 All right, it's time for a first major conversation right here on the breakfast and plus TV Africa. The independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria's electoral empire, has set aside over three billionaires as budget to defend the results of a February 25 presidential and national assembly election at the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls now so far. Over a hundred election petitions have been filed by grieved candidates and their parties across the country. The presidential candidates offer People's Democratic Party at Tikko Apobakar, a Labour Party, Pitao Bee, the Action Alliance, a Solomon Okangbao, Okanguan rather, allied People's Movement, Chi Chi Ojai have also filed petitions for the nullification of presidential election results in a current March 1. Declare the all-progressive Congress presidential candidate as we all know, Bola Ahmed Tinibu, as the winner of the February 25 presidential election. But the five candidates filed petitions seeking the nullification of the poll, also election petition tribunals in over 12 states have equally received petitions from national assembly candidates who were not satisfied with the results of the just included elections, the states where the petitions had been received include Edo, Plateau, Aplato State, Ondo State, Quarra State, Ogo State, Bayeosa State, Oyo, Oshinu Akiti, Bochi, Lagos and Niger States. And I'm glad to say that we have joining us this morning to discuss this situation Shola Omolaya, who is a public affairs analyst. He joins us with our phone from Akiti State. Shala, good morning to you. It's great to have you again. Good morning and good morning. All right. 3 billion Naira, that's a lot of money. I mean, if you look at the over 300 billion Naira Inaq had on its budget, it is a drop in the ocean. That's about 1%, but it's still a sizable amount of money. Shala, if 3 billion dropped into my account or your account, we know what we'll do, how we'll react. So that's a lot of money. Is this money well spent for Inaq to face all these barrage of cases? We talked about over 100 post-election cases, but before the elections, we had over 600 pre-election cases, post-party primary cases at the courts. Inaq seems to be over home. Would you say that? Well, I think this money, like the Naira man would say, this money they are spending does not call for at all. Do you know what it costs Nigerians to come with this election? The chairman of Inaq gave us a sense of the world's election that will be coming up, meaning that at the end of the election in Qatar, Nigeria will have a very peaceful trust that we don't need to risk. Why? It's like increasing the budget of after-election. Now look at what we experienced in the last election. Same amount of money was spent. They told us all kinds of stories. Petition is equal to cost. I believe that what happened in our state has been a great lesson and lessen the cost of spending so that we are backing on legal matters. But we have legal investors amongst the Inaq who are being paid monthly for what? They have budget for some stationaries that includes that they might want to defend within the judicial premises or outside. We are not there yet. We are talking of three billion Naira in very good terms and in these units or zones if you want to split it. Three to each of some of our leaders are not right thinking. I'm going to think of this. If another person is not coming from the address at the miscarriage, the purpose of diva is to reduce the cost of this legal expenses going to be much more than the proper election. The diva has done this much past in the past. And it knows that there is going to be some of the policies they have set put in place before the election. And money. Why three billion? And many states. They have mentioned that you still have to add those two. You see that one legislative member is going to pass either it's later passed or passed. They are also involved. You can't say that you find one person in a position to pass. And they will still go out fast. Why that? The electoral law. Because we don't know how this will take place. Most of them will be sworn in the next couple of days. May 29. And all the legislations will be sworn in by June. And we are seeing here the amount of money we are going to spend. Our primary is from each of the parties. The electoral law has forced a guy before the general election. The problem is that there are not so many people. We are just shouting and making noise. We don't need to participate in. The teachers, they didn't check in. No, they just allow it. To say it was almost... You have a group of persons who share a different opinion from what you are saying. And those persons actually think that 300 billionaires is not enough. If you look at the consent, over 100 cases have been filed by politicians. Hello. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you. So I am saying that on the other hand, you have a lot of persons who would not agree with your position this morning as to querying why 3 billionaires should be spent. And so this person is saying, if you look at the number of cases that has been filed, over 100 cases by candidates as well as their political parties across the entire country. 3 billionaires is not enough. That's on the one hand. But also, I'd like to ask you, what do you make of a democracy when you have the courts being at the forefront of it? Very dominant. For me, when it comes to it, we have four. But what I am saying is, why must you start to be spending over 3 billionaires after an election? What was the cost of the election itself? The good department of INEC has always been there. What is your budget every year? Somebody willing to educate me or educate us. On contracts, your contract, okay. It means that whenever you call them on board, they will give you their budget. And if they are not on contract, on what basis they are definitely in. What is the cost of transport at this transport cost? One reason. And let's call one INEC official who is in the purchasing department to say an example from the elementary man. So how much do you get your own freedom? Now or before? This must be possible. If they come to your management and they want to tax gays on your environment and based on your workforce, when it comes to the issue of government or a judge of government, we'll check all of these things out. So if anybody wants to campaign, they can go ahead. And because language, they may say, Nairali, Yolari, and all sorts of things. But let them put this paper. Let them access. Why do you need this money? Last time it was about 2.7 billion. Now it is 3 billion. Why? Then what is the main purpose of development when it comes to this paper? Is it not to reduce the crime in electorate? Is it that the crime is increasing? Or the numbers of voters at the least? Or the total vote tax in general? In this election of the 2321 of February or the 18th of March, let's note, and compare it to the election, the total vote tax of election of 2019. But you told me here, if you put this paper, it's almost 3 billion. This is the best. That was the total vote tax that you said. All right. It is very interesting what you've said. But we can look at the fact that, yes, you talked about the legal department of INEC. They had some reorganization a couple of years ago and they have a legal department which is now standalone. If you do the mathematics, if we say they have more than 100 cases right now post-election cases to attend to, they were looking at over 100 of them, the 3 billion Naira. We want to divide it by, let's just say 110 cases. It amount to 27,272,727 Naira, per case. So we just approximated 27.2 million Naira. When we look at the average cost of hiring a lawyer in Nigeria, sir, I mean, do lawyers get paid per hour? Is this really too much? Because you're looking at how many hours they'll spend at the initial tribunal, from there they go to the Court of Appeal, from there they go to the Supreme Court. So those are three stages. And this is just a budget. INEC may or may not spend the money. So, I mean, 100 cases and more are coming, more are coming. You have to go three levels. And these lawyers have to work. They have how many days with which to dispense of these cases. Is this really too much? Is this really too much? Some lawyers charge per hour in this country and lawyers are not cheap. And then they double their prices when it comes to political cases just like the media. We also have a surcharge when it comes to political admins. Sir. This question is speaking with a laugh. My God, let me come to that. How do you know that both of you that I'm rabbi coming to your station for four days? How do you know? Without the knowledge of your boss? How do you know? You know if you answer, how do you know? You get a budget in preparation to a crime. They need more money. Mr. Molaio, if you're looking at the legal department of INEC, I don't know if they have 100 lawyers. Because looking at, they have a legal office in each of their state offices. I say, maybe we best ask now. I just ask you a question. If you don't have skills, why do you need to start to come to work on the day of work? If you don't come on the day of robbery, because of this, I'm not coming to work. We should begin to open books. I do know that. Yes sir, sorry. Maybe they looked at the last election, how much they spent. They prepared a budget based on that. 2019. Agata, it's a national. It's not one of the three. Let's start with the run-in and see. And we should appreciate that. The lawyer will be taking a bunch of money. We need to go now. My question is, how do they know? Okay, Mr. Molaio, quickly. I see also like us to look at the fact that over time, when people go out to cast their boats, every other election period, we always seem to have the cases in court, where the court would now decide who becomes the president or the governor and what a view and all of that. So again, I put to you, and I'm asking what your thoughts are, where we seem to have the judiciary or the court dominating our democracy. Our nation. Whatever you want to say. For me, one, what is the position that these cases must probably may indicate that INEC didn't perform well in the elections because if they did well, probably they worked with the beavers and all that, like they said, would have had a reduction in number of litigations. But it could be argued that politicians always want to look for. If they can't go in through the door, they're going through the window. If they can't go in through the window, they would like to go in through the roof. So can we blame INEC for politicians and the way they act with all these cases and more to come? All are there to check that you can't go otherwise. If your body did something to check him or not, he would not be trying to work. I'm not saying that's the job or not. The only person you can't do is the uncle, the class monitor. If you are not a man, let me take your solution to the basketball game. These are children. They are not asked to have a residency too. Mr. Alshalaam. Thank you very much. Interesting thoughts. You know, some law firms charge 100 million naira as much as 100 million naira too. I can't hear you. I'm saying some law firms charge as much as 100 million naira for election related cases. I don't know how INEC will go about it. Law Firm A, handle legal state. Law Firm B, handle Aqabu and all that. Let's see how it goes. But the thing I think I all agree on is that this is a season of harvest for the legal community in Nigeria. So the lawyers will really be smiling to the bank at the end of all of this. Hello, sir. Hello, sir. I'm not going to announce that it's to be screened for any election. Thank God. Mr. Alshalaam. We have to go. We have to go. We have to go. Okay. Good morning. All right, sir. We have to go, Mr. Alshalaam. Thank you very much. Sir, thank you so much for your time. You've said it all. Go back to the electoral law he's saying and let's make sure INEC doesn't spend these amounts of money. You know, for a country that... Thank you, Mr. Alshalaam. Actually we have to go for a country that has a lot of debt in serious debt use money judiciously and save money, not waste it. And you also, Kofi, we need to just move on. Yeah, that's cool. Let's go for it. See, I like what you're doing. You see, you should have been saying sometimes just laugh at the way things are done. You know, you organize an election, you spend almost more than one billion dollars and then you don't do it well. Now imagine that you have to do it well so we don't have to get to the point where people are asking that we need to, hey, we're not agreeing. So imagine that we got it right. We have to get it right. So we don't have to get to the point where we have to be defending. It's been, I mean, according to that word, we say being proactive, but that hasn't been the case for us. And you can't stop the people from approaching the court when they feel that the right has been overlooked or discriminated against, whatever it is, however you want to put it, put it at. We just take a break at this point. When we return, we're looking at the second conversation and that'll be briefly the issue of deregulation for subsidy removal according to the Petroleum Industry Act and the fact that petrol might just be selling for 750 nair per litre. This is according to the thoughts of stakeholders. Please stay with us. We'll be right back.