 Welcome to ballot 2023. This segment, I am the one here. My name is Nyam Gul Aghgaji. We'll be looking at so many issues surrounding this election. Some of them have been spoken about and we will just be repeating them because nothing can be overemphasized if it really is a concern for the people of Nigeria. We want a better Nigeria and excitement leading up to this election seems to be translating into something else instead of the jubilation that we would have had that Nigeria is getting somewhere. From the activities of INEC to the activities of hoodlums to a lot of other things that are surrounding the election. And then we also have the word of wisdom. It depends on which camp you are anyway. But in some camps, words of wisdom from the former president, to President Muhammadan Buhari, warning him or rather advising him not to allow his legacy to be destroyed by someone else. And the observation from external observers that came to monitor the elections in Nigeria. So as we are talking and still hoping that soon enough we are going to know who is officially declared the winner of this election or that INEC is going to make a pronouncement about the places that elections did not hold the way they should have been held because they were either disrupted or some anomalies came up in the process of the election. But we are still to hear from INEC itself what the way forward is. Right now reports are trickling in, results are trickling in. And we're waiting for that hammer to fall on whatever it is and everybody will know where they stand. Whoever takes these, just let me just say this, whoever takes the mantle of leadership, I'm not sure whether you like it or not that we should resort to anything that will be on towards anything that will make Nigeria disintegrate or enter into chaos or something else. There are very, very legal ways of addressing issues. So we are here by the end of 2023. I'm still here with today's your day. How much of a day is here in the political analyst that will be talking with us about some of the issues that I have mentioned here. Once again, welcome to the program. I know you were here in the morning or earlier than now and you're still here. So today, Namia, you... Okay, so elections, the elections have been held and I won't say they have come and gone because the elections have been done, the voting has been done, but we're still waiting. It's like writing your YAC and waiting for the result of JAM and waiting for the results. The moment of anxiety is even more at that moment than when you're about to write the exams. But now, we have seen independent ratings of the performance of INEC, even though we are crying foul in a lot of ways and asking questions that we may not never have the answers to, but the external bodies have also come and given their own verdict. Now, if you've seen the report of the external bodies, the African Union and the European Union and any other union that came or any other body that came to monitor the elections, what does that give you? What does that tell you about our elections and the future of elections in Nigeria? Well, I don't know the implication of the verdict that the observers, the foreign observers has given, but I was opportunity to read that of the EU and some other ones. And the way it is structured, they try to be fearing the assessment, like the first two paragraphs talks about the general process, our next preparation for the election itself, then they try to move to what INEC has done wrong and the way forward. But I think that their point in terms of where they lead emphasis as regards how the election should be more credible, should be seriously looked into. So the foreign observers, to my mind, their assessment is fair if anything that we've seen is to go by so far. I think they have approached the election on a fair perspective, even though it's a little bit soft, because they want to be kind of like diplomatic. They don't want to come down hard. So it would be that maybe they are taking a side. So they try to be diplomatic about this thing and they convey their message in such a way that you would know what they are trying to say. I don't think they are too pleased with the conduct of the election itself, because the way the election has went, especially the transmission of the result, INEC started well. But in terms of transmitting the result electronically, we could have given credibility to the process, was not followed as promised. INEC promised technology first, manner as the option. But now we have jettisoned the technology and now focusing on the manual itself. And that has given serious concern to the observers. They are deeply concerned about that then they raised questions about the issue of intimidation of voters, which I think it is a serious issue. We see a woman that was bloodied, then they raised issue about harassment. And they raised any issue about vote buying. And I want to commend the president for that, because his action as regards the Naira redesign has tremendously stemmed the tide of vote buying. In previous election, you see that the observers will be talking about this issue of vote buying, voters inducement. But the report have read so far, they didn't really emphasize on it. There was less emphasis on it, which shows that the Naira redesign policy, even though citizens have suffered for it, it has an effect on the system. But the game of the Naira redesign has been washed away by the attitude and conduct of INEC, which the electoral observers raised itself. But what I want is maybe in the future there can be a consequence when election observers raise issues. Because right now, they raised their own issue. What is the consequence of observing the election? If foreign institutions of government support you to build your electoral system, if foreign independent observers come and the process is not credible, is that a criteria that they won't assist you for further elections. So I think that it should just go beyond observation. If the observer need negativity and then negativity can be supported with empirical evidence, I think that there should be consequence for actions in terms of maybe the aid, the loan, the grant, maybe the training of staff and other. But when they just observe and it ends there, I don't think it will change anything in our system. But so far, the electoral observer, their observation has been largely fair to my assessment. Are you sincerely using the word fair or careful? Because even when you were talking, I saw it that, okay, they wanted to balance it because of diplomacy and all that. But the issues that they raised, Nigerians didn't expect them to come and raise those issues in this election because we all hoped that they would come. You were talking about implication. We are called the giant of Africa. We say we have a population that is greater than any black nation on the face of the earth. And that has economic implications as well. The foreign bodies will want to come and invest in Nigeria. And the common see, like the British prime minister once said, that we are still fantastically corrupt. Because in our electoral process, if we are that corrupt, that means a lot of things behind the scenes must have gone on. And that can only happen in a country that is very corrupt. Will it not affect our economy? Will it not affect our relationship with foreign other countries and all that? Will it not affect our foreign policy? Just because our electoral process was that terrible? Well, I think where it affects the, you know, the aspects that you listed just now, foreign policy and all that is the quality of leader that we have. If the electoral process is free, incredible, what you have is responsive leaders that will be careful to implement good foreign policy, that will be careful to implement people oriented developmental policies. But when leaders emerge to a corrupt process, when leaders emerge to a corrupt system, like vote buying, rigging, their commitment to the development, to the yenness of the people is very limited. Because why? They know that instead of performing, they would rather be looking for how to steal so that they can buy the next vote. They would rather be looking for how to worship the Godfather so that they can get his blessing. So what I think, what you said is the implication on the foreign policy because no nation would go beyond the skill, the vision, the capacity of its leaders. So if you elect an idiot into a leadership position, be ready to face the consequence because you can say that, oh, the person would appoint. But the truth is, even if you appoint someone, the box is top at your table, so they can give you advice and not accept it. Nations that go all out to elect credible leaders, they are not stupid and we can see it. Look at when the process of appointing the prime minister, the last one in the UK, look at the rigorous process, look at the rigorous debate that we are on. We don't have that in Nigeria. In Nigeria, it is easy for any refraft, street or chain, to become the occupier of the highest office in the land because in Nigeria, you need just a school set and you don't even need the certificate. You just need evidence to show that you went to school. You went to school. Like if you can show proof that you attend a class, even if it's just a week, that's all you need and it is sad that you put such a person in the face of 200 million people. But if you need a job at a bank, they ask you for BLC, they ask you for master, they ask you for ICANN, they ask you for five years working experience. If they want to employ you, they will say maybe you have to retire 60 or 65 years. But for being a president, even if you are 90 years, you can contest. That should not be so. We should begin to look at the leadership document process itself because when the leadership document process is transparent, it's credible. If you have institutions in place that you cannot beat the institution just like Donald Trump tried to do in the US, once you have those system and structures in place, then naturally we begin to produce good leaders. And once we have good leaders in power that do not use money to buy the process and the process of electionary is less expensive, then that will transmit into good policies, that will transmit into respect for the citizenry. And a good society will not evolve from there. Good foreign policy will evolve from there. Adequate budget system for the education for the young will evolve from there. If the leadership process is transparent, it has consequences on corruption itself. When you spend less, it is maybe hypothetical that you may want to steal less. But when you spend more, you need to sell your house. You need to sell your car. Why? Because you want to come and serve people. When you go on out, then you will need to steal more because in Nigeria, politics is an occupation. Politics is an investment. So we need to look at all these processes to make sure that we make politics less lucrative and we have good institutions. And once we have that, then good leaders will emerge. And once good leaders will emerge, leaders that are sensible, leaders that are credible, they will begin to have less process. As it is now, even for the sake of Buwari, what we would have had is a process whereby money drives the electoral process. And I have argued amongst my friends that if you look at the Nigerian electoral system carefully, we are building a system whereby in the years ahead, we didn't have, go forbid, fraudsters as occupiers of a political office or as godfathers. Because if you look at how much you need, look at you now, a gentle working man. If you want to contest, do you have the resources, the money that is needed to contest that election? You don't have the resources. From buying of the firm. Exactly. So imagine somebody telling you now that you have vision for the country and the first thing you need to buy in the form of $40 million, $100 million. Where will you get that kind of money? So under that kind of system, you die with your vision, you perish with your thought and all that. That is not the right. So if we continue on that lane, we will have a system whereby for you to emerge, you need to have your money back. Is it that somebody that has been in government before and have stolen the commonwealth of the people or all these people into narcotics or all these, you know, different internet fraud and scum, the, you know, office properties of this world, maybe they, they have the resources, will not be in position of authority or they will be the one sponsoring people, innocent and decent people like you to occupy that office and they would amputate you where you go to office in such a way that you need to dance to their tune. So this thing, it is something that we should have even done yesterday. And that is the problem that I have with Iron Age in the center. You introduce the technology before system, which is good, which is commendable. Why go back on it? Even if there are issues, you could have fixed within three or four days, people would understand. Because this election is a serious election that people are committed to. This is the only election that is giving people hope. Nothing is working. But people believe that if they can be able to express their franchise, that things will get better. So even if they are not able to, even if their candidate lose, let it be plain, let it be clear that your candidate lost the election. On a fair basis, everybody will go up, will go home and sleep all the strategize for the next four years. But now, what Iron Age has done is that they have cast doubt in the mind of the people. And they have even created problem for the incoming government because that government will suffer legitimate crisis, if not careful. And they have strategically put us in a situation whereby at the end of the day, what will we have? It's not democracy. It's judicacy. Because at the end of the day, millions of people have voted. But what the election will not be virtually be determined by 15 people. Imagine subjecting the will of millions of Nigerians to 15 men. Who are not supermen? You know, less or about 15 judges. And there are people, Supreme Court and all that, judges that are not supermen. Judges that maybe will go beyond that. They have their own political interests. We can't rule that away. So we can continue to have a system like this. We can continue in this strategy. And that is why we are not having good government. And that's why the country is servicing comatose. So for us to get this right, we need to first start from the leadership recruitment process. After the leadership recruitment process, they will not go back to orientate the citizens. Because we have a lot of disoriented citizens around. You see people fighting to, fighting to install people that have made their lives miserable. People that have made their lives living hell. Because why? For you to be free, you first have to discover that you are in chains. That's the first stage of freedom. You discover that you are in chain. But if you see your chain as a diamond ring, as a bracelet, as something of fashion, you will remain in chains. So we need to begin to orientate the citizen, massive orientation, so that the citizen will not begin to know that left from right. Then I believe a good society would evolve from there. Now, when you're talking about giving this orientation to the people, to change their mindset, to do this right and all that, at whose table are you placing this responsibility? Political class or just the citizen? Or who? Well, the responsibility lies on the table of every Nigerian. But if I'm to go further, I'll place the responsibility at the old. The first teaching, the first learning, the first values, the first philosophies are learned from the old. Before you go to school, to attend school, you have a family. You have a home. Even if you are not fortunate to attend any institution or any form of education at all, you have a family. You evolved from a family. So if the values are right from home, if everybody is taught that do not steal, do not hurt your fellow human being, be honest, be truthful, all these little, little things that our parents, our grandparents used to teach us when we were young, those are social values that it will go along with you as you grow. And it will be part of you for the rest of your life. But it's complicated because these homes that the children should be taught, other ones that have their adults already, that after betraying what we're seeing is bad. So how can you give what you do not have? Who teaches the parents that will teach the youth? If we don't have such a system, then we need to have a credible institution because man by nature likes to be free. That's the philosophy of human nature. If it's possible, if I encounter traffic and I know that there's no consequence, I can drive to one way. Man by nature, human beings by nature like to be free. But when there are institutions that implement that this is the way the society should go, man haven't submitted part of their right according to the social contract theory that you submit your right to end some certain privilege. If such a society above that we have strong institution, then you would live according to the dictates of the law. So if you can get the value from the home, then government institutions of state must be very credible to force you to live according to rules and regulation, else you face the consequence. For example, what is, I've been searching for, where we discourage people from not perpetuating some of the evils that were perpetrated during the presidential election whereby you threaten people, you intimidate voters. How many people has been charged to court? By now, it should be making the headlines. They should be standing before a judge now answering for their crime because you can force and intimidate people to vote. But we have a system whereby even if you go and start ballot box, there's no consequence for action. So where we discourage people from snatching ballot box during the governorship election? By nature, like I said, man likes to be free. You love a candidate. You, by nature, want that candidate to win. You want to convince others. But if there is a credible process, you can't intimidate others to vote for your castle. What we have now is intimidation, not persuasion. And in a democracy, what else we, is persuasion. If we have different views, what is obtainable in democracy is not force, is not intimidation, is not harassment. I need to persuade you. I need to sell my ideas to you. My philosophy is to you. Why my candidate is right? Why you should vote for my candidate? Why my candidate has the best ideas? Not that you have to stand by the polling unit and I have to be forcing you that if you don't vote for my candidate, go back home, go and sleep. If you don't vote for my candidate, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to stone you. That is what the institutions of state come saying. To make sure that your right, a central institution, your right to vote and be voted for is not tampered with. But once you don't have good values at the family level, when we have a family system that has been compromised and you now have failed institution, this is the kind of society you will have. But if the family value is right and we have strong institution, then you have good society in the center. You must obey the law and when there are consequences for actions, why you know that if you don't follow the INEC guidelines or if you intimidate people to vote? Why are those that made, that give that woman a blooded face? That woman by my assessment according to our age, physique will be a housewife. Because somebody wants to go and vote, you blooded the woman. Who are those that perpetrated that evil? In a country whereby an S-man are not prosecuted, kidnappers everywhere, Boko Haram, his agent, terrorist financiers are not prosecuted. What we discourage people from doing wrong, both at the electoral stage, both in government, in the normal society, I may like your phone, you may have a better phone. It is only the fear of institution, the fear of consequence for action, the fear of the state that would limit me from not taking your phone because it is better than mine. So we need to begin to have institutions that work. We need to begin to have a credible government where no one is above the law. And we need to be able to hold leaders accountable that once you promise something, you must do it. I may promise that there will be either. That hasn't happened. And you know what? At the end of the day, nothing will come out of it. You go to court, you may not even get justice. So when we are breathing, it's a society of anarchy. No, that's the problem. I like an institution of government. And they had the laws. They gave us promises. There are things written down in the electoral arts and all that. And these things are supposed to deter people from misbehaving. Now, this institution of government is the same one that we are accusing now that has done the wrongest, if I may use the word, like that. Now, also, we have on good authority that during this election in a particular XY polling unit, a candidate went, okay, let me not say a candidate because we didn't see him with the money. But some people who are in support of a particular candidate went there. And guess who they sprayed money on? The policemen themselves. And when the policemen were supposed to arrest these people, they were the ones clamoring for the money. This is an institution of government. So it brings us to this same complicated thing. Is it the egg that came first or the hen? We've been asking. When you talk about institutions, is it that we don't have institutions or the people mining the institutions? Because the institutions are there. Okay, for instance, let me give you another one. In the Constitution, I usually use this one without any fear. In the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I think section 136 or 138, it was stated the things that the president cannot do. You are the president, you cannot hold any other portfolio in that same government. But we have an outgoing president that has been the minister of petroleum. And nobody's saying anything about it. What institution can be greater than the Constitution of the country? Because it is the one that guides everything that any other institution does. But we seem to be jettisoning whatever law guiding any institution. We seem to be jettisoning anything that doesn't favor us and doing what we like with impunity. And nothing seems to work. So when we are addressing the issues, are we addressing the issues of the people or we are addressing the issues of the institution being manned by these people? Because concentration should be given to what gives rise to the other. So what is the root cause? Is it faulty institution or faulty people that man the institution? Where do we start? Okay, we have institutions and I think Nigeria has some good applicable laws. But where the problem comes in is that we don't operate by that law. We operate by the will of man. We operate a manly system in the sense that now if you have a boss at work, look at this famous TV, you know, controversy that generated this mayor guy at the top. They were asking the guy questions. He was referring back to his mayor at the top. Because why? What the constitution or the other set of the agency says is not important in this case. What is important is what is on guard at the top. I've said if a police officer arrest you and his boss said, search your phone. Despite the fact that the law said that you don't have to search somebody's phone. At that point in time, what is the law? The word coming out from a superior. That is the kind of system Nigeria operates. If the law says you cannot storm the home of people at night and intimidate and arrest them. If the head of the security agencies comes and said, boys, you are going to conduct this threat at the middle of the night. Well, yes, yes sir. Because at that time, the word of that superior is the law. Now the inspector general of police, any other boy he gives him, any other he gives him, he would just say, yes sir. Because he will not say sir. This is the law because if he knows that this is the wish of the president and that is why we've had some inspector general of police conducted themselves in an arbitrary manner and said that politics determine the switch at which they operate. The present inspector general of police has tried to be matured, you know, in his delays and operation fine. But with us from past terrible inspector general of police, we operate not by the law, but by the will of man. What does the man want? We don't build the institution, we build men. When Magu was the chairman of EFCC, the only institution involved around him, Magu, Magu, Magu, Magu, only left, the only institution seems, you know, you feel this vacuum, we feel this emptiness because why we operate by the will of man, not the law and even the law enforcement agent operate according to the will of man. We operate a system whereby a politician can sit down now and we give you order because you don't want to joke with that appointment or even if you feel that the person giving you the order is a close person, whether he's a concubine, is the girlfriend of the person that appointed you, you want to literally be worshiping that person just to secure your position. So we need to begin to change this thing. Imagine, if what happened during when Donald Trump lost that election had happened in Nigeria, do you think that Emma Pence or Shibajo would have gone to the National Assembly to ratify an election that he had lost? But there, it is operated according to the institution, whether you like it or not, you must go, you must go and ratify it. We don't have that in this country. We have a situation whereby they will be coordinating a resort for a state during a Schindler time and the wreck will receive one mysterious phone call just to purchase one mysterious phone call, which has been tied as remote control. So the moment itself at that point in time is not operating according to what the law says, is operating according to what one auger at the top have said. So it's not like we don't have institutions, it's not like we don't have laws, but we have rather preferred to operate a woman's system whereby everything is centralized is what the auger says. If anything happens here now, rather than for the commissioner of police to follow the law, there are laws, you would rather force to revamp back to the IG. And whatever the IG says is the law. It gives us concern. Everybody's been asking the same question. How do we make people obey the law? Because the laws are there and people just break the law without any compunction of any nature. Well, we're still talking with Moshe Aladdeji here, a political affairs analyst, and we'll just take a short break. We'll be back in a moment. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's still ballot 2023 and we're just looking at some of the issues that we're facing in this country because everything goes beyond just going to thumbprint for a candidate of your choice. What is really happening in a society that we go there to show? Because it's like it is the result of how we are in a society that we go there to show the ballot box, the polling unit or whatever that you find yourself. Choosing the right leaders like Moshe Aladdeji has just said is key. We need to choose the right people so that the right things can be put in place and be respected in the international community. That's very, very interesting. But we're still here with Moshe Aladdeji who is a political scientist and we're trying to dissect the kind of things that are happening, especially now that we've heard our Baba write yet another letter. In the course of this democracy, since he left office, he's been writing a lot of letters and his latest was to President Mohammed Buhari. Now some people have said that he has no moral justification to write a letter. Some people have said he has seen something as an elder and he needs to write a letter. But without any sentiments, what is your take from the letter that he wrote and the kind of advice therein to President Mohammed Buhari? Well, Opus von Jo as a person, the former president, if you look at his person, I look at it from two approaches to life itself. First, I look at it from the angle of a father and son, or that's many sons. If a father has failed to live his life well, the father has two options. To either go all out, to advise, instill discipline, recommend, take drastic action to make sure that his children do not fail as him, having had that experience and his own personal regret deep down in his heart. Now the same father also has an option, the second option, which is to just stay back and see that, okay, I will die and go away. Anything you make of your life is your cup of tea. I think the former president has taken the first option because if we look at Opus von Jo as a person, he has all the opportunity to have led a good foundation. He has all the opportunity to have instilled discipline in the civil service, in governance, in INAG, to have built strong institutions and structures for the country. He has opportunity to have set a very good standard that that standard would have been a model in governance that it would be difficult for anybody to go below that standard. But he has failed in that regard. You can remember when he was leaving office, he allegedly he instilled somebody that was allegedly EU and somebody that he perceived as gentle in the person of the former president, Gugudlo Jonathan and the late Umaru Yaladua. He instilled them as vice president and president knowing the complexity of the Nigerian state, rather than looking for somebody that can dance to your wisdom or somebody that is something that can easily be manipulated, want to look for somebody that can really do the job. And when he was there, what did he do to strengthen the institution? We all remember the days of Morris EU, how terrible the electoral system was. So if you look at the person of the former president, he lacks the moral right to speak about election credibility, because he himself had not laid a good foundation. But like I place it under the philosophy of life and living, that Oba Sonjo can be seen from two aspects. So what I take is the message despite the fact that he lacks the credibility to pass those messages or to be taken seriously. One thing you can take away from him is if you look at all his letters, his letters are substance, his letters pass a crucial message. And I think in fairness, we should commend him for writing those letters because he can retire. He has all the freedom, all the luxury at his disposal. He can retire like former head of state. We don't see, um, um, General Yakudu go wrong. We don't see him speaking much on national issues. We don't see General Abdu Salam or IBB speaking much. He can also join that league. But for him to come out, to have the courage, to have the charisma, to come out repeatedly, not my old oxy's god, I think that should be commended. So I look at the message and not the messenger. But if you have to look at the messenger, we will throw away the message. But what we should look at is the message itself. What the former president said in that letter is apt and right. You cannot promise people. I know cause I'm paying on that. Oh, technology first, the results will be uploaded technologically, electronically. At the end of the day, you now switch, all of a sudden, and we now have a system whereby we now need to be taking a result all the way to from the 36th state of distribution to Abuja. When there is technology, when you can save fuel, you can save cost, you can save the risk of human life based on the bad with another for somebody to see them before your computer. And with the result of the state within five minutes, the right now has to travel. What is the essence of technology? Why will you go and meet your phone to for a five minutes conversation when you have a phone? When you can easily do it on your phone. So if you have not promised us technology, if you have lived us in that stone age, fine. But when we make promise, why change your position when the game has started? So if you look at the message of the former president, like his former messages that they have written in the past, he has strong point, he has value. And I think that speaking now is in his DNA. When we say something wrong, he can't, you know, he can't hold back. He has to speak. He wants to speak. You know, there are people like that, he's very vocal. He cannot, he cannot hold back, no matter how you try to intimidate or harass him. If, as the election has been counted, if the APC has declared the winner, even Obama sometimes knows that he's speaking at his own risk. Because at the end of the day, the incoming government can come for him. But despite that, he has chosen to speak out for the records. Because as we are going in this country, two things can happen. It's either the country evolves and become a better country or, God forbid, it collapse. If it collapse, two things can also happen. Archaeologists, historians, at some point, we begin to make research that, okay, this country that collapsed, what went wrong. They will be looking at what happened at that time. And they will be imagining that when these things were happening, is there no voice of reasoning? Is there nobody that went? And if the country, God forbid, if it collapsed, they will find the person just later, and they will be one of those voice of reasoning. If the country eventually evolves as a strong and vibrant nation, when they archaeologists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, will also be making research that what was the turning point? A voice of just later, the touch of you and I, voice of reasoning, will also, maybe in the next 100 years, in the next 50 years, when they are doing the research, maybe they will come across this tape and rate you and I as one of the voice of reasoning. And rate of us on just later as one of the voice of reasoning. So we can't live in a society whereby there will be no voice of reasoning. So do you lack the moral rights? Do you have no power for doing this part of the problem? But is voice, in this case, is a voice of reasoning? That's how I see it. Okay. That is a perspective that is really nice. And let's just jump from the back to voices of reasoning that come from outside. We seem to respect the ones that come from outside. International observers will come and all that and do what they need to do, give their reports and maybe we'll look at it and nobody will say anything that they were partial or impartial. But when something from within comes up, everybody begins to point to your history. You wear this, you wear that. And I like the way you said about a father. In most cases, when fathers advise their children, it is because of the faults that they had and they don't want their children to fall into the same faults. So anyway, but do we really need external observers all the time to come before we can do what is right? We can have an election, for instance, that is credible, that people can look to and say, okay, Nigerians can do this themselves. Because I don't know how many of us go from here to observe elections in America. I don't know if they go. And if they go, how much they are rated, comparing that to what we read, the people that come from over there to come and observe our own elections. Do we need an external person coming to tell us that this is what you need to do or this is what you didn't do right before we sit up to do? Well, I think I haven't gained independence for over 60 years. I think we should be mature enough to know our left from right and to undo our issues ourselves. So I believe that a 60-year-old man or woman, as the case may be, should be able to do some things and do it right. So even if we don't have good electricity, without constant electricity, motorable roads, at least we should be able to conduct an election that will be credible. So I don't think we need foreign intervention in our election or electoral process, but we need the observers for the sake of scholarship. The world is a global village. We have people that are researching on elections. Democracy itself is a discovery. We have different forms of government. We have fascism, totalitarianism, monarchy. So constant research, different varieties of research would have led to the evolution of democracy. And even when democracy was discovered as a system of government, there was still research to better the democratic system itself. So I think that we need foreign observers for the sake of scholarship, for them to get data, for them to come up with stronger analysis so that when an electoral system in the world is being analyzed, when they reference Africa, Nigeria, be the most populous nation in Africa, will not be left behind. So I believe that we need the role of foreign observers in that. Then we need the role of foreign observers for Nigeria to key into the global system because those foreign observers, their viewpoints will be committed and that of other countries and maybe when UN is to make a policy, those viewpoints come into play. So if we don't have foreign observers, that means that what is happening in Nigeria is not represented. That means we'll be kind of isolated in the global space. Then for the sake of research, we have foreign agencies that are interested in elections. We have NGOs that are interested in elections. Some people use that as some form of tourism or the other in terms of knowledge. Imagine if I go to, let's say, Ethiopia now to monitor their election. Definitely it increases my knowledge. It exposes me to how people interact with the election and electoral system in a foreign land. So for the sake of scholarship, we need the observer. But in terms of conducting fair fair elections, I think we are matured enough. But whether we can really do it alone is another thing entirely if we are to consider our level of technological advancement. Because if we can go abroad to be printing our international passport, which is one way or the other of undermining our sovereignty. So if we look at our technological advancement, we should be able to do it alone. But can we do it alone? Can Nigeria produce the beaver's machine? Oh well. Can Nigeria produce oil? Yes. And they are not producing. And they are not producing. So there are other things that are possible here. Yet they are not doing. And I don't know if sometimes, anyway, let me not use the derogatory word, but I just get confused sometimes when things don't happen the way they should happen. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's still ballot 2023. We're hoping that we are going to at some point join the National Coalition Centre and still see the activities going on there. In the meantime, we've been talking with Omoshola Deji, a political scientist who has been here all day as it were talking with us. We'd like to say thank you to you, Deji, for coming on the show today. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Okay. We'll take a break for the news. And when we return, we'll keep monitoring, we'll just keep monitoring the National Coalition Centre to see if they are ready for us to join. And when that moment comes, then we're just going to join them and make sure that you get an original update as they come. Thanks for being there. My name is Nyam Gul Agadje.