 QuarrelSum campaigns voter rebellion and a threat of postponement of polls lingers. Tonight, we take a broad look at the events leading up to next week's election and we're addressing voter concerns. This is PlusPolitics. I am Mary Anacorn. Leader of Yoruba's social-political organisation Afeneferi, Pa Ayo Adibantra, recently noted that the force coming elections in Nigeria should not be seen as an ordinary poll. The respected Yoruba leader urged the electorate to take the ballot seriously because it holds the key to Nigeria's future. Nigerians have also expressed worries that the electioneering by the political parties and their candidates have not dwelt on the critical issues militating against the social well-being of the citizens. On top of that and security tufts concerns of citizens as abductions, mass killings and terrorism makes life chaotic and unpredictable in the country. We're joining us to discuss the state of the nation and the concerns tonight is Wemimoa Deonishi is a media strategy and communications expert at Chike Chudei who is a public affairs analyst and Dr. Ndu Mokolo who is a partner and chief executive next-tier SPD. Thank you so much Dr. Ndu for joining us good evening. Thank you for having me. Great. Let's start with you. Earlier today you and I had had a conversation similar to this. But let's start with the fact that there's been a lot of mud slinging. I mean this is not something that is new to us in the Nigerian political space. But this time around there's not just mud slinging but a lot of quarrelsome campaigning and we've seen inter-party divisions and also across the different political parties. How would you describe the difference between other elections and this election cycle? Okay I think there are a couple of things that seems new but not really new but we're just seeing them emerging. First, this is the first time you're going to have or the first time who is likely to be a Nigerian president is not a former president, a former military head of state or others. Let's say this way. This might be the first time you have non-military head of state being in the ballot. That's one. Two, the emergence of social media has been able to expand the space. So yes it was then 2019 but it's a bit different maybe because of entrance of a lot of young people. Secondly, unlike 2019 or 2015 when you had what I conceivably said to be a North-South contestation, this time around is like as if we were having a three horse race within the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria. So if you want to say that way. So there are a lot of emerging social political issues and more importantly is now you equally have a leader as in President Mohammed Buhari who is a leader who is not going for re-election so meaning that he has no dog in the fight. But the thing that looks a bit, I don't want to say confusing but interesting is that you have a president who seems a bit withdrawn from his party. Who wants to, if I could say, take a go a little bit from President Jonathan and allow the election to follow the way it should flow in terms of free and fair election. So you could see members of his party thinking, see we are here. We are the ruling party and we can't even establish power of incumbency. So these are a couple of things we can see. But if we go on the other flip side is the disturbing side which is the social political issue especially the security issues we are seeing across all the nooks and crannies of the country. I think that's one of the ones that, but that's everybody. Addition to that is the economy that is not doing well. And then they redesigned the Naira that seems to have put everything in different perspective. So a lot of questions have been asked. But the most important thing is that we still believe that on 25th of February we are going to have an election. Let's look at the insecurity first things first. We saw the lynching of the young lady Dabora that led to her death somewhere in the north. There was also some form of lynching that happened here in Lagos which led to the Lagos State government putting an end to the Alcada riders and pushing them into the smaller streets in Lagos. And we've seen several other cases. We saw the issue of flooding. A certain candidate decided that she was going to stop campaigning so that she could go visit. And all of those things, people read meaning into it one way or the other. These things as opposed to speaking to them, speaking on the issues, it became a campaign tool in the hands of these politicians. For example, Attiku got flack for posting and deleting a tweet that was condemning the killing of Dabora. If people are still asking Attiku about it, he says, well, I didn't sanction the tweets. And then the question is, where's the other tweets that you sanctioned? Why did he not come up? On the other hand, there have been the issue of Muslim, Muslim ticket where people have said religion has become the order of the day should not necessarily be what should be captured in this election. So let's start with the insecurity part. People continued campaigning as business as usual while people were being kidnapped. People were being killed. People were being bombed. I'd like to remind you, Dr. Okolo, about the unknown aircraft that shot down people in Nassarawa states. And of course, I think in Niger states, if I'm not mistaken, all of these things has happened and Nigerians were hoping to hear something very definite from all of the front runners, but nothing was said. How well do you think that the politicians, especially the presidential candidates, have handled the issue of insecurity or addressed it in any way? I would first try to say that, of course, we understand that governance is an issue for us. So security or provision of security is part and parcel of governance. So most times it becomes very difficult to single it out and make it the standard only indices to judge a regime or to judge a government. Now, the Nigerian state for some time is battling insecurity. You know, ranging from farmer-header conflict to demand retreat, to terrorizing, to secession agitation, to autism, to marae piracy, to communal conflict. There are so many of them. So if you look at them holistically, it's a governance issue. It didn't start today. It didn't even start when President Buhari went into office. It didn't even start when President Mabasando was there. So you know, these things were snowballing from one conflict to the other. As you fell to resolve one, a kind of morph into another. So to where we are today. So now the question to whoever becomes the Nigerian president, how do you start dealing with all of them? If you listen to the campaign of each of them, if you try to single each campaign, that of P2B, that of Ticlabo Baca, that of Juan Paso, that of Kinibu, and listening to them, you can see how each person tries to package and present how it's going to solve Nigerian problem. So it's now, you know, for the electorates to listen to each campaign message, maybe manifesto, maybe whatever is their talking points, and see are they addressing those security consigns that I think will make meaning to me. So it becomes very difficult to try to put all of them holistically and judge them with a kind of one carpet or each person has his own message in how do I want to solve it. So P2B is talking about security is my major issue. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to resolve it. I'm going to do that. I think who has said what he wants to do. So it's Tunibu, so it's Juan Paso. So it's now for the electorate to say, I think this messaging, you know, makes meaning to me. I think he is able to deal with it. So there are many indices you need to consider. Why try to see whose messaging makes meaning to you? I think that's the best way to try to analyze the messaging of each of the presidential, or the four front runners in this presidential election. Okay. Wemimo Adoni and Chiquette today have just joined us. I'm going to start with Wemimo. Just as I asked the doctor at the beginning, like I said, this elections have experienced the most quarrelsome campaigns of all times. I mean, we've seen, and it's not just for the front line runners, even the people that work with them, the people who seem to be the spokesperson, we've seen a lot more mudslinging than we've ever seen before. What do you think is, I mean, many have also said this is one of the most keenly, this might have to be the most keenly contested election of all times. Do you agree with Dr. Wokola that maybe because the people who are running do not necessarily or have not necessarily led the country before in that capacity of maybe a military administrator? Or is it that because maybe now Nigerians are a bit more aware politically? What do you think the case is? Well, I think it's very much expected. I mean, we have an election where the incumbent is not returning. So in such elections, it's usually a tough battle because new faces are coming on board. So as expected, I mean, in 2015, we didn't have it like, and say in 2019, we didn't have it like this. We had it tough also in 2015, but 2019 because we had a president who could run for another term. But now you're having new guys on the block and they have to give it everything to try to persuade the voters to give their votes to them. So we've seen a very, very interesting campaign season with some of them turned into entertainment memes. I mean, some of the funniest promises. I mean, some of the elephants in the room are dressed. A lot of tearing down ethnic lines. A lot of tearing down religious lines. Everyone trying to push the card they believe will get them the vote and the sympathy of the voter. Now, is this going to work out well for the electorate? So we have just few days to know how well they've done. I've also been, I mean, excited to see debates between the supporters of each political candidate. And these debates have been very, very passionate. I mean, in 2015, for instance, when President Muhammad Ibrahim was contesting, the drive, a lot of the drive was toward all. Voting means because it's got a military background, like he said. And because a lot of corruption had gone on under the Jonathan administration, oh, everyone thought, oh, this is the general who would bring in the change and confirm on anti-corruption drive. Now, we've seen what the past eight years have been. We've seen the economic slide. We've seen the improvement in infrastructure, but we've seen basically a lot of economic downturns. And now Nigerians with a hunger, with a higher increased population living under that multi-dimensional poverty, the NBS says that number is 133 million. Nigerians are voting with hunger and with anger. The economic policies of the recent weeks have also not helped. So, I mean, and it appears, I see if the APC is also divided, I mean, between itself, the PDP is playing a card, you know, throwing in the northern, the northern, the northern card, the ethnic line. I mean, the Nigerians are torn in the very clear line to this election and whoever wins, I believe is going to be by a very slight margin. Well, I'm interested in, you know, the fact that you're saying, I mean, yes, the NBS has said that the situation, the poverty and the hunger situation is, you know, is dire. But we have also been here before. It always seems like the weaponizing of poverty or, you know, the stress levels are increased and it's like the furnace is being opened upon us just before the election. But it never really changes the pattern of voting. So, what real change or shifts is going to happen because this seems like some place we've been before. It might not be exactly, but it's similar. It's similar, but the different thing here is that you have, for the first time in, I mean, since 1999, a presidential candidate from the southeast. Now, that totally shook the balance because we've not had a president, president from the southeast since 1999. So here comes, oh, people who had said we want Biafra, we want away from Nigeria because we feel marginalized. Then I have a face representing where they're from. So that totally changes everything because you see people from the south. The south is finally said, oh, we've got a representative instead of channeling our anger into agitations for Biafra, less channel agitations into getting someone who's like us into the presidential office who we believe might bring the change and the development in the southeast. Now, Nigerians, I mean, people would say that people usually deserve the government they get because they come from us. And essentially, the unfortunate depth of corruption comes even from the lower category of Nigerians. So the weaponization of poverty is unfortunately still a handy tool in the hands of our politicians. I mean, why would anybody offer you a look for bread for your vote? Why would anybody offer you 5,000 or 10,000 for your vote? It's insulting to say the least. And if Nigerians are moved out of poverty, then politicians would not have to do beyond just campaigning based on words and flattery, flowery words. And now bend down and actually do the work. I mean, most Nigerians could just come up during the voting cycle. They go back to where they're coming from, no accountability. So I mean, if anything were to change after this election, we're all just going to have to wait and see. Interesting. Let me pick it up from where we've all stopped. Some of the fears and concerns that the average Nigerians within and without the country have is the fact that there has been a continuous flouting of court orders under this administration from 2015 to where we are today. And most recently we've seen also INEC and, you know, the courts in this in Broglie of placeholders. And this is detailed for the governor of Cross River, the former governor of Aquabomb State, Goswyl Aquabio, and of course the Senate president whose case just recently was announced by the Supreme Court. Now this of course puts INEC in a precarious situation which calls to question, of course the most important thing, how free, fair and credible our elections will be in 2023. How do you, how do, where do you even begin to address this concern for the average voter who is being told to get their PBC and now that they've gotten the PBC to come out and vote, how will they be certain that their vote will count? Well, I don't know, I think your intervention is a little bit confusing. On one hand you're talking about the courts and the orders of the court that are being flouted, especially by this administration. And then, you know, we're also linking it up with the credibility of the elections and whether they vote will count. Are you talking about the interference of the court within the political process? Because I mean, if that is the case, of course it is a cause for concern. But again, you know, under normal circumstances that we have seen the ignorance weighing on behalf of the courts, you know, trying to insist on the independence of the judiciary and all that. But, you know, over time we have also seen a lot of Nigerians have not exactly been in love with the rulings that are coming out of the court. They say respect begets respect. So you have a court that is involved in the, you know, giving out all kinds of orders. Sometimes when you have even the judgments that have been given by courts of coordinated jurisdiction, you will think that, you know, the courts should also be aware of that. But they're just getting under, they give all kinds of, you know, rulings. And so that in a way has created a lot of anxiety. For long time people have been talking about the need to take electoral matters away from the hands of the judiciary. Because you now have instances where it is the judiciary that is casting the deciding vote on who becomes president or who becomes a senator or governor, you know, or any other position that is being advised for in this country. And that is actually very, very dangerous because you cannot ultimately, at the end of the day, say that you're talking about democracy when you realize that, when it's not tourism, that it is the polling booth that decides who becomes what in this country, the electoral process. So it is a feeling of a great concern. Obviously, INEC has a lot of constraints and the security issues and so many other issues. There are some that are within the purview of INEC to resolve and they have tried to do some things in that direction. But a lot of us are not happy with the outcome of the voters of the collection of a PVC card exercise organized by the INEC because ultimately at the end of the day, millions of people were disenfranchised, not because they were not interested in the process. People who had gone to the different polling units across the country three, four, five, six times to collect their PVCs, they did not collect. I think that is shameful and there is no way one to solve it. A larger sense will not blame INEC for failure in that direction. But INEC has been able to get a lot of things right. But they say that it is the sweetness of the pudding that determines the sweetness. So it is only when we have gone into this election and we have come out of this election if we go in and come out smelling sweet, smelling like roses, then we know that INEC has done an incredible job in the midst of so many contradictions. I think last week, Wednesday, if I am not mistaken, I had a conversation with somebody who was speaking on behalf of CSOs in the country. They had put out a petition against INEC saying that they want a review of the PVC collection prior to elections because they feel that they have gotten so many complaints and I am talking about enough is enough and several other people in that memo who have said they have gotten a lot of responses from Nigerians who said INEC had told, they have a certain date to come get their PVCs and they were unable to get those PVCs on showing up to INEC offices and that is something that you raised. Again, there are those who have also complained about the fact that when they went they couldn't find their PVCs but certain persons from different political parties showed up at their homes with those same PVCs asking them who they would vote for before giving them those PVCs. So the big question again is looking at these PVCs, when INEC has said you cannot get a third party to receive your PVC but then these PVCs are ending up in the hands of people who are so-called representatives of political parties. I know there were a few days away from the elections but should we not be talking about this and maybe shouting about it on the rooftop? No, no, you see, you see where the INEC chairman I think had made that statement at Chatham House in the United Kingdom that there will be no proxy collection for the photo of the PVC can. Some of us smiled and laughed because we knew it was already going on and we had mentioned it to INEC that this was already going on. So we're not surprised about exactly what happened, people turning up at people's houses with their PVCs, asking them who they were going to vote for before they give out these PVCs. Obviously, part of the weakness of INEC is the staff recruited by INEC and we must also understand how this is going to happen. INEC, these people are part of force, they are from our society and so you find a situation where INEC for instance doesn't understand about the need for ad hoc staff. So all manners of people are applied. The politicians are waiting for such opportunities so they get their members to apply to the INEC and they are accepted by INEC. So you find a situation where you have moves within the INEC, working in or fifth columnist if you want to call them that, working on behalf of the politicians. So there's really nothing INEC can do to stop that completely but INEC can try to put very rigorous processes in place to make it difficult for them to do whatever they want to do to undermine the process. For instance, look at what happened in Osho, why some of us at the early stage have praised INEC for doing such a wonderful job and then you see what happened, series of voting in as much as 700 polling units and then obviously some of these people it's very possible that many of them are also partisans. Some of the ad hoc staff of INEC were partisans, recruited under the same circumstance I had mentioned to you and then the fact that even INEC itself acknowledged that there was a voting in six polling units. If there was a voting in six polling units the INEC rule, the recommendation is very clear. When you have a voting, you cancel the votes in that polling unit and then do the election another time. That was not done. Why was it not done? Perhaps because they are most working within the INEC. So these are some of the issues. You're always going to have this discipline there but the only way I think we can challenge that is to ensure that INEC is to ensure that they put in processes that are very rigorous and make it very difficult for this people to do what they can have done so far. There's been a mock election, mock voting. INEC complained about the fact that not a lot of people showed up to test these machines, to test the capabilities of INEC to run these elections and that's going to happen over the weekend next week. I'm guessing maybe a lot of people didn't get the memo to show up for that process but in looking at the beavers and the introduction of technology, which is another concern because at some point INEC raised an alarm that the systems may be vulnerable to hacking and just as we know that this election is very kindly contested and for once in our country's life we're not able to say this is the person we think is going to be the winner of this election because sometimes it's very easy to know where everybody's going to vote but then it's wider than we always expected to be. So I'm wondering, with the issue of the beavers and the introduction of technology and the concerns that people have raised about this beaver is not necessarily being a game changer. Are there other things that people should be worried about or should we all just be certain that when we go out to the elections on Saturday that everything would be fine and Dandy would not really have to worry about anybody trying to hack this? Yeah, well he who makes cannot make. I mean human hands may be the beavers, technology and I think I guess they also have the capacity to make it but you see, it's interesting enough where I was in Abuja with some other CSOs sometime last week where we had I think it was, you know, a 15 of the National Assembly Committee on iNEC and the electoral matters and part of the discussion was the issue of the security and the vulnerability of the beavers and then the iNEC was taken up on that. We had a lot of civil society organizations, security people, members of National Assembly and the media and so somebody took iNEC up on that and then the woman came the very hierarchy official of iNEC came to defend the beavers and said that so far there has not been any serious attempt to undermine the beavers because she said that they bring in from time to time very good ethical hackers they just bring them in to try to tell them to break into the system into the beavers and then they do everything they can and so far it has been impregnable and the reason of course obviously is because they are going to get people half people from outside trying to break into the beavers that's why they bring in these ethical hackers so far so good at least what she has told us and so I do not think that we should be too much worried about the beavers I think the beavers will go through the more accreditation exercise has actually shown us that I mean the turnaround was very good and you know you do it in two ways either you use your fingerprint or you use your fissures and the fissures worked so well in fact in many reports we got all over the country it worked so well it worked so fast you know better than the fingerprint which is also a good thing but I think that what people should be worried about essentially is maybe the issue of security the security forces have given us all assurances about the fact that they believe they can protect Nigerians I don't think they can protect Nigerians you know relatively if they could do that they would have done that all over I mean over the years we have seen an increase in the level of insecurity in the country especially in the lead up to this collection you know simply because the politicians have also joined the ibandis and the terrorists and kidnapped us to cause to try to destabilize the system you know but one thing our 10 Nigerians really is that this is our country somewhere along the line we have to destabilize this country the terrorists or the bad actors do not have the capacity to disrupt on a wide scale the conduct of these elections and that is why you know so you are going to have pockets of incidences here and there but not near enough to cause any panic in the general you know in the country in general okay well we're still talking about concerns and of course paving the way for the elections next week Saturday come back we still have Wemima Adoni at Chikei Chudei and Dr Ndubisi Mokolo stay with us it's still plus politics and we are looking at the road to the 2023 elections which is just a few days away from today and still joining me in the studio this evening is Wemima Adoni a media strategist and a communication expert we also are being joined by Chikei Chudei he's a public affairs analyst and Dr Ndubi Mokolo partner and chief executive of next year SPD I'm going to come back to you Dr Ndubi let's talk about the issue of pre-election violence it's happened on a very huge scale this time Mr President was not left out of it his aircraft was pelted we saw the presidential candidates of the PDP also narrowly escaping some people who tried to attack him we've seen attacks on the Labour Party members while they were here in Lagos recently over last weekend for their I think it was their campaign here in Lagos we've seen several others we saw what happened in Zamfara in Kaduna State the list is endless and it keeps on happening now all we hear half the time is governments talking tough all security agencies saying they're on top of the matter but that's mostly the end of it it seems to be a recurrence now let's look at the Kenyan example a lot of people were afraid for the Kenyan elections that happened last year but one of the most notable things that took place in the Kenyan elections all that was observed during the Kenyan elections is that the violence or the spate of violence was almost at its lowest ebb what should Nigeria be learning from the likes of Kenya and what are they doing that we're not even trying to do Kenyans learned from the last violence that marked the election between Maya Kubiki and the previous president so I think they learned from that now what we're seeing in Nigeria is it's quite interesting to understand first for you to be able to look at the pre-election violence in Nigeria you have to look at each particular one from a very different dynamics and be able to understand it and most importantly you might look at it from single each one either based on the state where it happened to be able to build a scenario and then you can understand it so that was Mr. President what he experienced in that in Kathina or somewhere we could understand that to mean the people reacting against his government or against the Nigerian state that you can easily link to issues of economic issues pressing the country and all that that we understand if we take down that of Lego state which we experienced now there are two ways to look at it you can look at it from 2019 to now and to understand it from an angle of a political party that has been in power in a state and is gradually losing power now what a lot of people don't always look at very well is to know that the dynamics and demography of election in Nigeria is changing is changing that you no longer could say or at least say that the political party one political party is holding sway to a particular place for a very long time I tell people that in the next eight years people who are normally will be considered as non-indigenous will start winning local government chairmen in major cities in the country why? immediately we start having a lot of young people start voting the dynamics will start changing because most young people especially educated young people will vote for who they think will will kind of promote their interest in terms of good governance and all that and all that and pretty do others so that is what you saw in Lego's where the powers that be are gradually losing power to other other political parties and they are fighting back that's what you experience in Lego's now if you look at places like Zaukwara like Seburunu what is it even for us to build a scenario that wherever you have two political parties that are strong, strong in the sense that they are contesting violence to continue to promote why? because no one party dominates the other so if you flip into what you see in Lego's you never experience this kind of violence in Lego's between 1999 2003 2007 because then 80 was a very strong political party in the state so now that you have other political parties making in road into the state and they see themselves struggling to hold on to their supporters they are fighting back so why didn't they fight back 10 years ago or 15 years ago because they were the dominant political party so if you go to a state where you have two dominant political parties with their powers to support us this way or that way you will continue to experience those kind of pre-election violence that's what you see in Zamfara in Zamfara state the governor didn't win the election but he got declared the governor of the state because of issue that apc so he moved over to PDP then he was able to change to apc now remember some elements in apc or some elements in PDP who were not happy with him came together to form a block so you see him fighting back those old blocks in the PDP so that's what you see so the pre-election violence we are experiencing now are occurring in states where powers are almost like matching each other but where you have a dominant political party in a state the pre-election violence are very low especially where they are they don't need to fight anything because they know they are going to win so that's what we are experiencing in most of these states just one quick question because I have to go to Guemima and Achike if you can answer this quickly if these things you're saying is anything to go by you're saying that these might be somewhat state sponsored violence if our security agencies just like Achike said before we went on the break that he's not sure he doesn't have hope that the police can actually cause the question a lot of things now if these violence is holding sway in so many states and it's somewhat state violence and our security agencies cannot put people in line what should we be expecting on election day and really because I heard somebody say today that I think it was you who said today that oh people need to come together in groups and go voting that if we come out in our numbers the people who want to you know somewhat rein violence and us might not be able to do that is that not something we should really worry about let me quickly make a correction these are not state sponsored violence they are not a state sponsored violence is even different from a government sponsored violence so these are okay let me not go into that but for this particular thing these are political parties that are in power trying to use not even the apparatus of the state because most times they won't be using the police or the army but what we know is that the police and the army are either inefficient or non-effective so these are quite different so what you're seeing they are either a dominant political party in the state either because they are in power trying to lord over the other political parties they are not state sponsored violence definitely they are not so that's what you're experiencing some of these things what you will see some of these things is that the police will try as much as possible but because either because of manpower or other form of inefficiency they won't be able to match up to that level that we wanted okay let me come to you I think today this evening just tweeted that the few vehicles that they had that they used in emergency responses when there were issues have been burned down by angry protesters carers that they were managing so now they are unable to respond to any emergencies whatsoever and this got a lot of backlash just picking up from where the doctor stopped should we be putting our hope and our trust in our security agencies and this is not in any way saying that we should not trust security agencies but what is happening and what's on the ground now and even the police spokesperson in Lagos saying that oh well we may not be able to come to your aid because you burned down all our vehicles what's I mean is there any hope whatsoever I mean let's start with the photo that attached that was attached to that street it was a funny post of Sabine it appeared I saved the he was making a joke out of the situation I mean is someone I speak to regularly and I know he's up to his job however like a chicken said earlier do we have trust in our security agencies fighting possible insecurity during elections I totally doubted I doubted because the work of security agencies in Nigeria is usually reactionary this is totally wrong you have an agency like the SSS I mean one of their duties is to anticipate and give government a heads up about possible security breaches have you heard anything about the DSS the DSS all the police anticipate the violence that came after the economic policy of the old and new NIRS swap did we anticipate that was there any nudge to say oh there's a possible security breach here this is what we have done sometimes with our security agencies wait I'm not talking just about the police we've got the NSCC we've got the Nigerian army I mean for internal security breaches and so on and for elections for instance when a person like he says oh now they've burnt our two people that were managing what's that telling you we're not able to help you some of the responses on that post is what I'm going to speak to the Nigerians their responses were totally on point I mean first of all when we had the answers we saw a full force of security show up at the Lekitogi right here in Lagos I mean I wonder where they all came up from so if two bands have been burnt does that mean that in Lagos for instance there's no security cover for legosians does that mean that anything that comes you have to protect yourself I mean and one of the things I also see happening is because a lot of young people will be voting this time around a big thanks to COVID-19 lockdown to the NSAS protest and to ASSO strike which made it able and possible for young persons to get registered and pick up their baby seas remember also the federal government has shut down universities for the elections so we'll have more young persons who before now might not be interested in voting showing up to vote so we're going to see a lot of energy I anticipate it's just my anticipation that those who are planning violence might be matched their energies might be matched as a polling unit because we're going to see when people are voting on the strength of anger they're bringing the anger of the NSAS protest they're bringing the anger of hunger they're bringing the anger of poverty they're bringing the anger of the most recent economic policy that just happened to be I don't know what they're doing they're also bringing the anger of seeing the Supreme Court ruling on elections and everyone is wondering what is going on so I believe the Nigerians are showing up at the polls this time around and they're going to stand with their votes they're going to beat their own security they're going to use their technology to live stream violence and to show the face of those who bring those violent acts because there is so it's now left to a reactionary security force to take it up after them since you brought up the issue of Supreme Court let's delve quickly into the CBN policy I would not necessarily call it policy because I'm still waiting to see the policy document that's backing this move by the governor of the CBN of course he has raised a lot of eyebrows even certain politicians have thought that this particular move was targeted at them to make sure that they lose the election but that's on the one hand if a strategy like this or a policy of this nature were to be put out at this time one would think that there should be maybe some study to see what the pros and the cons would be and how Nigerians would react but then of course we are where we are today and we've seen all that's happened in Ibadaw, in those days etc etc let's look at what Mr. President had to say about this I mean he took the president all of these weeks to be able to speak on this issue first he told us to give him 7 days and then of course he addressed the nation now the president is talking about the fact that 200 Naira is now a legal tender for the next 60 days how does this equal or amount to getting Nigerians out of the situation of the quagmire that we find ourselves in because of course the average person just needs his money it's his money to eat okay let me give you an example with myself so today I needed 200 Naira cash I asked my neighbor for 200 Naira cash because I needed to pay for something that couldn't be transferred for just 200 Naira I swept all of my bags to find the other loose chain that I never thought I would ever need my house is totally now the rest of any form of cash now the idea behind the reproduction of new Naira notes the redesign of the Naira in my opinion is a very good idea I mean in all intents I think it's a good idea but badly implemented but I'm saying badly implemented with my tongue in cheek because I'm also tempted to assume that this was pre-thoughts I think that everything you see happening is exactly what they want to happen now the president's statement which I also read on Twitter on his page also shows us that I mean the president has always known what is going on I mean he says he's giving an instruction out to the CBN to roll out 200 Naira notes does that tell us that the president is instructing the CBN governor on what to do before this time does this point to the fact that the president is also I mean truly trying to make sure that there is reduced vote buying I mean and for a president who's got a candidate from his party also buying for this election is the president against the presidential candidate of his own party in actions and not just in words because he posted about last week that he's supporting the procession candidate of the ABC but his actions they show I mean look at former elections you find that the sitting parties they use the power and the might of the fact that they are in government to make sure that everything works well for their own candidates but I don't see that happening in this instance I see a president who has said that he wants free and fair elections he wants people to vote I mean for whomever they want and he wants their votes to count it attests to me that the president is saying again by actions that he wants the people to choose their own leader and he doesn't want to influence their decisions to them I appreciate that I also appreciate the fact that I mean the CBN says that we have a lot of cash in circulation when it's summer compared to other countries like the US and the UK Nigeria doesn't even have enough cash in circulation in all truth and I expect the CBN to know this and if you're moping up cash without bringing a corresponding amount I believe it was deliberately done now I think to have a bite back because now that there is no cash if someone comes to the poll to buy your votes and offers you cash people might be more tempted to accept it because now they need the cash look at the banks people going to queue up at CBN offices to strap their cash they send back to the banks the banks send them back to the CBN people are going back and pour just to get their own monies so this might have a bad bite in votes buying in my opinion I think I'm coming to you now she's saying it was a badly thought out plan something in chick some people say there was no plan it was just directed at vote buying nobody thought about how this would turn out and how it would affect the common person I'll take you to what the CBN governor talked about he blamed the banks and politicians for hurting the same monies that he told us that they were trying to mop up because they didn't want it to get into the hands of politicians so it makes the common person who needs this money to trade especially the 200 smaller denominations to wonder if this policy so called policy really was not targeted at them because they're the ones who seem to be at the receiving end again with all that's happened how will this one way or the other drive the normal voter to come out and vote on election day because again there's a tendency of people saying well they don't care about us so why should we vote how ready do you think the average voter is for saturday to february 25 well any idea that says well he doesn't care about it it doesn't really matter then let him continue to follow his suffering and in his difficulties it's as simple as that beyond begging people to show interest in what happens in their country it's an act of irresponsibility really for people not to be concerned about what happens to them not just about tomorrow and what happens to their children so it's critical you don't need to beg anybody where we are today I mean the crisis in the country is very very obvious and we all know that it is down to bad leadership and bad followership too that the cbn policy yeah a lot of and I've had quite a lot of Nigerians calling and say look this is a good policy but badly implemented I do not think that where the president gave his speech he was talking about only 10 day consequences I do not think it was the target was the ordinary Nigerians that they would put in this situation where they have to start priority from place to place and all that I agree that it was politically motivated for whatever reason of course you can see one of the presidential candidates lampooning his home government you know that he has supported all this years but somehow feels that the government has taken on a policy that is aimed or targeted at him and then he's fighting back you know but again beyond that again I think the cbn too because in as much as we are going to a portion blend and there's a lot of blend to the cbn you know to be given to be put at the doorstep of the cbn but we must also remember that the cbn was not aware that it has been sleeping with the enemy and the enemies are people who control the banking sector the financial sector the banks and they did I'm sure the cbn did not recon with the kind of rot that is in this country where Nigerians themselves are also you know open arms against their fellow citizens because what we have seen in the past a few days is man's inhumanity to man where you have people outside queuing they have no money to eat they cannot buy bread and all that and then you have these bankers with plenty of money what millions in their votes they choose to bring it up for whatever reason so on one hand you have politicians that are trying to sabotage the effort because they are friends some of them own the banks some of them are directors of the banks some of them are friends to the people who own the banks and all that they also have the ordinary bankers who have used this opportunity who have used this opportunity to make profit ultimately it is the ordinary people you know that that suffer and that is exceedingly very fortunate now how is it going to affect the turnout of voters if the voters like I said they want to you know it's their concern they will pay the price if they don't but beyond that is the fact that a situation such as this rather than do the opposite of keeping people at home should be able to inflame them to great passion to want to come to punish the people or to teach the people who put them in this situation a lesson that is you know it is said a hungry man is an angry man though people are beginning to say that maybe that proverb you know or that adage is not meant for Nigeria because we've seen great hunger in this country great frustration and we have not seen requisite anger that should back up the you know the suffering or the hunger that they are experiencing so hopefully and that's what I expect you know the politicians have put us in this situation and there must be a price to pay because if you look at what the ruling party is, the ruling party mobilized Nigeria along these lines you know to go against the party that it acike are you still there acike can you hear me I'm sorry I don't think that we can hear acike anymore but well I want to say thank you at this point unfortunately I want to say thank you what we are doing is a media strategy and communications express acike today is a public affairs analyst and Ndun Wokolo is a partner and chief executive of next year SPD it's been a very great and wholesome conversation tonight lady and gentlemen thank you very much for being part of it thank you, thanks for having me thank you all for joining us tonight well that's the show tonight we will be back tomorrow talking for development and of course as we gear up for the elections don't forget the elections are very very important and we do have consequences get ready to vote on Saturday, February 25 I am Mary Anacone have a good evening