 Welcome back here. So, watching the breakfast on Plus TV Africa, and of course, we're moving on to our first major conversation right here on the program. Indeed, the all-progressive Congress has been having its own internal issues that, of course, you have the presidential aspirants also saying things about the party and getting into conversations and consultations ahead of the 2023 presidential elections. And one of those who has been making those consultations and visits happens to be Bola Anbetinbu, the so-called leader of the all-progressive Congress. Well, he has been to the Senate, the National Assembly to visit senators and to, you know, sell himself to them. We're hearing that the all-progressive Congress Senate caucus has assured the national leader of the party, Bola Anbetinbu, of their support for his presidential ambition. Tinibu was at the National Assembly to consult and seek the support of lawmakers who are members of the ruling party for his aspiration to emerge the presidential candidate of the party and president of the country in 2023. Tinibu called on the APC Senate caucus to support him to become the candidate of the party for the 2023 presidential election. The former Lagos governor has said he came to the Senate to seek the council partnership and support of the APC senators in actualizing his presidential ambition come 2023. Now we'll be rolling a tape and let's listen to what was said and what transpired after the meeting between APC senators and the National Leader of the Party, Bola Anbetinbu. I believe that at the end of the day, the Excellency will all the time continue to support our party. Recently we have had difficulty because of misunderstanding between some of our members and the party has been thrown into a temporary confusion. But thank God it is over now. It is very clear that our party is back on track that at the end of the day, in the next two weeks or so, our National Convention will hold and a new set of leaders will emerge who will take us to the destination of victory by the grace of God in 2023. Interesting involvement. Now joining us to analyze this and look at the invocations for the All Progressives Congress and of course the 2023 presidential race is political analyst Ezekiel Nyaituk who joins us for a second time this morning. Once again, good morning to you Ezekiel Nyaituk. What a wonderful day it is for me. Thank you for having me again. Indeed. The video shows the Senate president. He didn't sound so supportive but the reporters that he is saying to the APC caucus is saying to Shiwaju, we are with you. Is this an endorsement of his presidential ambition? And if so, is it still possible for the man to beat as far as the presidential aspirants in the APC are concerned? Two things. The very first is that I can talk to you politically which is speaking loud and saying nothing. The second is that we could have a conversation that Nigerians would like to listen to and take what I call informed decision. The very first thing is that this was something that was recorded for the public. And because it was recorded for the public, it was absolutely necessary for the Senate caucus to give the impression that the party is together. And if you listen to what the Senate president said, he said they will always support their party. That's what he said. He did say they will support Sinubu. That was the first one. And secondly, I believe that the script writers for Obong Sinubu, for an important event as this would have been a little more tactful in giving him the lines because he tried to do something with stepping on his toes and stepping into his shoes. And I'm asking myself, is that for the public or is that for Mr. President? If it was for Mr. President, is that really necessary? That could have been a different forum. But if it's something that he wanted to have for the public, there's a way it could have been presented. And actually his speech was more of an indictment on the seven years of the administration of his party because he's like, look, this is gone on for too long. So it's not about building on legacies that he can put forward as per, we've done this much and we want to take it a notch higher or the direction that we are addressing was a current problem now that we have been able to take care of insurgency, which was the main direction that we were pursuing, where we need somebody who has the capacity to handle the second leg, which has to be the economy. And that is where I am primed because of my antecedents to be able to do that. And again, because I'm somebody over the years that has been known as kind of the father of the youth, you know, I want to be able to bring what they call responsibility transfer. I want to be the door opener, which brings the youth into governance because this issue of average age of governance being in their sixties is not okay. So let's I want to bring this very specific program to be able to do this. And I'm primed over the years. And for me, if I can deliver that as my last assignment, it will be something that I will feel fulfilled about. So what do Nigerians hear? They hear number one, that, well, we have been being war, war, war, war, and we are dying, but this man is coming to now face the economy is going to make us come back to live, revive the industries and everything that affects me personally, that makes makes me feel good. Secondly, we hear that this man says that the average age is not okay. Rather, he wants to come and be the door opener that brings the young people into governance and hand over to them what he called responsibility transfer to the youth. So the youth are like, whoa, this makes sense to me. I'm going to like to hear more about this man. You need, when you are talking, you need to know the audience you are addressing and the message for that audience, especially if you are honest and sincere. So the young people couldn't care less whether he is 50 or 90 or 70, like Joe Biden, they'll see them as the man, they think of themselves as the man who is going to help them. But when you come to Nigeria and tell us, sorry, my son MET, okay, not EY, okay. When you come to Nigerians and tell us, this is my lifelong ambition. At the time I have no food on my table. At the time I cannot pay my children's school fees. I'm asking myself, so I should go out and vote to fulfill your lifelong ambition. I mean, it's a long, it's a wrong, you know, it's a wrong presentation, especially now that votes are going to count at the polls. Well, the votes are going to count at the polls, but today you're having two-thirds of Niger's representative votes in the upper and the lower chambers endorsing him to succeed President Mohammed the Boire. And he went as far as having, you know, the verified Twitter handle of the House of Reps on the microblogging form. I mean, we're talking about Twitter now, putting out those pictures and putting out this statement and in, you know, sort of some kind of endorsement. What, I mean, some people would say that this is actually the deal. I mean, it feels like it's game over already. I'll tell you, in economics, there's what you call effective demand. Okay. Who is endorsing you? People who are not sure of getting votes when they go back home, they are endorsing you. And then you are clapping for yourself. How many of them do you think will return to the National Assembly? How many? So you can be, you can be clapping for yourself on something that, you know, it's like somebody writes a check for you and you're very happy to have a check. You don't ask yourself, does that person have any money in the bank? The very first thing you do is make sure that he has enough money in the bank. If I write you, me as I sit down here, I write you a three billion Naira check, forget it, it's a waste of time. I don't have any such money. So it's not enough to have your check, my check in your hands. It's more important to know whether that is cash backed. It's like budget. We do a lot of budget, but you see, those are just statements of intention. A lot of our budget, why we fail is because they are not cash backed. You know, at the end of the day, you just discover that you have 50% performance because we didn't have the money we're talking about. Coming back to the people at the National Assembly, the first thing you should tell me is that how many of them can go back to their constituencies to seek a return? So that endorsement, as far as I'm concerned, is political. It's like somebody coming, you know, we have these groups, that group, that group, that, you know, one of the, you know, I'm campaigning. So one of the groups came to me and they said, oh, we have over, you know, 200,000 members with PVC and everything. And I'm like, oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, let's do something. Let me have your, your membership list. They brought it and said, okay, fine. Let's do a random, let me just pick some numbers at random and call them C. They say, you know, that is not the correct list. We made a mistake. We bring your analysis and I smile. I said, I've done this thing before, guys. You know, talk about yourself. Those who have 200,000 members, we will look at them and they'll understand. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that don't be fooled by this flurry of endorsement because the person that is endorsing A, the same person is endorsing B, the same person is endorsing C. It's just like when you look at all these party rallies and you see the crowd do a synthetic analysis of that crowd. You discover that the crowd that was there at a PDP rally is the same crowd that is there at APC rally is the same crowd that is there. That's why ADC does not believe in all this crowd. We want one man to man, you know, one-on-one. That's what we are doing, town hall meetings and getting across. So I think that having the endorsement of the National Assembly is good for the media. It's good for the talk. It's good to the extent that it's making news and we are talking about it. So there's an indirect gain that is making because it makes it newsworthy and the more newsworthy items you have, the more the publicity inadvertently that you have. So on that score, I think that is making a good political input. But in terms of the effectiveness of the endorsement, to me, it doesn't count. It doesn't count. Ashiwaju, the Jagaban boy, as he is titled, is this speaking to him not to be an astute politician as we all think he is, or a majority of people think he is, because you're a politician and you've contested an election before. I'm sure, you know, I took that. You know, these guys do not want to see you visiting them, you know, officially in broad daylight to talk about seeking their partnership for a better Nigeria, you know, to make the country better. If they were interested in making the country better, we won't be where we are. Is this playing him out or painting him to be not as astute as we think he is in politics, you know? Let me tell you something. I've said this before and I say it again. We have not understood how politics has been run over the years. I'll tell you something. Chinubu could win the presidency if the politics of before was allowed to continue. It was a politics of money. It was a politics of money. All you need to do is have enough money in almost the 120,000 polling units. Some of these people, all you need is just take two thirds of it, do a very good analysis and put your people in the past. This is very important. You understand where I'm coming from. What happens in the past is that when you have 1000 people at the polling unit, you have an understanding with your officials. That understanding means buying them. You can do that. You could do that. So they send in about when they said materials didn't come on time, there was delay in materials. It is the game. At the end of the day, out of 1000 polling registered members, you do accreditation for just about 300. Now they finish voting and all those things you don't care. You just get some money around, get some votes. Let it give the impression that there was a voting. The real game comes between the polling unit where the policemen enter the van or the car and then your election officers enter and then the party people somewhere along the line before they get to the coalition officer. The car is packed. Money is shared. A new form is brought out. That polling unit 1000 votes are recorded. Complete 1000 votes. Out of the 1000 votes, you give to yourself maybe 900,000 and your closest opponent. You make sure that you beat him silly so that he doesn't even have the mouth to open his mouth and complain. So at the end of the day, you can do this in virtually every polling unit if you have money and Jagaban is known to have money. But something has shifted fundamentally and this shift is what Nigerians need to know. The game avenue has been blocked by President Buhari. God bless his soul by that electoral act 2022. In the electoral act, you don't need to send 300 forms there because whatsoever the beavers capture is the only thing that will be reported. You cannot go and print again for the others and put in bogus figures because the figure at the polling unit covered by the beavers is exactly the figure that is going to be sent to Abuja and unless you are such a terrible fool, you will not pay anybody to alter any figure because those figures will not stand. So you don't need to waste your money as a politician and you the returning officer or collating officer. You don't need to collect money because they are going to know the truth and you are going to be sent to jail. So both the giver and the receiver are standing risk that does not even make sense except they are stupid people. So that is a fundamental shift. Now within that context, Mr Tinubu Obong Tinubu Obong is a very respected title within my area. So for me to call him that, you know, I call him way. In fact, maybe I should call him because I am an Otoekon, which is the highest title you can have. Okay. What he should ask himself is do an analysis that tells him what Nigerians think of him. That result and he shouldn't do it with people who know that he is the one. He should go to University of Calabar, University of Uyo, University of Miduguri through a proxy, get people to send people around the country and do analysis of top five people that Nigerians will like to support. That will give him a very honest, poor, reflective indices. And before he reach the result, he should have his doctor by his side because he's going to be either extremely happy or extremely sad. But he could help him to find out why the result is that way. If it is positive, reinforce it. If it is negative, think of how you can reverse those thoughts. Think of things you can do. Being seen as a man who has money at a time like this is not what will help him in Nigeria. So, but let's come down to, I mean, it's a good thing that you talked about the fundamentals. So, let's stay with the fundamentals. We know that before you, of course, you have to belong to a political party and you have to become a flag bearer. The issue of him becoming a flag bearer, we understand all of the crisis and the issues going on right now in the APC. And even though you still have some persons in the APC who have not indicated their interests, but of course the awards on the street saying one or two persons, there probably might be seven for whatever reason I'd not like to mention their names. But you have him who's actually said yes, his communicator is concerned, you know, to Mr. President. He's yet to let Nigerians know, but of course Nigerians watch him say communicating his interest to the president. And of course, there's also a visit to the lawmakers who have actually endorsed him. So, do you see him becoming the flag bearer of the APC? I'll tell you this about becoming the flag bearer of the APC. I'll tell you straight up, I see him, I see that possibility. Clean, clear. I have a very, very interesting, very, very good relationship. This was supposed to be, well, it's not really private, there's nothing confidential about it. With Alaji Kwan-Quasso, he's a very, very good friend. In fact, on my birthday he actually came and spent three days with me in Uyo, which was awesome. But he said something that I found very interesting. He said, if I go for primaries with Tambuwal, he will beat me. If I go for primaries with Tinibu, he will beat me. If I go for primaries, he put about four people with them, primaries, they will beat him. But all of them put together cannot beat him in election. Do you understand me? That shows you the weakness that parties have at primaries. They fail to realize that you must bring a candidate that is going to be accepted by the people to get the ticket of APC in, you know, by Obong Tinibu. It's as simple as APC because of the way it works. The delegate, he has a good will. He's seen as somebody that has the capacity to bring the money, you know, for them. It's not money to run election, but money for all the so-called stakeholders, all those, you know, the owners of structures. They are just thinking of who they can collect money from. Whether you fail or you don't fail, that's your business. He is seen as somebody who has money to bring and give them. If you want to buy the delegate at five million or two million, he's seen as one person that has that capacity so he can get the ticket of the party. But the party leadership ought to go back home. As of today, APC is government in power. They have governors all over the country. So if the chairman of the party was somebody that was forward thinking, long before today, they would have done an offline strategic analysis of their top five, as accepted by the people, because in the current electoral act, I could not say this enough, the people are going to decide. Why do you want to bring your friend that will fail election, rather than your enemy that will pass election? And in party politics, once you are a stakeholder, whoever comes up, you are going to be relevant. So I think that what we are doing in ADC, for instance, is we are looking at people that are loved by the people and we're going to be able to sit down in some places. We are actually going to approach people and say, please come and run on our platform. You don't need to pay. You don't need to do this. Maybe I'm letting the cat out of the bag because we want people that are loved, accepted, appreciate. Why do you think ADC would want to have been a quibum? Well, you talk of people who have money. I'm like Boy Scout, please call 10 people. Yeah, call 10 people in a quibum out of 10. Say, who do you love on all this? If you have less than eight who say, yeah, we love him, then throw me away. That's why ADC can take the risk and say, look, we go with this guy. So what you do is APC should have done that strategic analysis to look at people instead of wanting to sell forms, 20 million, 20 million, 20 million. You sell forms to and collect three, four, five billion and you lose the presidency. Does it make sense? He's not cerebral thinking. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. Let's still stick with Ashia Wajiu and the analysis of him and his chances. Looking at the response, I know we didn't know some of the papers including the nation newspaper said that the National Assembly, the APC, said there with him, but you pointed out the statement of words of Ahmed Lawan to Tinibu. Of course, he wasn't expected to say anything other. And he said that we support you, wish you well. I think that's the headline or the words that should have been used by the papers, wish you well. But let's look at Tinibu's influence in the scheme of things, as far as the government of the day is concerned, and as far as the APC is concerned, he's been called the national leader of the party. He doesn't occupy any appointed or elected position. He hasn't occupied that since they came to power. But he was instrumental in forming the APC, the key character if you want to call it that. But going by the activities and the intrigues in the government in the party over the past few months, would you say the influence and the power of Tinibu is waning? That's number one. Number two, what are your thoughts on the talk of his age and his stoutness to occupy this position? And it was just something to just fulfill our righteousness, say something nice to him, and then let him go. Do they really believe that he can do, can emerge at the end of the day? Okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you two things. The first thing is that you, you, you are people have a saying that the blood in the mouth is such that you don't want to swallow it. You know, as you mean, you have them like a cut, you have a bleeding and the blood is in your mouth. You don't want to swallow it. And at the same time, you don't want to spit it out because there's a sentimental attachment of some, some, some sorts, you know, things like that, you know, is the same. You see, you cannot write off Tinibu. You can't, you can't write him off. You can't. APC knows that. Without Tinibu, they've lost the Southwest. And you remember that my, our guy who is now my friend, you know, he had contested three times without winning with the 10, 12 million votes from the North. He needed Tinibu to bring the capacity of the Southwest. And over this past seven years, the party has not been able to think beyond Tinibu and they've not been able to think beyond Wari. But it seems to be cracks. I mean, even in that Southwest, look at what someone like Aaron Bushola has been saying to Tinibu, it would have been unthinkable two years ago that Aaron Bushola would address Tinibu like that. We look at his protege or his ally, the vice president. Let me, let me tell you something. You see, talking in the media and acting on ground, you see, there's a difference between Trailer and the B2. They're not the same. A little child can sit down. He doesn't know how to run. He's just crawling. He can say that. And then the news is, oh, this little child or this man called the other guy, it's just like me. You know, I can talk a lot of things about Samuel Peters or Mike Tyson or Mayweather. I can rant more than even them. Before they say one, I can say five. They put 12 votes on the ring. Then you go see, say that man, do I have the talk? Do you get the point? When you go to the field, tell me one man in the Southwest that can beat the capacity of Tinibu. Tinibu is a wet, any day, any time, as far as the Southwest is concerned. If I was not involved very seriously in a party like AGC, I would have offered myself free to Tinibu as a strategic advisor to him. Because, you see, long before today, Tinibu knew he had this ambition. And all his branding was money man, money man, money man. And that is not the branding we take to election where you have the electoral act that we have. He would have been seen as these people that people love. What are the activities that he moved and went to a youth program in Akwaibom? He went and did this program in Baelsa. He went before now to show that, look, do you know that if the youth are to vote between Tinibu and a man like Lumelu? A Lumelu has over the years set up himself as somebody who is how to empower the youth and better their lot. Don't always tell me I have money, I have money, I have money. Money has failed us because the day you become a president, the money you have becomes irrelevant. It's what you have between your ears and in your heart. That's important to the people. And the people have been disappointed for so long that they have woken up. What about the talk of his health, his age, and his ability to remain fit, both physically and otherwise, to be the president. And I've heard some people saying things like, oh, I feel like I should not rise a second time. Sorry to put it that way. I'm just reacquiring what I've heard people say. What do you say to that? I'll tell you something. A lot of times we really don't understand what it means to run the presidency or the governorship of a country. You can be physically challenged and still an effective leader. The very first thing we need to hear from you is that you have a heart and love for the people. A heart-passionate love for the people. Number two, you have a vision not for yourself and your ambition, but for the people. And once the nation comes to see and buy this, which should have been sold long before today, he can be accommodated. But now, can I see that maybe me different? Can I see the vision? Maybe not. And to worsen the matter is an old man. And to worsen the matter again is not fitting feeling in our own opinion as fit as we would want him to be. So my question is, what is the unique selling point? What are his strategies thinking? How can they come and what they're sending out to the public is sympathy for him to fulfill his lifelong ambition? Who are those collecting this man's money and not thinking for the man? If you collect his money, at least think for him and lay the strategic foundations where to get a ticket in A, in APC is not for me, is not very difficult, not very difficult for me to see to get a ticket by Tinibu, but to come out and then convince Nigerians to vote for him. When Nigerians have such options that ADC is going to put forward and when they do and these guys hit the ground running based on things that resonate with the young people, it's going to be a hard sell at the end of the day. That's what I think. For me, it is like not laying a foundation for his ambition. He has a lot of money and being perceived as money man, money man, money man is not, it wasn't a good thing. Yes, be a money man, but be a lover, a darling of the young people. Be a passionate believer in Nigeria. Show me, ask yourself, when last did Tinibu come to Akaiba and where I stay? Just to attend the program, just to attend the wedding, just to attend the youth program, just to do an empowerment thing there, as an individual. These are the ways you prepare yourself for an election where you know that Bwari, maybe they didn't see this coming, but Bwari, God bless him. With this electoral act, you need a man that is loved by the people, not somebody who has money. We're going to see for the first time, when somebody you called a beetle is going to floor somebody you called a trailer. Ezekian Yahitog, thank you so much for being part of the show. We do appreciate your thoughts and we appreciate you all the time. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. I appreciate the two of you. God bless you. Ezekian Yahitog is a public affairs analyst and we will call it a wrap at this point, and that's because we need to head straight to our second conversation just before the top of the hour at nine o'clock. Stay with us.