 Welcome back, it is still the run-up and we've just had that very enlightening conversation about the presidential candidates that we have in case you're just joining us. We are moving on to talk grassroots politics. It has been established that grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations are collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national or international level. It is sometimes called grassroots government because it is concerned with matters close to home such as licensing, community health, primary school education, etc. The decision making body at a local level is called the council. The representatives who are elected to that council are called councillors and the leader is called the local government chairman like we have in Nigeria. To have the conversation about grassroots politics in Nigeria with me, I have Babashola Oaje. Good morning, Babashola, you're welcome. Babashola, are you there? Can you hear me? Good morning, I can hear you. Let us start from the background. Can you give us a brief introduction of what grassroots politics is about? Okay, so basically grassroots politics is the politics closest to you. So when we're talking about politics at the presidential level, we know that we're looking at the macro snapshots of what politics is really about. When you're talking about grassroots politics, you talk about the mode of governance, the positions in government that are closer to the people. When we talk about the councillors, the members of the State House of Assembly, you talk about the local government chairman. These are the people that are the embodiment of grassroots politics. Okay, so how would you rate politics at that level in Nigeria? Talking about grassroots politics, a lot of times conversations don't even reach there. The 2023 general elections is upon us. People are talking so much about the presidential elections. Governorship elections at the state level, people in different states are concerned about it, but nobody is mentioning anything about the local government elections. How would you rate politics at that level in Nigeria? Last year, when we had the local government elections in Lagos State, according to statistics that came out, I think it was just about 7% of the people in Lagos that voted in that local government election. It was really poor because this is the level of governance we really need to pay attention to. A lot of people don't even know who their councillor is in their area. They don't even know what local government chairman is in charge in their local government. And that is where we get it wrong. We put a lot of energy on the presidency, the state governor, but we don't even know who our local government chairman is. We don't even know who our councillor is. And we really, really need to pay attention. The other day, I was speaking to some people in the area, and they don't even know the current House of Assembly member representing their constituency. They don't even know what a constituency means. So we have a lot of work to do in terms of reorientation and proper education of what grassroots politics really is to the people. You've mentioned a couple of things, but what would you say is the biggest challenge to grassroots development and politics in Nigeria? I think the biggest challenge is political institutions. We are not doing enough. And when I mean political institutions, I'm talking about INEG, the political parties. Even the ministry, I mean, we have a Ministry of National Orientation. These are the people that are meant to teach people, teach us and orientate us on the necessary tenets of grassroots politics. We make a lot of noise about the other posts in governance, totally neglecting the most important part, which is the lower cadres of government. So I would put the blame on the dust step of political leaders, our political institutions in the country. We're not doing enough in that regard. Okay, so do you think there is a need to reconceptualize the grassroots or what we call the local government in Nigeria? Because you just mentioned how the government institutions affect things that go on in this area. Do you think it's about the way or the concept that we have of the local government? Do you think there is a need to re-strategize or in my own words, re-conceptualize the grassroots politics? I would go with orientation. That is what we really need, massive orientation. We might want to argue that local government autonomy would play a part in helping us to understand grassroots politics better. But I don't even think we're there yet. Local government autonomy or not, we still have to orientate people. It's very important. You'll be surprised that market women know they are larger than they are councilors. So the orientation is very important in such that our traditional institutions as well. I mean, I did say we also need to encourage, permit me, our religious institutions to orientate and teach their people on the need to understand grassroots politics. It's very, very important. There are some politicians that have mastered the art of using grassroots politics to capture their constituents, to capture their area, capture their community. But it's usually one-sided when these things happen. So we need an awakening at the national level actually because a lot of people tend to look towards the macro aspect of governance, which is the presidency and the governors. These people have a lot of work to do in telling, in directing their political associates, their political colleagues on sending massive orientation downwards towards a funnel approach, towards grassroots politics in their various local governments and in their various constituents. I understand that you're running for office and you have all these ideas about grassroots politics and the local government. How has politics at that level helped you in your own campaigns as you're running for office? Okay, thank you very much. So last year, during the local government elections, I contested as well. So I was able to learn a lot. You see, the thing about, I am running for the Postal House of Assembly in Koshofe 1 and I've been able to understand, so first of all, we need to know the words that constitute the constituency. Since we have gone past that level of knowledge, the next thing to do is to reach out to the members of the constituency one by one. Now when I mean one by one, I don't mean going to each and every one of them, but you can find them in clusters. A lot of people have small groups. They have community development associations, CDAs, and we've been able to reach out to them one by one. Politics really at the grassroots is about reach. The reach is very, very important. And what we've done is to micro-analyze these various groups and to see how we can reach them one by one to sell the dream and sell the ideology we're trying to push towards the election. All right. Thank you so much for joining the run-up this morning. It was a really nice conversation with you. Thank you for opening our eyes to grassroots politics. It was really enlightening. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. All right. It is still the run-up. We will be going on a quick break. When we return, the run-up will continue. Do not go anywhere. Stay with us.