 Thanks for staying with us. Now, on Wednesday, the Tribunal upheld the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinnabu. In the February 25th General Elections, the Tribunal led by Haruna Sami, or Samani, dismissed the petitions filed by Attico Abu Bakar of the People's Democratic Party, MP Taubi of the Labor Party, and allied People's Movement, APM, challenging Tinnabu's victory. This comes after the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Aine Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, admitted that the commission experienced glitches in transmitting the election results through the IRF during the presidential election. He acknowledged this while giving a critique of the technological innovations deployed during the elections at a session with civil society organizations on the review of the 2023 General Elections. Now, the Ainec Chairman said, the accreditation of voters using the bimodal voter accreditation system, that's the beavers, and the uploading of the results of the Ainec, of the results of Ainec viewing portal, that's the IRF, were successful, but the commission experienced glitches in transmitting the results through the IRF during the presidential election. In lieu of the Tribunal's judgment, today we're analyzing the Ainecs, their job, right? They had just one job, right? Do you think that job, they had a plasma? How did they do? Now, please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to do it. 1-803-4663. You can also treat that as the way you should act for women. So I have to bring in Kunlilawal in one minute, but I just want to hear your thoughts. Do you think, how well did Ainec do? Did they do well? I mean, based on what the Tribunal said that they were not mandated to transmit results? I'm kind of confused in this matter. I really don't have much to say. You just keep quiet and let the experts teach me. Yeah, I think I'm just going to lean towards Kunlilawal giving his expert view, because I mean, like you said, Ainec's job in electoral process is not just one. It's many things. So if we're to rate them, are we just rating them based on the results of the transmission or on all the other things? Exactly, but we'll just take things. So I think, yeah, that's there. All right, Kunlilawal is no stranger to ways he's an entrepreneur, idea generator, telex speaker and patriot. He has a keen eye for opportunities based on his experience in politics, working with non-governmental organizations and the federal government of Nigeria. He is passionate about Nigeria and he is what we can term a detribalized Nigeria. And he considers his boundaries to be limitless and is really focused on changing the Nigerian narrative in political participation and currently serves as the executive director of Electoral College Nigeria and is also the country lead for word chat. All right, so Kunlilawal, thank you so much for joining us this evening. This is an interesting conversation that, you know what, I told myself, I cannot give myself a headache when I have Kunlilawal in my corner. So in a lot of Nigerians, there's so many like talks here and there and I love you for one thing. Most times when you have a conversation, you do not attach emotions to it because truly, we don't need emotions. We need facts, we need figures, we need someone that will be able to tell us exactly, you know, bring them, bring a bit of clarity because we like to whip up emotions. We like to whip up sentiments and all of that when it comes to things like this. I for one, I mean, I had a conversation when last week I said I wasn't expecting anything to come up from that election in terms of the way Nigerians, you know, because the Nigerian expectation was that they would say, okay, yes, I was like literally what played out was what I expected to play out. But tell me, if we want to give a scorecard to first of all the tribunal, right, did they do a good job? And secondly, INEC, because it seems like on one mouth, you talk from two sides of your mouth, right? They were so much assurance and convictions and all of that, take your PVCs and go out. That you mean, I mean, I remember several times also having conversations around the exciting news around INEC, changing the policies and this real time transmission of results, all of those things, Kule. Tribunal cannot say they were not mandated to do it. Obiko, like I said before, I don't want to do emotions. Tell me, exactly what you think from the expert view and of course from the data that you're privy to that we are not privy to. Did they do a good job as a tribunal and also the INEC, I mean, what's INEC's scorecard on the 2023 elections? Okay, so I'd like to hinge this conversation first or beginning or we need staff to INEC. If we start to the tribunal, I miss so unnecessary things. So INEC, of course, as the appetite in elections in Nigeria, gathered by the electoral act, it is clear that INEC, only case of INEC has pre-election, election, post-election, three parameters in which INEC operates. Pre-election will, of course, involve political parties. Clearly, the mechanisms which allowed political parties function, whether their conventions went well as a point in the chairman or whatever, the electoral act stipulates that soft copies of party register and hard copies are submitted to INEC by 18 political parties. Did they meet this criteria? No, no party met this criteria. Do the people know? No. So before you start to ask about accountability of INEC, you actually should ask for an entire accountability of everyone. First, you cannot run a democracy in a politically illiterate country. It's going to be hard. We are so concerned about the product of our elections, nobody even cares about the process, which is a big problem. So you've been having flaws in the foundations from the beginning, and then you want a great outcome. We seem to forget, on the basis of morality, what everybody is accusing INEC of is the basis of morality, because INEC publicly came out with it's, with Veslo Sokwe, Speer, saying the results are going to be transmitted live, they are irate. But the law, the electoral act, and what gives INEC its power also grants INEC a clear determinant on how it relays the information our colleagues, the information has. INEC is independent to that level. So as much as people say INEC is not independent, INEC actually is independent to that level. That is why INEC can stand and the courts can come out and say, if INEC chose this as the mode of transmission, then fine it is. In another country, or in the same democracy, what would have happened is that the INEC chairman and the PR who were making statements, even making the statements internationally, because I remember a conference in Chatham House in which they engaged this conversation. So clearly, this they would have resigned because they had lied to the Nigerians. Yes. But by law, legally, INEC is empowered to transmit by any means necessary. That they choose? Yes, by law. So, how would I put it? It's a case of, like I said, morality, not illegality. So INEC did not at any point, shrunk any of Nigeria's rules. Now, heading up to the judgments. It is amazing. It's a 98-page judgment. People blame people that, you know, where at the judgment I'm falling asleep, I watch the judgments. I can't remember how many times I fell asleep. I was watching it. I fell asleep. I tried to look at it. I tried to look at the 98 pages. Come on. Somebody was reading. Let me put it properly. It's now working for me. So, but the key things to note, it is so amazing and I'm sorry to say that I think some senior advocates in Nigeria take a lot of money, do not look at the electorate and jump to ground persecution. And this happened on all legal sides for all respondents. There was the case of Pitao B by APC clearly stating the legal team of APC stating clearly that Pitao B didn't have the rights to run for election under the labor party, pre-election matter. You all know that you can't bring a pre-election matter to that vote. The Electoral Act is clear, I think, in 25B emotion. So I think it's 25B. And it's clear that as amended in 2022. Now, not people in the same party. Only people that participated in that primaries are capable to sue people over those positions in a pre-election matter. So, it's indirectly stays. It has for labor party in general. Patutomi was the one that ran against Pitao. If it wasn't Patutomi suing, according to the new laws, you cannot carry Pitao B to court over a primaries. The same goes to Shetima, the vice president. Yes, the vice president 002, Kashim Shetima. Of course, his excellency the vice president. Two was accused on a double nomination. Electoral Act 2022, 25B still protects that. You did not run. You are not one of those that ran against him. You are not under his party. No, it's not even under his party. The act is clear. If you are not in that, that's you do contest. For the primaries. You do not contest in that election. Contest against in that particular primaries. Yes, no. You don't carry. And that is to reduce the bulk and massive amount of cases we have. Because what you normally have preceding Nigeria is not going to court over cases that are not even in that party. That's why we started off. So to play that, let it be between if I run against Owa in this case. If I run against Owa in this case, it will not be like this in the party. No, within actually the position you run. Okay, the position of Owa is preceding. So even if, so for example, if let's say I'm in the APC and I have a discrepancy with a vice president, I cannot take him to court because I didn't run against him. But if I run against him, I can. Making it simpler and making it, but now the lawyers who handled this case, I mean, it's shocking. It's a safety review. Secondly, evidence placed before the court. It was shocking to read and shocking to realize that not one pulling unit sheet was brought as evidence. Evidence being brought, no offense to media stations, we're breaking news on stations and discussions like this where people say, is this that the election? You brought that evidence to court. Now it's shocking you. You should go through those 98 pages. You will be very, very... Well, I thought they said it brought out papers only and some of them were thrown out. Like literally, I don't know what you're saying. Now you're getting make up. There was no evidence. And it was clear that there was no evidence or take anything taken into evidence that resulted in a pulling unit sheet. One of the things the tribe now kept talking about was the fact that lawyers, the lawyers against the lawyers put in a case against the sitting president did not provide and they stated it. They said you have... He was not objected to it. Samani was very clear on it. And he said you have political parties have people in pulling units. You didn't bring me one pulling unit sheet that showed the discrepancy between this and this. You didn't. How do you want to push a case? But today I have... That's fair. No, you have. You have a pulling agent unit. You have a pulling agent unit. Is that not the property of INAIC? No, no, no. You sign off. So what happens is that everybody's... When you are going there, you know there was a problem. No, no. That's for the normal. I've been in the political party. I know what I'm telling you. I'm telling you that... You sign these things. This is for that one. They couldn't have been able to provide a lot of pulling units. No, no. For instance, the Labour Party did not have what's it called? Representatives at the presidential elections. Who's for that? I don't know. That one is not a conversation that we need to talk about. But you know what? Let's just go out and come back out. Let's just ask you the question. But you know, stay with us from the right path. All right, thanks for staying with us. And if you're just steering the... We're discussing this tribunal's judgment and we're analyzing INAIC's job delivery. Do you think they did a fantastic job? Please let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation. Send us an SMS or WhatsApp to bridge one. 803-4663. And we still have Kunle Lawaw with us. Okay, Keo, let me let Joella please comment. Because if I go to that conversation, we will not leave yesterday. Okay, so I think I asked the question and you were just about to respond before we went and break. I was saying that, I mean, the sheets, like you mentioned, is it possible for the parties to have access to that? It's not, I felt like it was the property of INAIC and as such, at the conclusion of any election in the polling unit, it becomes the property of INAIC. So I'm not even aware that the parties that are contested can actually have access to that and present it as evidence. Okay, so they have access to that. They have multiple copies of that thing. Okay, so. But where I was going with that is that because I went, so I did not just vote in my polling unit. I went around polling units and because I vote in Magudo, it's just a walking distance to different kinds of polling units. And I know that for the presidential election, Labour Party, I'm not talking about other parties for instance, Labour Party particularly, they will not have been able to provide those sheets because they did not have representatives in most of those polling units. And the conversation was, a lot of them had like, would I call them ghost workers that didn't show up at the election day, which is conversation for another day in terms of the political drama that happened. But you see, when the governorship happened, they had corrected that because the non-government and all of that come and be their reps. What's the name now? They were not polling agents at the presidential presale. It was people doing videos, taking pictures and all of those things, which is what you are saying that the Tribunal is throwing out. No, but I don't want, what's it called, admittable documents in the courts to question. Because the electoral act is clear. Every party, if you're not ready, and I'm going to say this, it's not nice and most people will say, I couldn't be supporting, I'm not supporting anybody. I'm following the law, I'm supporting the country. If you're not ready to run for president, don't. It's that simple. You have parties, I believe in French parties, I believe in, of course I believe in the whole system of democracy. But this is 9,000 to 8,000 square kilometers, over 107,000 polling units. And you're running for president. If in a case or in a virtuality, you are caught up in a situation like this, this is where these actions, you know, when politicians normally say structure, most people think they're talking about money or mammoth crowds at what they call it, those campaigns. No, that's not what they're talking about. Structure, they'll tell you down to the world level. They can have so Mr. A here, this one. And they know them by here. And they can get it across. That's what structure is in politics. If that is not guaranteed, it would be hard to prove your case in a situation like this. And it's coming back to bite the two parties, PDP and the other party because of this inaction. I don't want to mention APM, because those are, it's clearly, they probably didn't even have up to 100 polling units across Nigeria, 100 polling agents across Nigeria. But the law demands you should have polling agents and they're ready to sign them. And I remember as of the time they signed, according to on paper at the presidential, Labour Party had over 160,000. I think it's 160 or 150. I can't remember the number now, but about 150,000 were signed. So where did they go? Those were approved. Where were they? That's where you said that. But now that is an intraparty problem. Not the... That's not the tribunal's idea. The tribunal's idea. Because you are supposed to have matched that. That's not their business. It's you that, they didn't command me. So are you trying to say that in all of this number of days that they've been in that tribunal, they did not present this 160,000 signed papers? Is that what you're saying? Clearly, yes. Okay. But let's focus on INAG job delivery. Right? Because truth be told, the tribunal can only give a verdict on what is in front of them. And so I believe that for us, to be able to find a solution, we have to go back. Do you think in terms of job delivery, after the promises of all of these things? Because what I hear you say now is almost I cannot hold INAG. Because on one hand, the law allows them to do whatever it is that they want to do. If they choose to admit the reason to... Why would I correct something? You cannot hold INAG by the particular parameter you have to hold INAG for. But you can't hold INAG on the multiple lot of other things. Okay. That's what I'm saying. What are we holding them on? First, let's go back to the beginning. INAG presents the soft copies of every 18 political parties. The membership lists give us to the tits, everybody. If INAG cannot produce it, that means every convention that was held and every primaries were illegal. Let's start from the beginning. It's normal. So I'm surprised nobody went there. Nobody went there. They decided to stick on divas and... There are many things now. There are many things. Well, it was there a situation in this election where it is clear within the electoral act, I think 95 B, I can't remember. Skip a few numbers a bit. So it's clear within the electoral act that no instrument of the state can't support any political party. Did we not have a sitting minister serve as a campaign spokesman? It's an instrument of the state. That's already another infringement. So the critical question is... I don't know how to say this, man. What the hell were you thinking? It's not even... It's the sand that I'm even asking now. All these things really talk... Is it not the work of a sand that's supposed to understand that these are where you can do punch polls? It's where you can put loop. Because it just seemed like the whole family did. It was just a waste of everybody's time. Because you know what is annoying to me? Care. It's not even the fact... It's not the judgment in itself. It's the fact that every single thing that they brought, they just threw them out. So it means that you didn't even have one thing to hold on to say, okay, this one, okay, they infringed on this. It's impossible now because we saw some things that happened. People had... What's it called? There was pockets of violence everywhere. Genocide. So even if nothing, at least let's hope people have something that they say, okay, this one they admit to. This person was at fault. I don't see anything like that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's important. So let me give an example. Let's say Labour Party. Labour Party won Legos, right? They also won a Pooja. Most of the videos that came out with infringements were in Legos. Oh, so I should bring out that infringement and throw out the Legos that I would want. Are you thinking of that? I am thinking what you're thinking but I'm saying to you that it's still enough to still bring it off. You understand me? If you think it would change the world. Let me explain. If you... I don't need that right. But if you start to bring infringements and these are in the places you want, it doesn't really sound... It's like you are feeding the defence. Yeah. You are feeding the defence of the person. So I understand them choosing not to go that route. And what's the most paramount that we need to look at is that for us to hold INEC accountable, we are citizens to cannot mitigate our responsibilities. We are held accountable. The electro-artists come on information. Why isn't anybody saying anything? People used government cars to support candidates. Nobody said anything. Which is totally fervently against the law. Some TV stations supported some particular candidates. Totally against the law. Nobody spoke about that. You guys were all fine. So why are you fine when the N2 is not good? I don't understand how you want not to hold every part of the system accountable. But at the end, you want to have the correct answer. It doesn't work now. It doesn't work anywhere in the world. So if you want things to work and you want them to... You start from the beginning. Follow the process step by step and find how the process accountable. If you are holding... If you held INEC, let's say before the conventions, we held them and said, no, parties have not submitted this thing. And every media station in Nigeria was shouting. Everybody said, no, we're not going to elections except all parties submit the membership list. So we know who the delegates actually are. Game would have changed now. They would understand that some things would not be tolerated. And they understand that some people are within the electoral act. But when you tolerated that, you held their convention, you laughed, some put a crime at APC convention, you put a laughing. Primaries came, you were bragging about dollars. Media houses carried how interesting it was that they were not even spending an error against dollars. That's what people were focusing on. Then at the end, you don't want to accuse them. How could they work? Interesting. Interesting. Really interesting. With what you're saying now, Kunli, I'm really scared because it means that in the history of our country, we might never have a quality kind of electoral process. Because from what you're saying is this infringement or whatever, they've been, it's been happening even right from before the elections, right? So and because we are not aware of this, nobody's even questioning it. Nobody's even thinking of even questioning it. It means that forever and ever it will continue that way and nobody will question it and people just be doing the wrongs. You know, the wrong things. I think the real problem in Nigeria is that we've left what the constitution and the laws is. Then we've created a political culture totally different from all of this. And then we've started that narrative and we live within that culture and it has become the way of life. Let's be honest, we do not even follow the electoral act up to 20 percent because it has a stipulation on how much you can spend. Now this is funny. You tell you that the stipulation for let's say running for Senate, the benchmark is 200 million and yet you're selling for 50 million. Is that not already 25 percent of the amount? That's 25 percent of the limit which means Oga will steep a delegate to. That means most people before primaries have exceeded the total campaign limits of any political office from presidency down to, come on, in Lagos you are selling local government chairman form for two million and the limit on local government chairman is five million. You already abusing the system. Okay, so who do we hold accountable to enforce the electoral process? You, the citizens, because as long as you mortgage your own responsibilities or we do not know these laws, these things will continue to go on and politicians know you don't know the law. Let me tell you, the average Nigerian, once it's political time, they feel money flows. That's what we all think. We have consciously allowed ourselves a lot of this happen. So we can't now say we're absorbing ourselves from the situation we find ourselves in. You can't do that. So it's simple. We have chosen to act in a particular way and we deserve the results that come from acting in that particular period. This is it down now. I can say nice things. Do you see this is why I don't like Nigeria conversation? No, but I mean, they are not going to finish it. It's so saddening, saddening rather, because as it stands now, how many of, how many people will be privileged to hear, maybe analyze the thing and teach us, you know, and all that. But you see that, that's also, that goes back to this. We really must read it yourself. Read it directly. And see, we can't afford to keep saying that, oh, I don't know. I didn't know. No, you make it your business to know. You see, it's as simple as that. We don't like the hard stuff. We want it to, we want to wake up and suddenly see that Nigeria is good. It's not possible. Okay, I wanted you to call me. So, while I was sitting here, I'm just, a follow up to what you're saying. A lot of people think, okay, I always tell people, if you know what is going on on social media, who, which actor or as diverse is white, who has tape, who does not have tape, that's the greatest one. Yes. And... If I didn't know about the deal. So who has tape, who does not have tape, who, what is going on here and what is not going on here. If you know that, ignorance of the law can never be justified. Because this information is available. It's not, the electoral act is not hidden. It's not something that senators put in their hand and are walking around it. It's common information spread everywhere. And, and for me, I also blame a few CSOs and yeah, and it's hard to say it maybe because I'm in that space, but I always remind them that they should remember I'm part politician, I'm part CSO. And I'm, we've also sold some wrong ideas. We've pushed people vote, vote, vote, vote, vote and totally ignored them participating in the party system. As long as people do not participate in a party system, what you're going to end up having is a selection and not an election. Because you don't know how these candidates are picked for you. Do you know how somebody appeared? Somebody just come next thing, why you just say, ah, this candidate of APCO, this candidate of PDP, how they appear, you don't know. And you're not part of it. In any functional democracy, the citizens are so part of what is going on that by the time they are done with primaries, you can as well see 20% of people can vote. Anybody that enters is qualified enough to rule the country. And that's the way it's supposed to work. But we now turn the top on top of his head and start from the bottom, vote, vote, vote, vote for who now? Why? Do you, okay, so average, if I ask everybody in in a chosen now, where we are, and I say, okay, banking was running for office, why do you want to vote for banking? People will say, ah, he's a musician. I know him. He's fine. His wife is fine. Really? What does that, he's young? What of those, those parameters? He's supposed to go there and propose bills and work on things. Okay, you got in somebody, ah, level party, level party, level party won a TOSR, legislatively. Knock knock, knock knock, who's there? How many bills has that guy proposed? Zero. They already are back to square one. So the choices that we make politically are totally ignorant. Nigeria's policy level according to the electoral college we are pushing it at 4%. And somebody was saying, one of my friends was saying, only how can it be 84%. I said, it's from data, I say, it's how can it be 84% and I was really pushed back and I was like, look, we use data to, it's like, it's supposed to be 98%. I was like, okay, sorry. But it was. Yes, he's right. It's right because you don't know why you vote for House of Red. You say vote for somebody young. I'll tell you something. If I'm prior to 2023 elections and I'm very guilty, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Thank God for the people like Kule La Wada helped me to see differently. Prior to 2023 elections, if I'm voting Kule, it is the party that I vote in precedency that I will just go across or the other House of Senators. I literally am a kid, you know. And I think that voting pattern is what your guys said about 98% it is true because even for governorship, whichever party I'm voting in governor is the same party that just goes across and that's when you could see that it was a cheap win. Well, 2023 elections were quite different because people voted individuals, they voted people that they believed. So you could, you would use, you saw like literally when they were counting votes at different parties that I monitored. It was a completely different result. The person who was in precedence, the person who was in Senate, you know, it was different because I think there was a better awareness as to why it was important to not just vote across party lines. And that is why I give the 2023 elections a little high score. For the first time in Nigeria and history, we have eight parties in the National Assembly. We have five parties as governors. That has never happened in Nigeria's history. So it seems our politics is going somewhere. Now what we need to change is not the fact that these parties are now being voted for. All we need to change is the reason why you vote for the elections. Yes, you have a good election. Yes. Have we done... Now it's good that we're seeing the tilt that you now know you can't vote. I told you I spoke at an event sometime in 2002. No, 2020-2012 about the ending of 2021. And this was an elite crew in Etiusa. And the same thing you said, they didn't believe they could vote. They said, is the vote still counted if I vote APC here, PDP next? I was like, yes. They were like, no, no, no. They told them that. I said, who told you that? Unfortunately, whatever we're having for, we are always going to have to tell. But honestly, I believe that is better. And I'm just like literally if we had one thing to do with INEC, what would you suggest? What should we do? Unbundle it. How? INEC has too many responsibilities. We have to push for the National Assembly to unbundle it. INEC, there are too many responsibilities vested in the chairman. If you want to really make INEC independent, the first thing you need to do is separate its arms differently. So those that announce election results are totally different and work in a separate place from those that bear with pre-election matters or those that are handling election materials. If you do that and you demand accountability from all and every system demands accountability, we could have something that actually works. And then I also don't believe that Nigeria is ready for a whole election in one day. One day. Even the U.S., China, India, large democracies, they stagger their elections. We are 9,000 to 8,000. We have 400,000 policemen. Half of them are guarding VIP. Then we have 200,000 policemen, meaning one policeman to 1,000 people. But that's impossible. So I believe we should stagger our elections. Maybe one state from each geopolitical zone, this day, next one, this day, and you know, keep protecting it like that. We have no volunteers to participate in INEC. Who have? And I... You don't have... Yeah, you even have more people. You don't have more, yeah. This is what I've pushed forward for. And I believe 223 elections, beyond reasonable doubts, has put that in my mind. And I would spend the next three years, at least, pushing for that particular party. I think it should happen like that, honestly, because imagine if we use the resources, even though let's not even say one state, let's even say Southwest. We just do elections around Southwest, bring in all the volunteers, do all the things, you understand? It's easier to monitor, it's easier to do a lot of things, then you move and deploy to another region, and I think it will be better. Because, honestly speaking, the burden is a lot. And Nigerians were not really fantastic document. We don't document things well. So, I mean, it's better we just target it, and I think we might find a solution. But thank you so much, Kunlila Waal. That was something to learn. Always a pleasure. I don't take your presence for granted. He's my brother, by the way, but, you know, I don't take... He's our brother. He's our brother. The way is I've claimed you. The way is I've claimed you. He's our brother. All right, thank you so much, Kale. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Deola. Now, before we go, I'm sure you follow us across all our social media, hand us that way. Sure, Africa, you can interact with us further. Drop a comment and more importantly, follow all our engagements on social media, like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation. If you missed our quote for today, which I believe I did not read, here it is again. Before the elections, I called for third party verification of the INEC system so that we are sure that on election day, what is going to happen that they would not lead to a glitch. On election day, INEC said there was a glitch. Ah, this was from Osita Chidiokei, the former minister of aviation and the chieftain of the people's democratic party. We'll see you guys tomorrow. We have a couple of stories that are trending. Hope nothing hotter comes, but we have interesting stories for you people. We'll see you on our latest night. Ciao.