 Good afternoon and welcome everyone watching online in Nigeria and in the United States and around the world. My name is Ogeana Balgu, Africa program officer here at the United States Institute of Peace. USIP is a congressionally created, independent, non-partisan institute with a mission of preventing and mitigating conflict around the world. We do this by engaging directly in conflict zones and providing resources, education and analysis to those working for peace. Before I continue I just want to say congratulations to Nigeria. We are delighted to join you in a conversation this afternoon about Nigeria's historic elections and what comes next for Africa's biggest country. We will take your questions in just a few minutes. So please tweet, so please tweet those with the hashtag NG decides USIP again it's hashtag NG decides USIP or post them on our USIP Facebook page. We're joined today by a stellar panel of experts all of whom have a long history with Nigeria. Ambassador Johnny Carson is senior advisor to the president of USIP and former assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Ambassador Princeton Lyman is also senior advisor to the president of USIP and former US ambassador to Nigeria and Dr. John Payden is a Clarence Robinson professor of international studies at George Mason University and author of one of USIP's recent publications, Religion and Conflict in Nigeria Countdown to the 2015 elections. Thank you all for being here today. Over the weekend Nigeria, a country of 170 million people, gave the world a largely peaceful and credible election. Probably it's most transparent to date. This election represents the first time since the transition to civilian rule in 1999 that an opposition party defeated an incumbent government. This is also the first time that Nigeria used biometric card reading technology to help cut back on voter fraud and reagan. Although there were some problems none of these dramatically altered the outcome of the vote. Ambassador Carson, you co-led an international observer delegation to Nigeria over the weekend. Could you tell us why you think these elections went well and what are the implications for the next round of gubernatorial and state House of Assembly elections on April 11th? Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about Nigeria's elections and to again applaud the people of that country for the manner in which they turned out to vote for credible, transparent and fair elections. I think that the turnout, the large turnout, and the success of these elections was due in large measure to the desire of Nigerian citizens to be able to participate in a democratic process in which they were allowed to vote for their leaders. I think there is a, I think there was also a very, very high degree of confidence across the political spectrum and across the country in the capacity and ability of the INEC, the Independent National Election Commission to carry out the contest. I think people respected Professor Jega, the chair of INEC, and believe that he would act in a fair and impartial manner in talking to large numbers of Nigerian citizens before and after the election and on election day. There was a real sense that the election commission would in fact act responsibly as it did and that it would in fact present a good election to the people. Thank you very much Ambassador Carson. Ambassador Lyman, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the electoral process and why you think this went well. It was a tremendous example of what Nigeria's capable of. I mean this is a country that should be and often is a great nation and sometimes it doesn't live up to that potential. Here a lot of people came together, a lot of international attention was focused on it, and I think in the face of that Nigeria pulled it off marvelously and it sends a very strong message to the rest of the continent about workings of democracy. The big challenges now facing the President-elect Mahmoud Buhari largely economic and in terms of his own deep commitment to ending corruption. The economic situation is both severe but also opens up tremendous opportunities with the drop in oil prices well below $50 when they had budgeted at 80 then 70 then 65. This is going to change the whole nature of the capacity of the government and all the state governments the opportunity is to move away from that degree of dependence on oil revenue and opening up opportunities in the private sector and elsewhere which is a very dynamic sector. Corruption is going to be hard because so much of it is deeply institutionalized. I think he's got to get at the oil sector which is a source of the big one. He's got to get at the procurement process so we can get good infrastructural investments has to pick some very smart people and I would suggest and hope that he also creates maybe an advisory committee from the many Nigerians who have been through this who are committed and can help him as he takes on these tasks. Thank you so much for those thoughts Ambassador Lyman hopefully through the discussion we'll get some some more time to touch more on this question of the economy and corruption in Nigeria. Dr. Paydon? Let me second the remarks of my my colleagues here and to congratulate a general Buhari for his conciliatory tone in his acceptance speech to thank President Jonathan for his graceful concession. Thank Professor Jega and the INEC people and the poll observers who did a courageous job under extraordinary circumstances. I'll also thank the security people because for one reason or another they rose to the challenge and civil society organizations but most importantly we all thank the Nigerian people and for their persistence on this. I can just say that your international friends wish you well, share your pride in peaceful and credible elections and hopefully these will continue on the April 11th side. Let me say that the other thing that struck me about the elections was the way in which the predictable problems were preempted for the most part. This didn't just happen by accident I've served as an international observer many times on these elections. This was certainly the most challenging, the threat of violent extremism, the new technologies, the literally millions of internally displaced people and I tend towards the high end of my estimates on that and the managing of inter-regional and inter-ethnic tensions. I mean it could have gone in a very different direction. Let me also congratulate the Christian Association of Nigeria for their graceful concession and congratulations and to the Ebo leaders from the southeast and others from the south-south who have all come together now in this post-election through the period. I mean for all of the worries that many of us had this worked out extraordinarily well. I think now the real challenges begin and there will be the focus of our panel today. Thank you very much. So with these challenges with the new with the incoming government, governance in Nigeria, surveys conducted, recent surveys in Nigeria show especially those conducted by Afrobarometer show that Nigerians value democracy. However these same surveys show that a majority of Nigerians are not satisfied or not very satisfied with the way democracy has been working in the country. Ambassador Carson, could you share with us some thoughts about how this incoming government can refocus to address the needs of Nigerians because there are high expectations of the incoming administration and likewise how can citizens manage these expectations from the new government? I think that this election contest focused around three issues. One was change and the desire of many Nigerians to see a change in their leadership. They wanted a leader and a government capable of addressing their most important economic problems large-scale unemployment was one of those issues. A failure to be able to generate increased electrical power for the use by citizens and by corporations. The second big issue was corruption and the real notion held by many that the level of corruption in Nigeria had skyrocketed over the last six years of the Jonathan administration and had reached levels like those that existed during the military regime of Sani Abacha. And thirdly I think many people were dissatisfied with the government's efforts to combat Boko Haram in the Northeast. So the desire for change and better leadership to deal with economic problems, the need to address corruption and the need to address security. I think over the next four years the government will need to address all of these problems in a much more systematic fashion. Government will need to revitalize the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to go after corruption. They will need to improve and revitalize the oil sector, eliminating some of the corruption that exists there and improving the accountability of the petroleum industry. I think there will be a need to improve Nigeria's refining capacity. Many people did not notice that during the week of the election the lines of cars waiting at petrol stations to be refueled because of a shortage of fuel in the country were as long as some of the lines of voters. It was a testament to the failure of the government to be able to deliver petroleum there. Equally the government will have to be able to stimulate new investment in the petroleum industry which has been stalled for the last five years because of the failure to be able to pass and introduce a new petroleum industries bill. I think equally there will be a need to address the security problems in the northeast. This means employing a refined security strategy and also lining that strategy with a social and economic strategy that revitalizes what has been a moribund economy in that region. So it is going to be required to have a much better economic and security strategy for the north addressing issues of corruption and improving economic opportunities and livelihoods for Nigeria's citizens. This will require putting in place a strong team, a qualified team but I think the potential is there. One thing that Nigeria is not short of and that is human capital. Outstanding technocrats and some very, very able leaders who are capable of stepping into high level jobs and accomplishing a great deal. Thank you so much Ambassador Carson and we also thank our online audience for their questions. We've just received a question from Aliyu Yero from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Hello to Malaysia. Question, to what extent can these elections impact the reputation and image of Nigeria in the international system still on that same theme of governance and mass alignment? I think there are two aspects of it. As I mentioned before it sends a very strong message to Africa about democracy and Nigeria in its return to democratic rule in 1999 began to set that direction. There's been some back and forth in Africa. This is a very important message. It says here's the most populous country in Africa and democracy can work. The second thing is to restore respect for the military. Nigeria's military played a big role in resolving West Africa disputes in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Major contribution to peacekeeping under the UN and lately it has not functioned well and needed help just to contain the Boko Haram. I think restoring the dignity and professionalism of the military will be very important and will enhance Nigeria. Not only its reputation, its influence. Finally, I think there is needed attention from the major countries of Africa to the AU and its strengthening and dealing with a range of problems. That only happens when the big countries lend themselves to it. Nigeria has been preoccupied with its internal problems. Now I'm hoping it can also focus on strengthening or re-strengthening the AU which is dealing with crises in the Horn and elsewhere and needs that kind of support. Thank you very much. And our second question comes from Jonathan Sock with the Washington Times. This question came in via email and his question is what are the major concerns of any for Nigeria, Jonathan and Buhari in the country's local elections still on that same theme of governance? Dr. Paydon? Well we're all watching to see. I think in general the sort of the common wisdom is that there will be a bandwagon effect from the national elections which of course certainly favor the all-progressive Congress. But state level dynamics are certainly different and I think for all of the good news that I think we're sharing in here today, this is the April 11th elections will be critical because if those broke down or if we took our eye off the credible, peaceful conditions here, all of the international reputation, all of the goodwill and everything else could easily be squandered. There are certainly some states that are battleground states and the logic historically is not necessarily the logic this time around. There are new coalitions that are formed without going into the details. Perhaps when we get into the panel elaborations we can say more about the need for state level, peaceful, incredible. The question I think will now be whether or not the security people will begin to reform themselves behind what they would perceive to be the new government and knowing that they will be strengthened in the times to come begin to step up and to make sure there's no nonsense going on. And are there any thoughts or advice to Nigerians in terms of managing their expectations of this new government? This is clearly the biggest problem for the new administration. General Bihari is a folk hero not only in the north, but I think has become the last best hope throughout the country, most of the country as well. Expectations are extraordinarily high. You look at the youth in the streets and the drumming and the dancing and now change will come. We don't want to wait for 100 days. So how they manage that, I think however they put their team together and however they put their policy together, General Bihari does stand for something. There is a demonstration effect here. And that is no nonsense. We're going to rebuild this hollowed out military that has shamed us basically. If the Chadiens and the mercenaries can do this, why can't we do this? And he also stands for corruption, this anti-corruption. This was a key issue. The first question in every one of those campaign stops, are you going to put everyone in jail for 21 years? And his answer was no, this is a democratic dispensation and there are courts. And by the way, my vice president is an eight-year attorney general of Legos. He will know what to do on this. There's going to be no sort of knocks at the night. So I think the symbolism that Bihari and Yemi Asim Bajjo bring to this is a very powerful set of symbols. And I think that's why you're seeing people rally, rally around, even from the states that didn't vote for him. As Bihari said in his acceptance speech, you know, I'm the president of all Nigerians regardless of whether you voted for me or not. Thank you very much, Dr. Paydon. And on that same question of anti-corruption and the economy, no, Ambassador Limer, you touched on this a little bit in the beginning during the introduction. But in the early days during the transition in Nigeria, there were some attempts at, you know, a campaign against corruption in Nigeria. However, some of those efforts have stalled. Most of those efforts have stalled over the last couple of years. What are your thoughts about how the incoming government can work towards reinvigorating that campaign against corruption in Nigeria? Well, there's two ways to get at it. One is to go after individuals, prosecute them, make an example of them. The other is to root it out institutionally, which I think is what he has to do. Yeah, there may be some prosecutions. But the key is to try and get the oil sector to be operating above board and transparently. It's still a major source of income. It's a major source of corruption. Second, if he would deliver on better power delivery, better investments in power, they're privatizing it. If he gets the investments he wants, that would be dramatic for Nigeria to have reliable power. And it would also bring in more investments. And then the area that that Johnny referred to before, there's no reason that Nigeria should have a problem delivering fuel. Well, that also is tied up in institutional corruption. If he gets at a few key sectors and demonstrates that there's going to be changes there institutionally, I think it will begin to have a ripple effect. Ambassador Carson, are there any points or thoughts you would like to add on that? I think that the need for revitalization of the Economic Financial Crimes Commission should be a high priority. In the last four years, that commission has done very little to prosecute individuals who have been engaged in high level crime in Nigeria. Under the administration of President Obasanjo, and then initially under the late President Yara Adua, that commission brought to justice a number of individuals who had been responsible for engaging in corrupt activities. The commission has done little over the over the last several years. I think it's imperative that new leadership be brought to the EFCC and that they go about their work in a much more diligent fashion. I think it's really important that more attention be paid to the crime that goes on with respect to oil. It's not just oil theft, simple bunkering and theft pipelines. It's high level and sophisticated oil theft, which occurs through the letting of contracts and the provision of petroleum in exchange for refined products brought back into the country. Let me just say on the electric power thing, which is crucial, every time that Yemi Obasanjo has asked this question, he always refers to the Lagos example. They have put together at the state level really important initiatives on how do you manage power so that you don't have to have every person, every shop having their own standby generator. I think this will be one of their number one priorities, whether it's done through the state or the federal level or some combination. I just know that they've thought a lot about this and this new team knows the details on it without any question. On the EFCC, new leadership key is not to politicize this. I think in the early days, they could kind of skirt that line. But if you're going to do it at all, then you have to do it without fear or favor. It's very tempting to go after or not go after. It's the not go afters that we worry about how that will handle. But at the same time, you don't want witch hunts and the new team has promised no witch hunts. In a sense, I don't want to say it's blank and amnesty, but they're not going to be looking forward or not looking backwards. So you don't have to worry about all of the marginal characters fleeing the country at this stage. I mean, you're going to need every hand on deck, but there's a new sheriff in town. Thank you so much. So we have a question from Legal Byte from Nigeria. And his question is, there are some grievances that have been aired by the Nigerian military in regards to corruption, by military personnel in regards to corruption. What are your thoughts on how this income in government can help and address, can work towards addressing these grievances? Mr. Carson, Mr. Carson. Well, I think that, yeah, let me just say that the top level of the military has been substantially weakened over the last 10 years by the removal of senior commanders initially by President Obasanjo, and then under the Yaradawood administration, and this has continued under the administration of good luck, Jonathan. It is absolutely critical that the strong professionalism that existed in Nigeria's military be restored, that officers be promoted and advanced on the basis of their qualifications, their competence and their experience, and not on the basis of their political loyalty or the region from which they come. It's also important that military contracts or contracts that are made for the provision of military equipment be far more transparent and open than they have been in the past. Clearly, there have been concerns about how contracting has been let and to whom it has been let. But the Nigerian military has a strong historical record, as Ambassador Lyman pointed out, in helping to restore peace and stability and democracy to Liberia and Sierra Leone. And they have also been and continue to be one of the top 10 countries providing you and peacekeeping forces around the world. They can again be a strong force with with superior talent at the at the top. And I think making sure that the military isn't politicized is is is a key part of that. Making sure that the transactions that they engage in to buy equipment is done in a transparent and open manner. Ambassador Lyman, Dr. Pater? Let me just say I think this re upping the Nigerian military is the number one priority of of President Elect Buhari. I think it's a matter of both personal and professional pride there. Others can handle the economics side of things, the Lagos people in particular. But this where you have a fifth of the budget going to the military and very little to show for in the in the northeast is is a cloud that is hanging over the entire military there and indeed the state. The Nigerian military is going to have to and this is where Buhari comes in going to have to retool itself so that it can deal with domestic as well as external kinds of threats. It wasn't trained to do the domestic side of things. That has turned out to be its Achilles heel. The intake process is by states for officers as you know and then it's supposed to be by merits. But in recent years political loyalties have also crept in and indeed for the domestic purposes sometimes the rotational process for officers has meant that you get people up in the northeast who simply don't know the language in the culture and that has exacerbated the problem. So all of this false scale review and reform will be will be a top priority and it will be an immediate priority. This will be a first hundred days kind of issue and it's not just merit but it's the balancing off of all of the complexities of Nigerian life. It's one thing to send peacekeepers abroad. It's one thing to kind of crack down if you're doing you know procurement and that sort of thing. But how you deploy your your officers and then not lose the the loyalty of the of the enlisted men is a key problem and that takes leadership and that's where Buhari I think we're hopeful on. And one thing I disagree fully with what John just said. The one good thing I think comes out of this election is that the Boko Haram problem is no longer going to be politicized. That held up the ability of the country to focus and organize and deal with it. It was a political football almost between the North and the South who was at fault who was supporting it etc. I think now that that will be largely set aside and that gives the new administration an opportunity not only to focus on it in a constructive way but as Johnny said it to look at it not just as a military problem but as a broad social and economic one and to enlist the governors on that behalf and that will also go to what they do on the economy and how they redress some of the imbalances between North and South in the economy. It'll be more difficult but I'll just mention one of the opportunity here and that is for a better relationship with the United States. We have had ups and downs with good luck Jonathan. This is an opportunity to establish a really strong relationship with an incoming administration. Opening up we have Power Africa the initiative from the U.S. that feed the nation of all kinds of opportunities cooperation that will fit with the priorities of the new administration. Thank you very much and so now on to the topic of national security and religion in Nigeria. National security still remains a very hot topic in the country and in the lead up to the elections there were several events that happened in the country that completely undermined citizens confidence in the ability of the government to protect the people. So although the outgoing government has made some inroads in dislodging Boko Haram from from some of its strongholds Boko Haram has not been defeated yet. So Dr. Paydon this question is for you. What are your thoughts on how this incoming government can work towards strategically handling the Boko Haram insurgency and also tackling Nigeria's sort of reoccurring circle of violent extremism. Well I think the answer to Boko Haram is going to come from within Nigeria and that as much as anything is the soft power rather than the hard power issue of getting your relations on a constructive level between Muslims and Christians and within the Christian community and within the Muslim community. That's your counter narrative there and simply more attack helicopters particularly by people who don't know what they're doing in terms of who's on the ground. There's a village and let's get them. You know that just exacerbates the situation. There are probably various things that could be said about how you do this preliminary precondition to having an effective counter approach to that and one of them that I'll just call attention to, we can go into more detail, is the efforts by the Interfaith Initiative for Peace. Cardinal Onayakan, Sultan Saad Abu Bakr have done any number of things to reach out and try to get Muslims and Christians. This is not a northern Muslim problem. This is a national, this is all of government, all of country problem, all of region problem for that matter as well. And so you can't ignore the underlying plate technonics. You've got to have them working for you rather than against you. I think this election has validated the efforts and it's one of the things I've watched very closely in the last so many months is can they get that part right? Because otherwise the elections fall, Boko Haram wins and we're all back to where we are. There is no, I sometimes think of, if I may say Boko Haram in different stages and the drivers were different at different points in time where stage one was the quietest stage, stage two the killing of the leader of the jail, the jailbreak and then the stage three after the 11 elections, the dissolution of Libya, the new etc, the Ansaru groups and stuff coming in and then they hit it and run and then last summer the switch over to take and hold territory. These are very different phases, different drivers for them as well so there's no silver bullet on this but I do think that the counter narrative is something that it takes political leadership an example and I think that's potentially in place here now for this. Beyond that education and jobs, I mean how often do we have to say it? The North has been going down in their indicators of development. Well, other parts of the country have been going up partly because investment likes peace and security, no one's going to invest if you've got big security issues to deal with. So in a sense the Sultan has always said no peace, no development and I think that mantra now if we can kind of see that both peace is a precondition to the development but also it's a way of undermining the claims of the Boko Haram people that these are dead end kids who don't have any other way of doing it. It's not the only thing but the counter narrative of the education and the jobs and then I go back to reforming the police and the military. I don't think you can have effective policing unless you have, I'll just say it, state and local police. They borrowed a lot from the American Constitution in terms of federalism. They missed that one and I understand the full background of why they missed it, that all police are federal. You cannot deal with local problems as it started out at stage one using my cancer metaphor again. We're now at stage four where it's metastasized and it's a different problem than if it had been nipped at those earlier stages. But the combination of attacking corruption, which is not just economic development, is also part of this demonstration effect where you have to tell kids that it isn't just the 1 percent is skimming off everything and then the 99 percent too bad. They've got to address this in an oil state because it's awfully easy to think, well, that's someone else's problem. And if it were done all in the up and up maybe that's one thing but if it's done through nepotism or if it's done through sweetheart deals and so forth or just simply bunkering and taking the money. You've got to deal with corruption to deal with Boko Haram there and at the same time begin what my friend Johnny Carson would call a Marshall Plan for Northern Nigeria. You've got to just simply realize that even though Boko Haram is not quite on the ropes, you've got to choke off the oxygen from it. You've got to make sure the military isn't creating more recruits thereby by heavy handedness. So anti-corruption, reform of the military, the major efforts to revitalize the North and I know the World Bank is working on this. I know the EU is interested in the British and the American. Everyone wants to help out on this and so how that can be Marshall who's organized and prioritized. It's not just business as usual, it's business with a lot of these things still up in the air and let me just say that although Abuja sometimes tends to and the international press tends to think this is a Northeast problem. It has spread from those three state of emergencies down into Bouchie, into Gombe and into the Middle Belt and into and you also need to be reminded that Kano after my degree has been the second largest target of violent extremists and so this is a problem across the North and it's not if it had not been stemmed you would find it down in Lagos. All it would take would be a few big and then all of a sudden direct foreign investment would dry up on there so it's definitely a national problem. It's something that no silver bullet but we're at a stage four situation here now where the military is going to be critical but then you need that follow up with development with the anti-corruption. All of the things that we know need to be put in place and the international community and indeed I think Abuja in general is lives in silos, lives in compartments and that's someone else, education is someone else's building business. I have a personal view that unless you deal with getting vocational training and peace studies into the Koranic schools you just have another 10, 12 million kids who are going to not have jobs at the other end so somehow and I know U.S. Institute of Peace has been working on this project as well so everything needs to be done at once and it's not going to get done in the first 100 days but you've got to have leadership and political will to get the direction and then I think things will fall into place. Just a couple of quick comments I agree with everything that John has said. It clearly is a complex and multi-dimensional problem and it needs a multi-dimensional solution. It is absolutely key that peace and stability be restored but resolving the problem of Boko Haram will require more than just a military solution and I think that is absolutely critical. At the heart of what's happened up there is a sense of economic, social and political marginalization. People feeling as though they have been let down and kept out of the country's economy and opportunity for development. One of the key problems that will have to be addressed overall is to find a way at the national level for Nigeria to substantially expand out its economy from essentially being an oil dependent economy and this will require opening up the economy to more opportunities, investment and development that go beyond the nation's dependence on oil. Still today Nigeria gets 90, 95% of its foreign exchange earnings from oil. It gets 80% of its government revenues come from oil. The country has to find a way to be able to generate more domestic and foreign investment, create more economic opportunities for Nigeria's burgeoning population and especially that population which lives in the north. You can end the military crisis in the northeast but unless you find a way to end the 40 to 50 to 60% unemployment and underemployment there, you're only going to sow the seeds for more conflict in the future. Jobs have to be found, industries have to be developed and opportunities have to be made for people in the northeast but also for other parts of the country as well. Oil can be a catalyst for other things but the government has to find a way to expand economic opportunity for all Nigerians but particularly those in the northeast who have been impacted so much by instability and an absence of economic opportunity. Ambassador Lyman. I want to speak to one other country that's going to be challenging but difficult and that's the Delta area where the oil is produced. An area that was very unstable some years ago, a lot of violence, a lot of sealing of oil called bunkering. A certain degree of peace was brought around by an amnesty which in fact paid very substantial sums to leaders of those communities who are now big contractors etc. But bunkering still goes on and there's no question that it involves a lot of collusion maybe even with the Navy and other things. So to get at that kind of a problem, and this is a good luck Jonathan area, and not create more backlash and more violence as one attacks, it's not going to be easy. I think it's probably, the administration probably continued the amnesty and the payments for now. And then look at ways to get outside the corruption and then, and after these elections take place, to get at the corruption problem at the state and local government problem, because there's been a lot of money that's going into Delta and you don't see the results. So helping people access those resources will make a difference. But it's not going to be easy. There's a lot of dynamite in this that the administration is going to have to proceed very, very carefully. I just want to say we've gotten a lot of questions from our online audience and thank you so much. If I can just go through two or three of these questions, we have about 15 minutes, but I just want to mention that we will stay on for about 20 minutes and respond to any other questions that come in online. So we have a question from, and this is related to the national security point, from Dr. Duragee Moses from Covenant University in Nigeria. And he says, given the voting patterns in the elections, it's obvious that Nigeria is divided along ethnic and religious lines. How can the new government unite the country? Dr. Paydon? Well, let me go back to the mechanisms that were put in place after the Civil War. I've lived through the Civil War. I've lived through the run-up to the Civil War. I'm keenly aware of how they tried to create mechanisms so that never again. The federal character which we now take for granted means that every state is represented in the cabinet, so all 36 have to be there. Equal access is the principle of the balance north-south in terms of the national tickets, the power shift, power share, and sometimes it didn't happen in recent times. So there are mechanisms, and I think a generation of Buhari's peers who fought and died to keep Nigeria together are keenly aware of that. I think sometimes the younger generations, the technocrats, you know, didn't get that in their briefing books. I think there are lots of ways, and I would imagine the first thing that Buhari will do is create a team that is nationally balanced, and that will be, and maybe even bend over backwards to include people that you wouldn't expect. So Nigeria, I think, has an opportunity to live up to its own sense of what its potential is in terms of the diversity there. I mean, it's the largest country in the world by far that's half Muslim, half Christian. How you make that work for you rather than against you will be a challenge. I think there's a generational learning experience that needs to be re-articulated, and by example here as well. The no-victor, no-vanquished motto of the to keep Nigeria one is a task which must be done. I mean, we've all lived, some of us have lived through that period. It sounds kind of corny now, but it works. It works, and the message has to be sent time and time again that we are one country. This is our contribution in many ways to the world is that we can live with each other with this kind of extreme diversity. At the state level, there are problems as we all know in the plateau and in some of the middle belt states, and there are certainly those both in the southeast who would like to break away, and there are some in the south-south that would like to break away. I think through combinations of carrots and sticks and just good common sense inclusion is the way in which this thing will move forward. And again, that's one of the takeaways I take from this selection. We now have a national coalition as an opposition party. You can't take that for granted. That hasn't happened before in the Fourth Republic, and it hasn't happened in some of the previous republics as well. So how to keep the idea of democracy usually involves accountability and transparency and an opposition that's viable. And so we now have that, so I would hope that the opposition party will regroup the new opposition party and they will both stay national and not retrench to their regional bases. Just quickly, some of the tension that is attributed to religious attention is really very often political and resource driven. And you see this in plateau state where it just happens that the Christian population is largely farmers, the Muslim population are cattle people, there's a struggle over land, access to land resources, but political people mobilize people around these issues, make them religious, encourage violence. And I think that part of it is leaders who do not do that and attack the real roots of these problems, in these areas where they come up against each other. And that's going to be very important. It's not just religious in the broad sense. It's how these things get played and used for political purposes. Just a quick note, I think there are far more institutions and far more elements pulling Nigeria together today than they are pulling Nigeria apart. And clearly there were indications in this election that the South South voted strongly against Buhari as a candidate. But if you look at this election you saw a balanced ticket on both sides. And you saw, and I think one of the reasons why Buhari won is that he not only campaigned in the North where he is from, but he made a concerted effort to reach out to those states in the South East and also in the Southwest. His campaign was a nationwide campaign and he spoke to the concerns of all Nigerians for change, for an end to corruption and a need to address the country's security problems. And that change message was a message that focused on expanding economic opportunity, addressing the issues of power and electrification, access to oil, the need for jobs, better schools and infrastructure, which are national issues. And the fact that he was able to reach out to the essentially in the Southwest I think is a testament to his efforts to reach out to the nation as a whole. But equally there are other drivers that pull Nigeria together and one of the groups that we haven't really talked about as a whole is civil society. And the large array of civil society groups that cross both regional lines, cross ethnic lines, cross religious lines and cross community lines. And we see this in groups like the transitional monitoring group, which did such an effective job of their quick count and their parallel vote tabulation process, which reaffirmed very clearly that the INEC was right in making the call. The commitment of the National Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, young men and women, recent college graduates from all over the nation, going out and running the elections across Nigeria. Things like this pull the country together. And even though we're critical as we should be of some of the recent past performances of the Nigerian military, it is a national military. It's not a regional military. And no longer do we have a Nigerian military where the officer corps comes from one part of the country and the enlisted men and women come from another part of the country. The institutions pull the country together. And it's important, I think, as Professor Payden has said, is for leaders to continue to focus on those strengthening those institutions that pull the nation together rather than pointing out the differences that exist out here. Okay. So we have two questions. We have a bunch of questions over here. But again, thank you so much for these wonderful questions. We will stay over to respond to them. But we have two questions that will be really good for us to close with. And they come from here in USIP. So we have one question from Susan Stigant, who's a director of African programs and another question from Susan Stigant. What should be the role of US policy makers and what should US policy makers be telling the incoming government and the Nigerian people now? Ambassador Lyman, should we start with you? Well, as I said earlier, I think there's an opportunity now to establish a very powerful, productive relationship with this administration to talk about anti-corruption, getting at the security problems, et cetera. But you can't overwhelm. This is a Nigerian challenge. And what we can do, I think there are several areas in which US can be extremely helpful. I think channeling private investment through programs like Power Africa to get at this very critical power sector, helping in other areas, expanding programs that underway about youth and building youth capacity. We have programs now, the young African leadership programs. But I think politically, reinforcing the efforts of the government to do what it's set out to do. And that means providing whatever technical advice, whether it's political advice, security advice. But Nigerians are being the lead on all of this. Incapable country. But I do think the opportunities will open up because I think the political relationship, if we take advantage of it, can be much better than it's been and therefore open up these opportunities. Thank you so much. Ambassador Carson. I think that the United States should do as much as it possibly can in partnership with Africa's most important nation, its most significant economic nation, and with its largest democracy. Our relationship should be established on a strong partnership of shared interest and shared values. I think that one of the early things that we should do is to find an opportunity for the administration to invite President-elect Buhari to Washington to reassure him of our friendship and partnership. Look for ways to revitalize and strengthen the strategic dialogue that we have with Nigeria that was established under the Secretary of State, Clinton, and to put some stronger meat and muscle on the bone of this relationship in areas like power and electrification. In strengthening the effort to encourage a greater American investment in Nigeria investment which creates manufacturing capacity investment which creates jobs for Nigerians. Investment which creates stronger trade links beyond oil between Nigeria and the United States. I think equally we should engage with Nigeria's new ministers as they come on board in seeking out early opportunities to work together in the agricultural realm in the manufacturing realm in the transportation realm. We need to do these things quickly and we need to do them early in the administration to demonstrate the desire for this partnership and finally we need to look at a way to help strengthen the security relationship between our military and the Nigerian military to help find ways to restore its capacity to perform at levels which it performed at in the past. All of these things are essential. I think some of my panelists have noted that I think that over the last two years the last two and a half years the relationship between Washington and Abuja had started to drift apart and it had started to drift apart in large measure because of a mutual lack of understanding about how to deal with the issue of Boko Haram with a new administration in Abuja and a new willingness on the part of Washington to work with that administration. I think there are many opportunities for this country to reach out to Nigeria and for Nigeria to reach out to the United States. I don't think there is a country in Africa that has a better appreciation of the United States and what it stands for than Nigeria and I think that Nigeria is fundamentally committed to the same kinds of democratic values and principles as the United States and therefore should in fact be a strong partner to us in Washington. Thank you so much for that Ambassador Carson. Quick point, as a question I think this was framed, it's what should U.S. policy makers be telling the Nigerian government, I would change that, we should be listening to the new team. Northern Nigerians are more comfortable in London than they are in Washington for historical reasons. We're used to, the international community gets used to the idea that incumbents always win and now we have a real democracy. What do we do with it? We get acquainted and we listen. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. This was a very, very interesting discussion. We look forward to continuing this discussion and I just want to close this with a tweet from Abdul Qadir Waqili from Abuja who says Jega, Dr. Jega has definitely done a great job for Nigeria. All Nigerians should be proud. Nigeria has shown the world that democracy is here to stay. So thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you.