 Political stakeholders urge National Assembly members to review contentious sections of the recently signed Electoral Law. And we assess the issue of voter apathy in Nigeria as we gear up for the 2023 polls. Well this is plus politics. I am very anarcho. Members of the National Assembly have urged, have been urged by stakeholders in river state to review the controversial sections of the Electoral Amendment bill recently signed by President Muhammad Abu Hari. A politician in the state Tonya Prince will observe that the signing of the act implies that electoral dates will need to be shifted to meet the 360 day timeline to the Independent National Electoral Commission to announce the date of elections to the office of President. Also an election monitor in the state Omenazu Jackson observed that the clause on the electronic transmission would throw up challenges as there is a lack of electricity in many parts of the country. Prince will also found an issue with the public office holders having to resign before contesting a primary saying it contravins the constitution. For joining us to discuss this and more are Chris Itamonola and Tamino Williams, both legal practitioners. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us on the show. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you Mr. Williams. I'm going to start with you Mr. Itamonola. Let's see. What are your, what are the loopholes that you might also have seen in this new bill that has been signed by Mr. President? I mean, we've seen the back and forth, the delay was, those who preempted it Mr. President would be able to sign it or not. But hey, now it seems that Mr. President is in the good books of even the opposition as he has finally signed this act into law. Join the public to comment. The president of the federal public of Nigeria, the president who I refer, appeared a signature to this electoral act that has now become a change from bill to act. And now the important thing is there is no doubt that there are challenges, various challenges, such as the session is important that the president himself pointed out, which I trust that the National Assembly will also do something about because the electoral act cannot be in conflict with the constitution of the federal public of Nigeria, particularly section 40 and 42, which definitely will have been inhibited, infringed on the rights of those to be elected for and to also elect and so on. So, but then right at the beginning of the journey, a thousand miles journey had commenced. Toya and his colleague had made some statements, issue about areas of Nigeria that is going to be very difficult to transmit, but at least I make itself a stated categorical leaders, attracting to be able to forward to transfer results in the least, at least 176,000 units of works and so on. So the important thing is, it's a progressive journey. To me, it's a progressive journey, at least the good things that now we now know that the aspect of transmission of results which was not in the previous in 2019 election has now come in. So let's not focus too much, the gray areas will always be there and gradually we will get there. And then the next aspect that concerns me is the electoral act to be all coupled with these challenges. You can be rest assured now, what the political parties are now thinking about to circumvent, how to circumvent, whether to commit fraud, if it's not going to work, how is it going to work in the other way and so on. Because of my colleague here, Tamla Williams, I say good evening to you. So let me be quiet. Tamla, Tamla, Tamla. Okay. Let me handle what you're doing. Mr. Williams, interesting because I think that Mr. Tamla was going very fast. But let's come back to INEC having to, because it looks like INEC will be forced to reorder the polls for next year, being that there will be an adjustment with the dates. Let's start with that before we go to the fact that to the point where there are some contraventions as it has to do with the Constitution as amended. But let's start with that. It may be forced because of the time frame in which this bill was signed into law. And of course INEC had preempted that this would happen and said they were not going to postpone the elections, but they might have to readjust the calendar. I think basically INEC has already done the adjustment for the elections. There are basically two elections. The elections of the presidency, National Assembly, and then the other for the gubernatorial and the House of Assembly. I don't have the dates of and, but the dates have been adjusted. Mark Q, the time for conduct of elections is the function of provisions of the electoral act. We say that elections must hold within a certain time frame. So to speak, INEC has done the necessary adjustment. But I think that is not the lion in the house. The fundamental issues to my mind are yet to be addressed. Which are? You must go back to the, pardon? The issues that you say must be addressed are what? The fundamental issues are not addressed because election from the point of political engineering can be said to have, say, three cardinal faces. The first face of every election is the electoral commission itself, its composition, its character and independence. That is the call. Now after the electoral commission, its composition, character and function, you now move on to the issue of the hard rock personnel. How are they recruited? How are they trained? And to what extent can the electoral commission, the political parties and civil societies put in buffer zones that will bring about credibility of personnel? Then the third aspect is the mobilization and the conduct of the election. How do you move materials? How do you bring electoral materials to the polling units in time and then ensure that your systems are working and then how will the voting take place? What they've addressed now is the peripheral issue, the endpoint, transmission of results. The question is, if phase one, phase two and phase three is wrong, what will be transmitting? Will be transmitting junk? Will be transmitting falsehood? I will just bring an analogy. What is happening contemporaneously in Ukraine and Russia? Russia is saying that Ukraine is not a democratic government. You can imagine that kind of rhetoric. Russia is saying that Ukraine, the government is not a democratic electorate. But you and I know that that is falsehood. So the point I'm making is that the Electoral Act is not yet a silver bullet. It is riddled with a lot of old issues which has not been put in a new wine skin. And it may not deliver on the promises. So you're saying that our major problem is not necessarily that piece of paper or that booklet that has been signed into law. No. That our issue is the body in itself. And you spoke about the independence of INEK. I don't know if we can still have that conversation now. If it would make any sense for us to talk about the independence of INEK in 2022. Should we be going in that direction? In any way saying that it's not important. But I'm saying isn't the answer very obvious? It's obvious. If you are be digging your Electoral Act. Okay. You can bring in some measures either statutory or policy wise that can enhance the independence of the Electoral body. For example, people have been that whatever has been collated must be announced by the return officer. But the current act is saying that certain factors can prevent the announcement of the result. So it moves one step further to at least give the Electoral body some legal room to take instant decision. Before now, announce what has been collated. Let the parties go to court. That's an aspect. Now funding is supposed to be part of the Electoral Act in my view. The constitution is the ground norm. Alina will agree. Which actually establish INEK. But how funding is to be made? What time the funding is to come? In terms of releases from the federal government. In terms of accountability by the Electoral body itself. It's a two way thing. We are going to release it and then the money being properly accounted for. And then the issue of electoral offences. Those who commit offences. Electoral offences. How? Because if there is a mechanism that is near foolproof. That electoral offenders are punished. You see that the propensity for political parties like my little brother has said. That parties will not be looking at how best they can circumvent these new provisions. But isn't this what this new law or this amended law was supposed to address? Issues of financing, timing, turnover time. Especially as to when these results are to be announced. The readjustments of the electoral calendars. We know many states like Anambara state have the election, Governorship elections. They had it earlier this year, I beg your pardon. And stuff like that. So how do we even begin to readdress all of that? If this piece of paper has been signed into law and the nitty-gritty has not necessarily been addressed. Because I mean, again some people say well we can't address everything at once. But how do we expect the next election to be better? If the same issues are going to be raising its ugly head? Well if you allow me to take this. Let me point out the key issues that should be in the electoral commission. One is what is to be done on the field. Clearly spelled out. Although it can be incorporated into the rules. Because every election that is election guideline. The guideline may go into details. I agree that it can go into details. But oftentimes we have been in the field for a long time. You find that the electoral materials may not arrive on time. Deliberately, okay? So that where a particular party is strong. They may arrive mobilized late to ensure that people don't vote. The question is when that happens. The current law has said that if that happens, the election can be postponed and held in a subsequent day and time. Now another issue which I want to raise that before now, even in the old law, INEC will publicize the qualifications of all aspirants. But the new law is saying now that after the publication of the qualification of aspirants, we the public cannot go to court to challenge, to contest that a particular aspirant do not meet the requirements. That is only the contestants. The contestants that are now clotted with power and authority to contest that an aspirant has brought in suspicious, false or untrue, either date of birth or educational qualifications. That is a major setback in the current law. I want to throw this to Baista Tamanola. A very interesting point that you've made, Baista Williams, the fact that the public is unable to, maybe we are allowed to petition, but contesting election results, or rather, you know, certificates and maybe, you know, whatever, whether it's birth certificate or universal certificate, we've seen issues of NYSC, SSCEs, we've seen people go to court and drag cases. Qualification. So, falsification of some of these documents, some people say they went to universities and those universities have no records of them. Does this not seem like the hands of the people are being tied, especially people who this person may want to represent, especially if it was to be a constituency or a senatorial district? Well, I see the point where my brother is making, but I also don't see it as too fundamental. I actually look at it like a courtroom drama where you have the plaintiff and the defendant. A number of times, the documents are expected to be front loaded and the public can definitely be an appendage of either the plaintiff or the defendant, at least by catching their evidences, you know, as further witnesses, you know, because, like I keep on saying, for every law, definitely there is a loophole. And even the law now says that, as a public, you cannot do it because as much as possible, I think the public of the law of this amendment is to limit to the best of his ability, distractions and of accepting, leaving out only the fundamentals. And if for whatever reason there is a challengeable evidence to be adduced. And at the end of the day, except the other candidates or the other participants in the election decide not to go to court. But if they decide to go to court, I can bring Tommy and Polo community to be part of the witnesses that are likely going to be. But much with standing, like I have said, I'm taking time to listen to my brother. I have no problem regarding his submission. The only thing I'm happy about is that a journey has begun. A journey of this nature will definitely not be without its own challenges. Because before now, look at the Kamo, President Buari, you must sign this electoral act. You must sign it to the extent that people went on the street and so on. So if you have done so, INEC is expected that before now must anticipate that a day like this will come. And then put it all together. I must give them a commendation in that 24 hours after the signing of the electoral act into law, they have done the more that they have. They've come up to say that the National Assembly and the presidential election should have taken place on the 18th of February. It will now take place on the 25th of February 23. Yes, March 23. And then the National Assembly, the State Government and the State House of Assembly election comes up on March 11. Those are proactive steps just to be able to keep in line with the 360 days timeline. So I think we should look at the positives and at the same time, for example, are you going to be able to transmit election results in some parts of our new cities? These are some of the things that should stop us. Are you going to be able to transmit election results in some parts of our new cities? But INEC had made a case in that regard earlier on when this debate was still holding on the floor of the National Assembly, they had come out to say they have had these elections even in the most remote places and they were able to transmit those results. And just like Bistra Williams said, we saw this happening in Anamba in, that was last year, we saw it in different places and these results were transmitted. I'm guessing that INEC would not just be calling the bluff of the National Assembly saying that it can do something that it's unable to do. So I'm guessing that INEC is putting all of these things into concentration and planning towards it. If they say they can, why not give them a chance to do so? I quite agree with you. We should give them that opportunity but definitely my greater worry it goes beyond the electoral act, it goes to the extent to the point of implementation. And just like I've stated, I mean, I quite agree with my colleagues. Now on the details now, INEC has a responsibility in terms of the composition. The people that, of course, usually they depend on the youth compass and the rest of that and so forth. You took that right out of my mouth. I was going to ask that question. For core members, we saw what happened to INEC in Anamba, especially for areas that have crisis or conflicts. It's a bit dicey. We saw how parents of these youth core members refused to sign a waiver form for these core members to be mobilized into these areas. And they were trained. INEC had to do an overnight retraining of fresh core members within that state to be able to work for the governorship election. So how does INEC deal with that issue? Must we use core members, particularly in areas that are conflict-prone? Well, to the best of the first and foremost, you know, you must build your assignment on integrity. You must build your assignment on trust. And when you talk about trust, you are dealing with the public. And the public, in the public domain, it is believed that the corpus are the most, at least to the best, as much as the most neutral, neutral set of people you could be able to find. But the experience I've also shown that some of these corpus are also category members of one party, political party, or the other. And what INEC needs to do is to be sincere and go deep, go deep, deep, deep, at least ascertaining what it's expected to do to make sure that it carries along all the political parties as far as these salient points in terms of training is concerned. There is definitely no time on the part of INEC when it comes to the ad hoc staff and so on. There is so much to be done within 360 days that we are talking about. Thank you. Let me come back to you, Mr. Williams. Let's talk about the character of... You know, you talked about the composition and the character of INEC officials. Now, we've seen over the years a few, a handful of some corrupt INEC officials made to face the music. But then we also saw the drama that happened when Mr. President tried to get one of his aides to be an INEC commissioner but for the hue and cry of the people in the country that were stepped down on. How can we tell that, you know, or how can we trust the composition because I liked when you raised it and the character of the people that make up that commission? Now, why there are... There are two reasons why the character and composition is critical. The first is that the whole law, the whole guidelines is to be driven by the personnel from the INEC chairman down to the INEC commissioners. Right. Now, the moment an INEC chairman or a state commissioner or national commissioner is compromised, the whole law has collapsed. So, screening and recruiting electoral commissioners shouldn't have been not just a matter for the executive. Just the way the commission is recommended. It should be something that their particulars, their antecedents would be in the public domain just like those who are contesting elections. So people can write in, who can petition, who can even go to court. You saw that, is it a not chair also, who was an aide to the president was nominated. From the day I saw a nomination, I prayed to God that she would never be appointed because if she was appointed, no matter how much she may have tried to be apolitical, it wouldn't have been believable because the critical factor of her being a member of a political party should bias the minds of people. Now, going forward, the current INEC chairman, this be second tenure, the INEC commissioners that have been recruited. As we speak, none of us can say we know their background. And our security agencies, our vetting processes from what I know is unable to predict. For example, today I'm a legal practitioner, I'm an investor administrator. I'm appointed INEC commissioner, the next six months, I have 800 million in my account. It's signal that I'm already getting compromised. So it is critical, it's like a football match. Why do they bring Ronaldo and Messi to join the team? Because they know their character, they can deliver. So I'm submitting that no matter what law, no matter what processes will be in the electoral commission, the efficacy and success will depend on the character of those recruited. And that matter is already done. There's nothing we can do. So what you should be doing now is the social society, civil society, the media professionals will begin to highlight, to begin to bring them to the front burner, agitating that these persons must be transparent from the beginning to the end of the election. So that is my take on that. The law can't cure it now, they're already in place, but we can begin to do public engagement, enlightenment and see that we will put them in the right frame of mind and be ready to contest any false move. I take back the issue of reverse in 2019. You remember what a drama that happened? Results were canceled and all that goes to show the level of influence, interference and capacity of the commissioners at that time in reverse. And I can tell you the outcome, 80% is attributable to the officials of INE. Okay. Let me come back to you. Let's talk about political parties now, the politics of it all. Now that this law has been passed, we see before now, parties were still dilly-dallying around the convention dates and the primaries, whether it be Zonal or the National Convention, we've seen the APC move its dates, you know. And then other parties are yet to really have their own conventions. Do we see parties really having to speed things up now? Internal democracy is trying to be fixed. We've even seen some people go on reconciliatory moves, but how much time do parties have to get their acts right? Because, I mean, the time is very close. Well, the common idea that he who plans, he who fails to plan, also has, also plan to fail is definitely very apt in this particular situation. I'm going to talk to you about that statement of the ruling party at the moment. What do you mean? That could prevent them from holding their convention as and when do you? On the other hand, yesterday, Otto had come on that. That didn't happen. Mr. Terminal, having connection issues with you, so I'm going to try again. Let me toss back to Mr. Williams and see, hopefully, your connection can get right. Mr. Williams, would you like to just help us answer that question while we tweak Mr. Terminal? Yeah, yeah. First of all, my take is that we do not really have in Nigeria political parties who are deceiving ourselves. The political parties... The people who make excuses for how nascent our democracy is, how young we are in terms of politicking, and that we haven't necessarily reached the point where we can say that we want to start choosing ideologies, being that this bondage would say that we're still learning the game of politics. So when you say that we should stop deceiving ourselves, it somewhat roberches the whole idea of what we're calling political parties right now. Hello? Mr. Terminal, I think you're back and we have lost Mr. Williams. But go ahead. Well, the most important thing is... The basic challenge is coming from internal administration. And most of the political parties are just not ready for independence. This idea of imposing candidates and so on. Ordinarily, allow the will of the people, even within that's why you are having the President talking about the direct and indirect primaries. But isn't that detail for all the political parties in Nigeria? There's always the hand of ESO, coming to play at all times. Yes. Yes, that's what I cannot consider. In direct, we are simply said that we are not just ready. And that is the truth of the matter because in terms of the contextual, all the political parties are the same. You have the people moving from PTP to APC, APC to PTP. The rest assured, if not because of the shortage of time now, two other political parties are going to still reform. Even within the frame of time. So it's a problem. And the root of the problem in the Nigerian politics has to do with the internal politics. You know, in terms of wanting to wield authority. You are a governor. You want to do this. You are a president. You want to appoint a particular person and whatsoever, rather than the will of the people being done. Let's see quickly if we have Mr. Williams back to wrap things up. Okay, I think we lost Mr. Williams. Well, I want to say thank you, Chris Itamanola, and of course, Tamino Williams, a both legal practitioner. Thank you so much for speaking with us, gentlemen. Thank you very much. We'll always be there as usual. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break now at Still Plus Politics. When we come back, we'll discuss the effect of voter apathy on the electoral process and the overall governance in the country. Stay with us.