 Former President Goodlock Jonathan has stressed the need for electoral management bodies in Africa to be free to discharge their responsibilities in order to deliver credible elections. He also enjoined African lawyers across the continent to use their calling to promote justice, equity and the rule of law. We're joining us to discuss this, our lawyers, Obinachiku and Emeka Mwaduki. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for having me, thank you so much. So this is a clarion call of sorts by the former president, of course it's not just talking about Nigeria, but he's talking about electoral bodies across Africa, but we're Nigeria so let's you know use Nigeria here as the case study. Now it's very interesting that we have so many governments, departments and agencies that have the appendage, independent, but are not necessarily independent in reality because of the person who decides to pick the head of that ministry or that department or that agency and this is detailed for INEC. And so a lot of people have queried the independence of INEC over and over again and the question again is here, how independent is INEC? I'm going to start with you Barsanwaduki. Is INEC anywhere close to the independence that begins, you know, its name? Thank you so much. It's a difficult one to really say, you know, that INEC is independent. A lot of commentators believe that the independence attached to its name is essentially nominal. And although we can say that maybe over time INEC has tried to do one or two things to improve on its performance and maybe try to, you know, strengthen its independence so to speak. But essentially we can say that it's working properly. But the fact that the person who leads or heads INEC is nominated by the president, whoever it is, and then of course ratified by the National Assembly, does that not call to question where he's allegiance or where he takes his orders from? Because that's also been part of the debate over time. You have virtually raised a very fundamental issue because appointment of key officers of INEC is a fundamental drawback on its purported independence. So you see a situation where INEC German is nominated by, not appointed by the president but ratified by the National Assembly, all the national officers or national commissioners are appointed by the president. So it's a major, major challenge because when, for instance, you can see a situation where perhaps the sitting president who is seeking reelection has a mandate to appoint all these people. As they say, he who pays the Piper, or he maybe in this instance who nominates the Piper, he pays in tune. So it's quite a major challenge and maybe as we go on, we try to explore how we can tackle this major drawback. Vaisachukku, it's, again, some of the issues that have been raised in terms of independence of INEC, just as I said, is also the fact that they still have to depend financially on the federal government per se. There's a lot of signing off that has to be done by the presidency or the federal government instead of it getting independent because independence is not just about it not being nominated or, the head not being nominated or appointed by Mr. President, it also has to do with his finances. But looking at the Nigerian constitution as it is, how easy is it for us to single-handedly make INEC independent without having to go back into the constitution to change some things? Okay. Let me once more say thank you for having me. Before I go to this question, I will say that I, appointment of the INEC officials to me, I may not, I may not be the reason why the INEC is not independent. It may not be the reason because no matter how you juggle it, no matter how you weave it around, somebody must still appoint somebody. Nobody will just wake up and announce to Nigerians that he or she is now the chairman of Independence National Electoral Commission. Somebody will still have to appoint the person. But what I want to say is that appointment is not the problem. The problem is to, is the institutions, weak institutions that we have in Nigeria, that's why it's as if whoever that is appointed can now or has the leverage to pander towards a political party or live in accordance with the apron strings of whoever that appointed him. If we have strong institutions, for instance, let's say the security agencies, the police is independent, the institution of the police is strong, the military is strong, and all other, the anti-corruption agency is strong, and all the other institutions that have sought an invisible check on other institutions, that won't end. Then again, secondly, from what you asked, whether or not we could do that without the constitution. I do not think that we can do that without the constitution. Look at what has happened in Nigeria within the past three or four years. There were state governors, or even the president in Nigeria, where Nigerians came out, protested and shouted, this government must go and all that and tried all kinds of ways to protest on the streets, at least to have the government go. The government will not go white because there is a constitutional provision that provides for how a president, how a governor can be removed from office. So it doesn't matter what the governor does. It doesn't matter what the president does, even if the president is not really Nigerian or not first starting or spreading economic largesse to Nigerians, no matter how protest you carry out on this street, the president cannot go because, again, the constitution has provided or has provided for ways through which a president can be removed from office. It therefore means that once those processes are not activated or utilized, the president cannot be removed from office. Neither can the governor. It doesn't matter how the governor is behaving. The governor may be apologizing, the governor may become recalcitrant, and yet the constitution says your position as the governor will still continue until the end of your term, and I see that is not even enough, section, I think section 308 or 305 or so. Also we've around the community. So for us to independent electoral commission, number one, we must ensure that their finances are come through the first line. It must not be the executive that must or neither is it the legislators that gives them money. The money must come the same way that the executive gets their money from the first line charge or whatever, their money must be there. And secondly, they must have immunity. They must have immunity from actions taken in order to conduct free and fair elections. And thirdly, they must not be removed until put it in the same process, in the same procedure, tedious procedure that the constitution provided or provides for in the impeachment of a governor, in the impeachment of a president. If you do all this, anybody, even if the president appoints the person, if the person gets there and becomes corrupt, strong institution will pick up the person and the needful will be done. But if we say to do all this, I can tell you will continue to talk, it will always perform a talking point and no action will be taken. All right. Let me go back to Bair. So I want to take it quickly because we're almost out of time. He's saying that we need strong institutions as opposed to worrying about who appoints who into office because, of course, an appointment or nomination has to take place for someone to occupy the office. And he's given us some key points that he thinks that if we follow, we can help to change the situation. Is I not going to be the litmus test in building strong institutions? Is there a real power to even want to start the idea of building strong institutions when we know or if, for example, and when I say we here, I'm talking about everyone including the politicians know that they might one day have their day in court or they might be the ones who will be receiving the short end of the stick. Do we see that happening anytime soon? Just like my colleague said, it's essentially about financial independence and maybe, of course, the level of appointment independence also. So you are looking at the situation because, presently, anyway, their fund comes from the consolidated point. So to that extent, you can say that funding wise, they are OK. But then again, you also look at the aspect of even remover and you discover that probably they cannot be removed without to third majority in the National Assembly. But the fundamental aspect is still this appointment is if we can be able to weave it out of the ambit of the president or the state government. Look at the phone. So are you there? I think we're having connection issues, unfortunately, but we have to wrap things up because we're almost out of time. Make your mind OK. And thank you very much for speaking with us. Unfortunately, we have to go. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. We will take a short break now to see what Nigerians have to say about women and youth participation in politics. And right after that, I'll be saying my goodbyes. OK. I think we need more inclusion of women in politics than it is presently. You understand? Because if we look across both in different organizations, we've seen women doing great and massively well in whatever thing they do. And of recent, we've been seeing the very much more inclusion of women in the banking sector in the being the empty of several banks. So women in politics, they are on the low side, and we think we need more of them because of what they can do, though, even though I'm not going to subscribe 100 per cent, what a man can do, what a woman can do better, but definitely the word is what it is, what a man can do. A woman can do much more OK and very well also. In Nigeria, I don't think we've tried a lot of women and they failed us. Like the former minister of petroleum is only one that if till date they will still be inviting her, but she's late now, Dora Akunyili, that was the, would I say, the Nafda lady and the former minister of finance. Those are just the two women. Outside, as most of them you see, I don't know how they are using them. They will just embezzle money and so maybe the younger ones coming up, maybe they will be better. I don't know. So my opinion is they should give them chance and see. Women are no more in politics and we advise a government to allow them to join in politics so that everything will go well in this country. Women in politics, it's like, it's both sides, but sometimes when they give the woman the chance to be in politics, they provide more, but when they don't give the woman the chance in politics, they don't provide more. So that is it. OK. Well, we want to thank you all for staying with us. It's been Plus Politics on Plus TV Africa. I am Mary Anakun. Thank you for watching and I will see you tomorrow. Don't forget to follow us on our social media on Instagram and on Facebook and you can watch our shows live on YouTube at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. Have a good evening.