 Welcome back to the breakfast. And our next major conversation this morning is with regards to 2023 general elections. Some people might argue that it's too early to have those conversations. But, you know, there's also, you know, situations where we've seen people already seeming to be campaigning. These persons have not officially stated that they will be running for office in 2023. But if you look across Abuja from News Report, you would see campaign posters of certain persons. One of them, of course, is the former Senate President Boko La Saraki. Well, it says youthful and competent leadership. We can also remember that yesterday we spoke about... Both for change and that is for... We laugh it now. Yeah, below of Kogi State. We can also remember yesterday we spoke about Jagabah and the five KGB of rights that were shared in Kano State. And so these are examples of persons who, you know, either willingly or, you know, maybe, you know, they may not even be aware, have started putting out information and campaigning for 2023. This morning we're speaking with Adi Amisaka, a public affairs analyst, and Mr Alesta Wilcox, who is joining us via phone. Good morning to you both. Good morning. It's nice to be here once again. Thanks for joining us. Mr Wilcox, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you clearly. Good morning. All right, good morning. I'm going to start with our guest in the studio. So it's not unusual to see these things happen, you know, in the build-up to Nigerian elections. But this is two years before, you know, we actually start, you know, getting into an electoral process. Before INEC even opens up the doors for campaigning. So what exactly would you say is going on? Well, for me, it's probably Nigerians having a peep into what's being seen 2023 and probably maybe start, you know, work towards accepting, making a choice of rejecting some people. Some candidacy or some ambitions you're seeing out there. Elias, you know, funny. Some, which coincides and insults our collective intelligence. Some gets you thinking, look at it with a bit of seriousness when it happens. But it's never too early because if you look at what we've been coming, what we've been experiencing since 2015, I think it's early enough for us to start. It's not too early for us to start thinking and looking at the way out of this mess we found ourselves. Not too early? No, as Nigerians, it's not too early for us to start weighing our options. It's not too early. You have to get out of this nightmare as soon as possible. That's for me. Well, according to what the law says, you can't get out of it. No, I mean, it's not as if you're doing it officially. At least let's have a peep. Let's start thinking individually as Nigerians. Let's have an idea of how do we get out of this nightmare. Alright. Let's find out from Leicester. So Adeemi says it's not too early. And Leicester, is it too early to start campaigning for 2023? Well, I want to greet Mr. Adeemi. Good morning, sir. Good morning. That you all took me aback, nightmare. I wonder what nightmare our country is, but that's in the realm of everybody's opinion. I mean, I think that word is five-strong for a country like Nigeria, I mean, we are not in a nightmare. We are a democratic country, and I think we are moving at the pace which we shouldn't move at the pace that we should move later. I agree with him. It's not too early. In every political system, there's always a time for alignment and realignment going to happen. Like he mentioned, 2015, the alignment started 2012, I believe. When the alignment started, and that culminated in the new political party that finally was so far from the dominance of the decadent system, we were waiting for them. So it's not too early. But again, in any system, there are pretenders and there are real actors. So most of the things you have seen now, like the posters you are showing me, people are just pretenders and they always come up at every point in time. They always come up to flex their muscles. I remember sometime in 2016 or there about, or 2017, Fire Shake came up, launched a lot of buses, a lot of programs to contest the 2019 election as president. Then it was the governor. So I mean, we can find things like that. They all happen in our system. That's part of the comedy of our political system and joke. So there are the pretenders and they always come up at this point. But the real actors are also there. But like I said, it's not too early. If there's any alignment going to happen, realignment, and any serious plan, because it is a big country, any serious plan that's going to be, I think the time is now for such plans to kickstart. But this, Mr. Wukong, this isn't necessarily... Mr. Wukong, this isn't necessarily campaigning. This is really just opposed as appearing here and there. The only one that might be more than just opposed that would be the Jagabah bags of rice. And these things don't necessarily... I mean, even for that doesn't really mean that he might be running for president. So is it possible that these things are done without their knowledge, without the knowledge of the persons in question here? Not really. Most of them don't know. The persons in question sometimes endorse these things. In terms of, like for instance, now you see the Jagaban rice, I don't know, it was shared in Kano. And don't forget that Jagaban has a very good friend in the governor of Kano state. So there may be some alignment between himself and the governor as to how he wants to feather his... I mean, it's an open secret that Jagaban is part of... one of those in the midst for the 2023 presidential election. So that may not be out of place. It also may be out of place to think that the governor of Kogiste, talking of Yaya Bello, is also feathering some people. It may not also be out of his knowledge, because he has reached out to the Panikai Reservoirs to some people in order to test the water. So he almost... But I'm not aware... I've not had much of Salaki, Bukola Salaki, if he also endorse what people are doing with his post now. But being somebody who has gone to the level of a Senate president, I think the only best place for him to go, and I don't see Salaki going back to contest as a senator, the only best place for him to go is to put a shot at a president. But don't forget, he also put a shot at a presidency in 2019. So he also... I'm sure he has not the means and ambitions to also put up a shot at the president. In all this, they might be aware, their thoughts might be aware, not to also rule out the fact that sometimes people too will just carry out their... Because Nigeria carried out certain mandates, which is not... I may have the support of the principal. They just... Some of them wake up and see it like that, and they just dance along and just keep quiet. Let me come to Adeyemi here. You know, if you take a look at Salaki, before President Buari came on board the first time around, he had to win his party's primary, right? One of the people he contested against was Salaki. So I'm trying to see... Alessah called some people pretenders and some people the real actors. So I want to pick your brains a bit to see who you would categorize as a pretender and an actor. And then you see Yaya Bello, the government, the incumbent governor of Kogi State. On one of the posters, I saw them call him the bridge... What? The gap bridge. Yeah, some president material. Okay, look at it. That's what I'm talking about. He's also mentioned, just to clear up, in recent interviews, he mentioned that the Nigerian women and youths were crying and begging that he contests for. Oh, wow. Okay, so then we now have the Jagabah rise now. I don't know what I'll call it, Jagaban or Jagabah or something, because we see Jagabah, that's it. In Kano. So I want to find out from you, do you see any of these people pretending? Oh, wow. Some, I think the only person that has been frontal and not with his ambition, give it to him is Yaya Bello. Not that I believe in him, not that I believe in what it takes to take Nigeria to promised land. And it's early to campaign, so I don't want to talk down your party or give somebody's or probably present other party. For Bukolasaaki, I think once you look at it, it's true is that in the ring, I think after a second time in office, I was given a quiet state to contest the PDP ticket. I think that I gave it to Jonathan. I think it was in 2012. It was to govern until 2011. And it was when it went to the Senate. For anybody that knows politics, for anybody that understands political timing and politicking, we'll tell you that you cannot push aside or probably ignore Bukolasaaki. I fully call it Bukiboy. For Bola and Metinombo, in the APC, it's like a God. You can take that away from him. And my question is, what is it going to tell us in the train train 3 that with my head, is it going to tell us that it wants to continue the good work and build on the legacies of Bari or Bari failed us and wants to do the right thing? So that's the, for me, personal opinion. That's the dilemma to Nambu will probably go through, probably will have trying to convince Nigerians, somebody like me, not all Nigerians. But if Mamadou Bari can become the president, 2015, let's say like the good will of Nigerians. But if Mamadou Bari in the face of gross incompetence and Nigerians could reinforce failure in 2019, I would not say Abelu cannot be the president of Nigeria. I'm scared of my country. I'm scared for my country. I'm scared of my compatriots. I want to, you know, now that we're talking, just to quickly also mention that these persons haven't necessarily started campaigning. You haven't asked me before, it's his own. You haven't even said he's passing. Well, he's mentioned it, you know, but this is not a campaign for presidents. He hasn't, you know, done what we actually call campaigning. And that's what I want to go into now. And I would like both, you know, you to answer this. Mr. Wilcox, before we get to the point where INEC then declares open, you know, campaign period and, you know, any person who decides to run, you know, then, you know, steps forward, is it interesting or is it important that we start to educate on Nigeria and start to get better education on what to look out for in presidential campaigns? Rice may not be enough. Well, I'll probably start with James Akadan. I think we may have lost Alissa Wilcox. So rice may not be enough. Onions may not be enough either. Neither will vegetable oil. Do you think that we will get to that point where Nigerians will be able to look deeper than some of all these things and see beyond, I mean, see through the lies, you know, when it's time to campaign? Yeah, I think we can. And I think the only way to get about it and to get to that promised land, if I can use that word, is if you have the electoral hats revised, you know, revealed and a new one passed into law, and if Mamadou Bwari will be gracious enough not to ascend to such a bill, that would be fantastic. E-voting is important. Naturally, voting is important. They have to find the way. It was the time I was on this platform. I think the head of U.S. Education INX is probably pleading and the National Assembly to make sure that the card reader is captured in our laws and things like that. And I'm praying as well. I'm hoping that there's this set of, it's obvious, robust national assembly for ones to prove to Nigerians that there's a usefulness in them to come up with electoral hats and the president signs it. With that, if we can have credible elections, people will believe in the system. If there's no for independent candidates, there's no need for you to kill yourself to get a partisan ticket, if you're sure. Because elections is a popular contest. So if you're so sure you're popular and it reduces the financial burden and the amount of spending and politics, then the electoral process becomes more transparent, becomes more reliable. Nigerians get more confident in the system. What I'm trying to get is, do you think Nigerians will get to a place where Nigerians, you know, and the whole voting population will be able to see the unfaithful promises? No, but because by the time the electoral system is plain, simple and straightforward, then if you could be so sure you see through this thing and you know you're rejecting them at the polls, understand? And that is it. If you don't get... If you're enabling laws that guarantee you free-fair elections, you probably... Some people... I understand this, and some people even didn't vote for this bad... I'm not saying this government generally is bad, but they didn't vote for bad governance. But the system threw up these bad people. So they just said, why do I want to lose both races? I probably will vote. My vote will not count at the same time I'm stuck with these people, so let me get what I can get from them. But if you're so sure the system guarantees that your votes count, the system guarantees that the process is watertight, photo-line free, and the right people get that the people's choice and mandate is protected and validated. You tell anybody giving you rice, spaghetti, onions, and whatever that meant, well, thank you for the bazaar. But without that, I don't... There's going to be a cycle that we'll continue for till I came down, but if they give us laws that we can take good elections that we know that, yes, this is what we get for at every dispensation. The output is equal to the input, you know? 10 Nigerians, I guess we get. We start having issue-based campaign. We won't care if it's a tone, your tone or something. We're probably looking at GDP, we're probably looking at issues of national security, issues of defense and budget spending. We're coming to play laws and, you know, constitutionality and how you respect the various institutions of exception of powers. We're coming to play. But without that, without the electoral hacks of laws that will guarantee us good elections, we're stuck with these masquerades dancing in the market square. Well, I don't know if those are the grassroots who do the majority of the voting who would care about issue-based campaign and all of that. They will? They will. Yeah, they will. When they are poor and they need food and they seem to rise, I believe they're going to... I know, because if governors are close to the people and you... Even if there are a lot of things, when we're talking about electoral constitution, the recall process is there, the accountability process is there, you can question them and you can lead up institutes of... Okay, as an individual, I don't think it... I don't think it's anywhere in your constitution that you could write or a lawyer could petition a public office owner at the State House of Assembly and that becomes a ground for impeachment, proceedings or something. Yes, you could write, they would tell you to go to court. So we'll have such a proposed system in place. I think people will sit tight and they'll want to market themselves and you want to market intelligently to people not in the way things were done in 1864 with Rice, Gary and Akbar Dhul, like you said, and kind of. Okay, I was just going to say I would have loved Alesta to react to your question about the electoral system, but it looks like we are stuck with that. So I don't know if you want to push him further. Yeah, I mean, still on the same thing. I believe that there's a lot of Nigerians who, even on social media, who would say that we need to go to a place where issue-based campaigns are needed, but there's still a lot of other factors that come to play, like she also mentioned poverty, hunger, unemployment, things that factors that come to play and make it less necessary for issue-based campaigns if voter inducement can be so fast spread across the country. But I want to look close at Bola Medinubu and the speculations, the rumors that he might be running in 2023. We've also seen a lot going on in Kano State. Why do you think that is happening? Well, the SQS is around the corner. It said Fulani and Yoruba's are one. My history tells me differently. I don't know where it got that from. So it's a pure politics. JKB is a Nigerian. He's been a Gov now for eight years. He was a senator. He deported the public. This is right. He could exercise it. I don't know. Maybe until, you see, for us to get out of here, I probably want to get controversial. For us to have good elections, credible elections, and you don't believe. We have to stop believing. We just have to wait for that massive vote from Kano or something. I think we need to have a consensus on this country. It's there about time. Because if you look at the last 2019 election, there was a bomb blast that did the election in Damatou in Yoruba. It had over 800,000 votes coming out of Yoruba, Damatou that same day. There are some things that doesn't have that. So we need to really have the consensus. The consensus, given the demography of, you know, with that you could project at this point in time, this is the average voting population from this place, from this place, from this place. Without a budget, without a sense of, we can't really plan. It's not just about, we shouldn't look at it just because of elections. Let's just allocate or let's, we have to show them that we have the numbers. We need to even plan. We need to know how to get out of this poverty cycle. We need to plan how to develop. We need to know the infrastructure of cousin we're facing. We need to know where we need, if I have to plan for our health, health care and things like, even education. So we need, we need. And with a right-sensors result and a proper one, a truthful one, it could make even our election and process smoother and more transparent. All right. Welcome back, Melissa Wilcox. Thank you. I've been, I've been, I've been with you members. I want, you know, you to address this. I think this was posted by Deja Deonju a couple of days ago, and he was referring to those young political and presidential hopefuls. The third force, the not too young to run the, you know, the likes. You know, there's a particular group that always shows up just before the elections. He was, of course, seemingly mocking them. They aspire to aspire. They aspire to aspire to retire. He was similarly saying that they will show up, you know, in six months to the election and expect that, you know, they have enough popularity across the country to win anything, you know, in any seat across Nigeria, which doesn't work because of the peculiarities of Nigeria's political and election, you know, process. So do you, you know, would you say that, you know, for you, because of peculiarities of our situation, for you to be able to be relevant in 2023 is best that you start to put your face out there in 2021? If you, if you are not yet in limelight politics, like the Jagabans, like the Boko La Samaki, and then you want to be anything national in 2023, then last year, 2015, say, look, we joke a lot in this country, and unfortunately for us public analysts, we come on TV, we come on TV and radio, and we incite the people, we make them happy, they can do it. Forgetting, like you said, the peculiarities. Somebody who has not been a counsellor, you've not won a counsellor seat before, you are not even popular, you don't even know the political opinion of your local government, of your world. The next thing, a nation called Boom, you want to become president of Nigeria, what a joke. Are we to go away, are we still alone, you can't even do that. You can't do that in the public. You are nowhere, because you make noise on social media, you have Twitter, that you have 200 million followers, you think that is what gives the election. Of course you are a joker, and as you see, there are so many pretenders. So for you to walk up in 2023, to be talking about ants, you see, my brother in the studio, I think let us also try and advance our people. There are levels of government that you can make impact, not just the president. Everyone looks at the presidency, and that is why we in the media have a lot of attention to the presidency. Nobody talks about how right the governments are running with their resources and look at government administration. We are all looking at the president. We want Gary, we are looking at the president, we want Supe in our world, we are looking at the president, we want Onions, we are looking at the president. And part of the problem was caused by us public analysts. So we want everybody to become president in order to solve Nigeria's problem. You can solve Nigeria's problem by being a councilor in the world. Start there and grow it up. So for me, anybody who wants to be anything in 2023, that has not started in 2015, to have worked on the ladder, to have done alignment, it's not a Twitter thing. After some people, I mean this man that had over over 200, over 2 million people in his feet in the last election, couldn't come back and 7,000 votes. These are the peculiarities. You need to be in the classroom. The people that vote, the people that vote in the village, they don't have Twitter, they're not on Twitter. They're not Sorosoke generation. The Sorosoke generation, they are only interested in their music and in video and watching status on social media. That's what I'm interested in. They are the Sorosoke generation. So all the noise that is being made, it is noise. At the end of the day, the politicians who still have to get the positive votes and they will see you in the election and you keep making the noise. The noise doesn't help. So let me come in. I think that those talk about thoughts for us today, and let me just tie this in. Those talk about thoughts for us today. Look, for us to have APC, we've had CPC since 2003. We've had AMPP since 1998. We've had ACN since 1998. That is a metamorphosis from ADS. Now this was came together in 2012 to fight 2015 elections. You are nowhere nowhere. Only Twitter and making noise and abusing government and abusing Buhare and abusing people. That is all you are doing. And you think that we win the election. That is a joke. Pure joke. And it doesn't take you anywhere. It doesn't take Nigeria anywhere. You need to walk through the political system for you to get to anywhere you want to go to. Biden did not become president of America just by tweeting and making noise. He had been there. Obama did not become president of America just by his rabble wrestling. He started somewhere. Bill Clinton started at the General of Arkansas years back before he was able to claim to the ladder. So you must start from somewhere. You don't just wake up and you want to become a president. It doesn't work that way. This is the military government. This is the military coup. It's democracy. We get the message, right? So let me jump in here. Just to react to what you said about always focusing on, you know, the seat of the president. Osalge and I yesterday talked about a local government autonomy, right? Because it came up. So as these things come up, we tackle them one after the other. But I would like for us to circle back to one of the things we talked about while you were in the waiting room. We talked about the electoral system. And Osalge talked about rise and garrie. Not being enough anymore for Nigeria. I just want to have your take on that as we wrap this segment up. Well, if Trump will start sharing food in America, then I think we're not even bad as Nigerians. But that's the joke. Sincerely speaking, if rise and garrie is not enough in Nigeria again, it's because we are no longer, the provision is increasing and the farming the land is decreasing. People are no longer and I've been saying this thing. Today everybody is doing land speculation and taking away all the land that small farmers are using to grow corn, to grow cassava, to grow. Everybody is not looking for land speculation and they are not looking for estates to build or estates to build. We're not addressing it. So it's not that the election comes and take off all the land, all the garrie and everything. It is because the land is getting smaller. The provision is increasing, the land is getting smaller and except something is done. Look at, okay, take a look at all the areas from Nigeria up to Ekben all the small farm holders, they are no longer there. Their land has been bought over by land speculators. So all those who should be growing those little food that will supplement the bigger one, the bigger farmers. They are no longer there. They have been paid some small money. They have given up their land to land speculators and things are going from back to the old state that had all the land that can be the south west. What are they doing with their land? We're going to have to wrap up here. Nobody is growing food. Everybody is looking for estates looking for estates. We need to wrap up here. I'm sure the conversation on food stuff is coming because of one thing that you mentioned and you agreed to and that is the peculiarity of our political situation and political space here in Nigeria. These things will always come up because of where we are. We'll say big thank you to you. Thank you for speaking with us and for your time this morning. It's been a very interesting conversation. Always fun speaking with you. Thanks Mr. Wilcox. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. A quick one. I think we always look at the president because the kind of system and government we're running we've not we've not been structured and secondly I will speak for my generation. Like he said we're not only interested in looking at estates and everything the evolution and the discovery of what we've had in the tech not the generation of operation where they it's an insult to our generation to say we are just better at about making noise on treats and everything. We're doing well. We are the one saving this country. We are even the one running this country but the backbone of this country is at the moment. Thank you very much for speaking with us. You're welcome. Stay with us. We're talking Ramadan next. Muslims of course have begun the holy month of Paiti and we'll be talking about that right after the short break. Stay with us.