 We're glad to know you're still there watching us. The Senate on Wednesday confirmed 19 Resident Electoral Commissioners whose names were sent by the President Muhammad Ibu Hari. The nominees who were confirmed are Ibrahim Abdulahi from Adamawa, Oboefanga, Cross River, Umar Ibrahim Tarabah, Agboke, Olalike Ogun, Samuel Egu, Kogi, Onyeka Ogochi, Imo, Mohammed Bashir Sokoto, and Ayoba Miesalami from Oyostead, and many others. The Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission, chaired by Senator Kabiru Gaia, APC Karu South, had last week screened the nominees behind closed doors. The nominees assured the committee of their non-partisanship, non-membership of any political party and promised to discharge their responsibilities diligently according to the laid-down laws. However, some civil society organizations kicked against the nomination of persons alleged to be members of the ruling All Progressives Congress. The group, in a statement signed by its chairman, described the nomination as a strategy to influence the process and outcome of the election in favor of the APC. Joining us to discuss these is Jide Ologun, a legal practitioner. Thank you, Jide, for joining us on the show this evening. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. Okay, we have had promises from these nominees that they are non-partisan and they are going to carry out their responsibilities and all that. But first of all, what is your take on what just happened? Even with the complaints, the Senate Committee went ahead and gave the confirmation. What is your take on it? By and large, the Senate Committee has demanded to carry out that assignment, and this is not the first time, and Senator Cabrera Gaya, the chairman of the committee, said that there were no findings on partisanship on the part of the nominees, neither did they find any compromise or any trace of incompetence. And that is their proposition for the allegations at play. And on the other side of the coin, whoever is making allegation must establish the allegation. But basically, we have precedents, this is not the first time a matter like this is coming up. For example, one Ola Likora him also was to be nominated as a appointed as resident Electoral Commissioner in Ocean State. And while going through the screening, he confessed to being a member of APC to elitid deny that he stopped being a card carrier, and he also contested for local government chairmanship in the showbook, and that disqualified him. And again, we should not quickly forget the case of Loretta Onoche's nomination as national Electoral Commission, you know, she was an aide to the president. And I just rose up to say no, that was not going to be possible because of the need for INEC to allow justice and be transparent and be able to uphold the vision and mission of that body. And Loretta's case also did not fly. And one of the issues that a frontline particular practitioner, President Rifala Losan, is also putting on the table is that the president is expected to consult the Council of States before presenting these nominees to the National Assembly. And of course, there's a provision for that in Section 154, Section 3 of the Nigerian Constitution, whether this was complied with is a different question entirely. And that the relevant security agencies need to have investigated the nominees before the confirmation. So let's see where we go from here. And specifically talking about being partisan, one of the nominees, the former personal assistant for a new media to the president, Bashir Ahmad, lost the primary recently, you know, he contested. And I think he has even contested as a government candidate in South Dakota State. So these are the issues. And that takes us to basically the role that INEC should be playing. INEC is an independent body. And if you look at the values of INEC, you have autonomy, you have transparency, you have integrity, you have credibility, you have impartiality, dedication and many others. So we expect that those who will go in to manage electoral processes must be above the board. Without giving any trace, they will be biased in office and feeble any parts. So those are some of the issues that we can speak to right now. Okay. Well, you talked about two things. You said the president consoles a body that should investigate these things and also help to choose these names. And you also talked about relevant authorities investigating these issues. First of all, who are these relevant authorities that need to investigate these issues? And then if you talk about the president going through that body that you mentioned, we've seen cases where he should have gone through those, that body, but still nominated people who were dead already. They were not alive, yet their names managed to enter this list that should have been seen by a lot of people. So do you trust this process? Do you think that the people who need to do this really do what they should do? Do you even think that the president passes through that body to make sure that the list is correct? You know, like I mentioned, if the president passed through the council of states, then Barristafalano will not have mentioned that as one of the issues to consider. But I should also mention the case of gender inclusiveness here, but talking about how effective our system is, recall also that not so long ago, the United States of America accused one of the seven ministers as being a sponsor, a likely sponsor of terrorism in Nigeria and coming out with facts of his extreme positions in the case of religion, but this same person passed through nomination, screening and confirmation at the National Assembly, and he came out to say that he has repented from his extremism. So that is why we have all the DSS, ESC to ensure that these personalities are not of personable character, and we go in there to render service to the nation. And let me point our attention to section 14 of the National Conditioning Act Naira Salmende in subsection 2. He says that a member of the commission talking about INEG shall not be absent and should not be a person of personable integrity. If you also look at section 14 subsection 3B, it amplifies it that there shall be for each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, a resident electoral commissioner, who shall be a person of unquestionable integrity and shall not be a member of any political party. So you expect that the law enforcement agencies we have, particularly those who can profile, should do thorough background checks to be sure that these personalities will not have criminal records or, you know, but like you mentioned, can we really raise our thumbs up and say that we are excellent in our approach to running background checks and stuff like that? So these are issues and if we cannot clearly come out to say we have done the needful, then we cast doubt on the results we may get from some of these personalities serving the nation. But that was the main assignment of the National Assembly, the House of Said to have gone ahead to properly profile these personalities, you know, and then it's part of the oversight functions. And if national interest is on the front line, you expect that this should be done. But right now, that committee came out to say that there were no findings or any of the personalities being partisan, neither being incompetent or having any pain that will make them to disqualify them. It's just like when two young ones have been joined in marriage, they say, does any one of you have anything to prevent you from being joined? And the women, they say, no, you go ahead and join them, even when they may start having problems, soon after the wedding. So both we are still calling for transparency in our processes and to ensure that we give transformational leadership-minded people the roles that are crucial to provide us. Let me just ask about what you said. You quoted a section and said that it said the person who qualifies to be part of that of the electoral body must not be partisan. That law also talked about the fact that if you were a member of the party and maybe resigned, maybe decided not to be partisan anymore, it disqualifies you or it left it hanging, constituting a loophole to that law. Because like someone claimed, according to what you said, someone claimed that he used to be, but now he's no longer, and could that be a loophole of the law that can give some people the leverage to do what they want to do without falling foul of the law? Can you hear me? Yes. I had your question earlier. The law is not so extensive, but it is when we also, we are not so sure on whether we want to give the law its rightful place, that we begin to find loopholes. The law is claimed now. It is now for the agents to ensure that the spirit of the law is implemented and anything that links you up with a party, because we are talking of an umpire that should not be biased in any way, then should disqualify you basically, but then to what extent can we ensure that even where you have cases in court, and there are, you know, allegations that George may be biased, George will excuse himself of the case and reassign it to Chief George reassign to another, George to continue. So because like we say in law, justice must not only be done, but clearly seem to have it done. And I think what we have to do here is to probably expand this hope of expressing the qualifications that are required, all that is, you know, what that means going through the process of amending the constitution, but the constitution is clear, you know, subject to how we choose to interpret it, and may I echo again, one section 14, subsection 3b, Nigerian constitutional amendment says, it says that a person that shall be an electoral commissioner shall be a person of unquestionable integrity, so it's clear and shall not be a member of any political party. I don't know whether that unquestionable integrity has become questionable now. We don't know how to define unquestionable integrity in the Nigerian context, but you know, a lot of people believe that 2023, let's just away from what we've just said now. A lot of people believe that 2023 will be markedly different from other elections. In your point of view as a legal practitioner, do you think this election or the process has had enough legal and legislative backing to make it different from others and maybe a little bit better than other elections we have witnessed? Absolutely. You know, and from the recent amendment of the electoral act, we have a very beautiful approach now, which is the transmission of results electronically, which has been tested in those states, in the state and in ocean states. So we expect that these devices be allowed to still operate and to cut down on the issue of the ballot boxes snatching. So an area where we have not done so well is in the area of the heavily monetized processes. There were allegations during the primaries of the parties recently that, you know, some dollars, exchange hands to apply the delegates to vote in particular directions. So I can let you know that we have enough laws to handle electoral offenses, but the big question is to what extent are we willing to implement these laws, despite the threats that come before the elections? But I know that section 15 of section 5 of the Nigerian Constitution in 1919 as amended says that the state shall abolish every corrupt practice and abuse of off the system. So if we are really serious about sanitizing our electoral processes, we have laws, I believe. And all we need to do is go ahead and implement these laws and look at what happened recently before the primaries. By virtue of the amendment of the electoral act, political appointees had to resign before participating in the primary elective office, and those who did not want to resign, we too from participating. So we are making progress for each one thing to have laws, it's another thing to implement the laws. A lot of people have said that Nigeria has one of the, some of the best laws in the world. And like you said, implementation is a problem. What is always this problem or the challenge that hinders the relevant authorities from implementing the laws of Nigeria? It's because we have a very weak system, you know, and the fact that we have not given good governance and the respectful rule of law, it's right of place. And it's one of the things we are discussing now. I mean, if there is any trace that somebody is nominated to be a resident, electoral chair in any state, and you can link him to a party, you should not even come out of the basin. He himself should have even declined from taking that, going proceeding with that appointment. And that is when we all respect the rule of law, but can we claim that that is the case here in our country, because the rule of law itself is a conveyor belt of justice. But in circumstances where we may have people who want to travel on the face of the rule of law and subdue the rule of law, then we may have this, and that is why, again, we have those who should checkmate. The essence of having the three hands of government is for checks and balances. We have the executive, we have the state, we have the judiciary, and of course, like I mentioned earlier, the president can nominate, consulting the council of states, to send these nominees to the National Assembly. And if the National Assembly refuses to confirm, then they are going away. So we have that process, and we are expected to allow due diligence. And then if the National Assembly representing us now, and by the way, we have 109 senators, 360 has already been represented in Nigerian constituencies, the National Assembly, if they are saying that they have not found these nominees questionable in any sense of it, then they will go ahead and serve until they are tested by their services because I believe all of them must have promised the committee that they will put in their best. With all of the questions, the chairman, Senator Kabyrugaya, truth to them is how will they uphold the tenets of INAG values and ensure that elections are credible and transparent and they have made all the promise, but then have we moved from the point of just making promises that will not be fulfilled? So those are the issues, we need to strengthen our system in the country. Look at what happened recently in the UK, I mean, the prime minister was not willing to leave office, but then some of the parliamentarians started resigning and when he realized that the call was truncated on him, he had to resign, do we resign in Nigeria? They told him that it's not what we promised the people that we cannot continue with you like this. So we find that in that environment, there is accountability and accountability is a core factor in good governance and with good governance, how will Nigeria ever develop? So those are the issues now. We must be sent to be above board, but I made some references earlier, the case of Loretta Onoche, she never made it, and the case of the man in the ocean state, Ola Leakon Rahim, who were challenged to be strongly attached to a particular political party. So let's see how this most recent one. Just quickly now, we've seen staggered elections, we've seen in Oshun, we've seen in Akiti, we've seen in Anambra state and a lot of these things resulted from the inability of the investigating agencies to do their work on time. And so when the results came out, they didn't have a choice but to maybe remove the sitting governor or something that led to these staggered elections. Now if elections are carried out in 2023 and maybe the investigation into these people who are now made commissioners, they find out that they were really cut-carrying members. Will it have any legal implication on the overall result or the election process for that matter? Until then, we have to wait and see how these provisions to be tested in the courts because sometimes even if the elections are concluded, those who should go to court may not go to court. Okay. But I can let you know that for quite a number of these assignments, they may have been walking on slippery ground. We don't fall down every time you walk on slippery ground. Except the ground decides to test you. But my position is that we should move beyond constant doubts on our processes. Okay. And then it may also be difficult to find those who don't have bias towards any political parties. And if indeed the development of Nigeria is on the front-bottom of this government, we must make sure we allow those who can contribute positively and add value to good governance to occupy sensitive positions, particularly when it comes to electing new leaders that we manage to resources of the country. And that is the place of accountability. So the government itself should be seen to be a government of integrity. And the big question is that going back to the resource we've been having as a nation and we think that we have credible governments because by their fruits, we know that. Let's hope that 2023 will give us that pointer to Eldorado if we cannot get there in 2023. Let's give us a little hope that it will all be better. Mr. Gide or Lagun, thank you very much for joining us on the program this evening. It's my pleasure. God bless Nigeria. Amen. Okay. That's it on Plus Politics tonight. My name is Nyam Gul Agadji. Do have a good evening.