 All right, thanks for staying with us. Now the chief observer of the European Union election observation mission Barry Andrews had in a press briefing last week noted that the February elections exposed an enduring systemic weaknesses and therefore signal a need for further legal and operational reforms to enhance transparency inclusiveness and accountability. He said that the shock coming in the law and electoral admission hindered the conduct of well-run and inclusive elections and damaged trust in the independent national election electoral commission. Now the EU that's the ECOM EU EOM then offered 23 recommendations for consideration by the Nigerian government that would be improved or that would improve other further elections or future elections. Now however the statement in the statement titled we reject European Union's conclusion on the 2023 general elections. The president's special advisor on special duties, communications and strategy daily, alleged bias and an intention to impeach the integrity of the 2023 election which is its base or which it described as the best organized general elections in Nigeria since 1999. So today we're asking see me opening my eyes the best what are your thoughts on the federal government's rejection of the European Union's election final report. Now please let's hear what you have to say remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the red one 8034663 can also tweet at us at we show after one with the hashtag we show. Okay first of all let me come to you. We need to question your idea of best because we all saw it we let's not even be sentimental now right we all saw it we all we saw the news we saw people's experience experiences on social media and all of that this best is best because i don't think that there's we need to call it because best value after you call 150 your families see best okay please let's be very careful because the things that we we literally shoot ourselves in the food sometimes the like you have to say Odin D E U E U M came out okay fine we've seen several reports we've seen the Yerga reports as well which literally says the same thing that you know the EU AM has said how is it that you're now coming to tell us that first of all you are rejecting the report you need to state why you are rejecting the report have you guys even sat down to even analyze the report to say okay this is what these guys are saying this is what they're saying have they could lie about them they have rooms i've gone through the thing like everything that they say there is practically true so isn't the best thing to go back and say okay maybe this is where we messed up maybe this is what we should have done it's not outrightly saying oh you are rejecting the report and since 1999 you don't think that there's any other any other election that has been as coordinated as this 2023 weapons we know that that's a like any way but yeah let's keep it moving now okay let's now come back to the fact that what what's his name now they like has also come come out to say oh um EU has said that they are creating 23 they're giving 23 recommendations of you know what's an ethnic to do better the reforms that they need to do and all of that and you are rejecting that as well saying that you don't think that that's correct but we're doing ourselves how else can we be better if you cannot even take such constructive criticism how do you intend to do better in 2027 so you know i will stop here for now let me come to you dear like today i'm here to observe i'm an observer dear like let me hear your thoughts what do you think first of all have you gone through the report and what are your thoughts on it here um i have gone through my thoughts and honestly it's um as much as um there are facts truths and i mean observations according to their own mandate the truth is um i mean i i don't know if um if um it is okay so for me you know when i read it and then when i read what the government you know the when the government rejected the report um that was expected because i mean if you don't reject the report then it automatically gives credence to the fact that the whole election or the whole electoral process was a sham and at this point i think that the correct administration feel that they have gone too far to accept that so maybe it is pride maybe it is just i don't know um well i don't know i don't know because honestly i see no reason why they can't say that um these recommendations are taken in good faith and will be worked on towards the 2027 i mean if these are real students of democracy then they would understand that um democracy is all over the world are very interested in elections that are happening in Nigeria considering how popular Nigeria is and Nigeria's place in the League of Nations but um i don't know outside of that the truth is um European Union election whatever whatever whatever they're still almost like a civil society there the Nigeria is a sovereign state and um there is little or not they can't sanction Nigeria in terms of the fact that oh you must take our recommendation or the fact that we we disagree with the result of this election means that um there's something that can be done i'm not very sure that at that level there's anything that can be done except the reports that all the electoral um all the participants you know are going through now which is the court process you know so i think we just have to wait for the court to come out with their results and they are ready to let us put this down but um Nigeria is one of very good with criticism um we see it as um someone saying that um you know everything we're doing is wrong or we see it as we can't be corrected and i think that's a major problem in our our ambition to grow as a nation if we don't see constructive criticism you know i mean this is not just from EU the EU comm or electoral college or you know Yaiga or any other civil society out there this is just it's just simple common sense that um when people who's who's who have taken the responsibility to ensure that um were able to perpetuate democracy in Nigeria when they have put in the work and they have come up with recommendations or their fact-finding um reports it is it just makes sense you know to look at things and see where the gaps are and you know put to ensure that i mean going forward you know all these things are tackled but again and i honestly don't know again with all these things concerning Nigeria i won't just it's a retiring but let me come to because let's keep EU aside since they say that EU is the problem where they get electoral college right they were series of tweets that was posted on the 38th of march 2023 so if you're not following electoral college go on twitter and go and see it i just want to pick a few points right yeah it says it is key to know that electoral college as pioneer political literacy institution in Nigeria running a 27 course model that has educated over 10 000 Nigerians virtually added with its classes in states physically and using radio and its model per program went full circle on improving the base of political participation right we start at the starting point of every political race the electoral act 2022 states clearly that manual and physical copies right of lists of members of political parties must be submitted to INEC before conventions and primaries can be conducted they hear from the information that we have not one of the 18 registered political parties met this criteria this is from the section 77 subsection three of the electoral act in 2022 right so there is i mean let's even start from the basis the foundation so the electoral college Nigeria began its review on the electoral cycle from primaries and this was quite an occasion in Nigeria and must be very notable from them that not only did the currency of exchange of funds move to dollar the mode of emergence in 57 of the primaries can be questioned based on emergence of the candidate as states in the electoral or rather as stated in the electoral act now the campaigns by all a 18 political party were mad with nepotism religious undertone and all parameters are brought by the electoral act were in play in the 18 political parties and its supporters which is against the electoral act do you understand so if we are not going to be touching what what happened on election day from the foundation of the elections do you understand we didn't even get to try we saw dollar exchange here is that the white dollar started going when you were conducting primaries so when people then come out to bring their reports this is not the time for you to think that somebody's attacking it's trying to attack yeah it's what people will fail to realize as a leader and i'm saying this they don't you guys don't understand what you're doing what you are doing you might get away with this but what you are doing is continuous decay of the system when do we get to clean up the system when every single time wait till after my tone before we can fix the system it doesn't work that way so a lot of our political leaders right you get things done you enter anyhow you are mad you emerge you know leaders and all of that what happens afterwards somebody else will say okay no i have to also do right and that's why you would see that from the EU's report they said that whatever happened with the presidential it had an adverse effect on the state elections and which was what we saw that were on ground so i don't know where the line is in all of this i don't know whether where they misrepresented the fact and it is not because somebody is trying to favor a particular candidate or something yes we saw the elections people were brutal brutally um um was called assaulted people were people people could not vote we saw um what's called um cards voters cards being thrown in the lagoon we were harvesting people's voters cards from the bush we saw all of these things happen right they gave them the one thing that we asked inek to do which was electronic transmission of results from the polling units right that did not happen so when there is a report it is not for us to say oh no no no no no you people are getting it all wrong no when you're really really transparent i said if you are if you align to yourself but you cannot lie to nigerians there was no transparency in these elections right so a lot has happened what i would expect right from the presidency is saying you know what let us accept the fact that they were mistaken you cannot just call and say no no no no no this is the best election never this is not it can never be the best election wrong i was in the 2015 general elections when the emergence of president mohammed buhari by was his his his emergence and i know that election you know a lot of things happen and guess what when president then president jonathan saw that come this is the will of the people he hand stopped and made a phone call and said you know congratulations this one was like you had a cutlass to your neck is either you you vote i mean we saw threats people coming out openly to threaten people certain tribes were being you know threatened leave the state and all so what are you saying we'll take a break when we come back from that break we want to hear more of your thoughts then if you can have questions stay with us all right thanks for staying with us now if you just tuned in we're discussing the federal government's rejection of the european union election final report now please let's hear what you have to remember you can join the conversation send us an sms or what's up just wait one eight zero three four six six three you can also do that as a way show after one with the hashtag way show all right you like you wanted to come in it yeah um i would say that um you know it's surprising i mean reading um moley law was um of um electoral college report um when he said that um the very basic you know um some of the rules were were not adhered to that's um on the part of i-neck it begs the question is it that um i-neck just um sit down and create um policies or Nigeria in terms of the law makers they just create policies nobody bothers to go read them because i mean if you read those policies these policies are supposed to guide your actions are supposed to guide your deliverables the fundamental things that were very wrong and that begins to even state to i-neck you know what and again i think some things that they have become political you know i-neck's role is supposed to be very bipartisan they're not supposed to be for one or any party you know so what we're seeing playing out is i-neck not understanding its role the the the people sit at the elms of affairs that should conduct you know should should ensure that there is a free and fair election do not even understand what the constitution says about what is expected of them during electoral you know processes so they can't do it better they they're doing is as if they're just pulling things from the top of their head because i really honestly i mean when i read these school reports the best thing he said just knocked me off like in all honesty there should have there students have even been an election at that point i mean when i-neck already saw what was going on they should have somehow found a way to say okay you know what x y z are being contravened this subsection is being contravened this is being called this is happening this is happening i thought we may need to expand you know the dates but again i mean i-neck at this point so so let me even read some of this thing that comes to each other so there's a context five it says parties particularly the larger parties pdp apc this is not the eom for the eu right it says pdp apc labor party charged charged excessive fees for participation in legally mandated primary elections free tickets were offered on some occasions for women to contest and reduce costs for women but many people including youth remained excluded due to the lack of funds now recommendation was remove unreasonable restrictions to the rights to stand by curbing the charging of excessive fees for consideration as a candidate in party primary election so where is the line in this right we know when you say that the hamlet was the form again was it nothing hundred million right hundred million okay so now it says ahead of the elections there were various allegations of illicit cash hoarding and in one case estc reportedly seized some 32 million narrates seemingly intended for vote buying in Lagos evidence of official spending by political parties in traditional and online media where west um oh sorry i can read this it said the use of paid on advertising on meta platforms where was relatively low accountability for parties candidate and their third parties is absence of the requirement of the traceability of the fund's source yeah and they recommended that promote transparency and accountability in campaign of finances finances by include a introduction of a mandatory requirement on political party candidate and third parties to operate pre notified um dictated bank accounts right or the catered bank account for donations revenue spending subject to clear rules and accounting reporting and public disclosure before during and after campaign with robust sanction for non-compliance remember that labor party had organized what they called now what's the word now that they did um a telecom where crowdfunding where they did a telecom it was it was 24 hours they were on tv trying to raise funds right so they just a lot of things you know from this report and the recommendations to be very honest there's no lie in it and i like what the eum has done because they have now identified the different areas it's well labeled new but like look at this one electoral administration which is very true how did you pick the rss how i did how was the commissioner selected or elected in different in the first place so this year so examination of the selection process signaled that the selection process of both anne commissioners and rss were neither transparent nor in line with the non-partisan requirements which is very true we could tell that that there were sentiments here and there there were there was some sort of bias you know i mean even though they claim that it is the best and i'm saying that they claim it is the best maybe because of the introduction of electoral or election technology that's talking about the beaver systems and all of that but again it has we've come here and they said hardware and software specifications of beavers test results audits basic program procurement details and so on and so forth and so and so on rather we're not we're very unclear and not published transparency is a key component in adopting election technology and building trust and confidence into the system that is used i would have thought that's because we're now introducing technology in this into this whole thing it's just like when you run an organization if you're logging in electronically it means that nobody can tell you lie if you log in at 7 30 to 7 30 you cannot go and manipulate that this jam you cannot go and manipulate and you know claim that you log in at 6 30 which i thought was that was the thing that was going to happen for the elections but unfortunately that is not what happened and now the recommendation for that is ensure transparency and allow for public scrutiny of election technology by mandating a law that is timely okay mandating timely disclosure of test and audit results we definitely didn't see that happen so you cannot come and tell me that that one i even saw that happen in my polling units anyway now let's now come to um um voters registration every Nigerian citizen 18 years of age and over may votes provided that their residents are working in we know that story already we saw what happened with under age 40 exactly we saw the videos so what is in life there's no lie so that's what i'm saying to to to the federal government right nobody is i mean what has happened has happened the person that is there is already dead i mean there's really nothing court cases are still ongoing you don't know what the outcomes will be but my point is right it is okay for you you know how you say that this person is um if the person is um if you are not favoring if the person you're not being favored you see you call the person a criminal but if the person is if you are being favored there's a way they they coin that phrase right um the person is is a thief when the person is not you're not favoring but if the person ah no no no the person is actually helping helping the masses right that's what is happening so we we are not asking that the system be cleaned up just because for the now right there is there is what is called um ripple effect right yeah for everyone wrong that we continue to condone and we continue to tolerate and accommodate as a people we are seeing already how it is translating in our society the ripple effect and it's a snowball effect it will keep on growing bigger and bigger and it will be a point in time that even us we cannot control it anymore right i always say this thing and i'm afraid we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder in this country there are so many things that we are tolerating and allowing to happen that will continue to eat us up as a people right at some point it will not become we will turn on each other right if there's no if there's nothing else to do you would not have to literally turn on each other and so when when people bring our reports like this before you say you want to condemn or whatever and call call them out right can you go back to your books you cannot tell anybody in this country even even your supporters your supporters as like you know your supporters they know that these elections were flawed i was in a polling unit in margodo right there was over voting technically they were supposed to cancel that in something but because they had brought in terms this was the governorship elections they had brought in thoughts because in presidential election a certain candidate won so governorship they were prepared right they had brought in thoughts they had to just say you know what just remove the excess and just you know because there was over voting technically what happens with over voting are you not supposed to continue to you know cancel that entire thing they were results that were supposed to i mean elections that were supposed to be uh reconducted they were not it didn't happen so there's this when you say you're rejecting a report right rejected come with your own counter and facts do you understand and figures and counter them don't come and say oh no no they don't know what they're saying you're not accepting their their result where are your facts and your figures that have come to say wait this your elections that was conducted was credible even the i-lecture man himself cannot come out to say that this election was credible where is he by the way we are still looking for him we are still looking for him right you know so and if you if you look at the summary of the report right it's not like they are coming out to say they are condemning and i i don't like it when people's when when people come out with statements and making it look like oh it's because your candidate yes that's not all we are saying that's not what we are saying do you understand we need to start questioning a lot of things it's just like parents that have um what's he called parents that have what's the word now um children that they are paying examiners to to to give them are you going to follow that child i know some children that that had to they've had to drop out of university to to go and start all over again because even if you pass the exam now what happens how would you cope how would you go it goes beyond just just thank you it goes beyond now yeah i think we have some comments let's quickly take some before okay let me take this one good evening ladies welcome back to live broadcast hope you all had a good break and happy birthday to each another thank you so much he reports on last conducted elections should be welcome all advice to perform in credible elections in future should also be followed the last election was a fraud and a slap on the endurance no hard feelings mr larkin special advice as a president be it so this is from adi regards adi thank you so much adi um ijela you have a comment um yes um so this one says um good evening um my beautiful sisters i'm joseph from mainland if we cannot tell ourselves the truth i don't know who can tell us it was very obvious that the election was car characterized with violence and fraud okay so my dear beautiful sisters of what are you saying oh we miss you it's a special comments rejection of the european union election um final report my dear beautiful sister were made mention of two things which is right without a shadow of doubt there was exchange of dollars and an eye net did not do what was expected of them the election was a terrible bad luck and nightmare the handwriting was clear on the wall anyone who says this election was the best hope and knows nothing and will forever know nothing two weeks without this program oh my goodness i miss your sister congratulations on your son's outcome rubbish oh thank you so much and um my runaway sister chinello happy birthday to you and welcome back thank you thank you thank you i feel that i neck chairman has apologized to nigerians okay how true is this this can somebody but this is from angola right the person wrote the message from angola i don't know how true that is honestly but the truth is is beyond an apology you see i i say to people right i am learning okay he didn't apologize okay somebody's saying he didn't apologize because i've not heard that but you see i was just going to touch on a little bit of an apology you see you know what i see in nigeria do and first what i'm not sorry that's what we do all the time you are on the road you are acting funny you hit the person now you're not lying down on the ground and be begging edge on my head it doesn't make any sense i always say now that see i would weigh my actions i take my time do you understand so that whatever happened i will hold you my full chest i did the consequences of what i have done i will chest it and say i did it do you understand not apologizing and coming back to say you know okay she's saying i i next should apologize okay that's what she meant i next chairman should apologize to nigerians oh okay okay he should apologize but my sister we don't need apology you know honestly we don't need apology what we need is accountability yes we need accountability we need we need this the court case to continue to go on we need to see i like i have always said on this table and i would keep on saying it anywhere if the reports come back right and the result remains the same but after a thorough investigation investigation every nigerian would accept the result yeah what we feel i think what what what pains us is like i see you trumpeting yes that's the best of painful cards yes because you told me that carry your pvc and one vote i carried my pvc and i went to vote so it's like you say okay no no no you your your your mouth right now your opinion don't matter that's what is that's what i think is aggravating a lot of you know and tension amongst nigerians and a lot of people are leaving the country because they just feel like you know what at this point there's no giving up you know but let's hear your final thoughts generally let me come to you then come back to you children well we just need a system that works we need a accountability we need everybody to rise to the occasion we need citizens that are knowledgeable citizens that excuse me oh i lost you for a second go ahead oh okay sorry i mean we need citizens that understand their responsibilities and role and they're ready to play their part in the you know in the process of governance and that means rising up to the challenge being a better versions of themselves because it is only when we're better that we can actually replicate ourselves in government and we can demand better absolutely absolutely so do you like even if i agree with you that we need to become more politically literate we also well yes that's also because we also need to become more active in government spaces as well so in the next elections we also need to go out there put ourselves in offices and now is the time to actually start join a party today look for a party to join today so that we can stop stop complaining about what the government is doing what the government and we become the government ourselves and then absolutely and that is why for us every monday we are in partnership with enough is enough is it was not because we felt like doing partnership no we actually understand that there's a fundamental problem right that office of the citizen we're not owning that office we need to own it you understand and i like what i'm chinella and yola have said get involved right it's not enough for you to sit on the sidelines get involved join a political party you are not see let me tell you something at the point of polling unit is already too late i mean couldn't allow us to have that thing a lot at the point of polling unit is too late you have to be part of the people that are not collecting dollars to to appoint or to elect a presidential candidate or a gubernatorial candidate or whatever at the point of primaries where they select the people right that is where your power lies just imagine if you become a delegate you will not collect right because you know that this your role is very crucial to who will eventually emerge we need to get to that point where we're no longer choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea but choosing between one saint and another saint so anybody that wins may the best man win so instead of that point where we're saying oh the devil and the deep blue sea let's start to um get involved politically in political parties so that we can get the right candidates to make it to the ballot boxes that way we are sure that whoever we pick they will get the job yeah thank you so much ladies it's good to be back yeah even though all the reds that are resting you are maybe to get that again today all right so before we go and show you follow us across all social media handles and waste your Africa you can interact with us for the drop a comment and more importantly follow all our engagements on social media like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation thank you to everyone that sent in our messages and wants to miss us we miss you too uh so please share the links so don't watch alone don't be stingy let other people watch all right so um if you missed our quote for today this is on the precedence I like the last part it says in just one moment or rather one month in office Nigerians appear satisfied with the decisive leadership of president tenable and the manner he is redirecting the country to the path of fiscal sustainability and social economic reforms that we urge the EU and other foreign interests to be objective in all the assessments of the internal affairs of our country and allow Nigerians to what? Belief please next time we want a phone to let them know that Nigerian language Niners are joking though Niners are not breathing but hey thank you so much guys see you tomorrow at 8 p.m as we bring another great conversation to you screen enjoy