how do you see the Nigerian diaspora working to help build transparency and accountability in country I would just like to hear your specific thoughts on that what the community's role could be especially that of civil society thank you back for one round and we can see our response is fairly short can we start with you and work our way down on this right thank you let me just respond quickly to how special diaspora community can work with local groups in terms of our youth focus organization the one thing that you can contribute is very critical is in terms of intellectual support local groups would need that kind of support in terms of people who can come in with research which help with intellectual capacity to widen perspective in the kind of work that it do for instance we have emails from young people in the diaspora who want to come in to intern that is really really huge value because when they come in they come in with huge perspective in intellectual capital to help the work that we do back home because you do not have research local groups to be able to hire those kind of very high end professional people the other thing that I think that will also help is giving visibility to the kind of work that we do back home it also helps to gather support for the work that we are doing I can tell you upfront that local groups work under the very most difficult limiting conditions so if we have diaspora groups that are willing to work in terms of giving visibility and also bringing their needs to be there to raise resources for them it will be very helpful any thoughts on accountability in diaspora well I think Kinsley touch I just hear the nail I think that is very key the way they come support local groups is whenever you are on holiday please feel free take your time out voluntarily come on spend some time with us because your experience bring your experience to be here on our work is very very valuable and it will help so much to further enhance the knowledge that we have back home because I know that you live in a country that is well advanced in democracy this is where community service is so much pronounced people volunteer a lot in back home we are to learn the spirit of volunteerism so everything people want you to pay for it so very few stay imbibed as spirit so I think it will be very very helpful maybe sometimes you take you come around we have many desks where you can where you can operate from by taking some time with us and then helping to also see what we are doing then also prefer advice and also help us to take it down to the to the people because let me just say that even during the election it was just our voice alone the voice of the international community countered a lot because we have a government that listen more to even the international community people that are coming from abroad than those of us that are resident here so I think there will be another way of imparting into our work thank you Dr. Keeley there was a couple of questions targeted at you in terms of support and psychosocial support and I know you are working with some of the women and girls who have been liberated I know the diaspora probably within Nigeria there is a lot of will to do something among the diaspora community here but also even prior to this event I have heard from others what can we do for the American civil society and groups in the states who are keen to do something but it's not always clear how best to assist whether it's in skills or support I know you have a lot of questions directed at you but piggyback that on there thank you very much I think that's really a clear area of need for us in terms of diaspora involvement we have a dearth of psychologists not just psychologists social workers mental health professionals I think we have something like 150 psychiatrists to populations of almost a million so it's highly adequate and if you talk about psychology it's probably one to a million so those are areas that we need support but we also need capacities built in multiple other areas teachers because we're in schools for even art therapists vocational counselors people who do ideological engagement so it's a whole like I said a whole generation capacity that we need to build also in terms of how to work across agencies it's pretty new we're starting with security sector it's not used to reaching out and forming these partnerships across the agency so even helping those areas would be really good and another area is to keep us on our toes to make sure that we do what we say we're going to do so that's another area that diaspora community could certainly be involved in terms of the other questions that I was asked the first question was about biometric identification everyone who comes into our program biometric information that would allow us to track them nobody is going to leave our program and just go off into the community nobody so there is a process of reintegration they are going to exit the program into a job where we can continue to monitor them or into a community where we will know where they are so I hope that answers the question in terms of how do you keep track of them we're a long way away from having anyone leave our program because the program is fairly new but we have designed the reintegration piece what are we doing to prevent others becoming radicalized the whole middle part of our program counter radicalization is really designed to do just that we work in schools and communities with religious leaders with families to help identify the early signs of radicalization and also to build resilience in the community and I did say that we have so many programs that I don't mention all of them but these are programs that happen in the communities to help young people not to become radicalized because we feel that the conflict will end quicker if Boko Haram is not able to recruit any more citizens so of course that's one of the major things that we do it's even bigger than our de-radicalization program is our work accessible on the internet it's really not we haven't done much publicity but I think probably we should another question on the attitudes of mothers do mothers buy into the message unfortunately we have found with Boko Haram there hasn't been too much discrimination there are a lot of women who have imbibed the message the idea the philosophy who have actively joined the group and actively take part in the group and then we have some mothers who are really upset that their children have joined so it's a mix bike but certainly unfortunately there are quite a few mothers who have who really buy into that message how do they come into the national security program we have multiple means where we work with intelligence agencies we work with NGOs on the ground we work with the Red Cross and we also have toll-free numbers that we give out there and intelligence services from other countries not just Nigeria also inform us of when people are ready to come into the program so we have multiple ways that we give out the message out there that and of course we have them in our prisons who they also talk to other members all over the place where are they kept we trying to build a purpose built facility for the national security corridor we have acquired land but we haven't built it yet so now we're using existing structures which dovetails into your next question the Anambra we're holding them in Anambra state unfortunately it got a lot of negative publicity but that's all we're doing we're just holding them there till we can move them to a safer location alright thank you I'm an Nigerian too and building on your question on biometrics I think it's great for the organization to strengthen the national registration process if you see it in Nigeria you have a lot of fragmented registration the bank verification registration the national identification management commission the mobile phone technology the national population commission I think it's high time we harmonize this registration process and it will help in the security system as well as the registration process you're talking about the local government issue of registration electoral voting the new registration every time election is coming on board that's one of it and for both Kingsley and Dr Fatima Akilu you're doing a great job but do you have a system in place to generate evidence to show to the world the changes your program is making so that others can learn and those changes are really been impactful to the life of the young people you are reaching and what do you have in place for out of school young people who do not really can read and write they are really recruited to form part of this group even though we have people from school being recruited thank you I think I will stop here okay we're going to limit to just one question per person where did I go next here yes my name is Aniadio Kure I'm with the Africa Fet and Justice Network first of all I want to thank all three of you for a very informative session I've taken a lot of notes and I'd like to stay connected you mentioned that I was struck when you mentioned that the government would rather listen to outside voices than inside voices and so I'm offering a partnership here we've been talking with a lot of groups including the NED the National Endowment for Democracy about finding ways to enable countries to enable countries to engineer grassroots activities such that the government is able to listen to the people so that people can hold government accountable and promote and build on the momentum that is here so I'm here offering a partnership and I will take your information after thank you where did I say next lady there hello everyone my name is Fatou Kure I'm from Nigeria I work with INEC which is the Electoral Commission in Nigeria but I'm here for the Mandela Washington Fellowship I'm really passionate about using technology to make governance better especially in Africa so I was appreciative of the work that TMG did with the project Quick Counts our electrons were really good this year but what I noticed was our legal framework didn't really aid in complementing the process I mean getting Nigerians to use the PVCs and car readers was a hassle and I mean you go to these meetings you engage legislators which we've been doing for years but you know you're sitting down in the meetings with them and they're looking at all your listening to all your good ideas but in their minds they're really thinking you know they're not going to like this fly because they know that using technology to make elections better will make sure that they are not re-elected next year because they know how they got into office so I would like to know if TMG and Young Stars Foundation through SMART is going to be doing anything to engage legislators to make and amend our electoral and bigger framework Thank you and Steve Steve Landy Manchester Trade I have two personal experiences to support what Mr. Bangwell had to say from taking a flight from London to Abuja for the inauguration President Buahari walked into my coach class actually what a question, upgraded coach class but still coach class I didn't look I assumed you went up to first class, turned around there he was sitting at the end of the flight and coach class, three people with him so he listened at least to your first rule secondly I went to the inauguration of the governor of Andamata State I'm leaving with the VIP bus there was a lot of noise turn around I think yellow shirts, vote not fight I've never seen so much enthusiasm in my life so I congratulate you on both specific examples my question is very short because the time is short and so on I have always found that the projects are going to work they have to have an impact to have an impact they need to have a budget my question is to have the kind of thing that will have the impact and the continuing impact what kind of a budget do you need ECOWAS has what they call the 70-30 rule as always like 70 local 30 donor overseas any idea like this maybe too early to ask the question but I think with those kind of benchmark figures I think you can get a lot of support thank you very much for this unbelievable program thank you Steve okay should we take one more it's too much pressure for me I'm going to for the gender balance I'm going to go with a lady in front I'll make it short my name is Yukeri Ambatio I work with voices of women and children we advocate for women and children in Africa especially in Nigeria and in diaspora our organization have been in Nigeria several times we have special in the north we have the state the rural areas in the north and also in the south what we found was really amazing especially among the homeless children and their families a lot of these women on the street they are homeless and they keep having babies on the streets and there's a kind of cycle of poverty and their mental issues to you Mr. Kinsley and also Dr. Fatima how do you I know that you said it's not really for poverty how would you coordinate homelessness, poverty and the education how would you incorporate it into your program and also Kinsley you mentioned about going to and the legos where your organization state how do you do with the rural women and children to make sure they are part of these great things you are doing and lastly how do you do you have a network to coordinate with each other because I know there are so many NGOs in Nigeria how does your organization and that of Dr. Fatima and the others coordinates under Dr. Sikrala Ibrahim how do you coordinate each to make sure that because it seems that we all have the same philosophy to move Nigeria forward how do you get together to analyze what you are doing and see which group has which at what time where you are progressing and what need help that's my question okay thank you let's start again from Kinsley and we'll end with Dr. Kinsley alright let me respond quickly to Chu in terms of an actual reform over the years one of the things that youngster takes pride in is ability to mobilize young people across board on issues we've done that for over 10 years and most of the youth activists in the country have gone through one program of the other of ours especially Desplay which is the longest annual youth training program in Nigeria on democracy it has been funded by the net for 10 years and in this programs we deliberately bring on such topics to get young people to act on these issues so across board we're finding young people first of all young people need to understand that these issues are contemporary issues that affect them they affect their education, they affect their welfare and then so that they can buy into them and then create their own kind of response to engage on those issues so and that is one work we've done we will continue to do this is why we're trying to bring up programs like Royal and online TV to make sure voices of young people are captured and they can see their peers doing similar things and I'm sure we've been part of all the electoral reform process where we continue to be part of those processes by joining the bigger coalitions like TMG and then if we are cascading to the grassroot yes the campaign I talked about I said it was launched in Lagos because we wanted to just create visibility in two locations in the north and the south but most of the activities if you saw we are grassroot based of Gombe, Sokoto, Mori, everywhere grassroot based because over the years as an organization we've built a network of thousands of young people across Nigeria so it was easy to leverage that and that is what we continue to do so in terms of cascading our program grassroot that is a primary focus of our activities and of course we continue to network with different groups as long as you can find people that have similar values similar objectives that is something that we always open to doing thank you. On the use of technology I think in this modern time nobody can shy away from the fact that technology is key to any any serious program that we want to or that we take us to where we want to go so for the election I think the the 2050 election was largely a success because of the use of card reader and PVC so even though there was no legal framework I think NEC was able to find the opportunity within the power that they are giving but as we move away from the election I think we rather be advocating for electronic voting than to say no to the use of card reader because we find it very very helpful and at the time that the former president make official complaint to INEC that he couldn't vote so on time so on the the card reader was relaxed we saw the manipulation thereafter particularly the south south region where the president came from where we have a lot of issues I think Jennifer will try as much as possible to produce my paper to the audience because you restricted my speech but I would told me that it's going to be very brief that is why I did not address myself to all that is here so it is very important and I think the reforms that we are going to embark upon we are going to compete vigorously to ensure that there is legal framework that we further improve the and then on the on the question of networking I think at the moment we have a five year program with NDI supported by USAID so the first phase which was the election component is over and we will be moving into the face of building the capacity of the membership of TMG that caught across the grassroots and all the local governments in Nigeria so I think doing that will be very, very much helpful so that they can replicate what we are doing at national level at the grassroots so I think between 2019 is going to be we are going to see a very big change in terms of the kind of work that people are doing at the grassroots to really hold government accountable then as for listening to diasporas than some of us in Nigeria is because sometimes they feel we are very critical and we can also remove the fact that it's not just government officials of government that are corrupt we have also seen same in some NGOs so and the government when you talk to them they say are they doing different thing in their own respective place but I know it's not enough to generalize but this is what is happening and so they don't take us very, very, very serious and even the area where they feel civil society need to be need to be incorporated in their programs that decide to set up pet NGOs where they can invite faceless people to come and be there so that when they ask question are there civil society participation they have something to show for it but still these are not true active civil society in Nigeria thank you I think there was a question about multiple registration where the multiple agencies are taking biometrics of Nigerians there's been a lot of debate about that and I think they are looking towards harmonizing all these different data collection points and making the national identity the major registry for Nigeria's biometric information so I know there's a work going on to harmonize that there was a question about what evidence is there that our project is working we have an independent group of monitors and evaluators who really have collected baseline information and they track the project and they do provide quarterly reports and they will be providing a report at the end of the year so this is not something that we do it's a totally independent group so hopefully that will be published that report will be published what's working and what's not working there was a question about out-of-school children and homelessness and poverty and what we are doing about that those are massive problems for the state and I know that the vice president has said that they are looking at a social security and social safety net structure for the country so they are people who are thinking but it's way beyond my own project and we are at time and I'm sorry to keep you over but I think it was worth it this was a really rich conversation just a couple of things that struck me was as I said at the beginning the replicability of this across the region Nigeria is a very unique place but I think there are lessons that surrounding regions can learn in terms of the vote not fight campaign coming up in terms of parallel vote count in terms of some of the counter radicalization and education initiatives critical thinking kind of in viewing a culture of critical thinking in the education system is extremely important and then one thing on the local government reform and capacity struck me it kind of cuts across your various presentations I mean it's where kind of people have their first encounter with the government often their first encounter with health services with the services of the state and building those capacities I mean there's a lot more to be said on that how you hold them accountable how you help build capacities and so forth and then finally there's a lot of overlap between what all three of you do and it'd be interesting to see how Dr. Akilu eventually your group kind of gets underway I know it's been working very hard to be doing publicity at the same time but how it links up with other NGOs like Young Stars for example that's working with youth across the country and I know there's just a tremendous amount of goodwill in the states and in the US and Nigerian Diaspora as well to link in and support so when you come up for breath you might be thinking about how best to create a platform that others can feed in to kind of amplify what your efforts are Anyway, please join me in thanking our guests for a really terrific conversation Thanks