 And we're back. It's time for our final conversation this morning on the breakfast. With a few days to the most anticipated elections in Nigeria, violence has amplified in many areas. There's probably an indication that the exercise may not hold in these crisis areas. This could also, some would argue, lead to a constitutional crisis if polling fails to hold in a significant percentage of the constituencies. Nigeria's Independent National Electrical Commission has always said raise the red flag regarding the security situation and its consequences for the polls. If the security situation is not monitored and dealt with decisively, it could ultimately culminate in a cancellation and a postponement of elections in sufficient constituencies to hinder the declaration of election results, rather, and precipitate the constitutional crisis, according to National Security Advisor Babagana Mongolo quoting him there. Now, between October and November last year, Nigeria recorded 52 incidents, 52 incidents of inter- or intra-party violence across 22 states. On January 15th, the Independent National Electrical Commission's office in Inugusao Local Government Area suffered an attack which caused the death of a police officer. INEC recorded 50 attacks on its facilities across 15 states between 2019 and 2022. 50 attacks on its facilities in 15 states. Now, Emo State recorded 11 as the highest number. The violence has also hit states like Oshun, Aqaibom, Eboni, Krosheva, Abia, Annamrata, Raba, Abono, Ogong, Ligas, Bayaosa, Ondo, and Kaduna states. Now, violent attacks, incidents have become higher in the northwest and southeast where banditry, terrorist activities, head of farmer conflicts, and secessionist agitations are accepting huge human and economic impacts. The southeast, where the city-at-home restriction is still enforced, is highly volatile. However, after initially raising security concerns, INEC has assured that the elections will go ahead as scheduled. How exactly will this situation, like we've outlined here, affect the elections? We also would like to clarify that INEC later came out to clarify that they didn't make such a statement. It was an official of INEC, head of the training arm of the commission who made that statement in the speech, but made clear that he wasn't speaking for the commission. Justice Huibo is a human rights advocate. He's a lawyer. He joins us for this conversation. Justice, good morning to you, and thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Good morning. It is my pleasure. All right. Looking at the security situation around the country, the latest we've had is an attack on a police station somewhere in Anambra State. Police officers being killed. Do you think that we have a real possibility of elections in some part of the country not holding on Saturday? Well, the truth is that it's not only in Anambra State. There have been attacks on police personnel, police stations, and others. Not even only police personnel. Even sometimes there have been attacks also on some military officers, roadblocks, and the checkpoint and budget. So it's a very big problem for this coming election. People, I have to tell you the truth. I believe and I've seen that many Nigerians are still afraid, especially in some areas in the South East where people like us are different. People are very, very scared. So I don't really know it. In Asmata, Raineke has restricted and said that they are going on with the election. But the question here now is what is the security agents doing about it? What guarantee are they telling Nigerians that there will not be mayhem on that day of the election? Because as I speak to you, many Nigerians are still afraid of what has happened in recent times. Alright, what needs to be done? I mean, because you're a lawyer, so we'll look at the constitutional angle of this. If you don't have elections holding over the country because of insecurity, are we to expect a constitutional crisis, a constitutional stalemate? If you want to call it that, as far as the election is concerned, are the results being announced are concerned? Yes, those are the constitutional issues. And that is why most times laws are made just to accommodate some uncertainties in the society. Again, as long as nobody is suspected or initiated that it's going to be like this. But that is why most positions across the country, we see that there will be one or two lackunas when it comes to issues like this. Be that it may. For the fact that the constitution has stipulated that the election will hold and the electoral act is also there to support the conduct of elections. And I know who is saddled with the possibility of facing these elections and not the way we know what to do. But I still believe that no matter what, the secretaries should come together and look at the security apparatus we have and begin to find out what they would do. Because I believe that before now, the security issues should have been sorted out by the executive, by all the security operators and the agents. And we have so many of them. It's not only the police and the military that have the security apparatus we have in Nigeria. So I feel that before now, the executive should have, you know, tried to sort of have coordinate themselves very well with this security apparatus to actually know what to do. Because the truth is the election will definitely hold. The one that can have one is that the election might be shifted for one or two weeks. The election will have to hold. There are no two weeks about it. If you remember the last, I think, 2019, there were areas the election did not hold. And because you remember that some people, as I dealt with, the ID becomes and all the rest. So the government will still have to, or the nation, let me put it this way, will still have to do for what to conduct the election avoid unnecessary conflict of the constitution. All right. We will look at the infographic that we earlier displayed. That's Kersey Daley trust. They put it up on their site. It will be seen that the Northeast, the Northwest, which is on the flashpoints. And indeed, now we're looking at the Northeast and Northwest, because if you look at Boko Haram and Manditri, it started from the Northeast and now the insecurity has switched to the Northwest in the past couple of years. The Northwest has 22 million votes of registered voters. Northeast has 12 million registered voters. Northeast has seen some improvement in the security situation. That's what you can see on your screen. And we go to the Southeast. We have 10.9 million voters in the Southeast. Now, today in the papers, the chief of defense staff is saying, we can't, I could say, in Nigerian pigeon. That is, we are good to go. There are no issues. But we're all aware that the security forces in Nigeria have not been able to quash and to end the Boko Haram insurgency. We have other groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic, you know, in the Maghreb and all that in West Africa. Iswap, brother. We have Islamic State, West Africa province and all that. You know, Banditri, you're kidnapping. You have bandits who are raiding parts of the country. They kidnap persons and the soldiers are not able to release them. Police can't release them. They have to pay their way to freedom. And this is the same military or defense forces are telling us that they are good to go. And we go to the Southeast where, you know, the Scotty Agency, some of them have deserted some parts of the Southeast. They don't even go there for fear of being attacked. If you're going home, you'll probably not want to go with a police escort because you don't want anyone to attack you. You just try and go home by yourself and pray. A lot of some people from the Southeast don't even go home because of fear of being kidnapped. When you hear the chief of defense staff saying we are good to go, do you really believe him or do you believe his words? Well, for me, he has once been a military man, but I still see it as a political specimen. And you see, it baffles me when we have issues confronting of, and we don't want to tell ourselves the truth. And this has been the problem we have in this country. Year in, year out. They will come out and tell you there's no problem with their campaign language. The government in this country will tell you they are on top of the matter in their own language. And at the end of the day, you just call that distance and either here or there. On the day of election, I have to challenge you and challenge you also that even the chief of defense staff will not even lead any truth to go and monitor the election or to go and mend the rules or to go and mend any pulling boots. So we should tell ourselves the truth in this country. I expected that before now there should have been a synergy between the INEC and all the security apparatus in the country in order to know exactly what to do and how to make sure that we will have a free and fair election. Why is a free and fair election? Because if people are afraid and they do not you have to go and vote. You can have a free and fair election because a lot of people will be differentiated. So at the end of the day, you now act yourself in a country of about 200 million people. And at the end of the day, only about 40 million or even less than that will decide who becomes the president. Will you say it is fair? Will you say it is free and fair? The answer is no. So we should tell ourselves the truth. We are talking about registered voters. But you and I know that on the day of election what we are concerned is about accredited voters and accredited voters are the people who came out to actually come and cast their vote and not the registered voters you are talking about. Many people went and registered just to get their PBC for one reason or the other. I know that they are going to come out on the day of election to vote. Because many people are afraid, let's be their nation to ourselves, all over the country. But in the north, in the west and in the south let's be their nation to ourselves. Many people are very, very afraid. Even if not it compares. So you believe insecurity or fears of insecurity will affect the turnout. We have been seeing the gradual decline over the past few elections since 1999. Even though the number of registered voters has risen a modern 61.3% rise from what we had in 1999 the number of voters has gone down significantly till 2019 has been declining. So you believe that we will have a low voter turnout in areas of flashpoints we have in security like southeast? Definitely there is going to be a low turnout. If you notice from 1999 till now on the issue of turnout we keep on having what I call a diminishing return because there is not encouraging instead of us going up geometrically about his job diminishing on a yearly basis. And he's a consign to us. He's a consign to people like us. You will recall that there are news and incidents and evidence that even people are being attacked during campaign not to talk of doing election and incidents where even bring the voters register some people went to unleash terror on INEC officials and all the rest. Now today the question you now ask yourself which parents will allow his children to go and work as ad hoc staff for INEC now? Nobody wants to die. Justice, in the Southeast we are hearing sit at home, no sit at home. We're hearing there will be elections in the Southeast. That was what IPOB was saying but the game changed. It will be emerged and they've kept quiet. But a faction of IPOB is saying no, no way. Still there will be no elections. Do you think that the Southeasters will go out to vote? This is a chance they have. The first time since independence we really, really, really elect someone from their public country as president. Will they stay at home or will they go out to vote? Well the truth is this. In every situation, the bad and dark, I know they will go out to vote but the truth is that the turnout will not be the turnout will not be that encouraging. I have to tell you the truth. Maybe we are listening to ourselves. People are yearning for the positive change. Maybe because of fear of the unknown. Remember if anybody that dies has died what are you going to do? Our country will not be in a place where you reward things. I wish you had more time. I wish you had more time but I want to thank you very much for your very candid and honest analysis of what lies before us. The real situation that we are facing as Nigerians would like to go out to vote. You are saying that security is a real concern and if nothing changes quickly quite a number of people will be disenfranchised on Saturday. Justice Wehbo, human rights advocate, lawyer, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. It's my pleasure. That's the size of our package right here on the breakfast. It's been an interesting addition. If you loved it, you enjoyed it. Please join us tomorrow same time, 7am, right here on this channel. Follow us on social media across all platforms including YouTube at Plus TV Africa. My name is Kofi Bartels. Good morning.