 Very good morning to you and thanks for joining us on another very exciting edition of The Runup. My name is Nyamgul Aggaji and my colleague Bayo Oluwake is also standing by. Good morning Bayo. Good morning Nyamgul and it's nice to be on the program with good morning viewers. I'm glad to announce to everybody that you are talking to us from Nigeria. You are not at Chatham House, you are in the UK. Why seems to be at Chatham House these days? Well I, to even be a candidate and I'm happy I'm not, I will never go to Chatham House. I don't understand this Chatham House business. We are not a colony of the United Kingdom and I don't see why we want to pander to a think tank which reasonably is doing a fairly good job in terms of trying to influence policy around the world and all that, but for our presidential candidates to be trooping to Chatham House, frankly I really don't understand this. I honestly don't understand this. Yeah when did this all start at all? Because we remember that we've had presidents at least since the return of democracy in 1999. We've had president Oleshegou Obasanjo, we've had president Yaradua of Blessed Memory, we've had president Jonathan. I don't know if Jonathan even, because he's like the most recent, went for any interview at Chatham House. I remember vividly that it started at the time of Buhari and I wonder why the craze for Chatham House, why the craze for validity or validation rather by the U.K. government and a lot of people have been asking these questions. Whether we understand it or not, do you think there's any good it is doing to us or for us as a country? First of all, Chatham House is just like several think tanks. They're quite a number of them in the Euro-Atlantic region, especially in the United States. But the think tanks, normally if you would like to articulate a policy which you feel that an audience, say a British audience needs to understand or if you feel that that country would have a significant role to play, maybe in your presidency or in your, whenever you come to power or whatever, you want to appeal, of course, to the, if you like, what you call the sentry, Fugaro sentry, better forces in those countries. I think there are other ways of trying to do that, trying to curry either that favor or engage with that critical mass of people who may help you influence that government that you want to who should you come to power. But I really don't see Chatham House as that kind of platform. And I think it's too early in any case for anyone to be doing that. Secondly, if we had that for a voting, and we know we have a very huge that's probably the biggest of the largest, okay, then one will also understand if candidates went to Chatham House, and then we could say they want to influence the Nigerians in the UK who will be voting, but the Nigerians in the UK will not be voting. And so with due respect, I think that if you look at countries that are almost on the same level with us, what the progress of Bola Jaki, I mean, when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs described as a concept of medium powers. Okay. And at that time, India was within that group today. India is aspiring to almost become a superpower itself. But if you look at countries, Brazil, Nigeria, Argentina, South Africa, I don't think presidential candidates of any of those countries will go to Chatham House. And with due respect and with all sense of responsibility, I think that the presidential candidates we have are belittling the influence and prestige of Nigeria by going to Chatham House. This is my personal opinion, and I hold strongly to that. And if we rise up and play our role the way we should, I mean, this is Nigeria that in the days of the Abbas Anjum military, the Greater Abbas Anjum administration, and given the role we played in the anti-apartheid struggle, Nigeria was being countered by every country in the world. We were not the ones going to cut them. They were cutting us to the extent that the first ever visit by a sitting American president to black Africa, not even black Africa, to Africa, to place during that period when President Jimmy Carter visited and stayed in Nigeria for three or four days. And then the late Major General Joseph Garber became chairperson of the United Nations Anti-Apartheid Committee. He was almost president in perpetuity because every time there was an election, all the countries just unanimously re-elected Nigeria. You see, imagine where we have come from. I don't know if our presidential candidates have a sense of history to know the significance of the largest black country on the planet, that they are going to Chatham House to do what I don't understand. It's a question everybody is asking, everybody who, like you and I, we're just asking this question. You may have been colonized by the British, but it doesn't mean that we are, like you said, still a colony of the United Kingdom, of the British. We are now a sovereign state. And everybody seems like it's the new normal to be going there to let the people know what you are going to do. And sometimes you even hear more pronouncements, more policy pronouncements, when they go out to these other places than when they talk to us here in Nigeria. But this also bio, it speaks to the fact that, like you said, people were looking to us. This Chatham House is a place where intellectuals go, people think tank, as you call it. We have people like that in Nigeria, and we are not able to utilize whatever qualities they have, whatever thing they have upstairs. And that's one of the reasons why even presidential debates have had debates, you know, a debate about a debate, because some candidates are saying that they cannot go to some media houses, for instance, because the people who own these media houses may be biased and all that. I don't see that as a good excuse anyway, because if you go there and you have something to offer, it's a good avenue to buy over the people who could have been sympathetic to these people who you are calling biased or opposition. But does this not tell us that we need a body at least in Nigeria that can handle things like this? Because if we had that body here that is unbiased, so to speak, and then they are leaving that body here to go and talk outside the shores of Nigeria, then we can have an excuse to hold them and say, okay, you are selling us short, but we don't have that body. Maybe the entire Guild of Editors would come together, maybe Bonn would come together, maybe it will be the National Orientation Agency or a marriage of all these agencies and all these bodies coming together to form a semblance of Chatham House where we will have think-tanks, people coming to ask the relevant questions, especially in election years like this. But in a case where everybody are all man to himself, God for all, it's making us sell ourselves short and our image, if you ask me, is not good enough for a country that prides itself as the giant of Africa. So what can we do now to make sure that that Chatham House comes up? You know, Yankul, it's a tragedy that, okay, I mean, we don't, in the media, we are all one, okay? And I believe that, for example, if anybody didn't want to appear before, appear on a particular debate, scheduled by a particular media organization, maybe that person could have asked for the panel, the panel to be diluted, or the panel to have nominated one person to be on that, do what I'm saying, to be on that panel. But let's come back to whether we have an equivalent of Chatham House or not. I even think we have something better than Chatham House and that is Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and I'm going to prove it, you see, because when we talk of a sense of history, our presidential candidates and the intelligentsia behind them, if ever there was, that the intelligentsia should be the ones who bring these presidential candidates to the realization of how they need to project themselves and how, because the way they project themselves will be an extension of the way in which Africa and Nigeria itself will be seen. The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, when I spoke about the proposal by Professor Bola J. Akimi when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, when he proposed the establishment of what it called the Concert of Medium Powers, okay, that was falling over from the glorious role that Nigeria played in international relations leading to the liberation of southern African countries. And some people have argued that that foreign policy of the Buritana-O-Basuja administration, that was a dynamic foreign policy, a foreign policy that impacted the whole world, that foreign policy was actually articulated at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. And we could see in subsequent years how the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs became renowned and was recognized internationally. Several of his directors general actually went on to become permanent representative of Nigeria at the United Nations. Bola J. Akimi was director general during the Buritana-O-Basuja administration. He later on became Minister of Foreign Affairs. You have Professor Mrs. Joy Oak. She was director general of the NIA. She later became Nigerian permanent representative to the United Nations. You have the late Dr. George, Professor George Obioso. He was director general of the Institute. He later became Nigerian ambassador to the United States. So what are we talking about? That we do not have a think tank in this country where our presidential candidates can go and sit and actually place their positions and to be rushing to Chattelmouse, I think this is serious infracting. Okay. But my question right now, Bayo, would be that why do we have this kind of an institution, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs? Why were they silent? Why have they been silent? Because it shouldn't be the presidential candidates or any other candidate for that matter that will have to call on them to come and interview them, to come and have a town hall meeting with them. Why did these people not make a move to make sure that they have a policy direction of everybody who is aspiring to lead our country? Why the silence? Just like the national orientation agency we've been quarreling all the time about that they are not talking, they are not giving us the right messages at the right time through the right channels and all that. Why did this institution not say something when we needed them to say something? Who should make the move, Bayo? That's a very good question, Yanku. And to be honest, I wouldn't know why the NIA has been silent on this. It doesn't have a tradition, by the way, of convening presidential debates. It doesn't have that tradition. I just mentioned the NIA when I needed to prove the arguments to understand. That we have a thinking thing. That we have something better than Chetan House, absolutely. And so that's why I mentioned the NIA. But I mean, having said that, and I agree with the point you're raising, the presidential candidates themselves could initiate that engagement. And I'm sure if they had initiated that engagement, the NIA would not have turned them down. The argument here is how come, on the one hand, you want to... You tell us that when you become president of Nigeria, you will enhance the dignity of us as Nigerians and the dignity of our country. But on the other hand, you are belittling even the candidacy for the position of the presidency of Nigeria by rushing off to this Chetan House. And finally, we discussed the other day on the program about foreign policy of the presidential candidates. You remember, and we said, we have not seen any. So even if there was a foreign policy, for example, and it had something to do with the European Union, the United Kingdom is not that part of... Sorry, Britain is not that part of the EU. But assuming that the presidential candidate has a possible foreign policy engagement, should he become president, that has to do specifically with the United Kingdom, and chooses to go to Chetan House to speak only on that and will still understand. But you don't go to Chetan House to begin to articulate what you want to do for Nigeria. Who is... What is Chetan House? You're saying that you cannot go to the NIA in Nigeria. You cannot initiate engagement with any of our universities to convene such discourse. You can... I mean, I find it absolutely ridiculous. There is this Shia Humosa Yara Krasen Kainapucha, which can also play such a role, by the way. There are several institutions and think tanks in this country that can play the same role. But all of them just are rushing. And by the way, interestingly, at the time when the United Kingdom is no longer a force in international affairs, she is not. In international relations today, the United Kingdom is an appendage of the United States. The power projection of the United Kingdom is dependent on the direction and the wings and caprices of the United States. So if you went to the United States, I would still even excuse that. You're going to the United Kingdom. I mean, the powers today are in Asia. If you were going to Asia, to India, to think tanks in New Delhi, to think tanks in China, to think tanks in Singapore, to think tanks in South Korea, then I would even understand and say because the bulk of investments in Africa in the last 15 years have been coming from Asia. So then I will understand that you probably try to present yourself to these countries that are the biggest investors and supporters of infrastructure and economic development in Africa. You are going to the United Kingdom with due respect that has lost relevance. Okay, and fairness to them. Even though I don't know how true it is, but all of them say that they were being invited by these people. And if this were to be true, then I'd also say that our people should borrow a leave because if you are a body that is capable of doing what the Chatham House is doing, you should also try to extend an invitation to show that you're concerned about what is going to happen in the next four years or as it has become a tradition in Nigeria almost in the next eight years as it is. So let these bodies come together. If this is a call, I'm just making an appeal because even if the presidential aspirants or candidates do not have like a club or an organization or a union of presidential candidates that will say, okay, let us go to this NIA and make them invite us. So the people should take that initiative as well. National Orientation, NIA, Guild of Editors, whoever can ask the relevant questions come together. Let's have a deliberate policy or a deliberate, is a rule I'll call it. I don't even know the name to call it, but let's be deliberate about making sure that we have this kind of debate under an umbrella that will be adjudged as unbiased and intelligent enough and credible enough for everybody to appear because it helps us have homegrown ideas thrown back at us here in the home front instead of us listening to Chatham House, to tuning to BBC, for instance, and also making us lose money even in just doing that kind of action. So subsequently, I think we should have a body like this led by, as you have said, the NIA because they have everything relevant to this course that we're trying to fight now. So there should be something like this so that in the next circle of election, in the next Olympic of election, as I call it, we can have something like this here in Nigeria and whoever leaves Nigeria to go to another place to talk, we will start looking at him and asking him why he left and went there. Perhaps because the sitting president, Mohammed Buhari, went to Chatham House and he came back and he won. Maybe every other person is just following that and thinking that when you go there, there'll be much influence. They will see you as a global being so that they will vote for you. I don't know why, what their argument is and now everybody's going to Chatham House. Even INEC, that is not contesting, went to Chatham House. Yesterday, INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood was in Chatham House. The Professor Yakubu Mahmood says the commissioning will not, the commission rather will not be shifting anything about the election. The February 25th and March 11th dates for the 2023 general elections and the commission is also prepared for a runoff election if the need arises. Yakubu, who decried the spate of attacks on its facilities in form of ASAN, said 50 facilities of the commission had been attacked in four years. He however vowed that the 2023 general election would hold in spite of the attacks explaining that the commission would need to continue to rebuild the burned facilities and replace materials. Yakubu said the turnout for new registration was very high and that at the moment Nigerian voters were 16.7 million more than the rest of West Africa. That is quite a number. He revealed that over 600,000 PVCs were collected in Lagos in the last month and lamented that the state had the largest number of uncollected cards. He also stated that most of the collected PVCs were from newly registered votes while uncollected PVCs date to 2015. And while he was speaking on voters who have been displaced as a result of insecurity in the Northeast and Northwest, he said the commission would conduct polls in internally displaced persons IDP camps to ensure that no one is disenfranchised. He also said the commission would conduct mock elections in some select states to test the use of the technology to be deployed. INEC has also said that the 2023 election is majorly for young people because they make up a larger percentage of eligible voters. And he gave a breakdown of the voters' register ahead of the polls. He said there are 93.4 million registered voters of which 37 million, that is 39.5%, are young people between the ages of 18 and 34. They are closely followed by 33.4 million or 36.75% middle-aged voters between 35 and 49 years old. And put together these two categories constitute 75.39% of registered voters in Nigeria. So we already know the age bracket that is going to make a difference in the 2023 election. And in his own words, actually the 2023 election is the election of young people because they have the numbers. Even the majority of the PVCs collected are collected by young people. So out of 93.4 million registered voters, 70.4 million are between the ages of 18 and 49. Recently we have had religious leaders appealing to the public on patriotism and exercising their rights to vote. Undoubtedly religion has been a dominant factor in Nigerian politics. Religion has been a potent factor in Nigerian politics and its influence in the election cannot be undermined. Still the run up and we're in the final lap of this journey. We no matter how disappointed we are that we have to make pronouncements only when we get out of the shores of this land, going to Chatham House is the in thing now for presidential candidates and everybody who wants his voice to be heard. And like we were saying, it's absolutely unnecessary. But whatever it is, we will still take some things that were said at the Chatham House, especially by Professor Yakubu Mahmoud, who is the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Bio, one of the interesting things that was said there was the fact that Nigeria now has over 16 million more votes than the rest of Africa. And it tells us that we have a big population and we have people that can decide for a country as big as Nigeria. But how much are we ready to exercise that power? He also talks about the fact that the election belongs to the youths. People who are between 18 and 49, even though the bulk of them are also between 18 and 34. There are others that are following that closely, those that are between 35 and 49. And do you really think the youths are even ready to take this advantage and do the needful? We are ready. I think that we have had certain instances that have persuaded our young population that they can make a difference. I mean, at the risk of repeating what might be a cliché, we've seen what has happened in the entertainment industry, which is entirely dominated by young people. We've seen the heights that they have taken Nigeria internationally. We've seen the creative arts. We've seen what they do in both at home in our universities at home. We've seen our young people scoring exceptional great point averages. We've seen an exceptional number of PhDs being produced in some of our universities. And then, of course, in foreign universities, our young people have continued to dominate. So I am persuaded that our young people are ready. They are prepared. They can play their role in the electoral space as well. But talking about the number of voters, I assume what Professor Yakuza was alluding to is the fact that we have 16 million people more than the rest of West Africa in terms of population. That those registered to vote in Nigeria even 16 million more than the population, if you put the whole number together, where we equal the number and then we have 16. So in other words, all those registered to vote in Nigeria are more than the population of Ghana, Togo, then Kodubwa, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Gambia, Guinness now, Kidbird and so on and so forth, which is very interesting. But let's hope, like we said, that the issue of the PVCs, which we have discussed on this program separately, will be addressed because he gave us an insight into one dimension to the problem, which is that this huge number of uncollected PVCs are actually not a consequence of the recent registration, but they date back to uncollected PVCs from 2011. So you see, you and I were talking with the guests a couple of days ago, Yangu, and we brought up this issue that our people do not like to go and play their civic roles largely. So if from 2011, a substantial number of the uncollected PVCs date as from back as 2011, it is only collaborating what you and I were saying on the program. Although our guests didn't agree with us and was understandably, so his position was different. But the final chairman just confirmed what we were saying. Okay, yeah. Well, the good thing is that he said most of the newly collected PVCs from or by the people who registered newly, and these are the people that we are hoping will make the difference in this election. But beyond elections, when people come into power, there are some other things like in China, for instance, where if you are found guilty of corruption, very stringent measures are taken against you. And I think one of these is even leading to the ultimate price for anything, a debt penalty and all that. I read a story this morning about someone who robbed a lady of 57,000 Naira and he has been sentenced to death here in Nigeria, here in Lagos. He's a vulcanizer and he did that. Well, the law says that armed robbery comes with a certain kind of penalty, which maybe that also is a part of it. But I was just thinking, 57,000 Naira, because he was holding a scissors, it translates to armed robbery, but 57,000 Naira, he could have killed someone with a scissors, I agree. But how many people die because of the fact that some people high up in the ladder of governance or anything, steal so much money in billions, not thousands, in billions. So how many people die because of this category of people? So for instance, you steal a billion Naira, meant for maybe a road that is passing to a particular village and because the road is not done, people go there and they get accidents there and they die, or some people are being robbed because you have to slow down in some portions of the road and so on and so forth. What is being done? What are the measures put in place to make sure that these people face the music in a very serious case? Yes, I agree. 57,000 and you were holding a scissors, someone could have died. But what about the people who steal millions? Maybe there should be laws that are stronger that will hold these people accountable. I don't know what you think about it, Bio. Somebody is convicted, somebody is found guilty and he's going to face the firing squad, okay, dead by hanging, as I said, here in Nigeria. What about the people who steal billions? What should be done? I mean, you're rightfully pointed to the Chinese example. The penalty for corruption in China in their legal framework is capital punishment, it's death. It's in the law books, okay? So, yes, I believe stringent penalties should be in our legal regime as well to deal with this problem. I believe that strongly and this is up to the incoming like it was if you like. Yes, but just quickly, also we need to recognize that in Nigeria, people who do these things are celebrated. It's not just the problem of the statute books, what is in the legal regime. If this people steal money and the society worships them, they are made chair persons at wedding ceremonies. And if you move against them, they say, okay, it's from my village but the other person, when he did that, you didn't do anything. So society itself encourages it. So if we're going to deal with this problem, it's not just going to be legal. It's also going to be moral. And it's also going to mean that we boycott such people completely. That's what happens in China. You are not celebrated. Nobody invites you. Okay. You know? So we need to, it's got to be holistic. You remind me. Well, in my village, they will ostracize you. They will disgrace you. They will do a lot of things if you steal public money and all that. But, well, it's, this is where we have to draw the curtain. But not before we say very, very hearty chairs to our managing director at Plus TV Africa, Mr. Lekon Ogumbongo. We just call him Uncle Lekon because that is how dear he is to us. And he's more a friend, more of a friend than a boss. So happy birthday, Mr. Ogumbongo. And I'm sure you wanted to just say happy birthday to him and then we're up of bio. Yes, I wish him, I wish Lekon many, many happy returns. He's a doer in the broadcast industry. He's a leading light. And he's a very good role model. I wish him a long life and prosperity. Okay. That's how much we can take today on the program. We will return tomorrow with the run-up once again from my colleague, Bayo Oluwake and myself Yamgula Gadji. I nearly changed my name and myself Yamgula Gadji. Let's do it again tomorrow. Bye for now.