 OK. Well, good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Sorry we were a couple of minutes late starting. I'm just waiting for a few more people to drift in, but we'll get started. My name is Richard Downey. I'm Deputy Director of the Africa Programme here at CSIS. I'd like to welcome you all and also welcome our co-sponsors today who've helped to put this event together. Open Society Foundations for Bringing Our Guests Over from Nigeria. Also Johns Hopkins SICE for co-sponsoring the event as well. As many people have noted, 2011 is a big, a huge year for elections in Africa. And of course they don't come much bigger than the presidential election due to take place in Nigeria exactly a month from today. Obviously a huge amount of expectation and also a degree of trepidation about the prospects for a credible and a violence free vote and election campaign. Also I think some confidence that we at least won't get a repeat of the 2007 disaster which is admittedly a low bar to set for this time round. A large burden of responsibility and pressure of course lies on the electoral commission, INEC, to make sure things go smoothly. So far at least it's played its part fairly well, managing to register more than 73 million voters despite a slow start and glitches with the electronic registration system. But of course there's a long way to go and a particular concern during the campaign are the reports of violence and intimidation in various parts of the country. Of course the integrity of the process perhaps is more important than the identity of the winner ultimately. But of course as the incumbent in office of the front runner in this election is of course good luck Jonathan. But since winning the PDP primary back in January it's not all been plain sailing for the president. A lot of resentment in the north that they were deprived of a northern candidate. And interesting reports about some of the other main contenders gaining traction during the campaign. Looking beyond the election a big question remains whether whoever wins on April 9th is actually capable of managing the country and tackling some of Nigeria's huge impressing challenges or whether the best intentions will be undone as before by competing pressures and institutional inertia, need to juggle elites and all the other problems and pressures that come with high office in Nigeria. That's probably a too big a question to tackle. Today we've got enough to think about and discuss with the election. So I'm really pleased that we've got a great panel with us this morning who are able to address different elements, the election security preparations and logistics and talk a little bit about how the campaign is going and what we can expect on the day itself. So without further ado I'll introduce our panellists. You have their bios in plenty of detail on your sheets here so I'll just briefly introduce them. Udo in the middle he's going to start off is Udo Ilo is an open society justice initiative fellow and Nigeria analyst for open society institute for West Africa, lawyer by trade. He is also currently a senior research associate at the Center for Law and Social Action and a partner in the legal research and legislative consulting firm Thoughts and Mates, widely published on a series of issues, elections, governance and justice sector issues. On my immediate left here is Dio Allaidae, country coordinator for open society initiative for West Africa based in Abuja where he oversees governance and law programs and justice and human rights initiatives. Currently engaged in efforts to address the violence in plateau state. Finally Chris Kawaja who is a lecturer and researcher with the Center for Conflict Management and Peace Studies. Also a doctoral candidate of international relations and strategic studies at the University of Joss in Nigeria where he's based and is our real expert here on talking about the security situation there in Joss. So we're going to start with Udo, is that right? And we'll pass over to Udo who's going to make a short presentation the others will follow and then we'll have hopefully plenty of time for questions and answers and discussion following the presentations. So over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Nigeria will be going to the polls next month. Currently Nigeria, 70% of the population are living below the poverty line. You have a lot of anxiety amongst the people that for too long the economic situation of the country has been a little bit stagnant. We've been practicing democracy since 1999. Nigeria is confronted with serious infrastructure challenges. The manufacturing industry is more or less comatose. More than 50% of the graduates in Nigeria are not sure of getting a job. While this is happening, the political class continue to enjoy a lot of privileges. 25% of the recurring expenses in the federal budget is spent on national assembly. So you see a situation where people are really, really desire us for a change. That things cannot continue to happen like this. For a country that has received billions in oil money in the last 11 years, we believe that the government has not done enough. So for us, the election is an opportunity for us to go and say that things have to be done differently. It is very important that that avenue for Nigerians to express themselves actually reflects at the end of the day the desires of Nigerians. Our inability to get it right this time poses great danger to the country because people may have to resort to other means to make their voices heard. We go into this election with actually some interesting developments, positive developments. One is that for the first time in years, we have the independent national electoral commission that enjoys the goodwill of a majority of Nigerians. In 2007, the election was seen as a contest between the opposition party and the ruling party, then the election management body. People saw INEC then to be biased, partisan, and people lost faith in the capacity of that establishment to actually midwife proper election. Good enough there's been a lot of reform in that organization and currently it is headed by a renowned professor in Nigeria who has shown by his action that he's determined to do what is right. You also see a lot of enthusiasm amongst the people to go to the polls and cast their votes. INEC predicted that they're going to give themselves a target of registering about 70 million voters in the election. They exceeded that target, they registered more than 73 million showing that people are really eager to be part of this process. Again, you also see a high level of cautiousness by government trying to give the impression that look we are in this for the whole hog. We want to support this process, we want to be impartial. INEC has enjoyed to a reasonable extent the cooperation of government in providing funds. So these are interesting developments, we find them exciting and we feel that it is going to help the process. In spite of these positive developments, INEC is still confronted with logistical challenges, capacity challenges, and people are still worried that the goodwill INEC enjoys doesn't necessarily translate into excellence in the management of the election process. So people are worried whether INEC will have the capacity to deploy, train ad hoc staff, send equipment to where they are needed. We have 120,000 polling booths in Nigeria's cattle around the country, some of which you need to transport by water or by air. So people are really nervous whether INEC will have the capacity to do all of this. People are also concerned whether there will be enough security to also protect the deployment of sensitive electrical equipment to all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. In addition to this challenge, you also see a political class that do not practice what they preach. Political parties do not practice internal democracy and the nomination process revealed the extent to which they have disregarded even to their own internal constitutions. And so at the end of the party primaries in Nigeria, INEC reports that they have about 150 court cases challenging the outcome of these party primaries. And you have elections coming up in less than one month. This poses serious challenges to INEC in terms of logistics, printing of ballot papers, putting names of candidates in the ballot paper. It also puts enormous pressure in the court system because in addition to the election matter that I've before, the courts right now, the courts are also supposed to handle other day-to-day suits that come before the judiciary. And because of what is going on here, you also see politicians trying to manipulate the court systems. Sadly, the judiciary in Nigeria has not lived up to that expectation of being objective and credible in such a way that people can believe that these cases coming before the court can be handled. The court is also constrained with procedural inadequacies that make these cases to last too long. Currently in Nigeria, the perception by most people is that the judiciary is corrupt. And this is informed by the way politicians go about throwing around money and also bragging that they have the capacity to influence the outcome of judgements. And now this 150 cases that you see in the courts couldn't have gone there if not for what the National Assembly did. That is removing the oversight function of the independent electoral commission to either accept or reject candidates after party primaries when those candidates emerged in a process that is below the standard laid out by the electoral law. So the National Assembly removed the power of INEC to reject candidates. Given the pressure that they believe that they have more ability to control the outcome in the courts than to control the actions of INEC. And so we go into this election with a judiciary that has credibility deficits. And what happens is that Nigerians in the last 11 years always go to the court to rectify whatever mistakes that may have been done in the polls, whatever errors that may have happened in the course of the elections. Now if you have a judiciary that do not enjoy the trust of the Nigerian public, it means that the outcome of court cases might not be acceptable to the people. And what this can trigger is a possibility of people resorting to self-help to make their voices heard or to protect the election mandate. Now in addition to this problem again is the fact that the mechanism for ensuring electoral accountability is a little bit weak and for some time now largely ineffective. That is people who commit electoral offences most times go scot free. The independent electoral commission is also charged with the duty of prosecuting people who commit electoral offences. They have a tiny legal department so even in terms of numerical strengths they do not possess enough numbers to prosecute these cases. The police is supposed to provide investigative skills in this regard. The police in Nigeria has been inducted by a presidential committee report of being partisan and of being even participants in the election rigging. And of course that institution cannot start prosecuting or investigating itself. So you see that there's a gap in this area and what happens is that if people know that they can get away with electoral fraud they will continue to do it. The law more or less provides incentive for electoral fraud because when you get into power or when you win elections and the electoral outcome is challenged, why the case is still in court you are still the sitting governor or the sitting president as the case may be. And the case goes all up to the supreme court and sometimes you have a situation whereby somebody will be in office for three years or four years even before he is removed as having not been properly elected. So the fact that there is a gap in the electoral accountability mechanism in Nigeria is a cause for concern because it means that people will always go that same way to win elections. People will always do anything to win elections because there are no consequences. And so these are some of the challenges facing the elections and we are worried that if some of this is not addressed then there is a chance that we may not get it right that these may be close to what happened in 2007. Civil society has responded to these challenges in many ways. The Nigerian Bar Association has also come forward to say that they will provide prosecutorial skills to INEC to help ensure that people who participate or who are involved in electoral practices are held accountable. The government of Nigeria also promised that they will establish a special court to try electoral offences. We need to hold them accountable to that promise. The political parties also in order to ensure that people respect the rules of the game develop the code of conduct with the election management body and that code of conduct was signed yesterday. Incidentally the ruling party refused to sign the code of conduct and seven other parties also refused to sign the code of conduct. Well the concern is this. The code of conduct is more or less not mandatory. It's just a gentleman's agreement. There is no enforcement mechanism. And where you have the ruling party controlling all the ministries of justice around the country, it is always very difficult to find them prosecuting themselves for not doing what the law says they would do. And then lastly we're also concerned about the issue of security like I mentioned earlier because we do not see a detailed security plan for the election. And if you've been following the news in Nigeria you'll recall that there have been violence here and there, there have been assassinations and all of that. I mean these are not coordinated violence all around the country. There are some just pocket areas of violence. But we are bothered that if you don't have a proper security plan for the elections these issues can escalate and there could be spillage from one part of the country to the other. In this regard, INEC has also inaugurated an intelligence committee of security institutions in Nigeria to work together on the election and to provide security for the election. We don't think that platform is comprehensive enough. We don't see a detailed security plan. We are concerned about what they will have to do during the election. And given the fact also that INEC, that is the chair of INEC, do not have statutory oversight functions on these security agencies. He cannot deploy them. He cannot tell them what to do. We are really concerned that this might create a problem. So yes there are reasons for us to be optimistic that this is going to go right but there are also issues we feel need to be addressed in the short term and even beyond the election. We think it is important for civil society to monitor the election tribunal processes. In Nigeria you have a special court for trying electoral petitions. And we feel those courts should be monitored to provide this incentive for fraud or corruption among judicial officers, among people who are coming before the courts. So this election is very important for Nigeria because for too long we've been trying to speak through the ballot and it never happened. In cases where it happens sometimes our speeches are distorted. They come out to say what we did not actually say. And people are tired. People are restless. That's seeing what is happening in North Africa, seeing what's happening all across the globe. We want an opportunity to get this right and to say this is the man who wants to be in charge of our affairs. We want an opportunity to use the election as kind of an inquest on what politicians have done all these years. And if we deny that voice then it's going to be a challenge not just to Nigeria but to the African subregion. I thank you for your attention. Thanks very much and over now to... Thank you very much and thanks for the opportunity. Let me quickly also say that this meeting actually provides a very unique opportunity for us to reach out to those of you here that we consider as very important partners. Like Jude said, this is one election that to so many Nigerians is regarded as the election for a number of reasons and which Jude has mentioned. One being successive elections since 1999, 2003, 2007 have actually progressively been extremely difficult, characterized with a lot of killings, with a lot of regains, which as a result has raised a lot of empathy. But at the same time pushed Nigerians to the brim to now begin to actually say, except we get it right this 2011, there is a chance that we may begin to experience major democratic rollback in the country. Now if you listen to what Jude said, there is every tendency for you to become hopeless. Where is the hope? Except for a few things that you see as positive. We have an INEC that has since inauguration in July demonstrated a lot of, inspired a lot of hope that perhaps this time around we will actually have a truly independent INEC. And an INEC that has also been able to successfully organize voter registration exercise. But for that it seems everywhere you look to a lot of challenges now. What I would like to do is actually to provide additional information in terms of what the civil society groups have also done to complement, to raise the bar and begin to push Niger towards the path that will indeed, yield their desires, which is to have truly credible and free and fair elections. Now three things that has happened in the last three months, six months were there about, is that civil society groups have been able to come together to establish what we now call a situation room. And the situation room essentially is to serve as a platform where civil society groups, those on the field, working at the various levels, at the federal level, at the state level and the local government level can regularly come together and do a briefing, have regular reflections on the preparations for the elections, on what they consider as key issues that need urgent attention and be able to take collective action, targeting specific agencies and institutions charged with the responsibility of actually making those things happen. The situation room was launched recently and has started work. We have a virtual space which has a list of a lot of civil society coalitions that meet regularly. But also we have this physical space where coming out of the various reflections and discussions that we regularly hold, we are able to narrow down on those issues and come up with a plan of action. That's something that we think is very useful now as a result of these meetings. We are able to actually get some of those agencies to respond to some of these issues. I think a press statement that was issued yesterday from the situation room actually talked about the corruption in the judiciary, which Jude already mentioned. Another major thing that civil society groups are currently also doing is they're campaigning for mandate protection. This has become a major attraction as a result of our experiences in 1999, 2003, 2007. The usual procedure is people come out, they vote and they go back home. It creates a sort of space that allows the thogs, the politicians to use their thogs to snatch ballot boxes, do ballot stuffing. In 2007 we tried this mandate protection, which essentially encourages voters not only to vote but to actually stay back after voting, monitor the compilation, the collision, the movement of materials. That way you are actually able to monitor the processes throughout beyond merely casting your votes. We are increasing the number of places we are doing the mandate protection from two that we did in 2007 to seven places that has been identified across the country. A third thing that we are also civil society groups are doing through the support of Open Society Initiative for West Africa in Nigeria is to monitor the conduct of police. Now you recall that. Jude in his intervention also mentioned the fact that security is actually a major issue at this point. By design you get the sense that Nigeria's elections actually imposes enormous security burden on the country. So you look at what happened in 1999. In 1999 there was a major investment in voter registration across the entire country using around 20,000 polling units. So you find security implications as a result of movement of materials, protection that is required for election officers both before elections and during elections. And repeatedly this has happened. In 1999 we had that. In 2003 there was voter registration. In 2007 there was that as well. And what this also means is that it actually often over stretches the capacity of the police to actually provide the security that is needed. And therefore you find a need to bring in the military, the navy to actually complement security. Now, given our reading of the security situation in the country, I'm sure some of you most actually have heard about the bombings that happened on Independence Day, the religious crisis that you have in some parts of the northeast. Bauchi, Bronu, I was just talking with someone sitting right opposite me there. And as well the violence that you are having just, the Niger Delta of course, is one major security blight in the country. As a result of these security assessments we decided that there is actually a major and urgent need to monitor the conduct of security officials during the elections. Now it is true that INEC has also promised, together with the president, to produce a comprehensive security plan and strategy for the elections. We've not seen that. There's no space for civil society groups to actually engage these. If you don't see the plan you actually cannot even comment on it, which is a major gap that we're seeing. But notwithstanding that, we believe that a lot of effort going into monitoring the conduct of security officials in the election could actually also help to check their conduct. Because, again, the experience is that security officials can sometimes be used as perpetrators in the regains, in the ballot stuffing, and hence the need to actually monitor them. But in spite of all this, the truth is, right now, the country, especially civil society groups, actually face a lot of limitations in terms of resourcing. The major, and I refer to the DFI, the USAID, the Canadian Development Agencies as the major, the EU as well, as the major investors in the election enterprise. Usually, just like they did in 2003 and 2007, they have also established this joint donor basket fund, where civil society groups are expected to apply to be able to get support to run election projects. But this time around, you actually find a system that is very limiting, that has, in a sense, straight jacketed civil society groups with drawing space for innovation, for flexibility. So you actually find majority of those that we consider as the strong, viable civil society groups actually locked out, unable to access funds. And we know that in 2003 and 2007, post-elections, significant amount of the joint donor basket fund was never used. We see that also happening. Now, the question is, if we are facing all of this, why should any agency actually, despite all that we say about Nigeria and Nigerian CSOs, why should any agency now deprive them of the opportunity to actually access grants necessary to influence and affect the elections? So resourcing for civil society groups at this moment is a major challenge that we are thinking that in spite of the shortness of time that we have left barely three weeks, just like Jude said, there is an urgent need to actually provide targeted assistance that enables civil society groups to be able to contribute more effectively to the elections. I think before the elections and post-elections, a lot actually needs to happen. And this is where we actually think that the US government can actually be of major assistance. Now, I take part and attend a number of forums which serves as coordinating platforms for donor groups in Nigeria. And I do know that the USAID in Nigeria would not touch certain activities, no matter how relevant they are to the country. Now, one of such areas where the USAID actually considers, well, we don't have the space to actually intervene is in the area of security. I mean, we can be saying that Nigeria faces a severe and serious situation in terms of security and you don't want to invest in there. I think it's important that we pay attention to this and also begin to explore how we can actually get the US government to be more responsive to this situation in the country. I think it's also important, just like Jude said, to emphasise the point that electoral accountability remains a major challenge in the country. Unfortunately, like I said, as a result of resource challenges, we are unable to actually support this. But having the pressure from US government and other members of the G8 to pressure Nigeria to quickly establish or at least put in place a clear mechanism to ensure electoral accountability. We need to prosecute electoral offenders. It has never happened in Nigeria. And that gives the sense that I can do it and get away with it. Now, we can't overemphasise the fact that this is the election in Nigeria. It's real. We really can't overemphasise that. And so we are calling on the US government and other interested development partners of Nigeria to actually push the President Goodluck Jonathan. I recall in one of his visits to Nigeria to the US. He actually made this promise. I will ensure electoral accountability. We need to push him and hold him accountable to that promise. That is one thing that we think, leaving this country with the confidence that yes, we have backers who are going to put this pressure on the Nigerian government. It gives us the sense that yes indeed, things can, a lot can still happen. I'm going to leave it there and hope that during the interaction we can talk some more about it. I thank you. Thanks very much. Great. Rounding things off. Last but not least, Chris. Thank you very much. I will start my discussion with a very simple question, but it's thought provoking in terms of why is the security of Nigeria very important to the international community and also to the United States of America. Secondly, why is the security and stability of the country important to the international community beyond elections in terms of looking at the link between election and security in Nigeria? I've identified four critical points that touches on the fact that security and the conduct of credible elections are important to Nigeria, because one, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Secondly, Nigeria is a subregional hegemon in the West African subregion. It plays a very central role in the strategic calculations of countries like the United States in terms of peace keeping operations. We've seen that in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, and even Sudan presently when Nigeria is playing a very central role in ensuring peace and stability within the context of peace support operations in Sudan. Thirdly, is the fact that presently Nigeria is the third largest contributor to peace support operations globally, which to a large extent raises very serious question as to if Nigeria, with such an enormous amount of capacity to provide security or help, provide security in other countries that have been experiencing conflict, also has security challenges to confront then where there's a very serious problem in that light. And lastly, is the fact that Nigeria increasingly has become a key ally of the United States of America, both from a strategic point of view and also from an economic point of view. Because presently the United States of America buys a significant amount of Nigeria's oil. And thirdly, Nigeria is a very key ally within the context of US foreign policy when it comes to security in Africa. And we've seen that increasingly in the kind of support that the United States is providing for Nigeria within the context of Africa, the Africa crisis initiative which has been on for quite some time. And I think the National Defence College of Nigeria has benefited significantly from the support of the United States government in this light. That is, this points to the fact that the United States government and also the international community is putting in a lot of effort in terms of support to ensure that there is stability in Nigeria and that elections in Nigeria are conducted in a way that is very credible in line with internationally recognized standards. But nevertheless, the Nigerian state has to battle or confront with several other security challenges in the run-up to the 2011 elections. One of it is the fact that presently Nigeria has a population of over 140 million people and this population is highly divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines which makes mobilization on the part of the political elite along ethnic and religious line a very key and important currency for them in terms of looking for support. That is to say, the outcome of elections in Nigeria is dependent on the extent to which the political elites are able to mobilize ethnic and religious support. And this is a major issue that confronts the country in the run-up to the 2011 elections. Secondly also is the fact that the outcome of the political party primaries that was conducted led to serious violence in several parts of the country because people were disenchanted with the outcome of the primaries for some individuals and groups. They felt people were imposed. That is to say, the absence of internal party democracy in the way and manner political parties conducted themselves during the primaries was not in line with what the people expected. For some individuals and groups, the only way they could resist or contest that outcome was to resort to violence and we saw that in the northern part of Nigeria where there were a series of violent confrontations amongst political parties in the country. There is also the issue of instability. The instability and militancy in the Niger Delta which is yet to be resolved despite the post-amnesty program that is still in place. There are pockets of militant activities in the Niger Delta and we've seen series of violent confrontations even in the conduct of party primaries and rallies in the Niger Delta. We've also seen the rise of radical Islamic movements, the Boko Haram phenomenon in the north eastern part of Nigeria that has led to deadly confrontations between these Islamic movements and the Nigerian police. We've also seen the continued violence in Jaws in the north central part of Nigeria which is tied to ethnic and religious issues which I will come back to more deeply. Jude raised the issue of INEC in terms of its own response to the security challenges confronting Nigeria in the run-up to the elections. INEC set up what is called the Interagency Committee on Security. But basically that arrangement is such that Nigerians are not aware of the way or the framework within which that committee is going to operate. So as of now Nigerians are really not clear about the kind of security arrangements that INEC itself as an institution has in place and also the kind of preparations that the Nigerian police is also having with respect to the 2011 elections. One other major issue that poses a significant threat to the conduct of credible elections in Nigeria is the rise of vigilantes and other non-state security entities that threatens the prospect for credible elections in Nigeria. We've seen political parties, we've seen politicians resorting to the use of private security at the expense of state security. That is to say they resort to the use of individuals and groups that they are to provide them with the security they need because they feel the state that is supposed to provide that security has failed. And my argument on this is that the rise of vigilantes in Nigeria in the run-up to the elections is a consequence of the failure of the state to also live up to its responsibility which its primary responsibility in terms of the protection of lives and properties. And beyond the elections I believe strongly that that on its own is a very serious issue that poses a major security threat to Nigeria, to the nation's national security if not addressed proactively. Nigeria is going into the election with a whole lot of questions as to the level of preparedness of the Nigerian police because the Nigerian police is primarily charged with the responsibility of providing security during elections. But we are talking about a Nigerian police force that is ill-equipped, that is under trained to provide the kind of security that is needed for elections. For instance, while in other countries you have a security or a police force that is equipped with non-lethal weapons, in the case of Nigeria you have a police force that only has lethal weapons for crowd control. Which on its own is a major threat in terms of respect for the rights of citizens, particularly the right to life. Because when you use lethal weapons to manage crowds or to manage elections or resistance during elections, then how do you now account for the number of casualties that the use of force by the police? That are victims of the use of force by the police. And lastly is the point that Nigeria is being forced to also grapple with the challenges of terrorism. First October 2010 Nigeria witnessed a major hit when there was a bomb blast in Abuja, the federal capital. 24 December 2010 there was a bomb blast in Jaws where I come from and about two weeks ago during the presidential rally in Niger State, Suleja, there was a bomb blast in that area. And these are threats that the Nigerian police and some of the security agencies that are charged with the responsibility of detecting early warning signs to conflict and whatever have not been able to address. We have not gotten any major statement from the Nigerian government in terms of who or what the identity of the individuals and groups that are involved in this act are. And that on its own is a very serious issue for the country in terms of how it manages its own internal security. And the point is that if a country like Nigeria confronts this kind of security threats that we've mentioned, then how can it also provide or guarantee security for its neighboring countries? The way Nigerians are afraid, the kind of anxiety that Nigerians have with respect to security also touches on other neighboring countries because in Côte d'Ivoire for instance we have a humanitarian crisis on ground arising from the conduct of the elections. Liberia, a country very close to Côte d'Ivoire, is already grappling with the number of refugees that have moved into Liberia. You are talking of just 30,000 refugees. Now, you just ask yourself, if a hundred or 200,000 Nigerians are to leave the country as refugees, which country within the subregion can accommodate such a number? And that is why the international community, particularly the United States of America, have a very serious role to play in terms of drawing attention to the fact that the Nigerian government needs to take urgent steps in safeguarding the life and properties of its citizens and that the conduct of credible elections is also very important within the context of the fact that a level playing ground need to be created for all individual and political parties to operate so that people do not see violence as a weapon or as a currency that they can use in resolving their own matters or differences. And I think this kind of engagement can also go not just at the level of the United States. Nigeria is also a member of other organizations like the ECOWAS, the African Union. This kind of issues can also be tabled at that level because the amount of, the kind of attention been given to Nigeria's election is such that every country within the African continent is really concerned because beyond West Africa you have a significant number of Nigeria in all other countries within the African continent. So which places a very serious moral burden on the Nigerian government to respond to some of these security challenges. Just from 1994 to date have attracted serious international attention in terms of the spirit of killings that has been going on there. From 1994 to 2011 we have witnessed a series of violence. Basically it is tied to the issue of citizenship and indigentship in Jaws where a significant number of people that have lived in Jaws for over 100 years are still being considered as non-indigents. That is to say they are still being denied access to certain basic services that they require despite the fact that they pay tax in the state. But the point I need to also mention that the citizenship and indigentship crisis in Nigeria is not an issue that is peculiar to Jaws. It is part of what is called the national question in Nigeria because in every state you go you still find that kind of exclusionary practices in the country. But for Jaws it has taken a very violent dimension because governments at both the state and the federal level have not been able to address this issue proactively. Our take on this is that the Nigerian government has a very serious role to play in addressing the security challenge in Jaws particularly in terms of its ability to guarantee residency rights for all its citizens. But in a situation where citizens of a particular country are denied access because they are not indigenous to certain places, then you have to deal with the issue of inequality. And in the last one year we've been working with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa to also see how the United Nations can send the special advisor to the UN Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide Francis Deng to undertake a visit to Jaws so that the United Nations can also play a very key role in terms of facilitating a process of mediation in Jaws. Because as it is now there has been a breakdown of communication amongst the communities in Jaws and before now there has also been a breakdown of communication and trust between the plateau state government and the federal government. Because before good love became president, we had a governor in plateau that was a Christian and a president, the late Yaradwah, who was a Muslim. While the indigenous people are more comfortable with the governor taking decisions on Jaws, the house of learning communities are more comfortable with the president of the federal republic of Nigeria playing a role in the conflict because on the basis of identity each of this group believe the person that is closer to them in terms of identity or religion can safeguard their own power. And right now we have a more dicey situation where the governor of the state, the president of the country are all from one religious group, they are all Christians and the house of learning communities feel shortchanged by that kind of arrangement. So they don't trust any mediator that either the plateau state government will bring or the federal government will bring. And that makes the role of an international mediator very crucial in this process so that he or she will provide a balance along this ethnic and religious thought lines. That's how far we've gone on this issue and we've been speaking with people to see how their own input can also help in terms of fashioning a more proactive way of engaging the issue in Jaws so that there will be lasting peace and security. But that is not to say the issue of Jaws should be handled in isolation because even if you handle the issue in Jaws there are other states in Nigeria that have experienced violent conflicts as a result of the issue of indigenship in Benway, in Taraba, in Kaduna and several other states. And in conclusion, I just mentioned ethnicity, I just mentioned indigenship and citizenship as key drivers of the conflict but there are political drivers, there are economic drivers and also social drivers. So it is not just a religious issue or an ethnic issue as people have imagined it to be. And I think why we have that kind of interpretation to the fact that the conflict in Jaws is a religious conflict is because of the kind of reportage that the media presents. If you read Al Jazeera, for instance, it is being presented as Muslims are being killed. If you read CNN and BBC and whatever, you will read a different interpretation that Christians or Muslims are being killed. So it gives that kind of religious coloration to it. But religion and ethnicity only serve to a large extent as instruments that are being used by the political class to mobilize people to fight and kill themselves because of some of the interest that they also believe they can get from that kind of arrangement, particularly political interest. Thank you very much. Well, thanks to all of you and plenty of things to talk about here and I'm going to open the floor up to questions. Perhaps I could start off by asking clearly this is an election where civil society has a really critical role to play given the capability limitations of INEC and official organizations. From what you were saying, it sounds with the formation of a situation room. There's a lot of coordination between civil society. But how is the coordination between civil society and officials in this election? You say that given the government hasn't come up with a proper security plan, that police haven't also come up with a plan for election. How is that relationship working? What pressure can you put on officials in the run-up to the election? What do you think about that? Let's take a couple of other questions as well. If you could identify yourselves and if possible, we're recording this for our website. So if you could speak into a microphone, if there's one near you as well, that would be great. Deirdre. Deirdre Lupin. I'm with the University of Pennsylvania. I wondered if Mr Olayde and Mr Illo would like to speak on the issue of the controversy concerning the publication of the figures on the voter registration. There have been some issues having to do with the multiple registration figures, 800,000 plus, the great disparity between the provisional figures and the final figures that were published and so on. And I had also a question for Chris Kwaja, which is, you talked about the role that the international community can play in trying to identify the perpetrators of violence. Do you see a big difference between the approach that was taken to the October 1 blasts in Abuja, where obviously the U.K., the U.S. and South Africa were involved because the figures pointed toward Henry Oka and his brother Charles, whereas the later blasts in Jaws on Christmas Eve and the Suleja events have been less clear? Great, thank you. Let's take one more and then we'll have another round later on, lady here. Hi, Wander Mitchell with Wellington International. The question I have for Mr Kwaja is looking forward after the election, is everything okay now? That is, is there agreement among the political class in the north and those we assume will be the successors in the election? To move forward with a four-year Jonathan presidency, not withstanding the agreement that this eight years was supposed to be for the north. It's been very unclear to me whether or not, not withstanding the fact that the north voted, the PDP voted for the Jonathan Sambo ticket. It's just not clear. I'd like to have your thoughts on that. Great, so feel free to tackle those in whichever order you wish. Okay, I'm going to attempt to respond to two questions. One about the coordination between civil society groups and government and then the voting registration controversy. With regard to the coordination between civil society groups and government, I will say that there have been effort and there are ongoing effort to strengthen coordination between civil society groups and INEC particularly, but a lot of challenges remain. One of the things we tried to do as a result of the character of this new administration, the administration of INEC is to actually create an MOU, sign an MOU that allows civil society groups to have an understanding, a memorandum of understanding with INEC. This was something that Professor Jegar, the new chairman of INEC was very positive and forthcoming, but again this ran into a lot of difficulties. The idea of this MOU was that looking at where we are coming from 2007-2003 under the former INEC chairman, that was a complete, it's probably an institutional policy to actually look out civil society groups. We felt having the MOU in place will actually allow, first it will create the space that enables civil society groups to be able to legitimately participate in the activities of INEC. That hasn't happened, but one good thing that has happened is that, even though not systematic, is that there is an emerging culture of reaching out, communicating by this INEC. You will find a number of forums that have been convened by INEC to share information on the planning, on the timetable for the elections, some of the logistics and all of that. We keep complaining that what we actually need for this election is systematic communication strategies that can ensure steady flow of information between civil society groups, INEC, between INEC and the rest of the society. Outside of INEC, co-ordination between civil society groups and political parties is a major, major challenge, and understandably, political parties in this country in Nigeria continue to see themselves as, well, we are not responsible to the citizens. Oversight of citizens over them is still very weak, capacity challenges is also something that actually makes it difficult for civil society groups to be able to engage them. You have this attitude of it's them against us, so that's a major challenge going into the elections. But given that it's something that we recognize, we are hoping that it also becomes an agenda to do for us going into 2015 future elections. In terms of voter registration controversy, we are beginning to see a number of things are beginning to unfold to start with when the idea was muted by the INEC chair to conduct fresh voter registration. Not many Nigerians actually give him a chance to be able to do it because of the enormous challenges, logistical challenges, because of the time constraints, because of the huge financial resources. But repeatedly he gave assurance that, except there was a voter registration exercise in Nigeria, the credibility of elections would be on the line. And so the fact that, A, they've been able to successfully organize this and that we now have a voter register that actually is far more than what was estimated creates some concern. But given the monitoring that civil society groups actually have done on this, right from the process of procurement, selection of bidders, award of the contract, all of the information about this you actually find on the INEC website. But of course the challenge remain, why do we have 73.4 million against 70 million that was actually estimated? And the response to that from INEC has always been, since 1999, it's usually an estimate that well 70 million Nigerians are eligible voters, it could be lower, it could be more. So the controversies are still something that we ourselves are also monitoring, we are monitoring to see why some states actually have higher numbers and other states have lower numbers. It's true that INEC has also again come out to assure Nigerians that it's been able to do, cleaning up up to 800,000, but we're still not sure if that's all that represents multiple registration and all of that. But I want to believe that in the coming days a lot more will become clear and then we are also able to respond to them. I will start with the intelligence question you raised about South Africa, UK and the US during the October 1 bomb blasts while for the Sulejah and Jaws bombing it was really not clear. The challenge we faced within that period is also tied to the way the Nigerian intelligence system is structured in the sense that the state governors in Nigeria are not really in control of intelligence within their states. Intelligence all move to the office of the national security advisor, that is where you have a central coordinating body. And one of the challenges that the commissioner of police in a lot of these states have also raised and even the governors is that they are really not in control of the security arrangement within their state. Despite the fact that the governors of these states are seen as the chief security officers of their state, but they have no power to call troops in the event of crisis or likelihood of violence. All they need to do is to make an approval to the president and commander in chief of the armed forces who now deploy troops to their state. Now within the period of the violence and the time it would take to give approval for troops to be deployed to conflict spots, the damage has been done. And that's why in some states you find troops being sent two days or a day after the violence and between that period a lot of hard work has been done. And so governors are saying if you want us to really be in charge of our states, then we have, you need to give us a level of control in terms of the extent to which we can deploy troops. And it was within that context that the governor of Plato state now made a request to the president that he needs to have a new security arrangement called Operation Rainbow that is directly answerable to his office. So that in the event of a likelihood of crisis he can deploy this troop to conflict spots rather than rely on written or phone calls to the president for approval before these troops are sent, which to a large extent constitute a huge logistical challenge, both for the federal government and the state government. And that's why, like the stampede that took place in one of the states of recent protocol, there were accusations between the SSS and the Nigerian police. The Nigerian police in River state said when the president was going, the SSS people who came with the president said they are totally in control of the security arrangement within the stadium. The Nigerian police in that state have no power to do anything. And they accuse the SSS and other security agencies that came with the president for the rally of creating that problem. And that's why in subsequent outings the Nigerian police was fully in charge of the security arrangement so that that kind of incident does not occur. Excuse me, could I just ask a point of information? The police are federal as well. Yeah, they are federal. Yeah. In terms of the not, in the run up to the elections and the way good luck emerged as a presidential candidate for Nigeria, I label the not one region different voices. And I label it this way because you have a region that in terms of identity is one, but in terms of their choice for who becomes their candidate, they have varied choices. Bohari is also from the North. He's contesting under CPC. We have Ribadu from the North. He's contesting under ACN. And you have the vice presidential candidate, Nama Disambo, who is also from the North. So the North is really divided. And the North has not made a very categorical statement to say this is the individual we are supporting. But what we see in terms of patronage, state patronage, a lot of the businessmen and women in the North are in support of Jonathan because they still rely and depend on state patronage for their business to flourish. So they still, for instance, one of the businessmen in the North gave good luck Jonathan 250 million era support for his campaign. But when he discovered that the amount of money was far above what was in the electoral act, he quickly said he is giving 250 million era on behalf of 250 million members and 250 members of his family, which is one million per family member. Now it also raises a very serious issue in terms of how you track campaign finance because the electoral act says you cannot give beyond one million and he has given 250 million. So when the good luck campaign group saw it, he was quick to make that kind of statement. And you find instances where a lot of the support that goes into campaigns are not really announced officially for you to even say you want to track how money is spent during campaigns. But I know that the North is highly divided when it comes to who they really want to support. And it is difficult for them to really make a statement officially to say this is the person we are supporting. But Atikwa Wubachar, who felt shortchanged during the PDP primaries, was about going to court and he told his supporters that he was going to court. But some days later he came back with an editorial in the newspapers to say he is no longer going to court, he is a loyal member of the PDP, his supporters should also support PDP because PDP is the party they belong to. And that on its own changed a lot of things in the polity. So people now felt it means that we are sympathetic to good luck, Jonathan. I just wanted to add something on the question of registration, the point that Deirdre raised about the plausibility of the exercise. I mean there's a number of different points to be made here which make it I think very unsatisfactory. You want to be able to say something definitive about the quality of the exercise. But the fundamental yardsticks by which you would monitor it are not really available. What are we comparing with? 2003, 2007 registrations, if somebody says these numbers look too big, compared to what? We don't have really good reliable information on population movements or population growth in individual locations. So you say this number looks too big compared to what? So I think that one of the challenges is to know what the baseline ought to be. Then you have a challenge which I think relates, and this probably speaks more specifically to your question Deirdre, what's the quality of the exercise? We were speaking to colleagues this week who said, but everybody said that this whole exercise was impossible. So how come they've suddenly discovered it's impossible? There must have been some kind of shenanigans behind the scene to come up with this number. But I think that's part of the difficulty we have with the Nigeria problem, if you like, that we don't really know what we mean when we say they said it was impossible. We read news reports which said that no individual company could supply all the machines. What we don't know is whether the fact that now they got machines from three different companies is a problem or not. But to the extent that they were able to get this number of machines, that civil society was able to monitor the process of people going and registering, that INEC says they have conducted a verification and eliminated 800,000 names that they believe were just multiple re-registrations by the same person. That should give us some sense of confidence. Then we also understand that these lists will be made public. People will be able to verify and go and have a look. Civil society will be able to take a look at these lists and raise queries. And I think then you have to also add on top of that, sorry to go on so long, but I'll make this the last point, that Nigerian rigging has always been an extraordinarily fluid affair. It's not that there are only three ways that you can throw an election in Nigeria. There are multiple ways that you can do this. And politicians are essentially opportunistic. If they look at this situation they say well we don't know how to throw the election from this stage of the process, we'll let it alone. The fact is that in this instance every individual who registered got a card with a barcode on the back. And although we don't yet know precisely what the process is going to be by which they are verified as voters before they're allowed to vote, undoubtedly it's going to be harder from the side, as it were, to produce a bunch of extra cards that INEC does not currently know about in order to facilitate multiple voting. So it would be logical I think for the people who want to plan rigging to go via some other routes. We don't know what that route is going to be, it's all a matter of creativity, but I think we shouldn't just assume that this process is no good. I think it's right to ask hard questions, but we shouldn't just assume that the registration itself is no good because it's never any good. It looks like they might have closed one of the doors here, maybe others will open. Thank you. A couple of questions here. Let it be at the end of your waiting. Courtney Vaughan is my name, and as I listen to the speakers, I am pressed to ask a question and that is, do you believe that with all the challenges constraint needs gap from security institution to the political institutions that are in place now like INEC, that you really can bring the solutions that you're looking for to impact democracy in Nigeria without recognizing that Nigeria is a country that seems to me probably a significant percentage still operate in a traditional state. And here I'm looking more at the vision for Nigeria to transition into a modern state with all the challenges constraints, not just security, economics, etc. It seems to me that one actually need more of a comprehensive strategy to be able to get you that place and whether one uses INEC as a catalogue, not necessarily focusing just on the electoral process to get there. And this strategy must be built into Nigeria's broader development plan because the impact in terms of real development in Nigeria, the bottom line is people in every societies looking for more equity. And that's really what we're hoping democracy will bring. So I feel that we're addressing the issues in a very pragmatic manner. And evidence of that is we're 30 days away from the election and we're speaking up now about the issues. I know people have been speaking and institutions have been speaking, etc. But there's hardly anything you can do or even the US in 30 days to influence what will happen to Nigeria because those seeds were planted probably 24 months ago by whichever party. Actually, so much for three very good and very complimentary presentations, by the way. I guess this question is largely to Dio on the civil society aspect. Two questions there. I wonder if you can say a little bit more how this fund constraints flexibility of civil society groups to access and kind of block some of them out. And the second, I mean there's so many components of civil society. I wonder if we can focus maybe on the electoral observers and how is that a big part of what the situation kind of poll observers. Is that a big part of what the situation room is about and kind of related to that. I gather there poll results will be announced at each polling station. And I wonder if there's some kind of technological kind of SMS Ushahidi type process that's in place among domestic observers to kind of provide a parallel count. Two fairly simple but I think fundamental questions. One, it's always struck me that federal INEC actually doesn't really control the process that it is actually devolved down to the state level. And I'm wondering if the reform process that has taken place over the last nine months has fundamentally changed the operation procedure and nature of the state level INEC institutions which are actually fundamentally going to control this process rather than the central federal INEC. And my second question is, regardless of registration, regardless of the way people vote, the process of the collision of the results from the polling stations up through the system has always been extraordinarily opaque. I've done elections in 17 African countries and it is totally impossible in Nigeria to go up the ladder and see how the results are added up. Unless you have somebody in all 120,000 polling stations, it's virtually impossible to verify the results in the Nigerian system. And I'm wondering if you have made attempts to break through or if federal INEC has issued new regulations opening up the collision process to greater external scrutiny. I will just address your question regarding strategy, whether this will work and what can be done. I agree with you that the problem of Nigeria is multifarcheted. I totally agree with that. I also agree with you that we are running against time. But the problem of Nigeria is broad, but we believe that one of the critical ways to go is to provide an exos of accountability using the electoral process. If you are able to use the electoral process to vote out people who don't perform properly when they're elected, if you're able to use the electoral process to say that a particular government policy is not working and you want it to stop, then it is a great step in ensuring good governance and accountability. So, for us, one of the core fundamentals of democracy is the ability of the people to freely choose who they want to be to govern them. It is fundamental. If you get that wrong, everything is probably going to go wrong. So we think that this is critical. It is a way to start to get the electoral process right. And, yes, the country has a broad strategy on a whole lot of other things, but central to even the vision 2020 that we have in Nigeria is the electoral process. And now, the activity of civil society in this electoral process is been ongoing. This is just one of the many events that we are speaking of calling people to come and help us. And knowing where we started from in 1999, knowing what went through in 2007, I think the country has made a remarkable leap from 2007 to where we are now. And that is a process that has created the interest of more than 17 million Nigerians. That is a process that has created a lot of awareness and sensitivity in the country. That is a process that, for the first time in Nigeria, we don't even know who is going to win the election. And for us, that is an enormous opportunity to intervene and to support the process. I mean, there's a brief that will be circulated, of course, where we outlined a couple of activities we think if taking between now and the election will have a way of impacting on the election. Beyond the election is the issue of electoral justice, which is part of our recommendations empowering civil society to observe the election and also observe the process of dispute resolution after the election. So, I'll just leave it at that and allow my colleagues to talk to other points. Thanks, Jude. Let me talk a little bit about the resource constraint that you mentioned. Now, there are quite a number of things that are unique about Nigeria. It's civil society groups as well is a unique thing. Nigeria has perhaps some of the strongest civil society groups across West Africa and probably across Africa as well. If you also understand the movement of civil society groups in the country, you can understand the experiences they've gathered over the year, the struggle against military rule. So, it's not for lack of civil society capacity. There are existing capacity challenges here and there, but what we have seen these particular elections is that the grant making mechanism that the major donors have put in place through the joint donor basket fund is limiting, is restricting. It doesn't help civil society to be able to access grants and affect the elections. That is a major challenge. So, for instance, when you have a situation where all the major donors have contributed to this fund and UNDP has come up with this 12-page or 13-page document that civil society groups have to complete, you need to demonstrate that you have capacity to be able to run a project into third part of the countries. You need to respond to issues around gender. It makes it extremely difficult for civil society groups to be able to access funds. So, what you find is a few groups like OSIWA, OSIWA is the open society initiative for West Africa, that is outside of the joint donor basket fund, is perhaps one of the few organizations that have actually been able to provide assistance to these civil society groups. So, you find that there is this disenchantment among civil society groups towards this joint donor basket fund. You can understand the rationale behind its establishment. Well, if you have the UNDP with the capacity, it takes away the burden from CDAL, from DFID in terms of management and putting in place the structures to regulate the granting. But it has failed, woefully, and that is the point that we want to pass across. Even if we are going to retain it, a lot of fundamental changes needs to happen in the joint donor basket fund mechanisms. You also raised questions about election observers. Yes indeed, a lot is happening in that regard. Many of those civil society groups that are successful in their grant making are going to deploy, a lot of training is happening. But also is the fact that there is a lot of international effort. We are expecting the EU, the NDI, the IRI, they are all going to deploy election observers. Even though our own concern is also that, from experience, deployment is usually to select places. There are a number of flash points that we think having international presence can actually help to serve as a check. But whether or not they will have clearance to visit these places, Jaws, Meduguri, Bouchi, some places also in the Niger Delta, in the South East as well. They are very important and except we have strong presence of international and local observers, chances are that it's going to be business as usual for these guys. Your point about the reform that has taken place, I think that we are excited by a number of the reforms that we've seen, particularly in INAIC. I think the removal of Morris Yw, of course, the former INAIC chair was a major step. The financial independence that is now granted to INAIC is a major, it's a welcome reform in INAIC. The appointment of Jega and the independence that he has demonstrated so far, he's inspired a lot of trust, a lot of confidence, which again has also increased the burden of expectation that he now has to carry. So there are some forms of reforms that we think is very important, but we're not there yet. We think that a lot of communication challenges remain between INAIC in terms of decision making between the central INAIC and the states. We will expect to see devolution of powers further down, especially that on elections day, for instance, if we take a look at what happened in Delta state. A number of decisions that need to be taken on the spot can't happen without the clearance from federal INAIC. So we welcome these. We also think that probably as a result of the shortness of time, it's difficult now for the new chair to actually start a process of cleansing that needs to happen in-house. A number of INAIC officials that were inducted that have been in the cases that we saw in 2007, in the rigging, some of them are actually complicit in such actions. He hasn't got the time to be able to go after them, but again, this is one of the do's for us going towards 2015. By and large, we think that when it's a fairly safe ground in terms of the independence and neutrality of INAIC, but does that guarantee that we will have the best elections come 2011? I think given that the elections in 2007 actually dropped the bar, there is a greater chance that we'll have fairly good elections in 2011. But there is also a lot of opportunity between now and the elections and as well post-elections for us to actually, even for that, jack that up in terms of the quality of the elections. Just to add that in terms of the coalition of results, the opaque process, I think INAIC has responded to that challenge, that specific challenge by saying our results will be pasted on the spot. So you have the result even before it is taken to the main coalition center, which gives people opportunity to verify if what they have on ground conflict with what was eventually released. Thanks very much to all of you. I'm afraid we were out of time and there were more questions. I know maybe you can ask them afterwards. Thanks all of you for coming this morning and thanks to our panellists as well for such a clear explanation of the challenges and really outlining how important the role of civil society is and international pressure and focus on the election in the weeks and months ahead after this as well. So thanks all for coming and please join me in thanking our panellists. Richard, can I just add one comment? Sylvia Leith Ross, who was an anthropologist who also was the wife of a district officer said Nigeria is a country, this was 80 years ago, where the possible is so frequently bungled and the impossible so elegantly accomplished. And I do think that sums up the voter registration effort and may the election effort. So we shouldn't, as Aqway said, lose faith. You rounded it off in a far more poetic manner than I could have done. So thanks to that.