 The local government is the closest government to the people. The local government is meant to be in charge of basic education as primary school. They are also in charge of primary health. They are also in charge of the environment, your streets, your drainage, and everything that really affects your day-to-day well-being. And we found out that the quality of governance at that level is borderline non-existent. You know, when you ask people who they are council or local government chairmen, they struggle to remember. And we felt that we need to start populating governance at that level with competent people that can add value. And that was the reason why we felt we should try out at the local government level. One of the reasons why we decided to try leki in particular is because of the demography of people, the socio-economic class of the people living in leki. We felt that they would understand our brand of politics better. They are largely middle-class, upper-class, and they understand the politics of policies as against if we go to a more local government where the majority are working class. They usually believe in the politics of stomach infrastructure, as we call it. These are too difficult for them to start thinking about a year's time, two years' time, three years' time. It's all about quick reward. You know, they can't do the further gratification. That's why we targeted leki and that's why we felt the local government needs to be addressed. The thinking is also if you have good primary education, if you have good primary health care, if your streets are clean, you stand a chance in the world to make progress in life. After we decided to run, you know, the campaign was fully active. We went into all the different communities around in our constituency. We bonded with the communities, we presented our vision. The campaign had two priorities, environment and job creation, which I believe are tied together because the constituency was completely ungoverned when you look at the state of our environment and the terms of young people who just, you know, mail us out with nobody engaging them. So we went in with a very clear vision to clean up the environment and also engage with young people by giving them jobs. And that was very welcome, you know, by the communities, you know, they received us well and we got a lot of buy-in from young people. But at the background, you know, a lot was happening. The youth party illegally registered a party with the independent national electoral commission. But somehow we were not being allowed to participate in all the pre-election processes. You know, our names did not come out on the forms, our names did not, you know, we just were not sure whether we were actually going to, you know, be on the ballot paper at the end of the day. So it was more like we were campaigning by faith in enough in a sense because, you know, we were doing all this work, we were getting a lot of people to support us, we were in a sense recruiting a lot of people, but we did not know whether at the end of the day, you know, when they go out to vote, they will actually see the youth party on the ballot paper. The exclusion really affected us. In a simplistic term, there was no level playing field. Our ability to raise campaign funds was largely impaired because you can imagine, I'm coming to you to ask you to donate to the campaign and you are being told that we're not a registered party. You are not going to give us time and if you give us time, you probably won't give us money. Also, we're being demarcated among the electorate. You know, you are talking to people. People want to support a potential winner. You know, why should we support you? Why should we campaign for you when you might not even be on the ballot paper? And what is quite obvious to us and everybody is that you have a biased empire. You know, you have people that have an interest. They are more or less referees that are wearing the gist of the other team and they have no apologies about it. They do it openly. So before the election, while everyone was focusing on campaign, was focusing on other things, our resources and attention were divided between the court and campaign and also even persuading our party members that, you know, that everything is under control that they should come on. So we were not given a level playing field. And when you talk about a free and fair election, it's not just on the election day. It's also about what happened before the election day. And there were some other people that were, some other things that were done to really create an imbalance. So I had contested in 2019. So as a result, I was preview to the kind of things that can happen on election day and before election day. So I'd offered my services to Tyra as a result to say, look Tyra, let me come with you. Let me be part of your team. Let me explain to the agents that we're going to get how it is important that they do certain things and kind of things they should look out for. No book tells you about election day. There's nothing that tells you what happens on election day. You read different things about how to go about the election. When the, you know, the part that you always hear is that, oh, people stay there and they protect their votes. But they don't protect the votes because at a certain point in time, Inet closes the books, everybody puts the things inside the book and then they go away. So from that point, that transit point, a lot more can happen as I would let you know as we go along. So on the day of the election, people have come, quite a number of people have come out because I don't saw an auntie of mine that come. But the, like I said, people went there. They didn't come on time. They only strode in at about maybe nine something they strode into the, to the place. The girl came with two booklets and the box where you put the, the ballot boxes where you put the things inside. And that was it. And then we were first to the first deliver, where she gonna sit. There were no seats, no seats, no table. I had to take out money, call one of the boys around there. We had to take an Okada to go and rent seats and chair, and the chair and the table for her to be able to sit. That was the first point. So at that point, after that was done, people that were hanging around, they obviously the agent for APC was there, agent for the other parties were there, PDP. There were just three of us at the polling unit anyway, we were just PDP, APC and youth party. They're just the three. So the other two agents were there waiting. They didn't even bite an eyelid. They didn't even say, why are you late? Why did you not come? Why have you just come? I was the only one that walked up to her, okay, so we set you up now, please can you bring out the ballot papers and your registered, your list, your registered voters list. Because it's important to balance the registered voters list with the ballot paper. When she bought out the registered voters list, I think we heard like about 70 something or registered voters on the list, and she only came with two booklet of ballot papers, one for the chairmanship and then the other one for the councilorship. And I said to her, why? We're already starting at a low place because right now you have a set, you have thousands registered voters and you only come with 200. Are you pre-empty? Are you saying that only 200 people are going to come out? This was when I first knew that there was a problem. Yes, we do know that there's voter apathy. We know that there's a low turnout of voters on the day of election. For them, for 200,000, there's nothing compared to it. While dealing with that one, I had to go away because I was, like I said, I was supervising all the other ones. I left someone in charge, went away, got to a polling unit, found out that a few of the polling units, there were no agents there, no polling boxes, nothing there. We started trying to trace where those ones were, and found out that they had gone to one place, or one was in Victoria Island instead of being in Lake Hill, which is it also. That was another problem, another hurdle we had to deal with. Then I got to a polling unit. I think, and I got there, and then I just suddenly noticed that the ballot paper was saying Euro VI, and this is also in Lake Hill. And at that point I said no, but it is not going to occur here. I mean, what's happening here? She said, oh, that she's not very comfortable with the area, and she just came from a different area. So that's what they gave to her. I'm like, it doesn't matter, call your office, call anybody that you need to call. But you cannot be voting for Euro VI in Lake Hill, where we are voting for different candidates completely. I mean, that's not going to work, and that's not on. We started with that process, I asked everybody to please not go to stop until they get someone to come and deal with the issue. We waited a while. Some of the polling units, the agents were asked to leave, they were not given access. I know that in some of the ones that they want the palace, for instance, the agents were not allowed to go in there. They were intimidated, they were told that they were beaten up, and of course they had to run for their lives. I mean, so like you think about it, like in five of the units, nothing happened because of intimidation. So we're intimidated, and all that happened. To the purpose of elections, to consult with the people and to validate and legitimize governments. The idea is that if the people express their opinion in a way that can be measured, then it gives authority to the governments to carry out acts in their name. If an election lacks legitimacy for any of those reasons, that is, it has not been a proper consultation, and you do not know what is the will of the people, then the legitimacy of the government is, by definition, affected. A low turnout election is considered in many electoral systems to be a dangerous problem, both for the progress of the democracy, the stability of society, and for the validity of the election itself. This is why in many countries, elections are voting as either compulsory, or an election is not regarded as valid unless various percentages, 60%, 50% have actually voted in that election. If 10% or 20% as we're seeing some of our elections in Nigeria is a mandate that is given to the government, then by any international standard, that election is one lack of legitimacy. It cannot be used as a basis for claiming a mandate for the many sweeping things the government has to do. There are political costs, obviously, of a persistently low mandate, and there's a legal cost in that in many rational legal systems, this sort of election is considered by definition illegitimate. And what happens, of course, is that there's a persistently low turnout election. Ultimately, people will stop voting and it will be recognized that a government that has no, you know, a point that people don't really get is that you cannot govern any territory by force alone. You cannot govern any territory by pretending to to have authority that authority is given by the people whether it's by measurable way on a measure, you cannot govern without consent. So if you learn about the soldiers and ledger they cannot cover legal states. How do you maintain order by people accepting across the board that you have the right to govern and that right in the democratic system comes from the exercise of political choice and election. This is a very interesting political process. And for those of us who have participated as Atari and the youth party. You need to continue to interrogate the mechanism by which that consultation is operated. And all the things that Mr. Locco has indicated. For me, as an individual that the Nigerian political elite, those who operate the system of elections, do not believe in the mechanism of democracy. They do not believe that the people should be consulted or that their opinion is valid, and that there is a consistent and systematic calculation to subvert the will of the people, while keeping the pretense of democracy they need to keep the pretense because they believe that they're legitimately elected governments, but they do not want to test their popularity or test the satisfaction of the people, or to test their accountability which they owe the people in the actual process. All those manipulations, all those efforts to dislocate the choice of the people, suppressing party representation, moving electoral ballots, counseling votes in specific areas, thuggery, violence, treating. These are all classified across the world as my practices, and that these are elements which undermine the religious election. The people were demanding for was a rerun because the election never took place. There were 16 polling units. Eight out of the polling units. There were voting instances. What do I mean by that. You have clear cases based on documents where 30 people are accredited to vote. The total number of votes were 300, 400. And according to the external electoral laws, that means election did not take place. It's a non-lity. That was the reason why we went to the electoral election tribunal. The other reason was that people came out in the morning and they made sure they were frustrated to go back. And it has not always been like this. 1999, the voters turnout was almost 50%. 2003, it was about 60 something percent. But as the system became brazenly unfair, people started losing interest. Even when they come out, they get frustrated. They bring the wrong ballot paper. They have different ways. Out of 16 polling units, eight of them were voting. There were other things. We are asking for a cancellation. We are asking for a rerun. polling unit 13 and 14 in particular. polling unit 13, election started at 3 o'clock or 3.15. For an election that was meant to start at 8 o'clock in the morning. Who is going to wait from 8 in the morning to 3 o'clock to vote? So by stop doing, you cannot say election in that place was done in substantial compliance with the law. In the result sheet, there was no result for polling unit 13. And the number of registered voters in polling unit 13 was more than the margin of victory between the winner and our candidate. So there was meant to be a rerun, but they didn't listen to us. The reason why they will continue to be voters apathy is that you have an empire that is openly biased. We went to the election of the Electoral Tribunal and part of the orders that was put in our way, for them to even settle the Electoral Tribunal, we have to threaten them. We have to write letters. We have to go to the press. You need to file your notice of petition within 20 days. Where are you going to find it? If the Electoral Tribunal, Election Tribunal is not constituted, we have to force them to constitute it. We have to force them to do everything. We have to pay in the last year to give us electoral materials. We paid through the nose. We paid officially over 300K, 500K to have those papers. We have to pay them to come. They made it very, very expensive. And they were not hiding it. Even in court. You see, last year, council announcing holding the brief of APC. They were not even beating around the bush. The system that we were up against was, was intimidating to say the least, you know, but we had to do it. We needed to interrogate the system. We needed to let the system know that we're going to ask questions. You can have your way, but we are going to have our seat. We're going to put the election, we're going to put it in the judicial system, we're going to put it in the public domain. And I think we've done that successfully. Information regarding elections needs to be democratized. It's not fair, and it doesn't make any sense that as a candidate running for an election, there's no transparent and legal process of me knowing the boundaries of my constitution. And that was, that was our experience. We were running for office and we had no idea what, what boundaries were. We had no idea what our policy needs to be. And this is not because we were not making an effort to find it. But why should we be making that much of an effort? This should be information that should publish records. Information cannot be weaponized against, you know, traitors, traitors in an electoral process. Where it seems that the electoral empire only shares with the select group of people and the rest of us are left to be in the dark. That is very, very biased and it's unacceptable. So that is an electoral reform that urgently needs to be carried out. And the first thing is the mode of appointment of INE commissioners and last year commissioners. I think it must reflect fairness. Whilst the president or the governor won the mandate quote unquote of the people. If the commissioners are 11, it should be allowed to choose maybe five, maybe four. And the rest should go to certain respected institutions. Be Nigerian Judicial Commission, be Nigerian Society of Engineering, be Nigerian Bar Association and bodies like that. And I think that's the only way you can have some level of fairness as long as a partisan body is choosing all the INE commissioners. The process is going to be brazenly rigged against everyone. I think for me that as the first one, I think the second one is the amendment of section 225A of the Constitution. I think it is accepted all over the world that multi-party democracy is the way forward. Now, that particular section is saying when you are registered as a party within a month, two months, the very first election, if you don't win something, you are going to be registered. So you're asking a child that was born yesterday to take an exam with a university graduate. Animals pass. So our thinking is a newly registered party must be given four to eight years to grow organically. It must make every process that you can easy to attain. Right now it's made difficult. It's made to discourage voting. It's made to be sure that only those who are die hard or who are steeped in the corruption of the system and are benefiting by that means are the ones who are persistent in voting. And so this is how I think that the future of democracy to answer your question and summary requires the widest participation of the widest number of people, as easy as possible means so that they have confidence in the legitimacy and accountability of their government.