 I'm Jennifer Cook. I direct the Africa program here at CSIS. And welcome to today's event, which is Nigeria's elections 2015. What have we learned? I want to give a very warm welcome to our guest of honor today, Chairman Atahir Ujjega, chair of Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission. Professor, welcome back to CSIS. It's really great to have you here. And under very happy circumstances, too. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here. And thank you for all the commendable effort to get us here so soon after the elections. Thank you so much. I do also want to recognize the delegation that has come with you and honor the role that the commissioners played in the process. Mrs. Thelma Irramiran, welcome. If you could stand up. National commissioner. Ambassador Mohammed Ahmadwali. Ambassador Lawrence Nwaruku. We also have Coyote Idowu. Professor Oki Ibenbianu, who has been very helpful to us. Welcome back. And Anthony Adebayo Adenji, who's a senior program assistant. Thank you. So welcome. And thank you also for the role that you play within INEC. For those of you who haven't been following the Nigerian elections, they went very well. They were not perfect. And we'll talk a little bit about that. But thanks to the efforts of so many people, Nigerians, the region, and the international community to some extent, helped ensure a credible, peaceful, process. And these elections, which really had the potential to tip into something perhaps violent and certainly precipitate a political crisis of some sort, went extraordinarily well in the circumstances. I think they exceeded the expectations of many. They were improvement on the 2011 elections, which already were a significant step up from the processes in 2003 and 2007. First of all, these were extremely important elections for Nigeria. They came at a moment of huge political flux. I think there was an unraveling of the consensus around succession rules. There was a shift in political alliances as a coalition came together to challenge the People's Democratic Party and the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. There was a lot of residual tension and, I think, fear from the 2011 elections aftermath, which left 800 people dead in its wake. And of course, there were the predations of Boko Haram in the Northeast and the possibility of an unraveling of an amnesty in the South South of the oil producing Niger Delta. There was no clear-cut winner going into these elections. The Nigerian rumor and conspiracy mill was in full force. And I think there was a lot of tension and acrimony in the lead up to these between the parties among regions. And even many Nigerians told us along religious lines, which was particularly alarming. The elections were postponed from February 14, Valentine's Day to March 28. And that fueled a whole other set of accusations and conspiracies and so forth. And I think we'll talk a little bit about that. These elections were incredibly important for Nigeria. They were also very important for West African region and for the United States, which sees Nigeria as really a critical partner in West Africa on so many fronts in insecurity, in economic, in its role in the sub-region, and globally as well. And I think it was that, the importance, and what was at stake in these elections that prompted CSIS to launch the CSS Nigeria Election Forum at the beginning of 2014. And Professor Jago was among our first guests. He came with a great delegation of civil society leaders. And the forum was sponsored by the Ford Foundation Nigeria. It allowed us to bring civil society members, media, security analysts, political party leaders here to CSIS to talk amongst each other in a neutral venue, but also to kind of convey to a Washington audience and the US policymakers, what was at stake in these elections? What were the priorities? And where best might the US use its assistance and diplomatic voice to assist? There were many critical players in the election and some real standouts in terms of some of the youth movements and election not be war. We're going to have the representative from that campaign coming in a few weeks to the Council of the Wise, to the Peace Council, civil society that used technologies and social media in messaging, in monitoring the elections. Political leaders who played a mixed role, I would say. But in the end, I think President Jonathan, who graciously conceded, and President Buhari, now President Buhari, who gave a really, I think, very strong inaugural speech that was quite inspiring. I think it had to bring Nigerians together again after this very raucous election cycle. But at the center, and with many responsibilities and many expectations on their shoulders, was the INEC, the Independent National Electoral Commission. And Professor Jega, as the leader of that, really, I think, deserves standout recognition among the many players that contributed to the success of these elections. Innovations set in place in 2011. I think your demeanor throughout the process, taking criticism calmly, taking notes, really unflappable, unperturbed by the political conspiracy mill that was kind of flying around you, and ultimately delivered what were not perfect elections, but were credible elections. And we talk a lot about institutions over individuals. But I think individuals also can make a difference within institutions. And I think Professor Jega did a lot to boost the credibility of the elections of the Electoral Commission. And that says a great deal. We, I won't go too into depth on your biography. Professor Jega studied at Amadou Bello University. He was actually one of John Payden's students, I believe. And John Payden is not with us today, but he's somewhere watching us on the web. So we'll say hello to John Payden. And eventually went back, he received a PhD from Northwestern University and returned to the Political Science Department at Bayero University as a lecturer, eventually appointed Vice Chancellor. I only go into his background because there's gonna be a lot of speculation on what you do next. I received this tweet, Jen G. Cook. Can you please persuade Ataher Jega to stay on as elections chief when he comes to CSIS later this week? So listen, we're gonna turn to you. I think open up with maybe your reflections on what went well in these elections. What didn't go so well? What kind of, what were the challenges that you faced and how you look back at this process now that it's by and large behind you? Thank you very much once again, Jennifer, for creating this wonderful opportunity. As I look around the room, I see many friends, many acquaintances, some cheerleaders. And I'm so happy to be here, along with my colleagues from the commission. Well, what went right? I think we would need a lot of reflections to tease out the most important aspects of what went right. But I believe that in general, we can say that we have done our best under very difficult circumstances to satisfy the earnings of Nigerians for peaceful, credible, free and fair elections. And of course, the 2015 general elections represent something of enigma because on the one hand, there are enormous hopes and the expectations expressed by some stakeholders and even anxieties and concerns. Some foretold a hopeful turning point for our country, others foresaw an apocalyptic end. And I think we are all glad that by all accounts, the elections now represent a turning point and proved the doomsday predictors wrong. And of course, in INAG, I must say that we were well aware that the 2015 elections would represent a little more test for the commission. And we did our best there for knowing that we had to ensure that we pass that test because it's a very important thing for our country in the sense of deepening democracy and beginning to get our politics and hopefully the governance processes are right. And so we applied all our energies in the past five years to reforming the process and to trying to be very, very adequately prepared. I think our preparations went well. I believe that the first thing that we did was a learning process in terms of understanding and documenting the persistent challenges which have bedoubled the electoral process in our country. And arising from those reflections and the studies, then we started a process of planning. And we did both strategic planning in the long term, in terms of where we want the commission to be. We produced a strategic plan document covering the period 2012 to 2016. And then we also focused attention on more specific election project planning. And of course, if you have beautiful plans and you don't have partners that can help you execute it, it would be a serious challenge. And we've been very, very lucky to have been able to develop partnerships both at the local level with civil society organizations, even developed partnerships with other governmental agencies such as the security agencies under what we called an interagency consultative committee on election security. We forged partnerships with many non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations. But very importantly, we also are able to develop very good partnerships with Nigeria's development partners. And I'm very glad to see in this room representatives of some of those organizations from IFES to NDI and IRI and many other partners. There was also the joint donor basket fund managed by the UNDP. So these partnerships are very, very important for us in terms of getting ideas and the expertise in the development of our plans, as well as in being able to generate funding and messaging and other support to be able to execute these plans. So I will say that learning from which we develop plans, a lot of the components of these plans also contain innovative measures that are targeted at addressing those persistent challenges to our electoral processes. So we identified what needed to be done, for example, to deal with the persistent challenges associated with electoral fraud. And that was how we came about developing, I mean the idea of producing what we call a permanent voters card that is biometric and also how we came about introducing what we call the card reader, which was to help us ensure that only those who have genuinely been registered and whose names are on the register and who have personally come to the polling unit with their cards were accredited to vote. There were many other things we did. For example, we introduced policies on how to engender the electoral process. Like many accountants in our continent, Nigeria faces challenges about women empowerment and participation in the political process. So we developed agenda policy and that helped us to begin to encourage and motivate and create avenues for increased women participation in politics. So basically we've done quite a lot there are challenges I must admit. Challenges of dealing with the attitude of our politicians. Many in this room I'm sure are aware of the phrase the do or die mentality of our politicians. And we have to remain focused and we have to remain steadfast. And by ensuring that we are not distracted by deliberate efforts sometimes to either create division within the commission or to divert attention from substantive issues. So some of the challenges of course associated with our own socioeconomic context. The poor infrastructure and facilities which affect logistics of preparations and deployment. Challenges of the procurement process. For example, one of the major challenges we faced was the dissatisfaction by Nigerians with the speed with which card, permanent voters cards were produced and distributed. And of course a lot of these are associated with some of these systemic challenges. The procurement process was very, very slow. Certain things the commission has to go to the Federal Executive Council for approval and the process is very long. Then eventually we wanted the materials to be produced locally. And the contractor, the service provider had serious challenges, all sorts of challenges. I think the most formidable one was electricity. And targets were missed. And at the last minute we had to say, look, you have a technical partner in China rather than try to produce all of these things here, get a high percentage produced by your technical partner in China. So that minimized some of the challenges but it opened other political issues and accusations and complaints about, up to the last minute when we knew that all the cards to be produced in China had been produced and brought to Nigeria, we were still being accused and insulted in the newspapers for having millions of cards still in China, which we knew were not true. But as I said, we had to remain focused. So frankly, I think the fundamental elements of what I think we did right were first of all, study and analysis and understanding the key issues. And then secondly, arising from that learning process, designing innovative measures to address those identified challenges. And then thirdly, building partnerships which helped us in terms of executing all the plans that we had put in place to address these issues. And then thirdly and most importantly, as I mentioned earlier on, trying to be steadfast and focused, trying to avoid distractions. And one of the main ways in which we did this was to ensure that not only are we non-partisan as a commission, but that we do everything possible to make people perceive as to be non-partisan. And we also did explore all means possible to provide information and to relate with the key stakeholders in the electoral process. That is the political parties. For example, we institutionalized regular meetings with political parties, chairman and secretaries of political parties, where we would come and share information on a quarterly basis leading to the election. And I think six months to the election, we started meeting more regularly, almost monthly. We provide information, there is concerns, we address them. And through that process, we were able to bridge communication gaps, perhaps even build some trust and confidence in the process and in the commission. And also minimized challenges arising from lack of information. It didn't stop people from being partisan. They would know the issues, they will have the information, but they will still take a partisan position and attack the commission on those grounds. But by being non-partisan, impartial and doing our best to create a level playing field for all contestants and all parties, we just maintained our focus. And I think that also helped a lot. But we also have been very lucky to soon, after 2011 elections, initiate what we call a process of structuring the organization of the commission. And again, we got a lot of support from partners with expertise, with funding, with facilities to be able to do this. We commissioned a management, top management consultant to give us ideas about how to organize the commission. We also had independent assessors. We constituted an independent committee soon after 2011 that gave us a report about what we did right and what we did wrong in 2011 and made recommendations about what we needed to do. One of which was that reorganization and restructuring. Reorganization and restructuring helped us to sanitize the structure of the commission, to reduce the number of departments, to minimize duplications of roles and responsibilities, and to be able to redefine, more carefully, the schedules of duties of departments, units, and the key officers in those commissions. And I believe that leading to 2015 general election, that reorganization and restructuring helped us tremendously. It also had tremendous impact in the implementation of the strategic plan. Our vision for the strategic plan was not only to do a better election in 2015 than we did in 2011, but more specifically to reposition the commission to become one of the best election management bodies in Africa and indeed in the world. And I think we've come a long way from 2011. If I reflect over what remains to be done, I think with regards to restructuring and the organization and the positioning of the commission, we need to do a lot of change management workshops and training and so on. I think that's one area where there's a lot of scope for improvement. To have a competent, independent electoral commission, we need to have professional, professionally trained, skilled, competent staff. And I think there is a gap there that needs to be filled as we move towards the future. We also need to do a lot again in terms of improving the legal framework for the conduct of the elections. After 2011, the commission reviewed the legal framework, the most constitutional provisions and the electoral act provisions and recognized the need for remarkable improvements and made recommendations to the National Assembly. Regrettably, one of the challenges we faced was the anticipation and the anxiety about how soon will these new amendments come into effect. And up to the last minute, we'll remain hopeful. In spite of our repeated reminders about protocols that Nigeria has signed, the ECOWAS and the AU protocols, which specifically suggested that any amendment to the legal provision for elections should be done at least six months to an election. We were not successful and we had to do the election with the same legal framework that we did in 2011. So it was okay, but it would have been better. I give you two examples of what we would have wanted to see an improvement on. One, and we're very, very lucky, the provision regarding run-off election was almost impossible to comply with and it's a constitutional provision. The commission is required to do a run-off election when or if it becomes necessary within seven days. And we don't know any country where a run-off election is organized within seven days. In fact, from our studies, the average seems to be six weeks. So we recommended that that should be amended before the 2015 election. It wasn't. So really a lot of our prayers, my prayers certainly while we were doing the election was hoping that there will not be a run-off election because it would have created a constitutional crisis. The constitution says do run-off in seven days. It's impossible to do a run-off election in seven days. We tried, we prepared for it. For example, what we did, just like we did in 2011, was to print the ballot papers in anticipation of a run-off election. But doing that also has its own problems and could be challenged by those who lost the run-off election because we had to put every party on the ballot. Where as a run-off election is supposed to be between only parties that have the highest number of votes, the two parties, the leading party and the follower party. But there was no other way to do it because there is no way you can produce ballot papers in one week and still be able to deploy for an election. So that's a major issue. And I think in driving the reform process forward, we have to pay a lot of attention and give priority to that. The second one is about internal party democracy. It's something we've all been talking about. The electoral act has two contradictory provisions. One provision says that in nominating candidates, candidates in political parties should emerge through a democratic process. And by this provision of section 87, it implied that there has to be an election, there has to be a winner. But then section 31 of the electoral act said that when a party submits a candidate, as is nominated candidate to INEC, to the electoral commission, it cannot be rejected for any reason whatsoever. You know, and of course trust our parties. But actually everyone of the parties nominated candidates that did not meet democratic principles, we have seen candidates nominated who did not even participate in the primaries of parties. We have seen candidates where there is somebody who emerges number one and number three or number four were submitted by the parties because they knew that we could not reject it for any reason whatsoever. So there are quite a number of areas. Some of them are very, very minor, which could have helped the efficiency of the commission. I think one example in that regard is about conducting by-elections. If somebody dies and they need to be replaced, we have to conduct a by-election. But we can only conduct, one provision says we must conduct a by-election within, I think, two or three weeks. But then we cannot conduct a by-election until and unless we are notified by the either state assembly or the speaker of the national assembly or the president of the Senate. So we could see that we knew we would have information that somebody died, but there would be no communication, you know, and then time provided a law would elapse and there is nothing we could do about it. So we made recommendations about sanitizing those kinds of vagueness or ambiguity in the process. But I think in general, as I have said, we believe that our planning and our methodology went right. It didn't result in a perfect election. There are still outstanding challenges, but at least it helped us to deliver to the satisfaction of majority of Nigerians their expectation of free, fair, credible, and peaceful election. And we benefited a lot from partners and even from government commitment itself to the process, because I think time will come when positive things will be said about Jonathan's government in terms of the support it gave to the commission. All the funding required was provided for in the past in Nigeria, deliberate efforts were made to undermine the independence of the commission through manipulation of the funding or financing process. And also deliberate efforts were made to undermine the integrity of the commission. There may be many partisan efforts, but none we could directly attribute to President Jonathan or to the government as such. So I think these are very, very important things because driving further electoral reforms further for the future, and it's a lesson also for many African countries, would require the commitment of government to free democratic elections to guaranteeing the independence of the electoral commission. Perhaps in Nigeria, that independence can be further improved upon again through legal reforms by reviewing the provisions for the appointment of the chairman, the national commissioners, and the resident electoral commissioners. There are as many ideas as are possible about what can be done, but there are also better models in the African context, which we can learn from. Certainly, the way in which the commission is appointed in Kenya, and to some extent in South Africa, are better in terms of protecting the independence of the commission than the ways in which it's appointed in Nigeria. That method of appointment has not constrained us or in any way negatively affected the discharge of our responsibilities, but it can be made better for the future. I think I've taken so much time, but let me just say that the most important thing to bear, I believe in the context of countries like ours, is that good elections are important, but they are not enough for democratic sustenance and social economic transformation of a country. They are important, they are necessary, but they are not sufficient, as social scientists say. I think in Nigeria, we need to begin to recognize that good elections are only the starting point. Yes, we've done good elections. We must sustain that, we must not allow regression. We must keep on lifting the bar, but that's one aspect. The other aspect, I believe, is that good elections must translate into good democratic governance, for them to be truly transformative in addressing the key challenges that a country like Nigeria faces. So I'm sure that is the hope and the expectation of many Nigerians with this new change that we are witnessing. So thank you very much. Great, thank you. Let me ask a little bit. You mentioned kind of the independence of the commission. There are a lot of rumors and storylines about the postponement of the election and the pressures that you were under. I think I was looking back at some of my emails and it said on the postponement, one that subject line was plot against Jega. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the postponement. I mean, there was a complete revamp of the registration and then the delays on the permanent voter cards that you mentioned. In the event, the six week postponement allowed some 11 million additional people to be enfranchised, as I understand it. The, I think the word from your office was this was a decision that was taken by the military or it was prompted by the security situation in the Northeast. So those were two narratives. The other narrative was this is a plot to give the Jonathan administration time to manipulate the polls. I mean, there were all kinds of storylines going on. So now that it's all behind you, what exactly happened there and how were you prepared to hold the election on the 14th and would it have been a good credible election? Thank you very much. First of all, I will say that we were prepared to do the election as we originally scheduled it and we believed that it would have been a good election. It may not have been as good as what we were able to do after the postponement because we used the six weeks also effectively to keep on improving and fine tuning the process. I think one very good thing we did with the period of extension was giving additional training to the field staff. And of course it enabled more people to collect their permanent voter's cards because the problem really was not production of the card was collection and there seemed to have been a conflation of that. Were all the cards out there to be collected? S of June, sorry, S of, February 28th, there were about two million cards that had not been printed. That is two million out of close to 29, sorry, 69 million cards. But all tens of millions of cards are already in the field for collection and people are not coming out to collect them and we had no facility or infrastructure to deliver cards to people in their residences. And we also deliberately as a commission decided to not allow collection by proxy because otherwise many people would have truly been disenfranchised because other people would have gone and collected other people's cards and there is no way that they would have got it back once that had happened. You know so, but more specifically about the postponement I will tell you what happened. What happened was that we were invited as a commission to the office of the National Security Advisor and we had a meeting with all the service chiefs including the Inspector General of the Police and we were told at that meeting that there is a compelling reason to recommend a postponement of the election and they wanted us as a commission to consider this reason and take the decision because constitutionally is the decision of the commission. And they said that they have now got a window of opportunity in terms of fighting insurgency in the Northeast region. And they are devoting a lot of their energies into this. And what is the window of opportunity, two things. They said for the first time because the Boko Haram insurgents were attacking our neighboring countries. All those three neighboring countries, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, are now the ones pushing Nigeria for a joint action while in the past Nigeria was pursuing them and they were not forthcoming. And then secondly, they said they had just received delivery of military equipment that they had ordered for a very, very long time. And they believed that with this new equipment and the new partnership that is evolving, they can drive the Boko Haram and they would not be able to cross the borders into other countries and that would be a good opportunity not to be lost. And they said, while they were doing that and it was going to take all the period that we had planned for the election, while they were doing that, they would have no time to provide the traditional support that the armed forces provide to the police on election day to deal with security challenges in Nigeria. So, well, at that meeting we said, wow, if this is it, I think we made two recommendations. One, we said you need to do more stakeholder engagement. It's not enough to tell us it's an electoral commission. We can't go out of this meeting and go and take that decision. You need to contact political parties, you need to contact civil society organizations. And most importantly, you need to formalize it. We need something that this is the strong recommendation of this forum. So we left that meeting on the understanding that they were going to do more consultations and then they will then get back to us. Regrettably, and I'm sorry I have to say that because it's factual, you can see the sequence of events. The following day, unknown to us while we were doing that meeting, the National Security Advisor was going to make a presentation at Chatham House the following day in the afternoon. And we were all shocked when news started coming out that the National Security Advisor had stated that actually INEC should extend the election because of challenges with the distribution of the permanent voter's card. So that put us in a very difficult position. We can't come out to say no, this is what we've been told. And so we were careful, we took it in stride, but the following week, a National Council of State Meeting was called and I was invited to come and brief the National Council of State Meeting on our preparations for the elections. Almost exactly a week from the meeting we had with the security agencies. So I was to go there on Thursday. On Wednesday, we received a formal letter signed by the National Security Advisor attaching a letter written to him by the Chief of Defense staff on behalf of the Service Chiefs, now formalizing the same thing that they told us at that meeting. So when I went to the National Council of State Meeting, of course made a written presentation and I stated that we were ready to do the election. And I gave all the information about the extent of our preparations. But then I said that yesterday, the day before this meeting, this is a formal letter we received and this now creates a new challenge. Because if the security agencies are saying they cannot guarantee security because of these commitments that they have in the Northeast, then it's something that the commission has to go and look at. But we hadn't looked at it at that point in time when I appeared before the National Council of State and there was a discussion. And unfortunately the discussion in the National Council of State took a partisan line, divide. Some felt that some of the scenarios we developed that maybe the government was trying to buy more time that if the military couldn't deal with Boko Haram for this long, how do they think they can deal with it in six weeks? But luckily at the National Council of State, all the service chiefs and the NSA were there and they confirmed that the letter had been written and they stated that they could not guarantee security. I think after, because the discussion took partisan line, there was no consensus as to what to do. And in the end, the matter was thrown back to the commission. Somebody just realized that look, constitutionally it's your decision, so go and decide what you want to do. So we had to go back to the commission and then we now decided to do our own stakeholder consultation. So we called a meeting of all chairman and secretaries of parties and put the matter before them. Simple question, security cannot be guaranteed. What are the alternatives? Because we need security to conduct election and nobody could say what the alternative security arrangement will be. We call civil society organizations, we pose the question. Then we now called all the resident electoral commissioners and met with the commission and discussed it. And we decided that we are not going to put the lives of over 750,000 election workers at risk by ignoring the strong recommendation of the military and proceeding to conduct the elections as scheduled. Because it was, I mean, there are all sorts of things we envisioned, you know. What if it is true that a six weeks extension can bring some semblance of normalcy in the Northeast for us to be able to do an election there because we were also concerned that if election is not held, it's very likely to be inconclusive, even governorships in those areas. And then there will be a constitutional crisis. You know, and then most importantly, what if we proceeded to do this election and there is no security support, our lives are lost? Who takes responsibility for that? And the commission said we can't do that. So because of the partisan nature, civil society organizations, many of the parties, everybody said damn the advice, do the election. But we said we will not do that as a commission. That if they want six weeks, they have six weeks, but six weeks is within the constitutionally defined time frame for the election, you know. Beyond that, there is no other scope for extension. And so that was how we took the decision and we are happy that it worked out well. It's not clear that it benefited one party over another. No, clearly it did. I don't think, personally, I haven't seen the evidence that the extension benefited one party or the other. Although I have read interesting analysis in the newspapers that perhaps those who lost may have lost with a wider margin if the elections are taken place as earlier scheduled. But frankly, I haven't seen any concrete evidence one way or the other. Besides which, with a million more people franchised with a regional concentration in the South, it probably added more credibility to the process. No, definitely, definitely it did. By the loser to the losing side. Yes, no, definitely that's a point. But we didn't want to be dragged into the issue of how many people needed to collect because it's not producing. We have an obligation to produce cards. If we did not produce cards, then we have disenfranchised people as a commission. But when we produced millions of cards and people did not collect them, would we be said as a commission to be disenfranchising people? So for example, at the National Council of State when the issue was raised, we said we need to be advised. What is the percentage of collection of cards that is required before an election is held? Because at the time I appeared before the National Council of State, 65% or 67% of all registered voters had collected their cards. So I posed the question, is it 80%? Is it 100%? If you say 80%, then it means you can't fix a date for an election until 80% of the people have collected their cards. Well, you have no way of knowing that that number of people will collect their cards. So I said a country in transition, things cannot be perfect, they will not be normal. You should just be satisfied that you have reached a certain level, a threshold that is comfortable to be able to do an election. So really that's why, yes, we were happy that more people have collected cards and participated in the election, but as far as we are concerned, we could have done that election with 67% of the cards collected. After all, by the time we, after those six weeks, there were only I think about 50,000 cards that had not been produced because of all these challenges that I had mentioned. But what was the total number of cards collected? We had produced 69 million cards, less about say 50,000 or so, but the total number of people who collected their cards before the election was only 56 million. So we have said that don't do that election until the remaining about 15 million or 30 million or so have collected their cards. So they are very interesting questions that challenge both the theory and practice of democracy in a transitional context such as ours. I wanna open up for questions from the audience, but I do have a question about river states. And we saw from the transitional monitoring group early on how their figures diverged quite a bit from the official count in a way that suggested that they must have been manipulated, that it wasn't stuffing, it was manipulation of the results as they moved up the collation chain. The commission would have caught that eventually, but it would have been after results were announced. How do you, what's the status of that? How do you capture that in future? And what's the plan now? I thank you very much. Rivers had become quite a big issue, but we did our best to be able to have enough information to take an informed decision before results were returned. We received a petition indicating massive irregularities in river state, making allegations about use of fake result sheets about use of photocopied result sheets, about substitution of trained INEC personnel with partisans who would do the bidding of some parties. And in fact, an allegation that in the majority of the polling units in river state that no election had taken place. And they are very, very serious allegations. So immediately, and the letter came before we started compiling and announcing the results. So we immediately constituted a three-man team of national commissioners with a secretariat to go to river state and investigate these allegations. And of course we had limited time frame and they were there I think for no more than 12 hours, certainly less than a day. And they came back and the report they gave us, they investigated, first of all, it wasn't true that in the majority of polling units, no election took place. In fact, the evidence was that in the overwhelming majority of the polling units election had taken place. It wasn't true that there were no, there were fake result sheets. They couldn't find any. They couldn't find any photocopy. And what they did when they went, they asked for all the result sheets from all the polling units to be brought to them. And when they were brought, they sampled. Of course they can't go through everything, but they sampled and they couldn't find any evidence to support the massive allegations. So they came back. When they came back, I also insisted that we needed all the result sheets to be brought to the commission, you know. And when we looked at those results sheets, obviously we couldn't find any substantive evidence to support all these wild allegations. You can see some cases of changes of alteration, but you needed to do further investigation to establish whether they are legitimate alterations of corrections or whether they were fraudulent alterations. And our own legal framework had anticipated these challenges and had provided for their resolution through election tribunals. After the election, we didn't have the time and the legal framework is not clear as to whether we should not announce results until we have done a thorough investigation of petitions. In some legal, in some countries, the legal framework is very clear. You cannot announce results until all petitions are resolved and you have, you can take time to do a thorough. In our own legal framework, we couldn't do that. In fact, doing that would have created more tension in the country. So we were satisfied from our investigation given the limited time we had that those allegations were in general superiors and were not substantive enough to require a commission either canceling the election because that was a request. The request is cancel the election. Secondly, reports from organizations like TMG are observer reports and you don't get observer reports until after the election, you know, and they are only meant to help you improve for the future. While from some NGOs who are receiving telephone calls to say this is what is happening, we have people in the field that we ask to verify every information that came to our situation room. And so we cannot rely on one observer's report to take such weighty decisions as a cancellation of elections in an entire state. So my honest advice is that if there was such a magnitude of irregularity in reverse, and I'm not saying there are no irregularities because in all our elections there would be but they were not to the magnitude that they were made to appear. Now, why was that? Could it be partisan? Could it be I don't know? Could it be wrong messaging where people being misinformed? I don't know, but it's good to investigate it. But again, as a commission, we feel confident that we have put sufficient measures and checks and balances that if such massive irregularities had occurred, then people should be able to present the evidence to the tribunals and then the tribunals should be able to make appropriate judgments with regards to the election in reverse. So we are all now looking, we've committed ourselves to giving all the official information that we have. And of course our politicians, they will also be protesting that our state office is very slow in giving them the documents they require. But anytime we receive that information, we intervene. We say, hasten the process. We are not hiding anything. We will not protect any INEC staff who has done anything wrong. Give all the information and let the tribunals decide eventually as to what happened in reverse or any other state for that matter. And I wanna give audience members a chance to ask some questions here. I'm sure there's many. My glasses on. Yes. Should we take a few at a time? Yeah, let's take a few at a time, three at a time. Thank you very much. Many of us watched with amazement the what occurred when the votes were being counted, when Mr. Orubebe intervened. For some it looked like a 10 person a teapot, but all over the internet there was indication that there must have been a lot more amiss than we actually saw, that that could have actually resulted in something much more serious and sinister. Can you explain what happened? And then we'll go. I didn't recognize you ambassador, but go ahead. Hello, my name is Simon Adegi. I totally understand the complexity of Nigeria because I'm a Nigerian, but I live here in DC right now. You've shown integrity and leadership the menor, as well as in depth of experience. My major question would be moving forward, will there be a situation where protégés will be created or would this experience that you've gained be channeled into a more institutionalized platform where it will be used as a template, so to speak, to forge ahead in situations like this? Pretty much that's where my question is. Very good one. Ambassador. Just a statement. How the privilege of hosting protégés in my office yesterday? Pardon? How the privilege of hosting protégés in my office yesterday as it normally does when he visits here? I just want to make a statement on behalf of my staff and the generality of Nigerians in the United States. I've always said before the elections, had cause to come here to Atlantic Council to serve anything tax to reassure our friends about the fact that Nigeria after election 2015 will remain standing. I'm sure you know what I mean by that. But I base my optimism on three factors. Once, number one, Nigerians are inherently democratic. They want to be democratic, you know what I mean by that. We are determined to live together as one entity, united entity. And three, the personality and character of the Independent Literary Commission, especially its chairperson. And knowing our territory for quite a while, he was a chairman as well. I knew that just as he's in 2011, he made 2015 a much improved election. And we are proud of him. Just here to say to all of you here that we members of the United States, since the elections, I've not turned that invitation to talk about Nigeria for the simple reason that I can raise my head high and say in Nigeria, we have done it. And we did it because of him, because of personality and character. And we had to say to him that, Prosodyega, we admire you, we cherish you, and we are intensely very proud of you. You have made democracy strengthen in Africa and made us proud as Nigerians. The only small item which we have to argue, I was asking yesterday whether we continue and it has to do with the question that the gentleman asked. And I asked him whether he will continue. He has said it clearly that he's not, in spite of all my attempts to persuade him. But don't let him know, we Nigerians, we don't take no easily for an answer. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. Let's take one more before we turn back. Yes, the gentleman. My name is Laia Beguni. My own question is practical one that happened. My own son was born and raised in Lagos. But when he was serving for National Youth Service, he was posted to cross river state in Calabar to serve. It was during that time that he registered for voting in Calabar. But he has left Calabar, finished his service, moved back to Lagos during the election. So he was not allowed to vote. It was said that you can only vote where you register. So what are you doing to improve this situation? Because many that I knew, at least four or five students like that, who went and served in different state, they were not allowed to vote. So what are you doing to improve this? Because this affected this franchement of many voters in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos states. That's my question. And a good one, because I just want to give a shout out to the youth corps who is so dedicated, so inspiring and so energizing in these elections. Absolutely. And they deserve a chance to vote as well. So why don't we turn to you for those three in the comment of them. Thank you very much. The Urubebe incident was unfortunate, so regrettable. But frankly, I don't know whether there are any other, there are all sorts of scenarios or theories about why, what had happened happened. But frankly, I have no information or evidence to comment on that. It's a bit like Karl Rove breaking down on the, either the Obama election. Yes. Can I say that? Right. But I hope we learn the lessons also from that. I move on, as statesmen should be statesmen and we need more role models rather than people who can make those kinds of demonstrations in public. Moving forward, we've done quite a lot in INEC in the last five years to commence and do a lot of processes of institutionalization because quite early we realized that in Nigeria, as in many countries like ours, there are weak institutions and quite early we discovered how weak INEC was as an institution. And we realized that a process of institutionalization that can make the electoral commission stronger, more professional, more competent and not susceptible to the whims and caprices of the individual members of the commission or the chairman was necessary. So a lot of the things we did with regards to the organization and the structuring of INEC is really to make it a more competent and effective institution that can not only survive us but can resist any idiosyncrasies that can lead in a negative direction. And you see, I feel happy when I sit in a group like this or when I go into gatherings and people are showering praises on me and giving me all the credit. But people are forgetting that I was just a chairman of a commission of 12 members and we worked really as a collective. And so we all take the credit and there are people in that commission and amongst the resident electoral commissioners who, if given the opportunity, may even do better than I have done. Nigeria is a country with such incredibly talented people who have either been denied opportunity or who have been frustrated and made indifferent by the crisis of governance in our country. I never knew I was going to be a chairman of the electoral commission. I had the opportunity, I did my best. There are many other people out there who can add value, who can keep on improving on what we've been able to do for the future. So really, when I said in the commission, we think this is a turning point. We believe so. And what is required now is sustainability and the avoidance of regression. And there are many people in the commission as well as outside of the commission who, given the opportunity, will be able to keep on raising the bar of the electoral process. So I have little concerns about sustainability and about institutionalization. I believe the foundation is there and there are so many people. I think what is important, obviously, is to recognize the need for continuity. And continuity is not about the chairman. It's about the commission. And that is what is most important. So frankly, I think there is a lot to be pleased about. It's not to underestimate the challenges of institutionalization and the keeping on improving and reforming the process. But I think there are many people in INEC who can do that. And many who have been happy with the reform process, who, if given the opportunity, can also add value. Ambassador, I can't say anything more than thank you for your very kind words, as usual. But remember, I'm a Nigerian also. If you say no, I can say no also. But I really thank you for your very kind words. But I think the key challenge for all of us as Nigerians is not to spend so much time in the euphoria of being happy with what has happened. Yes, there is a lot to be happy about. But we all have to reinforce our commitment to ensuring, as I have said, that good elections are not enough. You have to convert the outcome of that good election to good democratic governance. It's a big challenge. And we all have individual's role to play. So we shouldn't just sit back and be gloating about a wonderful and excellent election and allow things to get back to the modeling process. Because in Nigeria, we specialize in modeling through our problems. So really, for me, I think that is the key challenge, that we use every opportunity to emphasize. NYSE, I will join you to give another round of applause for our young men and women of the National Youth Service call. As many of you are aware, these are young men and women who have just finished their degree, or national diploma, who have just graduated from a tertiary institution and who are on one year compulsory national service. And they are posted to states other than their own. Because the NYSE emerged as part of that effort to help the process of national integration. So that if people serve in other countries, they will make friends, and they will know the culture, and it will impact on their psyche and also help in national integration. So in INEC, when we were confronted with the challenge of the numbers of people we need to work in an election as ad hoc workers, or temporary workers, we started thinking about what to do. In the Nigerian context, if we do what other countries do, which is you advertise, and you select, and you appoint, we had tremendous apprehensions that politicians will corner the process of who works as an ad hoc staff in the electoral process. So we said, how can we do this? And the idea came that, look, the NYSE can be a tremendous asset. First of all, they are on national service. Many of them are passionate about this national service. Even the few who are not so passionate want to get their certificates. Because in Nigeria, you can't get a job if you graduate and you don't have the certificate, the national use certificate. So many of them, even if only for fear of getting their certificates, will do well when they are given such responsibilities. You know, and we were able to develop a memorandum of understanding with the directorate headquarters of the NYSE. And we've worked very, very well together in terms of what kinds of motivation we need to give them, what kinds of protection and security we need to give them. Particularly given the unfortunate post-election violence in 2011, when nine youth corpus died. And so we worked very closely with the directorate headquarters of the NYSE and from all the reports we received. One of the first things that were commanded by observers was the diligence, the commitment, you know, and really the vibrancy of the youth corpus while they were discharging those responsibilities. Of course, I must say that we couldn't get all the numbers we needed from the national youth service corpus because in any givens, there are three batches in IA, but in any service here, there are no more than 400,000 youth corpus. So we complemented that number with students from federal tertiary institutions in the ultimate year. And it's worked very well. I mean, it's really formidable to use 400,000 and at the end of an exercise to have no more than 10, maximum 20 of them that can be disciplined for any infraction or irregularities. It's simply amazing. So with every opportunity we have, we say thank you to them because the success is also more attributable to their field commitment and fearlessness because many of them also worked under very, very intimidating contexts. Now, the issue of transfer, sorry, registering in one place and not being able to vote, the legal framework provides for transfer and people can do a transfer up to 30 days before an election, even though it's one of the things that we recommended for an amendment because we are required to publish the register for the election 30 days before an election, but we were also required to do transfers up to 30 days before an election. So it's really almost technically impossible to transfer somebody on the 30th day and still be able to put him or her on the register for the election. So that was one area we wanted to sign it out. But the point I'm making is that any person who has registered, regardless of who they are, once they move, they have an opportunity to have their registration status transferred well in advance of the election. And many Nigerians transferred before the 2015 general election. So I don't know what would have happened. Maybe they were not aware about the transfer process or maybe it was too late when they moved, but that opportunity is there. But for me, that's not really the most worrying aspect about disenfranchising the youth corpus. The most worrying aspect is the fact that we had not been able to allow them to vote, which you alluded to during the election. We didn't do it in 2011. We wanted to do it in 2015. We didn't plan well for it. So if you're asking what went wrong, this is one thing that went wrong. We couldn't plan well to allow not only youth corpus, but also security personnel to be able to vote. So it's something, again, that we believe the next commission will take on board. Before the next election, consistent with good practice globally, all essential service personnel on election duty should be able to vote, maybe a day or so before or a week or so before the election. And also youth corpus should be able to vote. I will always remember an anecdote. After the 2011 general election, a youth copper, a she, a lady that served in Lagos, wrote me a letter saying how very happy she was to be able to serve her country as an ad hoc staff, but regretting that it was her first opportunity to vote. But she couldn't vote because by agreeing to do, to be an ad hoc staff, she had given up that opportunity. I told this story several years to my colleagues in INEC and we said we must do something before 2015. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it. It's a long story, but I think it's something that we needed to do. I did a polite letter for her and told her that the benefits of the national service she did, I believed, outweighed the cost of missing her. I don't think she believed me, but yes. Let's take a few more. Yes, the gentleman here in the front with the beard. Thank you. Ryan Dalton from NDI. Thank you for coming here today, Professor Jenga. We really appreciate you sharing all your insights. I did want to press a little bit more on the question of South-South and the inflated voter turnout. Though given the allegations that prove mostly fruitless in the commission's investigation, but also given that voter turnout inflation found by civil society in four different states, what are the plans for Kogi and Bielsa in the upcoming by-elections? Bielsa was after all one of those four states that TMG had exposed for having voter turnout inflation. So does the commission have a strategy in place? Something that's taking shape based on some of the findings from their investigation in those states during the March elections? And is there another role that you see for civil society going forward? Thank you. Prof, my question to you is... If you could introduce yourself. What? If you could introduce yourself. Oh, okay. I'm sure today Bielsa, a recent graduate from National Defense University. My question is about what you're doing about the diaspora voting and the post-election violence. What do you have in place for those? Thank you. Got a hand down now. Yes, the gentleman there and then me and then here. And then I think we have to call it. I'm Casey Obioja. I'm from California through Nigeria. I'm in Nigeria and live in California. I'm in the private sector. I manufacture products. And Nigeria is a major market for my brand. Professor Jagger, everybody praises you. And you're so humble to say that, hey, take me out of base. It's a system that's a structure I've put in place. I just want to borrow from you. Economic development. America puts so much emphasis on elections. Conduct good elections. You become a democracy. And I hear you saying that it takes more than elections, especially in Nigeria, to bring up opportunities, great jobs so that the average Nigerian can live a better life. There are other institutions that need a Professor Jagger. So we need to document your good practices and see if we can transfer that to the judiciary, rule of law, and other institutions that strengthen democracy in Africa. But the major issue which you diplomatically put away is the executive in Africa is so powerful that they subvert democratic institutions. But it wasn't done with INEC. Your ambassador pleaded with you to stay back. But again, as a professional, your answer is that, hey, I have people that can do what I've done. But can you tell us how we can create other Professor Jaggers in the other institutions that will enhance democracy in Nigeria? Thank you very much. I envision a Bayero University Center for Electoral Law and Management. And I have the perfect chair. Let's go with the gentleman there and then me. And that's the final. OK, I'm afraid we're just almost at time. Pardon? Well, there's other folks with their hands up. I didn't see your hand up. OK, OK, me is giving it up. OK, let's go with the gentleman here and we'll end with the report. Good afternoon, Professor. My name is Kane De Ojo. I'm a student here at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. So first, let me commend you for your uncanning demeanor, which you used in responding to the PDP Star Wars God's Day Urubebe. For those who don't know God's Day Urubebe, it was a PDP Star Wars. And it tried to stir up Mali during the process of collating the votes. And the Professor was able to respond to that in a very uncanning demeanor. And that kind of settled issues. So my question is mainly on the subject of efficiency. The commission did apply and deploy things like social media using Twitter, using biometric voters, registration card, and the readers card, like you said. However, it was contradictory when you decided to manually collate those votes. I mean, over 72 hours was lost during that process. And so moving forward now, what do you think you would have done better? Would you have deployed technology during that process? Do you think that would have helped? Great. Thank you. And Madame, it's hard to say no to a Nigerian reporter. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Professor Jagai is just somebody you can't but talk about him, OK? I'm sorry. My name is Adeyemi Omojela. Fataba of course, a Nigerian. And the bureau chief of national TV, which we call Nigerian Television Authority here in the United States. So you know why I'm here. The INEC chairman, we can't but say something about you. Is it the professionalism? Is it the high level of calmness that you displayed that ultimately led to the success story we're talking about today? Because that particular episode was something else. I was watching it and I'm like, Jesus Christ, what are we seeing? But calmly, you just said, you said, elder statesman, OK, you said, you was a minister of the federal republic and then there are ways elders should behave in the public. And then it was calm. Everybody was like, how did you do it? So we always talk about it and we thank God for using you at that crucial time. So thank you. So I will continue to say that. We can't thank you enough. And my question is this, because we read a lot of stories. People say they can never be satisfied. You know that politicians and their fans, they still say that you got us. I believe you understand that language, like saying, oh, there are some whatever games anywhere. But can you just expansion? Because I like the statement you made that one day, President Goodlock Jonathan would be commended for one thing, that he gave the commission the support that commission actually required. Can you please expand? So how independent was the commission on the? Thank you very much. Let's turn back to you. For final word. Thank you so much. Frankly, the question from a gentleman from NDI, there isn't much I can say about what you call the inflated water turnout from the South South, other than what I've already said. I believe that if those irregularities are so massive, the evidence will come out sooner or later. And then we will know how come we were not able to find it when the commission tried to investigate what happened before the announcement. So what is clear to me is that there are sufficient checks and balances that we put in place that would make it impossible for such massive rigging. If it had occurred to go undetected and therefore to not be reversed. So we did our best. We didn't find sufficient grounds to support the allegations made. And we certainly couldn't take decision on the basis of information we are getting from NGOs because we had field officers. In fact, one best way that NGOs had helped us was as things were going on. For example, if as things were going on during the election in the river states, NGOs were sending us information to say we are in this polling unit and nothing is going on. There is no election in this polling unit. We have moditors in the field that we can ask to go and verify that information. But the TMG information people are talking about is something that has been compiled from what they said they did, the parallel tabulation, and which we only saw after the election had taken place. So what is the source of that data? Because you also have to be careful. Who are the people deployed in the field? Who generated that information? How was it fed in? I'm not questioning the integrity of the process because I know they did a commendable job and they've done their best. But there are a lot of unanswered questions that we need to interrogate. So I think the elections and the turnout in the South South, I'm glad my friends in the academia are here. We should put PhDs to start studying what actually happened in the elections in the South South. But beyond that, frankly, there isn't much I can say. For example, as I speak with you, one of the things we wanted to do, we've done it, but we have not completed it, as I speak with you, we have scanned 95% of the result sheets from all the polling units. 95% is still not 100%. And we will put that on the website. And I will not be surprised if some of this information now begins to go to court as what do you call it? Material evidence for the tribunal adjudication. So is it that these are fake result sheets that are produced and put? That will come out in the tribunal and we'll find who is responsible for doing that. So if they are genuine result sheets, so where is that information coming that said there was no election that had taken place in those places? So I think the key issue for an election management body is how it tries to put check on balances and to ensure transparency. So because transparency will reveal whatever has happened rightly or wrongly. So now we've already done by elections, by the way, in Bialsa and the Kogi. The Bialsa by elections took place last Saturday while we were out in Mexico. But in general, it went well, even though there is one place, I think, Brass, where the result was inconclusive from the reports that we had, because the total number of council votes was more than the difference between the leading candidate and the runner-up. But the report I got was that FADS compelled the returning officer to make a return. And unfortunately, in our legal jurisdiction, once a return is made, I know it is wrong. The commission knows it is wrong. We can't cancel it. It is only the tribunal that now can act on that. And you see, this is not the first time it has happened. In Ando State, in Ilaje, after we did the election, some politicians are beginning to realize that weakness in the law. They will come, they will surround the polling unit, they will have lost the election. But because they are dominant in terms of the power display there, they will compel the returning officer to declare the results that they wanted. And the electoral commission cannot cancel that result once the returning officer has signed until it goes to the tribunal. The commission took a decision in respect of Ilaje. And we said that, OK, since we have reports that this is what happened, then the chairman will not sign the certificate of return. Because we have evidence that that was done under duress. So again, we are testing the law. This is one way we are beginning to test the law. OK, if you can force somebody to declare you, can you force us to give you a certificate of return? I'll let them go to court to say that we've denied them a certificate of return so that we can tell the court why we denied them a certificate of return. And that's what we may do in Bayelsa if the information I received so far is correct, because it seems almost in tandem with what had happened in Ilaje in all those states. But the point is we've done there are many inconclusive elections that we did there. I think in Bayelsa we did about five or six. Only one has this challenge, which I have described. In Kogi, we did it several weeks ago and successfully. But there are a lot of lessons to do. We are commencing in the next one week when we return the series of post-election reviews and assessments, something we did in 2011. We are going to do it for 2015 elections. We wouldn't want the new commission to come and start assessing what they were not a part of. So we want to generate information and analysis which they can inherit and which may be useful to them. So through those retreats, what we did in 2011 and we are going to do now is we are going to hold retreat and meet with all the electoral officers from the local government headquarters, EOS. They are called electoral officers. They head the local governments. There are 774 local governments. So we are planning a meeting. The commission will meet with all the electoral officers under what we call Chatham House rules. We say, look, forget what went well. Tell us what went wrong and how can we address it. We did that in 2011. It was very useful. So we are going to do it. After that, we meet with administrative secretaries and resident electoral commissioners. Then after that, the commission will now meet and look at all of this information and generate a report. So hopefully through that, we will be able to also get more insight about all the allegations about what happened in the South-South, so that at least we can plan for the future or add up with the new commission to plan for the future. Now, I'm sorry, I think I'm taking more time. But role of civil society, yes. I think we developed a good relationship, and I think it's good, and we need to keep on forging that relationship. Diaspora voting is a legal constraint. The legal framework says you have to register in a polyunit in Nigeria and vote. But we recommended, it's one of the things we recommended for changing. We said that provision should be removed, so that we can plan for diaspora voting. Because that's the trend globally, it's good practice. It enables citizens, resident in other countries to be able to participate in their countries affairs. And we think it's something we should be able to do. So our hope is that amendment to the electoral legal provisions would enable the commission to perhaps before the 2019 general elections put something in place for diaspora voting. Maybe we can respond to our reporter. I think the gentleman who asked the question on technology has gone. And in my bad time management, I've gone way over. We piloted an electronic results transmission system. And we started piloting it soon after the 2011 general elections. So when we did, I think the first place we tried it was with regards to the governorship election we did in Cross River State. Then we kept on improving upon it. And then along the way, the failure of electronic transmission in Kenya raised a lot of concerns for politicians even in Nigeria about whether a failure of technology can undermine the integrity of the election or whether technology can be used to manipulate the election. And in the heat and the runoff to our elections, at the last minute, we had a robust debate in the commission as to whether to move it from experimental and launch it for the 2015 general elections or continue with it still as a pilot by selecting a few states to try it or just put it aside. And in the end, we decided that, look, we were already chewing too much with the card reader and the PVC and all the things that were accompanying it. We thought it's something we can defer for the future. So certainly, electronic transmission of results will make for efficiency. But it requires trust and confidence and also safeguards that can ensure that technology is not misapplied. One of the interesting anecdotes we have was when we went to Germany and we asked questions about why is it that they are not doing machine voting? I mean, it's clear. It's a matter of trust. If people suspect that machines can be manipulated and they would rather see literal evidence that if it becomes necessary, you can go and check and cross check. And in our own environment, that trust has not built up to the level where we can take the plunge. How independent is INEC? I believe that INEC was probably the most independent of the Nigerian electoral commissions. I believe it was largely because of some of the reform measures that were implemented after the Justice Muhammad-Level Ways Electoral Reform Committee in 2008, 2009. For example, arising from that committee's work, the financial autonomy of the commission was guaranteed. We were no longer as a commission having to go cap in hand. Once our budget is appropriated by the National Assembly, all the funds had to be released regularly. Although, of course, the budgeting process itself had its own complications. But in general, we enjoyed greater financial autonomy than previous commissions. And we enjoyed greater support and encouragement from the government on a nonpartisan basis, recognizing our independence, I believe, than all previous commissions. And that's where, personally, I give credit to the Jonathan administration. We went to them and said, we want to do PVC. And they agreed, and they put it in our budget. We said, after PVC, we want to do card readers. And they agreed, and they put it in our budget. Of course, subsequently, some partisans realized that the card reader and PVC were going to prevent irregularities. And they mounted a last-minute ditch effort to get us to truncate all those. We said, no. We said, we can't spend this much money on something that we believe can work. And then simply because some people are raising objections, we just put it aside. And we remained focused. And I think in the end, we are all pleased that it worked well and it added value to the process. So I think the key challenge is to ensure that the next commission gets even more support and encouragement from the government than we have got. Because that is what can further strengthen that independence. And also appoint credible people. Appointments that can make for continuity and also that can add to the credibility of the commission. Thank you. We are at time. So I'm reluctant to close this down because I could ask questions the rest of the afternoon. Professor Jega, thank you so much. I think one of the key things throughout your tenure has been documenting what went wrong as well as what went right, learning from it. And that is being from election to election, but it's also being from week to week and month to month. And I think to me that feedback of accountability and learning has been really critical to the success of INEC. And as the young man here said, I hope that cycle of learning and feedback continues to kind of build the capacities of the institution. I know I don't know what your plans are next. I'm hoping that you'll stay engaged in building that capacity and building that kind of institutional kind of knowledge and base in Nigeria. There are also a lot of elections coming up in West Africa and beyond. And I hope that you can also be a resource for many of the other countries facing similar challenges. And if you can do it in Nigeria, it can be done elsewhere. So please join me in thanking Professor Jega and congratulating him.