 The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said it did not need the approval of the Nigerian Communications Commission to transmit election results electronically. This was, as the National Assembly told the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Makhmudiyakubu, to seek proper legal advice instead of misinforming Nigerians on the independence of INEC to conduct elections. Joining us to discuss this is the Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee for INEC Festus Okoye, and we also have joining us legal practitioner Baba Isha. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I'm going to start with Baba Isha because you're the lawyer. Of course I'm going to go to Festus Okoye later, but I want to start with you because the National Assembly is saying that Professor Makhmudiyakubu has to seek legal understanding. I'd like to just quote them directly. They're saying that INEC's chairman needs to seek proper legal advice instead of misinforming Nigerians on the independence of INEC to conduct elections. But what INEC is talking about here is that they're capable of running these elections and transmitting these election results electronically. So help me as a lawyer to understand what exactly the National Assembly is asking INEC to seek guidance on. Thank you very much. I really wish you actually brought in somebody from National Assembly because I don't understand myself what the National Assembly wants INEC to seek clarification about. The constitution is clear. INEC has the mandate, INEC has the power to conduct elections without interference from anybody from any institution. So when I read that report myself I was wondering seek clarification for what. That's the question. I don't have the answer. I'm not a member of the National Assembly. But the constitution is very clear that INEC is the only body empowered to conduct elections. And even in your name speaks for itself. They're independent. You understand that. So this aspect of trying to influence INEC, INEC to seek clarification, INEC should do this, INEC should check with SCC before transmitting results. I don't think it's constitutional. If they want to amend the constitution as a National Assembly, they have the powers to do that. But they can amend the constitution to say INEC must seek clearance from National Assembly or from the president to conduct elections of whoever. But as it stands as of today, INEC is independent. INEC should and must conduct elections without interference from anybody from any institution. The question is clear. So I don't know the clarification I'm talking about please. Let me come to Mr Coye. Mr Coye, you and I have had this conversation before. And you have pointed to me the different states that you have had this elections where you could actually transmit the results electronically. And when the National Assembly came up with this issue at first you had, as INEC said, well we can do it. We don't really necessarily need NCC. But according to the National Assembly they want you to go through the NCC. And exactly are you to do through the NCC that enables you to run this election from the National Assembly's perspective? I think that we should put this issue in very good perspective and in this proper context. Now the Independent National Electoral Commission is not in competition with the National Assembly. The Independent National Electoral Commission is also not in confrontation with the National Assembly. Now I think that there's some level of misunderstanding and misstatement relating to what is going on. I read the statement from the National Assembly by the spokesperson of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Now nobody is agreeing relating to the powers of the National Assembly to make laws for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In fact Section 4, Subsection 1 of the Constitution and Section 4, Subsection 2 of the Constitution, gives the National Assembly the power to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, or any part thereof. And these powers are also found in the exclusive legislative list. In fact he cited item 22 of the exclusive legislative list. Nobody is agreeing in relation to the powers of the National Assembly. But one thing we must understand is that the powers that the National Assembly exercises, the powers that the judiciary exercises and the powers that the executive is exercising are the powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. All these powers are derivable and derived from the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If you look at Section 1, Subsection 1 of the Constitution, it says that the Constitution is supreme. So the Constitution guarantees its own supremacy and says that its provisions shall have binding force on all individuals and all authorities throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Section 1, Subsection 2 goes for that to say that if any institution within the context of the Constitution itself makes any law that is inconsistent with any of the provisions of the Constitution, that that particular law made by such an institution shall be non-envoy to the extent of its inconsistency. So the implication is that both the National Assembly, the Independent National Electoral Commission, the judiciary and all other organs created by the Constitution derive their powers, authority and efficacy from the Constitution. So what the Independent National Electoral Commission is saying is that if you look at Section 78 of the Constitution, if you look at Section 118 of the Constitution, it makes it very clear that one, that the registration of voters and the conduct of elections shall be subject to the direction and supervision of the Independent National Electoral Commission and no other body. So what is before the National Assembly as of today is a bill that they have not amended the law. So all Nigerians, including the Independent National Electoral Commission, have joined the conversation relating to what the National Assembly wants to do or what it is doing. So asking us to keep quiet is akin to denying us of our fundamental right to contribute to a debate. When what they are doing becomes law, then it takes a different trajectory. And then we will now ask the question whether the Constitution has covered the field in relation to the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission to organize, undertake and provide selections, and whether a subsidiary legislation can override the clear and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution. So I think that the issues are very, very clear and I needed to put it in within its proper perspective and context. So Bobaisa, I was going to ask you the question. Why do you think it seems like the National Assembly is delaying or unable to say that they want electronic transmission of results outrightly instead of the bots and the ifs that we're seeing? You know, they're making in the bill. What is the challenge that you think is causing the, you know, the food dragging as to the transmission of electronically transmitted results come 2023? Well, there are the political issues involved in this work. I'm so sorry, but I'm going to come back to you, but this is for Bobaisa. I think it is basically how our politicians treat governance. It's politics. How we try to play politics with governance, we play politics with issues of development, politics with issues of advancement, political issues of technology. You know, this is the 21st century. Everything is online. Everything is now electronically transmitted. Come on, I'm joining this interview through Zoom. So I don't know why it's such a big deal that INEC is against transmission of results electronically. And INEC have said that they have the capability to do that. INEC have said that they haven't done that before. So I don't think that should be a problem. It's just that maybe some persons don't want it to be and that is why they are dragging and trying to put pockets of resistance. But these men and these women are representatives. They already obviously have felt the pulse of Nigerians. Nigerians are asking. In fact, we've been pivoting towards this. We've been angling for at least something to be done electronically. And now INEC has done it. There's been several litmus tests and they think that it's been successful enough for them to continue. So if this is what Nigerians want, why is politics at play here? They don't listen to Nigerians. Certainly we have representatives that don't listen to us. As you rightly said, everybody out here, you felt the pulse of the country. Everybody wants something electronically. I mean, we buy electronically now. We pay electronically. Everything is like even our national passport, our national ID cards, our banking presions, everything. So why is it that we cannot vote electronically? Or at least transmit a reason electronically. I was expecting this complaint to come from INEC to say, oh, we cannot do this. We don't have the capabilities. But that is very square there. INEC has been saying constantly that we can do this. We have the capabilities. We have the capacity. We can do this. So why not the Allah INEC do it? And let me say this very quickly. INEC too have to do a lot to win the trust of Nigerians. In the 2019 general elections, INEC said they have a server. Later on, they said they don't have a server. So we don't even understand what is happening. INEC now is saying they have the capabilities. Do they really have the capabilities? They have been coming out to say they do. If they really do, then it is time to demonstrate that. I mean, we have the next election coming up in November. And I'm just going to demonstrate that they have these capabilities. So that we can trust them. So that we can keep axing our representative of the National Assembly that INEC have demonstrated sincerely their capacity and capabilities to conduct or at least transmit election results electronically. But if INEC wake up to those capabilities and when push comes to show, INEC would deny and say, we never say we had a server. We never say we could do this. Then it is about trust. We don't trust our institutions. And our institutions keep playing politics with the sensibilities and the lives of Nigeria. It is very unfair. Mr Okoye, would you like to respond? Because this is obviously talking about INEC, not necessarily in a great light. He's saying that Nigerians are unable to trust what INEC says now until INEC can actually demonstrate that this process, you're capable of it and then we can trust it also. But you have displayed this in other elections before now. But I'm going to let you speak because I don't want to be putting words in your mouth. You know, our commitment to the Nigerian people is that this particular commission will continue to deepen democracy in Nigeria through the use of technology. And that's exactly what we have demonstrated. Before this period, political parties used to file the list and personal particulars of their nominated candidates physically. In other words, when they finish their career rating and bring to the commission, now they no longer do that. So what we do is that the moment they are done with their party primaries, we just give an access code to the national chairman of the political party and they simply upload the list and personal particulars of their nominated candidates to our dedicated INEC nomination portal. Civil society groups and organisations interested in observing elections do the same thing. The media also do the same thing. And we have also demonstrated that since we conducted the Edo and Odo Governorship elections and 26 additional by-elections that we have consistently uploaded from ECHA into our INEC Resolving Portal for Nigerians to see what goes on at the level of the polling units. And now, even for the issue of voter registration, the continuous voter registration, we've created a portal and you can see young Nigerians rushing to our portal to go and do their pre-registration. And just within the week, we have also demonstrated that very soon we are going to retire the smart card reader because we are going to deploy a bimodal voter accreditation system for the purposes of the ECHA co-salt one state constituency election and the Anambra Governorship election. And in this bimodal voter accreditation system, if the system is unable to read your fingerprints, it will read your face out. So unless you leave your face at home, if it doesn't read your fingerprints, it will read your face. And if you cannot read both of them, the implication is that you are not the person you claim to be and you cannot vote. So I think that we have shown sufficient good faith. We have demonstrated the fact that we have the capacity. And we are also talking about the National Assembly. Nobody has invited the Commission to come and demonstrate whether it has the capacity, whether it has the ability to transmit election results electronically. So all these other things are at the level of speculation. But we have assured Nigerians that this Commission is a responsible commission. We will continue to deploy technology in the electoral process. The moment we test a particular electronic solution and we feel that it is robust enough, is rugged enough and it is also good for the Nigerian people. We will deploy it. And that's our commitment to the Nigerian people. Baba Eisa is a legal practitioner. First of all, Coye is of Aenec. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Time is not our friend. We have to go now. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll quickly take a short break to see what Nigerians have to say about the electronic transmission of results and, of course, the scepticism of the National Assembly to it. And remember week 10, I'll be taking my goodbyes. This current National Assembly are disconnected totally from their constituencies, from their people. They are disconnected from the people. Because if not, everything is electronic in Nigeria now, as we speak. The one that affects our life most is getting people who are to decide on our future, which is election. And if we cannot do it electronically, I wonder what they are doing there. They have a terrible thing there. Because, probably, because of this Magumogo, they used to do. I'm sorry to say this thing. I know what you said. Because why are they that in the first instance? Are they being the first infrastructure? Especially power or this thing? And they make sure people are illiterate. Are they educated? Well, I think essentially that will put the voting process in the hands of Nigerians. And it will give credence, credibility to the voting process. It will essentially eliminate a regain and all sorts of electoral practices from the voting centre to the coalition and to where INEC will announce the results. Everybody knows the outcome from the beginning, so I think that's just the fear. You know everything is a process in Nigeria. All this election now, whatsoever, is a process. Is Nigeria matured for that process? So that is why doubt will come. Not even the national, even the populace, Nigerian populace, everybody is doubting this thing. But as I tell you, that is a process. If Nigeria is matured up to that process, then they should go for it. If they are not matured, we should continue with our system on 3 when we are matured for the electronic voting system. Well, what happens in 2023 remains to be seen. I am Mary Anna Cohn. I will see you tomorrow on Plus Politics to have a great evening.