 Alright, we're back. It's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa and time for first major conversation this morning. The returning officer for the Adamawa State Governorship Election, Professor Muhammad Mele. On Tuesday, he declared Governor Ahmadu Finturi, the winner of the State Governorship poll while Finturi secured a second term in office, having scored 430,861 votes to beat the rival of Progressive Congress candidate Aisha Dahiru, popularly known as Binani, who amassed 398,788 votes. Also on Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission and Azure Electrical Empire said it had asked the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustafa, to draw the attention of the appointing authority. To the behaviour of the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hulu Yanusa Ari, Finturi's victory took place 48 hours after Binani was controversially declared the Governor-elect by Yanusa Ari, the Resident Electoral Commissioner. Joining us for continued analysis on this concluded Adamawa Governorship elections, I'm glad to say we have two analysts on video link, Dr. Omoshila Deji, he's a political scientist, he joins us from an undisclosed location in Lagos and Abraham Great is a public affairs analyst, tuning in or joining us rather from Ottawa in Canada. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the time. I'll start with you Abraham in Ottawa. I've been asking people this question I want to ask you guys. Describe the Adamawa election, the Governorship election in one word, what would that be? You know, Abraham Lincoln was saying that, you know, the ballot is not a gun, you know, the voters are for the people, the Nigerian democracy is maturing, but it doesn't appear that the politicians are maturing along with it. What do I mean by that is that every test that we see the democracy go through is something that matures the country or that should mature the country. So when we compare 1993 to 2003 and stuff like that, what we want to see is the fact that our institutions are now maturing. Well, what I found is that the politicians themselves, not a lot of them seems to be maturing, even the ones that are older, because the same mentality that they have of, you know, for example, the two basic things that affect how people behave in Nigeria is traditions and religion. And I think the two things play a great part in the Adamawa election. So give me your one word to describe the election. I describe the election as maybe the best word that I'll just use is immature. I wouldn't use any word that is too harsh because we need to know more of what happened in that election. So I see a lot of people making conclusions, blaming benignly, blaming inegedly. We need to see all the components of exactly what happened. And I'm very sure that tradition and religion also play a role in that election. You tell us more about that as we go on. Let me go over to you, Deji. How will you describe the Adamawa election? And maybe you can give us your one word. Welcome to describe the Adamawa election in one word. I'll use the word disgraceful. Disgraceful in the sense that you find the resident electoral commissioner who is supposed to know the limitations of his duties. Now for him to ask octravias to go ahead and declare the result of an election and the whole world was watching, that is disgraceful. Now disgraceful in the sense that you would also expect Ineq to have learned lessons from the fallouts of the presidential election, the gubernatorial election and of course the the main election itself that so that there would have been some good changes during the supplemental election. But that has not taken effect. So I would rate it disgraceful. Disgraceful again in the sense that the presidency and Ineq itself in terms of appointment. Now don't they do a total background check? How were they able to appoint persons of the such a questionable bias and character to such a sensitive office? What happens to the national assembly in terms of scrutiny? Again, that qualifies it to be disgraceful. Disgraceful again in the sense that when the false declaration was made by the resident electoral commissioner, you find the commissioner of police at the and the head of the DSS giving him protection. The commissioner of police not aware. Is it that he didn't break the electoral act at all? Is it that he didn't take his time to familiarize himself with the functions of the electorate, the electoral commissioner? Is it that he has so much incompetent men and aids that none of them had read that act and would have advised him accordingly seeing somebody that has spent so many years in service and has risen to an everywhere of being a commissioner of police that is disgraceful. The head of the DSS in that state it is disgraceful. Now for the citizens themselves that went all out to rejoice after the false declaration was made shows the low level of education, show the low level of electoral knowledge that again is disgraceful. Now for the APC humanitarian candidate herself, now she has been a senator before that means she should be conversant with the laws of the land, especially the law that guides an election that she is participating in. For her to have gone ahead, to read the acceptance speech as she did just a few minutes or hours after the false declaration was made, and for her to even rush to court to see the ratification of the court for a false process that is disgraceful. For a lawyer who advised her to go to court, whether because of you know country hard and of course they have one or two financial gains and all that that is disgraceful. All right. For the minister of state. All right. You may have succeeded to convince us and not confuse us that the election is disgraceful. I'll give you your one sentence to round it off. Okay. I just want to round up with someone we know that usually kind of like come on air, try to muscle the press, give some, you know, argument back and forth with the person of the minister of state, for labor, I think that's Pestos Guillermo. For him as a senior advocate of Nigeria, someone that you know you always claim good knowledge of the law, for him to have rushed to his tutor and you to congratulate someone that was falsely declared that is also disgraceful. All right. I'm going to go to some headlines and Abraham, I'll come back to you from last year. This one is from August 29, 2022. You know, you know, history is very important. Sometimes we forget easily in this country. 2023, Buhari under fire for appointing APC members as INEC Rex. August 23, same. August 23, how Buhari appointed APC party members as resident electoral commissioners. Another one, Nigerian Senate confirms alleged card carrying member ruling APC members. Now, of course, it's alleged and I was pointed out. I was pointed out. Over 70 CSOs are extended to reject nomination of APC members. Now, I don't have any of that information as to what are the actual card carry members. These are headlines from various papers I'm just quoting. This is September 2022. Sarah urges President Buhari to withdraw nomination of alleged APC members as INEC Rex. Do you think that some of these headlines, in fact, there's another one, withdraw list of nominees and consult council of state, Falana, that's sort of INEC Rex. Do you think that there's a relationship between these headlines and what we saw play out in our state governorship election? Definitely. You know, like I said earlier, Abraham Lincoln said that the bullet, the ballot is stronger than the bullet. We need to get to a point in Nigeria where the ballot is actually very strong. And you know that it cannot be manipulated that the secrecy of the electoral process would determine the integrity of the country and will increase the value of the country. So when people see our head and they are forewarning, you know, circumstances in which people could be compromised, that means the institution, maybe the legislatures need to pay attention to those kind of things. The judiciary also need to pay attention, but we're still at the state. That is why I use my word carefully. I could not be as emphatic as my colleague in the studio because of the fact that I only have a background in view. I was not there. So many day chiefs will be there and see things even more and I'm far away from where I am here. And I can see immature that the Nigerian democracy is maturing, but the people that are in it are immature. So the other thing about, you know, the headlines that you read is that we are also in a situation in Nigeria that people cry fouls almost for so many things that sometimes to actually know what the court, the way the court is going to rule, you don't even know if they have ruled right or not because people sometimes play every role in the book. So we have to also be careful to allow the judiciary to also do their jobs, but I see a gap that has not been properly filled. People have been identified to be in a position to be compromised and they have been let loose to just go like that. The process is immature. All right. Ayanek, as you've seen, has written to, because, you know, the talk has been about the wreck, what will happen to him, will he pay the maximum penalty, which includes an option of fine or imprisonment or both. Will he be sacked and all that? And some analysts have been on record as saying that, you know, the commission doesn't have the power to suck what they did not appoint. And we can go through the electoral act and see what it says about, you know, appointment into the commission and all that. What do you think, Deji? Do you think that we've seen some of these characters get into such positions and do what they do because of the mode of appointment by, of the resident electoral commissioners, for instance? You think that's played a role in, you know, the things that we're hearing they're doing. You know, we can look at what happened in Ocean State before now. The man was transferred to Lagos State. There are still allegations, you know, of complicity and bias by the wreck in Lagos. Allegations, I repeat. We can go to River State. We can go to, of course, the Damawa State. There are other states around the country where wrecks have been accused of bias for, in favor of one party or the other. So what are your thoughts on the way they are pointed and if it plays a role in some of these allegations? Well, with the kind of, we now take it all for the kids that we play and the desperation of politicians to grab power, it is not unexpected that people with political bias, political affiliation, political loyalty would aspire to become officers of INEC, especially for sensitive positions. Now, it now goes on. The person appointing them and the person ratifying the process of the appointment, which is national assembly, the mutual proper scrutinized are done. And even when those are not done, when members of the public begin to scrutinize them and they begin to bring out maybe their images or something that shows their affiliation to any political party, any political party at all, then I think the process should have been stopped. So I'm not surprised that people of political bias will find their way because even if they don't want to, even if they are scared, politicians, and as we have it in this country, we give them the encouragement that it is possible and of course, let's try if you can sell to any such a person, eventually sales through the domination and screening process, the loyalty of such a person lies with whoever facilitated his or her appointment. And that is why we can see the desperation for the Adamaware because it is believed that he would have a kind of like a proud knowledge, a kind of like bad view of the result of the election before it is announced, it's a fact like a bad view. So for him to have gone ahead desperately, definitely he must have been listening to the voice of some of the powers that be that, okay, we can exploit the law. Once Alec has made a declaration, then it is only the court that can upturn it, but Alec in his wisdom has acted brightly by instantly saying, no, we are against this and this cannot stand up. For such action, what I think should be the consequence is being banned from political office itself, being banned from holding any appointed or electoral position in the country. Let me use the university system as an example. If you are caught cheating in the examination, if you are caught with any exhibit, it is at school that all the courses that you've taken earlier, you've been cheating. And the university kind of like presumed that if you are forgiven, you will also cheat your way till you graduate. So the consequence for that is prostitution. I think we should kind of like involve that culture into our political system whereby if you act wrongly politically and especially if you are on duty as a politician for having to break your way, the court should not only upturn that election, there should be consequence for action. And one of those consequences should be like ban from whether elected or appointed position. That means you cannot contest and you cannot be appointed. That renders you politically useless. Now it is important because when corruption was becoming a major issue in China that imposed, if you are found corrupt, you will be executed. Whether we like it or not, political corruption, breaking and associated issues are major issues right now in the country. And we need to take drastic step. Politicians right now finding their way around the technology. But when they know that there are unbearable consequence, a used award, unbearable consequence for their actions, which is imprisonment and a life ban, it should be, I don't know yet option of fine, because if you look at the consequence, if you aid the emergence of a false candidate, it has an impact on governance development. And the way Nigeria is doing governance, you see a lot of our people suffering. You see the politicians, they are so poor that they don't even care about the people. If you can get the recruitment process right, it will have an impact on performance and the overall development of the country as a whole. So it is important that we get that right. And again, I emphasize that the, for example, for the right electoral commissioner, even if the door is going to be made of people that commit such infraction afterwards, it should be their imprisonment and life ban from both elected and appointed positions. Digi is not holding back his punches at all. But I'll come back to Abraham. He's given his thoughts on this point, the issue, and especially when I asked about the mode of appointment and even removal of the resident electoral commissioners. And for the benefit of all of us, let's just go about the relevant portion of the electoral act to enter into a signed by President Mahalo Puhari. Section or clause six says that there is established sub one, says there's established in each state of the Federation, federal capital territory and the local government area, an office of the commission which shall perform such functions as maybe assigned to it by the commission. So the commission assigns the functions to the office in each state. What it goes on to say, the resident electoral subsection two of section six, a person appointed to the office of resident electoral commissioners shall be answerable to the commission and hold office for a term of five years renewable from the date rather of his appointment for another term of five years and no more. That's where Mike Igini had to leave. Now it says the resident electoral commissioner appointed under the constitution may only be removed by the president acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate, praying that the resident electoral commissioner be so removed for inability to perform the functions of the office, whether arising from infamity of mind or body or any other cause or for misconduct. So we have to even go to the Senate to vote two-thirds majority. Subsection four says the appointment of resident electoral commissioner shall be in compliance with section 14 sub three of the constitutional federal program of Nigeria and section four of the federal character commission establishment etc act. So it's quite clear what the constitution says about the appointment. So what do you think about this mode of appointment and removal? You think it plays a role in all of this and do you think we need to change and if we do what or how should it be done or how should it be and what should it be changed to? Well I think this election 2023 gives opportunity for us to know that as much as we've made some amendment over the 2010 electoral act into the 2022 electoral act there are still gaps within the electoral act that can be strengthened. So you look for example from I think it's session 126 or there about that begin to talk about the fines and penalty for people in electoral practices there are not so much consequences for officials of INH who violate or who you solve or who mishandle the process that the process is not strong enough. So the more we strengthen the document the governing documents are the rules the guidance but you still have an aspect which is the implementation of those laws. In Nigeria it's not that we don't have sufficient laws we have them but the consequences are weak like that you were saying in China I mean in China for example you can't even steal a wallet because the consequences for stealing a wallet is so great you know I recall that there's a big corporation in Nigeria that was once duped by a corporation in China and I was there someone that I knew was dealing with the situation you know leasing on behalf of this big corporation in Nigeria and immediately this young man calling Paul I saw that the people were paying millions of dollars back to the telecommunication company that they have duped or they are they are all in and asking why would this be why would it be the consequences in China they can throw you from water they don't even need to go to God in some cases they would just throw you from 82 floor into the water and you are gone so we need to be sure that there are consequences for breaking set the laws in Nigeria and that those laws I mean those consequences are carried out now saying that let me end with this saying that I am not one I'm not a proponent of giving blanket judgment of looking over issues just from reading from what I've seen the news the Adamawa election like I started as an element that must be considered I am not totally now I am I'm not partisan in Nigeria but I choose candidate I support certain candidate and it may be in any party like just like I supported as you want to now the I am not 100% convinced that Benani 100% lost the election she's a woman who is running to be the first lady there will be a governor in Nigeria for her to come that close it says to me that the power that be we may not know the my practices and the anomalies that may have gone behind the scenes that have aroused agitation and that's why I know not agitation a lack of due process like and you know acceptance speech and stuff like that she was he's got a lot of the first mention she is at the point where she was trying to break record but desperately should not be included in it that's why I call it immaturity but she has the right to go to God you and I may not see what she sees so and the the job of the the red their job is to be able to administrate to manage the process to see so we would need to see their entire report we will need to see exactly what goes on not just to because she announced she did this we are all human being if you have been this is a franchise there are ways that you will react I am not especially if a woman like that who is not a christian is voted for unanimously by christians and if she's just about a 10,000 or something vote away from winning the election I do not want to underestimate what the power of the increment would have made the impact of that on the outcome of that election so you know as there may have been some rigging and she may have felt that she actually won the election that's why she did what she did it is not impossible that she won it is also not impossible that the result the result that was actually probably announced it is not impossible see nigeria elections and nigerian processes always have a playbook the the playbook were not privy to it and the entire process we also do not know so she might have lost the election and she might have won the election what i'm saying is that we cannot give a blanket judgment on her but we can give blanket judgment on an inek because clearly inek has violated his own processes okay so what you're saying is that the req may have also done what he did because he noticed that there was some hanky panky going on to deprive bin nanny of her victory probably no matter what the req not to see was right but you're trying to see deeper deeper to be to think critically as to the possible reasons why i did what he did that's why i studied law that's i don't see things i just don't see things for paid body i'm going to be able to look at every every component of the situation so the fact that she won the election and the req noticed or see the figure and notice what is going on that still does not give the right to the req to have announced because it is not in the during uh uh uh uh uh prudent of the of the of the req to announce yeah you said although but now you're saying that there may be some factors behind this that we we we're not seeing obviously i mean for for a woman in that state and let's remember that down from what i remember is there is there is seems to be some balance between christian and muslim that's why i say the role that religion i heard in some quarters also that it is impossible in fact some people came out publicly and said that it is impossible for a woman to be a governor in the northern part of nigeria and that means we have not really advanced if those things are there what role does the source kind of mindset what role does it play on the outcome of the election very important and interesting points you've raised um you pull some punches there even if you try not to um digi what are your thoughts on on this um maybe we are not thinking as deeply as we should to see the possible scenarios beyond the surface and he's raised some very interesting points your thoughts um if i can continue from where i've stopped it is not um it is not impossible that there might have been some on only on only alliance during the election in favor or against a particular candidate but i mean if we look at the nigerian political structure and um the the structure of the security agencies high neck and you know other sister agencies involved in the successful conduct of elections such alliance if any often favors the candidate of the party at the central that's the party of the national government which coincidentally in this case is binari now the the the president is a member of a party who appointed the um high neck um national chairman and the resident electoral commissioners so if there's going to be any alliance they will most likely have alliance with the abc because they would rather appoint a neutral person than to appoint somebody that they know as alliance with the pdp now i'm going to establish that now so if you look at this the way the um the election goes it is most likely that there's no on only alliance against binari and if there is there are forces within the system loyal to the abc that would have stopped such alliance so what i see in this is the ineffectiveness of our institutions when we continue to build the state around meh nigerian um sovereignty and authority today is built around as a person and when the president the let comes in the sovereignty and you know um institution of state is built around him it is what he says if if he says oh one in this place the chief of army staff you will not have the opportunity to confirm barry and say it is against the law because he wants to save his job so when we begin to have strong institutions if what happened in the united states during the election of donald trump happened in nigeria you won't find you know um anoshiba ju going to the national assembly to make sure touch election is ratified but he has no choice because he is bound by the institution of state else at the end of the day in my face imprisonment donald trump is still facing the consequence of the protest that he allegedly incited after the election so what is has taught from us as a country as a people is that we shouldn't build um our institutions around persons but we should have strong institution that will outlive whoever comes the state is higher than the citizen the office of the precedence is bigger than whoever occupies office of the governor um i-nec national commission i-nec national chairman another sensitive offices because why woman being we come and go those offices remains the state remains so long that those studies in this coming nangira will never say i am i have been president or if you like commander in chief or maybe um well go for me if you have a military government but nangira will always have a ceo a number one so if we build um uh the the sovereign institution of state around such a person when we have good people who find their office the state we enjoyed but when we have bad people people that are bound by ethnicity and religion people of questionable past and questionable character the state would suffer for it so we should begin to look at how we evolve as a people and look beyond now because people are watching you know um young kids are watching so how do you convince um um a a child aspiring to be the um head boy or head girl you know um in in this of our school that lose the election to just accept that okay you or she have lost so they are monumental consequences for our actions today as adults you so and we should begin to look at how to change the tune so that we can have a better society in the short and long run all right all right general before we can quickly stress something from what did you say yes hello yeah are you there yes please go on you can go sure i want to quickly just draw something from what did you say i want i want digi to also understand this with me again i i i i i give a balcony view of situation but does it matter in any case that there are negotiations between the two legacy parties in nigeria what do i mean by that do you know that the osho state election and the court case on the issues election as an impact on the outcome and the way that apc behaves on the general election especially uh uh on the election elsewhere so for example if apc realized that this woman probably won and if she has preponderance of evidence to suggest that she won the way they behave affects everything else the atmosphere in the country the other thing is that you know it was a no picking who won't say that these parties is apdcp you know there are negotiations that happens between these parties but i can't just be like to really make a decision just that somebody lost somebody they don't lose or what i've been unless i have all the facts in front of me maybe in the court of law or a proper investigation of what had happened it could have happened that they go to a point and say okay be dining you know well please we will offer you something else we know that you want but people will misread to read us if we want to fight this by all means this is going to be interpreted as this and that i am saying it again i'm going to reiterate if a woman come close to having a runoff in a northern country in nigeria if she has a runoff and also came close to a point of where some quarters are believing that she won i'm saying that that woman probably won the election you cannot have a woman come that close in an election in a country like ours and not give us some booze that woman should not be slack i call the process of announcing as immature but i think something a conspiracy of some sort may have gone on and some negotiation may have happened behind the back and this is not just me just fighting for binari this is me working at the maturing jobs in nigeria did you want to say something to that okay well um i'm thinking of uh i'm a part of um departure but i also have some some form of agreement with my brother you know you know tell well what i think for um binari i would have blocked the situation whereby when the results were polluted by ineg she eventually won that election you know but what we are that is clear right now except the court says otherwise and do not forget it is assumed that when ineg legitimately makes a declaration it is assumed that what ineg has done is right until the court says otherwise so right now based on the conduct of the election and the result polluted the candidate of the other party won so if binari at one or you know it is not it is not it is not good enough to say oh if somebody concludes in an election that as she's a woman a society evolved things will always change they will always be kind of like innovation in the mindset of people um maybe in 50 years 50 years ago nobody would have taught somebody on kenyan origin would have been the president of the united states in president in person of barak obama about 50 years ago nobody would have thought that someone of indian origin would be the prime minister you know um in a first country like the united kingdom so society evolves maybe nigella has evolved to that extent whereby you know when women are beginning to have their right to place in politics but almost is the dangerous word i almost passed doesn't mean you passed all right you feel all right almost is the consulatory word so if binari had almost won the election i would have thought this situation whereby at the end of the final position it is declared that she legitimately won and if she was truly winning then why do you rush thank you very much very important questions i think we have to have both of you back again to talk about this sometimes in this program but doctor emotional digi political scientists in legos abraham great um public affairs analysts in otawa canada um thank you so much for your time gentlemen i thoroughly enjoyed listening to both of you thank you for having me thank you digi thank you so much digi thank you brah yeah my pleasure all right up next we have sports stay with us