 On the breakfast today we are focusing on diaspora voting and the electronic transmission of results. Why is the National Assembly seemingly opposed to the two? And what do my endurance in diaspora think? House of Representatives ask Navy to suspend its recruitment exercise because it lacks federal character more than that this morning. And the University of Lagos asked students to leave campus due to an increase in COVID-19 cases. Studies will now be online. Good morning and welcome to the breakfast on PLOS TV Africa on a very beautiful Thursday morning. We're hoping that the weather remains clear all through today so everyone can go about their activities but before that there's a lot that we have to talk about. I am Osaugie Ogbonwan. And I am Annette Felixaske. You have a very good good morning today. Very chilly I love the weather. It's actually been like this for a couple of days now. I've always I've said it you know a few times that the weather is a little cool. But the floods though. The floods have been terrible on the island. Even when it doesn't rain you know it's still it's still a little chilly and last night it was a little cold. Same thing with this morning loving it completely loving it. Okay some things that some people might not be loving is you know students of University of Lagos uni lag. There's an announcement by the school management and that is that the campus will be shut down and all students would have to vacate the school premises by 12 noon today Thursday and they say that Thursday July 15 because of a fear of the spread of COVID-19 pandemic right. So the school management confirmed and this is me reading a quote from the school management Mrs. Ogwa Mashi says lately some students have tested positive to coronavirus and these students have been you know sensitively appropriate designated facilities in Lagos and contact tracing has enabled us to identify those who have had exposure and directed them to isolate. She says the situation is indeed worrisome especially noting the reluctance of the majority of students to comply with the COVID-19 prevention protocols and to avoid the escalation of cases the senator to an emergency meeting which held on Wednesday July 14th approved that all students should vacate the halls of residence by 12 p.m. today. Well Osirage I don't know how you see this but I think that this is a quick and smart move you know uni lag only resumed fiscal classes at the end of May so it's less than two months now that students you know were able to come back to class you know attend lectures and see attend lectures in person you know reunite with their classmates and classmates that they haven't seen in a long time you know because of the COVID-19 pandemic but less than two months after that you know there's news that about a few students no not specific number now a few students you know where um you know tested positive for COVID-19 so I think it's great that they're trying to nip this in a bod say we're not going to be in denial that we can you know control this we you know we can have this under control let's make sure students get to safety and they're asking them to vacate the halls of residence so that online classes can resume again well um um well I guess the school is you know taking these steps in in the best interests of the university and of course of the students itself we are not clear on how many students um you know tested positive we're also not clear if they carry out regular testing on campus and that's how they discovered it or it was through symptoms that were noticed from a couple of students and those are some of the things that I believe are important to know um so that we understand you know what next must be done because I've seen people you know share concerns and say that if you ask in these thousands of students to go home it means that those who might be positive and have not been tested positive yet um are going to spread it to the rest of the community and the rest of you know of Lagos that's why they began contact tracing to see who exactly you know have they been in contact with and what they can do next well that's well you first of all need to know who's positive before you ask who they've been in contact with and so that's what I was asking you know if these cases that you're talking about now are cases that they found out because of symptoms that were showing or they have been testing on campus which I'm not sure about we've for a very very long time spoken about the inadequacies with regards testing for COVID-19 in Nigeria um we can see that out of 200 million people who are still less than you know 300 000 that have been um actually tested okay we've done more than a million um testing them um I was talking about positive cases um and so that's that's where you know we have been inadequate um if we had done better testing we probably would have a better understanding of where we are um with regards COVID-19 um and what steps need to be taken we are still very very far below with regards vaccination um there's still so much more vaccines that need to come into the country and we're expecting more I think about three point something million uh meant to be coming in pretty soon so there is that and um also how can the University of Lagos carry out complete online classes do they have the facilities for it do the students have the facilities for it have we over time been able to learn the lessons that were needed to be learned from 2020 and be able to invest more with you know the the facilities necessary for online classes um in its entirety because if we're being honest not everybody needs to attend classes every day not every lecture hall needs to be classes that have ever become staggered you know even in primary schools you don't attend every day so so but when you make segments about online classes you know no for Unilang in particular I know that for Unilang I don't know about other schools but I'm going to give them some kudos because friends of mine who are you know studying in Unilang especially the postgraduate program talked about how it was basically online so it's great to see the University of Lagos you know and living up to their name about being the nation's pride you know trying to inculcate online lessons you have your classes that you take your test there so I think you know like have done some good good work in that regard I think other schools need to emulate that but then there's also room to grow for that infrastructure to be expanded so that you know everybody can come on board and benefit from classes even during the pandemic let's see how it goes let's just really just see how it goes you know I've always been speaking about lessons that we must learn and ways that we must change and develop and be better after what 2020 showed us and so if Unilang is able to pull this off with full online classes and is able to arrest the COVID-19 situation then it should be commended and other universities should be able to do same you know we'll be able to achieve full online classes so that we stop seeing lecture halls filled with 2,000 students when they are really already meant for 500 students or 700 that was terrible in my days all right let's move on now to our next topic we'll have a video to share with you it's of Pastor Paul Adifarasi he's a very popular pastor in Lagos Nigeria he's been sharing his mind as he usually does about the state of the nation let's see what he's saying this time um I've mentioned the economy I've mentioned culture you've got to go into politics and government deliberately by the way if we don't fix some of Nigeria's problems today that is this INEC problem I've said plainly INEC put me trouble if you like it is a fraud the numbers in Nigeria as far as census are concerned and as far as election is concerned are a lie and if nobody will speak up about it the righteous should speak and our righteousness is none of ourselves it is of him and he will protect hallelujah it is important it is skewed now so that where the numbers are are not properly reflected in our voting this is the only country in west Africa where you move from the ocean to the desert and the numbers decrease or rather they increase the only country the only country in the world where you move from a large body of water to little or no water and the numbers increase it was not Nigerians that started it it was the parents of Nigeria who were not good parents they were not good parents the man Lord Lugar was a devil incarnate and what he did to this country we're suffering it many years later and it's time that we must tell the truth it's time we must tell the truth it's absolute we must and those of you who benefit from the system when the judgment comes unless you extricate yourself in the righteousness of God that's your own problem you understand and if you're in the system you should behave like Robin Hood take from them that really was intense for support at the Farsi there basically bearing his mind on the state of the nation to his flock as they called his congregation basically saying that you know there's been talks about the elections in 2023 you know iNEC has been sensitizing Nigerians you know we've had iNEC reps come here on the breakfast to talk about the necessity for Nigerians to actually register get their PVCs and vote and there's been controversy especially with the House of Reps the Senate regarding how elections should be conducted in 2023 should they be conducted online should people vote online should the results be transmitted online and all these questions are very important because they really determine what the outcome of the elections would be what should be the character of the people who are conducting the elections loretta onochi was a very big topic but good one to know that she's been stepped down you know the senate didn't didn't you know go through with with that you know screening that confirmation after the screening you know so these conversations will continue to hold even after the elections in 2023 but the issue here now is at different parts of our democracy has been you know bringing some issues to the front burner asking questions about the integrity of the figures that we're getting from Nigerian government and the electoral body iNEC as we know it basically saying that we cannot trust the figures basically saying that iNEC is a lie Nigeria's electoral practice and system is a lie that how would you know these numbers increase exponentially when he basically what he's saying is just sort of reaffirms pictures that we've seen online about kids holding voters cards where it shouldn't be in any part of the world i mean when you're less than 18 you don't have that franchise you don't have that right to vote i mean what exactly do you know that would say this has informed your decision to vote as a child as an underage as a teenager so these things are what he's trying to bring to the front burner many people definitely would disagree with him you know he also talked about being Robin Hood you know asking Nigerians not to exploit the system and that those who are benefited from the system as Christians should take that and give to the poll so there are also points of controversy within his speech but how do you see it was how are gay um so i think a lot of people actually do agree with him i saw where this was shared and i also looked at the response to it a lot of people agree with him i think that the major part of this conversation aside's inek you know inek is the bottom of the conversation where it has to of course fall in line with where the initial fraud according to a password disfacing where the initial fraud starts from and that is with Nigeria's census figures um so from 1960 when the british initially of course had stated what Nigeria's figures looked like you know it it is claimed that they um you know created false figures for northern Nigeria to you know give them more power give them more states give them more representation in the national assembly and all of that um in 1962 or 1963 sorry there was another census that showed you know that you know those figures seem to be false and then of course there was chaos those figures were cancelled um the north of course got back more figures you know after they you know rewrote the figures for the census 1973 census pretty much the same thing all the way to 2006 which was the last time that we had a national census um and so what he's trying to point out is that um before we even get to the part where inek has to of course you know almost seemingly agree with what the expectations are from the census the um census figures initially are fraudulent um and he's saying that there's no way that northern Nigeria has more figures than southern Nigeria there's no way that you move from a place where there is a desert it's mostly sand and you move to where um you know there are water bodies and you expect that the figures will reduce where there's more water which is you know not even logical you know in any other part of the world except here in Nigeria um and I also saw people respond and say that they've traveled far and wide you know across northern Nigeria and it really doesn't make any sense that you see states that you know are talking about 20 million 11 million 8 million and you go to those places and you don't really get to see some of all these places someone spoke about a community yesterday that claimed to have 150,000 people but he says he's he's lived there for a couple of years and it doesn't think that there's more than 10,000 people in that community um there's also the perspectives people have pointed out where um they you know try to convince you know the rest of Nigeria that the north actually has a lot of uh of numbers because well they give birth a lot you know they marry many wives and some of all of that but it doesn't seem to be true and that's the reason why like you mentioned there is underage votes in and you see children queuing up to vote because they don't have those numbers and that's what pastor uh my differencing is trying to point out so we first of all need to have a proper census that tells us exactly what the figures are in every part of the country um a proper census that everybody sees is is clear and is is um is without issues um and then we can now know exactly what figures to expect in different parts of the country before you start talking about annex registration and you start talking about voting let's know what to expect a couple of days ago we spoke with um uh the uh Gannala Fulani uh representative who said that they had uh um exactly and they had nine million registered Fulani voters and some some of all of that and um if you've been following politics across Nigeria and following you know generally how the Nigerian system works you would you almost look at the figure and say I don't think that's possible so those are what you know those are things that post out a differencing is trying to point out the Nigerian census which we've not done anyone since 20 2006 and is actually meant to be carried out every 10 years um he has called it a fraud and says that we need to um have a proper census let's know where our problem is coming from I really think that you know we need to understand how big of an issue this is regarding what exactly the number is in Nigeria our population because for the past few years we've been hearing about 200 million about 200 million there is no specific number and we should know this bets and debts have been registered in the country every day so we should be able to know these figures right and also it tells off the lack of you know data that we have this is a challenge you go online you want to search okay what is the amount of this subset in Nigeria and you can't even find it on Nigeria's database you go on Nigeria's database to get figures about our population and they refer you I mean this is something I was listening to on the waste show on on the breakfast and refer you to a United Nations website why is it that in Nigeria that is a giant of Africa cannot conduct a census to tell us what exactly is the amount of people in the country we need those figures for for for planning purposes we need those figures for a lot of reasons but it's so sad that this is where we are and we need pastors to wake us up to the reality of what we're facing but it's good that the conversation is beginning to be and we hope that it's a continuous conversation it doesn't end just with that video clip I'm with Pastor Paula Defarasing because you know people would say that the reason it's difficult to carry out a census in Nigeria the reason we've not done it once is 2006 is because there's people who wouldn't want the true figures to be exposed you know so that you know these numbers of northern representatives in the National Assembly number of northern states a number of local government areas in you know certain states will not you know immediately look fraudulent and you know so yes we need to have you know a proper census yes I think it's one of the things that should be spoken about with the next national conference if there's anything like that we need to have a proper census let's know what figures we truly are we need to know the government cannot plan if it doesn't know how many people I mean look at the COVID-19 pandemic the fact that we have no accurate data that the Nigerian government does not know exactly where everybody lives you know as in in other countries it just it just does a lot it messes up a lot of logistics arrangements you know you can't it's it's it's a terrible situation and we just hope that like you know like I mentioned that the way this conversation has started you know civil society organizations the NGOs the media can take it up from here and this is something that we need to begin to consider nationally all right that's our quick top trending stories so take a short break when we come back let's see what the papers are saying this morning we'll be joined by our guest Ezekiel Nyayitok after the short break