 You're welcome back. It's still the plus politics and my name is Nyam Gul Agaddi. Before now we were talking about the fact that people are calling on the judiciary or the courts to open their doors so that the proceedings of the election tribunals could be televised and people get to know what is happening. And we had Tunji Abdulhamid on the show and also Ior was here. Both of them, Leonard gentlemen. But right now we're looking at the reaction to the 2023 elections. The EU observation mission on Monday faulted the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for failing to live up to the expectations of Nigeria's electoral process. The chief observer, EU election observation mission Barry Andrews, in his preliminary statement of the EU EOM on the governorship and the state houses of assembly, elections set Nigerians hungered for democracy and were ready to be involved in the country's democracy. However, he noted the appetite was lost due to failures by the political elite and INEC. Joining us to discuss this is Michael Quadot and Kessia, International Relations Analyst. Good evening and welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Okay. Well, expectations before and after the elections. Let's get to talk about that. Let me hear your comments. How you felt the pulse of Nigerians before the election and then after the election, especially the governorship election? Well, I believe the elections in particular were highly anticipated. Over here in Ghana there was so much public interest, especially among young people, young guardians about the likely outcomes of the Nigerian elections. And I must say that we are quite disappointed a bit with the voter turnout that we had in the presidential elections in particular, given Nigeria's large population size and the now total number of registered voters. It was very, very disappointing that we had less than 30% or so of registered voters actually turning up to cast their ballots. And of course, we were obvious or we were aware of the instances of delayed electoral material, specific attacks, intimidation, vigilantism, the use of tags and other criminal guns to disrupt the electoral process. Those were some of the disappointments that we witnessed in Ghana here because those are things that we are trying so hard and do so well to get rid of in Ghana's electoral system. We were hoping that our brothers, the sisters in Nigeria would emulate them, but unfortunately, we never saw it as such. And then we were quite impressed by the performance of the candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Kitahuni, in our political environment despite virtually an impossible task for a third force or independent candidate to challenge the two major political parties in Ghana. Just like Nigeria passing the dominance of the PPP and the APC since Nigeria's return to constitutional rule in 1999, Ghana has equalized or become the two parties between the incumbent or ruling new patriotic party and the positionaries. And people have been advocating civil society, the middle class so-called interest. They've been advocating for a third force, a force that can come out with a little bit of something, a new party, a new group of people with an ideology that differs from what is espoused by the two major political parties that we have in Ghana. And we are so, so impressed by the performance of Mr. Kitahuni, the Labour Party, although he did not win the presidential elections. Although we must also admit that it is still a disputed electoral outcome, which is going to be started by the courts, we believe that his performance was spectacular for a third force to emerge in the Pepsi-pair image of Nigerian politics. We believe that it was a very encouraging performance and, of course, that's one area that has Ghana to be learned from going into the next elections in 2024. We believe that the elections, it wasn't that peaceful. So we had incidents of a case of violence, and then there were also claims of boot-up fraud and order of allegations. So we believe, of course, it's yet to be decided on that. We believe that Nigeria has more to include when a candidate's election is going on. Okay, well, let's just take on some of the things that you said here. When we take the specifics, I'm sure that we are going to cover the little time that we have on the program today on this segment. Well, you made mention of the fact that Ghana was interested, and I'm sure it's not only Ghana on the African continent that was interested in our election, and then we also are concerned about the standing of a country like Nigeria in the international community and among other African countries after this election. So let's just take them one after the other. I know that you just talked about all these things broadly, but let's take them specifically. How do you think the outcome of this election will affect other African countries? First, democratically, the electoral outcome, Nigeria's electoral outcome is going to serve as an incentive to these so-called smaller political parties other than where neighboring West African countries are going across the African continent. And yes, even if it's happening in Nigeria, we can equally do it in our country. So it's going to serve as a moral booster for these third forces or smaller minorities, minority parties to come together and form a third force to challenge the status quo. It's also going to serve as a great motivation for people who have for years considered the thoughts or have on the thoughts of voting for a third party, but are not so confident in themselves that their votes can actually bring a third party, our only bring back third party to some level of national political prominence. So first, it is going to be the morale of political parties, and second, it is going to be the morale of individuals who are tired of the establishment. Individuals, the masses who are tired of the status quo, and it will serve as a very, very big incentive to join other smaller political parties and also become a third force in the unexpected political climate or environment. Aside from that, one thing is also very obvious. Nigeria's, I believe, should be a little bit grateful to a man like Peter Wooden. This is a candidate targeted young people in Nigeria. His message, listening to him almost every single day, resonated with the cry and warnings of young people in Nigeria. He talked about issues of corruption, issues of the lack of creativity among the public service, and then he talked about issues of sustainable development, issues of sustainable jobs for the young people of Nigeria. And these are some of the public issues that resonates with Nigeria's youthful population and also Africa's youthful population. Remember that more than 50% of the population fall within the youth bracket. And in this sense, they did their approach to target the youth in Nigeria well to perfection, and I believe other political parties should deal with it. In addition, beyond targeting the youth, we know that one easier game for one of the common platform for the youth across the globe is social media. And we saw not Peter Wooden as an individual, but how his supporters, campaigners, royalists were spreading his message almost every now and then on Facebook, on Twitter, on other social media platforms. It tells you about the growing influence of social media in Africa's political outcomes for elections and democracy. And in Ghana, social media has become the single most important to political communication and then consensus-building. Young people across the political divide are always engaging one form or another form of banter on social media predominantly created on Twitter, always arguing about government policies that are justizing governments, they are publicizing governments' achievements or they are praising governments' achievements. And remember during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the tools or medium that the president of Ghana could use so well in conveying his COVID-19 address to the nation or social media and see people waiting in thousands, 50,000 people, 100,000 people on the president's official Facebook account every Sunday just to listen to the president address the mission about the COVID-19 pandemic. People were no longer even watching TV and it tells political parties, political instructors and leaders on the continent that the youth of Africa are very much into social media if you strategize and plan well, you can execute it well. Social media is a very easy, accessible, common, albeit cheap platform or less affordable platform to reach out to young people who are desperate to power the political decision-making process. As an international relations analyst, I'd like to ask you this. Some Nigerians are worried that the outcome of the election is not as much as was expected, especially by the international community and the worry is that it may erode the respect that Nigeria had in the Committee of Nations. Do you think there is really something to fear that much about Nigeria losing its respect in the international community or do we still have some hope? Well, that is a very interesting assertion from the young that are in some interest in assertion. First, for the international community, even Nigerians themselves, to doubt the authenticity of the electoral outcome or the electoral process, it must first begin with a clear, indisputable evidence of various forms of electoral practices that were captured either way. That have been captured by a variety where a wide range of electoral observers, as I indicated earlier, the outcome of the Nigerian election is still being contested in courts. And I will be very, very happy. Ghana set the precedence in 2012 when we allowed the camera into our courtroom. That was the first time in the history of our country that a court case was telecasted live or carried live on national television and various social media platforms for everybody to see what was happening in the courtroom and whether the super delegations for electoral practices and fraud were actually perpetrated to aid the electoral victory of one candidate over the other. And I believe that I am praying I don't know whether that process has already begun. I'm praying that the Nigerian Chief Justice or Judicial Service in Nigeria the Chief Justice would allow camera into the courtroom so that the whole world would know whether the allegations of voter recognition and fraud as alleged by the Liberal Party, as alleged by the PDP, the Progressive Development Party and then PDP and then as alleged by other smaller political groups like the Congressional Party and MPP in Nigeria whether all those allegations both substance or the idea the issues that the petitioners can naturally in a court of law if they are able to do so, of course it is going to put a lot of credibility questions on Nigeria's emerging democracy and it is going to put a lot of doubt on the credibility of Nigeria's independent national electoral commission. However, Pellua by both party, the Labour Party or by Atticus Party, the PDP to prove beyond all reasonable doubt in any competent court of jurisdiction that indeed there were electoral practices there were voter fraud things were initiated to aid the electoral victory of Ola Amethini by the all progressive supporters if they failed to do that then I feel that Nigeria's democracy would stand on and the world would know that indeed the elections were free and fair. So for the international community or Nigeria themselves to do that doubts the authenticity of the results under my quality to have some form under my confidence in Nigeria's democracy it very much depends on what the petitioners will be able to prove in court to show to the whole world whether the elections will record it and in that process and by whatever form of judgment or benefit that we made I believe that should be the basis for a very very thorough analysis of the impact of the outcome of the US elections on the country's democracy. Michael, I'd like to thank you for that and we do hope that Nigeria the giant of Africa as we like to call ourselves and the entire West African sub-region will be better than it was a long time ago maybe 10 years ago, 5 years ago because of our political climate if it changes the leadership changes the commitment to leadership changes and everything changes and then the people will be happy. I do hope that we'll get there one day. Thank you so much for coming on the program today Michael. Thank you very much. Okay, we've been talking with Michael Ketzia an international relations analyst talking to us from Ghana on plus politics today. We do hope that you had a wonderful time watching from the entire crew of plus politics. My name is Yamgul Agadji saying bye for now.