 This is still the ballot 2023 and we're being joined live by Nicholas Ommeri, he is a youth ambassador and a political scientist and also we're being joined by Fine Face Dunanime. He is the Executive Director of Youth and Environmental at Focus East Centre. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm going to start with you. Thank you for having me. All right, thank you Fine Face. I'm going to start with you Nick. Apparently you came from outside the country to participate in this election because the last time I spoke with you, you were outside of the country. I'd like to first find out what happened at your polling unit and where exactly you voted. Okay. So I have not voted. You didn't. My polling unit is I won my mat 3, word 3 and the polling, the election was supposed to take place at Umadara Chahal. However, yesterday morning when everybody came outside to like the few people that came outside to come and vote, they were told that INEC had no made logistics to even come to the area. When down to 2.30, 2.30 p.m., people started getting worried like, oh, it's almost 2.30. What's going on? Nobody still had come to the area. So we then saw a post that said INEC had shifted the election of some polling units in Amos State to tomorrow, which is today. So it kind of gave us like a sense of calmness. Okay, maybe we would now be able to vote today. So it turns out this morning when I woke up the next day, I'm hearing like different discussions and agitations from different neighboring towns and saying, oh, results have been uploaded for them. So I just wanted to clarify we have not voted in our local government area. A lot of surrounding places around us have not also voted because I took time since we were not voting yesterday. I took my time to go around to other areas to see if they were also affected, which they were. The only place that voted was the governor's polling unit. Which is? Amoma. Okay. It's interesting because you're telling me that you didn't vote, but you hear that results were made available for your polling unit? Yes. So from my polling unit, specifically the results still says not available. The second polling unit, which is, give me a second, the second polling unit, which is in the our Mamawut 4, which is literally 10 minutes walk away from our polling units, which we definitely know there was no election there. They've started uploading results that says APC has like a high number of 200, Labor Party has a number of two, PDP has a number of three. So we are just wondering where these 200 people came out from, that we did not see them to vote. So even them themselves, like it's causing a lot of problems here because we are currently, everybody knows how the whole situation in the southeast is and now it's like when we are getting to the level of peace, the governor or whoever is behind this whole APC, who now is now trying to wreck the peace that we've so much created because now this will cause another agitation from different factions, evil people will start taking advantage of it. And that's all we're trying to still control, hoping that INEC can see whatever results that have been posted because all these results that are posted, there's no polling unit agent that is signing it. There's no, nobody's signing it except for the INEC representative. And this number is like, if you check the handwriting, it's all of INEC, what's up? Let me bring you back, let me bring you back, I'm sorry, Nicholas, let me bring you back. You're telling me that there were no INEC officials whatsoever because you're telling me at first that there was no logistic, there were no logistic arrangements to bring INEC officials to your area. And so you didn't see an electoral officer, you saw no ad hoc staff. No electoral officer. So the people from your community, were you able to go to the nearest INEC office or maybe a RAC center to find out what was happening if you didn't vote at all and you saw no INEC officials? Yes, some of the elders of the community, because you know how they operate here and you're always like, delegate the elders to go to the community. When they went there, the INEC people had told them that they were still coming. This was around 11 o'clock as of yesterday. They said they were coming and then by 2.30 when the councilor for my local government had gone to a big center hall, that center hall, Amchi, is the biggest center hall in my ward to just make a video to basically say that nobody came here and nobody had been here. It's 2.30, he called the time and showed the whole area. And then we went again and then that was when the whole publication and you know how this is the East side. So a lot of people are not so privy to internet. So the little ones that we see online is all we used to now know. There was a whole discussion of INEC. It's online. INEC postponing some polling units in emo states to the next day, of which we heard that our polling units was also affected. So we were waiting for today to come and vote. I must say that we spoke, rather we listened to the INEC chairman from the National Coalition Center a few minutes after noon and we had no information in regards to whether there would be elections today, whether there's a postponement and what areas would be listed. But we're hoping that at 6 p.m. when we do join the National Coalition Center all of these questions will be answered. But let's put a pin there. And come to you, Fine Face. Fine Face social media is awash with videos and tweets and pictures coming from River State. Now, it's not news to the average Nigerian how elections turn out in River State. Unfortunately, it's not something that we should be happy about, but it is what it is. But yesterday seemed to have taken a deeper dive. Give us an idea and where did you vote? Thank you for having me and the good afternoon to everyone. Yeah, River State has always been a flash point and a hot spot when it comes to elections. And the Nigerian politics, of course, you always have the headquarters in River State. Well, I actually couldn't vote yesterday because I had some other serious national assignments to perform in relation to election. That is to cover it, monitor it, observe going around, you know, the units in the various local government areas to see how it is going and reporting on letting people know what is happening in the various units and, of course, calling the authorities, INEC, to pay attention to areas where there are issues. So I actually sacrificed my one vote to do more critical work that will help the entire election process to be better and for Nigerians to have, you know, information and see how they can be able to use the information to make the system better and be able to vote right. So that's what I did yesterday. I monitored and observed and reported from Potakor, Tobiyakbo, City Local Government Area, Ojibu, and working also with my network of human rights defenders across the state and the Niger Delta. I was also getting on time and read time reports from various parts of the state on what was happening. Let's try with Obiyakbo. I'm most interested in, you know, what happened in Obiyakbo and, of course, the query local governments. And I saw some other pockets of violence. But I'm not sure, but I want to verify because you said you had, you know, soldiers. And when I say soldiers, I mean your people working with you in the field, we saw a video of a man wearing a police officer's uniform running away with a ballot box. How true is this video? Because we also know that we live in a time and, you know, a space where deep fakes are, you know, possible. And then, of course, the videos can be doctored. But how true is it that even security agents were seen, you know, trying to, one way or the other, disrupt the free for incredible electoral process in river state? Well, I also watched that video, but I can't directly confirm that video because I don't know, I didn't, I don't know the actual police unit where that happened, but this was reported from river state. But you cannot rule that out of the possibility of what will happen when certain police officers are working to please their masters. Because, you know, what reduced violence to an extent in the current election in river state and even Obiyakbo, like other parts of the country, is the fact that we believe that the beavers was going to be able to make anything that has to do with dog greed, disruption of election process, useless. But what we now saw, you know, happened, is that they look at an area where a candidate, that's not the candidate they are supporting or working for is winning, that they destroy and disrupt the process so that they both there cannot be counted for the person. That is all we saw, and that's what happened. You say you're particularly interested in Obiyakbo, there are about two incidences I can accurately recall, which I witnessed myself from Obiyakbo yesterday. One is a violence incident and the other one is, you know, the process of the beavers not working to capture a potential voter. Well, the very first one I witnessed was somewhere in Obiyakbo, local government area, you know, Uyghbo area, I think a unit 18, you know, I think we're two unit 18 or so. So at that point, people queued up to votes and we saw that a senior government official, someone that has been prominent in government, came there and said those who are not voting for a particular political party should leave the line. And those who wanted to vote for other parties became angry at, you know, the voting cost issue, knowing who it is and the security with him and stuff like that. So the people decided to stay away. That caused some issue that also led to the video you may have seen on social media whereby, a particular potential voter leaving the units, complaining of how he was asked to leave because he was trying to vote for a particular presidential candidate who's the one I don't want to mention. So it was at that unit and at that point when that happened. And then before then I've been to the government's polling units in Obiyakbo to ensure that I am available to witness the voting of the governor. As at the time I got there, the governor was here to be there and our net officials were also yet to fully set up. So I left and I asked someone to call me when the governor arrives to vote. So when the governor arrived to vote, I was given a call. At that time I was at the unit 18 where this incident happened. So I drove from there to the governor's voting points and I was there, I witnessed the governor trying to undergo the process of accreditation and the beavers couldn't capture him. That became the issue we broke from there at that point in time. So the governor had to leave when he could not be accredited to vote, he had to leave. And about two to three hours later or thereafter, while I was monitoring other parts of the state, I heard on radio that the governor had eventually been accredited and he has voted and they called him back to come that the beavers was not working. So beavers were in many areas and a lot of people couldn't vote. In fact, as at 10 p.m. last night I was still on the field, monitoring and witnessing the process of INEC trying to conclude the voting process because the voters were so adamant that they told them if they don't complete process and paste the results on the world that they cannot leave and they were like in a health postage until they completed the processes. So a lot of these things happened in many areas. And police was saying that I heard the police talking about the fact that at least two police officers were deployed in some on every police unit. Well, what I noticed as at 8.30 a.m. yesterday morning was that police officers were at many of the police, I mean the police units across Potacot and its environs that I went to because I left the house by 7.30, checking where people would be voting and stuff like that. So I saw many police, in some units you can see up to six, you can see up to seven, you can see they were on ground, earlier than INEC came. But when I stepped out of Potacot to the nearby local government areas, you will see police unit with over a thousand people, over 2000 people, we talked to even one police officer. And those places that are along the road, you will see them coming with monitoring. So the point here remains that police, we have in Nigeria, from what we are told, there are dollars and 400,000 police officers. And if you do the mathematics of putting two police officers at one of the police unit, you will see that the number of police, when you minus those that are with politicians, you will see that they are not even sufficient to, they're not even sufficient to be able to run for the number of people, the number of police unit that we have across the country. So basically they were at some places, but not everywhere. And that led to the fact that we had some crisis in some areas, like in kind of local government area, crisis were reported at two places, Elante, Kodgain, invaded the police unit to snatch the bag of paper and it was gone down. I don't know whether it was the police that were going in, that is not very clear yet. We had a candidate from one of the political parties. He was running for House of Representatives in Kana and Gokana, if I'm not mistaken. And he did say that one of the major problems that they had to encounter was that there was no ballot paper for the House of Representatives in Kana and Gokana. He also talked about the fact that even the ones that they had voted on for the presidential elections and for the Senate, it was doctored because they literally had videos showing people, Ionic officials writing and, you know, putting different figures on, you know, the result sheets and they complained about it, saying that, look, this is an outright disregard for the electoral process. We had him on the show yesterday and he said he does have evidence that the election was rigged outrightly. So he makes us really wonder. We're busy. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, basically, you cannot rule that out because there are a lot of strongmen in the electoral processes. There are those who are paying on rigging and what's happening in river states and some other parts of the state as well is that because of the failure of the beavers, even those who are in Portugal who are complaining that, you know, there was no network on the beavers for them to can transmit a result electronically as expected. So when that became an issue, so what do you expect from the interland, the rural areas to become an issue? And the moment the beavers failed, that gave them room for result manipulation. And as of this morning, I'm getting series of reports from across the state on how we are all the result now at the Cullation Center by the early hours of this morning and at the Cullation Center, that result allegedly been manipulated. You know, people are manipulating the result. And I was not surprised to even hear this morning because William Potter caught yesterday, it was like a tsunami, a particular presidential candidate was winning almost in every polling unit. But when the results are turning out by this morning, the briefs we are getting, although not confirmed by INEC, so we cannot announce the figure, is a different presidential candidate that is already sweeping the poll. So a lot of these things are happening at the Cullation Center. And I think the INEC needs to take steps to ensuring that, you know, the votes are cast by the people are counted and the people get the person they want, you know, elected so that we don't have a kind of crisis across the country because such thing can lead to spontaneous, you know, protests from the people who may think that their votes have been manipulated and I don't want another, you know, June 11th, I mean, June 12th, you know, night night three to happen again. So I think they need to ensure that the integrity of the process is upheld in such a way that people who don't take the loss into their hands to take some actions that may not be palatable for our nascent democracy. Let me come back to you, Nick. For an election that was highly anticipated, for an election that it took a lot of people, I mean, Nigerians did not necessarily wait for the NOA or governments or politicians to canvass for their votes. They themselves volunteered to, you know, reach out to their peers and I'm talking about whether they be young or middle-aged, everybody seemed to have been, you know, ready for this election. And one would have hoped that INEC would be ready also for this election, but just like Fine Face said, issues with the beavers, INEC at some point did tell us that these beavers did not necessarily need internet to function. Also, there's been this public outcry not just for Lagos State, but a few other states, including with us, of INEC's inability to upload results. I've seen videos of ad hoc staff saying they didn't send us the code or they've said to us you cannot upload the results. But the question is, who's they? And just as I said earlier on, why is that not the priority of INEC as opposed to wanting to tell us about coalition instead of telling us or addressing these issues? Yes, I believe INEC is very much compromised. I say this because there is no way that you send polling agents or you send ad hoc staffs to a unit. You first came before the election, you made us know that these beavers machines did not need internet, of which some other polling units were able to upload their results without internet because there's an offline feature in that same beavers machine should in case your internet happens to flow. You're supposed to upload it and the moment it's sealed at that point. So the moment it just connects to the internet, the rest is just for the service to take up. Now, what I said, I believe INEC is compromised. It may not be at the top level, but if your whole organization is very much compromised and the top level will also take it. In state levels where we're seeing now that places where election did not take place and we're seeing results uploaded on the INEC portal, it's definitely from the staff of INEC. Now, in different states like rivers, now we had as of last night, we were seeing videos on possible threats of people saying, oh, they came back and they just told that the senior men in the electoral offices just told them to leave and the rest was history. Now, also, I think Nigerians have it much... I think if we're to be pushing the blame, I would blame more Nigerian staff of INEC because also then they also let themselves compromise. You go to different other locations where people are actually playing politics and tricks, trying to switch votes, trying to leave without actually uploading the results, but you're still saying that, oh, you were asked to bring the results back, you were asked not to upload the results there. I was happy because a lot of Nigerians this time around were able to stay within their polling units and actually make sure that all of their votes were submitted. It was painful to see that, yes, some INEC staffs were still stubborn. I don't know why you're stubborn to push the wheel of the people to INEC, but it was very sad to see that some security operators were also aiding the evacuation of these INEC staffs without doing what they were supposed to do. I'm really looking forward to see how this whole electoral process will play out because there's a lot of discrepancies in every part of this electoral system, starting from the e-vast to the INEC staffs, to even the electoral system itself. There are some polling units where there are 700 voters and then they were given only 600. What else are you supposed to do about the 100? They came on the plan that, oh, it's by law. The ballot papers are never finished, so that's why you bring the less. I mean, if you ask the INEC now, they'll probably blame logistics, but then the president assured us that all requirements needed by INEC were already fulfilled. Funds were already distributed. Even the CBN, as of last week, when INEC was complaining that, oh, they had issues with the whole cash policy, the CBN made assurances to INEC that they were going to remit them with the said money, and we also heard where INEC said they had received the money. So where are we getting it all wrong right now? It is a question for Mr. Mamon, because he has to explain what all these different states are facing. Back to you, Fine Face. In Lagos, and you have also made a mention of what happened in the governor's local government era, where also a known government official shut up as a polling unit to tell people who to vote for, and if they were not going to vote for that person, they needed to leave the polling unit, and that same thing happened here in Lagos. Now, we saw the guy in charge of the Lagos parks and management in a particular video posted by a voter telling people, in fact, threatening people in Lagos that if they did not vote for a party that he supported, and he called, you know, referred to tribes, you know, that if they're here, they should go back to their homes and not vote. What should INEC be doing in this regard? We've not seen any arrests, we've not heard anything. I mean, there are people who might be perpetrating acts of violence who come on a motorcycle, we're gun shooting. I mean, we saw videos of, you know, in Ecuador where people who are on masks were shooting directly at voters with guns, guns that normally you'd not see with an average Nigerian, but these people were wielding guns. What should INEC be doing? Because it's almost 24 hours and we've not seen any arrests, especially for those who are known, especially for that man who is in the government of Governor Wike, why are these people still walking free? Well, I think the people are walking free because those who are supposed to act have failed to do the needful. And I know that INEC being the electoral empire that witnessed when some of these things happened in their presence, they are those who are supposed to raise the alarm officially. And I believe that INEC actually partner with the security operatives to prosecute this election. And if that is the case, when this kind of thing happened, I think they needed to activate their relationship with the police to make arrests and take such people into custody. Because I know quite well that if steps are not taken, this kind of thing will continue and will remain part of our electoral system. And again, why will INEC focus on the election? I think also that the collaboration that exists between INEC and the security operatives should also come to play here. By then tracing those videos and getting people and someone that have made some of these comments and behave this way, you know, arrest them without having to wait for INEC to prompt them. Because a situation whereby you see a flagrant, you know, abuse of the electoral process in such a way that you can act someone who was supposed to vote, not to vote because you have a particular candidate a person should vote for. That is not right. That is the violation of the rights of that person to exercise, you know, his way, his conscience through the ballot box. But I think that they need to take steps to arrest people like this and not wait for INEC to be prompt them. The security should do it, do more to take steps to bring some of these people into custody. I remember in Rivers State, you know, last week leading to the election, a house of reps, you know, a man, I think, Efrem Mosey, because his name is already in the internet, it's on the internet. He posted a video that was making some violent comments regarding how they should shoot some INEC officials and what have you. He was arrested and taken to court and is currently, you know, in detention at the Correctional Center, you know, a waiting trial. So the point here remains that we shouldn't just wait until people take some of these actions that may really harm people. It's not until, even when you're carrying on up, people that have made this kind of comment and taking this kind of action should be taken into custody, should be arrested and prosecuted. That is the only way we can sanitize our system and for that to suffer deterrent to other people who may be not seeing those kind of behavior that we make other people not to can exercise their franchise or express their will to develop. Because there is no body that is good enough to lead the other person without the consent of that person. And the consent of that person must come to develop box and the person must be freely be able to express it. And when it is expressed, people should also allow the votes to count in such a way that, you know, the person can be proud of either losing gallantly or winning gallantly in an election. Still staying with, you know, enforcing the law here. I may mention of the fact that law enforcement agents were seen. I failed to mention to you that there was a law enforcement officer where the Lagos Parks and Management Head was making these threats. And I'm guessing also law enforcement officers were flanking the aid of the governor or somebody who walks in the government of Governor Wike when he was making these threats. These are law enforcement officers. So I'm posing a question right now that you may not necessarily be in the position to answer but of course we're having a conversation. How many of our law enforcement agents understand the law? Because you cannot be a law enforcer if you do not have access to what's in the law or even understand it. So how do these people enforce a law that they have no clue about? How many of these people know what the electoral act as amended actually says about these crimes? I think they know and they understand the law because they go for training once and they why. I know that they're not receiving enough training as possible but they receive training that enable them to understand the law. And oftentimes too, the media has been helping and supporting the process of the development of Nigerian democracy and electoral process. There is hardly any hour that the media is not providing a platform for experts, analysts and commentators to speak about some of these things. Lawyers are also sensitizing. So they know what to do and what not to do. In fact, even if you are not as educated when it has to do with understanding the law the moment someone does something that is not in line with what has to do. Something in you will tell you that what this person has done is wrong and that person is supposed to be picked up. And when the person is picked up you comments the process of investigation and investigation we have to unravel the crime that that person would have committed and the sections of the law that the person would have violated and then you take action on that person. Just like we are talking about this now we watched Mr. President voted in his hometown yesterday and when Mr. President voted he displays his voter, his ballot paper. I literally asked my next question because I was going to say that the president, the Senate president these people flouted a particular rule in the electoral act showing us who they voted for. Are these people above the law or is this just the modus operandi in this country? It's a disturbing question. In a system where we try to adhere to the law where we grew up law upgrades I believe that at this point in time I know Mr. President has enjoyed immunity but whatever it is last week I think was it the EFCC or the police that told us that they are investigating some covenants over certain comment they have made and certain action they have taken despite the immunity that they enjoy that they are investigating them. I am surprised that 24 hours after Mr. President voted and displayed his voters I mean his ballot paper which clearly indicated the fact that he has voted for a particular candidate we found late sections of the electoral act that no comment has come from the police that maybe Mr. President has been investigated and maybe when he leaves off the action we will be taking but I think that was the violation of the law and it is only when we that are at the hem of affairs people that are at the hem of affairs are leaving by example that other people we could only leave from them and be able to make the system to work because we are talking about America we are talking about the UK and other parts of the world today I think people made it to be so and we have to join hand collectively to see how we can make our own system work I have not heard that an American president voted any day and people get to vote who he voted for when the law says it's a secret ballot system so I think it was the violation of the law and that is what some other people that are below the ladder are emulating and causing crisis everywhere so I think they need to take steps to let people learn from them so that we don't have a system whereby the people at the hem of affairs don't obey the law that they made and that takes us to some of the definitions of what John Orton have said that the law sees the law as an instrument of oppression made by the superior for the inferiors to obey we have to make the law something that all of us we obey so that our system will be better and people can learn from us today from when Ainec was speaking this morning before they postponed to 6pm about electoral commissioners from like six African countries or there but in Nigeria what are they here to do? They are not only here to observe but they are also here to learn and they will learn from every process and this is part of what they should take home on what is being done and I know quite well that they are going to filter what they get from here and then taking the one that is better but we should give them more good information about our system than what we are actually carrying out Interesting, let me come back to you Nicholas for a person who does not live in Nigeria you have obviously witnessed elections where you are I don't know if you have dual citizenship and you can participate in the elections in the United States but if you have ever witnessed the elections or participated I mean because the whole world watches when the US or the UK has its elections what are the few things that you have observed that we could learn from because you see sometimes I am a bit tired to sound like a broken record because I feel like Hello, hope you enjoyed the news please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates