 Welcome back. We still have more discussions right here on the breakfast and plus CB Africa. So let's turn 24 hours to the governorship and state assembly elections in Nigeria, and voters in Lagos State will troop out just like others around the country to participate in the governorship and state legislative elections in what perhaps represents the toughest challenge to the reign of the ruling all-progressive Congress APC in Lagos State. The recent wave of the obedient phenomenon has thrust the Labour Party to the position of main challenger while the hitherto main opposition party in Lagos State, the People's Democratic Party, struggles to remain relevant. This has not been helped by the fact that the age-long leader of the People's Democratic Party in Lagos State, chief of Labor Day George, and his Ekoakete leadership political think tank or group and structure yesterday declared their support for the Labour Party and its governorship candidate. Now, meanwhile, it remains to be seen if the results of the presidential election that saw the APC lose in Lagos State will repeat itself or be repeated in the governorship poll. Stephen Agiode is a legal practitioner and he is, I guess, exploring on this conversation right here on the breakfast. Stephen Agiode, thank you very much for your time. There have been projections, you know, by some, you know, statistics and intelligence organizations like SBM Intelligence which were the leading in the country that show that we might see a different result in Lagos State from what happened during the presidential election where, for the first time, you know, since its formation, the APC lost a presidential poll in Lagos State. They're saying that the People's Democratic Party, the Progressive Congress and the incumbent governor, Samuel Will, emerged as the governor of Lagos State and they put some factors out there. Now, what is your analysis and your expectation as far as the result of the Lagos State election is concerned? Well, if you look at the result of the presidential election, one will see that there were some factors out there which I am not sure could have changed much. Normally in Lagos, there's a block ethnic vote which has always been outside the APC, that is, that of the Igbo's. But something happened sometime ago, the end-size crisis which I think has had a profound effect on the politics of Lagos State. The youth population of Lagos State seems to have decided to adopt the stance of protest vote and that is what I think is playing out in Lagos. Whether between the last election and today, something might have changed, I don't know but it's not something I would want to wage out. Very interesting. But let's also look at the fact that prior to this time, if you talk about securities, a major concern and we know how a lot of persons had anticipated that this election was not going to hold or going to have an interim government and what have you. Now, there were some states according to research that was also put out that should be given attention to. These states have a hierarchy of security threats. Lagos was one of them. There were about 24 of them who were not mistaken. Now, juxtaposing that with the security situation in the 25th of February elections, what do you think that we should anticipate? Do you think that the security personnel would do a better job? When we compare that to what had happened, we saw ballot boxes being snatched. We saw people being intimidated. A lot actually happened. With all that we had, information in terms of intelligence and the fact that it felt like the government was proactive in deploying personnel. Well, I can't speak of Lagos where I am now. What I see in Lagos is that the security personnel, the administrative mechanism of Lagos has been a little slow in reacting to what I see as threats coming from ECNU sectarian. What we've seen now is that the Labour Party candidate has now been associated with a particular ethnic group. You see on the social media claims as if some people are taking over the state, some people are not taking over the state. Before this, there was a much publicized peace commission in which the president was a part of things were signed. I was saying then that things were signed, but there was no mechanism for enforcement of them. I would have thought when most of these ethnic limbs are now coming out, I would have expected members of the peace committee to speak out, to say, no, this is not right. This is back to an earlier time in our politics. We should have gone beyond this. I would have expected them to even call out names to say, you, stop this. This is not the way to go. I think we have not seen a reaction from that peace committee. We have not seen a reaction from the security agencies to say the man of this campaign is dangerous. I hope between now and tomorrow we will begin to see that. People come out and say, for instance, you can't stop people from moving about. You can't stop people from voting just because they are not going to vote for you. I hope those things are going to happen between now and tomorrow. That's a big hope. Otherwise, the situation might be unpleasant for all. Because you hear, I have seen some of the things going around on social media. Almost all parts of Lagos are going to be under some kind of lockdown. What are your thoughts on that? You have a dilemma of being obedient to the customs and traditions of the land, which is something that we all should respect. We here in the media, we always respect that. How does one manoeuvre that? If care is not taken, people are going to get to the polling stations, polling centres, and there will be people there already, like we saw in the video that has gone viral from M.C.O.L.O.M, who is saying that the APC supporters should go there on time. Non-Indians and women are not allowed to step out before a certain time. Should they obey this? Should they say, no, I'm going to enforce my rights? As a part of Lagos where this was reported earlier this month, and they said they made a report to the CP. The police haven't said anything that I know about this so far. We start from the fundamental norm, the basic norm of the country. Our constitution in section 38 allows you to have a religion to propagate the religion in any way. Which means the people who are engaged in whatever they are doing in Uru, have a legitimate right to do it. They can propagate whatever traditional belief they have. But at the same time, we have in the constitution a provision that one, you must not discriminate against people. Which means you cannot say, for instance, because I'm a woman, I cannot move about. Two, we have basic freedom of movement. Which means I can go here and go to Sokoto State at any time I want to, whether in the midnight, or in the morning, or wherever. I can reside there too. These are the basic, these are our fundamental laws. Whatever rights you have are subsumed under the fundamental law. You cannot breach it. The fundamental rights in the constitution are far more important than any other provisions of the constitution. Not to talk of other laws of this country. So the rights of Uru worshipers or whatever they are is subject to declare provisions of the constitution. They cannot stop anybody from moving. They cannot discriminate against sections of our people. We must get that very clear. But wouldn't this be played on? Because I've seen some adverts, you know, in... Let's see, what would the effect of this be? Because there's a strategy you can see from the MCLOMO camp, which is a big block in the APC, to say, if you are a supporter of APC, get to the polling centre very early. And then the video, the claim is that he said, allegedly, I don't speak Uraba to get translation, allegedly that he's saying, when you get there early, make sure you vote very early. And then anybody that comes after you ask them, are you voting for APC, if not, you chase them away? These are clearly unconstitutional things. And these are things that I was thinking, the peace committee and the security agencies will immediately stop and stamp out. They are clearly unconstitutional. What about the security agencies? I mean, we asked the question to our guest on the Nisupara analysis segment, that we see on the front pages of a couple of papers, a show of force, you know, police officers and civil defence, in very high, with high caliber weapons. But where are they when all of these things are happening? Their voices should be heard. The general police legal stage should be able to say something about it. The inspector general police should be able to say something. But more importantly, we created some political structures to deal with this, the peace committee. Where are they? I mean, it's not enough to tell people to come and sign to papers that there's not going to be enforced. What's the point? Well, you expect people like Bishop Cooker and all the former leaders of the state. You expect them to come out and talk now. We shouldn't wait till there's a crisis. I expect within the next 24 hours to hear from there. The trend that is going, this trend of ethnic jingoism, it takes back to the time in our past that we should have gone past. I mean, if you look back in our past, in the early sixties, these were dangerous. Are you advising voters to go out irrespective of... They should. The voters should go out and vote without fear. They should go out in numbers. At any time they want to? At any time they want to, they should go out in numbers and vote for the candidate they want. Okay. Just quickly, let's also look at another issue with the selection because the February elections, the 25th of February election, presidential election seemed to be like what would trickle down to the elections of tomorrow. Now, for instance, if we looked at some of the issues with that election, prior to the fact that INEC was boasting and bragging of having the resources and having what it takes to conduct a rerun in terms of logistics. And then we also saw at the end of the elections that INEC also complained that they had the issue of logistics. Now, looking at that in terms of preparedness, the materials has always arrived very late. In some polling units, the materials didn't arrive at the time and we also had reports where elections were reshadowed. So again, do you think that there will be an improvement of what we experience in the presidential elections in terms of arrival of these materials? Because that's what also trickles down to the collision centre and whether or not results are also announced early. Because if you don't start early, you're just going to end up late as well. You raise an important issue, but there's even a more important one that arises from all the things you have said. In the last, okay, let's start with the fact that we have about 93 million registered voters in this country. Of the 93 million registered voters, 87 million, about 87 million are said to have collected their PBCs. The winner in the presidential election won with 9 million votes. There is a trend in our elections that the voter turnout has been reducing. In fact, by the latest figure, we have the lowest voter turnout in Africa. By percentages. Yes. So if you look at it now, you will find that... I may actually then need to ask the same. Is all these things that you have highlighted, are they the reasons why voter turnout is coming down? Is it a question of our own performance? Is it that we don't get early to the polling booth? We don't get to the people? We don't have enough materials? Is it the reason? In some polling units, if you look at the results sheets on IRF portal, they had more ballot papers than even the number of registered voters. In some places, you see maybe they have 30 registered voters, and you see they took 450 ballot papers. So it can be a lack of ballot papers, you know, especially with 1.7 billion dollars. If you get to a polling station at 2 o'clock. At Zainek. I mean, what time is really left for voting? But the law says that the last person on the queue at the time the voting is going to end. That is true, but if I wait for you till 2... I feel you are not coming. I may lose interest in the election. I may not go again. I may not come out. If I consistently go like that, I may not... There is a reason why we are having decreasing voter population. And I like to think about it, because it comes back to the legitimacy of our democracy. So you have so few numbers. What could be the possible reason? Because it is a very crucial question. Because you have, in point of race, that over from 1999, the voter's register has been increasing. But with every increase, we see a decrease in the percentage of voters coming out. 24.9 people only came out. Exactly, exactly. So what could the problem... Some have said we have an overblotted register. It really needs to be cleaned out. Some people have died. You had multiple registrations on the days of Murray Sioux and even before till now. So the voter register is overblotted. It's overstated. It's not real. Well, as for that, I would say we have not had a civil war since. So, I mean, how many people could really have died? I mean, statisticians will know that there's a given number of people you expect to die naturally. We have not had... We had COVID, but it didn't really affect us that much. So why are the numbers so low? All these things are what a responsible electoral body should sit down and investigate. If it's the voter's register that is overblotted, then why are you going to elections with a register that is not cleaned? They should look at these issues after this election. But surely there's something wrong here. There's something wrong. Again, as for tomorrow now, we're still looking at this. We're looking at the fact that what should we anticipate? What should people expect? Are we going to see INEC doing better than what it did before? Are we going to have voting start for 8.30? I mean, hardly have I ever seen any elections where we say we're going to have people start casting their vote by 8.30. Maybe this might just be different. So it's a question. And what do you think? Do you think that the energy of the people, the people would turn out for these elections? No, I feel the people are ready. The people have shown that they are in, at least in the small numbers in which they come out. If you look at them in the polling booths, particularly in my own polling booth, what I notice is people are enthusiastic. They want to come out. They want to vote. If the voting people are there. I think we will see it turn out similar to that of the last election. I think whether INEC will be better prepared, there are issues with uploading results immediately, whether they have learned their lessons. That remains to be seen. That remains to be seen because you see the problems with voting were already evident in the Ocean State election, the one heard previously. And you know, they were already in courts. And they didn't seem to have learned the lesson of Ocean State and all that. The elections they held with, the earlier off-cycle elections they had held with leaders had shown up a number of issues that would have warned them that the presidential elections might have some problems. And I think it was Yeager Africa who are mentioning that maybe it should have moved them to do a more national run. It doesn't cut it for you to say our server was overwhelmed because we did not foresee from off-cycle elections that we will have this volume of information on our server. So in other words, you are saying that if we did not get it right with off-cycle elections, we should have learned from it. If we didn't learn anything, then there's no magic that can happen tomorrow. The time is short. We were to hold elections last week, but we didn't hold it. They spent most of that time in the election tribunal with some of the parties and all that. The reason why it was postponed was basically because the same machines they used for the presidential needed to be cleaned up. There are some other activities other than correcting their past. So I don't really see the time they have to do this. In any case, the time is two weeks. Prof. Mahmoud Yacoubou had said earlier this month that Nigerians should be assured that the bimodal voter accreditation system will be deployed for the elections and that the machines are being worked on to avoid a repeat of the glitches that occurred on February 25 in the national polls. So this assurance by Mahmoud Yacoubou, something we can take to the bank, don't you think so? Because the main issue for the beavers, let's just start with the beavers, was the upload of the presidential results. Transfer, first of all, transmission, whichever you learned. The accreditation was okay. But transmission of the presidential election results will be done through the INEC system, which is in the guidelines section 38, subsection I. And then you have the upload of the scan copy from ECAA to IREA real-time, which was what they are shown. So based on what he said now that they are short. They are short. They are short. They are like politicians. He's assuring. He's assuring that this time the Nigerians should be rest assured that they won't make the glitches. We have a choice. But as we have said, he has promised before, but let us take his word for it this time. And I hope for the best. But if the past is a guide, you know what to think anyway. So you say a little bit cannot change the sports. And now we also have issues, I mean, apart from the previous now, the polls itself, they like rigging. Someone took us down memory lane on social media last night, I saw a clip of the Shagari time with the NNPP and when the party that lost in that election said, hey, there was a rigging. In fact, they said fantastic rigging. And they were going to go to the court and all that. So history, it shows the history repeats. I know you wear that very well. Do you expect that there will be any difference in this election? We saw in some states, coalition officers who are professors from Ivory Tars, our tertiary institutions went missing with resolved sheets. Nobody could find them. And appeared after three days to give results that were different from what, even now to now we have seen on the INEC portal. So as far as rigging is concerned, do you expect to see any difference? To solve the current problem of rigging and we've deployed a lot of technology along the Z-pad before them. Talk about rewriting the results. I know what I'm saying is we did all this to avoid rigging. Technology doesn't seem to have helped. I think we have a human problem which we need to solve. We cannot solve with technology, solve a human problem. What you do, you can make things faster with technology. You can't solve the human problem. We need to sit down and address the human problem that causes all these things. It's the job of INEC. Maybe bring civil society groups together in order to look at it and say how we can solve it. It's a topic we can't finish now. Definitely. Interesting. We have to go because we're out of time. But we remain to be seen if Lagos State will have for the first time a new party in charge different from the tenable political dynasty. There will be a continuation. Some have given analysis that the reason why the APC lost the presidential election in Lagos State is that Eurobar Christians decided not to support the Muslim-Muslim ticket. They all come out and probably would see a push for the APC. I don't know if that... If there's a change in Lagos State, it will be in keeping with what democracy is about. If there's no change, then it's a warning to the current government to do better. In the last one week or so, we've seen him move out campaign before this had not been the case. I think part of the problems he may have had in this election is that he did not before this itemise his own achievements so clearly so that people can see. With the issue of the answers, he was not upfront. He was not clear in some of his actions. I mean, you set up a panel and then you travel the results of your own panel. Who does that? Steven Agiode, legal practitioner has been through having you on the breakfast this morning. We look forward to having you again. All right, Messi, he said it all that, you know, the both of us should feel free to defy the gods of the land. It is just worse. But Messi, you came to work really this morning. I know you stay in Qatar, in Lagos, in the Kingdom. Wait, it feels like every other time you're changing the location of where I live. But however, I mean, it's a good work because you defy... If you look at it, let's even be very realistic. When we had the issue of COVID, as deadly as COVID was, there was still exception for COVID to recognize essential workers. I'm sure that the gods of the land should also factor essential workers like doctors, like media practitioners, the police and what have you. I mean, if you begin to have the gods of the land not caring about this set of persons that are very important in society, then really, do the gods of the land speak English? I don't know, but my point is the gods of the land should also consider if you have something as deadly as COVID and COVID had no restriction. You might have to go for consultation. We have a high regard for traditional institutions. We love them and we respect them. We'll take a break and when we come back we'll discuss sports. Please stay with us.