 BEGE waren elaborated only 55% of the 189,000 sport wonden preciso invest peel in outdoors And collection center agents have beenpooled and political parties Yes, cars nine political parties participating You know,ibility collections in Beichenág I will say launch the list ofwith earlier టార్bene ఍వాఫకిమె మార్విలింి ఇది. కిరాలాజ కావె మలాకికి నీరేాఒంయత౟షటాామరం. నీర్రినిమని నఀర్కంతరంటాకి. The list also shows that two political parties are fielding female candidates in Biasa state, one in Kogi state and none in Emo state. In preparation for the forthcoming elections, the commission has approved the resumption of collection of prominent voter scouts, PVCs, for registered voters who could not collect their PVCs before the last general elections, and also hushed political parties and their candidates to refrain from acts and statements that could inflame the political climate. The off-circle elections for the three states will be held on November 11, 2023, counting down with me and analysing the forthcoming elections is Paul James, program manager election Yaga Africa. Paul, pleasure to have you, guesting on plus politics this evening. Thank you very much for the invitation. Good evening. Pleasure is all ours. Paul, the primary reason for inviting you is to stimulate public enlightenment, especially on electionary matters. But it will be a wasted opportunity if one is engaging with somebody like you from a reputable organization such as Yaga, not to do a cursory review of the last general elections. What would you say synoptically are your take of the last general elections? February presidential and the March government or general across the board, what would be your take? Like the way you are putting on the spot, especially as I know most stakeholders in the usual style is once one election cycle is over, we quickly want to just run and begin to talk about the next cycle. But I quite agree with you that we cannot be talking about the coming election without reflecting back to see how each of these stakeholders spread, especially in the February and March in 2023 elections. Now, I know a lot of elections have been in the spotlight for a number of reasons, rightly so, especially because there was expectations before the elections. And perhaps we could say there are also unmet expectations, a lot of stakeholders for the elections and high hopes that elections that Nigerians will want, elections that Nigerians will expect. Of course, we saw the turnout and it also depends on the lengths that individuals or stakeholders who want to be looking at the elections from. This is because there was a commitment or a promise by the independent election and electoral commission before the election especially to deepen the use of technology and we saw how that played out in the election especially for the presidential election. There was an attempt of course in the March 18 election by the commission to some extent to redeem itself. Now, technology was not just the only concern from that election. There was also concern around how the commission had managed the logistics for the election. That was the election on, I mean the election on February 22nd or 25th, where we saw in some parts of the country, especially in the southeast and the south southern part of the country that to a large extent the commission deployed late. And so again, which raises a lot of concerns especially to connect that with issues around voter suppression. We had at Niagara Africa our reports indicated only 10% of polling stations had opened by 9.30 across most of the polling units in the southeast geopolitical zone. And only 22% of polling stations had opened by 9.30 and most of the polling stations in the south southern geopolitical zone. So with those sort of concerns in mind, of course stakeholders will expect that the commission will do better, that the commission had learned from his lesson. But most of the major concern also from that election was the fact that the public communication by the commission at some point was not expected, especially when the commission was having issues, especially managing its logistics and managing the technology that deployed for the election. So we expected that the commission will have been upfront, that the commission will have to manage those expectations. We don't expect that this commission are people that are operating from outside of our space to a large extent we understand the circumstances of the challenges around which the commission conducted the election. If you recall there were concepts around the scarcity of, I mean there was this policy that didn't go down well with Nigeria, the policy around access to cash. There was also some to a large extent concepts around even access to petroleum products. The commission assured Nigeria that it was in communication with the central bank of Nigeria and also in communication with the petroleum market as to ensure that it had access to cash and also that it was able to get a petrol to be able to deploy to the polling in its time. Especially if you think that logistics around the elections and cash pay even for security to deploy to a large extent they will need to assess, they will need to assess cash. Those were the things that played out and then between March to this moment that the election had happened. I mean there are also concepts about the public posture of the commission. We want to see the commission to be more assuring, the commission to be more engaged and to be more upfront in the mayor manner in approach to concepts around the election but also how it also engage with the voting public. But then here we are just barely 30 days or so to the elections, also the first several elections in Kogi, Biasa and Imo and then I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't, I mean why the commission had a checklist of what it wanted to do before the election and it is gradually taking off what it has achieved on the checklist. I think concerns still remain especially around public engagement. If this is a good time to say this, I was in Imo Sum to be say go precisely on the 15th of September where we had expected to engage with the commission. We send a request to the commission to come and speak with some of our observers that we had deployed as long-term observers to oversee the pre-election process in Imo state. The commission declined the invitation, simply that they had suffered embarrassment that people had often attacked them each time they attacked attempt public functions in Imo especially. So that is for us a big concern headed into the election that if there is no sort of assurance especially about the safety and security of the commission. And also if the public state doesn't have that confidence that the commission is going to manage the election in a way of manner that we expect, then I think we are here to cross that hurdle. Okay, I can understand the fact that people in your shoes will feel somewhat disappointed that INEC may not be engaging as robustly or vibrantly as they would want. Some of us too have noticed that subsequent to the last general elections INEC seemed to have been a bit withdrawn. I wouldn't know the last time I even saw the picture of the chairman of INEC attending any public function. But as it is now, it is a constitutional inevitability that elections must take place in Imo, in Bajasa and in Kogi. And it is imperative too that INEC and responsible administrations such as the Aga Africa situation and most of this, most of you people who go around enlightening the public on electionary matters must do what you have to do. And that is why we have invited you here today. So where do we start from methodically, chronologically about enlightening our public with a view to how they should conduct themselves, what they need to know, what they should have done all or before the date of the election, during the election. We may not have all the time in the world to do that, but I just want to give it to you. This is running you the ball and let's go about it chronologically as best as you can and as similarly as you can. Well, thank you very much. Well, I think it's still very concerning especially the public possession about the empire, the institution that is supposed to manage our elections. But I think building from July to this moment, there has been some effort, some attempt by the commission to engage the public. I know at the national level there have been layers of meetings with different levels of stakeholders that commission had. I know the organizers quarterly meeting with political parties with the national observers with the security that happened at some point. I was also a public forum where the commission, I mean the public lecture series that I have also opened to organize by the Electoral Institute, another arm of the commission to provide this public enlightenment about what the commission was doing. I mean, thankfully that public enlightenment series was also about preparing the people, the mind of stakeholders ahead of the Kogi Bayasan emo election. But then having said that, building on to the election, what the commission had done first is to try to provide the opportunity for Nigerians to be able to participate in the process. One, by returning back to begin to collectional permanent voters card. That started from the 9th of September and was expected to go on until the 10th or 11th of October. Hopefully also that that would provide the opportunity for the teaming voters in those days to be able to collect their voters card and be able to participate. Although there was an expectation that the commission will have opened up the chance for people to go back and register, especially those that were not able to register during the last registration exercise. But that didn't happen for the emo, Kogi and Bayasan upcoming elections. So, sadly those voters in those category, those will be voters in those category may miss the chance to participate in this election. But for the coming election, what are the expectations? First, for the different stakeholders, what to expect is that there have been a review in this three states. Kogi will have 3,509 polling units. He will have about 4,700 there about polling units and also Bayasan 2,208 something polling units. There have been some increment over what we used to have in the last election that was conducted in those days. And some of these polling units were what we used to have in the past as voting points that were upgraded to polling units. The challenge we saw in the presidential election was that, I then did what they called voter allocation to polling units. They moved some voters to this new polling units and made that there was a challenge of communication to some extent. Some voters did not even know that they were reallocated to polling units. So, we expect that there will be public communication among public enlightenment from the commission to tell voters how to go about identifying their polling units and how to vote on election day. But for the purpose of public enlightenment, these elections will happen on November 11th, as you rightly said. And it will happen across all of these polling units. The expectation is that the voting centers will open at 8.30 in the morning and will remain open until 2.30 in the afternoon when the last person on the queue had voted. It doesn't mean that... I know Paul. I can hear you. Before you get to the polling day itself, I think it is imperative to be a bit more chronologically to sequence it better because I not today said only 55% of political party agents, the agents of the political party, polling agents of the political party, only 55% of their names have been uploaded. We must also let the parties know that this role is as strategic as the role of INEC because it is actually the role that best captures the methodology of accountability that is one. INEC is stating that... Yeah, I agree with you. This is very concerning but... Go ahead, go ahead. Yes, it is very concerning that up to this moment we are still having concerns about political party agents, not political parties not registering their agents for the election. But to also point that one, I think there might be a problem with capacity here because I recall the last time they had risk... I was at a stakeholder meeting with the commission where some of the risks concerns around how to use the application for the upload of the party agent. But I also wouldn't want to make excuses for them because I think if they apply themselves to knowing how to do that, perhaps they may get help on how to go about it. But I get to point that it could also be a factor of the 11-hour syndrome as it is many months with most of us as 19, as people went on to the very last meeting before they became into the process. This is a process that started since August 24th and we barely have 24 hours until the end of the process and we are still here with the upload of party agents. Now, to say that there are still other stakeholders in the process that are still here to complete their registration as observers, you got for instance media, media accreditation will go on until the 22nd of this month as we speak. The election observers are yet to comment their accreditation. Perhaps it's due also appeal to the commission to provide some leeway to political parties and perhaps provide some form of extension even to the end of the week to see if that would encourage more parties to go and register the agents in the process. Pa, if I want to be a registered voter, say in Kogi, Bayasa or Imo state and I really want to participate by observing my civic duty on election day. But I don't have a PVC, permanent voter card. What should I be thinking about now or what should I be doing? Is there any opportunity for me to go to my nearest INEC facility to collect my PVC? Would you want to enlighten us on that? I am aware that, like I mentioned earlier, this process started since the 9th of September and it will be on until the 10th of October. That is tomorrow. Again, there have been a lot of awareness. I was in the two states at least, I was in Kogi, I was also in Imo and I can say that the stakeholders, especially the CSOs in those states, that is important that they should collect because that is the guarantee they have for participating in the elections. And then on the part of the commission, there have been a lot of public awareness about the collection points. The commission offices wear the collection points and to a large extent also we got the report that people have made views of those opportunities to go pick up their PVCs. At the moment, it may be too early to begin to measure figures or numbers until we have the final figures from the commission before we will be able to say. Open to one could an average voter get to collect his PVC in the states. That's what I'm saying. The process was just, the window was just one month by the commission between September 9th and October 10th. At the moment we don't have, we don't have the reports of how many percentage of these voters have picked up their PVCs but I know there were different collection points. Why, where would be more concerning I think is also local government in Imo state because of security concerns, the commission have to move the collection point from the local government headquarters to the state office. In fact, as we speak, the INF office in the local government has been temporarily shut down. They are currently operating at the headquarters in Overree. So that is where the voters will get to pick up their PVCs. I'm really very sorry. You know, it's getting more interesting. You are a very good educator. You know, maybe that's not the primary, primary responsibility but I must be honest with you. I find it very engaging and a very good illustrator educator but we really have to wrap it up at this juncture. Sorry about that. We will have much more opportunities before the date rolls in. Thank you very much for guesting. We look forward to engaging you at another time. Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity. All the best. Thank you. This is where we wrap it up for now. We are coming back for the next segment. Stay with us.