 It's still plus politics. Now the presidential ticket for the African Democratic Congress ADC party for the 2023 general elections was picked by Dumebi Kachiku. Kachiku emerged the overall winner with 978 votes ahead of the former deputy governor of the central bank of Nigeria, who polled 589 votes and Chukuka Moye scored 339 votes. Kachiku promised a purposeful leadership to rescue the country from the current challenges facing it. The ADC candidate will be contesting the 2023 presidential elections alongside former vice-president Atikwa Buboka of the PDP, Bola Med Tinibu of the All Progressive Congress APC, and former Anambara State Governor Pete Albi of the Labour Party. Joining us to discuss this and more is Kunlilawal, he's the executive director of the Electoral College of Nigeria, and Ufomai Gwamuna, he's the head of news in Nigeria Info FM 99.3. It's good to have you gentlemen join us in the studio. Hi, hi, I'm Marianne. I'm not sure why you decided to bring myself and Kunlil. But anyway, it's good to be here. Kunlil, it's good to have you join us. It's a pleasure always Marianne, and of course, it's a pleasure to be with you, Ufomai. I know this. Let me start with you. Because one would have thought that with the kind of clout, let me use that word loosely here, that a Kingsley Mogalu who has this, this is not his first rodeo at this presidential ticket thing, and a Chukuka Moye who also seemed to have garnered some favour from Nigerians, seemed to have pulled lesser votes as against the, maybe who people barely really know. We don't even know if he really campaigned. He had that much media exposure. And so he leaves a lot of people wondering what exactly transpired at the ADC presidential primaries. Okay, so which information may have available to me? I'll try to make a little bit if you can square. So the ADC, of course, adopted an intelligent resource that every primary is being held. Everyone was going to pull resources together. And those resources were formally jacked forth, which delegates would be transported. They agreed to this at national level. And the truth is, this actions even come up from the Lagos gobernatorial primaries, which had the same problem. So they pulled this resources together. But of course, on the day of the primaries, a few bend downs happened. I would like to say Lagos gobernatorial primaries, too, was played like that. There was access to which I overheard with some people that and aspirants, the one that won on both sides, were actually combusting raising funds for delegates. I think in the Lagos issue, there were even people that would meet members and delegates on the same day. I'm not sure whether that happened in the presidential primaries, but it seems to become a set of things. ADC simply forgot to go to the political party and freedom of association. The first person to bring them to limelight, of course, was King Seymour Calouen, who was running for president. And then with money coming also to put the money coming into the game team. A few other aspirants were going to delay ADC. The game now is now choked up. And somewhere down the line, there might be a press from nowhere. Less than it gets, it clenches the form. Who's the average move? So we can effectively say primaries in a few parties have been the same. Okay, their name is ADC, but I think in their primaries, they practiced an ADG, any Lagos. Thank you. Wow. I mean, because there are rumors when these kinds of events take place, you hear that these things are dollarised. And for a small party, using the word small loosely here, like the ADC, one would think that there would be pure internal party democracy, being that parties like this are striving not to be like the two major political parties. But from what Kunle saying, that might not necessarily be the case. Why do you think that is? It just shows you how much the country has deteriorated, not just in the last seven years, but you could argue since independence. That's why stomach infrastructure would always work in most parts. That's why most politicians believe that all they need to do is wait for you on election day at different polling units and buy your votes with the 1,000-hour, 2,000-hour or 3,000-hour allegedly that they usually sell. But at the end of the day, it also tells you that the move by the National Assembly, if you remember, just a few months ago when they were working on the electoral act 2022, they actually wanted it to be indirect primaries. That's what they initially put out. But of course, you would argue that constitutionally that doesn't necessarily work because it doesn't give everybody room or people freedom of choice. And so that's why the president decided not to agree and asked them to go back and add other forms. But coming back to the ADC issue, yes, there are allegations. We possibly do not have facts to back it up right now. But they say from every aorta of rumors, there's some possibly atom of truth. And of course, when these things, it's sad that reportedly these delegates were bought with as low as $100. When the major parties were allegedly sharing 10, 15, 20, even here as much as $50,000 allegedly, the ADC reportedly, some of these delegates got just $100. Let's give or take about $50,000 or $60,000 there about and voted the eventual winner. Again, all of these are allegations. We do not have facts to back it up. But it just sums up where the country is headed, such that these persons, because of course, you remember, it's not the general election. This is just primary. It's just a small circle. So all of your popularity really doesn't come into play. Because, again, if I go back to the major political parties, that you could argue that there are a number of politicians in the major political parties who possibly would have gotten the nod of their parties. But did they have enough war chests? Well, the answer is staring at you. Cool. I'm back to you because one of the things that the Electoral College that I understand the Electoral College is trying to do is to move away from the norm and educate people, not just political parties now, but people, the average voter, about how we can have free and fair elections. But how do we even start to talk about these things if the political parties themselves do not necessarily believe in this free, fair process? Now, let's take, for example, like the normal man would say that, oh, we have not credible people in these parties. These people are corrupt allegedly. But then the people who are members of these political parties are Nigerians. They're not from Mars. So obviously, and these people who call themselves delegates who allegedly take these monies are also Nigerians. Does that not also reflect that we, the people, have come to be okay with that modus operandi? Or am I wrong? So the Electoral College, of course, has worked closely with you, that I'm not saying, but I would work closely with every other political party and to have been part of primaries and see the kind of things we've got to see. You know, the ADC, we even thought had a different ideology, they called them third force, which of course they thought or assumed that they were a little different. But you know, to hear allegations of people receiving five dollars and when they voted and then receive like five dollars is quite depressing. The Electoral College has worked with the ADC, tried to train if you even try to send some of our graduated associates to the ADC for grooming within the party. And I, you know, from what I've seen, I think we rather just keep our students who are associates at home. But anyway, going on to, you know, the issues within all other political parties and the ADC inclusive, you know, why the ADC comes as a surprise is because you find out that the basis of which we now understand clearly, because this is the first election year the Electoral College is going to, we have now found out that the pay off corruption is actually being spiced, eaten and cooked by the middle class. So of course, if the middle class is in direction and say they are not, because the price tag has not been put on their head as we've seen on case of ADC. I remember when things in Mogalo and Chukwema Calais Moe joined, it was such a big thing. They were so happy they were attracting clouds. And the moment the former PDP guy bust in the game, it became, you know, game as usual. So I find it a little sad that the ADC didn't take or its neck or its members do not take value above status quo of things. I think as I've won the primaries and have been part of conduct sitting about four or five, and I'll tell you that if you were at that level as a party, what you should have done is direct primaries and not an indirect primaries and thereby find delegates. Now this is what the Electoral College finds most complacent in what Congress is which are held in oil state and legal state by the ADC. You didn't have an attendance of 100. Then how the hell in the primaries of Gobernatorial you have over 500 and what they call it in the presidential primaries do you have close to a thousand? It's highly depressing. Well format because we don't have time. I'm going to toss this question to you. The sinned to be so much hope to borrow his word ginger, you know, that we were having newcomers especially for the ADC. They had at some point a lot of presidential aspirants and one would have thought that it would have been, you know, a very good way to see democracy work inside that party, but that's not the case right now. Do you see a lot of criss-crossing from the ADC? Do you see people moving away because of what has happened and the outcome of the elections and looking at maybe does he stand a chance? To be very honest with you, I try not to reduce people's chances. I can tell them privately, excuse me, but I try not to do that maybe publicly because of course I'm supposed to be unbiased and all of that as a journalist. But I remember telling one of the presidential aspirants in 2018, talking about so where he came to our office by the way in Port Hacott and you know, I told one of his aides, please stop kidding around. You're not going to win this thing. Let's not even joke. But one word here that I've also realized that you don't want to reduce, you know, the efforts other people are putting into the picture. Are they going to go away? Well, I think I saw what was his name, Mone, earlier today put out a tweet just two words, Peter would be, those two words, make of that what you wish for the ADs, for the kings of the morgue, I think I saw his comments, you know, suggesting that for now he doesn't know where, what he's going to do. He's going to take his time, you know, before reacting to this loss. But I think we have a third force. I think we have an option that people are already looking at. People, I've seen a lot of people say, oh, it's just online, it's just on Twitter. But trust me, there is a third force. And if you do not take a certain, Peter would be in the Labour Party seriously, well, maybe you might just about be taken in seriously because even the two major political parties, the PDP and the APC are looking at it and wondering, wow, what is going on? And I was hoping that there would be another, I mean, because there's so many third forces and we're seeing a Kwan Kwan so on the other end. Yes, of course. Kwan Kwan Kwan is another, another powerful force. Maybe it might not do so much in the southern part of the country, but Kanu, Jigawa and a couple of the states in the north, well, he's definitely going to pull some weight. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed and keep watching these stories as they develop. Kune Laul is the Executive Director of the Electoral College of Nigeria. And Ufua Ma'amuna is the Head of News, Nigeria Info FM 99.3 here in Lagos. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you for having me. Being part of the conversation. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. That's the show tonight. We will round off the show this today with our weekly highlights. So we give you an idea of what we've been discussing all through the week. Post-Politics Returns on Monday. I am Mary Annacone. Have a great weekend. Y'all better have a great weekend. There is no way, based on the capacity he's been building for him to get to lose this, because pretty much everybody there, one way or the other, has benefited from his generosity, or from his politics, or from his guidance, however you want to look at it. And there is no way. I wasn't even surprised. For me, at the end of the day, you could say if you were looking at social media a few days back, you might think others had a chance, but if you understood politics, there is no way. I would say that, frankly, I would rather not have been able to continue with us from the context that I love the vice president. Why? My reasons are profound. If you were not able to see what he himself is practically too old, wavy, and hard, but there is no more responsibility of shifting, resetting, and re-walking Manjia. And that is why it becomes very difficult for the supporters of the vice president to make him step down. The truth is that from the start, the candidacy of the vice president is more attractive to people across the nation. But beyond the fact that until I did this, we need to go figure out if you mind. In spite of the sentiments about the situation between the North and the South and what have you, we must remember that at the end of the day, the people that are involved in all of these calculations and strategizing and all of that are politicians. And to them, the overriding interest is their own interest. So, you know, as the measures of al-Adhyatika and Subakar was more about which of the candidates, those politicians, felt to the greatest chance of defeating an incompetent government, regardless of whichever candidate that has incompetent government or incompetent party, eventually presents, you know. So, in the eyes of the delegates and what have you, they felt whether, regardless of the zoning arrangements, articles to the biggest chance. That's not to say, you know, that's without prejudice the very short shift that we saw with how money became, also became a major factor. Facing out the politicians is not the best. The old politicians are similar in nature. You see, this time around, people have to look at the track record of all the politicians that are aspiring to go into positions, especially the executive arm of government, because that is probably the most important arm of government out of the three. Because if you get that right, other two are certainly going to be new ones. So, I think that's what we can do. We don't miss not the time really for us to go and start any experiment. Some of the young men and women that we have seen taking power, especially at state level, some of them were hugely disappointed at people.