 Welcome back to ballot 2023 and plus TV Africa. But before the break, I mentioned we'll be discussing the way forward for Nigeria, highlighting the conduct of the governorship and state assembly elections, the protests erupting from agript parties and candidates, Peter Obe's petition against denouement and many more. While joining me on the show today, I have Mark Ogle, President, editor-in-chief of Africa Watch Network Lagos, is also the author of Nigeria in the global perspective, public affairs analyst, opinionist, columnist, and publisher. You're welcome to the ballot. Well, Opunabor, in court area, a public analyst is also here with us, but virtually. Hello, Opunabor. All right, Opunabor is not yet with us, but we have Reverend Joseph Hyap. He's Khan Chiam and Carduna Chapter. That's the Christian Association of Nigeria. Hello, Reverend. Good to have you with us. Well, I'm going to be, as we look at the way forward for Nigeria. Yeah, indeed. Well, let's begin with the speech by the President-elect, Bala Ahmed Tanubu. He has acknowledged the verbal ethnic attacks and violence during the polls. And he's also asked that the healing process, post-election healing process, begins. Reverend, I think I should start with you. How do you respond to this call for post-election healing process by the President-elect, Bala Ahmed Tanubu? That call is important. And coming from him is good, because tensions are already high. There is so much pain, there's so much anger, there's so much rejection around the country. It's possible that people are not just angry because the electoral process was faulty, but people are also angry because of the way and manner they were treated. You can put up so many things. So there is anger hovering all over the country. So that call is super and good. But wait a minute. Before you make such a call, you have to be honest to yourself whether you are not also indirectly having a hand in those actions that have triggered the anger, whether you are not indirectly having a role to play or you have played a role in the reason why people are angry. So that's why most time when you want to do anything, you have to be careful because there's always a repercussion. There is no reason just because I want to be in power, just because I want to have a position that I will instigate others against others. Because by the time I get what I want, I will still have those people that I have provoked, I will still have those people that I have ridiculed, I will still have those people that I despise who govern. So the problem with this country is that most of those who are leaders or who want to lead us seems to forget when they are looking for power that people think, that people understand and people listen. But it's true and it's good for the president-elect to make that call. But I'm just afraid if he do not have any role to play in the first place when these whole things begin to gather momentum. Because though this challenge is not just restricted to leaders or one part of the country, virtually everywhere, but I just want us to make an honest assessment of what is happening and what has happened and then that is when we can call for peace, we can call for dialogue, we can call for understanding. You cannot have rubbed oil all over my face and tell me, no, we need to be clean. We can't be clean until the oil on my face has been cleaned. So we have to be sure we are not just playing out a game that is not true. Okay Reverend, Reverend, I'll come back to you, I'll come back to you, but I want to get Mark's opinion on that too. But before you give us your opinion, Charles O2, public affairs analyst has also joined us virtually. Hello Charles. Hello, good morning. Good morning. Good morning to you. Good morning. All right, yeah, okay Charles. So let's have yours and then we'll take Charles because it's important for us all to respond to this call by the president-elect. So let's have yours Mark. Well, first and foremost, there's nothing wrong for people to call for peace. Even when you have a war, maybe violence everywhere and the people are calling for, let's come to Erante with a discourse and find a lasting solution to the problem. I don't say anything wrong with such calls. But we must acknowledge the fact that this election, as far as I'm concerned, is the worst election so far in the history of Nigeria. That's right. If you want to talk about, you want to start from 1999, from the former president-elect, who will call for the cancellation of the election. And during this time, what did they do to reform the electoral process? So the international community has acknowledged that the election was controversial and it's only those who are seeing it from the other perspective, the few who probably must have participated in this controversial election and they weren't seeing it as the first election in the history of Nigeria. But for the president-elect to call for ceasefire and for peace for everybody to calm down and let's sit together and then move Nigeria forward. I don't think anything is wrong with that. But we should also acknowledge the fact that the president-elect, she also acknowledged that the election was also controversial. Then the peace initiative, then we can take it from there. All right. Chance O2, your response to the person's call, President-elect. Thank you very much, Maureen. Thank you to the guests both in the studio, Marco and Reverend. Reverend, good to see you. Bye. Good to see you again. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you, sir. Why I will agree with the two guests that there is nothing wrong with the call to just a very little extent. I would refer to what Masha McLuhan said in one of the key major theories of mass communication. Those of us who did mass communication, there is a theory we call Masha McLuhan's theory. And that theory states that the medium is the message. If the medium is reputable, if the medium through with the message is common, is credible, is reliable, then the information is dispassion with sync with the receiver at the other end. And on that note, I want to say that that call is coming from the very wrong quarters. Because what the President-elect, what people expected was that the President-elect ought to have responded spontaneously to the allegations from the various international bodies. Before the EU observer mission, the United States Press Club and other notable personalities across the world had, since the 25th of February, been raising issues about the disententment of Nigerians regarding the February 25th presidential election. The President and his team did not react. They are rather bleeding with world bodies to congratulate the President-elect. And it is a John Deist and a very wrong call, coming at the wrong time from the wrong person. Because if these international bodies witnessed what they witnessed, and they have gone ahead to say that, look, this is not just a crime watch. They are calling it a crime watch. But I call the last episode, the last Saturday's election again, a bizarre crime watch. It wasn't just a crime watch. It was a haste that has never been witnessed in the history of this country since. I'm not sure. I wasn't born before 1950, but even what I read in the history books, no election has been chaotic. No election has been disputed the way this last two elections has been. If you are calling for peace and you're not addressing the issues, you've not spoken to the facts raised by the various observer missions across the globe. Raised by the various presidents across the world. I mean, it is like what Lebrun said, we are seed dirty and you're telling us, look, we just have to move on and expect that. So, but the hope is lost completely. Well, before we came, yeah. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Charles. Before the elections, President Bohari had said he wanted to leave a legacy with these elections. And people have also loaded the electoral act. At what point do things start going bad from your analysis? Because we're still, this is post-election conversations, we just keep digging deep into all of it all because people who forget their history are bound to repeat them. Four years from now, we're going to go to the polls again. At what point do things start going wrong? Reverend, from your observation, in… Yeah, I think most of those promises were more rhetoric than action. The President did promise us that the legacy he wants to leave is for a credible election. And someone was actually buying into that because we felt he had actually contested three times and lost. And coming from the pains of those experience, he wouldn't want Nigeria to hit it again, and he will correct it. But sadly, from day one, Ainek showed that all those things were rhetoric, but were not backed by actions. The fact that Ainek violated her own rules, her own procedure, her own… What he told Nigeria is going to do, he didn't do it. And sadly, the President didn't also… That was when the President was supposed to confirm to Nigeria that his earlier promise is genuine. But what he simply said was, go to court. And you know, in this country, when you are already cheated, when they have already finished, you'll be asked to go to court because they know the result will come out of the court even before you go to the door of the court. So it is sad that the President gave us good promise. Many Nigerians who have not participated in the election before, the enthusiasm came as a result of the assurance from Ainek, from the presidency, from every quarter that this election is going to be credible and backed with technology and so on. But what we saw was something completely else. We are still receiving stories of how, even in some states, they are banned, it must be this, it must be that, even when people have not voted for that. So how… What credible election will you present or will you claim to have offered when entirely the result is not what the people give, it is what you want? You are existing, this man must win, not the person or the will of the people must prepare. So what's the will of the people who do not prevail in the election? Everything is gone. But in everything, whether logistic, white and so on, the only little good thing that happened was on the second election, Ainek came on time. But after coming on time, what happened? He still went back again to the old passion. All right, Charles, across the country, different stories played out. We had some flash points. These are not carried out by President Mohammed Buhari in fairness to him. These things were not carried out by Professor Mark Mujakubu. What's your take on some of the things that politicians did across the country, especially in rivers, delta, Bayalsa, Enugu, Lagos? Let's hear your view on that. Thank you. You didn't mention Eboni because maybe because people are not on the streets, people are not protesting, but what happened in Eboni is even not within the media. What happened in Nabiya is the same as what happened in Nguwa and also Eboni, the three states where these government elections held. In Eboni, I was at the Ainek Collation Office on Saturday night. And like I said yesterday, before we got there, a call started coming that we shouldn't come out that talks have seized the entire vicinity of the Ainek office at the local government secretary. They started shooting around 7 o'clock at about 9.30 p.m. The governor himself came to the place, followed a route that was not the normal local government gate. They asked them to switch off the lights. They switched off the lights. They were supervising the figures. They said, oh, look, in this world, there are 12 words that people cannot look at. Look, we cannot allow them to take these words, these two words. We cannot allow a position to take these two words, take these figures and put in. Most of those places, they ended up with figures, more than even the number of registered votes passed in that locality. That is the evil that happened across the entire 20th, 20th, 20th, 20th elections held. In only very few instances where people stood their ground, like in Abia and in Nubu, and people are testing, you could see that even the Obingua result that is being talked about, the myth is demystified. Yet, Ainek is sitting on defense. Now, to your question, you may not have those people at the helm of affairs to blame as it were, but then, everything centers and forces and forces on their inability to provide leadership, beginning from Mr. Mohammad Bahari to Mahmoud Yacoubou. How would you want us to swallow your words that you give us 68 times that election results will be transmitted real time online? I mean, how would you, both the Commission's chairman, the spokesperson, Faisal Sukouye, if you put on Google how many times we are sure of the functionality of Bivas, and these are just the electronic results, you would say that the whole confidence-building process among Nigerians began from the staggered elections in Osho State, in Anambra State, in Aikiti State. So when people counted the 7th November election in Anambra, November 7th, 2020, two elections, you added to what happened in Aikiti. You sum it up all with what happened in Osho State. So the confidence-building process was high among the youths, particularly first-time voters, that this election was going to be spectacularly different, and that technology did have a role to play. Now, all of a sudden, you now tell us that the guidelines you set, you can't abide by them. I mean, what was wrong, Maureen, with Aimec transmitting the presidential election results real-time online, the same way it did the National Assembly elections? Okay, Mark, let me ask you this question now, Charles. I've made a case for the President, and I've also made a case for Mahmood Yakubu. In your opinion, how should they distance themselves from all these irregularities that played out, from all the sham that we saw playing out? How do you suggest that the President and the Aimec Chairman distance themselves all? Well, you know, just fine. It is like asking how will a woman that gave birth to a baby in an open market, where people saw the woman and assisted her to get to bed, how will the woman now say, look, I am not the one who put to bed in this open market. I am not the one who gave birth to this baby. They cannot understand themselves from it. I think part of the problem we had as Nigerians was believing in a President that had failed creditably. How can they remedy it? Can they remedy it? Can they redeem their images? Do you think? Because after the presidential election, Nigerians thought, oh, okay, the governorship election will give Aimec the opportunity to redeem its image. But as I said, I did make a case for President Buhari, and I did make a case for Mahmood Yakubu. Can they redeem their images? Is it too late in the game for them to redeem their reputation? Would you say? The only way they can remedy it is to do what is not expected of the APC government. Because the APC government in Nigeria will have seen it throughout court orders, even to the point of the Supreme Court. So we are going back to that same court. The litigants, the candidates who won this mandate truly are going back, most of them are going back to this same court that the APC government has at various points failed to obey. Because the same Mahmood Yakubu, the same Mahmood Buhari looked the other way that when this warning signs were coming, and they are telling us to go back to that same judiciary, to ask them to remedy what has been done wrong. The only way they can redeem themselves really is to try to stay away from influencing the judiciary, from doing the right thing. I said it, I have said repeatedly that all that I need to do was to live and abide by its own laws and guidelines. If you met a guideline and say, look, this is how this process will go, there's no need shifting the go post at the middle of the game, which is what I did. In most of the places like Inugu and Derby, where the elections are put on hold, it's just because two same individuals, two same professors stood their ground to say, look, you cannot bring figures and bandit figures and just say I should announce. Part of your guideline said I should review what I am announcing. And for all the noise that the both parties, the PDP is making in both Inugu and Derby, even including a point just because maybe perhaps people are not on the street like I said before. I mean, you cannot make your own rules and flood your own rules and disobey. So I am calling on both, first of all, Mamudyakubu to step aside at this point because in the history of this country and the elections, if Mamudyakubu was to come from a certain section of the country, in 2003 elections, Mamudyakubu had not finished declaring the election results as it were, which was far better, far more credible than what we saw now. Not 350 billion are spent on that election. And people were talking all over the country and saying, you would call him a man of names. Like Mark Tom in here. Charles, like Mark Tom in here. President Mamudyakubu had to step away from influencing the judiciary from carrying out justice in the electorate because all they have been telling us before now is that, oh, what used to represent Bifas then, which is a card reader, was not captured in the Electoral now that it is captured with a stat law backing the INEF, which is East Fungalai, to use the Bifas in returning the electoral results. The President should stay away from influencing, and the APC should stay away from influencing the judiciary. All right, Charles, like Mark, Mark, Mark, the President had promised to leave a legacy with this election, but here we have a large percentage of Nigerians are crying against what has played out. And I'm asking, is it too late for the President to redeem his image if it's not, what should he do? A President that is even ready to go, that said this morning that he can't wait to go back to his farm. The President wants to leave and, of course, he promised Nigerians that he's going to give us fair, credible election, and he provided all the resources needed to IMEC to go and do their job. And he has judged this election to be good. That's a thing. The President himself has judged it to be good. Well, it cannot, Mr. President, you know, it belongs to APC, the ruling party. So what do you expect him to say? That the election was controversial, just like as a Algerian international community has adjoined it to be? Of course, you don't expect that from him. He's the leader of the party. So whether the thing goes wrong or right, is there to defend the party against the wishes of Nigerians? Well, the issue here is this, the elections have come and gone. Some of the aggrieved candidates are going to court. They have gone to court. To go and challenge the elections. So what I will advise Nigerians is yes, most of us have lost confidence in the judiciary, but we can still have this kind of belief that the judiciary will do wonders. Because if we keep saying, no, the judiciary will don't have trust in them. If at the end of the day, they give justice. So let us be patient and allow the judiciary to do their work. We can't continue to say the judiciary, they've given wrong rulings all these years. What I advise is let Nigerians allow the judiciary to do their work. Let us trust them that they will do the right thing. You know, if you look at the 1963 election that they have brought in the military, you know that election was, there was no difference between this 2003 election and the 1963 election. It was almost the same. Violent everywhere. Violent everywhere. And that also gave rise to some of the military guys to come and recuperate again and distract. And we saw what happened at the end of the day. So Nigerians can still have this confidence that why the judiciary will do their work, they will do their work rightly and bring back the confidence of Nigerians so that in the, in, in, in, in 27 election, Nigerians can not still believe that, oh, the 23 election, there were a lot of controversies, there were violence, but we believe that the judiciary will do the right thing. I think that's what Nigerians should be longing for now. You know what you said, the elections before these ones marred with violence. And here we are, same rhetoric. What should be done to put a check on all of this? Because history repeating itself, ugly history repeating itself, the political thugs that carried out the violence, the political elites that messed things up in their various states, we're not seeing actions taken against them. And so next election, they're going to come a stronger, aren't they? You see, you see, if we, if we follow the trend of elections in Nigeria, you will discover that the same scenario plays out every four four years. And because the leadership structure has not also acted when they're supposed to act. So I think they have a kind of a cabal, or cabalism, whom they probably, they often use to, you know, to commit these crimes. And those who are supposed to come out to condemn it, they will not condemn it, they will allow it to continue. They become like my friend, we say we now have four hands of government, the, the, the cabas itself, and those who are used to perpetuate these crimes. So what we need is let the law, let those who are the, I mean, in the leadership structure, should allow the law to take its course, the police, the armies. You know, while I was even in Delta State to monitor this election and the things I saw and the, you know, the report that came around. Tell us some of the things, tell us some of the things you saw. While I was in Delta, some of the things I saw, I began to order whether Nigeria is fighting war against itself. The report from Lagos, the report from Eboni, just like Mr. Chan said, you know, we're monitoring all these things. And I was wondering, are we actually in a democratic process or we are at war with each, with each other? The conclusion is that over the years, a nation has never been conducted free and fair. What we have heard in the, in the past year is selections by the cabas and who probably use the talks, you know, to destroy electoral materials, who snag ballot papers and so on and so forth. And because they know very well that at the end of the day, the law will not take its course. They will be protected by the same, this set of leaders who are going to lead us. So they believe, you know, in that state, one man had the effrontery, the boldness to cut away 14 beavers machines. A technical officer there, 14 beavers machines. He went away with them for 72 hours. Well, now he's been handed over to the police. Reverend Hajabi, let's go to Cardinal State where you are. President, Governor Nassir Arafai's anointed candidate has been declared winner. Does that make you excited or unhappy? You see, I just want, you know, when you were talking about other states and our brother said something about a number and I was just looking at with a smile here, because in Cardinal State where I belong, the same thing happened. So come into a collection center, scattered materials, and nothing happened. No arrest. The fact of all is that at the end in the collection in the state collection center, it's not by issue. Can you imagine that an INAG returning officer telling us as state people that the total accredited voters were 1,481,662 people. But it seems he even forgot and he's telling us that the total vote has is 1,546,748. You accredited 1,481,000 but you have votes of 1,570. So you have over 86,000 votes. Where did you get them? And you still go ahead to announce the result even when it is so glaring. Look at the figures. You know, we just begin to wonder, was he sleeping? Was he endued by something? Or he thinks everybody do not understand, but at last he has announced because the whole thing is to tell a brother who's in the studio is saying that we're supposed to call court. It's actually the last option. I mean, I do subscribe that going to court is the best option, but I think because the tabas as we are mentioning, or the groups that are commenting and terrorizing and manipulating this country know that the court will not give anybody justice. That's why they will do what they want to do and actually to go to court. Simple logic like this. Go back to the television, live television recording that you have of the pronouncement of the result. And you will see this figure I'm saying. It's not that this figure came out after. This is what they were announcing. They brought the light telling us that you have a total accredited voters of 1,481,000, but you had also a total broadcast of 1, sorry, 1,500,000 people will understand. But you see, this is the system we are having. The question I actually wanted to respond to was when you said that in their possibility for remedy, yes, according to the Electoral Act, INEK can remedy this because the Electoral Act permits INEK Returning Officer or INEK Chairman to after certain days, after the first announcement, review and if you understand that what was announced on the first day is wrong, within that period he can review and announce something where. We have divas. If divas, if those relations were actually sent to divas, it would take us 10 hours to bring out each local government information that was sent to the server and now we count it and bring divas an authentic result as it is in the divas. People cannot just sit and be writing the results the way they want. You are telling us that 120 people were accredited, but you tell us that you have a vote of 120 people. How can you have 100 people accredited? How did you even get the pilot for them to have counted that vote? So the system is so funny that you can't even imagine whether we have a future. I don't know what our children are watching and thinking about Nigeria. I saw a young man yesterday who openly tore his international passport. I started my room and I went from my country because that is to tell you the level of frustration that is going on in this country and at the slightest provocation anything can happen. In our state, people are not on the street, not because justice has been done, not because they were happy. People simply are not on the street because they have put laws before the elections were collected. They put military order so that they would go down wherever protest. And so people chose not to protest. But you see, let me use the word of one of the famous presenter in Nigeria today, Rufai, who said, okay, you have been announced, but have you won the heart of the people? Have you won the respect of the people? Do you need people trust you to be their leader? They just announced what they want to announce but they announced the will of the people, the mandate of the people, the vote of the people, or they just announced what they want to. And if you put in anybody into leadership without legitimacy, keep him the next 10 years, he will not know what to do because any leadership that has no legitimacy cannot perform. Any leadership that has no legitimacy cannot win the vote of people. Any leadership that has no legitimacy cannot win the support of the people. And that is why this country will continue to be where she is. After four years, we will come and do another funny exercise and go away. Another four years will come and we are saying we spent billions and trillions of nara. For what? Yeah, billions of nara on this election because beavers was deployed. Why did this seem like rocket science in Nigeria when Kenya did well with it? What is it about the Nigerian and the Nigerian factor that has affected the use of beavers if it can work in other climes? Charles, you want to come in here? Okay, thank you. It is simple. Many analysts, I wish I quite agree with, have put the blame on the systemic institutional failures. I like as it were, has a staff strength. First of all, I like as it were claims, it says it is independent. I was wondering why I was a traffic will knock local government help secretary where a sitting governor was moving around with talks in the night from one local government to the other, maybe destroying materials and all of that threatening even the EU, the local government. And I was saying to myself, I asked myself and said, look, how independent really is INEC because that is the fundamental question. Apart from the systemic failure, if you have that INEC office in a neutral ground, there is no how a local government should have more access to that place. Because it is within the secretary of the local government, which is the local government office is close to the shareman's office. They know where the generator is. That's why they could send talks to go and switch up the generator to use touchlights and manipulate figures. Before then, they said they were both real soldiers and police, including youth commembers who were at that point of collision at the world level. Yes, INEC came early, but what did it achieve with coming early? They came early steadily, so the processes can be manipulated. Now, what really went wrong wasn't because the technology was not there, but there was this, you've heard many people say that and INEC officer will tell you, I don't know how to operate this beaver. I don't know how to upload this machine. There's no network. I don't have data. And people will provide some of those things for them. People will assist them, do it themselves to ensure that things go smoothly and right. And at the end, you ask, where is the 350 billion error that was budgeted for this election? If you use, if you spend 100 billion error on it judiciously and expeditiously, you can build structures outside the government-influenced areas. That is the truth. Where this exercise could have been concluded peacefully? One, two, if you deploy police and the police people were more interested in protecting the interests of those parties of individuals like you watched in Baoshi State, where two policemen were guiding and protecting a starboard of a political party who was giving money to people, driven by an openly and then destroying evidences where they thought they were losing. And the police, officers of Nigerian police, for their faces are known, they are seen. I mean, I think what they do to Buhari or Nigerians now is to set up a sincere commission of inquiry. I don't know where it's going to get the men, but there will certainly not be men from his government who will look into these issues. You don't know when he's going to get the men. Should he go to heaven or moon to get them? Well, if he's really angry, because I know he's not about what has happened, but if he's really angry and Nigeria was a place to work as they should, what ought to have been done is to even bring in those international community observers to make an honest report and make recommendations, far-reaching recommendations, that could lead to the prosecution of this one. At least they have caught a broad daylight in this act of rigging this, and they can be disciplined or be brought to book. Because now it is unlike 2003, unlike 90s, it's a trade that is 60 years ago, where we say, look, these things happen because we didn't have the laws, there's that laws to punish offenders. These things happen because there were no enabling laws. Candidate was not used because it was not captured in the law. Now these things are captured in the laws, back in the commission. If that law is not a academic exercise, if we've not all waited our time, dissipated our energy and resources, thinking to work on what does not work or what will never work, these laws ought to have been brought to effect now by the Nigerian courts. And that is what I think should have happened. Technology, yes, it played this role. In 1963, nobody would have recorded the kind of videos we saw in Lagos, we saw in Cardona, we saw in Nihabia, we saw in Enugu, and all over the country, including the ones we saw in Nihaboya, of people openly buying goods. But because technology has come, it has enabled us, but it has also disabled us in a way that those who still wanted to manipulate the system manipulated it willfully and willingly. So the best option that is left before Nigerians, particularly the leaders, is to claim the audit table. First of all, I don't expect that in the next couple of weeks, Mahmoud Yacoubou should be presiding over this process, because you see the way INEC is for dragging to even allow people to inspect the materials that have been used in the polls at the presentation level. You would see that also play in the states. These resident electorate commissioners that are so, they have shown obvious partiality and corruption, traces of corruption, should be asked to step aside, let us get sent people from wherever we can find them. The weakness of our institutions is the major concern to everyone who's observing, because even the US, well not because it's the US saying it, have said that those who are involved in all this, the violence and all of that should be brought to justice. But we have to wait for the international community to say that to us. Those who have been fingered, pointed and who were visible in some of the crises we saw, the skirmishes, are still free and working the streets. Some of the politicians across the country who were fingered to have caused these skirmishes are still where they are. What does that say about the hope that we have that anything can come out of the petitions that have been filed? If you, I don't know whether you had time to read about the financial times, about the Nigeria, about the general election and there was two very important points raised in that editorial. One, can the Nigeria judiciary behave like those one in Kenya? You know the Kenya election was annoying among the presidential election, even in Malawi because of violence and violation of electoral heart and processes. Those two vital points raised was very crucial or it's very crucial. Which two vital points? Yes, that is making the point that the Nigeria judiciary acts like the counterpart in Kenya and Malawi. That is the point is now the election has been joined to be the most controversial election in the history of Nigeria. Now the the boarding of proof is on the Labour Party and the PDP. Can the judiciary give the injustice? Those are the key points they were raising during their writing, their editorial and making their general observation about the election. And if you also followed international observers, the EU like my colleague said, the United Nations and others, all the report they gave, there was no different at all. The headline crisis. Yes criticizing the election and putting the burden that the judiciary must do the needful. Now the question of institution, my brother talked about it. If you follow the trend of Nigeria, you'll discover that the institutional leadership over time has always been a failure. You want to talk about, like you said, the INEC, you want to talk about the police, you want to talk about the army? I'll take you back a little bit. I watched a video which are probably, I think your station must have even heard it, where a threat was coming for one of the, I don't want to mention them because you know, you know, as a meat you have to be somebody from the east that made the allegation that ebos, you must not come out to vote on that day. I'm sure DSS would have arrested such person with that. In fact, within 24 hours, that person would have been with DSS. But what happened? Nothing. So the point is, we are not ready as a country to move forward. The same mistake of 2007, repeated the same in 2011, in 2015, 2019, here we are talking about 20. The same mistake. And we have not seen where people have been persecuted or prosecuted for electoral violence. We have not seen the same set of people who have been championing this kind of at-law society. They are the same set of people who are also going ethnic profiling. So of course, I'm coming down because nobody wins religious war or tribal war. Nobody wins it. If you remember the Rwanda case, you remember very well, millions of people were massacred. Genocide. Genocide. I want to go back to the holocaust, where millions of Jews were massacred. And they said, never again will it happen again. Have we told ourselves that never again are we going to allow this kind of injustice, electoral injustice? Have we told ourselves, no. We will still repeat this mistake in 2027, just like that. Because we are not ready to build institutions that you and I can say, oh, we can do things rightly. We're not ready. We're still going to see the same mistake. We will keep talking, talking. And you know the funny thing, people will come on air to make the analysis, to come and say this. But at the end of the day, nothing will happen. Someone has said to me that Nigerians talk a lot. It's been so thrown up now more than ever before that I know of. Now, how can we move forward with this kind of ethnic profiling, where some members of the community or the country do not have a shared sense of national belonging? I start with you. This is a lesson that we just had. It gave us a sense that we are not really united. And the only way we can break that gene is to probably start preaching a one next and forgiveness because it's clear that the whole process was bastardized. Nobody can hide that fact. But however, Nigeria as a country, our foundation has been 40 since Independence 1960. And some of us were privy to read the book of the former Niger data freedom fighter, Isaac Borough. The 12 day revolution, where he stated that our problem of tribalism started immediately after we got our independence, that the so acclaimed three tribal, I mean, tribal sets in our region, which is popularly known, the Yorubaks, the Alsace, and the Ibo's, forgetting they also have other ethnic groups. It is we that are located to them that are the majority. And that will continue to create more problems for us. What we need as a country is to unite ourselves, give everybody the sense of belonging, let everybody have equal rights and opportunity to compete. Not one section of a country you say they are the majority, and then when good news comes, you say, okay, let's allocate it for them. Then the other set of people that are the minority will continue to create that problem. All we need is let us come back, sit in Iran table, and decide how Nigeria should be run. Okay, Reverend, please come in. The truth about it is that what the last election have exposed in this country is the deep-seated hatred, enmity, distrust that exists among us. We pretend for a long time that we are one nation, one individual nation, united nation, but the truth is that this election have further proven that we are divided strongly among religious line. We are divided among our original line. We are also divided on ethnic line. And so many other, you see the truth is that the political parties don't even match us. It's about those, some of those identities that I've mentioned. So the young generation, I don't understand, I don't even know what they will be lining from us or what they are lining from what is happening around us. The division is so glaring. But like the last speaker said, I decided to believe that this is the time for us to work towards healing, towards uniting, towards forming ourselves or bringing back ourselves. I work for an organization called the Global Peace Foundation. And the message we preach is we are one family under God. We take our message from the three Abrahamic religions. In Christian theology, the Bible says in the beginning, God created Adam and Eve. If Holy Quran also agreed with that teaching that the first man and first woman, God created, He named them Adam and Eve. And the Jewish religions, that is also the Torah, also agree with that account. So we take our message from that account and say, human beings are members of one family under God. So blood runs in our veins. There is no blood group for Muslim, no blood group for Christians, no blood group for Hindus, no blood group for Confucianism or whatever religion. And we also believe that a woman is a woman irrespective of whatever religion she comes from. I think as Nigeria, we're leaning to come back and begin to see ourselves as brothers, as members of one family. If I have a need for blood transmission today, you will tell me to bring someone from my tribe or someone from my religion. You simply need someone who has the same blood group with me. So we have a lot of things that brings us together and we must work together to salvage this country. We must work together to build this country. Even if in the future we agree to divide, we must not part ways like enemies. We should just part ways for development. So we need to do that. And I want to advocate and advise the incoming leaders, whether the president, the governor, and whatever office you hold, that if there's anything they need to work hard to do, it is to help in bringing back this unity, to help in championing back this unity, to help inculcate this whole idea. In Kaduna State, where I come from, there are young Muslim children who in the past 10, 15 years of their age, they really never have an encounter with the Christian. There are young Christians who in the last 10 or 15 years of their age, they really never had an experience with the Muslim. So the impression they have is that any other person who is not of their tribe, who is not of their religion is an enemy. And the reality is not so, because in the past our seniors and even some of us were privileged to school where it was a mixed school, people from different religious groups come over there, people from different tribes. In fact, we were even admiring each other, getting attracted with the names, people come from different parts of the country or different part of the state and buried. And it was even mandatory. If you are my friend and you are a Muslim, I want to see you go to the mosque so that I will know that you are a Muslim. And if I'm your friend and I'm a Christian, you also want to see me go to the church so that you know that I'm a serious Christian. In secondary school, I know how to read some of my Islamic studies. I can recite them up to today. I'm almost 55 now, but I can recite them as if I'm a Muslim, but I've never been a Muslim. I just enjoy following my friend to his class. After his IRK class, he will come and we will discuss. But there is so much division in our country today. So religious leaders have a lot to do, political leaders have a lot to do, stakeholders have a lot to do. But most importantly, this important institution called the media. You have a lot to do in helping Nigeria to build a new spirit, a new culture of tolerance, respect and togetherness. How could I have been born in Lagos? And just because of election and you are telling me today that I'm not illegal here, I don't understand that. How could I have been born in Kano? And just because of election today and you think that probably I have another candidate, people from your candidate and you are telling me I'm not a Kanawha, what makes me not? I am because my blood, my mother gave birth to me here and I've lived here, I school here, my father have invested here. If he has not invested in it, he has paid tax here. So I think we must begin to correct this and honestly do it strongly in all our places of age in school and other things. And you know educationally, in our education system, we need to inculcate or bring up studies that will help young people to begin to appreciate others and see others as bringing beauty into their lives, not threatening their lives. Yeah, we as the media will continue to play our part as we have been doing. Charles, your take on this. Okay, thank you. My co-guests have spoken well, except that I want to differ. I don't want to sound sanctimoniously religious about that because even the Bible says that righteousness and justice are the very foundations of God. God himself is a God that doeth justice. That's why they say he's a just God. Now what it means, what this means basically is that you cannot have a nation where there is no justice. I'm speaking directly to the leaders who are arguing and those who are coming in. You know you've stolen the community drum. You cannot beat it in private. You cannot beat it in public. Why not return it peacefully to the public? Return it to the community. I stole this drum thinking I could play it, but I found out that even playing it in my house, even in the comfort of my bedroom, you hear it and you say, ah, is that our community drum that was missing or he's playing it now. The person will be provoked no matter what you preach, no matter how sanctimoniously religious the police may be. If there is no justice done across the 28th stage where these elections were held, if there is no justice done in the presidential election and the petitions seem to be reasonably heard and determined and punishment is meted to those who have messed up the system in this entirety, then everything you're preaching, if you like, come and carry my own Bible and go to church with me as a Muslim. I will still be I will still be doubting about just the sincerity of your belief system because of what it is not anchored on justice. Morin and Micogas remember that it is the same justice. It is the same drive for competence, capability and credibility that has made an Indian to become a British prime minister. Societies have moved in. They are leaving us behind. People are looking for competence wherever they can find them. They are not looking for, oh, this person is from my religion. It's from my communities. I mean, I expect that both the O'Neill of Hife, the Robert of Lagos or the Yoruba Prominent Prime Minister should be able to state a statement condemning the threat that was meted out on Ibu during the last Saturday's election, before and after the election. You know what? That is when the healing process can begin. Yeah, I think that's a good place to stop this conversation, Charles, or to time or not allow us to continue. But tomorrow we'll continue with the ballot 2023. And I'm still going to ask this question on social capital because we cannot escape it. If we're going to move forward as a people, every member of this community called Nigeria must have a sense of belonging. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Mark Orgo, president and editor-in-chief of African Watch Network. Arthur, Nigeria in the global perspective. Charles, auto public affairs analyst and Reverend Joseph Hayab, chairman, cardinal chapter. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. I am Maureen Menongwe-Zegui. Have a good day.