 Welcome back, it's the Ballots 2023 and we've been looking at the economic impact on the elections and of course, we'll actually take the conversation wider right now, Marianne has joined us yet again. Yes, we're going to talk about vote buying because you cannot talk about elections and not talk about the financing. I know that in 2016, if I'm not mistaken, CERAP and several other non-government and governmental organizations had taken political parties in the country to court asking that they make their party finances public. As we speak, that case is still in court. Political parties are yet to let us know how much they spend and I must tell you that even sources of the abundance, as much as we continue to pursue that case, 2023's election and campaigns have actually shot through the roof in terms of party financing. As much as the parties are yet to tell us what it is, how much they've made, who are the people who are sponsoring those political parties, there's still a huge question mark around that. And Moqtaka, coming back to you, it's interesting that we have an electoral act, we're all excited that Mr. President signed that act, but we've done everything but follow the rules in that book. Why? It's an angelic factor. INAIC is supposed to be the one that should look at the books of the political parties. They are supposed to be independent, but you and I know that we've not done that aspect of it. And then like you said, the case is still in court, but when it comes to judgment, there has to do with politics, the judgment gets, but when it comes to issues like this, we have challenges. It has to do with INAIC. Nobody is talking INAIC from doing its role as an empire to say, okay, who and who is sponsoring this. It's already out there. It's for INAIC to just go ahead and begin to do supervision and implementation. So I don't think it has anything to do with the political party. It has everything to do with INAIC. And then INAIC will tell you that we don't have the manpower also to do that, or we don't have the resources to follow up with these political parties. It boils down to what has been the challenge in Nigeria. Systems. We don't have systems in place. We have strong men in place. If we have a very strong INAIC chairman who wants this, I want to live in legacy for myself. I want to make sure that political parties funding are being traced and no one is contributing. You see that. You see that would have been achieving that. But again, once you achieve that, when he goes out, all the person comes in. You see it because there's no system in terms of monitoring it. So definitely I think the challenge has to do with INAIC. INAIC has to do that. Okay, Ben. Ben, why would you say that our politics, our election campaign and all of that are so monetized? Because before we even went to the polls today, lots of people were complaining about the whole Naira crunch. So, I don't know if you remember one particular politician said that he needed a specific amount to do his campaigns. And he was actually, he meant about that he's not getting enough cash for his political campaign. And your election is all about cash. Why should it be so? Why? That has always been because the politicians are monetized every process of the election. And this is the first election that will have few movement of cash because of the cash crunch. We normally have cash moving from point A to point B without anybody. Even the banking, the bankers knows that once the time you see a politician comes in, we won't forget the issue of the address that go into body lump, the missing billion band that find his way there. Also, these are issues that have been, you go to polling booth, you see where people sit down there and just sit down there, the security agent do nothing. They give money, you go to snap it and come to them and collect money. Now, those challenges are still there, but now they try to do it cashless. But lack of trust, the people don't trust them. Even when they give, say okay, where will go for us? Who doesn't trust who? Yeah. Nanyam. So you're saying there's a trust deficit when it comes to our politicians? Of course. You know that. Okay. What we're being joined right now by Chomal Kulil, someone from Abuja who just casted her votes. And- By which time? Yes, yes. Incredible. Even though, you know, we heard that a lot of people in Abuja were able to cast their votes early. People, the electoral officers turned up early enough. But I guess that there's some parts of Abuja that did not enjoy the pompous of INEX process. Choma Okola, it's so good to have you join us. Good evening. Choma, you need to unmute yourself so we can hear you. Great, great, great. Good evening. Okay. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Yes. Okay. Choma, sir, an idea of what happened at your polling unit and where exactly did you vote? Hello. Yes, we can hear you, Choma. Go ahead. Okay. I can hear you. So I'm saying, tell us where your polling unit is in Abuja and how the process went. Okay, my polling unit is at Dankoji Philly Station, NNPC, Dankoji NNPC Philly Station in a pole resettlement. Okay. So we were there since morning and we have up to 4,000 people, like more than 4,000, according to the court par that was trying to do the accreditation. He said there are more than 4,000 and people were there since morning and a lot of people are still there. I voted few minutes ago. Wow. Wow. I voted few minutes ago. At what point did the electoral offices come? They were there in the morning, but some people that were there before me said they weren't there early enough, but they came in the morning. Okay. So I'm wondering, did you experience any form of irregularities? Was the process slow? Was it fast? What exactly was it? There was nothing like irregularities, just that people were, the officers, the officials there, they were trying to distract people. I don't know what was happening. At some point, they said we should leave where we were to enter inside the pole station. At some point, they asked us to leave the pole station to go to somewhere else that even though the pole station said we can't stay there, meanwhile, it's an NNPC pole station. So we had to move from there because of light. We had to move from there to another corner. And when we got there, there was still no light there and they told on the light at the pole station. Later on, people started the broad generator and the wired lights kind of. So that was how we voted. People are still there. A lot of people that haven't been accredited, they are still there. Millions. We were there and we started raining. People were singing the national anthem. People were singing NYSE anthem on that tunnel in the rain. People were singing. So people are still there. Chanting. We must vote. We must vote. Yeah. You talked about no irregularities, but you also talked about where you guys voted and lack of proper visibility, as it says, the lightning and everything. Would you really say that this might actually muddy the election? Do you think the polls might be credible in that area with all that you have said so far? Why should it be credible? Because a lot of people might have left having waited for so long and you wouldn't blame them because they've been there since morning and up till now if not haven't voted. And there were very few officials. The machines were not enough. At some point their ink finished. It was individuals. The people that came to vote that went out to buy ink for them. Wow. It means, obviously from all that you've told us, it means that the people in that area were resolute and wanted to make sure that they casted their vote before they left that polling unit. Well, we want to say thank you, Chama, for sharing your experience with us. We can see that you're using the touch from your phone to enable us to see your face. Thank you very much for coming out to vote. We appreciate it. He wants to know like say. All right. Thank you. Because Mary and I'm wondering how voting in the DAC without much visibility, anything can actually go wrong. And, you know, because we also have to be careful to not void your vote. That's the thing. And so you need to be certain that you've, you know, you have to vote in who you are supposed to vote for. Inside the box and not outside. Outside the box. Because a little bit outside the box. It makes that vote, you know, invalid. I mean, Nigerians are very resolute. Yeah, they are. People that generate us. They say we will light up this place. Nothing is going to keep us from voting. Definitely. It's not the first time. Some people, I'm sure maybe she didn't go there. Because I've even been bringing food for some people to sit down to eat. We see places where somebody is saying on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook saying, I'm going to my unit. I'm bringing food. What are you bringing? I'm pulling. So anybody in this polling unit, are you bringing? I'm drinking drink. Are you bringing food? You know, I think it's an election that we all will be proud of at the end of the day. Let's talk about voter turnout. I want to go back to something that we discussed earlier today. People came out early, very early. People got chairs, canopies, just as you said, food. But then in some areas, the electoral officers never showed up on time. And people have stayed. For example, in her case, they've been there for hours. And this is, I mean, you see, they're under the dark. Will all of this be able to dampen the morale of the people who have come up? Because they might not. Don't forget we have a new entrance of voters. These guys may not be as resolute as us. They may not have had the experiences we've had voting over the years. How does this affect the psyche of all of these people? Personally, I think they are more resilient than we have been voting before. Because they really want to vote for the first time. I've seen that, if you say they will sit down here until they are all around social media spacing. Look, I mean, bodies would not seem any official. They are targeting any. So you definitely know that Nigerians were resilient. At this time around, I will cast my vote no matter what. I want to call for a video. I'm sure, guys, you're standing by to give us that video. There was an incident in Chakandeo, Agungi, where a young man had to pursue after people who took the power. I think the, what's it called? The ballot box. The ballot box, yes. I think that we had that video on our YouTube and it's, you know, running. But I wish we had that video so we could show people. So this young man who was able to run after the guys who searched the ballot boxes and was able to retrieve one of the ballot boxes somewhere here on the island in Lagos. Someone responded to that video and said, this is the beginning of a revolution. Do you agree? Well, I agree. But we hope that the revolution does not take it, you know. But again, it's positive because I see that also. Then again, it's an indictment of security apparatus that we have because if there's any time I've seen security beefed off an election, I think the military were involved, fighter jets were all over playing the air and then we could have pockets of incident. You know, the challenge is we sometimes don't want to do things right with data because the security agencies know the trouble spot. They know the trouble spot. So what you need to do is to beef off security in the trouble spot. Not briefing up a lot of security in places that you know election normally go peacefully. In Lagos state, we know the trouble spot. The security officers know the trouble spot. They know where some voters will want to be decentralized because of the belong to a political party or they believe they belong to a certain political party. So the security agency knows that. So if they are ready to do their work, they will do it. So for me, it's an indictment of security agency. If at this age we are still getting people that are snatching by the law of justice, then we will do an incident in other places. The video that I've been trending, like a video that happened in Yanukwaja where they thought we were arrested by the security agent, by the soldiers. They were arrested. We see incident where somebody wanted to snatch a bus in Kogi state. He was actually killed. So we have pockets of incidents like that. But for the first time, like your guest from reverse to the accord party candidate said, the violence are not widespread like they used to be. What do you think is responsible for the reduction in the violence? Because you see, I always say that the people who are engaged in ballot box snatching, the people who are causing mayhem and violence and carrying machetes and guns to polling units are Nigerians. What do you think has happened? What tips the scales? I think it has to do with the enlightenment of Nigerians and again, maybe the suffering of Nigerians. A lot of Nigerians have suffered so well. For the past eight years, I can tell you, a lot of Nigerians have gone through a lot and they are not ready to say, look, we can continue doing things like this. I have an incident that happened. I didn't know that it happened in Lagos. I was talking to a young man just yesterday. I said, are you not going to vote? He said, I am not voting this time. I said, but you belong to them. Why are you not voting? He said, no. All what I do is that they just come to meet me. They even called me yesterday. They met me and normally what they would do for me is that they would give me an amount of money and would connect a PVC of people. They would not vote. I would give them money. And he said, this time they called me and said, I am not doing that again because we are suffering. We need... So definitely it comes to a point where Nigerians have to... When you are pushed to the wall, at a point you have to... Some people are still benefiting from the violence and some people... I mean, it's always the politician that starts it, their agents and then they have people that... But I think Nigerians are wise. If you look at even the pocket of violence that you've seen, you've seen that the people are very calm. Some places, the people were calm. They don't want to... They just left there and they are saying, I know the electoral act have said that if there is a violent in the polling unit, before they will say that polling unit is council, they will not vote in their... They will come back the following day. There must be an election in that polling unit. With more securities will be brought in and an election will be held. Okay Mukta, a lot of people expressed their enthusiasm to participate in this particular election, this time around. But would you say that the cash crunch that we've had in the past few weeks would have dampened the morale of some people and there might be a result of some voter apathy that has been reported across several states? I think it's some state that would have dampened the apathy, but for some state it may have even moved them to go to the boat to vote. How so? Because if you listen to some of the governors, if you look at the governors on those states, they were saying that the policy was meant to dampen the morale of their own people from coming out to vote. You could say that affected them. If you look at them, the governor also made mention of that. But in some states, some parties were ready that it's good for us, let everybody come to vote. So what we've seen is that those that normally vote for the conscience or the vote, these are candidates, these are the right person, they all came out to vote. For those that used to vote because they would have to give them money to go and vote, they were mostly disappointed that they were not coming out to vote this time around because they said there's no need for me coming out because they didn't give me anything.