 Welcome back to The Breakfast on Plasticity Africa, time for us to head straight to our second conversation. And like we mentioned earlier on, we're looking at the issue of direct or indirect primaries and how the argument is going. Will direct primaries affect, you know, or enhance democracy, internal democracy in our political, in the political parties? And would it also help threaten the democratic process? We have been joined by Senator Anthony Adefuye. Good morning, Senator. Anthony Adefuye. Good morning. Okay. Thank you once again for joining us this morning on the show. Good morning. So the proponents of direct primaries believe that indirect primaries is not in consonant with the tenets of democracy. Do you agree with the School of Thoughts? Well, I think they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Now when you do direct primaries, you allow every member of the party to participate and therefore you get a better reception of the people. But when you're using direct primaries, it means you have to appoint delegates and these delegates, you have to go to a national vote place and then vote for the candidate. Now the disadvantage of that is that those delegates can be bought. They can be easily bought. It doesn't mean that when you do direct primaries, you cannot be influenced by money or by any other thing. But you have many more people participating when it is direct primaries than indirect primaries. So the best would be direct primaries. Now when you do direct primaries, for instance, let us take the position of Mr. President. If you want to appoint a presidential candidate, it means that in every vote of the Federation, in every local government, everybody would have to vote for their choice. Now if you do by indirect primaries, it will be some certain delegate appointed by the votes and some statutory delegates, who by their position are qualified as delegates, that will assemble at the place and then nominate a candidate. So both are called for both direct primaries. For instance, when you do a direct primaries, it is more evolving. It is more time consuming and sometimes it could be valid, you know, but the valid can be contained in certain votes or in certain places. If you do not affect the general results of the nomination. But however, when it comes to delegates, well, we all know the President is Nigerian, because everybody has a price and therefore those delegates can be put over. So I would say that direct primaries is better. Okay, well, now that you've said that, there's also some angles with regards to direct primaries that people have mentioned. For example, not very many parties, and of course, if you look at the two major parties in Nigeria, they don't necessarily have a proper membership register or membership list. And I'm pointing this out because, for example, Andi Uba of the APC, when they had his primary elections or his primaries, they claimed 230,000 members of the party voted Andi Uba. But when it was time for election, he barely got up to 50,000 votes from the APC in the party. And that clearly shows that that can be manipulated, the number of votes can be manipulated in a direct primary situation. And a lot of parties don't actually have a proper register or membership register. So isn't that a challenge for direct primaries? No, no, no, no, I don't agree with you. Now, when you have direct primaries, it means that in every vote, there will be an election to nominate a candidate. You cannot manipulate all the 1,000 votes, where at least 100 people participate, at least 100 to 1,000 people will be participating in every vote. No, it is difficult to manipulate. But where you have delegates, where you have maybe 100, 100 delegates from each state and we have at 6-6, those are only 3,000, it's under 3,000, and we say in the private political situation, the majority of them can be voted, the majority of them can be voted. So let us also choose now for direct primaries. If you remember during the FKRO era, it was the direct primaries that was applied. And it is still a judge as the first election ever, that ever took place in Nigeria. It was so peaceful and everybody voted for the candidates for their choice. So I will at any time opt for direct primaries. Okay, let's also look at some concerns as regards direct primaries. Of course, now that it has been adopted, we're hoping that when it's been sent to the president for assent, that he will assent it. That's another discourse entirely. But you also have people saying that because it has also been mandated that INEC would have to monitor the entire process and that might just be a lot of stress to be very precise. It will stretch INEC. What are your thoughts? Don't you think that's cumbersome already? Normally INEC will witness those primaries. We expect that INEC will be neutral and will record exactly what they saw. Now all these are the conditions that we must be considered. Now if we now adopt the electronic system, that will even be better. That will be easier. But you know that only a percentage of Nigerians can use the electronic system. So we still have to go to the works to line up behind the concept of our choice to choose a candidate. So go up and down in any condition at all. The direct primaries will be better. It's difficult for you to buy up those nice numbers of party members. It's always very difficult. And it's always very organized because you don't know what is happening in the other works. So whatever you find in your own work, you all just record it and wait for the coalition of those numbers. So when it comes to direct or indirect, you all have to assemble in the place and begin with some piece of paper to go and drop in the box. All those countries will be manipulated. But the direct primaries will go just line up and they just count all of you. It's always the decision that you cannot adopt. I also want you to respond to the parties. For example, the People's Democratic Party that is saying that they don't think the National Assembly should be the one deciding how parties carry out their internal elections. I'm not hearing you clearly. Can you hear me clearly now? Yes, I heard you now. Okay, so I'm asking your response to the PDP saying that they don't think the party should be told how to carry out their own internal elections. And that National Assembly should not be the one to tell parties and parties should be allowed to decide whether they use direct or indirect primaries for themselves. Do you agree with that? Do you think parties should be left alone to decide direct or indirect? No, I don't agree with that. So whatever happens, a party is assessing the situation. And whoever is nominated will rule the country. Therefore, it is a matter of for all Nigerians not that party alone to decide which method to use. You know, they can't work to answer. You don't want it to judge how well you work to understand. You want it to judge how well every Nigerian will make up their mind and make their choice. Or not, not, not say that they need to participate. And they should not now. There are so many parties. And I don't know why the National Assembly has not made a move to give me these parties to free your form. So that then we can control those great parties. So in the situation where you have all the parties, all the great parties, and every, every Nigerian can wake up today and say they are from the whole party that they have this issue. And then it is, because we have to monitor what they do in those parties. So that Nigeria can have a better government. Where those parties put somebody in the party. All right. Senator Anthony Defouye, member of the Lagos State Governor's Advisory Council. Government Advisory Council, beg your pardon. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Thanks for speaking with us. I wish you a beautiful day ahead. Thank you. All right. This is where we will be saying goodbye and wrapping up the conversation this morning. Merci. Of course. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. We will definitely come through tomorrow. And if you missed out on any part of the conversation, it's all right to catch up on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. Visit PlaceTVAfrica. I am Mese Boko. Do have a great morning. And I am Osaogi Ogbonwang. Have a great Thursday.