 Beavers will dash hope of this honest politician, says former Vice President Attiku Abubakar, and women groups intensify lobby to visit 36 governors of political appointments. This is post-Politic, and I am very honored. The presidential candidate of the People's Democratic Party PDP in the recently concluded general elections, Attiku Abubakar, has said the introduction of the bimodal voter accreditation system will dash the hopes of dishonest politicians. He also added that he has come to stay as a legal instrument for the accreditation and transmission of election results in Nigeria. Attiku made this known in celebration of the Supreme Court's affirmation of the victory of Governor Adimola Delike of Oshun State. Joining us to discuss the role that the Beavers will play in the elections in the future is Katch Onanuju, he's a political analyst and also joining us is Moshud Issa, he's a communication and development expert. Issa, it's so good to have you join us. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you very much for listening. Great. Now, you have worked as, you've been in the field, you've seen many elections come and go, but none compared to the 2023 general elections being that the Beavers seem to have been the shiny new baby, you know, on the block and many expectations, you know, were heightened as a result of the promises that were made by INAG. And keying into what the former vice president has said, have these Beavers really lived up to expectations? Okay, thank you very much. If you recall, the Beavers was first introduced in the 2021 Annambar governorship election. And if you realize, since the Beavers has been introduced, we hardly receive those fictitious figures we usually get during elections. It means only the real voters are allowed to vote. And from the name Beavers by model voter accreditation system, it does double form of accreditation. It accredits, it scans your PVC to confirm that PVC belongs to INAG, it then authenticates your finger print and then authenticates your facial. It means, and the fact that it has been backed by law only means only the Beavers would be used for accreditation. If you cannot go through the Beavers, it means that the PVC does not belong to you or you're not registered voters in that, in that location. So I agree with the fact that the Beavers has come to stay and so far it has been a game changer. But again, there is still a lot more to be done. In terms of first, citizens have to know how these Beavers work so that they must insist that it should work the way it's supposed to work. And of course, knowing that technology is not necessarily a silver bullet, it's being used by humans. So of course, the humans that would use that Beavers have to be properly trained and citizens that are at the polling unit, for instance, have to ensure that the Beavers is used the way it's supposed to be used. But looking at the 2023 elections, if you know previous elections, there are some certain states where huge figures usually come out from. But if you look at the 2023 elections, you notice that the figures are actually reduced. It means the Beavers is ensuring that only real voters are allowed to pass through the accreditation process on election day. And with the fact that the law also says that the law has redefined overvoting. The overvoting according to the law now says that the total number of voters should not be more than the total number of accredited voters. Initially, the total number of voters should not be the total number of registered voters, meaning if you finish counting the total number of votes cast, you have to go back to the Beavers and look at the total number of accredited voters, and it has to tally. And this is where citizens have to actually touch line or look up to ensure that the figures actually tally. So, I actually think the Beavers has come to stay. It will reduce overvoting, it will reduce voting by proxy, it will also reduce manipulation in the electoral process. But again, there is still a long way to go as regarding optimizing the Beavers, ensuring that officials are managing the Beavers, actually know what they are doing, and actually educate the people to actually know how these Beavers work to ensure that these Beavers is not being manipulated or misused on election day. So, to a larger extent, I think I agree with the PDP candidate, Alajati Kuoabubaka, but again, we have to optimize it and ensure that those managing the Beavers actually know what they are doing, and they actually are not in the hands of politicians to manipulate the process. Let me push you, Father. You talked about the fact that the Beavers would show real voters. Might I take you back to what happened during the general elections, whether it be the governorship or the presidential? We saw children. Might I also remind you, the Commissioner of Police in your state did say that these children were allowed to vote because they had PVCs, but how could the Beavers not be able to decipher that these children were not of voting age? So really, is the Beavers as infallible as we think it is? So like I said, the Beavers and the technology generally is not a savor bullet, but remember that the issue of underage voting doesn't happen on election day, it starts from the registration period, continuous voter registration. So if we do not flag underage registration at that point in time, and we allow that to go through, those people, those underage voters are automatically certified as authentic voters, and you cannot deny them the right to vote. The time to flag underage registration is during registration, and most times what happened at that point in time is that there is usually what you call community collusion or connivance. When you try to register someone and you notice this person is underage, but probably his father or mother or everyone in that community is saying, oh, this person is actually a senior zoot. You as an INOC official coming from wherever you're coming from, you might be intimidated or to stop that person from getting registered at that point in time. The best thing to do is actually to request for that person's best certificate. Unfortunately, in most cases, this is not done. So my point is underage registration, underage voting should be tracked during the continuous voter registration. It is not the responsibility of the beavers at that point in time to say if you are underage, the beavers only confirm that that PVC belongs to you, and it scans your fingerprints and it authenticates your facial. If you pass through that process at that point in time, sadly, you have to vote because at the point of registration, you were not flagged as an underage voter. All right, let's talk about, let's go back to the Jennifer administration where the issue of CAD readers were introduced. A lot of people have said that biometric authentication will heal the country, but then we keep introducing all kinds of technology and we still see that major challenge of corruption during the elections where the numbers don't tally. We had that issue also for the governorship elections and the presidential elections where the numbers that you get at the polling unit are not the savers, the ones that are uploaded to the IRAV. Again, this biometrics that we all rest our hopes and the future on, can we really say that it will work? Because we're looking at the future, 2023 elections have passed, we're preparing for other elections that are coming. We know that the Kulgi elections is also coming, there's the Bioshock election and several other elections that will come. Can we trust that this will see more and more out of the electoral process, the corruption that has bedeviled it over the years? Yeah, importantly, it's important, like I said, that technology is not achievable but we must admit that the diverse is a massive improvement on the smart card reader that is being optimized, that's one. But again, the issue around figures not tallying, a lot of issues were raised during elections. There were some people that actually confirmed that they were registered voters but at some point their name was not on the beavers and that was what issues that the civil society organization raised actually during the mock accreditation of the beavers where we noticed that there are some people that have been registered since 2011 but for some reason their name had not been configured into the beavers. Again issues were raised but like I said, it was improvement on the smart card reader and you know, we have to differentiate between the beavers and the INEQ result being important. Where people confirmed that the figures that were counted at the polling unit are different from what was eventually uploaded. In most cases, those results were not even uploaded in the presence of the voters. So that was what happened that figures that saw in the polling unit was totally different from what they eventually saw on the IRS. If you remember INEQ came out to say there were glitches with their technologies, they could not upload results on the IRS. In some cases it took over two weeks, results were still being uploaded on the IRS and ideally the best thing to do is that as soon as it counts election results in the presence of everyone, you feel all the form from ECHA in the presence of everyone, you snap that result and upload to the IRS. In most cases those results were not uploaded. So anything could have happened after the election, after the polling unit process and that was what people actually flagged. You can see a lot of cancellation in some results, you can see some results were on the IRS, you can see a so-called two-state result in Lagos because this is not properly done. And if you remember when I started, I said the success of diverse is subject to the humans that are managing it, either they were not well trained or they intentionally sabotage the process. So technology itself is not a silver bullet, the humans managing it will go a long way in determining its success. Alright, we're being joined by Kat on the NJU, Kat, thank you very much for joining us. Now let's talk about the metamorphosis, just as I was trying to pick up here with Mushu, the metamorphosis of technology in our Nigerian elections. Now we know how difficult it's been to push for e-voting, which is another step or another hurdle for us to cross in terms of pushing for this on the floor of the National Assembly. But let's see how it's grown from a CAD reader to the bimodal registration and what would be the next step right after this? Kat, can you hear me? Yes, yes, yes, I can hear you. Go ahead. So the introduction of biometric authentication is a great leap. It was started during the good luck era, it started as CAD reader that was fingerprint biometric authentication. It has now been upgraded into a bimodal, that means it takes your fingerprints, it also takes your facial recognition. I pray in future it will progressively come to include the iris and plus the body mass, which is exactly what we currently have in our digital passport protocols. It is a very good thing, it had no problem at all, it worked very, very well. The lack of its proper use in the final tabulation is as a consequence of fraudulent manipulations. As you have seen, we have been able to get access to the hostess of the servers who are in this case Amazon Web Services. They do provide the same web services for the U.S. Department of Defense. You will understand, the Pentagon will note, buy services from a company that does not have that capability to actually defeat all those things that they were saying. They hacked into the servers, as Amazon said before, during and after the elections. It worked very, very well. So you are telling us that INEC lied about the fact that their system was hacked or that the fact that they had issues. Yes, yes, yes. INEC lied 100 percent to INEC lied, and INEC did that, they were caught on awareness, the things were working very well until they were instructed to block the... Why would INEC try to disrupt its own duties, knowing that they had, of course, raised the hopes of every Nigerian. They had a job to do. They made promises. INEC... What did INEC stand to gain if, you know, if you, like you said, they lied to Nigerians? Yes, INEC put, they were pressurized by politicians to undermine the process, because if you check, on the same day, the results for the national assembly election were politely, progressively uploaded. No problem. Nothing happened to the INEC server. We have gotten that confirmation from those who hosted the server, Amazon West Services. Nothing happened before, nothing happened during, nothing happened afterwards. If anything happened with the server, we will have known. It was simply a political decision taken by those who saw that the exit polls did not favor what they wanted to have. That was why they were instructed to block the further functioning of the progressive uploading of the presidential election results. That for the national assembly, we are properly uploaded, there were no problem, and there is still no problem with all those issues. That's why INEC is having problems. It's not going to be able to get Amazon to admit what Mualda Mohamed said in America. That was a big lie. Nobody hacked into the servers. Nobody was able to hack into anybody's servers. It's very good. And that's why we have today, we have subpoenaed the Amazon Web Services, and they are coming to Nigeria to testify that nobody hacked into their server before, during, and after the elections. Whatever happened here were human mistakes that were done deliberately, simply to undermine the process. And one thing I can tell you, in 1993, the result of a presidential election was announced. And in each place, we had a batch of manufactured. What we had that time was instability because of the annulment of that election. I can assure you that due to the annulment of the election of the original results of a presidential election, the country is going to run into instability. Take that to the bank. You cannot resist it. The last time we had this was in 1993. We ran into instability, and we knew how about your government, any time you steal a car. Hold on, Kat. Just hold on. I should give that very good to people. Kat, Kat, Kat. We cannot, we cannot pre-empt the election tribunal, which has already, which has already kickstarted. We can't pre-empt what the outcome will be. So you can't say that, you know, there's going to be instability. But before we go into another one, let's go back to what former Vice President Artico Abubakar said about these beavers. He has said, and I quote, the law governing our elections has truly brought power to the people and those power-mongering politicians who believe that they have or they can freely subvert inherent power of democracy now have their hopes dashed. Does it mean that former Vice President Artico Abubakar and everybody who lost in this election, according to the announcement of INEC, fall in the category of the people who have their hopes dashed because of the beavers? What he means is very simple, that we have not come into the period where votes will become votes, because this is the first time we are having to vote after being authenticated. The introduction of the biometric authentication is a game-changer. That's why you did not see, as is previously the case, the uploading of phantom numbers previously being the norm. It's no more going to be that way. I believe that the signing into law of the Electoral Act Amendment changed everything because why it forced the authentication of whoever the voter will be before you can allow him to vote. That has become law. Apart from that, you cannot pile up numbers just because you want to have new numbers to know. If those numbers are piled in and they do not rhyme with the numbers of authenticated voters who were previously authenticated to vote, it will not work. So if you have any number that comes in that is more than the accredited number of voters, that's what he's saying. It will not work. And for you to be accredited, you will have to go to authentication through the Beaver's machine. What the Beaver's machine is is a progression of the original card reader. The card reader was just some print biometric capture. The Beaver's means bi-modial, some print plus facial recognition. So it's a progressive way of that original introduction, which we call the card reader, which only captured the thumbprint. Now the new biometric system captured the thumbprint and facial recognition. That's why if those things are not implemented, you will not be able to just pile in numbers because those captures go into the accreditation. And you're not going to have more numbers suddenly returned more than the accredited voters. That's why he's saying that the days of simply wishing on numbers will not end in more hold. That's why we're seeing what we're seeing right now. So let's just go to the tribal now, let everybody prove this case. And AstraZeneca saying that the days of simply writing numbers are gone. Nigeria is on to a very brand new pedestal in regards of honest elections. Okay. Katya, I'm going to come back to you to talk about lawmakers and how we can improve the electoral process. Let me come back to you, Masud. For those who have, because I'm on the radio and I'm listening to people and feeling the pulse of the people after the elections. And I got to hear something that's very remarkable. Might not be the best thing, but there's something that's called post-election traumatic syndrome. I don't know how they coined it. And that's because a lot of people feel let down by the election. So I'm going to ask you a direct question. Did technology fail us during this election, or did INEC itself fail technology? I don't want to point at using fingers, but I think technology did not fail us. And I think the introduction of technology, if implemented properly, it will have achieved optimum results. Okay. Technology did not fail Nigeria. I think the humors managing technology to a large extent actually failed the technology. And to some extent actually failed Nigeria, or those that actually failed are great. But again, the deployment of technology has been an improvement on the previous process. Even the figures that came out from the election, you can see they are substantially as compared to previous numbers that we usually have. So I think technology did not fail Nigeria. A large extent technology actually exposed the usual practices that we usually see before. I think the technology to a large extent exposed it. I think the commission actually made a lot of promises, especially around the fact that the results from the polling unit to be uploaded the real time. Unfortunately, that did not happen. In that case, you would not blame technology. You blame those that need to or that could not harness the power of that technology to actually promote transparency. The ideal thing is that you upload results from the polling unit. Before you get to the world level, the world coalition office must have seen the results you uploaded. And if you announce anything contrary to that, you're going back. Unfortunately, that due diligence did not happen. But technology was there to be harnessed. So it did not fail us. That should make use of that technology to promote electoral transparency. Probably did not fail enough. How do we appeal to the senses of those who feel like their time, their energy, the hyped up mentality that they had before and during that election seem to be dashed? What do we tell those people? How do we somewhat galvanize them again for another election cycle? Because for most people, more like every other election cycle, it's always the watershed moment. Everybody says, well, this is the one that's supposed to make or break us. But it seemed like there was more attention, more energy. People were more interested in this election as opposed to any other election that we've had. What do we tell those people who have said, Luke, I'm not touching that PVC anymore. I'm not going to the polls. It's not worth it. How do you appeal to these sensibilities? No, you tell them that the fact that they couldn't even point out that something went wrong. It's a progress from what happened in previous times where you just see figures and you cannot pass on. But now you can actually point out it's transparent for you enough for you to point out where the gap is. So it's an improvement in your knowledge from previous elections. And it means if you want to raise any case or any issue, you know where to point out good. So that enough is a kind of solid or those that there are hope with that. I totally understand the fact that there were a lot of expectations, a lot of promises on this election. And to some extent, some people, some set of people feel that promises were not fulfilled. But the fact that we now know the responsibility of Giva and we know the responsibility of IRF. And we can go on IRF and compare results. I think it's a huge step as compared to previous elections. And subsequently, we can know where to raise the gap. If an electoral officer refused to upload results right from polling, maybe you as a voter can put your hands together and we need to allow him to go until he does the right thing. So the fact that you know the right place to raise the gap as a citizen, meaning if you're going into another election, you know where to raise the gap. You know what to ensure that electoral officials do. So I think that alone should give us hope going into subsequent elections. All right. Back to you, Kat. Let's talk about the legislation behind pushing our electoral processes further, not higher, if I might say, especially when we have been pushing the idea of e-voting and the aspiror voting, which might be the next step. And I'm not just talking about the accreditation and the scans and all of that. Of course, there will be an inch better or higher when it comes to, you know, accreditation and voting. But the voting process in itself is where the attention is being moved now. Looking at the members who are going to be constituting the new national assembly, both the upper chamber and the lower chamber, and the guys who are going to be sitting at the helm of affairs, if what the former vice president has said is anything to go by, will these same people be willing to push the electoral process further, knowing that this might one way or the other cut off the wings of the so-called corrupt politicians and the, you know, shortcuts that they take to winning? One thing I can tell you is looking at a holistic picture, you need to understand that our country is changing, Nigeria is changing. We now have, suddenly, available on the scene, the best educated generation of Nigerian youth. They want to get involved and you can see what they have done. They are members of the new youth-driven movement and I believe they're not going to give away. It's a very young country and they are up to 75 percent, if not up to 80 of our country's population. They want a Nigeria that works for them. Now, you've seen them do this and you've seen the old brigade try to acknowledge and write all that is and tell them go to court. It's just like trying to kill a python. You don't kill a python with a single strike. You have to hit and hit and hit and hit again before the python goes down. So we are, as I can tell you, in addition to what the former vice president said, we are onto a totally brand new era. Nigeria must now confront its own old demons, defeat those demons for Nigeria to be to move forward. I believe that the new generation that are now pushing on our fronts are going to be able to exact the maximum pressure to force changes in our country. I have no doubt Nigeria is changing. I am very, very encouraged with the things that I've seen, with the way young people have come out and suddenly are now interested. Me and you know, they started about two years ago. They were violently suppressed and then they are still here, engaged with all of us politically. I don't see the youth in any way slowing down. I see the youth scaling up what they are doing. And I believe with short pushes, Nigeria is heading for change. All right. Thank you so much, Kat. Katon Nuju is a political analyst. And we also want to say thank you to Moshudi Sahouz, a communications and development expert. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for speaking with us. That's our time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, we'll take a break. Coming up next, women are canvassing across 36 states of the federation and they're asking for appointments. What does the TNB administration have in store for women to stay with us?