 Welcome once again to the breakfast here on Plus TV Africa. Our discussion this morning is about the local government and how important it is. The local government elections held in Ogum and Lagos states on Saturday and were marred by low voter turnout. While we're yet to get official figures, most places our correspondents went to had just a few voters. Voting was expected to begin at 8am and end at 3pm across Lagos state with a curfew already in place and thus was what Ajawe State polling unit was like at Isolo early in the morning. Voting was yet to start even with people already on the queue at polling unit 009. The presiding officer was on a phone call and we tried to find out what the challenge was. The card reader, the password is rejecting the card reader so which they are coming to rectify it right now but so far so good, election has been peaceful, people are really behaving. From Ajawe State we headed to First Tag which was just as peaceful. A dead guy who had just saw a PDP chairmanship candidate Amowo Odofin cast his vote. I'm impressed with this massive turnout. As you can see, people are all over ensuring that they come out to exercise their rights as citizens of Amowo. Let's all come out to exercise our rights. It is our right. One man, one vote. Our next spot of call was Ikeja. The polling unit here had few voters. One of them 001 on Adeni Ujone Strait was where the PDP State chairman cast his vote. He's displaced with the low turnout. This is very sad if you look at it, you can put to the camera right there. I'm the only one that has voted here today, you know, and that shows the level of trust, the level of anarchy that is going on inside the people in a democratic setting when the people don't believe in a process. There will be a day that they will show their anger somehow. He also had this to say to his political counterpart. Take this opportunity to just plead with we politicians, you know, on both sides of the divide, whether PDP, whether APC, that the people are the ones that matter, the youths are the ones that matter, it's not us anymore. There were diverse opinions here at the Laos Award F polling unit. People are not coming out to vote, I don't know the reason why. For this particular award, the turnout is quite impressive. I could see many people here in the morning before coming to cast my own votes. We next headed to Lagos Island for more observation. And here at Wahab Falawiyo Junior High School Osborne polling unit, the complaint was about a missing polling unit. We've gone there, sort of two units there, we met one here again, instead of two, we met one. And we are asking why, where is the other one? Because we know that's the way the re-election. Between it is supposed to be at 14 points, but we only saw one, the other side and this one, and we are wondering what is happening, who is in charge. And there's no senior officer from Lassé that we can aware from, and that's the problem behind this. So if this can happen here then what is granted that the re-election is free and fair? Fifteen political parties are registered for the election according to the Lagos State Independent Electro-Commission. Jacinta Obuco for PLOS TV Africa. Yes, this morning, his Executive Chairman, Committee for Protection of People's Mandates. Good morning, Mr Nelson and Kujumi. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning to our viewers. All right. Welcome. All right. The conversation from Saturday's local government polls, first of all, it was described as very almost abandoned, seeing the low turnout of voters. The governor of the state, of Lagos State, Babajidesong Wulu, made mention of the same thing, you know, and of course stated that it was peaceful, but the voter turnout was very low. Why do you think that this, you know, happened? Yes, thank you very much. The turnout of voters on Saturday, July 24th, 2021, Lagos State Local Government election that was mad by voters a party, can be attributed to so many factors. You look at it from the lack of democracy within the political parties, because you expect that these are political parties that have members, and even if any of that person is not coming out to vote, how about the members of this political party? Where are they? It tells you clearly that, you know, the lack of confidence in the candidates that they might as it is, well, as I said, you know, so they can use these parties in this state. Also, a lot of these parties, if you ask me, they are more of business parties only when election is knocking at the door, which shouldn't be so. These parties are supposed to be the opposition party. They are supposed to be showing out statements, programs, that we endear them to the people. The bride does not get to know the groom on the eve of the wedding. They must have cut her for quite a long time. A lot of these parties have not cut her, the Nigerian populist, and that is responsible for people who have seen this, I don't even know, I don't even know their candidates. So, to recognize that, and the voting populist is, you know, is non-existent, just parties. And also look at the issue of economy. The economic situation of the country, the political situation of the country has also contributed to the voter party. You look at the essence of governance, the grassroots level, the government that has been in power in the last few couple of years, how have they delivered on their promises? How have the people felt, you know, the governance at that grassroots level? So if those are the aim of affairs, have not shown out policies, programs that will affect the lives of the people, then the people we expect might put in the last five years. They wrote my suite, nothing has happened there. The security of my locality is nothing to write to me about, I'm the one providing it. I don't feel any essence of the local government except to pay, except for the refuse that comes to the left-wing selectors. That's the essence of governance that I feel. Alright, Mr. Akujomi, we're going to get back to the relevance of the local government because it's one thing that I had spoken about before and I pointed out that, you know, it's one of the reasons a lot of people didn't show up because they haven't been able to feel the relevance of the local government level in any way. So before we get there, I want you to speak more about the relationship between the parties and the people, which you also just mentioned. From what you've described, there's no relationship, they only show up a few weeks to the elections and that's when you even hear that there are candidates coming up for elections. Why do you think that, you know, this has been, why don't the parties care about the people enough, you know, until it's time for elections? Because the political parties are not run as political parties. Political parties, you have a membership, a registered, a political parties, you have a program for members that when there are even people who are sitting on the fence, they are the same thing that is propagating. The parties should not just believe that they exist only to come and call your votes or at election time. I will be very, very scared. I will want a relationship to have existed between us so that at any point in time we can knock on each other's door. The parties themselves are, the people are not known to the parties, also the parties are not known to the people and this has affected the relationship between the parties and the voting populace and that is what we have seen at the local government, there is no relationship. Like I said, no marriage can be consummated, a marriage will be fought with danger. Even in those days, in the days of you all, when you used to tell us that our parents were giving out a marriage to, maybe my mother was giving out a marriage to my father, at least before the day it would be consummated, my parents must have got it to know the other parents. They have made a purpose to know themselves before them but this idea of political parties believing that they can only approach us for our votes, when election is knocking at the door, is very, very inimical to the people we must have on. Everything should not be about money, there are several mediums that you can use to reach the people that are out. Alright, you said good to me. You've made really important points here and I would always like to remind viewers that at every time, in four years and eight years, there is a local government chairman, there's a person who holds that seat that is responsible for certain details of the life of an electorate but it seems like these people don't exist and I'm sure that if you ask the next 50 people on the street who is the current local government chairman in Etiosa or any other local government, I'm sure a good 30 wouldn't know who he is. So this basically paints a picture of the lack of interest with many, many thousands actually of people who should have come out to vote on the day of the election. One of the persons that I had spoken to had said that it is because of a lack of trust in the electoral process and that's why people stayed away from voting. Do you agree that that's the challenge here, that the electorate and legosians and people in Nogustate also don't trust the process and so they didn't bother showing up to vote? Well, it is not impossible for people not to trust the process. Don't forget, even in the Bible. We had a doubting Thomas and there are so many Thomases in the world. A lot of persons tend to distrust even what they have not tested before and when you ask, they cannot give you a quotient or logical reason for not trusting. What you have not tried, I see no reason why you should distrust it. It's like they say, the taste of the pudding is in the eating, but most importantly, the political parties are the ones that are supposed to generate interest that will develop into trust. The political parties are not communicating enough with the people, but if they hope they can guarantee, even if we have doubting Thomases, they will be very, very negligible. But like we always say in the democracy, what majority we have there, majority we have there persons that they don't believe, it's their right, we cannot, there's nothing we can do to them. They have to engage them to make them see, to give them the benefit of doubt. Even relationships we go into, it is made of trust, I'm talking to you this morning because your reporter spoke to me yesterday night and had the trust that we don't have the trust. And I was like, I got up early to be on this program. If I didn't have the trust, I would have just said, when you really call me, would the program hold? But because I had that faith and it is because of the relationship that we have had over the years. So there's this thing for us to invest more in our political parties in that way. Alright. Okay, Mr. Ikujumi, now I want us to focus on the failure of the local government level of governance. Some of the responsibilities that I expected, I'll quickly share before we get to ask why the local government level seems to be failing. Control and provision of markets and motor parks, collection and disposition of refuse, making recommendations, provision and control of cemeteries and slaughterhouses, regulation and issuing of birth and death marriage certificates also. They also issue various type of licenses, naming of streets, collection of rates and taxes, building and maintaining of schools and colleges, awarding bursaries and scholarships also. Control of public housing, town and housing planning, provision of public libraries, provision of pipe on water and other public institutions, and numerous responsibilities that the local government should have. Mr. Ikujumi, does your local government do any of these things or more? Well, from my own of that mission of my local government, my local government has involved itself in the construction and reconstruction of roads. My local government has involved itself in the provision of markets. My local government only recesses when the rescue collector arbitrarily increase the monthly fee with pay. My local government's administration intervenes and reduced the price through its intervention. This is what, for example, in my local government, in some other local governments, the local governments are doing one thing or the other. But the problem we have is that people are not asking questions. We are, we must not also forget that a lot of local government functions and responsibilities have been subsumed by state interference. You know, in the past, local governments would collect regular free licenses fees. But now, all those have been subsumed under the amalgamated land use charge. A lot of the functions of local governments is not claim to people. And that is why I say the governments and the authorities need to have a robust engagement with the people so that if you make an alternate, you can accept them. You know, that's how we do it. All these engagements with people at the localities to carry them along. So these are many things are missing in the local government's administration. And that is why people must feed. We are the people with, you know, mobilized, that look, this is democracy. Democracy by the poor. And if people are the focus, you see, if they are any administrator at whatever level, be it at the local government, be it at the state, be it at the federal level, it can face a lot of sense. If you actually if you ask people, like I've already said, we don't know a person. Oh, they say in a local that, you know, that the official office is on the side. A lot of people don't know the, the, the police are trying to look at it. Well, in the election administration, and you tell them, somebody asked you, they said they are ready to vote for the administration. And I want to go to the local government office. So first of all, we are seeing the local government looking. And you'll be wondering, is this, even in this locality at all, that you don't know the local government. So the people themselves, in as much as government is in response to the energy incident, they themselves must be willing to go to the mountains. The mountains will not go to the mountains. The mountains will go to the mountains. So it is important for us to organize that governance begins at this level. And that is why the latest political, the latest political system, please, we are set to look at the issue of industrial autonomy for local governments. It's a big factor has prevented them from having their constitutionality. It's a fundamental challenge. And that is why the plumber of the industrial government are kidding in a public discourse that put these courts to give a ruling not too long ago, very recently, that no governor has the power to put the constitution to a protected government. And the, any but, collapse of the local government session, what has generated threats. So they'll pick up insecurity. You know that insecurity starts at the local level because there's no pattern free where equity is ravaging, that is the local government. So the lack of governance disconnects three, four, and four. It's what the local government, that is what you have seen in the voter party as the election should go. So if the press is there, people will come out to vote. People will come out to the side of their face. Some of the problems we have dealt with, two engagements, will be getting to the president. And the society will be the better for it. It is interesting that we must come up with an autonomy for local government that is going to have to have the running of government because it is affected just like the local government. Because the elected, all the people, the local government is one always to the governor. Because the people that elected him, and that is what the constituent budget says. Partition of the budget constitution by state governors or state governments interfering in the administration of the local government, should be, should be, should be eliminated if it's of law. It is condemnable. All right. Nersene Kujumi, thank you very much. We apologize for the network challenges that we had. But I thank you for adding your voice to this conversation. And of course, it's a conversation that must continue until we're able to revive the relevance of the local governments here in Nigeria. Good morning once again, and thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. All right. And that's where we wrap up the breakfast this morning. The conversation, I believe, will continue. And of course, we will continue to bring these types of issues up here on the breakfast to enable people learn a little bit more about the local government level of governance. And if you once again, you know, want to do a quick challenge, ask the next 20 random people you meet, who their local government chairman is, and see how many people actually know who that person is, or what his name is, or even where their local government office is. Thanks for staying with us. If you missed out on any of the conversations you remember to catch up on our social media platforms, it's at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook and Instagram. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel at PLOS TV Africa and PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle. I am Osao Gie, Ogboa. See you tomorrow.