 Tonight on Civic Education we take a closer look at the implications of money politics in Nigeria ahead of the 2023 elections. And we discuss the failure of presidential amnesty in the Niger Delta and issues of unrest in the region. This is Plus Politics, I am Mary Anna Colby. With the overwhelming influence of money on the Nigerian politics, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INAG Professor Makhmoud Yakupu, had earlier expressed the fear that the current democracy that we enjoy may soon become a plutocracy that is a government of the rich, for the rich, by the rich. Nigeria appears to be on another critical juncture preparing to ascend another transition of power, a hurdle that requires more rigorous and preparedness. But like every other election season, the stakes are high, tensions abound and uncertainty is also in abundance. If this is, if it is this uncertainty that has now given rise to the concerns and worries whether the 2023 presidential elections will be conducted smoothly. While joining us to discuss this is Emmanuel Moran, he is a legal practitioner, and Shagun Shopita, is the chairman of ACT Network and is also a public affairs analyst. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us. Let's just be here. Thank you for having us. Great. Let me start with you Shagun because you work with civil society organizations and some of the things that you engaged in is trying to make sure that Nigerians understand what the modus operandi is when it comes to the electoral process as opposed to what we see and know. How easy is it to reconfigure the mind of the average Nigerian who's already programmed to take money as some form of inducement to cast their vote? Okay, it's a big task. It's going to be very, very difficult. It's not impossible and I think that we will get there with time. So when I say time, that could be 10 years from now, or maybe even 20. But at the moment, the things, the factors that drive this behavioral pattern, especially on the part of the electorate, they're very simple. They are existential issues, survival issues. The fact that poverty prevalence is so high, over 60%, I think, on the average across the country, literacy level is a major contributing factor as well. And that's also pretty high. The level of it, when you talk of literacy, it's one in an education, like having educated minds as being a predominant portion of the electorate is also a key factor. And that's not the case. So it's difficult to run campaigns that show to the electorate the implication of taking inducements, whether monetary or others, like the bag of rice, the bag of beans, the phone, the patch cards and all of those things. It's difficult to make a connection in the minds of these guys between those things they collect and the fact that they don't have good governance and the fact that they don't have basic facilities, services, infrastructure that they require to live good lives. They just simply can't make the connection because they're too poor to think that far. All they can think of is today. So it's going to be difficult to change that. So until the economy improves, until poverty is, you can never eradicate poverty in any society, not even in the advanced societies, poverty remains. But until poverty is reduced to the point where a predominant number of people are not leaving from hand to mouth, it will be a tough job. So the real work must start from demanding good governance so that the quality of the lives of people can input. Then you can start having these types of conversations. But until then, you know, you can only do our best. Barso Moran, let's look at the cost of, you know, assessing or having access to a political office in Nigeria. And then we're looking at political parties, whether it be the major ones or even the minor ones. We've even seen smaller political parties like the ADC having issues of, you know, unnecessary amounts of money is changing hands. And one would have not expected that from smaller parties. But again, for a person who says, I want to lead my people, I want to run for this office, the peg, the amount that is, you know, put on the different tickets or even intent forms. Is that not even a basis for this conversation? They're rich. That is a business. And INET is playing a game that now is crying now. When it should have started crying, when the political parties are putting so much money as conditions for getting a ticket of a party. How do you explain to a Nigerian who does not have, look at today, in Kaduna, they said they were sending back al-Majoris and they were giving them 55,000 Naira each to go and resettle in their states. Now, that same person you are sending, you are giving 5,000 Naira to go and resettle. You will hear that somebody paid 100 million Naira for one form to contest election. Where in this world do you hear that? And when INET should have come out then to have put its foot down to say, look, this is against the provisions of electoral act and against the worldview of elections. That could have, if INET had come out boldly and strongly against that, it would have taken the politicians and look, there is a new kid in the block. That's one. Two, the security agencies that are supposed to be dealing with this matter, they are also complicit. How in God's name can somebody hold 20, 30 billion Naira under his house? Or don't go and dig a hole and put it somewhere? And you want to tell me that the security agencies do not know? How do these monies move? Do they fly? Bullion vans move them. Well, it's when I know bullion vans. Don't they have a reporting system? Is there any big man in Nigeria that God has DSS working with him? What are the reporting from those people? They have a system, a purpose. You see, unfortunately, the way we run our country, we are running our country as if it's a market in another man's land. You go and buy and you go. If anything happens in that place, it's your business. That's where the politicians are dealing. How do you explain this? That you have people, that you have this kind of hunger. The currency of the country is getting Muhammad left, right and center. And nobody is discussing this. You are talking about how much money you have stocked somewhere. You want to buy, you are buying bags of rice. You are buying food stuff. You are buying a camp, a marwa for somebody who has got out of fish. You are buying fish for the person. You are describing the fact of a society, the way we are going. And there's too much money in the system. I know some people who are political leaders. They stock so much money that on election day, they're going to go to their villages and give 5,000, 10,000, 7,000,000 depending on the people. There are some people who are political leaders who will get up to 5 million to be able to bring people out to vote for them. If we continue like this, this country is going to crash on our heads. We said it several times, we warned, we pried. We said on all media, if we continue like this, this country is going to crash on our heads. And unfortunately, the politicians have passports of other countries where they can run to, but one thing is this. I have not seen any politicians that have agreed to be buried outside Nigeria. They want to come back home to be buried. And this is the only country where they can get the kind of attention they are getting. They should focus more on Nigeria. How many of them, like I said the last time I was in your studio, in 1999, how many of these politicians could afford to fly business class outside this country? How many of them add up to 1 million Naira in their bank accounts? What business have they done from 1999 till date that is making them fly in private jet? What is the tax man doing about these people? What is INEC doing? What is GDSS doing? What is ESPC doing? What is ICPC doing? I guess these are questions that are begging answers. But I'll come back to you because we need to talk about the how to and where to start from. But back to you, Sheikun. As former Senate president, Adolfo is at one point in time, once alluded to the fact that politics in Nigeria is more like a business. And I'm wondering, why do you think that he made this assertion? And if you do agree, why has politics somewhat become a business of sorts that every single person is fighting tooth and nail to get it? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple, actually. It's the fact that when we talk about structuring and that entire conversation around how governance works in Nigeria, one of the fundamental things that we need to seek to achieve is to reduce the access to state resources that political office holders have. Because that is difficult to resist incentive for political actors to seek power. You know that once you become a government, the dividing line between you as a person and your state, the state you govern, for example, is very thin if it exists at all. So as long as that is the situation, then it will always be a bit of a business for these guys. And of course, the other answer to that question is, so there's that incentive, there's that sweet, irresistible allure of the world of winning an election. And then there's the fact that in order to even contest and win that election, they're going to have to invest. You know, you're going to spend depending on which office you're running for. So if you're running for president, you can't spend less than probably about 50 billion, 50 billion. And that's if we're being very conservative, you probably will spend much more than that if you look at all of the things that need to happen. So the Electoral Act campaign spending at 5 billion is a problem because it's denying the reality on ground. When you make a law that does not reflect reality, you make it inevitable for people to flap that law. And therefore you make it very difficult for it to be enforced. And if we are unable to enforce those provisions and those restrictions, then how do we move forward? Until you have consequence management properly done in a society, people will behave in whichever way they're able to get away with. So the starting point for me is that the laws need to be reviewed to reflect reality. 5 billion as a cap for campaign funding for presidents is a joke. Each presidential candidate is going to spend not less than that 5 billion just to pay party agents. Just to pay party agents on election day, that 5 billion is gone. You know, because you've got 176,000 polling units across the country and let's assume that for a party that is serious, you have nothing less than two agents representing you at each polling unit. You cannot pay anything less than 10,000 dollars for each of those polling, for each of those agents in each polling unit. So if you just do the numbers, you're talking of 3.7 billion if you have two polling units. And how are we supposed to determine, how are these people supposed to serve us? How are these people not supposed to be less corrupt if they're having to spend all of these monies? And just like Barrister Emmanuel said, where did they get these monies from? And before now, who were they? I mean, we're not even asking all those questions, are we? Exactly. So one of the things that the law has tried to do, for example, and I'm sure the Barrister will corroborate that, is there's a cap on donations, for example, maximum amount that one single person can donate and the capital 50 millionaire. So that is supposed to be a way of ensuring that those funds don't come from a few people that, you know, you crowdsource the funds. But unfortunately, we all know that that's not what happens. So what we need to do as a society is to find a way to ensure that money birds don't run politics and to ensure that Jagaban and Shuadjubola Metinugu is not going to fund his campaigns by himself. Unfortunately, we know that that is what's going to happen. Atikua Rubaka of the other party of the PDP is going to fund, you know, most of the, all the advice that we see on TV now from those two political parties is likely coming from those two major, major candidates. In the, in the Labour Party, I think that there's a bit more of crowdfunding going on. But, you know, the more you have pressure on these candidates to provide the predominance of the money that is required, the more you are giving them a right, almost like a moral right, to steal our money because they must get that money back. So when that legislator said that, that's what he's talking about, as long as they invest, of course, they're going to, they're going to have to recoup the investment and the return on investment must be good. You know, so, so we need to look at that entire funding structure and be very deliberate about writing the legislation and the rules to ensure that one person can not run away with the game. That's the way it works in other societies. If you don't get there, then, you know, we're just, we're just playing. Talking about enforcement, because there's one thing to have this in print and say, this is what the law says, as opposed to making sure that it's enforced. I know that in 2015, Serap had sued all of these political parties who did not make their party financing open. The books have still not been open until today. It's 2015 and today, well, in 2022, Serap is still in court asking political parties to make open their finances, their party finances, because of this cap issue. Now we have amended the electoral act and it's enforced, but that has still not been done. So I'm really curious, because something has to give, if there is no enforcement, then what we're doing is just jaw-drawing for nothing, right? Yeah, so we have to go to court. I think, invariably and inevitably, enforcement has to be compelled. Again, the barista can advise us that there's something they call an order of mandamus. I'm not a lawyer, so please, barista, pardon me. So that we can go to court and get the courts to give orders that compel agencies of government to exercise the powers that they have been given by the law, where they are seen to be in lockdowns to do so. So Nigerians must put pressure on all of these agencies, the EFCC, the ICPC, INEC themselves, the Nigeria Police, and any other regulatory agency involved in the entire enforcement process to ensure that they do what they need to do, to prevent these things. When these things are happening, we cannot see it. It happens where it's brazen. The politicians know that there won't be consequences, so they don't really try so hard to hide these things. So we need to look for ways of getting evidence, the evidence into the hands of the people that need the evidence so that we can push them and get them to try to get legal consequences, slams on these guys that are doing all these things. Until we do that, we will always continue to have this conversation. So that, for me and Miriam, that's the only way out. We've got to compel action because they will not be by themselves. The people that are involved are benefiting from all of this, so they won't do anything about it. So we are the ones that are suffering, and we're the ones that have to push for the solution. By some more, just picking it up from where Mr. Chappiton stopped, he's saying that there's a lot that we can do with the law, but just as I said earlier on, syrup has been on this matter. Political parties have continued to spend and will not, in any way, let us know what the funding cap is or how much they've expended during an election season. Now, he's talking about us, the people, playing a role in making sure that one way or the other, these political parties can have an open door policy, so the public can know if they are keeping to the rules and regulations. But INEC also has a job cut out for it. But then we have security agencies that bark and don't necessarily bite, except there is some form of agenda. So where do we come in here, and how? What is the how to? How do we make sure that the right thing is done by us? Because at the end of the day, we're the ones who are in need of this service. And if the service providers are seemingly corrupt, then the service that we're going to get, we're going to be, it's going to be on the hand or something worse. Yes, I agree absolutely with my co-guest. And I, the fact of it is this. We, the system where people are pointed to offices and they don't do what they are pointed to do. Now, another very important, apart from ESCC, ICPC, another very important man in this whole game is the tax man. The tax man can make demands upon you, upon the political party, upon individual donors, upon the candidates to show their source of being of wealth. How much, how did you make this money? Show us the flow of your tax. And the way we run things, they run it in this country, everything is hidden. And we must take away something. The president at that point and the senators screens, unfortunately, they're all put in arms. They're all together, they all want to rig the system. Or else, how do you go and screen somebody and get somebody to take a bow? Somebody that is going to be the head of tax or the head of ESCC or the IG is the general of police or the head of ESCC. You can tell them to take a bow. You do not, you have screening for about two hours, three hours. What do you do after about two weeks? To take them through all the issues you need to, you need to open them up to check if these people are qualified to ask you to sip you naked. Because these are the people that can look at you naked and look at your finances naked. They must not have, like the says his wife. She should also be seen to be very, to be clean. You get? So these are the things that they should do. But unfortunately, we do not. The IDEC chairman that comes, it is most times the IDEC chairman has based on his own convictions alone. Not what the people who have put him in that office are going to show him that, look, this job you are coming to do, if you owe us, you owe the country a duty. And as long as we continue like this, we cannot get anywhere. Today on Twitter, a young man, a Nigerian, a young Nigerian who has registered and has done everything possible to help is Mota Skad. He said today, he spent his last 2,000 naira trying to go and get his Mota Skad. And his name is not on the list. But you are finding underage people in certain areas, they are having double registration in certain areas. How is that, how is that happening? I changed my, I went to apply to change my location. And for a new card, for since last year till today, I've gone there about five times. They tell me it is not ready. And they say, by the end of November, you can't get cards anymore. So what is happening? Tomorrow you go and see tons of these cards in somebody's bag, in a cab somewhere, or somewhere. How is this happening? Is that a tracking system? It's terrible. Let's see them every day. That is why it is difficult for INEC or anybody to track the monies that are going into politics. How do you check, how do you stop drug money? Look at the number of drugs barrels that have been caught. How do you stop drug money from going into politics? How do you stop money stolen from government from going into politics? These are the things that we should be, we should, I am very grateful for you people who are bringing up on this. There should be both discussions around this. So that we can push the agencies that are supposed to do their job, to do their job. You don't do any. Okay. And unfortunately, to another thing, unfortunately, in this country, is that when somebody is appointed to an office, he becomes that office. He wants to make money. If he leaves that office, he wants to become a billionaire. Okay. Look around you. People who have heard offices, how many of them have gone back to regular mail? Regular mail, they are not. Let me bring your attention to something that the President said recently. Before the kickoff of this election, the President during a meeting with governors on the platform of the APC had said that government will ensure that Nigerians did not get intimidated or humiliated by those in position or the more privileged in the 2023 elections. Let me ask, how well do you think the President has lived up to that promise that he made? Don't forget that in the cause of campaigns and we've seen a lot of attacks happen we've seen a sitting senator almost killed. It's happening literally everywhere. Do we see the President or the government, in general's word, being backed by any form of action as opposed to the nice words that we hear and then nothing really happens? Because again, this also would tell us what will happen or what we expect to see come 2023. Yeah, I think it's a lot more rhetorics. This is the same President that told us that he would not fly private, that he's going to give out all the privateers to run a new airline till the 7th year. This is the same President that said because of people flying out of the country to go and get medical treatment, he's killing the country. But what is he doing? This is the President that came back and had over 30 vehicles leading him from the airport back to Asorok, when he came back from the longest treatment he took in England. How do you see this thing he's doing to our country? When he does not believe in the medical system, he does not believe what he has said before. He's not living by them. He told us clearly in 2014 that he rejects, that it's unnecessary luxury. But he did, he has added more to the fleet. How does he explain when the base of our governance, Asorok, you see so much when he buying this air? How does he explain it? How does he explain the amount of money that is spent in Asorok clinic that nobody attends? How does he explain all these things? Does he realize that he's talking to people who are so free? These same people that are in his party that paid 100 million dollars to buy one form. And he was sitting there, he's a man that said when I would recollect in 2014 when they were showing him his house in the area where the tube was to visit him, he was using the beat-a-max, the old beat-a-max video player in his house. That was why a lot of us said he was the right man. But today what has happened is just leaving the luxury. Okay. He must do this, he must follow up on his talk. He can't be just talking to us like that. I think, oh look, I will do this, I will do this, I will do that. How, there's no chance at all. And so evidence has told that he's interested in doing any of these things. Okay. Finally, Shagong, what do we go from here? Because I'm beginning to feel that every election cycle we have these conversations. So it looks like we're doing something. As much as you and I have had this conversation on other forums and you've said, look, this has to be a continuum. These conversations cannot be stopped. But then if we just keep talking and then there's no action that follows at all in that direction. And again, should we be waiting for government and its agencies like to ask the barrister to do something if we don't necessarily keep them on their toes or maybe even hold their feet to the fire? Well, you know, so as hopeless as the situation might appear and like we were saying yesterday, we don't have a choice, can't give up. So we've got to keep fighting, we've got to keep talking about this thing. We have to keep the conversation on the front burner so that the people that can do something will eventually do something someday. But I think one of the things I'd like to quickly point out is in fact, I would like to commend the Central Bank of Nigeria because the policy to this Naira, the design policy might very well be to use that to initiate a game changer. So what happens generally, and I think we all know this is, it's a four-year cycle and the politicians know this. So what tends to happen is that as soon as one election cycle is over, they're already planning for the next one. So they start accumulating cash because it is the cash that they're going to use on election day to settle the voters to buy the votes. So this move by the Central Bank could be a mass pass through if they stand their ground. So I know that there's a lot of pressure because, for example, of the impact on the exchange rate, that people are saying, no, this is badly timed and all of that, but we have to think about the long-term. This short-term pain, I think, is something we should bear. It's something we should even support. Like, look, you know what, this cost will bear it. Let's, because the impact of this policy on the elections next year might yet surprise a lot of us. The cash that people are cashing away would be useless to them. So they have to go through the, whether they're taking the money back into the bank and then of course, because of the restrictions, the limits on the amount of money you can withdraw per day, they can't get those monies back in cash in time for the elections. If they decide to convert to dollars, they also can't get the money back converted into NARA in time for the elections. So either way, this is a good move. It should be encouraged to be supported. And I think that the government needs to do more very fundamental and systemic measures like this to combat this thing. I suspect that the CDN has done this deliberately and statistically because of these elections and then the more recommended policy. Well, we look forward to the development as they come. Thank you so much. Shagun Shopitan is the Chairman-Acts Network. He's also a Public Affairs Analyst. And Emmanuel Le Moran is a Legal Practitioner. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick break. When we return, we'll be discussing the failed management of the Presidential Amnesty Program in the Niger Delta region. Stay with us.