 The myth and reality of politics in Nigeria. As a Nigerian who served on the highest decision-making body of a political party, which is the National Executive Council, has run for the highest legislative office in the land, and I lead one of Nigeria's most ingenious civil service organizations, the Electoral College Nigeria, we can't undermine the myths in politics and governance in our democratic space, and here are a few to run by. Political parties are bad, the first one. Now, political parties are bad is usually a situation in which most of us tend to post our voter apathy towards. We understand what goes on in the American primaries and we are never concerned with what goes on in Nigerian primaries. This distance, which we distance ourselves away from political parties, of course ensures the fact that we are thrown a selection and we do not participate in an election. The next one will be another myth. A vote for a small party is a waste of your vote. Now, this is funny and very hypocritical because this comes from big parties that tell you this, but still at the end, go ahead and pay for your votes or pay for thugs to stop you from voting, which means that is also a myth. The next myth I'll be visiting is the constitution is bad. Most people that say the constitution is bad are people that I'm sorry to say have not read the constitution in an entirety. Of course every constitution is not a perfect book. The inaction of the legislative arm of government, which is supposed to amend the constitution continuously and rigorously from 1999 till now are the failures in which we criticize our constitution for. The state has kidnapped the local government. The handshake of any democracy is the local government and the local government is non-functional. As we can see, it's not even a democracy because the fact the local government is being put in a corner by the state as regards its autonomy, its jurisdiction, limits the amount or the dividends of democracy the electorate feels. There's another myth that grassroots circumvent democracy. Now, most people say grassroots circumvent democracy. Are you aware that according to a voter's register, the highest voting comes from women, farmers, and people at the grassroots? The truth is the middle class actually circumvent democracy. Of course, there's the argument that the grassroots takes to mark infrastructure. Who delivers it? The question is, you never see any of the big politicians carrying money to the grassroots. So the conduit is more guilty, which is the middle class. I will proceed to the realities of politics on ground. Participation is key. As long as we do not participate and we tend to think that only voting is our way forward to changing democracy, we will not get anywhere. There are two other parts that are just as important, and this is holding people in governance accountable and the next being participating within political parties. The next reality is that the president is not always to blame. Government is like an ocean in which the state governments are like streams and then the ponds behind us are local governments, and they are supposed to be our first point of call to criticize the issues we have with power, which is transforming your street or poor public transportation, which is under the purview of the local government. The next reality I would like to make clear to our viewers is that the legislative is the most powerful arm of the government. Basic democracy was founded in Greece, and the basis of that was a representative government. Only the legislative offers full representation of all the peoples of Nigeria, but they have never been criticized to the point or held accountable for their inaction. The legislature has focused on things like constituency projects which are done nowhere else in the world, and is a direct trample on the executive function of LG Chairman, and this has made them the most docile part of governance while being the most powerful. The next reality I would like to visit is most politicians do not understand their jurisdiction of office. You see senators, counselors, either cross-referencing with legislative and executive functions, forgetting what exactly their own jurisdictions of office are. Sometimes even the president goes as far as making mistakes or pushing himself towards a legislative promise than an executive action. The next thing I want to make clear, a recall is easier than waiting for a tenure to lapse. If we have someone in governance within the legislative arm, it is harder to wait for his inactions, his or her inactions in government, while we wait for the next year to vote him out. A recall takes only 50% plus one. It might look hard, but sometimes the cost of inaction in the legislative office can ruin a country. Of course time will not allow us to exhaust all opportunities to expand rigorously on this point, but as we go along, some of the points will be further elaborated by the panel. Thank you. One of the things I want to bring out, this is a very clear expression that you have had here, and something is very striking, the fact that majority of people who talk about constitution have not even read, don't even know what is contained in the constitution. And it's a national problem because the way we tell people to read your Bible, read your Quran, read your these, I think there should be a system where people are also pushed that way to try and understand what is really guiding us. When people come out and they talk about constitution, this constitution, and they don't know what is inside. And you can't change what you don't even know what the content is about. I know that in the past weeks, Joyce has been talking about constitution and constitution and all those things. But as much as we keep saying constitution is bad, and we don't even know what is even bad, what do you know about the constitution that is bad? A lot of people are coming out on the road to shout it is bad. Now come and change it. You can't change what you don't know about. One thing I also want to point out is the fact that the part of cross-referencing of political office holders is not just about their jurisdiction. Most of them don't even know why they are there in political offices. Some of them are just there maybe because situations or events orchestrated they have been in that political office. They are not there because they have any clear map out vision for the people. And that's why you can see someone who is actually in the political office and you are looking over the window to see what the other person is not doing right instead of you doing what you're supposed to do. And you may have said it about the president saying he's doing something against action. He's supposed to make legislative promise against executive action. So it's not really about being a political office holder, but much more about knowing why you are there and focusing on the things you map out your manifesto and then taking those actions. Those are just the two points I want to point out, the constitution and also the point of knowing exactly why you are a politician and focusing on why you are in office and not cross-referencing with other people. I would like to add that while we always say, yes we can't blame government all the time for certain situations that we find ourselves in the country, I think it is also important to ask some very good questions. Now we are talking about the constitution. Mr. Kohliad mentioned that most of the voters that we have in this country are characterized by women and farmers and what have you. How many of these people even have access to the constitution? How many of these people even understand the constitution? So basically the bulk of responsibility falls back where? How many people are educated? We are sitting down here and we are having this discussion because we have an idea and because we have made one or two. So it boils down to the fact that the people at the grassroots level that at the end of the day is perceived because there are some things that personally I don't believe in but I would not like to really state. At the grassroots level it is perceived that they are the ones that make these decisions. What do they actually know about the constitution? Okay, let's get to the opinion of Mr. Samson or guests from the Zoom. Mr. Samson or Dr. Yahya? Alright, fantastic views, valuable presentation. The concern I have with all that you mentioned is the fact that in Nigeria one thing we don't do is information dissemination. Sadly a lot of Nigerians do not even know what their rights are or what their limitations are or how easy is it to assess the constitution of Nigeria? Yes, it's available on the internet but what we do on a daily basis is this in compliance with the constitution of Nigeria and information accessibility is also very, very difficult. So when we talk about assessing basic information that attains to or releases to Nigerians it's how available a day. For example, there was an issue on the internet where you have information about how the Nigerian passport of the value of funds that Nigerian customs service actually collects or the cost of Nigerian passports. When you go to their website, what you see is different from what you find in reality. So when you begin to have these kinds of views, you have a lot of Nigerians losing hope in the system and it has got so bad that a lot of Nigerians do not reckon with what the government says. They don't really care anymore because they've been beaten, battered to a point where people are actually not spoke to. Yeah, a lot of people do not want to participate in politics because they felt either way they're not going to win. Either way, it's not about the people. Most of the people that go into politics today are actually about their interests. And we see it play out every night there. Why are people killing one another because of political positions when you're actually going there to serve the people? So sometimes when you look at all these things, it actually takes interest of some of us who actually came about participation. But yes, I agree. If we say we are moving away from participation, automatically we are giving the party to those that will make things much, much difficult for Nigerians. And that's what we're seeing because I'm sorry, but if we had as much as people that are better in the country, knowledgeable in the country, I'm not so sure that Nigerians are participating in politics, actively participating in politics and their interests are better. I'm not sure Nigeria would win this today. We have always had the disadvantage of selecting the worst amongst us to rule us, to govern us. And that's why Nigeria is here today. So for me, I can't be Nigerians but I only am calling Nigerians to participate in the system because better. Okay. For me, I love the submissions you guys put in, but we must also critically understand that information is key and the government has been very, very slow in disseminating information. But that does not mean that we should also sell our country. We only have one country and we must take this country with the strength of our hands. I'm not anyone, most people look at me and say, Kundo is a politician. But I didn't get here because I come from a rich family or I'm someone different. I just choose to participate, decided to infiltrate the system and now I'm giving back based on what I've learned. Well, Samson is next after this break. Stay with us.