 Every election cycle in Nigeria is usually accompanied by the registration of new political parties. But at the end of the election cycle, the results are often the same, object failure. In recent times, INEC has attempted to register around 74 political parties for failing to meet up with statutory requirements. Every time one talks about politics on social media, the new party or third force advocates, as I call them, are always loudest, screaming things like, PDP and APC are the same, or we are not voting for PDP or APC in the next election, and so on and so forth. Yet, election after election, the winner is always the devil or the deep blue sea. So in short, PDP and APC. While I agree that citizens should be able to register associations, including political parties freely, it is now beyond doubt that many of these parties are mere inventions purely created to massage the egos of politically lazy individuals who want to ride on the wave of the political season to improve their local or national rating, which, to be honest, is not necessarily a bad thing if they were happy to take on their associated costs, but that as it leaves INEC with the bill, we cannot continue to tolerate this. After being a no-show at the polls, all many of the new players want is the pleasure of being referred to as former governorship or presidential candidate of XYZ Party. In Nigeria, you know that we just love titles. At the end of the fruitless exercise, the outcome is usually a massive bill, logistic and legal and management nightmares for the election body INEC, which is funded through various cash resources by the taxpayer. The small number of citizens who also bought into this vision of a new political awakening are also left quite disillusioned. There is no doubt in my mind that just by glancing at the election results from the last three or four election cycles, that there are only three political parties in Nigeria. There is the PDP, there is the APC, and then there is the rest, which is all the other parties put together. The PDP and APC in every election cycle usually share around 90-95% of the total votes cast. The rest, well, they share the 5-10% along with voided votes. In fact, sometimes voided votes take a bigger chunk than some of the other political parties. To be honest, the new parties just don't have the resources to abstain major political parties in a local election, talk less in national one. I'm not talking about money, I'm talking manpower, expertise, reach, media, platforms, membership, everything. I mean, running an election is not a small job. Am I saying that no other political party outside the PDP and APC can win an election in Nigeria? No, I'm not saying that at all. Because we all know that some of the few political parties, other political parties, have won elections at local level. So we can agree that it is possible to do so. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that most parties outside the two giants that have succeeded in winning these elections, usually filled political gladiators who are from the two major parties, but have only left those parties because they were unable to secure their tickets. Every Nigerian that wants to be in the political space and make a difference in the next election cycle in 2023, should choose one of the two major political parties and ensure the better kind of images within the two parties. It is certain that one of the two parties will definitely produce the next leadership for the country at all levels. So those who will create alternative platform, they should be truthful to their supporters and themselves that this is at least a 16 to 60 year plan and slowly start their journey from the lowest level of local politics and build up from there. INEC needs to be spared the pain of printing water cards the size of bedsheets in subsequent elections. Just so some basic politicians can be addressed as your excellency. I think what got me is the need for, hi, I was a one-time presidential aspirant and I'm like, which country? I'm like Nigeria. I don't know you. I'm not familiar with your name. Which party? Usually, when we get to before elections, you start seeing all kinds of people coming up with all kinds of political visions, funny names, YPP, ABC, CAC, you know, every alphabet will start putting it together just to coin something because constitutionally, you have the right to register for a party. You can just find this group of 5, 10 friends, can just stay in their room, put money together and just go and register a party and then a causing problem everywhere just because after the election, somebody can answer like Ejema said, I was a one-time presidential aspirant of the largest black population. Even if they didn't get any vote, because if they didn't vote, it was voided. I think it's the intention behind that. Truly, I'm sorry, yeah, maybe like Shalala said, they're actually lazy politicians because if your heart is in the right place and you want to make changes to the Nigerian society and economy, then of course, first of all, align yourself with the possibility of winning a position. Then begin to find that opportunity to make a difference. Not going to add yourself to SPD and... The major problem we have is that a lot of time, when we get the idea of party politics wrong, because most of the time when we say party, we're setting up a party to vie for presidential candidacy, which is not the ultimate. If you really want to make a change, change starts from the grassroots. So I don't mind having 200,000 political parties. As long as out of the 200,000, only 2 or 3 or 5 are vying for presidential and the rest are local. Because listen, if for example, we're talking about APC today, but it started by fighting for Lagos. Then it went to Ogun. Then it went to Iqiti and all those places. APC today is still struggling in the East. So by the time we build all these regional blocks, or even some, I just decided to remain in a local government. In some parts of the world, some parties will not go beyond being a fellow dune or something. And they just keep pumping. I agree with the premise of what we've been discussing and I can relate to the analysis. But I want to come from a reverse perspective in this case. And that is the option of always having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. I think it's about time we should be getting ready at Nigerians to start doing the right thing. Let me give an example. In the last general election, so we had Attiku for PDP, Buhari for APC, we had Moralo for YPP, Durutoya and them coming together. So you hear a vast majority of young people say, I prefer Moralo, but he will not win. So let me vote Attiku. This one says, I prefer fellow Durutoya, but because he will not win, let me vote Attiku. So that is problematic. The reason it is problematic is that let's understand that PDP and APC are the same party, the same people. All the people that are in APC today were once in PDP. So the best we can get are recycled politicians. No, they are not recycled. They are on loan, you know, if you go. Okay. They will check out. No, not politicians. So because in the next general election, you discover that the next president is probably going to be a former vice president, the former governor or former senator. And these are the same group of people that have been messing up Nigeria. Within this... Because I believe that the Nigerian political space needs fresh air. But the only way to achieve that is for the masses to come together. Because people don't vote because they believe the election can easily be rigged. But I say this thing. We need numbers to manipulate the numbers. If you have a 2 million vote gap, you cannot manipulate it or 20 million. You cannot manipulate it. So the masses have to come out and stand behind the right person else forever and ever will have to choose between the devil and the blue sea. And that's a terrible option. We are enjoying where we are. I think that's where we are now. It's okay. We can be where we are, but we can come together and use our numbers, like you say, to effect changes in the PDP that we see. To effect changes in the APC that we see. That we have, right? Exactly. I don't necessarily believe that we need a new political party. What I believe we need is that we need to governize our strength, governize our numbers and tell APC that APC, guess what? We're going to support you, but in return, we want a fresh candidate. Exactly. I think one of the mistakes we make is always the assumption that, oh, that there is, that if the young people come together and vote in particular candidates, they're going to win the election. The young people are not in the villages. I can say I've been in politics for more than 20 years. I've gone to so many campaigns, so many villages. I can't even remember what they are called. I've done campaigns around at least 32 or out of the 30s, sixties in the country and the FCT. You know, so the point I always tell people is that you see, you go to understand that for you to get a candidate that can deliver a national or a statewide election, that candidate must be able to campaign effectively. I'm not saying just visiting these places for a day or two. It must be known in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, in those places where he wants to win the election. And he must have representatives in every single polling unit across the state. When you think like legal status, more than 8,000 polling units on its own, how many people, how many, I don't know, can put in those polling units. But Shola, you know what? Because the people in the polling units must come from that area as well. You know what? So it won't just be a pretty face or a PhD. Yeah, Shola. But you know what, Shola? You know what? This is what Nigeria does to you. It gets you talking and talking and talking. And we won't have time to do the next one. Let's go over to the next advocacy. Kingsley is about to point out who Nigeria's enemy is. So stay tuned.