 Nigeria is not yet ready for a direct primary elections model, says the Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC. Nigeria's electoral system is still broken and needs a list of reforms. We'll take a look at those reforms and of course, the checkered election system in Nigeria. Well, this is Plus Politics, I am Mary Annaclal. The issue of Electoral Act amendments Bill of the year 2021 dominated the political atmosphere in the later part of 2021. President Mohammad Bahari rejected the Electoral Act passed to him by lawmakers. At first he said nothing about the bill until a few days after the times stipulated by the Constitution for the ascent or rejection of a bill expired. Now, the president's later declined his ascent with his major reason being the inclusion of direct primaries for political parties. Despite some tough talk from the Senate which threatened to override President Mohammad Bahari's veto of the bill, senators backed down claiming that they needed to consult with their constituents. It's also said it would consult with the House of Representatives on the issue when plenary resumes this year. Well, our question now is what is the way forward with this bill? Well, joining us to discuss this is a senior advocate of Nigeria, Muiz Bani Reh. Thank you very much, Sir, for joining us on the show. Many people actually say that the electoral system in Nigeria is broken and that there are a list of urgent things that need to be fixed for us to be able to say that we have at least even scratched the surface of even having free, fair and credible elections. Do you think that the system in itself is broken or that there are things that we are yet to achieve to make sure that we have a proper electoral system? Maybe not totally broken. On that day it is broken, but not totally. It has not collapsed. But certainly the kind of system that we have in place now cannot enjoy any people election. That's the reality of the situation that we find ourselves. So as far as I'm concerned, we are on the first lane to total collapse of the electoral system. So what are some of the things that you think, you've been around for a long time. You should be able to tell one of the things or a few of those things that we need to do to get the reforms in place. But first and foremost, let's talk about the Electoral Act bill that is on the floor of the National Assembly. Many people thought last year that the National Assembly was going to veto Mr. President and make sure that that bill was passed into law. But as we speak, that has not been the case. They're still saying they want to consult with us Nigerians and they want to consult with members of the House of Representatives who were at the time on recess. What's your take on the whole drag? Well, I don't know. Isn't it in terms of the mode of primary or in terms of the refusal to assent? Which one of them do you want to go on? And of course Mr. President had made his reservations known. Many people are saying that it's not enough reason for that bill not to be passed into law. In fact, there are people, I talked to a member of the House of Representatives and he's a PDP member. He said that this is a ploy for the presidency and members of the APC to bypass this or keep this particular bill until elections. When the elections are getting closed, then they'll say it's a bit too close for them to rush into it. Well, I'm of the view in the first instance that the president should or to an effect, rightly decline the assent of the bill based on the idea of the direct fromaries. I do not subscribe to the legislature or the draft legislation at all, particularly in terms of compelling political parties to adopt a particular move. So to that extent, I think I'm in concurrent with the president on that point. As for the issue of whether something else could have been done, the truth of the matter is that the bill came holistically. So it's difficult to start isolating. The president on his own could not have isolated the provision relating to direct fromaries and then sign the orders. So the only thing, the option that is left for the National Assembly of course is to respond to that provision and represent for assent in the circumstances. The president could not have done to on his own. And I think that is the right position. So you're saying that you do not necessarily agree with the issue of direct primaries. And that has been an issue that has been debated over time. But the Interparty Advisory Council are here saying that they want the president to actually assent to this bill. So it means that, and I'm guessing that IPAC is made up of different political parties. It means that maybe the political parties represented by IPAC do not necessarily think that direct primaries may be a problem of sorts. They're looking at other issues like the e-transfer of votes to electronic transfer of votes. They're looking at other issues that are in this particular bill other than the direct primaries. Now, INEC has also come out to say that if we were to go the way of direct primaries, then the burden of the finance burden would be on political parties. And I always ask, are political parties ready for this? Again, let's not forget there is a cap for political parties spending, even though there's not necessarily been a check and balance as to how much money is being expended by these political parties. Will this not also cost the political parties to spend above the cap that has been stated within the bill? You see, there are so many issues that are involved in your observation now. First and foremost, let me say that the work they are suggesting is impossible for the president to isolate the direct primary provision and assign the rest. That is an impossibility, but I can't say to elaborate that there are so many other areas that require attention that are contained in the traffic that should be considered. That's why I said that if truly the National Assembly met well for this system, what ought to be done as a matter of agency is to isolate that, represent the remnant, to replace them for assent, then we can start agitating the issue of direct or not direct. But for me, the issues that are meditated against the adoption of the primary as the only way of nomination are so many. In fact, the first issue I disagree that it's a subject of legislation, totally fundamentally, it is an issue that I believe is within the freedom of the political parties. That's why there's no political party in Nigeria that does not have a provision, allowing the different methods of nomination. That is to say the direct, indirect and consensus, none of them. So what we are indirectly saying is that to the president to assign that particular deal it is that all the political party will have to go and convene a convention urgently to amend their position to reflect that. And because of constitutional, it's not a small amount and the logistic is not that, it's not something, it's not a tea party on its own. But beyond that, I believe seriously and I say without fear of equivocation that what is required is not legislating model party. The fundamentals are the problem that we have with the transparency in the conduct of the primary. What are these fundamental ones? Let the political party come out and tell me that we have a credible membership register. Let any one of them come out. That is the fundamental thing that needs to be addressed by INEG and you can go by a station in Nigeria to truly mean well. All political party must have a credible membership register that has integrity and that is open to everybody to see. That's number one thing that ought to be addressed. Whether you are direct or indirect, the truth is that if your membership register is not credible, you are wasting your time. I remember the last time you and I spoke on the APC, the proposed convention that the APC was going to have amidst the interstate primary issues or congresses that they had. You kept asking if the APC did indeed have a register and for me, I'm wondering, for the APC who did a nationwide registration, for re-registration for their members, one would believe that they would have a register, one that reflects all the information of their truly registered members. But here you are saying or implying, not just about the APC but political parties in Nigeria, that they do not have credible registers. What does that even say about the whole inter-democratic process within the parties, let alone the people that they threw up at the end of the day to run for these offices? That is the issue. That is the very first thing that needs to be addressed. For example, APC embarked on what I call a membership drive jamboree that led to purported collation of raw data. All these raw data are still lying in the very opposite and local government across the place. Nobody has put them together. Nobody has challenged, nobody has verified the authenticity of all these names that have been put into the letter. No filtration process, no identification process. Nothing like that has happened. So how do you conduct either direct or indirect without the membership register? It's a complete waste of time. That's the first thing. But nothing will assume without conceding that there is even a credible member of the register. What of the identification process? How do we identify the right members that are entitled to vote? This is still lacking equally. You find out that where you have direct primary, you have all the members of the party going to a particular venue. That means that if a person going to that venue is a member or a valid member of the party, how do you identify them? That again is lacking. These are the areas to pay serious attention to. You must have a credible member. You must have an identification process that is able to say this is our member, that is not our member. Otherwise, it's usually like that. That's why you have a bloated figure. See what happened in Anambra, for example. Look at the figure that came out, look at the one that came out from the letter. We've had this in several states like that. So for me, those are the two fundamentals. Then the third aspect to address is the issue of the monetary and supervision. Is INED truly monitoring anything now? Look at the judgment given recently on Anambra. It was by the grace of INED that one of the agreed member was able to prove his case and no primary took place. So to do that in all the words of the Federation on the direct primary is going to be a Julian. Sir, it's not an impossible task for INED. Apart from the logistic, the financial implication even for the party's aspect, how you come to the fourth aspect of it, security. Are you able to provide security at all the values? Again, that is impossible again. So there are so many of them, I can continue to multiply all those challenges that are associated with direct primary. But even assuming with that concept that that's the way to go. Even in terms of the indirect primary, mind you, the only difference between direct and indirect primary is one is a single transaction. The other is a double transaction. The first one, all members go directly. The second one, indirect, they will first go to elect the delegate. The delegate will now elect those who will be the candidates of the party. So whoever you take, direct will take place. So for me, what is most important to be addressed, I don't think you that are elected earlier. And we must be addressed if you want to have an incredible nomination process in this corridor. Why we continue to be garbage in garbage out and the quality that we are, we continue to be challenged within our system. Let me talk about the internal democracy within our political parties in Nigeria. Now, IPAC again is mauling over the idea of establishing an African institute for democracy. And this is basically or purely to train politicians. Now, in Nigeria, you hear people say that they're career politicians and there are people that are politicians who are made as by circumstance. Is this an idea that should be explored and what change do you think this would bring if it were to come into fruition? Well, in the first instance, the situation we're trying to struggle to draw is between those we call professional politicians and professional in politics. The political in politics are closed with alternate vocations. They have their jobs that they are doing. They are interested in good governance. That's why you find them with their political arena. But the other ones, they have no job. They are ever desperate for political fear. That's the only means of survival. Politics is their industry. Those ones that can go to any lady can do anything to get to their destination. So for those ones, you are not likely to get anything better. The truth of the matter is that because a lot of good people stay away from the political arena, we continue to have this challenge in surplus within the political arena. And there are the people that are usually the advocates of all the viruses you find associated with the nomination process particularly and the general election eventually. So the idea of having such an institution. Of course, INEC has won already. They won under INEC. To what extent has this gone? The last time I heard about it was that they have to lend their funding. Of course, they cannot do it alone. We need the civil society organization. We need the media particularly to educate the people on all these things. For instance, I believe that there are so many setbacks to address just this year in my own column now. I'm writing several letters out to the politicians, to the electorate, to the judiciary, to the security and so on and so forth. All of us must be interested and must participate in these processes. That is the only way to sanitize the murky water as it is right now and it's not likely to give us any good product at the end of the day. Finally, some pundits have also canvas for INEC to be independent in the true sense of it. They're asking that there be the removing of the president's powers to appoint the chairman and members of the commission and making appointments. They're also talking about the fact that this should be the job of the National Judicial Council. Is this something that we can make happen in five years? I mean, we hear all kinds of interesting ideas, but the reality of the fact is will we ever agree for these things to happen? Because INEC is called independent but is it really independent? Because this is why fingers are always pointed to INEC and its credibility. The truth of the matter is that that idea of the proposal has been on-ground for some time now, since the year I do have days, it was the result of the 360 ways panel that came out with several recommendations to make INEC independent and electron credible. But it has not seen the light, nothing has happened. I am of the view that we can't toy with that idea, but we toy with the idea, if the national judicial country needs to be the structure constitutionally, it's a constitutional project that needs to be tampered with to ensure and guarantee that at the end of the day, the capability of the people there is equally impeccable, is at that point that we can then settle there with that responsibility. But there are a lot of other areas that require a lot of intervention, particularly stemming from the waste report, which of course is guiding us somewhere in the country right now. Okay. Now finally we always talk about these things and we talk about the constitution amendment, all this it comes back to the table of the members of the national assembly. These same members, who are politicians who sometimes have ambitions in the midst of trying to draw these documents. So of course, interests come to play. But then when we're talking about sanitizing the electoral process again, we cannot do it without these guys. So how do we ever envisage in the future that this might be a thing if every time we talk about this issue, interests arise and these politicians don't seem to be prioritizing the sanitization of the system? Well, in particular, I do not expect much at any point in time from the national assembly in terms of any serious electoral amendment. I do not expect much. But with the pressure of the people themselves, I think we can get somewhere with them. We can, for example, take the issue of electronic transmission who are all on their neck until they reverse themselves and to the right roots. And the same thing we consider, the power of the people, the sovereignty of the people is still there. So we only need to educate our people and make sure that we all stand by our convictions at all times. They are supposedly our sufferers. We must be able to be clear to them what we want. They are not our masters. And except we agree to that at the point in time, and not to show that we expect anything magical or miraculous from the national assembly in particular in terms of electoral amendment. You write this off that they are first before any other interest. That's the reality. Well, Moise Bainere is a senior advocate of Nigeria. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate your thoughts. Well, thank you all for staying with us and still plus politics. We'll take a short break and come back. We will be discussing the electoral challenges, of course, of the electoral reforms in Nigeria that we're hoping for. And of course, hoping that they do not replicate themselves in 2023. We'll be right back.