 Welcome once again to the breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. Our next conversation is of course with regards to the 2023 elections but now not looking at candidates, we're looking at the electorate and the level of preparedness that we currently have to be a part of those elections or the elections rather. The Independent National Electoral Commission has continued to run a campaign for persons to get their permanent voter's cards, for online registration of voter's cards and the likes but it doesn't seem to be hitting figures that are exciting enough. We're speaking this morning with Mark Adebayo who is a political analyst. Good morning Mr. Adebayo, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much, thank you for having me. For some, they've looked at the figures and the few millions with regards to online registration of voters that INEC has been able to achieve. For some, they see that as exciting and they step in the right direction. They see it as Nigerians finally being willing to go ahead and get registered to vote regardless of what it takes. But for others, they've also seen it as not enough seeing the work that needs to be done in 2023 if we need to stand a chance of putting our country on the right path of selecting the very, very best leaders. Do you think INEC has done well enough from your analysis and can still achieve much by 2023? Well, sincerely, this time around in terms of registration of voters and because of this online innovation, in terms of registration, which also did. Of course, after the online, you also have to go to the office to complete some documents. So the online is not enough. You also have to go to the office to do physical signing and some other things like that. But you see, that's an improvement on the part of the Independent National Regional Commission and I think it's commendable. I think we are moving gradually towards online footing and online declaration of results. But you see, it is not about how many voters register. It is about how many we eventually vote. Let me give you an example. In December 2020, there was a federal constituency election in Ifaqoidiae, in Lagos state here. Out of 339,864 registered voters, only 9,084 came out to vote. That is just about 2.9% of registered voters. And if you look at that, 2.9% of registered voters coming out to vote. And in this Ifaqoidiae, you have 339,064 voters. You have a minimum of 2 million residents in that local government. But in Ifaqoidiae, federal constituency, but everyone out of the 39,000 registered, only 9,000 came out to vote. 2.9%. That question, that question the representiveness of that election. That question, you know, last year, March 27th, 2020, in the North and South, Abiyan North and South, federal constituency election. Out of 429, I think out of 496,000 registered voters. You cannot believe it, only 16,017 came out to vote. That is just about 3.2% of registered voters. How horrible can our election be? So, you know, democracy, yes, we say it's about numbers, but it's also about representation. How do you say somebody is representing a whole constituency for that constituency, only 2% of the people have come out to vote? So, you know, it tells you, it is not just a voter party, it is voter rebellion. It is a rebellion against the poorest leadership that this country is producing. It is a rebellion against bad governance. It is a rebellion against corruption. Mr. Abiyan, it's pretty obvious that these rebellions have not worked and the narrative concerning apathy or rebellion is, you know, eventually affects the electorate, you know, negatively. And I'm sure you would agree with that. When you stay away from the elections, you eventually get a leader that you didn't necessarily choose, but you chose by staying away from the election. But I want us to, you know, talk with regards to INEC itself and its ability and its capacity to actually get as many people registered as possible. There were some delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but since then, you know, it has had some time to get many more. I've seen a post here that says, as of the 10th of January, fresh registrants for Cotino's voter registration was 4.8 million. The completed online and fiscal registration was 2.4 million. And among these numbers, 18 to 34-year-olds were 1.6 million plus. This should be encouraging, yes? It's minimally encouraging. In the country of 200 million, we are minimum of 75 million people are qualified to vote. It's just minimally, minimally. The only thing that, you see, INEC has the capacity, and I believe they have the personnel to be able to have, you know, to have an each-free registration of voters. But, you see, we must not make a mistake of thinking that it is only the business and job of INEC to get people to be registered. It is one, elementary knowledge of political science states that one of the major characteristics and functions of the political party is to come fast for people to register to vote. Political parties must be involved in the area of enlightenment, in the area of voter education to get people to be registered. It is one of the cardinal responsibilities of political parties. So it is not, it is a collective responsibility. It is not just for INEC alone. So all political parties and political stakeholders must be involved in mobilizing the people to register. And until there is a legislation, until there is a legislation that states that except there is minimum of 40% voter turnout in an election, that election will be declared inconclusive. That is when candidates and political parties will take it seriously, that you need to mobilize people to go and register. And after registering, you have to be involved in the activities and the education and the enlightenment to get people to go to vote. You understand me? So we should not just abandon it to INEC. It is not about INEC alone. It is about political parties and political stakeholders also getting involved in educating the voters to exercise our civic rights, our civic responsibilities. Okay, Mr. Adebayo, let's also look at the fact. I mean, from this conversation you have said that the reason we're experiencing low voter turnout and low voter registration at the end of the day. Because political parties have failed in doing their bid and leaving the job for INEC. Now let's also look at other arguments. I mean, for instance, the AKT and Oshun state elections. Some persons have said that the reason why people don't turn up is because the people have lost hope. And it seems like there's a trust deficit issue right here. People no longer trust the government. They don't trust the process. They don't trust the system. Therefore, there's really no need for anyone to go cast their vote. Even if they get to register, there's no need for them to go register to get a PVC, which will qualify them to vote. So I'd like to share your thoughts on this notion. Do you think that this has always been the case with the Nigerian politics? And this might also play itself in 2023? It is given that Nigerians have not received a good return on investment electorally from this democratic experiment. The ROI, the return on investment electorally has been worse than catastrophic. So to that extent Nigerians have this apathy towards electing anybody. But that is counterproductive on the long run. It is counterproductive because if the people mobilize fully to vote for a preferred candidate, it will begin. Once you begin to make your vote count, you will see that these politicians will begin to respect you, respect your electoral choices. But if you say you are sitting back home, it's also a choice. Whether you vote or you don't vote, you have participated in the election because by saying a way, you are saying that, look, whoever imagine this winner is also my representative. So that is it. And that is why there is not enough voter education. There is not enough enlightenment. And that is why political parties must hold their games in terms of mobilizing the people. One of the cardinal objectives and responsibilities of the political party is also to educate the masses, to educate the voters, to educate the city series. It's not just about telling them about your manifesto or what you can do or what you cannot do. So you understand me? So if there is a penalty, for instance, if there is a law that says that except 40 to 45 percent of registered voters vote in an election, that election shall be declared, you know, inconclusive. You will see that political parties and their candidates will begin to work on overdrive to ensure that people not only register but they re-vote on the days of election. They will move around, they will mobilize people, they will do their job. You know, we know that some people, they have these arrogance that look, whether they come out to vote or not. You know, they don't care whether it's only one hundred people out of one million come out to vote and we must not continue that way. Yes, it is a democracy but it can no longer be finally called a representative democracy. That is why if two percent of people, of registered voters come out to vote, it shows the representativeness of that election becomes questionable and we must do something about it legally and constitutionally speaking. We have to do something, except there is a law that is binding of politicians and political parties and political stakeholders. This means we continue to replicate itself. But I'm just asking myself how much of voter education, as much as that is very important, I mean, we can't discard that. But I'm just saying how much of voter education would go into convincing the people and trusting, I mean, giving them that trust in the government and in the process if we do not strengthen the electoral process itself. So how long will we continue to educate the voters that need to come out and why they should vote when the process itself, you know, the voting process is not trusted? So rather than we, I'm not saying that we should discard that, but one would be thinking that there should also be a lot of energy and ensuring that INEC, you know, is able to conduct credible and free fair elections. We have seen our election being made of irregularities, you know, rigging and what-have-you, whether or not we agree to that. Yes, you are right. But, you see, once again, it is our collective responsibility. It is not the sole responsibility of the Independent National Federal Commission to conduct a free fair and credible election, powerless free election. You know, most of the times are the voting centres and the coalition centres. It is the security agencies that determine what happens. If there will not be violence, whether there will be violence, the security agencies are more... That is why, you see, when government, when incumbent governments want to rig an election, they don't necessarily approach INEC because the police are not the security agencies that they use because it is the police that can stop talks from breaking ballot boxes for instance and from snatching ballot boxes for instance. But if they decide to just be watching what the talks are doing, what they are doing, like we have seen in many states, then what can INEC do? An INEC official among how many people? What can it do? So it is the collective responsibility of INEC, security agencies, politicians, political parties, candidates and the citizens ourselves. So we shouldn't... INEC, imagine... Look, for me, I am one of the advocates of say that low use youth couples for election again. You see them being killed, you see them being raped, you see them being molested. So I am one of the advocates. Look, stop using our youth, our couples for election duties again because they are not well protected. So what can one INEC official, one INEC ad hoc or permanent official do in the midst of 50 talks with guns and machetes? What can he do with bottles? What can he or she possibly do? Except these security agencies come to arrest as nothing he can do. We had, what happened in Nimbus State, around 2019, where a returning officer came out to say that, sorry I want to declare this is not, it is because I want to return to my family. I want to return to my family alive. That is why I want to declare this is not. That person who has declared the winner of that election is the senator of the Figueroa Republic of Nigeria now. What do you expect INEC to do? A returning officer came out to say, look, this senatorial, this is an election I want to announce. It is not of my own volition. But because my life is being threatened and I want to go in one piece back to my family. That is where INEC becomes a place. What the only thing that INEC can do is to say that that kind of result will not start. INEC has that authority, constitutionally, to say, look, I wonder why they accepted it. Your own returning officer said, I am this thing, I am reading it under duress. And you accepted it and the man is there, he is sitting, he is representing Igbo State at the National Assembly. That is the kind of, that's it. I think he should have said, okay, the guy has declared the result because he wanted to go back to his family. Now, in Aluja, the shaman can say that he has ruled that this. He is either the one that said come second. As a punishment for the people that have put gone on the head of that returning officer, that the guy that comes second is bigger. Let them go to court and let them see what happens. How can you declare a result under duress? It is not acceptable. And that is why there must be electoral offenses commission. And there must be electoral offenses tribunal to try electoral criminals. We should not allow talks and criminals to benefit from our electoral possession. That is something. It is not just about our necks, it is about everyone of course. Absolutely. Let's talk now with regards to 2023 elections. Do you expect that there would be some difference with the level of interest, with the level of participation and likes? Do you see that being different in 2023? Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about that. It does seem that we are back to what Franz Fanon called a circle of certainty. You know, look at the conversation. We have, as of now, we have 18 register political parties. Nobody is talking about the 16 remaining party parties. Everybody is fixated on PDP and DPC. That is, you begin to see that nothing is shifting from what we used to know. And then, of course, people are already discussing possibilities. Even before they came out, when Chinobu has come out, it is not a surprise to anybody. I think it wouldn't be a surprise. I doubt if anybody would come out to say he wants to run and be a surprise to anybody. But what is happening now? We have, this is where the citizens are to believe. Now, we have people who know what is wrong, everything that is wrong with all these candidates who have come out. This one says, I want to be president, it says it is corrupt. This other one too old. This other one is incompetent. This other one is of this religion and we should not have back to... That should not be our conversation. Our conversation is that, why can't, especially your generation, you know, the younger generation, why can't we have... Now, there's another organization that says they are mobilizing 20 million Nigerian voters for Atikui alone, 20 million Nigerians. Where are our youth? Where are the youth organizations? Why can't they come together and promote one of their own? You know, who is not in office now? One of their own. Somebody without any baggage of corruption, any baggage of educational controversies or even your state of origin or your parental. Who doesn't have got those baggage? Why can't we... Now, if we do not bring new players into the arena, it is the old players that continue to be in the game and you have nobody to blame except yourselves. Because, you see, you cannot deny anybody who is qualified to be president of Nigeria. You cannot deny them the opportunities to contest. And then nobody sits at home and wins an election. Except your name or your parties on the ballot. You are not going to win. If you have the best qualification in the world, you are the most incorruptible element in the world. You are the best in terms of knowledge, creativity and leadership. If you sit in the corridors of your parlor, you don't come out to contest. You are not going to win an election. You don't come out to vote. You are not going to get your right candidate. So, it is because the so-called states have left the arena. That is why the so-called sinners are taking over. They are not forcing the existence of anybody. If you sit down, you refuse to... That is why we are the city scenery is to blame. It's to blame. I believe that even at the level of our civil society, we can mobilize a minimum of 30 to 50 million Nigerians to work behind the candidate. We have that capacity, but are we doing it? We are not. We are not because at the end of the day, everybody is about self-interest. So, don't be surprised. Even some of our comrades, even myself behind one of these so-called... ...working and campaigning for them. Because the people who are driving, it's unrecognizable that we are calling on some people. Some of them are corporate individuals. Some of them are lawyers. Some of them are business persons. We are calling them... This is the time for you to come around. Nigerians are tired of these old generations of bad rulers. Obviously... I don't like violence. You cannot make an omelette without breaking an egg. So, people should stop being cowardly. It's the cowardice of the elite, of the positive side of the elite that is making the other people of the negative side to be in power. To be in power. People should stop being cowardly. I think, you know, there's so much. Sadly, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of time. And I'm saying there's so much with regards the different things that need to be fixed between now and the next elections in 2023. These are the things that we should have started fixing right from the election day in 2019. Maybe since 2015. The government, of course, still dragging its feet through the electoral act amendment bill. And some of all of that. But, unfortunately, we'll have to wrap it up here. Thank you very much for your time, as always. And thank you for honoring our invitation. We wish you... Thank you for having me. Beautiful day ahead. Thank you. We will be wrapping up this morning. Thanks for being a part of the conversations. If you missed out on any of our discussions this morning, it's pretty simple. On all our social media platforms, at Plus TV Africa on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And to subscribe to our YouTube channel at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. I am Osawa Ghee. Au Bonheur. And I am Messier Bopo. Do have a beautiful day ahead.