 Nigeria seeks needs more than laws to hold credible elections says Deputy Senate President Omoa Gigi and the Yoruba Group are fenifera urges Nigerians to resort to defending themselves against insecurity. This is plus politics, a dire merry Anaconda. The Deputy Senate President Ovi Amo Omoa Gigi has said that the perfect law in itself cannot guarantee credible elections as long as other parts of the election process remains flawed. Joining us to discuss this is a legal practitioner Jiru Logo and social analyst Kevin Akkoji. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you very much. I want to start with you Baiso Logo because Senators Omoa Gigi obviously is one of our lawmakers. He is the second in command obviously on the floor of the Senate and we cannot talk about the electoral process if we do not talk about the the electoral law which is still facing some backlash and there are certain things in that well law that is still pending and remember what happened over the past months you know back and forth on the PIB and the electoral act or bill which is supposed to be law but let's step back a bit. Senators Omoa Gigi is obviously looking at the fact that it's not just enough for us to have laws but then there are other parts that we need to play to make sure that the whole electoral system in itself is workable but but do you buy into this narrative do you also agree with him that there are certain things we need to do other than the law? Absolutely you know and I try myself with his position because we need to push the law back to the very essence of law which is the rule of law which means law itself should prevail and the rule of law is a principle by which all persons institutions and entities are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated equally enforced and directed at regulating society towards national development and if under the present laws we have we have not been able to achieve much I doubt if by coming up with new laws or additional laws we are likely to achieve more in the sense that let's even put the amendment that is going on in the electoral act to test even though the existing law gives INEG the power to transmit results of election electronically you can see the amendment that is being brought in that that will be subject to NCC you know and that is a way of trying to gag INEG to tie the hands of INEG and of course suspicion comes in under that so it's not about having laws but about our respecting the laws I have said it before that I particularly monitored the election of 2019 and almost all the electoral offenses were committed as are today how many have been prosecuted in respect of those crimes how many have been convicted I mean if you don't prosecute how do you compete so I agree with him and according to him he's saying that except we have a sustainable electoral process that is established on adequate electioneering culture I think I said with that and that is when we can have a credible a fair and an election we can present to the world as standing the test of democracy so and if that is coming from the second in command in the National Assembly I think there is hope for this country so what he needs to do further is to prevail on his colleagues in the other hands of government that you know the rule of law is what can make us step up on the platform of practicing true democracy and delivering good governance to the people just as you rightly said he behoves upon him and his colleagues to make you know certain legislation that would help but I thought about this all day all of the major parts all of the moving parts of our electoral system that he is making reference to cannot actually be fixed in isolation of the law so if we do not have laws that are strong enough to be enforced enforceable laws I mean whether people are here to or rather come together to try to make the electoral system work or not those laws are what will be effective in the long run so can you say that we let's reform our electoral system without having laws that are stringent and as strong enough to hold people accountable you know like like I mentioned and that is the absolute position in this matter we have laws in the country if we have complied with the laws we have trying to enhance the capacity of this laws will be welcome but we have not even respected the laws on ground for example let me try and recite what we have in section 15 of the Nigerian Consulate in Nanasamende it says in subsection 1 that the motto of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be unity faith peace and progress have we been able to deliver on that the answer is no and it further says that accordingly the national integration shall be actively encouraged and you can see how polarized the nation is now in subsection 4 it says that the state shall foster a feeling of belonging and of involvement among the various people of the Federation to the end a loyalty is expressed to the nation that overrides sectional realities can we claim to have achieved that the answer is no so it's not about having more laws it's not about amending the existing laws it's about allowing the law itself to have its way in the society but what have we experienced we have had some players who overrun the powers of the laws and they take laws into their hands so what is the essence of focusing on the laws why don't you focus on the culture of respecting the laws of the land and then if you look at section 15 of section 5 of the same constitution it says that the state shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power and can we claim to have achieved that the answer is no so let's focus on what we have if we cannot respect fully the laws we have now having additional laws it's not likely to make any difference so the first thing that we should focus on is changing our culture to the rule of law if we respect the rule of law we make progress but if we continue to disrespect the rule of law it doesn't matter we may make laws that can fill the whole earth there will be many less okay Mr. Koji this this question Koji I beg your pardon this question is for you following up on what Mr. O'Logan has said taking a look at our electoral system and and why political parties are being run the way they are and I always bring this up with you know spoke expressions of different political parties in this country as opposed to what we have outside the country political parties have ideologies they have a modus operandi but ours does not necessarily fall you know in that line so with all of the things that we see even in the APC the PDP and the back and forth that's been happening does it seem like we're willing to you know have a country that has a clear cut political system that is not just political got further driven but people driven the ideologies of those parties can appeal to the people of the country but in our case we do not really have that so really can we achieve a free fair credible election anytime soon talk less of having an electoral system that works okay thank you very much for that introduction so basically I think I want to take a point of departure our political parties all have ideology they do what we have concern is its practice why because the system is bedeviled with a whole lot of abnormalities which is why we see them not adhering to the ideologies in all fairness to the electoral management body before a political party is registered you need to submit set of set or series of documents itemizing what you stand for even as simple as the logo that is going to embody your political party and so an ideology is actually placed embedded in that constitution or in that particular ideation that they call their political party the challenges is it followed to the letter and the answer is no and so let's get the theory right the theory is always right because we always use the best consultants to put these documents together and that is why the election management body will always and every time whenever someone applies to register a political party the party will go through all the screening processes and they will come out a hundred over hundred and so the ideology straight is available is straight but they do not follow it which regards to credible elections I do not want to put a whole lot of let me take a minimalist perspective on this what at the criteria for a credible elections we have who use the word inclusiveness every person that is of universal suffering that's 18 years and above has the right to vote and voted for is that accommodated yes transparency the process in which persons that want to run for office the process in which they come out from their political parties the process in which the election takes place and the process in which the results are read is it followed to the letter now there comes the clause no because even without me putting out figures pictures and videos for everyone to see we know that there are some lapses and so we are not up to a hundred percent with transparency the next is accountability the results that are being called out are they called out devoid of influence or change or time or location with regard to the need to the numbers are called and can this number be verifiable after two three years after the election show someone go through a tribunal and they are making weary with regards to the results and then lastly competitiveness so if at all we'll say in fairness the election moneyman body increases that inclusiveness is taking note of transparency is taking note of accountability is taking note of competitiveness is taking note of but the practice has always been the challenge so yes I agree with the deficit president in saying that the laws are not enough because I don't want to even say we need more laws the existing laws even as they are can actually deliver a free fair and credible election but how many persons can stay true to the facts of nationalism for God and country and discharge their duties in all fairness and regards for the position they are running for and the duties in which they are striving to want to appeal that has been the major concern within the Nigerian political ecosystem but that means me I mean you literally have almost answered all the questions that I wanted to ask you but let me just let's battle a bit to the issue of political parties and the member the people that they throw up at the end of the day because I want to refer to a statement that was credited to senator Amoghage he said I referred to how candidates emerge on political party platforms campaign rallies and rules general political actions towards fair credible elections and political participation by voters so he's I mean he obviously is a member of a political party and he seems to be querying how these things are done and you also pointed to some of those things but let's talk about the modus operandi of these political parties and how Nigerians were very quick to say that oh we have to either one lesser demon and a greater demon so we go for the lesser demon but how about what about our participation in how these people are emerged at the end of the day again in this part of the world we call politics a dirty game so even the people who seem to have the slightest idea or would be able to affect some changes never really are interested in joining political parties so what kind of change do we want what kind of miracle are we expecting if we're not part of the process in those political parties let's let's let's take it from here personally with regards to the anomalies that will come up with regards to persons that come out from a political party the only person we need to hold responsible is the electoral man in mind body they at every time in any party primaries or selection are always present and the idea of their presence is to ensure that it just process is followed through but still yet we have anomalies such that we might have a certain political party having two primaries side by side and unfortunately in that same existence we have members of the election money man body present in both instances so for this particular normally we can only put the axe right on the election money man body they need to do a whole lot to ensure the sanity of that process but the election management body comes in when the party is about to have its primaries but I'm saying before the emergence of the person who becomes a flag bearer there's internal party politics and that internal party politics decides or determines who finally becomes that flag bearer now I'm asking this question because of the issue of godfatherism and and you know who who tells who selects who to become I mean we remember in in recent months there were people who were saying when it came to local government elections in Lagos state a lot of people were pointing to the leader of the APC that apparently he had a hand in who would run for office and he came out to say well whoever is able to throw his hat into the ring should you know participate so that's why I was going with this question we're not part of the process but then we're hoping that if somebody who is good enough can run or be a party flag bearer we only wait to get to the polls to be to say oh we want to have free for incredible elections so I ask the question again how do we ensure that the process in itself is clean for and very transparent before we even get to the polls in itself a political party does not exist in isolation the strength of a political party comes from her membership the management and the executive body and so if persons do not enter that particular political party and sanitize it you'll be bedeviled with all the ills that will come out from the process that brings up the person that will represent them as the official flag bearer or candidate and so in fairness the election of my name and body in this part now they do not have a role in that they can be present and watch and observe but they cannot take any action and so it behoves on that political party to remember why they were created in the first instance what was the essence of their existence what value are they bringing to the political ecosystem of the country in Nigeria or the particular position that the persons are running for with regard to the primaries because it did not hold that particular position so close at all or hold it in extreme value they will play with the issue and that's why you now have issues of when somebody that just joined the party yesterday now becomes a flag bearer tomorrow why because they allowed those excesses to hold sway and so for that we push it back to the heads of the political parties they need to hold the bull by the horn just like we have in the federal system of government we have different levels of government you cannot hold the national body as the primary arbiter or the person responsible for what takes place in the local government or the arbiter of what takes place in the on the sub national level that is the state okay on each level of on each level there needs to be level of responsibility ownership and leadership and so that leadership needs to be transparent and they need to get their jobs done because the government and the all of the pay taxes and follow-up governments cannot come and force them to have a credible system and so if not that many a times we are shameless let's call it speedy speed and so we do not care the process in which these persons come up we just go ahead put things together so long as some pockets are oiled so long as some wallets are filled they go ahead and present a person and then there is no opposition in that same political party which regards to saying no this is what we stood for in our constitution stating X Y and Z that for you to be able to run for a position in the party you need to be a member of the party for over four months five months as the case may be you need to be financially active member of the party but that is not what we have now in practice in presently Nigeria we have persons especially we all understand the whole idea of the campaign till tomorrow I still do not understand why we make ease of that convenience we are in someone moved from one party conveniently to the other just to run for an office to make sure he wins and continues to force himself in office for a certain agenda and so if those particular political parties do not hold themselves through to the constitution of their existence as well as your responsible your responsibilities to the society and then to the government at large will continue to have this anomalies and then this anomalies will present persons that will come and run for office and then as usual at the final analysis when they win their positions and they are acting in power we come and we're making reference to them and they say no do not talk to me I bought my election okay and then you see you see them now being anti-party why because they came to the party and bought the entire party hierarchy and then they became the candidate of the party and so now they are not responsible to you because they have paid you off day before yesterday so you cannot come now today and hold them responsible for the action as the case may be interesting let me go back to Barista logo still talking about the you know Senator and the the issues he referred to I called you has talked about emergence let's talk about campaign rally rules one of the people or a group of people that has really constantly been on the necks of politicians and governments in this country is Sarah for almost five years if I'm not mistaken if not more Sarah has been asking political parties in this country to show their party finances they've not been able to make it public therapists in courts five years down the line our political parties are yet to make public their party finances since I'm all gig it also talked about campaign rally rules do we really follow these rules to the latter because we see I mean right now if we if you take a look at the election calendar it's so messy that you know sometimes you you sometimes forget what election is happening at what time of the year so let's talk about those rules let's talk about openness and party financing transparency why is it such a tough call for politicians and political parties you know I I started by amplifying the essence of the rule of law and it's established that no country can maintain a rule of law society if people do not respect the laws everyone must make a commitment to respect laws legal authorities and of course the basic ethical behaviors expected from stakeholders and you can see now like rightly mentioned syrup is trying to touch on the accountability aspect of good goodness or the same authority that is driving the leadership process it's not willing to cooperate with the process of justice so what do you have we just have a society that is being held in the neck by a group of persons who are benefited from the people by getting into offices and that is the point we are making in a true democracy we have the upward revolving authority which means authority belongs to the people and they now pass it over to those who are elected to manage their affairs but you and I know that in our beloved country the moment they get into that office most of them become untouchable and it's achieved they don't hear the electorate anymore or they push the electorate to a corner until they start preparing for the next election and that is in itself is a dangerous signal we need a leadership that we subject herself to the accountability and to present their activities to the people whether demanded or not and if you look at the scenario of executive order in the United States of America executive order emanated from this expectation when the president called on the key players in the in government that come you have to come and present to the people your score cards but here we keep begging for these protesting and asking for responsible leadership but we hardly find it and I try I agree that this is not a function of the laws we have if you go by the laws we have in this country this country should be sanitized but we just do not respect the laws for example you may ask what are the basic principles of law generally speaking we have the principle of natural justice everybody is equal under the law can we say the same can I claim to be equal with a strong politician when we all engage the laws of the land and everyone's rights are important you just make reference to one now I have the right to know how much are you expending in your campaigns and everything these things are documented but if you request for it what we happen look at what happened in this country recently the acting chairman of EFCC was pushed out of office on the basis of some allegations where is it today it's not being prosecuted so if those allegations were strong enough to move in from office do we end it there are we not reinforcing crime in the land but you just find that some personalities appear to be above the law and everybody has the right to fear treatment you know look at the reference my wonderful colleague made to the primaries you just find situations where you claim to be engaging in primaries to produce candidates and some powerful weeks just come around impose candidates on people and we call that the more present that's one of the issues that is burdened or more again now that we need to look at the whole value chain of our electoral processes and be able to present to the world if not a perfectly credible electoral processes but it's something that is enhanced and if we cannot achieve that then why are we going about making more laws and these are the positions some of us have you know a look at to agree with him you know and when we say procedures must be fear it must be fear on bias relevant and appropriate process to produce good governance but if you go to the boardroom and try to do what we call returns on investment look at how much you have invested electoral processes in terms of finance and time you know have we gotten value we claim that our society is getting better what has happened to the primary purpose of government in section 14 subsection 2 of the Nigerian constitution 1999 as amended it says that the security and the welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government as are today the unemployment rate in Nigeria is 33% as are today the total indebtedness of my great nation it's about 33.11 trillion naira as against 12.12 trillion naira in 2015 you see and we can go on and on look at the killings all around the bandit's the unknown government the terrorism in the land so when you look at all these you must be interested in driving an advocate that let's change our culture let's change our attitude let's change our mindset to governance and when we lay that solid foundation we can now begin to empower and expand the cost of the laws we have right now my argument and I only is that we have enough laws to make things work in this country and if some are in doubt I'm appealing to our great audience this evening please create time to study section 14 section 17 of the Nigerian constitution 1999 as amended you be amazed at the provisions that are there and I have always argued that if the provisions in this chapter 2 are implemented up to 60% Nigeria will be the top richest country in the world and that is my position so it's not about the law all right it's about allowing the prevalence of the laws and complying with the laws of judging ourselves to the laws and ensuring that the laws are effective when you have ineffective laws it's as bad as you don't have laws at all okay finally let me come back to you Mr. Kojai voter education we all know that there's been this continuous voter registration online and some people have to still go in person and we still see that that a lot of people are not as open to these registrations people are not taking it as serious as they should and let's not forget in 2015 in 2019 I beg your pardon we saw a drop in the number of people who registered to vote in fact the number of people who registered were more than the number of people who showed up at the polling units to vote and then of course again if you look at what happened here in Lagos state during the local government elections I like to make reference to it there was I mean barely anybody at the at the polling units so do we wait till it's close to election season then we see the NOA with the little impressed they're given try to do what they call voter education what do we need to do because we keep talking about free fair credible elections but then we keep failing to address these teasing problems such as people not even being interested in the electoral process in itself and because maybe because they do not agree with the fact that it can be credible and free okay so if I may just engage in some form of definition what you just mentioned in simply in simple form is voter party and if I may read lack of interest in participating in elections by a certain group of voters you cannot force someone to engage in the electoral process that is one because it's their right to vote or be voted for yeah it is a right to talk over you it is they're right but what what gives you the right to try to ask for good governance if you do not engage in the electoral process or in the picking process not voting is also making a choice of sorts so why complain at the end of the day and we see a lot of that coming from Nigerian then you go down to the ingredients of voter party what will make me feel that if I cast my vote it doesn't make a voice if the ecosystem in question has no credibility I won't waste my time let me use that adjective remember our voting process is bedeviled with insanity you need to actually take your bath and prepare yourself to waste a whole day take note of the additive waste to make sure that your vote is casted and then mandate protection which is what we do now in 2021 because we have gone past the idea of voting because right now in Nigeria the idea of mandate protection is even more sacrosan than even voting because it's not enough to vote and you go home because right now we have instances where you vote go home and the next thing you will find out is that the election in your particular award has been cancelled why because thugs came and cut away with the election with the ballot box or in case where whatever natural circumstances happened in the space of two minutes and all the ballots were missing or in case where the person that is supposed to declare the vote of the ballot of the that particular award is put under duress and so with all of these things existing in an ecosystem persons who always cast a passion as passions to their roles in that particular election and this particular option is down to the government in question if basic needs are not made available if all i'm thinking of is working my life out nine to nine and then i come home to rest and on saturday which is the only day that i'm supposed to rest there is an election in as much as i have a say in that local government or in that particular world by the grace of myself i don't want to use god because by the grace of myself i will want to rest because i have suffered a whole lot for 364 days and on the 365th day i'm supposed to come for an election that will or in many cases i will be chased away from the back from the unit because thugs have come and they've raised arms and they have made everybody scared of the location and then we run away okay in that particular case is the government that needs to take the bow by the horn okay you have put laws do not exist not enough you have put processes in place you have employed persons to manage the election process parties have taken their time to put their observers they've been taking their time to bring out persons to run for offices government should make the polling process sanitize such that persons all right with clear mind can come out and cast their vote or even think of casting their votes if for anything we present the election moneyman body for taking the bow by the horn and starting the voter registration process early most times we know why they do not start this process early so that the whole lot of persons can be disenfranchised well but in this case now for 2021 they've started the voter registration process to be earlier than before and so i'm i'm actually very hopeful as a young man in politics as an aspirant of good governance as a faithful Nigerian this is one of the greatest times of my life that i believe that there's hope for 2023 because for start we're going to have a lot of persons that will have registered to vote not enough yes compared to the population that we have in the country we have to go have a good number we have to go jidolo go is a legal practitioner and kevin akoji is a political analyst thank you very much gentlemen it means that there's more of this conversation that needs to be had and of course the ball is in our cots thank you very much for speaking with us gentlemen thank you all right we will take a short break and when we come back the european group afeni ferre has urged people to defend themselves against bandits that's this down very familiar people talk about it after this break