 Welcome back cats to the breakfast and plastic we have got set for first major conversation the independent national electoral commission INEC which is Nigeria's electoral umpire on Friday January 6th if you recollect commence the distribution of permanent voter cards at the various award levels in all the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory Abuja directing registered voters across the country who are yet to get their cards to do so at the various awards however the exercise has had its challenges with some alleging a delay or delay tactics being employed by the electoral umpire for instance an interfaith group on Tuesday raised the alarm over what it alleges to be the deliberate denial of access to the electorate to collect their permanent voter cards based on ethnic or partisan considerations and also leading opposition party labor party raised the alarm alleging some irregularities by officials of the independent national electoral commission while distributing the permanent voter cards the pvc so joining us to discuss this another issue surrounding Nigeria's forthcoming elections we have a nick agole who is a public affairs analyst he joins from Makori the capital of Penrose state nick it's good to have you back on the breakfast thank you very much and good morning to our viewers um do you agree with these uh uh groups i mean we've talked about labor party we've heard from an interfaith group and some you know Nigerian site tenorant uh voters who have gone to pick their cards alleging that there are underhand tactics uh by the electoral umpire in the distribution of the permanent voter cards you feel that is a case from what your observation and experience is i think nothing should be ruled out absolutely nothing because as the electoral law has plugged deep holes that he said to were being exploited by the politicians to re-elections the politicians are going to be looking for avenues to continue with their rigging and the frustration of people from getting their voter card could be one of those uh mechanisms that they want to use so i i am not ruling out anything because i know that elections are high-stake games by politicians they want to cease power by all means regardless of uh what they want to what they do so i would call on i-nec to have their eyes firmly focused on this and if there are people even within i-nec who are actually frustrating uh voters from getting their pvc i-nec has to deal with that you know and and nigerians model vigilant because now they know that they cannot rig elections again at the polling unit why because the electoral law says whatever results that are declared at the polling unit are going to be transmitted electronically to the i-nec central server so the shenanigans that used to happen at the polling at the so-called coalition centers has not been totally viscerated politicians have lost it there so they are going to be looking for ways to prevent people from going to the ballot and this could just be one of those no so is this is this in your opinion uh these complaints of irregularities in the distribution of the permanent voter card in your opinion is this um a deliberate attempt by by i-nec um as alleged as a whole or do you think that maybe one or two individuals within the commission may be acting in the interests of certain politicians i don't think it's a deliberate attempt by i-nec as an institution because if i look at i-nec as currently constituted i have some measure of hope and confidence in what they're doing because the electoral law that was signed in 2022 i-nec was very instrumental to that if they didn't want us to have better elections this year they wouldn't have backed that electoral law and if i look at the i-nec chairman's public outings and the public education that they carried out and all of that i would think that as an institution i-nec is for free and fair elections but if within i-nec you have some elements who are working for the interest of politicians that cannot be ruled out because politics like i said is high-stake game these politicians take it as a business where they invest money and then when they get into office they make their returns and they will be prepared to pay people even within i-nec and outside of i-nec to stop voters from getting their privileges because they know that if voters get their privileges and they go to the ballot that they cannot change the results so they're just going for the upstream in the electoral process so that they stop people from going to the ballot because now they know the votes are going to cut so i will definitely not say this is i-nec as an institution trying to stop people from getting their voters cut but i-nec has a duty as an institution that if they notice these breaches where people are being stopped from getting their voters cut they need to step in and step in and make it easy for people i mean we have lost the game already in the sense that for the 2027 elections i-nec needs to do something better this collection of pvc they need to make it easier for instance i take myself as an example in the last elections i voted in data state but in 2023 this next month i am going to vote here in benewa state so i went online and i switched my polling unit from worry to my local government in vandeka now i-nec actually did all that but my pvc was in vandeka i had to travel all the way from abuja on a very terrible road from makode to vandeka to go and pick up my pvc and then i'm going to travel back again next month to go and vote two things i-nec can do is to say one for a pvc collection should be there the day before the elections that way people who are resident in a different place are voting in a different place can travel once they just travel a day or two to the elections they collect their voters have and then they cast their ballot and then they return back but if people have to travel long distances like i did just to collect the pvc and then i expected to travel back again to go and vote a lot of people might not want to do that i did it because i am very resolute that i want to vote because i know that it's only through voting the right leaders into office that nigeria is going to solve so i-nec can think about something like that but for future elections i-nec should actually make it possible that if i am in abuja better say i want to vote in benway i can go on the i-nec portal and order for my pvc to be delivered to me in abuja so that i can just go there show that i am the rightful owner of the pvc and collect my pvc i-nec should do make it that you must travel to the world where you are voting to go and collect your pvc so these are some of the the learnings that i-nec can take on board for future elections but for this immediate election they can actually extend the deadline for collection of pvc to the day before the ballot so that people can travel to collect their pvc and vote but you know wouldn't this be a recipe for chaos looking at the fact that i mean i-nec needs to get its acts together for the election proper um ahead of that election if we go to how people collect the the pvc's at the various you know places where they are managed to collect those pvc's um up to a day before the election maybe i-nec cannot be able to adequately prepare for the election and and focus on it you know because of our last minute attitude of course many people are going to wait till that last minute to go for it you know and then if i-nec has to wait up till till late in the night maybe they may not be ready for the election next and wouldn't you say that i mean they started this collection of the permanent voter cards on the 12th of December 2022 and it's going to end on the 22nd of January 2022 they move from the local government areas to the wards uh on the 6th of January they'll be there till 15th January where from Wednesday they'll go back to the local government areas um so isn't this enough time for people to collect their cards i mean you went back to bernard state to get it or can't every other person also go back to where they're going to vote and get it well it is very difficult for everybody to do what i did for various reasons number one it will cost you money to travel such a long distance number two uh if you don't have the time you might be at work you are not able to to to take time off from work which is again something i-nec can do that the pvc collection center should be open seven days a week seven days a week they should it possibly even open 24 hours or at least 18 hours a day and i-nec has to do everything possible to make people collect their pvcs i-nec should be the facilitator of people collecting their pvcs i'm not a blocker and let me say something to what the very value remark that you have made that if i-nec opens the pvc collection centers to a day to the election whether it's not a recipe for chaos well it's probably not going is not going to be why because and on the day of the ballot the number of pvcs collected is not one of the criteria for determining the outcome of an election what is required on the day of election to determine the election is the number of accredited voters so if people are allowed to collect their pvcs up to a day before the ballot they will only just show up at their very off polling unit and i-nec will still be able to accredit them there is nothing that says a pvc that was collected a day before the ballot will not be read by vivas it will be read by vivas so once i-nec accredited the voters that is what begins to count the number of accredited voters then the number of votes cast and then the number of valid votes the number of the qualified votes and then we now know who has got the number of votes which candidate has got x number of votes that's what is called the qualification the the deadline for collection of pvc is not a criteria for determining an election and i make you open up those centers to a day before the elections that people and travel pick up their pvcs and then vote the next day all right interesting um um some people have said you know it's not necessary to go uh uh votes in in your village you know vote where you reside vote where you live vote where you pay your taxes you know uh what do you say to that and if that is the case if that is done then it may be easier for people to to retrieve their cars so if you live and work in a teosa for instance or you live in a teosa uh you pay your taxes in a teosa uh in legos and if you registered in maybe in calabar you it's better to ask the commission it's okay i'm not going to go to calabar to go vote i want to vote in a teosa bring my card here then it's easy for you to collect maybe we're facing these issues because people have refused to heed to the advice of biotech to vote where they reside i think that's a very valid point uh uh yes there are several reasons why people are no longer residing where they register for some persons after they have registered where they pay taxes where they reside and all of that over the time i mean i i make stopped uh voter registration some months ago within that time uh circumstances of life would have taken them away from where they registered that's so that's one case then for the other case some people are passionate about the development of their state and that is the basket that i belong to where we now go back and register in our states because if i register in abuja now i won't be able to vote for the governor of benway state so i have to come to benway to register for some people that is the reason and uh for all of this i agree with the point you have raised that if that is not your reason that is you didn't vote i mean you didn't register and now you have moved away from where you registered or you are not passionate about voting for a particular state then register where you are you know these are the kind of things that will build us as a nation wherever you are as a nigerian you should take it to be your state of origin and it is one of the things that the next national assembly has to deal with this whole issue of state of origin we're nigerians dividing us into 36 states and the fct is just geographic demarcation it doesn't remove our nigerian citizenship if people are residing in the place they should be taking as indigenous of that place because we are nigerians if we get to that point where people feel a sense of belonging to where they are residing where they are working or doing business where they are paying taxes i think what you have said will begin to happen where people will now begin to register to vote in those places without not having to go back to their states and it's something that will have to do very urgently in the next national assembly that will put loss in place that removes this whole concept of state of origin it should be state of residence as a nigerian it should no longer be anything as state of origin wherever you are residing in nigeria that should be your state of residence and we should begin to see people stand for office in those states where they were not born because where my father was born doesn't necessarily have to be my own state i can say my father was born in benway but i am now an adult resident that is where i can test for election i can vote in election and i can do all of my things it's national building and it's a critical thing for the next national assembly to do all right yesterday we had enough time to talk about election security especially uh with uh the statement by the head of training at inec saying elections could be postponed or cancelled because of insecurity in in parts of the country the commission uh all the the federal government came out counter that and of course we're hoping to have some from the commission this morning to address that so we'll leave that but i think what what is major is the fact that the independent national electoral commission has released uh the final list of uh registered voters in the country i don't know if you've had a chance to look at the statistics but we're generally speaking what are your thoughts on that because we hear uh we have 93 plus million registered voters as we speak yeah yes uh before i answer the question let me let me touch briefly on the election security that you have mentioned i think the government should not be coming out to defend and you know the government should not be coming out to counter these allegations i expect the government to investigate these things the fact that the electoral law has not strengthened the hands of inec has not empowered the voters has not cleaned up the space such that rigging elections will become very difficult we know that politicians are going to go on to other games and one of those games is to bring a sense of insecurity in the hands of the people so that on the day of the ballot they sit at home to fear of their life it is something the politicians will do so if these kind of allegations come forward instead of the government entering the defensive mode the government should actually take this feedback work on it deploy intelligence and actually check if anything like that is happening and if it is happening they need to nip it in the board so that's my advice to government let's not be defensive about this anything is possible when it comes to elections so we should not take anything for granted now going to your your question in terms of the number of voters that are on the register yes i next aid is 93 93.4 so over 90 million Nigerians are on the ballot i mean or the register what i don't know is if that includes Nigerians who have already passed on you know we don't have a system in Nigeria of registering pets and pets because if we had that such a system i think we'll be able to use the death register to clean up the electoral register such that it is only Nigerians who are living that are being counted but that's that aside 93 million or over 90 million Nigerians are on the register the last presidential election the total number of votes cast for all of the candidates were just about 30 million so what we are appealing to Nigerians in this electoral cycle is that 30 million people cannot decide for the 90 million let the 90 million come out let the 90 million also have their say let the 90 million the part of the leadership recruitment because we are all going to suffer it whether on the election day you sat at home or you came out if the road is bad you will suffer it if there is no water you will suffer it if there's no electricity you will suffer it if there's no head care you will suffer it if there's no education you will suffer it if you're a student and you're sitting at home be prepared that when the 30 million elected bad leader for you you'll be at home for another year on astral strike so this is the time for us to make our voices heard we know good people who are in Nigeria there are Nigerians who can do this we know them let's vote for them so that they can take the reins of power and move this beautiful country to where it should be this is a country that we shouldn't be suffering i mean on my way coming here to this office that i'm speaking to you now i saw a lengthy queue on the nmpc mega station nigeria slept there overnight so that they will backfill at the normal price that is terrible my heart bleeds want to see that one because nigeria is one of the largest producers of good oil globally this is a commodity that nigeria should have implanted for and we should be supporting to others because we're not coming out to vote for the right people to do this for us we keep having charatans there who cannot convert good oil into petrol and other petroleum products and we are all suffering for it so this country belongs to all of us and we must all come out 19 million people must come out let me say one thing in the last american elections donald trump stood with uh john biden donald trump had his own supporters there's nothing you can tell them that even if you say donald trump has killed somebody that will even make them support donald trump the ball what people who do not want donald trump to repeat a term in office did was they went and mobilized people to come to the ballot so donald trump vote 74 million votes 74 million votes on his own is the highest any presidential candidate has ever put in american history but those who didn't want donald trump in office mobilized 81 million other people to come and vote donald trump out that is what we need in a g ria there are some people that support this politician there's nothing you would do about it no matter what you say they will still support this politician and let nigerians good people come out in numbers and vote and overwhelm the numbers of those who are supporting these politicians so that we can have the right people in office 93 million let's see 60 70 80 million come out that's what we need next month all right all right nick i really i'm really interested in looking at the figures the numbers um i mean there's a lot of talk about all you know people have come out to register you know to get voters cards there's a wave a new wave third force rising and we saw a lot of young people coming out starting in lines to get there to get registered to vote um oh you know there's going to be a third force but if you look at the register from the last exercise the last uh c vr uh the continuous voter register registration that was just suspended because of the elections uh 9.5 million voters were added to the register bringing it to a total of um uh 93.5 million preliminary um figure of 93.5 million and of course you had some objections and they took it down to 93.4 million so if you look at the fact that we have just about 9.5 million new voters in addition to what was there for probably about 83 or 84 84 million registered voters it means that those who are the new voters pale into insignificance when compared to those who were there before so question is looking at that will anything change let's say all the people who are coming now want to vote for Peter for instance of the Labour Party all right nothing may change or will anything change because we have those who already have their candidates part of the 84 million that were there before something will change something will dramatically change and I actually think that because of the new electoral law it's not having a lot of faith in this electoral law the 2022 electoral law particularly for things like electronic transmission of results and things like if the beavers doesn't work then that election will not count you must go back and use beavers for me I think that we are going to begin to see green shoots of real democracy in Nigeria why the 80 something million that voted in the last I mean that were registered were on the register in the last electoral cycle like you have already said only 30 million of them came forward so about 50 something million of them never stepped out to go and vote if a chunk of that 50 something million that did not step forward in 2019 step forward next month they can change the dynamics of an election yeah and the nine additional million nobody says that all of them are going to go for a particular candidate anyway so all we need is we need a chunk of the 50 million that never stepped forward in 2019 plus a good number of the nine million that were added and they can change the electoral outcomes in this country and they can change it acts the presidential the the national assembly the governorship and the state assemblies they can change it now the other thing there is that I don't think nine million four years only nine million were added I mean I don't think the that number that number is the number is accurate in terms of the people who step forward to register but that number should have been more so we're still having cases of who are 10 18 years old or who have returned to the country or who were more than 18 years but never registered are still not registering and they have lost it this time because the the voter register is closed but please they need to step forward for the next electoral cycle to come and register I believe that the electoral register in Nigeria should contain at least a hundred and fifty million people so we still don't have enough of that register all right a lot has been made of the the involvement of youth in in the forthcoming elections and like I said the number of registered youth in this current we recently released voter register 93.4 million number of youth there 36.06 million or precisely 30 sorry 37.06 million or precisely 37 million and 60,399 if you want to look at that it's not even up to is it up to half of the 90 93.4 no it's not even up to half of 94 so are we making too much of a the the power of the youth vote ahead of the 23rd elections are we overestimating the power of the youth in determining the outcome of the election everything we're overestimating it first and foremost I don't know what definition that I need to use to determine who is a youth you know but nothing we're overestimating at all because at the last presidential election like I said earlier only 30 million votes were cast for all the candidates and if we have 36 million youth in Nigeria it then means they can actually determine the outcome of an election because I think the the difference between the eventual winner the eventual winner of that election last last in 2019 the the difference between the eventual winner and the runner runner up was just a few million votes I don't have the numbers in my head but I know that the difference is a few million votes and those few million votes would have been changed or the game could have been changed by the youth if five million votes a youth had cast their ballot for one of the candidates they would have made a difference so one thing I advise youth in Nigeria is that you see those countries that we want to jump at those countries that we have our eyes to jump at in those countries it is the youth who are determining the health of their democracy is the youth who are building those nation is the youth who are stepping forward to be to be counted is the youth who are part of the leadership recruitment is the youth who after election continue to accompany the leaders with their protest with their voices with their letter writing with their phone calls and all of that Nigerian youth instead of taking the backdoor approach of that point to somebody in this country let us come together youth and this is where I expect the rise of NARS NARS as a student union they suffered grievously in the past years students have stayed at home for more days than they have been in the classrooms and you expect a union like NARS to be politically aware to be out mobilizing their members to come forward and vote with their consciousness and vote for the right candidates but you are not ever seeing NARS active in any of the political theaters you are not seeing NARS you are not seeing any youth movements you are not seeing youth organize themselves I would like youth in Nigeria to organize themselves in the same way they organize themselves only come to voting for the big brother show you will see youth open voting centers you will be putting their money to buy the airtime buy the data to vote for candidates in the big brother but that big brother show after you have watched it you go home to no light you go home to no job you go home to lack of security you go home to lack of infrastructure you go home to lack of healthcare lack of education so organize yourself it's not late it's not late we still have a few weeks before the ballot let the youth of Nigeria step forward the 36 million youth of Nigeria even if it's a job half of them that decide to vote with a particular candidate nothing will stop that candidate from being elected all right nick very quickly because of time let's look at the the geo graphical spread of the votes and I want your thoughts on whether it will affect the outcome or how it will affect the outcome of the presidential election in particular the northeast has 12.5 million votes voters registered voters rather the northwest has a 22.2 million registered voters they are the leading geopolitical zone you want to call it that in the country the north central 15.3 million southeast 10.9 million south south 14.4 million and southwest 17.9 million so in the order of most the regions with the most number of votes your voters registered voters rather we have a northwest leading number one southwest second number two you have a north central third number three and then south south and so on before you go to northeast and then southeast looking at that it means that the northern part of the country the northeast northwest north central and northeast ahead we're ahead of the southeast south south and southwest how do you think this will affect the outcome of the presidential election very quickly please well first and foremost it is sad that the people in the south of Nigeria are not stepping forward to be on the register because I believe that the southern states are so popular that people actually step forward these numbers would have been different but in terms of electoral outcomes I think one thing that I'm very happy about that is developing in Nigeria is that people are no longer looking at ethnicity now they are no longer looking at where candidates come from people are beginning to look at the candidates directly on their own merit so if that be the case I expect the dynamics of the 2023 elections that will begin this month to be different but that is not to say that there is not a chunk of people who will receive vote because the person is of the same religion with me or speaks the same language with me or comes from my state they will still vote that way but let people of good way vote with their consciences so that whatever the numbers of the of the votes of those who are voting based on religion or ethnicity will be let the numbers of those who are voting with their consciences voting with for the right candidates be more than them that is a democracy once your votes are more like I said in the Donald Trump case we are going to carry today so I am confident that 2023 elections are going to show us very surprising results we we don't have to all the time we actually have overshadowed thank you so much for joining us uh Nikki Gulley public first analyst thank you very much and I will just discuss pvcs please make the sacrifice make the sacrifice like I did go to where you registered and take your pvc if you go and there is a queue even if you register where you reside stay on that queue it is better you stay on that queue call it to register I mean call it your pvc than to suffer for another four years all right nick appreciate your time I hope that viewers will hear your advice and all the best all the best thank you well for now you're one of the 93.4 million Nigerians on that list so congratulations congratulations unique all right that's the much we can take on this part of the conversation we'll look at the housing deficit in legal state and what those in the short-lived business are doing to try and address the issue stay with us