 Very good morning to you and thanks for joining us on Ballot 2023. My name is Nyam Gul Aghaji. Well one thing is sure, the day that we were waiting for, February 25th has come. But the activities that we were waiting for have not ended. We can't say the elections have come and gone. They have not gone. Yesterday we were expecting some pronouncements from INEC office, the Collation Center, and they kept postponing it from 4pm to 6pm and from 6pm we now have 11am today. That they promised that they were going to say something still. We're monitoring them to see whether there's going to be any activity coming from there. Any reaction to the things that people have complained about and what the people are saying. But one thing we do know and we're happy about is that the participation in this year's election was very, very impressive. In spite of the fact that we've had pockets of violence here and there and hoodlums doing one or two things that they were not supposed to do, all we've been saying over the years that you can only rig where you are popular became something of the past right now because in places where some people were clearly not popular, a few miscrans went there, disrupted the process and election in those places became something else. But we do hope that at the end of the day there will be justice in this election. We're not looking for judgments, we're not looking for anything else. We just want justice in these elections. Whoever wins should win. What should win clearly because the people voted for them. And we've seen some upset in a lot of places that has never happened and like in Lagos for instance we've seen where other parties, apart from the ruling party, have won senatorial seats or House of Rep seats and everybody begins to wonder, is this really it, is it really happening, is Nigeria changing and all that. But like I said, my name is Nyam Gul Agadji and I do have also Bayo Oluwake with me this morning. Good morning Bayo. Hello Bayo. Okay. Well, while we wait for Bayo to join us, I'd like to also inform you, apart from the fact that we are monitoring activities at the Iron Equalization Center where we'll be having figures reeled out, official figures reeled out because I'm saying this because a lot of people, especially the political parties, seem to have their own situation rooms where they're doling out figures that may not be the same that INEC will be doling out. And at this point I'd like to tell everybody, we should be careful the kind of pronouncements we're making especially when it has to do with figures and election results until INEC says one thing or the other. There is nothing you can say that is true enough, only one empire that we have in this election. Bayo, good morning and welcome to the program today. Good morning Nyam Gul. I hope you can hear me now. Yes, I can hear you. I thought you weren't there at that time. It's been a very long weekend Bayo and I was just asking you remember if you are up to it today. I know how busy you have been this weekend. How was it anyway? Very interesting, very, very interesting. And I guess the whole population in the country were waiting for the results to be announced and the delay by INEC in doing that created a lot of apprehension of course. And well they eventually started but I have been extremely disappointed with INEC to be very honest with you. There are a couple of things I thought we had outgrown those things even by our own standards. We don't have to compare ourselves with anyone else. For example, even if we might say this is not INEC's own area of responsibility, but we were told by the INEC chairman that he had meetings with the security chiefs. But we still saw even though they were pockets isolated cases of violence, but the fact that people were injured makes them unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable. In the 21st century this should not be happening and if these things happen in urban areas you can imagine the kind of exposure and risks that our citizens in rural areas could be exposed to. So I honestly feel that efforts have to be made to ensure that these do not happen. Secondly, it is not enough to arrest people who try to disrupt election and then subject them to corporate punishment as we saw in some videos even though we cannot authenticate those videos. But we did see videos where security agents were emitting out corporate punishment on those who are allegedly harassing, intimidating or attacking either voters or election officials. These people should be prosecuted, not just beating them and letting them go. They must be prosecuted and whoever sent them the investigation must be complete, whoever has sent them to go and carry out such activities must equally be arrested and prosecuted. We have gone beyond this, this should never be happening in this day and age in this country and it is totally unacceptable. I'm trying to play the devil's advocate here right now. When you talked about being disappointed in INEC, I'm trying to draw a line between INEC and INEC officials because clearly we know that some officials have been compromised in one way or the other, maybe because they've been threatened like some of them claim or because they have been tipped with something that has enticed them to do something that they are not supposed to do or something. But clearly they have been compromised. But when you talk about your disappointment, is it disappointment in INEC as a body or the staff that allowed themselves to be compromised? They are INEC staff. INEC takes full responsibility. Even for their ad hoc staff. They are INEC staff. Whether they are ad hoc staff or not. They are INEC staff. They carry identification cards identifying them as INEC staff. And let me say something. If some candidates become agreed, okay, and find cases at the election tribunal. Those cases and the determination of those cases are going to rest solely on the conduct of those election staff. So they represent INEC and the goals they play or do not play have a significant impact on the 14 of all the candidates who are participating in the election. So to that extent INEC cannot be absorbed. I mean we didn't have violence. I said isolated cases. We didn't have violence across. I think we are actually across the country. Elections have been, okay, largely, right? But we have had many, many cases. Nonetheless, out of 176,000 plus polling units across the country, okay? We've had cases maybe not enough to 50 polling units, right? But still it's vandalous that people were injured in those places. People were subjected to trauma in those places. Some of them may not even recover from that trauma for a while. And I know what trauma is because there have been places where people are significantly exposed to trauma. So we need to do everything to ensure that these kinds of things do not happen. And INEC has a responsibility to maintain supervision over staff that it deploys for elections, whether they are ad hoc staff or permanent staff. True. There is some sort of carelessness on the part of INEC, if you ask me. Because, for instance, you find places where ballot papers went without logos of some political parties. Not one location, not two locations, a lot of locations. And then you find places where the BVAS machine was said not to have worked. Maybe because of the manipulation of the people involved there. But INEC has showed us that everything regarding preparations to the elections were top notch. They were complete. They had no problem at all. And it got to that point and we're seeing some lapses that could have been avoided. And I see carelessness. But I'm also thinking in subsequent elections, will it be asking too much if INEC deploys something like what we have in the U.S., for instance, with their policemen, where they go around with cameras, that will monitor the things that they do so that it will help to show the conduct of the INEC staff and the people around them. So that if there are pockets of violence, there are issues that they have and complaints are being made. They can also go to those mini-cameras that they wear on their bodies. Will that be asking too much? I'm just suggesting that. Couldn't that be one of the things that the INEC ad hoc staff could be carrying around so that whatever happens, they will have their own side of the story to tell? No, I think it will be very difficult for staff who have been contracted to conduct elections to also be expected to be recording or monitoring. They will not have that time. They will not have that time. Just body cams like policemen wear. No, no. I think that will be still difficult, you know, because the body cam is only... You see, for the police, it's easy to deploy body cams because most of the time police officers are standing up in the conduct of their work, they're standing up. And so the angle from which the camera records is a fairly reasonable angle to capture things. But when you're sitting down, you're assisting people, you're directing people, you're helping the elderly as INEC staff normally do. I don't think a body cam will be an idea. But you see, I get the point you're trying to make. And I have a simple solution. Given what we saw in some states during this election, what I would advise is that when most voters arrive at the polling unit, let them start filming everything with their phones, particularly the entrance into that polling unit, the gate into that polling unit. Let them begin to film everything. And when other people are voting, those that are not voting should keep filming because those films would help. If there are thoughts who are pretending to be voters, film everybody. If they subsequently disrupt or create any problems, you already have the image. And this can be given to security agents and it can help them to track or declare those who wanted. This can be easily done. And a lot of voters actually filmed incidents which has helped security agents during this last election. But you see, having said that, there are also questions that must be asked. On Saturday, rumors were already going around that the INEC server was down. Rumors were already flying around and INEC kept denying it. And then yesterday evening, INEC issued a press statement saying the server was down but it was not through an act of sabotage that it was a technical breach. For me, that is extremely war and dangerous management of information. Because you are going to fewer speculation of being compromised. The moment, how come everybody, the rumors were all over the place on Saturday? The rumors were all over the place and the rumors were not even palatable because people were saying that the system was hacked. The public information management of INEC should have immediately responded to that on Saturday, not wait until yesterday evening to now issue a press release confirming that the system was actually down but it was not through sabotage. This does not help INEC and that's why I'm saying that I hold INEC responsible for most of what has been happening. They were not proactive in managing information. And then there was also the issue of if the server was down, there was also the issue of in some polling units the results of the National Assembly for instance could be uploaded to the server but the presidential election could not be uploaded to the server. Are there having two servers for the elections? So which one was down and which one was not down? If this is the same server at what point was it down that they could upload the results of one of the elections or two of the elections and then that way conducted at the same time. They could upload one section of the election if I would use that one and it gives people room to be suspicious that something fishy is happening here and we keep saying on this program by you and I that when people are making pronouncements to the public or for public consumption they should be careful how they do it. See the time lapse between when the information should have gotten to the people the confirmation should have been made by INEC and the time they actually accepted the fact that the server was down or I don't know what I would say accepted the fact but now told us that the server was down. It's really suspicious, very suspicious if you ask. It is and I mean, INEC obviously has good intentions but for me the time lag like you pointed out the time lag between when this rumor was flying around and when it finally came to admit it was too wild and you know this election all the candidates whether it's actually a volunteer number whether it's Excellency Attic Babu Baka Excellency Peter O'Bee Excellency Ravi Papal So they all accept this election is likely to be very close and that makes it tense it generates a lot of tension, right and so it's important for INEC to be not only to be doing the right thing which I still believe INEC is doing but to be perceived to be doing the right thing to be perceived to be doing the right thing you know and when you allow this wide gap in information dissemination or in confirmation of obvious facts you are unnecessarily full of speculation and then you can see that the parties the major parties especially were beginning to claim that they are leading or they are winning, like you said at the top of the program their supporters are giving resource and sharing things and that is not helpful for anyone you know so I think that there's still time to correct this and if you notice as well when the INEC chairman opened the Collation Center at 12 noon yesterday he announced he announced the ground rules you know how the procedures would go, the processes and then he also said there's a media center so nobody should be expecting that the media information of blah blah blah would happen from the Collation Center that was very good and he said nothing will return outside of that Collation Center you know in other words even though he said that they also have their secretion room that they are turning to the election will be done, will be announced will be revealed within the context of that Collation Center that was absolutely perfect and spot on and then he adjourned to reconvene at 6 p.m now at 6 p.m he did not show I think he showed them at 6.49 because I was looking at my tie he showed up around 6.49 and then they started the and then only Ekiti State REC was there to announce the result and after that was done I make a jump till 11 a.m this morning why even allow only Ekiti State why not just delay and let us know we are going to start today and this brings me to the question as to how Ekiti State was the only one who could arrive at Bucha maybe the others were still busy but the reason for the National Assembly including BVAS for use is simply because BVAS will upload the results give them the capability to upload the results directly from the polling units ok now what is all this story according to Barista Festos of Puea the INE Commissioner for Voter Education that you know the results will go from the polling units to the collation to the local government from the local government to the central coalition center in the state from the central coalition center once it is finished the REC will now physically carry the ballots and control Aguja in the 21st century in the Nigeria when I asked that question there was someone at the coalition center when you already have BVAS when you already have BVAS the RECs for each of the 36 states and the FCT can announce the results in their state capitals by video link why must they go to Aguja beats me why must they go to Aguja in the 21st century with BVAS approved by the National Assembly accepted by all the parties and you know disseminated to us the voters that this is the process I found that honestly I never knew about that how could it started announcing and I was aghast I was asking that same question I was asking that same question why would it need to go to local government state are they transporting it by road this is something that is electronically transmitted so if it can be done from the polling boot why will we need to wait for local government state government who is verifying what so I asked that question and honestly the person I asked could not answer me that question and I'm not sure that even Aine can answer that question satisfactorily because it doesn't make any sense to anybody but right now sorry let me let me help you a little bit I'm not answering the question you cannot even answer it can you Aine should answer that but let me give you a perspective I assume I stand to be corrected I assume that this procedure existed before the national assembly approved BIVAS now elections the results can go through that chain at the state level because you have to collate the results anyway but if they already they transmitted electronically then it means that they should simply go to the central point we have the resident electoral commissioner for the state will announce it because he already has it it has come to him electronically and when he is making that announcement the Ainex Central Collation Center in Avucha we are the chairman of Ainex who is the chief returning officer for the presidential election is we see it on video link we see all the ranks of the 3060s and the absentee on video link and the moment they have finished the result is already on the Ainex server anyway then the Ainex chairman should simply declare whoever has won this idea of a wreck physically carrying ballots flying to Avucha I think was something that was happening before the national assembly approved BIVAS the moment BIVAS was approved that ought to have changed because now we are all waiting for each of the 37 wrecks to fly to Avucha or 36 because the wreck for FCT would be in Avucha anyway and I am surprised that the wreck for Aguja wasn't even there to announce the result yesterday Aguja is just there Mother Kitida has no airport was able to get there yesterday the one from Aguja has no airport there I don't think the quantum of voters in Avucha was such that it was so massive they couldn't have done the compilation but I mean these things are to highlight to Ainex areas where they need to make amends one recognizes that it is not easy to conduct elections in Nigeria with rainforest with desert with swamp forests with rivers we know but Ainex had four years to prepare for this election and Ainex told us when the kick started the process in February 2022 that they were ready and the only thing they complained about four weeks, five weeks before the election was security the only thing they complained about was security and thank God all the parties presidential candidates campaigned across Nigeria with little or no security incidents and the only security incidents we have seen in this election the basis of thugs going to beat up people not bandits, not kidnappers thugs who ostensibly might have been unleashed by some people but otherwise security wise everything has been okay so what excuse does Ainex have and it's also funny that at this time people will still be snatching ballad boxes what purpose what does it even achieve snatching ballad boxes in an election where the results are supposed to be transmitted electronically what are they needing the ballad boxes for exactly and because of that we are hearing that elections in those areas may be cancelled and if they are cancelled and the beavers is still there of what uses the beavers if it cannot do the work that will put ballad boxes in such as out of business I am still trying to understand what is happening Ainex also has an explanation and technical glitches can happen I think our grounds is that the period when the technical glitch occurred and when Ainex admitted it the gap was too much that gap left for unnecessary speculation that could impound the integrity of Ainex so Ainex need to guard against that and then for the subsequent elections these things should never repeat themselves we have absolutely no excuse in this day and age to witness the kinds of things that happened in some places on set but even then bio I think they still need to explain to us the technicalities involved in beavers I am looking at beavers like I have a phone I do not have network but I can still type my text it will be there maybe I cannot send it but as soon as there is network or as soon as I have airtime on my phone I can now forward that text I can now send the text so if these things beavers can work without the server being on it will have everything inside it is just to upload it that it will be impossible so why was there that real need that if the servers were down they could not get the kind of information that was the servers come back will still be authentic enough and be uploaded to the server I just do not understand they will have to explain to us maybe you have the technical know how why beavers if the server is not there beavers will not be a bank sort of for all the votes that have been cast no no I do not have and honestly I think maybe IT experts who are familiar with beavers can because elections because elections are already on I think it is better for INEC itself to explain not for any other person to do that let INEC explain to us how the whole process is supposed to work and more importantly that INEC also explain to us what exactly was the technical problem that the server had because there are all kinds of statements by different candidates and I do not want to reference any of those because with due respect to all the candidates so it does not look like we do not know whether they are being factual or not so this is why because there are some services that were given but INEC needs to really explain to us and they are more important as equally important is the fact that INEC has to explain to us what the the process of the security system of their server they do not have to tell us what exactly the security is but they need to tell us is there impact hope because if you are going to rely on this for a presidential election that many people have submitted will be quite close and we the major candidates themselves are admitted is likely to be quite close then you need to have back up how can a server go down for a day and a half do you understand? like they were not prepared that security features what are the security features of your server do not tell us in detail but let us know what steps you are taking to ensure that if this server goes down there is impact hope remember also bio that before the elections they told us that they may not use or they will not use the regular service providers all the ones that we have been using for our phones and all that that they had a superior they were going to use a new one that has come up and up till now a lot of us do not even know whether they use the regular ones that we have here in the country or they still use that one that is not supposed to have any hitches whatsoever regarding internet connection I remember that when the elections were going on people who felt that election must be done seamlessly were even giving their hotspots their wifi hotspots to people of today INEC staff so that they can upload these results they didn't have network they didn't have internet and all that people were offering their own and we do not know they should tell us if they still use the one that they said they were going to use or it was the regular one what give rise to all these hitches that we found in the elections importantly as well there was a particular place where the INEC officers went to and they said Biva's was not working because they they put into the Biva's didn't make the Biva's open so someone else had to come with a different code to put into the Biva's machine for it to open and for them to use it for the election is this even is this even I will take that I will take that with a pinch of salt that is something that is supposed to happen because I think every polling unit should have its own code so if that was the case can that happen? I will take that with a pinch of salt for a non INEC person to come with a code I think INEC should just explain to us that is why I said people are seeing no source of things and I didn't want to reference it because you never know who is exactly saying what or not there could be a technical problem it can happen the system can even be hacked don't put it past our politicians it can happen but what are the steps and then operating in this environment given the huge amount of money the Nigerians have paid because it is what Nigerians have paid that has been used to run this election this election is costing Nigerian citizens a lot of money so INEC owes us an explanation INEC owes an explanation they cannot keep quiet they owe Nigerian citizens detailed explanation of what is going on because the integrity of their job and many of them have worked very very hard the integrity of their job is at stake so they need to explain they need to assure the citizens that everything is okay this is within their control not just that press statement that they issue that press statement says nothing that press statement says nothing they need to tell us exactly what has happened and they need to give a guarantee that it will not repeat itself okay let me just remind everybody that we are still monitoring activities from the collation center INEC collation center and as soon as there is much activity what looking at we will bring it life to you so that we hear what is happening there at the collation center maybe they'll start to reel out the results they will give us a statement regarding all the complaints that we are making and all that but it's still ballot 2023 it's not over until it is over as they usually say okay let me come back to your bio I see this election as one which will have a lot of litigation and my fear is whether or not the judiciary can deliver on the kind of justice that we want we are not looking for swift judgments or swift anything we are looking for justice let me not call it supreme court would the judiciary be able to handle what is likely to come out of this election and before I share my thoughts let me also say that there are a lot of INEC staff who resisted intimidation from what we are hearing from voters there are a lot of INEC staff who resisted intimidation a lot of INEC staff who were diligent who were hardworking who were patriotic and we need to let them know we sincerely appreciate their work the feedback we are sharing is for the INEC generally especially at a strategic level to improve we knew that many INEC staff found it difficult to get to polling units because of restrictions but the track some of them tracked so please with one design staff to know we sincerely and deeply appreciate all of their efforts for the interest of the father line this has to be put on record talking about the judiciary there are two critical arms that are very critical for us as a country whether we have elections or not number one the judiciary number two the armed forces under no circumstances most the judiciary or the Nigerian armed forces compromise because the stability of this country depends significantly largely on that okay and given we are 62 years old as a nation or as a country some will argue we are not a nation we are still going to become a nation so these two are critical and it is very important that we appeal to the conscience of those who are the honor and the privilege to serve in the judiciary and in the armed forces not to let Nigerians down now coming to whether the judiciary can from what we have seen in recent past you know many people are a bit worried that when we were having cases that was sporadic and they thought that some of the pronouncements from the judiciary did not did not invoke or elicit confidence on the part of the citizenry what then happens when you have the deluge of cases as you have expressed your own personal fear that you foresee the possibility of several litigations I didn't know if you already become a prophet we don't need a prophet to tell us that you have your own church somewhere but of course we know historically most of our politicians don't accept election results they always go to courts so we know that if we go by antecedents people will normally go to court anyway even where they have lost clarity they still go to court but our judiciary is likely and the election petition in this case are likely to receive cases we are just appealing to them this would be my response to that question that they are a critical leg in the stability of this country and with any judgment that they are going to pronounce and they are not going to be able to go home and sleep and close their eyes or their wives or their husbands and their children will not be able to move around and raise their heads and say I am the son or daughter or husband or wife of this person they should not deliver such a judgment ok here we are being joined by Fermi he is here with us Fermi good morning welcome to the program good morning and thanks for the opportunity of having me join ok the elections we just conducted the elections and today we are inspecting INEC to address us and all that and the issue at hand we are talking about me and bio my colleague here is he was trying to call me a prophet but we don't need a prophet to tell us that we are likely to have a lot of litigation as the outcome of this elections and we were just wondering if our judiciary from all that we have seen them leading up to this election they will have the capacity to do what they need to do to address the litigations that will come out of this election do we trust our judiciary enough to make sure that since they are the last hope of the common man that the common man is going to have justice where justice is needed all right thank you that's a very interesting question I would have preferred to come from education and go but since I have been asked and this is I am in Nigeria so I have to ask we will still go to the education but just let's talk about this I will start by saying that there is a huge depletion in terms of trust in the nation at the moment and I do hope that relevant agencies of the government of the government do something about that to address the issue of trust so if you ask me that do we citizens trust you know whether there is going to be some believable or process from the judiciary I think in the past we have had some dash of brilliance from the judiciary so it may be wrong to emphatically say that there is no hope with regards to the expectation of Nigeria from the judiciary in fact it is the last hope of Nigerians at the moment so we will keep expecting that whatever wrong has been spotted and based on technical case by case and facts that will be brought in front of the court each of those cases will be dealt with on the merit of those cases so I want to strongly say that Nigerians believe in court process yes there has been a few cases in the past where people think based on emotions and that judgment pandas away from public outcry I mean but I am not in legal aspect but I also know that law is a matter of inequalities and law so it doesn't pander to emotion so we are going to as Nigerians keep remaining positive and hope that whatever gaps has been identified or cases that will be brought against the elections will be handled by the courts of the land on its merit okay we were excited that we were going to talk with you on education today because a lot of the things that are going on in Nigeria they have people have tied them to the level of education the kind of education that we are having in Nigeria we are looking at reinventing the educational system in Nigeria such that we can have a better citizenry patriotism entrepreneurship entrepreneurship minded people we can have a new crop of people that will make Nigeria greater than it is today I mean you cannot expect an educated person I am talking about real education not just someone who has acquired some papers but educated person to be the one snatching ballot boxes for instance to be the one allowing themselves to be users talks to be the one that thinks that the only way to be in the political scene is to be a talk to someone else and all that what are we missing in our educational system that could have translated into having a better citizenry that will have something or a society that is civil a society that is understanding a society that does the right thing a society that has conscience a society that is patriotic enough to build its own country what do we need to do in the educational system Femi thank you very much for that question I think it is a very interesting one and I am going to just create some context about what we have done in that regard so it's no story that in the school held Nigeria captive first dealt or brought education to its nearer in Nigeria and I would limit my intervention to the work that I have done in Nigeria based on I mean looking at basic and senior secondary education and if you look at the indices and the data that we have in that space you see that it's difficult to say that children are learning in Nigeria and you can see the impact of different ramifications you see the quality of those who are turning out in primary school you see the amount of children that are out of school in Nigeria you see the quality of those that we are turning out in senior secondary school look at how many children can have good conversations and you can directly link it to violence I was studying over the weekend to look at the background reason to why human resort to violence when we are unable to communicate our point and are able to have meaningful conversations so if you look at the quality of those who are turning out even as our leaders look at the quality of those who are turning out even at tertiary institutions then you look at that the background we've had in China with the background and that's from education and until we are able to do that so we want to fix elections we want to stop violence we want to address issues of security we really need to go back to the basis to look at fixing basic education and permit me to quickly come in from this angle that in looking ahead of this ahead of the election there is something that a group of civil society did in Nigeria and that is basically for education looking at the manifestos of political candidates in Nigeria and we took our time to look at the quality of those manifestos and commitment for education in Nigeria we have a history of politicians promising free education and rolling out even if they are not going to meet up with those promises they make those promises but there is something very very wrong fundamentally that happened this 2023 election that those promises were bogus and very minimal in terms of specifics in terms of addressing the gaps in terms of addressing the gender sensitive gaps that we have around education they are very very minimal and because we see that politicians did not make these promises civil society came together to look at the sector the basic and secondary education to look at the sector what are the gaps what are the things that are needed to be done if we are going to reimagine education just a moment Fermi, would like to keep you for a longer period to talk with you in fact I have my colleague Bio who is also standing by to ask you questions about how we can revamp our educational system and all that so that we don't see the kind of things that we are seeing now among our youths that should be in school and should learn something for themselves and how to make our country greater we will take a break for the news and we are hoping that on the other side which is about 10 minutes from now 15 minutes from now we can reconnect with you and talk more about how we can revamp this educational system before we let you go we hope that you will be there for us at that time please Fermi don't go away so ladies and gentlemen we are at 2023 and we are still hoping that INEC will eventually address us as a nation and also give us the authentic results from the collision center we are expecting that to come up any moment we were told yesterday it was going to be at 11 am but this is the longest 11 am it's already almost 12 o'clock so we will take a break for the news and right after that we continue with the Balot 2023 stay with us we will see you next time