 I wonder if I can invite everybody to return to the table, to the Consensus Room. David has the enviable role of getting the benefit of releasing you. And I get to receive all your ire for calling you back. But I know that a lot of what's been going on is a lot of interesting conversations about the topic as well, which is also useful. Folks, don't make George feel bad. Please resume your seats. We're the only ones who obey and actually come and... All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's get rolling here. Well, we're rocking and rolling. So that we can begin. So what we're going to do is we're going to begin with five quick polling questions. These last five polling questions of the day, they all pertain to the issue of politics. What is the biggest concern going into the 2015 election in Nigeria? One, increasing violence in northern Nigeria. Two, attacks by Boko Haram. Three, tensions between the north and the south. Four, lack of confidence in the legitimacy of the electoral process. Or five, other. Despite the absence of the people who are out there still chatting, we're voting. 74% of you say lack of confidence in the legitimacy of the electoral process. All right, next. Agree or disagree, underlying political tensions will yield popular discontent regardless of the outcome of elections. This is a range question between strongly disagree and strongly agree. Not, that's not it. That's the next question. Oh, there you go. Wow, 84% of you agree or strongly agree that the election will still yield political tensions regardless of what the outcome is. Not terribly optimistic, but telling. Next. Is a political solution contingent on structural reform of the Nigerian military? Well, that hasn't come up, but take a shot at it. Yes, no, or unsure? You always vote unsure? So did you just say? Wow. There, that's a beautiful answer. We learned absolutely nothing from that question. All right, let's take one more. What is the single most important challenge facing Nigeria's political system? Is it tension between the North and South, widespread corruption, lack of faith in public leaders to act in the interests of Nigeria as a whole, an entrenched political elite, or, which could be, those are similar, or other. 58% of you say lack of faith in public leaders to act in the interests of Nigeria as a whole. 19% say an entrenched political elite, which is a cousin of that. Right, so that's 77% of you sort of in the same neighborhood. Is that the last question? One more question. And the last question is what is the most effective tool the international community has to push for political reform in Nigeria? Direct pressure on the Nigerian government, support for opposition political party development, policy-based loans from the international financial institutions, pressure from international business interests in southern Nigeria or other. What is the most effective tool? We get a big enough number on this, we can go home right now. Okay, 43% of you say direct pressure on the Nigerian government. Of course, we have to figure out who's going to place that pressure on the Nigerian government. 17% say other. Who said, yeah, who said other? You said other? Okay. Well, it is the U.S. Institute of Peace after all. We have a different perspective on things. And the other really is trying to find more effective ways to play and work with other elements who occupy this space. Because all of these others are contentioned upon somehow getting the Nigerian government to do something. So you're saying local governments, local NGOs, civil society organizations, churches, religious groups, you name it. Okay, who else said other up here, among you insurgents? Yes, Jim. And I'm stealing some of my thunder from later, but personal relationships at the leadership level can do a lot in this world, particularly if you faced with, and that was my other answer to an earlier question, what's the biggest problem facing Nigeria? I picked other because you didn't have Boko Haram because I thought every country in Africa has the other five, or rather the four, whereas Boko Haram is a special one. If that really is a real problem and it seems to be in that country, then if we can help the leader of that country succeed, we being the United States are the international community. Pressure and a leverage point on them that otherwise you don't have. Excellent. Okay, Johnny. Support for a vast array of non-governmental organizations that can, in fact, impact their government more directly and with less harm than ourselves. George is saying that's what I said. Yeah, well, you know, okay. So that's what he said. Okay, was there anybody else? Okay, you can tell, what a zany crowd we have here. By the way, I do want you to know that you're all trending on Twitter in Washington, D.C. We're the third of the items on Twitter at the moment behind those noting on Twitter the one-year anniversary of the death of Nelson Mandela and a series of tweets having to do with the death of the New Republic. We're right behind the death of the New Republic, which I mean, why that is trending on Twitter. I think it says more about the nature of Twitter, frankly, than it does about the broad interests of people. In any event, I just want you to know, there you are right in the center of the consciousness of Washington, D.C. Twitterati. Okay, so let us turn to the first, or the scene-setting slides for the scenario, exploring the political drivers of radicalization and extremism. And let's take a look at the first of these slides just to set the stage. So Boko Haram's roots lie in political corruption and dysfunction, as we have discussed. The extremist group wrote out as of dissatisfaction with Nigeria's corrupt political system, offering Sharia law as an alternative. We've heard some other interpretations of that. The focus on the forbidding of Western education was rooted not only the interpretation of Islam, but also the view that Nigeria's colonialist-based education system perpetuated a corrupt political system. We've talked about how it moved from the apparent focus on Sharia into a violent group, although we've also talked about how elements of it have differing agendas, some criminal, some political, some perhaps ideological. Next, Boko Haram is central to the political debate in Nigeria. Since the contentious presidential election in 2011, the North and South have traded accusations over which side has been directly and indirectly aiding the extremist group. Following the election, the Northern politicians have accused the Southern politicians of aiding and supporting Boko Haram as a means of destabilizing the North and maintaining the grip. Southern groups have accused Northern politicians of actively supporting the group as a means of undermining the national government's attempts to control the outbreak of violence. Some Boko Haram violence has deepened the animosity and divide within the country. As I was reading and I was sort of thinking, this also sounds a little bit like when we talk about Syria, how different groups, different extremist groups are embraced by both sides to advance their causes because they enable them to make their case somewhat better. Boko Haram activities complicate the February 2015 elections. Nigeria is going forward with elections in three months that are likely to exacerbate many of the country's underlying tensions. President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from the Southern Niger Delta region, is running for re-election. A number of critical tensions will be brought to bear, including ethnic and religious tensions. North-South tensions, the security situation is clearly uneasy. There is potential for violence. The election is top-to-bottom. It is a big deal as we have talked about in the course of this discussion. So, if we go on to the next slide and beyond that to the move itself, where do we start? We know the moves are fictional. We'll keep going from there. As violence grows in the North, the government calls on the international community to support peaceful elections. That sounds consistent with our friends in the Nigerian government over here in this corner, at any rate. Here we have Kim, the BBC News North Africa. Africa feeds saying in response to Boko Haram's increasing presence in northern Nigeria and growing violence ahead of the 2015 elections, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has called on international actors to help develop and support strategies for fostering peaceful elections. The president has extended an invitation to members of an international community to participate in developing ideas. He's not actually done that. That's our scenario. I just want you to be clear about that. And if you think that scenario sort of reflects this group around the table, that's right. The idea here is that we are going to have a little bit of a discussion about what the various players around the table can actually do before the election to help ensure the best possible outcome in the election. And again, it's what you think is possible, but also let's be a little creative about what might be constructive. And think about developing strategies for ensuring an inclusive, peaceful, February 2015 election. Talk among yourselves for five minutes and then we will begin our conversation. What about intimidation? Is there a sense in which Boko Haram will tell you that he shouldn't vote because he's going to get him out of here? What about the sort of distance to polling places that also have an issue here? Travel. How would you travel to a polling place? The head of INAC has called for an increase from 120 points of polling places to 150. That's been now pulled back of that extra 30,000 was to account for the vast area of this. And why was it pulled back? Have you seen his favorite art? He's seen his favorite art, but it really meant that the Northerners couldn't get to the polls. We could call for that. We could call for an increase. We could call for more polling. Sometimes it is new to reiterate, it's a great number of polling places. I don't think they will. I don't think this is a lot of people will see what they're doing. Well, certainly people won't go. There you go, exactly. You go for a couple of people in more key areas. And maybe they'll do it in areas where you expect a budget. It's easy to get a score. But you are providing that with the financial authority try. So you need better protection for it. Yeah, there will be. What is both of them? Well, yeah. I don't want to get into conspiracy. So you just need better protection for candidates across the board. Security, security. Are there windway calls by local leader? We might have to use some of these rules for people to vote. What do you think? Well, if local religious and other leaders call for people to vote, would they listen? It wouldn't perch. We may or may not. As you said, the public is just kind of a very fragile people. Very fragile. Well, and if they do call for people to vote, they'll be at risk from their elements to follow around. Security. Well, the more obvious thing is that certain political figures are whoever. Just the voting in the school, the school you're in. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. What about providing, is it feasible to provide transportation to the polling places? If they secure the buses that are escorted with arms? I don't think so. I think the more important thing is the great fear, certainly in the North, is the military nation is not an election. When you get these mobile police who surround the election, they're going to protect you. That also scares people from the public. I think the question of whether you can have elections in certain areas, and the legal issues that we talked about, to put it off. We're going to start in two minutes. Okay. Let us dive in here. Okay. So violence is growing in the North, and we are pulling together a group of people to talk about what can be done to produce peaceful, ideally, successful elections. I think what I'd like to do is I'd like to begin with some examples from the playbook of the U.S. Institute of Peace. You have some recent experience in this regard. Thanks, David. We do indeed. I mean, as most of you know around the table, this is not an unrealistic proposition to devise strategies for reducing the tensions and the potential for violence around elections. I'm sitting here looking at John Teman, who was successful not so much in the election context, but in the referendum context in Sudan, where there was enormous potential for violence, but where we were able to devise with a lot of others' help. Strategies that reduced that. We have the example, well, I'm looking at Princeton Alignment in terms of what happened in South Africa, because there are two enormous concerns about the potential for violence in those elections, and an enormous amount of effort that went into addressing the likely triggers of violence during the election campaign, and most recently, Afghanistan, where USIP was called upon to try to ensure a peaceful election. This doesn't speak to the outcome of the election, but at least to the extent that having a peaceful election removes some of the sources of tension and grievance that can contribute there to post-electoral violence, it was a success. So Nigerian NGOs, you're there, you're on the ground. The government has called for this. They have their own interest in it, so I'm not going to turn to them first. What I'd like to do is I would like to know, what do you think are one, two, or three important metrics for, you know, or goals with regard to the election that, you know, need to be addressed? We have two suggestions. Lean forward to the microphone. I'm sorry. We have two suggestions. One is addressing the question of transparency and release of the voter outcomes. The INEC only releases the results of the polls down to the local government level, but not down to the precinct level. So when international observers go, and I've been to the last four elections, you have your data as what you saw with your two eyes. But when the voting results come, you have no way of knowing whether those results were in fact counted in that way. INEC refuses to release those numbers, and it creates all kinds of grounds for controversy, and it would be a very simple thing to do. Release all the numbers of the votes down to the voting booth level. That's number one. How do you think is the lever by which that can be achieved? I think the United States government could tell them that they would reduce violence and increase the credibility of the results, and it would be so easy to do, and it would decrease the opportunity for manipulation, which occurs after the votes in the enumeration process. They don't stuff ballot boxes as much anymore. They do it behind the scenes, and it goes through the counting, it goes through three or four layers, and at each layer, they can manipulate those votes. So we need more transparency. It's a technical solution that can add a lot to reducing violence and increasing the credibility of the election. I'm going to come back to you in a second, but you talk about reaching out to the United States government to do that. It strikes me that one of the interesting things about that, it seems practical, it seems like a creative way to address this, one of the interesting things about it is one presumably could approach the Nigerians privately about it, but you always have the ability to play the card that you will say that you, publicly, that you're suggesting this, and then if they resist it, then it puts pressure on them. Is it something you think you as the U.S. government would do in this circumstance? I would defer to some ambassadors in the room who may have seen this play out in real terms, but the other opportunity is for a high level delegation to be appointed that would go and observe these elections. My former boss, Michael Phelan, and my former boss, Austin Luger did this a couple of times in a couple of elections around the world, and so I'm sure Mr. Shades did as well. That's a different issue. I want to specifically put the build on that. Specifically on this issue. Any of the ambassadors he was referring to want to comment on whether you think the United States would, could push that issue. I'm looking at you, but you know. You're looking at me. There are current representatives of the executive branch here, so I don't want to speak for them. But all of those who are familiar with the 2011 elections know that we pushed enormously hard for the former election commissioner, Maurice Iwu, who had been known for carrying out some of the worst elections in Africa from being renewed as election commissioner. And we pushed very, very hard for a new election commissioner. One was appointed, and that was Professor Jacob. We also pushed for other kinds of electoral reforms with the government, some of which were implemented and some of which weren't. So there is the possibility of being able to do things. We, again in 2011, provided through USAID and its partners a great deal of support to the election commission. And some of that support might have been withdrawn if there had not been substantial changes and improvements made from what had been a series of very, and I think people like Chris Vermonio and Pauline Baker know this, a series of very terrible elections before 2011. But our presence is important. I was at the elections myself several times. So I think you probably do go private and give them the chance, give good luck, Johnny, down there, the chance to make it his idea and say that it's going to improve the credibility of your reelection. Okay, well, and I think what I take away from that is it's an interesting idea, it might have an effect. It's something that we might put on a list of ideas that could come out of this and that the United States has in the past exerted some pressure and had some positive results so it's not something that's out of the question. Your next thing was? The next thing was the creation. This actually borrows from things that have been done in South Africa and Kenya is to create a team, and in the Nigerian case this would be a mixed team that would comprise representatives of civil society, the security services, INEC, to be kind of intervention teams when there were plenty of groups now doing early warning, tracking violence, etc. But when you see that there's a hotspot and there's a capacity for violence to send in these teams to mediate and respond right away. It seems to me that this was done in Kenya after the violence in the election and in South Africa it had when the turmoil in the townships were going on civil society organized such intervention teams. So there's a lot of mapping going on of violence trends. Civil society groups are now thinking of, okay, what do we do in terms of intervention? And I think the United States could help finance that. Some corporations could help finance that. And in theory the international community of the United Nations might be supportive of that. Would you? Yes, yeah, the United Nations would. Right, so that's a positive thing. Yeah. Yes. Another thing civil society could do would be to generate public discussion about the situation in the three northeastern states. Can elections be held there? Under what circumstances? What to do with IDPs? What happens if they're not held there? And the 25% requirement in three quarters of the states is not met. Does that mean three quarters of the states where elections were held or three quarters of the states overall? There are a lot of issues around that. When you say public discussion though, what do you mean? Town hall meetings? Television shows? And promote discussion in the press. Just raised awareness of the issue, Sarah. So coming from the perspective of a large telecom corporation. Is that what you've become here? We have become. Yeah. Large telecom. We were trying to think creatively. Lean into the mic. Trying to think creatively of how we might be able to positively influence this process. And we were surprised that we weren't approached by any NGOs as potential partners. But we would be more than willing. NGOs, they talk a good game. But they're allergic to companies. We would be more than willing to work on peace messages that could go out to all of our cell phone customers. Gratis. We would also be willing to try to help disseminate polling information. So, for instance, text vote to a number and then you get information about where you are meant to go vote. And also to work with the already existing work on violence prevention and fraud reporting, the crowdsourcing platforms to use free SMS messages to send that information into some type of central portal. And also, because rumor can be dangerous, if it's not possible to have INEC involved in this and releasing official numbers, so we not work with international NGOs and local NGOs that are doing parallel vote tabulation, get those numbers out to people so that, you know, we can help tamp down some of those rumors where people are wondering what the election results are. Wait, these are all very good suggestions. It's a lot easier on the political side than the economic side, apparently. You've had already two suggestions. Okay, go on. There's a lot of displaced persons in the three affected northeastern states that are not going to be in their towns to vote and also raise the credibility of those elections. There ought to be some thought given to how to register and allow these groups to vote in their displaced populations so they're not disenfranchised. Okay, good. Kim. Picking up on what the NGOs were saying as well and some of what you were saying. We are inviting the two main candidates, if there are going to be two at the moment, it does appear. So we're inviting the two main candidates to participate in a live televised debate organized by the BBC and with local partners to discuss and debate the issues, how voters feel more connected and involved and also help bridge the disconnect that people in countries like Nigeria feel with their leaders. How many people listen to your Hausa service? I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but it's a very popular service. So between BBC Hausa, between VOA, local media and BBC World Television, we have a very big reach. But I should say that before I managed to organize this debate, I would probably get fired for writing this copy because it reads too much like a think tank report and not enough like a news report. You can't do worse than that, Deirdre. Local Nigeria business interests have many of the same opportunities for funding, parallel voting, transparency in the monitoring process, posting results. They can fund local NGOs and we have been approached in a very local way by NGOs asking us also for logistical support in movement of people who could do this monitoring from place to place, also providing communication equipment. And we've also been asked by local NGOs for funding for voter education and preparation for the election, messages about peace and peaceful elections, PSA announcements and our Chambers of Commerce are going to issue statements about their expectations of a peaceful, free and fair election. Did you want to say something? No. This is sounding like a wonderful election result. I'm extremely excited about this. Did you want to say something, Kate? I just want to say that the International NGOs spent a lot of time coordinating with the Nigerian NGOs to support efforts on vote monitoring and tabulation and civic education programs so we're delighted to take money from the multinational corporations and the media to support social messaging. You're in a good position. You take money from them and you take credit for what they've been doing. That's right. And we offer technical assistance. The other point the International NGOs would like to raise is the need to sensitize and train Nigerian security services to remain impartial and neutral and their role in constraining and mitigating against violence around the elections. The European Union has in the past and would support all of the types of activities that we've heard about and does also. But we have to face the fact, if I can throw some cold water on this, that the likelihood of a free and fair election in 2015 is very low. The PDP is the best organized, but that doesn't mean that they won't want to pad whatever majority they can get. And the North, which has yet to pick an APC, has yet to pick a candidate and there'll be some dissension from that. Whoever wins, there's going to be violence and there's going to be dissension. Were you worried that we were having too positive a conversation? I think you're having much too positive a conversation because the real question then is, with all our efforts, are we perpetuating an illusion that we can influence this situation to have a free and fair and credible election? And then the question is, what's our alternative? I knew this was going to go off the tracks. One way or another. Chris? I think we should acknowledge the fact that the drivers of election violence in Nigeria or election rigging in Nigeria are domestic and tend to be the partisan political elites. That's an obvious. They are the ones that pull the strings from behind the scenes. And while NGOs, both international and domestic, can facilitate the process of conducting a peaceful election, sometimes they act on the margins. So what I would suggest is to take the media's suggestion one step further and say that let's constitute an international team that can work with the African Union and impress upon the two major candidates, once they're known, to make a public commitment before all Nigerians and the rest of the world that they would abide by the outcome and that they would contribute personally and through their political parties to the conduct of peaceful elections. I think that kind of public commitment from the two major candidates would have a huge impact on the conduct of their partisans. And then on the issue of the IDPs, the internally displaced persons, I think that should be easy to resolve for the presidential race because for the presidential race, the entire country is one constituency. So it really shouldn't matter where a Nigerian votes as long as he or she is within the borders of the country. There may be need for a quick amendment of the Electoral Act to make that possible so that these internally displaced persons can vote wherever they are within Nigerian territory. As neighboring countries, we thought a little bit about the fate of refugees and ideally we would want them included into the electoral process so they don't feel excluded because that can begin the national reconciliation and healing process, but we agreed that the logistics may be too challenging and also we didn't want to catch the wrath of Boko Haram if we're suddenly organizing election-related activities in our respective countries. Okay, well I'm deliberately leaving them to the end and I'm going to leave you guys to the end, but I'm going to change the game here. We haven't even spoken, but hello. And you're here in the Nigerian government, but I'm going to break you off of the Nigerian government. In fact, I'm going to break both of you off. You guys are now the opposition. Okay, you are the Nigerian government, you are now the opposition because I'd like to hear if we have an election, two sets of voices here. Now, we can have a private discussion because we're all friends, right? And you're hearing all of this stuff about open, free, fair, funded, visible, transparent, the world is getting together. This is looking like a great election. How do you feel, this is us personally, how do you feel about a big transparent election in the north where everybody really does get a chance to vote? Is that a good thing from your perspective, Mr. President? Thank you very much. Private, this is a private conversation. I want to know what's inside your head. I want to know what you really think. We want the best election. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What does he really think? Does he want a free and fair election in the north? He told me he told me he didn't care. He would actually, if that's against him, he would prefer it, not be free and fair. Could we ask the question differently? It would just be, just as a point of information, if it was a fair election, who would win? And if the incumbent would win, wouldn't it in fact be to their advantage to then have people oversee it? Okay, let's ask it that way. If it were a fair election, would the incumbent win? I guess he said good. Okay, but if it were a fair election, would the incumbent win? I have my doubts. You have your doubts. The 2011 was judged to be the fairest election since 1999, and it was probably the same two candidates, and Jonathan won. That's true, but the price of oil will be what in February? Ninety. Yeah. Okay, so you're actually abusing some other substance. David, I also wanted to sort of emphasize, you know, it's a numbers game. So we have 130,000 polling booths in the country, and we have a little over 300,000 police officers. You can do the math. So, you know, that's why we were being proactive and calling for the international community, but really reaching out because we need more than just, as the U.S. with all due respect, 36 people that they're going to send. We need actually an influx of observers all around the country. So you really believe that a free and fair election is in the interest of the party in power? Absolutely. It's a reputational risk. Right. Oh, okay. I just want to make sure that you do. Is that the private view or the public view? Seriously. Again? Is that a private view or a public view? In other words, in actual fact, who would win the election? Well, let me turn it back to you. In the U.S., right, if you had a Republican party in power, the presidency, would they want high turnout in urban areas? No. Like North Carolina? No, they would not want it. Right. So then you can answer the question. So your answer is they would lose. High turnout, where you have the most supporters. Right. So it's actually in the interest of the regime to have less turnout in the north. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. Okay. I just, we have to get honest about this. How do you guys feel about this move towards free or fair elections with all these initiatives? So on the one hand, we don't believe in the elections anyway. So we want to be as disruptive as possible in various areas and to really undermine the government as much as we can and undermine the elections. But on the other hand, there are parts of our organization that, or those who aid and abet our organization who are committed to having some northern opposition wins. And so there's a little bit of conflict within the Boko Haram organization. I think you're going to see attacks on some places where we feel really confident that the only thing we have to do in that area is so discord. And then you're going to see some real pullback in other areas where we know we like the Senate candidate. We like the local representative from the APC. They've been bankrolling us. We have ties to them. And those are going to be peaceful places. And so I think there's going to be a real disparity. But for example, in the extreme northeastern regions, more violence. More violence to the places where it makes sense for us. Okay. Could we switch to the next slide? I don't want to leave the witness, but let's go to the next slide. So in the extreme north regions, northeastern regions, elections are now going to be suspended. Okay. That's the next move in this discussion. Okay. Conditions have deteriorated rapidly in Yobes, Borno, and Odomo estates, and violence is increasing. In the upcoming presidential elections, the safety of poll workers and citizens can no longer be guaranteed. The current situation is not conducive to a free and fair election. And as a result, voting will not take place in these states. This is an announcement from the government. Okay. This is their assertion. And we want to explore local and international responses to the announcement, as well as potential measures to promote its reversal. Okay. So the violence took a toll, and it was a decision of those in the government for whatever reasons you may conclude to suspend voting in those states. It raises some of the issues discussed before. You have five minutes to talk about this among yourselves. We will resume at five minutes of three. So five minutes, please. It will simply cancel voting in those three states. In real terms. What would really happen? Yeah, that will be to the benefit of the PDP, because that's a strong hold of the opposition. That's number one. The opposition, rather than boycotting the elections, I don't think they can do much. So do you think they would boycott? It is possible. I mean, if they cancel, if in the midst of the, if before the elections, they review the situation and they invite all the parties around Tehran with INC to say, look, we cannot hold elections in ABC because of insecurity. Okay, we'll have, as northern leaders, what are you going to do about this? Are you going to try to get them to reverse it? Is it a party issue, or is it a... All right, we'll begin in one minute. So if you take your seats, we're going to begin again in one minute. Okay. So, Nigerian government, current regime, why did you do this? Why did you take this action? Well, first, despite some views to the contrary, it was actually the independent national electoral commission that decided that the elections couldn't be administered safely in those three states. Government supports that decision. We think that it was a decision made in the best interest of the citizens of that area. Many of the local government areas, unfortunately, are held by terrorists and they wouldn't let democracy flourish in that region. We tried to speak to the opposition party about coming up with a plan to look to the future and maybe see how we could work with INAC together and maybe stagger the elections, hold them at a time in the future when we can move more security forces there or after our military takes control of that population back from the terrorists just a few months from now. I should add that we got very weak response to the call to get international observers. So as a follow-up, we just don't have enough people to intervene in that area to provide the kind of safety for people. At the end of the day, that's the main thing. Safety is above all, yes. And in the opposition, how do you feel about this decision? You're the other candidate. Well, we have a call on the international community and also we don't trust Nigerian government in delivering free and fair elections but if you can observe, the northeast is predominantly opposition. So this is the way to, you know, dis-improngize the opposition. So we don't believe, I mean, it's a fellow of leadership in the first place for not, I mean, the federal government is in charge of the security and they're failed to secure the area and they're failed in governance. Would you condemn the decision? In totality, you know, because this is our territory. Okay, so the media is covering this story, which they're doing busily because they're all on their iPad. Our televised debate, we're tweeting, we're actually crowd sourcing locally based reporters, citizen reporters in these northeastern states to report on the elections. Don't tell anybody my response to this. I know you love Twitter. That sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. Anyway, let me actually tell you something. In the Kenyan elections and the violence that occurred there, they went back and they analyzed the statistical regression on the tweets to see where there was a mobilization of activity and they've now correlated that with violence. There's a guy named Patrick Meyer who's based in Washington, D.C. and he specifically looks at how to determine from social media the emergence of politically based violence during elections. No, but seriously, do you realize you just came up with all that stuff to defend yourself for sending an email to your friend? No, actually, I've been thinking about that. I was reading one of your articles, David. Your exchange with Michael Oren, it's very fascinating. I'm sorry to have interrupted you. How do you cover that story? What is the headline that comes out of what's just happened here? The televised debate has obviously been shelved for now. Just going back to something you asked earlier about the viewership and the audience for the Hausa service, it's 19 million just for the BBC and there's a television service as well. Can I step out of my media head just for a second? Just a second, yes. I think it's important when the media does cover stories like this that we also think about the responsibility we have to make sure whether we're local media or international media that it doesn't add fuel to the fire. I think that too often we forget about the consequences of our own stories and our own headlines. It's really the same old story from Kenya and it's the same old bad Africa story and that's the way it's going to be covered. Democracy undermined, corrupt leader tries to hold on and extremist Islam bound to move forward as a result. How does extremist Islam, how does Boko Haram respond to this move? The newest member of Boko Haram here. Reinforcements of Haram. We're on a roll. The people committed to the Prophet's teachings for propagation in Jihad to you, Infidel, sometimes called Boko Haram. We are declared victory. It seems as if the Nigerian government has finally agreed that we are in control of these states and they're now part of the caliphate and so we are very pleased that they finally are given up their remit in this area and given sovereignty to us as much as you can and any opposition in these areas or anybody who opposes us in any way or opposes our interpretation of Sharia in these areas will be dealt with ruthlessly as prescribed by Sharia. Does it change your behavior in these regions? In these regions, we'll carry on anybody who opposes us, any mosques or any masjids or anybody who doesn't preach our version of Islam or Sharia is going to be a target, any Infidels are going to be targets so going to carry on in this area. Another thing though, and this is privately, we're not saying this in our PR speech but we will not protest if certain of our units want to moonlight on behalf of maybe the APC to disrupt elections in the middle belt for instance. We're on protest, we're not necessarily making a pact or anything but we'll let them do something else if they want to be paid to disrupt elections where they are actually occurring. So you're not exactly disappointed in this debate? We're having a party, well, without any alcohol or anything else but not much of a party, no music, no alcohol, but we'll have a party. And what is the meaningless communique issued by the African Union on this? I would respond to that. The African Union does have extensive experience in election observation and would actually have something to say. I think the African Union can call upon its resources in all seriousness to work with the other observation missions and the African Union calls upon everybody to follow what Pauline recommended to provide some transparency. With a break-off, we don't have a legal position. The African Union has been much tougher on countries that have had coups and expelling them from the organization but there isn't yet a legal precedent for elections that have been disrupted. Okay, perfect. I want to go to you folks. The government's just sort of thrown you under the bus here and just sort of said, you know, we'll get to you later. How do you feel about that? How do you respond? Well, on behalf of Northern government leaders, we feel the future of Nigeria is at stake. The North has always been pro-unity. The importance of this election could not be clearer. And we're also aware that the three states in question up here, the SOE states, are all predominantly opposition party states with a thin veneer in Adamawa. And according to earlier rumors, Kano has been put under a state of emergency as well. So you've marginalized the four opposition states. Obviously our APC governors in the North don't like this. The PDP governors in the North think this is a great idea. So at this point, there is a kind of a split. Further, on the observers, we are aware that the government is thinking about denying visas to the EU and the U.S. observation delegations and wanting the African Union and the Commonwealth to take full responsibility for the monitorate. We do feel very strongly that elections should not be militarized, despite our earlier position on the need for security. Over militarization, we'll depress Northern voting. We know that. So we're not having the election, by the way. We totally reject the Boko Haram offer of help to our Kano party, our APC party. We would like the international community to explore the rumors that the state security services have already got the results of the election and through methods and sources, could you tell us whether this is true or not? Basically, far bottom line, we anticipate as a way of saving the country once more a government of national unity, not including the two primary candidates. So they're against both of you. You're in the neighboring countries. It looks a little bit like the situation is deteriorating in a way that could produce more refugees, more pressure on you. At any point, do you think you turn to the international community? I mean, what do you do in this circumstance? Well, first of all, we condemn this move in the strongest possible terms. In our view, it's basically a statement of defeat and surrender. So we'll speak out publicly and privately to the government in Nigeria to try to convince them to reverse this decision. And then we will work with ECOWAS, the AU, the UN, and other international bodies to try to have a concerted, united front in arguing this issue with the government in Nigeria. If it stands, this could well affect the outcome of the election. And I think it makes it even more important that some sort of mechanism be found that would allow IDPs to vote wherever they may be in Nigeria. So we've set the stage. We sort of know where the players are here. This is where the creativity comes in, because the goal here is to explore potential measures to promote the reversal of this decision. Now, the government made the decision. The opposition opposes it, but is in no position to reverse it. Let's turn to the United Nations first. We need to be creative here. What can be done to reverse this? So the Secretary General plans to go and have a conversation with President Jonathan to ask President Jonathan to reconsider this course of action and instead avail itself of the resources available in the United Nations. And as a member of the Security Council, come to the UN and ask for the UN to establish a temporary Chapter 6 resolution for a blue helmet force to provide election security, route security, and security of key potential polling stations. There wouldn't be multiple polling stations, but there would at least be some polling stations in the north so that people could come and would not be disenfranchised. And then also to seek other options, potentially technical options, to have the UN assist Nigeria in working with the neighboring countries to facilitate voting in safe zones in their countries. We will also encourage President Jonathan to also go to the African Union and ask the African Union to encourage its member states to contribute forces to this proposed blue helmet election security force. Does the United States support this? The United States supports this entirely and in fact we've been working behind the scenes to try to encourage the government and the opposition to come to an agreement that would facilitate such an action and movement by the international community. We support it financially as well. Who do we think is the most influence over the regime in this case? Who would be the best interlocutor? Who? The oil companies. Right, and I wanted to jump in with the United States, sir. Oh, yes, sir. One is that we would reconsider military aid if we saw a significant reversal on the part of the administration. We would be working with... By the way, the Nigerian government just made a dismissive gesture. I'm not done. I'm increasing the incentives. We'll be working with the four nations' neighbors as well. We will be inviting Ned to try to encourage the National Endowment for Democracies to participate. We would pledge to them we would be working overtime to get the Gulf War states to not fund Boko Ram and we would put extreme pressure publicly on them if they choose not to. On the Nigerian government? Yep. Wait, I want to hear from the oil company. You were a telecom company. You look like an oil company now. As internationally operating oil companies, we are completely uninterested in getting involved in the domestic politics in Nigeria and want to remind you where the oil is in Nigeria. I guess she told you. And the Nigerian government... Go ahead. We're very willing to allow an election in northeastern Nigeria. There's two issues. One is the practical issue of, unfortunately, us not controlling 40 local government areas where we don't see how elections could be held unless Boko Haram plans to administer them and I don't think they do. Beyond that... And you don't think the United Nations suggestion of a blue helmet force in the region to help with that is sufficient? Well, I would ask why the United Nations hasn't acted in the last four years to help Nigeria with Boko Haram and why it's only for an election that they would muster blue helmets so that people can vote, but people have been dying for the last four years. So the thing is, is that if everybody in these three states who could vote could vote, for the opposition, President Jonathan would still win. He'd be re-elected. We have no problem with the elections being held there except as it affects the safety and security of the public. Okay. Yes. And I want to encourage you. We've got four or five minutes here. I want to encourage people who have solutions to reverse this situation, to speak with solutions. Yes. National NGOs would politely like to request the international community to get a grip here. This is a train wreck waiting to happen and there's no time to deploy a Chapter 6 peacekeeping operation between now and the elections. The U.S., the E.U., the African Union need to take a clear stand to the government of Nigeria that elections that exclude three states is not possible, not legitimate and a different solution needs to be found to a transitional government of national unity until such time as all parts of the country can vote and participate in the election process. Pauline. The Nigerian NGO community supports that and further, in order to persuade the Nigerian government to cooperate on the U.N. plan, if it rejects that we will organize a nationwide free, fair and safe campaign in order to, even if it means postponing the election, in order to have a free, fair and safe campaign and we will blend that with the opposition to the ending of the oil subsidy so we get a national constituency here in favor of a free vote. Yes, go ahead, Tracy. So just to remind the Nigerian government that they could have come to the Security Council at any time in the last couple of years to seek international help or assistance in addressing its security situation, but the Nigerian government told everybody in the world that they had it, that they were good to go, that they didn't need any help, that everybody could just mind their own business, please, that they had the situation totally and completely under control and oh, by the way, I think they have killed Chacao and Chacao's doubles. It's the first... three or four times in the last couple of years so that's why the UN has not been previously involved. I have to say, you're being terribly an effective role-player. I don't believe the UN has been that effective recently, as you have just been. Kim, yeah? To just want to ask a question, I don't... No, no, that is creative. Out of the box is... UN action is out of the box. There's no question about that. Yeah, right. A question. Did we hear a reaction from the Nigerian government on the proposal of a transitional unity government and what about postponing the elections for a few months until things stabilize? Did we? Given that we believe the public would re-elect Goodluck Jonathan, if the proposal is for Goodluck Jonathan to lead a government of national unity, we'd be happy to consider that. How does the opposition feel about that? Well, extension of time for election is not acceptable to the opposition, but we can consider internal government. If you have a sufficient role in that. Yeah. Okay, Princeton, just about at the end of this round. Okay, well, look, I think the international community has to take a fairly strong and clear stand on this. As proposed, it really would call into credibility the outcome of the election. The Nigerian government should know this, and it will only deepen tensions in the country, perhaps produce more violence. There are examples of other countries that have faced this problem, Mali, Afghanistan, others, and found ways to have a national election. I think the answer to this, I respectfully disagree with the UN proposal. I don't think it would come timely, and I don't think it would be effective, but I do think that the parties should come together, the PDP, the opposition party, the electoral commission, and come up with ways, and several have been proposed, that people can either vote or as IDPs vote and make it possible to have a national election. If everybody agrees that that will take another couple of months, fine. But it can't be done unilaterally by the government, because once again, it calls into credibility this election, and if the election isn't credible, then it has ramifications for Nigeria's relationships throughout the world. Okay, thank you. I think what we've heard here are some interesting suggestions from the United Nations, from the NGOs in this regard, I think also from the European Union there. But let's for a moment move to the next slide and assume that those did not take hold, that they did not reverse the trend. And in the wake of the election, this is now after the election, it takes place, it doesn't take place in these three states, marginalized Muslim youth in the north have grown increasingly violent, sparking waves of Christian-Muslim violence, as well as violent protests by dissatisfied citizens decrying political corruption. Increasing inter-religious violence has reached a tipping point, causing concern throughout the country, and violence has begun to spill across the borders. International actors are calling on Nigeria to confront broader questions of political marginalization. What we've done here is we've sort of taken this to the next step. You recall when you were voting, you felt that no matter what happens in the election, it's not going to resolve the political tensions in this country. Now in the case of the scenario, you're going to have the election, there are going to be factors that call it into question, such as the disenfranchising of these three states, and so you're going to have an even more difficult situation than you would in a clear-cut transparent election. And that puts us in this situation, where violence is beginning to spread. And that's why we're doing this in this scenario, because we want to understand what the tipping point is for any kind of effective international action. Is there a tipping point? Is the spread of violence? Is the risk of Nigeria really falling into some kind of chaos? Likely to produce new ideas from all of you, or is it not? So, you've got five minutes, but I do want to finish strong and focus on new ideas for how do we address this. International governments may want to talk together. International NGOs and local NGOs may want to talk together. The opposition may want to talk to other governments. Figure out how you can solve this, and we'll resume in five minutes. We'll begin again in two minutes. Just two minutes, and then we'll begin again. One minute. If everybody would start to resume their seats, that would be great. So we'll resume in one minute. Okay. Why don't we all resume our seats and then resume the discussion? All right. One thing that was not anticipated on this slide should have been is who won the election. Now, you know, we sort of thought it was self-evident. If you want to say something, hit the button. You want to say something? Okay. Go ahead. I want to say something about your question with regards to who won the election. I think we have to go into this knowing that for a vast majority of Nigerians, the perception of who won or who lost is more important than who actually got the more votes. And what's going to trigger the violence is the perception that people have of the outcome and the process, or the process and the outcome, not necessarily the exact count that comes out of the election. Understood. So in the context of the scenarios and shutting off voting in the three provinces and the three states, and I had a conversation with somebody who said that there's actually buzz going around now in Abuja that it might be six states, you know. So all you have to do is in the context of that and we assume that good luck, Jonathan, wins. Okay. We assume that for the purpose of this discussion. So how does the opposition feel about this? Either of you may speak as the opposition, but you must speak into the microphone when you speak. We were working from a different assumption. Well, sorry. We need to add a little bit here, but let me talk about the solution we came up with and that was that we reached a point of agreement and we had complicated negotiations with the ruling party that one very important practical change that could be made that would make a difference here would be to devolve the centralized police service and have a state level police service and by doing that we felt that there would be more of a chance for the police to be responsive to the violence on a local level and that would make a huge difference. Okay. I just want you to talk about that idea that this is an economic idea and I just want to draw a connection between it and what you said here, but go ahead. You're speaking loud, but somehow the microphone is not picking it up here. So for the last 20 years the devolution of oil revenue from the federal to the state governments has provided the link that keeps them together. Now with the declining oil revenues available to states for their local expenditures it may force some of the reformist governors to begin taxation at the local level of wealth there in order to provide services there because they cannot count on getting it particularly in the next 12 months from the federal level because it's not going to be there which may begin the process of restructuring responsibility and authority at the state level and make it a real federal system. I just thought that was interesting in the context of what you're talking about that since this election scenario is taking place in the context of falling oil prices and a budget crisis for the central government and one possibility might be you devolve a little power down and give people the right to do some taxation which could then support what you're talking about maybe the pieces fit together that's all yes I'm sure you're supporting what I say here so we had a couple of ideas one is that you know we thought about appointing somebody from the northeast ahead of the military so we thought that's important in terms of not just symbolism but also in Tom's talking about addressing some of the legitimate grievances that many of these youth do have the other thing we thought about doing the Buhari lead as sort of a commission looking into national unity so leading and this is part of how we can activate key influencers so the religious leaders those that are on the ground that have credibility the other thing was looking at state police instead of having federal police have state police overseeing this and I think that's important and the other thing too we agreed on that and then also with a tip to hat to our US colleagues we learned a lot about what not to do in Ferguson so we thought about how do we apply some of those lessons here in Nigeria about what not to do and so we thought about it's easy to know what you're against it was like I said it's easy to know what you're against but what are you for you had to present an alternative what you're saying is that you don't want Nigeria to descend to the level of Missouri that's right and so so what we we thought about actually is what's the one thing and we all know this from us Nigerians what's the one thing that you get excited about in Nigeria and what happens to be about this time of year in February it's the African Cup of Nations Justin Bieber oh it's the flying eagles the Nigerian football team one Nigeria one team we launch a whole campaign about youth getting involved at the local level with sort of things that they know they're for isn't the African Cup postponed isn't it postponed because of it's not postponed it's still going on in February next year but the point is that we need to come up with narratives about what youth are for addressing those grievances so you provide those alternatives in terms of something that's sort of more positive alternative narratives as opposed to anti Boko Haram anti this how are you guys responding to all this well we see the widespread outbreak of religiously motivated violence as a major opportunity it gives us the opportunity to expel the remaining Christian population in the territories that we control it also enables us to present ourselves as the champions of Muslims in areas where there is active Christian Muslim fighting this could be for us an extremely important turning point if in response to widespread violence in Nigeria there was some kind of outside intervention be it by the UN or be it something similar to what the French did in Mali were that to happen we would likely seek to integrate ourselves more into the international jihadist movement that would tend to change our character and it would also make us a direct threat to US national security something which we have not been up to now okay so we have a response from the Nigerian government we see how Boko Haram is likely to respond in this particular sense the states in northern Nigeria how are you responding to this and then I want to turn to the international community and say what are your creative solutions about this is it supporting them is it responding directly to them is there something else that can be done first we have to remind the federal government that the head of the military is already from the northeast states and as to their I think they knew that they were they just were forgotten flying eagles is sometimes soccer is war by other means if you think that's going to hold the thing together but we do agree with with our APC federal colleagues here on the devolution of police to state I think that would be regardless of the crisis that would be a step in the right direction you cannot have a federation with no state and local police in case someone didn't read the script on that we do think as thirdly there should be a last ditch effort of getting religious leaders on both sides of talk credible leaders there is an interfaith initiative for peace at the senior level it could be spread out to the state level as well and to really get this interfaith cooperation leadership by example front and center and they would whatever residual authority they have finally the scenario that's been presented to us leaves us no choice but to say military has to step in not as a coup but as a stabilization program on the doctrine of necessity these are doctrines that our friends have invented when it suits them this would prevent the breaking up of the country because we're now talking about something that would split the country and we in the north don't believe in that okay yeah Paulie and then what I'd really like to hear we've got 15 minutes left of this is the best solutions that we can find from the international community or otherwise to deal with the situation that is now deteriorated to an extreme level yes in many previous crises and once it didn't work and the country fell apart but they talk about the muddle through solution where with elected leaders or established leaders can't get through other prominent elders step in and try to negotiate an outcome this could be done if you had that leadership representing both religious leaders and other elders representing the various ethnic and geographical areas with a view toward coming to some sort of new dispossession which is what the top Africans would say one of the possible solutions instead of a government of national unity which I think would be unlikely to happen is a kind of Afghan outcome where you have a president and what's Abdullah the executive head of a government so it's a kind of unity government but you still have the president saying I won the election but we're going to include the opposition in a kind of a structure that still is left to be negotiated and these elders could work that out as a kind of executive committee it's a long shot the international community could support it it has to be an internal solution however I think the external community can only be a supporter I don't think there's a night that's going to come in and say okay this is the way it's going to be handled but that could be an outcome there are a lot of people in Nigeria who are king makers that could come together and cross those boundaries if in fact there's a solution that pointed to political inclusion not just economic inclusion so you think that one thing this might do is stimulate real political change and perhaps churn up some new leaders pulling back from the brink now whether or not that means it's going to be a permanent solution or lead to a new constitutional formula but to pull back from the brink because I think one thing that a lot of Nigerians don't want is another civil war and that could quickly then descend into a civil war okay other alright sure well the local business community and the multinational corporations met together and we thought that under the circumstances given that the reputation of the country would be so damaged that international investment would be come to a halt critical that the business community become involved in some kind of solution and so one could be that the national chamber of commerce based in Lagos could begin behind the scenes to start discussions with perhaps the international community and also with the governors and other political leaders of the country to explain that it was important for peace to be reestablished and then a committee of senior government religious and business persons and personalities very well respected a small group could then form a delegation and visit each one of these states hold negotiations, mediate between these two groups and propose a peaceful solution if that is agreed then the carrot can be held out would be that these work programs that had been discussed earlier could then be kick started and a large number of youth particularly could become employed or trained very quickly in the aftermath what about other kinds of political solutions that have taken place in other kinds of countries in some cases you've had popular uprisings at the street level that might be triggered by new technologies or new media in other cases you've had extremist groups that have been co-opted by being invited into the government or you give certain people within the extremist groups an opportunity to play a role and thus you turn the parts of the extremist group against one another I'm just again I'm throwing this out is to say are there other possibilities that may make some sense here go ahead there's been a fairly reported recently example that Columbia has done with the advertising campaigns against the FARC rebels and the work they did if Christmas can come to the jungle you can come home and they use in the World Cup and they did some very interesting stuff but then again that was only possible after there was a view that the Columbia government is a viable leader that is inclusive that will take everybody and put FARC in that corner as long as there is no united government all of these ideas of breaking the opposition or trying to go into these young people who are being recruited by Boko Haram or other groups that are being activists are not going to bear fruit unless there is that unity so really it's difficult not to be boring and to be repetitive there has to be leadership after that leadership there's a whole host of ideas on traditional and social media tech there's a whole host of people that you can bring in and be like alright I have leadership let's do some stuff and let's try to get these guys out of the streets but until that exists it's very difficult to be able to find a reason to get out of the street there is nothing else for them they have to take ownership because the people in the south are not doing anything yeah and I think just building on what Michelle said there are two phases to this one is kind of creating that framework for some type of unified government to kind of assume the vacuum that's being created here and then there's almost a healing process that needs to happen you know when we're talking about the elders going yes on media going into the villages but it has to be on the back of some type of like solution like was in Kenya or in Afghanistan where the two kind of leaders at the top come to some type of alignment going on to a situation that's continuing to be in flame because of those differences do the experts here have recommendations for this group? for recommendations for how you deal with a situation like this? pages from the USIP book other kinds of ideas to suggest ideas that are out of the box I have some thoughts but I'm going to reserve them until after this because they actually sort of for the last session for the last session right oh really they're state department oh yeah that's the state department for you no after you please don't you speak first no no go I have more of a question outside the role of the US government I think because we're assuming that the recommendations that were put on the table in advance of the election were rejected the monitors and the international assistance and everything else was rejected the international community feels would feel like you got what you asked for so it becomes incumbent upon the government which is delegitimized which may have been legitimized had the elections been monitored and blessed and so it's hard to see through this move again does the international community have the luxury of saying you're on your own in the largest economy in the region in a place where Boko Haram could at any moment sign up as part of the the global franchise of the month whatever that is in terms of global jihadism where violence can spread where it can impact global oil markets where it can impact neighboring countries I mean does the international community really have the ability to shrug its shoulders in a situation like this I won't reserve comment until the last session thank you that's leadership were you did you actually work in the state department that's right mostly as a renegade David let me let me say that absolutely not obviously ownership and resolution of this problem must reside first and foremost with Nigerians and coming out of it must be largely a Nigerian solution but given the kind of issues that would arise from a collapse of a Nigerian state the international community has an important role to play to prevent that from creating destabilization in Cameroon in Chad Niger, Benin and Togo because the collapse of a Nigerian state would send an enormous number of refugees across the border would require enormous amounts of international assistance humanitarian assistance to deal with both people fleeing and also displaced persons it also would give an opportunity for Boko Haram to flex its muscles even further in a chaotic situation which would require some degree of political uncertainty spreading further afield so the international community does have a role to play and I think in this kind of a situation I think you turn to a variety of African wise men starting with individuals like Kofi Annan and a group of other respected former African presidents who would probably lead a procession of visits to that country to bring together both the government and the opposition their efforts would be followed up by high level calls approaches from western and African heads of state followed up by visits of both secretaries of states into the breach the one thing that we do not none of us want to see happen is a collapse of the Nigerian state or the return to another civil war situation or the break up of Nigeria it's important to remember that as bad as Boko Haram is today across northern Nigeria where we have seen since 2009 some four to five thousand people killed since the death of Muhammad Yusef if you look back to the Nigerian civil war between 1967 and 1970 we were probably witnessing an average of five to six thousand people being killed almost every week for three years in what turned out to be an enormously bloody and nasty conflict it took the Nigerians a long time to resolve this but I think that we cannot afford to allow the sixth largest Muslim state in the world to collapse in front of us I see six hands and we've got six minutes oddly enough if you guys can do the math I can go quick I think it's almost an unfair response to take the comment you're on your own the United States is not going to be with someone if they have no sense of the consequence and we're stuck with them no matter what the hell they do so we say to a government you're on your own we want a reaction if they say gosh we kind of blew it a little can you help us out if they say screw you we're going to do whatever the hell we want it tells us that we have to be incredibly careful with how we deal with them we're going to deal with the neighboring states we're going to deal with Europe but it's an attempt to understand what their response is you didn't tell us what their response is I would think that they're in a crisis the European my European colleague pointed quickly to me and said crisis are opportunities and it may be they want to back off and you're on your own let us know that's what they want to do okay Kate I think we should see what the youth of Nigeria are interested in for the future of their country they're not just part of the problem they're also part of the solution and to peer voices we know are most credible oftentimes in counteracting not just narratives but also pulling back from violence so youth can be mobilized in Nigeria to pull their peers back from the situation of political violence and to be voices for the Nigeria that they want to see going forward we should think a lot more reach out to you what was kind of surprising to me as Boko Haram the entire time was how few folks around the table came to talk to us and the truth is we were five at one point and we did not always agree on everything internally and there was no attempt made to factionalize us to pull us away from each other good point some of us have different motivations if the international community consistently views everyone as monolithic and for mostly for in-co-it crimes and then we're immediately off the table and nobody's going to talk you're going to continue to see us get closer and closer together even when we did have internal disagreement I totally agree brought her up earlier I agree with Chris part of what thinking outside the box is you know this is what's called for in these kind of situations are there people you can peel away are there ways you can put wedge issues in are there ways you can turn groups that would well the United States is not technically allowed to talk to them but there are a lot of people who are not technically allowed to talk to that we talk to you know Iran is our sworn enemy and they're certainly not our ally and there's no way we're coordinating with them in Iraq it's just not possible absolutely Princeton and then Peter and then we're going to be almost done here one of the problems with this scenario has been that we assume that Boko Haram is considered a national crisis for Nigerians it is not you can go around parts of Nigeria where they say yeah that's a problem in the north but when you get the scenario 3 the country starts to really implode then it becomes perhaps a national crisis and that allows for serious thinking on the Nigerians part I think Johnny's come up with the number of things with African leadership there is a vehicle in Nigeria should they want to use it the Council of States which includes all former heads of state the President Supreme Court justices etc use that vehicle to say let's come together and figure out how we get out of this then beyond that if nothing is happening internally or alone the outside community could convene leaders from Nigeria look the way the French convened the neighbors around Boko Haram so you could get the OIC and the EU and the AU together to bring them outside of Nigeria so in a number of ways to say look now that this crisis has developed can we all help you and encourage you to find a way out of it with whatever mechanisms you decide whether you use a council whether you go toward a government of national unity but we've been telling you you're on this train wreck now you've got there now how can we help you get out of it okay very quickly Peter and then to here and then we're going to wrap up the session so 60 seconds Max as president it's been fun playing Boko Haram stepping out away from that two quick suggestions for solution one is we need to craft solutions that can be implemented this is a crisis that's immediate it's now solutions that take years or even a crop cycle aren't going to do it we need things that can be implemented very very rapidly second point agreed with Ambassador Carson on the need and the responsibility of the international community one thing that's been very effective as you know in Africa has been it's never been attempted on the scale of a country like Nigeria but having someone have ownership because it's fine to have a procession of dignitaries and wise men through but it takes one person one point of contact who speaks for the international community and has the strategic patience to negotiate all the long days and hours and weeks and months the imminent person to do it and then I'll get behind that one process last comment this is indeed a regional crisis for all the neighboring states there will be massive refugee flows out of Nigeria you could well have Boko Haram members embedded in those refugees which would give them a chance to begin operations outside of Nigeria and thinking this through we didn't see really any way to get through this and get Nigeria back from the brink without a major realignment of leadership in Nigeria and that's going to require convincing good luck Jonathan that he has to accept some changes so I think the idea of the wise men and others working on this is something that's urgent and needs to be done right away and it's also this might be the stage and we mentioned this earlier and maybe some of the neighboring states okay very, very useful we have just completed the last phase of this political scenario what the agenda calls for following a brief break is for us all to get back together and to try to draw some conclusions to try to draw some conclusions about countering extremism drawn from the experience we have in Nigeria not just specifically about Nigeria but worldwide what kind of initiatives be they economic or political based on some of the conversations we think would work this is a moment where thinking outside the box is really the subject of the conversation and so I really, you've got 15 minutes to go and take a break I really would like to encourage you to perhaps talk to the other members of your group but try to come up with one or two things drawn from this that are important lessons regarding combating extremism worldwide or if you have some new idea about Nigeria you want to throw in there please do that if you want to pass because you don't have an idea that's fine I want to stick to people who have concrete significant new ideas I want us to sort of end where we're supposed to which is drawing conclusions from all of this that may be useful to people thinking about it here around the world may be ideas that can lead to programs here or elsewhere so take the 15 minutes we'll see you back here at 4.15 thank you very much