 It's still plus politics now that People's Democratic Party PDP has accused the ruling all-progressive Congress APC of failing to stem the tide of killings in Sakato, Naija, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau State and other parts of the country. In a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary Debo Ulugunabba, the PDP noted that the party failed to show empathy for the various attacks that led to the death of several Nigerians, but that they had time to attend the tabanning ceremony of President Mohamed Buhari's son in the same troubled Katsina State. It urged President Mohamed Buhari to demonstrate the leadership and empathy by personally visiting the troubled state in line with his campaign promise to lead the fight against terrorism from the front. Joining us to discuss this is Kala Wali Johnson. Thank you very much Mr. Kala Wali Johnson for joining us. Thank you. Have a good evening. Great. It's very interesting that, I mean you and I have had conversations around these issues of banditry, terrorism, killings and hacking of people to death in your farm lands and now it's on a much bigger scale and we're still here having almost the same conversation. Although this time around it's not just along party lines, every single person seems to be crying foul. Last week we saw people from the North protesting and saying that the President is sleeping, some of the placards read that the President has abandoned the North and that there seems to be some form of ethnic cleansing according to them in the North. Why do you think that we're still here at this time of the year talking about the same things and probably wondering the same, you know wondering why nothing has really incredibly been done to stem the tide of this terrorism and why it's spreading? All right. There is no way you won't keep talking about an issue at hand except the issue has been resolved. So as long as the issue is not resolved we'll be talking about it and especially one that has to do with life. If you look at the present scenario we have in Nigeria it appears lately we don't attach much value to life again, both the citizens and those in government. And when you had the incident in Sakwato remember that they didn't even make the headline. There was no much, you know, cry about it so it appears killings of innocent citizens these days have become the new normal for us as a country just as I call it is the new normal for the award. So except this is tackled and Nigerians are seeing improvements in the security of lives on property. We won't stop talking about it. And, you know, we should see from the part of the government the seriousness to nail this issue, you know, one time for all of course. It has gotten to a stage that it is difficult to completely eradicate it but you must have, you know, been seen to have made a lot of progress. But for now we've not made much progress. However, you just had a change of the other chiefs of our security agencies and let's hope that these guys are trying their best to, you know, to be able to solve the situation. Of course, you understand that when there's a change in party, it takes a whole lot not just to settle down and in a sector like the security sector. It takes a whole lot to be able to settle down, you know, be able to like come up with new strategies and, you know, face the battle headlong. But let's see from the first part of next year we should start accessing them. Of course it'll be about a year in office then. So we should start accessing them and, you know, and then of course to know if they have given their best or not. But for now we'll keep talking because the problem still lingers. Thank you. I'm curious. As much as I appreciate our armed forces, they're doing an amazing job. It's very tough to be fighting a guerrilla warfare. We totally appreciate that. But you also said something about, you know, they're doing their best and, you know, giving them time. All fine and dandy. But the UAE recently put out names of people who are funding terrorism in this country. Now we're the ones who are suffering it. There's no terrorism in the UAE but they were first to prosecute these people. Name, shame and prosecute them, sent them to jail. We still have people in this country allegedly funding terrorism. In fact, under the good luck administration we heard the same thing that there are people who are funding terrorism within the government. We've also heard that under the Bahá'í administration. Why is it so difficult to fish out these fund, the people who are funding terrorism in this country? Why is it so difficult to deal with these people, plug those loopholes? We've seen cases and cases of guns coming into this country year in, year out and there's sensational headlines, there's a reportage of sorts and after a while it dies off. Nothing is being done about it. So I ask, where is the political will in fighting this terrorism that the APC administration promised Nigerians to fight? In fact, this is one of the reasons why Nigerians voted massively for President Bahá'í. So where is all of that energy? Where is the sense of urgency to deal with this? First, you know, some of us are guilty. Okay, let me say we are partly guilty for this because under the last administration we had a voice, you know, very strong across platforms. We are advocating for a better government response to the insecurity we had in the country. Even though at that time it wasn't this bad, of course it wasn't at this level and unfortunately, even when we shouted then, you had the government then trying to do so. I mean, of course they would come up with some few things but it appears that bringing in a general with a track record of a good showing in such an urgency like this, of course, it didn't happen then. So we were thinking that it would be better. But for me, in all honesty, I am not afraid to own on that but we thought it would be better. But he is actually not better now as we speak. I mean, you can't hide that. And to make it worse, I do not understand what constitutes a president's KPIs. How he measures performance, I don't know. Take for example, when he sends the former IG to go to Benui then, 2018 or there about, you know, to go, you know, address the situation. IG did not go. But what happened? Practically nothing happened. Number two, when the president came into the country sometimes black and he saw the former IG too, he said because the man was not adding weight that it shows that he was working. So again, you wonder, how does the president measure performance? So if he's asking for measuring performances, you know, he's faulty. One thing you can be so sure of is this. You wouldn't be able to, you know, to get the best for him, you know, from him. And as far as now he's concerned, we are not getting the best. Now let me take us back to memory lane. Now, when this started, I keep on saying that if we are sure that the government is taking the right steps nobody will blame the government. Of course, we'll be cheering them on because we know that security is the business of everyone. But see this, when this, when they started this, I mean, when they came into the office Boko Haram was, you know, was first headlong. At that time we knew that those guys were escaping and getting into the different, you know, hideout. In the world that they would strike, we were making a lot of noise that the government should move to those places and finish them once and for all. Now, when they started metamorphosing to bandits and they were getting to people's farms, burning their farms, burning villages, we kind of, you know, noticed that the government, rather than taking them on headlong, were romancing these people. Remember, it was the government that came up with that cliché. Farmers, headers, classes. I do not understand, sorry, hold on. I do not understand how a group of people were walking to a farmland, born the farmland, born the villages and you call that clashes? No, that is terrorism. You know, people terrorizing others in their own land, in their own farm. Then later the government came up with banditry. So all of these steps they have taken shows clearly that it appears the government was already, you know, to take on these guys once and for all. But when it appeared to them that these guys have become monsters now and they are trying to move against them, it is costing the nation more, it is costing the people more and unfortunately right now it is even beyond the government. And I keep saying things that as long as we can see that the government is trying to do, you know, to do something in the right direction, who would share the government and lately I can tell you, I can tell you by intel that the government is really taking these guys on. We may not be seeing the full result now. I keep saying by first and up next step, we should be seeing tremendous improvement in the situation. I guess the curiosity to every other person's mind is why did government have to wait this long? Just as you said, giving it different names and trying to paint it in a different light. Now it's not just happening in the north. Let's not forget it has spread all the way down south. Look at what's happening in Imol State. As at the weekend we saw about 58 people being killed in Boronui and Kaduna State and what mostly the PDP is saying here is that the heartlessness according to them, it's their words, not mine, of the APC-led leadership prioritizing pump and ceremony over the lives of people. And my question to you, sir, is how have we gotten to this place? How did we get here to a point where there's no value for life? We've gotten to a point where we don't really care. They have become numbers. How did we get here? And where do we go from here? All right. If the PDP today is accusing APC, remember, 2014, was it 2014, yeah, when they kidnapped the people or girls? Good luck, Jonathan, and the PDP enter us. They went to Kano to hold a rally and they were dancing. That is the way of politicians. They would always go for what will profit them more politically than for what will profit the people. That is why you cannot afford to have delas in government. When you see leaders who take the people first, they won't do that. And do not forget that I've explained before, perhaps on your platform, that most times what we have in this country, we've been having transactional leaders, people who believe more in their pockets. A call to government in Nigeria is not seen as a call to say. It is seen as rather a call to the table to chop. So if that is how we seek government, so these people would not really take you a nice serious, they would take whatsoever would line their pockets more, much more seriously. How did we get to the stage that we no longer have the kind of value we should have for life? Now, let's turn it back to the society. The value we have as the people, we've practically lost it. Now, both of those days in the villages, in the communities, if you have a man coming to the community with some strange money, perhaps it will become an outcast. People will really want, they will really want to associate with him. But today, come with the money to the same community from anywhere, you will get chieftain's title. In fact, the king will embrace you. The boys will be shouting your name. So the value system we have in the country has collapsed. And unfortunately, that was the, you know, the fabric that tends to hold us, you know, strongly at that time. So right now, that has dovetail to practically every sector. And the moment something keeps occurring, at first, it looks like a big deal. Now, by the second time they thought, the moment it becomes a norm, it will hardly attract the value it should attract. So we've gotten to that level in Nigeria. They're killing, of course, it is practically daily. So when it was happening once in a while, we were shouting, when kidnapping was only once in a while, can you imagine the level of noise during cheap walk into girls? But that is no longer the case today. They kidnapped some folks in Kaduna. Parents are to contribute $183 million to free their own children. And you have the government do nothing. You have the president comfortable in the villa. Of course, eating fat on the tax payers morning, leaving the people to bear the brunt. Now, let me explain something. Let me just notify you that I know of family that sought everything they had, including the, you know, the only house, the only home that the man retired and put all his retirement benefits on to, you know, to complete. They had to sell just to pay for ransom to free their daughter. Now, come back to that same man. How do you want him to have value for life or wish Nigeria well? So until we have a reduction in the standard and we are getting back to normal again in society and people can actually value life as it should be, I doubt if this will make any big deal again to us as long as it remains a daily affair. Okay. Well, I want to say thank you. Kalaalea Johnson is a political affairs commentator. Thank you so much for being part of this conversation. We appreciate your thoughts and this is where we wrap it up. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break to listen to what Nigerians have to say about the electoral act. Bill, a memory turn, I will give you my take. You see, as far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between national assembly and the president. So we shouldn't expect anything spectacular because the national assembly are just an extension of the presidency. So if Bawari is not willing to sign, we shouldn't expect anything different from national assembly. So we don't have an active assembly that can hurt on behalf of the people. Well, if the president feels a pain in signature, I think the law may catch over his power by passing the electoral bill into law. Well, it's tough to say this exactly is what they should do because most of them in the House are of the same party. The chairman of the party himself might need to put in words or is the electoral law actually what the people in the House want? So there are so many questions around why the president has not signed it into law yet. And I'm not sure that even the members of the House are the right people to do the job because they have the same party. The way electoral processes have been going is see all those kind of... I think the way we record more of corruption is in the electoral processes. By the time elections are done and all those things that we have rigging and all sort of corruption is coming into that. I think by the time Mr. President by name Mohammed Bawari should put this into consideration and let this be enacted into law, there should be electoral reforms. So we'll be able to amend in a way that are not favourable to our own country because we do not have any other country to call our own if it is not Nigeria. So it's a proper thing that the president should facilitate any problem, whatever that will make this in law. So it will be put into law and there will be reforms on our electoral processes and I believe we will have changes. Here's my take. Now we as Nigerians complain daily on a daily app about how nonchalant our politicians are in terms of adding value to life, placing value on the lives of people that die every day. The cost of living, how Nigeria is being run, but we fail to look at ourselves because we're part of the problem. We no longer value ourselves. We take those 1000s and the 500s. We go to those campaigns that they tell us the same thing every single campaign year. We take the rice and the wrapper and we go home. Why would they place value on us? People are dying in the North. People are dying in the South. People are dying even in the North Central. We're seeing all kinds of deviling things. Even in the Yuletide season, the terrorists and the bandits are killing people, but yet our politicians are dancing. They're participating in pomp and ceremony. You can't really blame the politician isolated. We have to blame ourselves until we take responsibilities and that responsibility means that you have to hold every single politician starting from your councillor to the chairman in your local government to the man who represents you at the State House of Assembly, the man who represents you at the National Assembly. If you do not take responsibility and make sure that these people are accountable to you, they will never feel any form of accountability to us because it's business as usual for these people. You can no longer protest. You can no longer go on social media where you could easily protest on Twitter. It's been banned. What else will be banned? Nigerians, we have to step up to the place until we do that. All we will do continuously is complain and complaining is not going to change anything for us. They promised us change, but we haven't seen anything close to change. So the ball is in your court. Make sure that your politician, your leader, is accountable. Only you can make that happen. I am Mary Annacl. Have a good evening.