 Yes, I can hear you now. Okay, I was saying good morning and thanks for having me. Yeah, I was wondering if a QIBOM network today has failed. Enemies of progress, they will not succeed. Okay, so well, it just came to our head. When we are looking at headlines, every administration keeps complaining about inheriting an empty purse inheriting economic woes from the previous government. And it is up to our neck. This present administration is also complaining of having inherited something that is unspeakable from the previous administration. And then we are asking ourselves, if the previous administration is your party, how is it that you're coming now and just finding out some things now and just still blaming the other people like you were not part of it? So what really beyond organizing political campaigns and then going into elections is really the role of political parties when it comes to real governance. What role are they playing or should they play? Okay, for this discussion to be beneficial and effectual, we need to give setting very, very clear foundations and fundamentals. Exactly what is government? Exactly what is political party? Exactly what is the role of elected leaders? Exactly what is the role of the citizen, talking about office of the citizen of the federal republic of night? And we have failed to take personal responsibility and as a result, we seem to be going in all directions and effectively no direction. Why am I saying this? Unless we answer the question of the essence of election, which creates political parties and what parties are so that the citizens get to understand, they'll realize that we are assembling an orchestra without understanding the roles of each person. We are assembling a football team without asking certain questions. Number one, who is the coach? Number two, on the field, who is the goalkeeper? After the goalkeeper, where is the defence? After the defence, where is the midfield before we now say where are the strikers to score goals? We must have a clarity on what government and governance is all about. If not so, we will continue to ask these questions 20, 50 years from now. What is the role of the political parties? How can an elected person blame the previous administration? What was campaigned? What are you supposed to do at campaign? Are you making promises when you don't know how much money you have in your pocket? The election empire, how have you trained your people? How have you made sure that your people... Did you give them a roadmap in the first instance when you registered political parties, INEC? What was your understanding? What did they present to you? How are you making sure that they follow a certain route? The number one problem that we have is the citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The second problem that we have is a man called INEC, a body called INEC that we vested with the responsibility of making sure that we choose the people to lead us. When you start with those two, then so long as the citizens have not made sure that we have an INEC that knows its responsibilities, that INEC will continue to go around in circles and give us people that will not satisfy our essence. I think that as we go on, we will be able to take certain specifics. So when you ask what is the role of political parties in governance, you must ask yourself, what are political parties? Who registered them? If you register people as a football club, do they have footballers in the team who registered the football club? What were the templates that we put before defining the game that we are going to play and making sure that they understand the rules of the game so that when they come in, they will be playing by the rules. It's a very, very complex and complicated structure that we must address foundationally without which we will not make progress. Well, but I understand because growing up, I didn't think, maybe I didn't understand at that time, but I didn't think that it was whoever was leading or was occupying the highest political position in any capacity that was the leader of that political party in that area. Because, okay, you have councillors. Now councillors are the leaders of the political parties in their council wards. Chairman, the same thing in their local government. Governors, the same thing in their states and the president equally. The president talks or dictates to the political party. It was not like this, at least in my understanding. I don't know if I got it wrong. Was it this way? It didn't get it wrong at all. INEC, I was one of the greatest cheerleaders of the INEC and the chairman, but of recent they have become my number one problem in the Federal Republic of Nigeria and I say that much. I have participated in politics at all levels. As a senior faithful member of a party, I was in the PDP and I am the chairman of the PDP to one of the states. That's one of the highest responsibilities that you can have in a party because you effectively go to set up the structure of that party in that state. So whatever you do helps to set up the structure of the whole party in that state. I have played at that highest role as a party member in the PDP. I now moved on to co-found a party, the young democratic party that effectively translated as it went into YPP. That's why they called me the father of YDP and then the grandfather of YPP. I've become the pioneer national chairman of a party that effectively brought the youth into governance in Nigeria. That's the second role as an administrator. I've played the third role as a contestant where even in the last dispensation I was a governorship candidate so that puts me in a poor position to have an idea of what governance is all about. How can you as a governor have your commissioner as the political leader of his local government? You have no idea of what governance is all about. How can you as a president have your minister as your political leader in his state? You have no understanding, you have no clue as to what government is all about. Your cabinet is your strong room. It is supposed to be that hallow chamber of the brightest and the best in their areas where they cannot be distracted by anything they are into governance. You have your party that takes care of your political structure and then you have the government which has to do with governance and cannot meddle itself. How can you as a president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria want to be the leader of your party? Or you as a governor want to be the leader of your... Do you know the roles that you had to play as a president or as a governor? We do have enough time to play that role. The role of the leader of a political party is so important. It's so serious that no one man can handle the role of the president and role of the political leader or the role of a governor and the role of a political leader. Now come back to the foundations, the basics. We really don't have political parties. We don't. And I can say that as an informed person. I'll give you a little story background that will make you understand where I'm coming from. When I was made the National Chairman of Young Democratic Party there were 30 registered parties in Nigeria. Unfortunately PDP and we have this IPAC where it's a body of chairman of political parties in the Party Advisory Council and as a chairman you become a member. So the 30 of us were the 30 members of IPAC then but PDP had issues. So PDP was not in the meeting, we were 29 we were to elect the new Exco of IPAC and I was attending the meeting for the very first time but I was so burdened about this issue of party that I decided to put in for the position of the Vice Chairman of IPAC and people laughed me to scorn. It's like young man, what are you talking about? You're just coming here for the first time, first meeting then you want to be the number two person. How? You know jokingly one of them told me you're going to have two votes. One vote is going to be yours and the second vote is going to be that of your friend. Then there was a fresh party by Reverend Okote and everybody knows my relationship with Reverend Okote so they said you're going to have your vote and that of fresh and those are the only two votes you're going to have. Long and short I did not win but guess what? I lost by one vote and guess the vote? The vote of fresh party. The person that was sent back to the party. The very one that was supposed to make you win or the next vote that was supposed to get. Yes and guess it was so dramatic that when the person voted rather than the vote fall down it actually stood straight and face the public. I mean it was like impossible but it actually stood straight without falling and you know face the public. So it stood short. I don't want to call the person's name. He didn't vote for me so as far as I was concerned I was just going to get one vote. But guess what? I had 14 votes while the other person had 15. Meaning that if that person had voted for me I would have had 15. But what made the difference? What made people listening to me for the very first time to go out of their way jettisoned the alliances that they had and voted so much that I had 14 out of 29 votes and the person that won had 15. In fact I was held and carried as if I was a winner. What did I say? They made a mistake of saying that the chairman, chairmanship position and the vice chairmanship position that the people should address you know that the candidates should address the people and when it was my turn I made a certain fundamental power statement and until Nigeria comes to understand that statement we may not make progress. What did I say? I said every party is government either in waiting or in action. If APC when PDP was in control was government they would have understood had their shadow cabinet, had their shadow government looked at policies, looked at issues given their alternatives worked with the way of this hour this is my point of view and this is my point of view and this is my point of view and this is my point of view and this is the way of this hour this is my housing ministry this is my foreign policy or external affairs ministry this is my agriculture ministry this is my different so that they have policies and policies are never in isolation policies are based on current goings on such that when a party in government makes a mistake an alternative a solution so opposition is not pulling the system down because you know that you can get in and you don't want to get in and inherit nothing you understand me you want to at election let people see that you had better viable you know solutions to problems that is when campaigning becomes based on issues but today my brother what have you heard about any parties in the last election nothing they are not there party is strictly a vehicle an SPV for capturing power that is why during election if you belong to the smaller parties you are a problem to your party if you want to contest election I don't know if you understand what I'm talking about your party do not expect you to stand for election in the smaller parties they expect them to walk in so much that towards the end you go and endorse those that will win and then you collect whatever they bring and you share so it is not about it's not about having any ideology it's not about having any purpose parties don't have those and who do you blame for that one body, INEC because the responsibility of INEC is to sit on the necks of parties to make sure that they understand their essence and they play their essence as a matter of INEC ought to be calling each party and asking them for their positions on the current goings on either in their state or at the national level and this is not existing okay, well I think this discussion will not end today because our time for today has ended but we should continue that because now that the national assembly is talking about reforms maybe in the electoral law maybe some of these things should be included inside them so that we know for sure what a party should do and all that sometimes maybe if they put it in the hands of the party to recall their members who are not performing well they will sit up, maybe that will work for us but we'd like to thank you for coming on the show this morning sir and we hope to see you tomorrow for the paper review very definitely by God's grace thanks for having me thank you so much we've been talking with architect Zikel Nyaito a public affairs analyst we were talking about the role of the political parties in governance quickly we'll take a break and return to talk about the rivers and get an update on the river state political situation stay with us