 INAG breaks silence on Bahá'í's letter on the Electoral Act as Governor Wike urges the media to pressure the President and we examine the Nigeria-U.S. relations and the recent visit of the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. This is cross-politics, INAG Hanukkah. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INAG, has broken its silence on a letter written to it by President Mohammad Bahá'í over the Contention Selectual Act Amendment Bill. Bahá'í, who received the bill on November 19, has until December 19 to sign or withhold his assent and communicate to the National Assembly his views and comments about it. And if after 30 days he refuses to sign the bill and the National Assembly not in support of the President's amendments or reservations, the Senate and the House of Representatives can recall the bill and pass it into law. Meanwhile, the River State Governor Nyesom Wike has charged the media to exert pressure on President Bahá'í to assent to the Amendment Electoral Act Bill. We're joining us to discuss this is INAG's National Electoral Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye. Thank you very much Mr Okoye for joining us. Thank you so much. Great. I'll just skip right to it. Many people have urged President Bahá'í to sign this bill into law because, I mean, there have been several contentions about this bill. The President has, like I said in the beginning, until December 19 to sign or withhold his assent. Now, for you, who's INAG, why do you think that there's so many concerns about this bill? Because even the River State Governor has interests. Well, you know, this particular bill, we repeat the existing legal framework and bring into being a new electoral legal framework for the conduct of elections. Now, for me, this is really the first time in the history of Amendment to the Electoral Act, where the National Assembly brought together the key stakeholders in the electoral process to deliberate on the issues around the electoral legal framework. From the beginning, in terms of the technical committees and so on, the Independent National Electoral Commission was part of the technical committee. The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation was part of the technical committee. And both houses of the National Assembly, in terms of the Senior Committee on INAG and the House Committee on Electro-Medics, came together and worked on one single bill. So there are very fundamental issues and very fundamental provisions that have direct impact and fundamental impact on the electoral process that are connected in this particular bill. And I think that that is why there are so much concerns relating to the issue of the bill. Now, the President recently sent a letter to INAG, of course, the Chairman, asking that you look at some things. And he also sent certain agencies who had some sudden involvement to look at this bill before he decides to sign. What are the contents of that letter, and what was your response to it? Well, you know, the Independent National Electoral Commission is really the end user of this particular bill, if it's ascended into law. Now, yes, it is true that the Chairman of the Commission received a letter from the President, which was dated the 22nd day of November 2021, and delivered on the 23rd of November 2021, asking the Commission to look at the bill that has been transmitted to the President by the National Assembly, and that we should look at the bill in very clear details and comprehensively, and then indicate whether we should support the President ascending to the bill, or we told him it's ascended. Now, why this is fundamental is because it is the Commission that will be the ones using this particular bill. What are the issues that we are going to be looking at, or the issues we look at in relation to this particular bill? The first is the issue of referencing and cross-referencing, whether those things were done properly, because the issue of cross-referencing is very, very germane to the bill. The moment you do improper cross-referencing, it has very serious implications, especially when we have election petitions. The second issue we are looking at is the issue of topographical errors, whether there are topographical errors that can just be corrected. The third issue is whether any of the provisions of the bill violates the core internment of the Constitution, because as you are aware, the Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. Now, the fourth issue we are looking at is whether there are issues of proper sequencing, especially in relation to the dates, and you know, in relation to the work of the Commission, dates are very, very important. The dates when we need to announce an election, the dates when political parties are supposed to submit the list and personal particulars of their nominated candidates, the dates when people are supposed to withdraw, and so on and so forth. Those ones are very, very fundamental, and we cannot joke with them. Then we are also looking at whether there are also provisions in the bill that are difficult to implement. We need to tell the President if there are provisions that are difficult to implement. Then we have to put the beside by side with the existing legal framework, with the existing electoral act, and see whether there are provisions that have been deleted and needs to be restored, or whether there are provisions that need to be reworked on. So, those are the things that the President asks us to look at, and the Commission has looked at it and will respond to the President within the timeframe the President gives to the Commission to respond. Okay. Quickly, one of the many concerns that people, politicians, normal Nigerians, lawyers have raised is the issue of direct primaries. We've seen back and forth between certain people. Some people are for it. Some people are against it, and of course, the issue of the cost implications. But let me start by asking, if we decide to go the way of direct primaries, will this lay a foundation for a seamless democratic process for us in Nigeria? Is it going to make it better in any way going forward if we do go with it? You see, the Commission really does not want to get involved in the debate on the issue of direct or indirect primaries. The truth of the matter is that within the existing legal framework, the electoral act 2010 as amended that is in existence as of today, the law provides that political parties may adopt direct or indirect primaries or indirect primaries. We have monitored the direct primaries by some political parties. So, the issue of direct primaries is not new to our electoral legal framework. Yes, there is no doubt whatsoever that if all the political parties adopt direct primaries, it will involve costs. And that indirect primaries involves less costs. But that is neither here nor there. What is fundamental is that Section 4 of the Constitution of Nigeria gives the National Assembly the power to make laws for this country. Secondly, if you also look at Section 228 of the Constitution, it also gives the National Assembly the power to make laws relating to the Internet democracy within political parties, including their primaries. So, as far as the Commission is concerned, if in their wisdom the National Assembly makes provision for only indirect primaries and the President assays to it, we will find ways and means of implementing the Internet law because that is what we are obligated to do. Again, I want to go back to the cost implications of this issue of direct primaries. We're looking at a 500 billion Naira cost. And this is away from the normal monies that are set aside for the election in itself. So, if we're adding this to it, how ready is INEC and even the country's pockets to foot this bill come 2023? That is if it's signed into law before 2022 and 2023. I think that looking at the cost implication is really being slightly speculative. If you look at the bill, as are today, before assent, because as far as we are concerned, the bill is still in court or to the President assays to it, it gives the political parties the discretion to design their own direct primary format through their own guidelines. So, there's a possibility that a particular political party may decide to use the pulling units of the Independent National Electoral Commission as a format for organizing their party primaries. Others may use the registration area centers, or worse, for the purposes of organizing their primaries. Others may just use the local government format, and others may even stagger their primaries. So, you cannot put a cost implication to some of these things, or did the political parties have designed their own guidelines on how to proceed? But what we're going to do is add- How does that pay you and the government? Because you cannot do this all of these in isolation. Yes, whether they stagger it or not, there is going to be a costing of sorts. So, if people are given an opportunity to decide what they want to do, is that not going to pose a problem in the long run? I'm just asking. As far as the commission is concerned, the moment we receive the signed bill which is signed into law, we will sit down as a commission and look at it, look at the cost implication. If the cost implication is not within what the commission can accommodate, within its election budget or within its statutory budget, we'll go back to the National Assembly and then put all the costs on the table, and then tell them the cost implications, and we are confident that they will look at it favorably, because our business is to make sure that we give effect to the law. Now, I know that INEC has experienced a loss of internal party problems, especially with the primaries and the parallel congresses that have taken place over the years, especially the one that happened this year for different political parties. I'm sorry, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but again, will this issue of direct primaries help with these internal party democracies and make the job easier for you when conducting or being part of these inter-party congresses? I think what should be done is that the media should pay some attention to the organization and internal democratic processes in some of these political parties, because if a political party is not democratic, if there's no democratic spirit within the political party, whether you do direct or indirect primaries, it will still come down to the same thing. So I think that we need to pay attention to where political parties organize their primaries. What the commission does is that the moment the National Executive Committee of a political party fixes that for its primaries, and it is communicated to the commission within the timeframe given by the law, we go and monitor such party primaries. But the implication is that political parties must, going forward, organize their party primaries especially and produce valid candidates that they might from validly conducted party primaries. If not, there will be consequences in relation to the law and also in relation to our processes. Let me move on to the concerns that you might have. Looking at the act that is now a bill, are there any concerns that INEC does have looking at all of the provisions within that new updated, rather, Electoral Act bill? Do you have any concerns? And then again, there's the issue of e-transmission of results. I'm always very curious about if this is signed quickly, will it be taking effect in the equity and the action elections before the general elections come 2023? Definitely, if the president signs the bill into law, the law comes into effect immediately and the commission is bound to give effect to the provisions of the law. There are concerns that the commission has. The president has asked us to look at the bill as transmitted to him by the National Assembly. And if we have concerns, we are going to send those concerns to the president. But as I pointed out, the commission participated in the technical committees of both houses of the National Assembly. The commission also participated in the public hearings. Our business is to let the National Assembly know the way the commission is thinking. Some of the provisions we believe should come into force. Some of the new issues we believe the law should capture. But we cannot insist that all our views must be taken. They have taken some of our views and captured them in the new Electoral Bill, and some of them they have not taken. As far as we are concerned, these are incremental issues, these are incremental processes. And as we move on, if there are some other issues that are jammed to the Electoral Legal Framework, we will still approach the National Assembly and they get the attention relating to it. Quickly, let's talk about the NLC. The NLC has waded into this matter of, you know, INEC rebuilding confidence in the average Volta and the average Nigerian. They have questioned the uprightness and the trustworthiness of INEC through the years. What difference, what different thing is INEC doing to repose that confidence back in the average Nigerian and for them to actually see that INEC is the very right standing or upstanding umpire? Well, I think that the Nigerian people trust this particular commission and we have demonstrated why the Nigerian people should trust this particular commission. For the first time in 25 years, this commission was able to create additional pulling units after a 25-year period. We have decongested the existing pulling units and taking some of these pulling units closer to the people. This particular commission has also been very, very consistent in making sure that we upload pulling units level resource into a resolving portal for public viewing and for purposes of transparency. So even for the younger elements, we have, we are the first electro-management body in Africa to create an online registration portal where young Nigerians can approach and do their pre-registration. So I think that we have done so much especially using technology to advance the electoral process and I think that Nigerians are on a daily basis rebuilding their confidence in the electro-management body and also commending the commission on what he is doing and I believe that under the leadership of Professor Mahmoud Yacoubou, we are going to give Nigerians a very, very good election in 2023 and beyond. Finally, the number of elections, you know, experienced a loss of hiccups if not many and this one way or the other was picked up by a lot of people who participated in the elections, even the onlookers, even those who were observers. What lessons has INEC learned from this number of elections and the seizing problems that you experienced and how do you intend to make better on it? Well, we improve with every election. We learn lessons from every election. We do evaluation with every election. We experience the slight challenges with the B-VAS in Anambra State and by the time we got to here during the supplementary election, we had rectified the challenges the B-VAS has. We have some by-elections that are going to come up in January or February. We're also going to learn lessons from those by-elections and I can assure you that this commission can continue to be creative. This commission will continue to be very, very innovative and very forward-looking and we are going to make sure that we keep on improving the electoral process in Nigeria so that we can compete separately at the regional and international level and we're not going to look back on that and we'll have the courage to do that. Quickly, before I let you go, I just remembered there have been one or two a handful of people who have been disciplined, maybe were induced or took bribes, who are members or were members of your commission in previous elections. We're hoping and I'm saying we as Nigerians, I'm guessing that Nigerians are hoping that this will continuously be the modus operandi in terms of disciplining people or not even allowing for those things to happen in the first instance. We see that a lot in polling units. I've reported a story like that in a polling unit in Cross River at some point where INEC officials at polling units were induced, including the police officers. What retraining and training processes are being done to totally run this out of the commission? Well, we will continue to train our officers to be very, very professional. We continue to train them to be very, very ethical in their conduct and also in all aspects of the electoral process. Going forward, you may not even know, almost on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, we review our processes, we discipline our staff and some of these things are not in the public domain. This particular commission, we continue to make sure that we give Nigerians a very, very good electoral process and if any of our staff falls short of what the type of commission we want to build, we are going to show the person the way out and we're going to continue to discipline some of our staff. The majority of them have been very, very professional. The majority of them have taken risks on behalf of the commission and on behalf of this country and we are proud of the calibre of persons we have in the commission. All right, Professor Zocoye is of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Thank you very much for speaking with us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break. Now, when we return, we look into the visits of the Secretary of State of the United States, Anthony Blinken and across the US-Majorith relations. Stay with us.