 It's still the breakfast special independence right here and thank you for joining us. We head straight to our next conversation, we're looking at politics and the 2023 elections. We have a guest who's been here with us from the speech of the president, he's the fine gentleman Joe Femi-Dagoro, he's the founder of Ligas Forum. Thank you so much for being with us. Thanks. Let's get straight to it, but I know that there's politics and when the season of politics and the elections is almost here, but how would you describe our political process as a country, 1960 and we're here now? Well, when you look at it, it's still a growing process, it's still growing. We're not there yet and we've made tremendous steps, we've taken tremendous steps from where we were. It's always a good thing when you get your independence and I just want to feel the fact that we are all happy that we are independent nation and for the forefathers that have taken that right decision at that time, I think it's a good thing to see where we are today, but we have not done badly when you look at it and compare to other countries, but at the same time, we have to do better than what we inherited in court now because you say you inherited so many things from people, but I don't want us to be looking at the colonization as an issue right now because it's taking some years back, 62 years. Why should we even be talking about it? We should have grown, most people if you have 62 years right now, you have great hair, you'll be having grandchildren all over the place. So I mean, this is a moment for us to reflect and say where are we now? Where are we going? What's going on? A lot of the young people and some of our children, they are not happy with the country we have right now and we are leaving for them because at some point they ask you a question, was it true? If I tell any of my kids and say, listen, I had the opportunity to add bossry, I said, what is bossry? You know, whoever the government pays you and whether it's scholarship to travel around to do a lot of things, why is it not now? You can't answer. You just give them silly excuses of corruption, corruption, corruption. So what happened? My mates are in the government. My mates are the people who are there now. Some of us, we have a generation who have been there, who are there and who are still going to be there. So they blame it on us. And yes, what can we do to improve the situation? I don't want the situation where we blame the colonial masters, we blame the military, we keep blaming people. Let's blame ourselves that we are now there. We want to do something. What are we going to do? What are we doing? There is corruption, no doubt. There is infrastructure deficit. There's no doubt about that. The children in schools, they can't go to school. At the right time, most of them have been kidnapped. Some of them are kidnapped, brother. And some of them who are in the university, in the public university, they can't go back for seven months. So these are the problems that most parents cannot explain what independence is all about and is a problem right now. So we have to look at it and guide against it. What can we do to prevent some of these problems? So prevent some of these issues so that 2023 will lead us ahead of what catastrophe we are coming from or we have in the past. So we are looking at this as an opportunity to lead us, to prepare us. And what I've not seen is the fact that what is the ideology that is driving us? Do we have the ideology that is driving us? I know in the past, when you have some of these political organizations like Action Group and PCA and all this other, you know, I will all came up with the fact that, listen, I want to give free education. And this is what we are going to have. I want to give free health. This is what we are going to do. But right now I just said, I will do it. What are you going to do better than what we have right now? What are you going to do that will make people trust you? You know, we speak too much grammar. You know, we are importing not only ideologies that will not work. The Constitution will say we want this kind of American style of, you have two houses, the House of Rep and the Senate. And then what is going on there? Sometimes you even see the employees of these two houses saying they are going on strike because they've not been paid. We don't know how much the president ends. We don't know how much the senators are ending. We don't know how much these things are not transparent. So how can we continue to live under this kind of government? It's an issue. But Mr. Firm, now we're looking at Nigeria, you know, being a 62-year-old country. Yes. We talked about if you're 62, you know, have gray hair. Yes. And you know, you're expecting your children to be growing up and they're getting married and all that. Yes. But some will say that, you know, if you compare Nigeria to the other countries in the world, like, I mean, I want to mention names. Just tell me any country. OK, maybe United States of America, for instance, which is a leading democratic nation, all right, in the world. That we're just nascent. And, you know, the term that is used, banded about, is a democratic experiment, especially when Obama was president. For how long do you perform experiments in the laboratory? Is this still an experiment? And looking at, so I mean, are we not being too hard on ourselves? Are we not being too hard on ourselves? I mean, look at how many years ago was it that the British left the country? Look at the Queen herself, who just died, lived through several generations. So we are still in it. No, no, no, no, no, no. I would argue that you experience independence as still alive. That should be a time frame for experiments. You can be experimenting all this while. You say, no, Mr. Femme D'Agron, you're saying you're 62, but in country years, in country years, we might just be entering adolescence. Listen, you want country years. Let me tell you one thing. You want to look at it. The population of Nigeria in 1960 is not the same population we have right now, right? And then when you are looking at that and you want to say you want to experiment, how long do you want to experiment with over 200 million? So all these countries that we refer to went through their processes. Hold on a minute. Rome was not built in the day. Forget about it. No Rome was not built in the day, but every day they continue to improve. Yes. If you say Rome was not built in the day, are you improving now? We're not improving. So we are improving, but- Democratically, we're not improving. Listen, every day you see one of the parties, somebody say, look, I didn't apply for any loan. House rent, why do you give me 28 million? Is that an improvement? And somebody is telling you now that, listen, I'm going to do something better than what they have been doing. What is it? Most of the things you are hearing is a campaign audacity. People will say things that they cannot fulfill. They don't even know. When they get there, they say, I didn't know. So now we have to begin to look at it that we want to do something reasonable. We can continue to experiment with the lives of the people. A spokesman of the campaign group said, look, the people are hungry. So if you know that the people are hungry and you've been there for 80 years, what have you done? What are you going to do better than what you've done before? So we have to begin to understand that. And if a political party say, look, I can do everything better, I can produce, we have to produce and produce. What do you want to produce? How do you produce? Because you need a machinery. And the machinery you need has to be imported. You cannot fire the central bank of now immediately. You have the power to do that. You cannot fire all the policemen. You cannot, you need people. So you have to begin to understand it right now that there's a difficult challenge ahead. And don't let us carry these young people with a kind of illusion. Because most of the things people are saying, illusionary things. And that is what pains me. I see children. I see young graduates. We have done a bit. And that the young people are coming up. But the young people are seeing what is wrong. And so tendency is there that they will follow these wrong ideas as well. So let's begin to, why do we have to even be talking about states? Why do we have to be talking about religion? Why do we have to be talking about man to man or man and woman kind of government? So no, religion should not be an issue for us right now in 62 years. Do you think that's appropriate? We should not be talking about ethnicity. Is it? I'm a Yoruba man. I'm married from another state. I'm married from Kogi. Does that make me to be a non-Yoruba person again? And you have the elders that are not infinity, but some of us is this. We have elders who are trying to bring this unity amongst us. OK. But some say that Nigeria's democracy, I mean, we look at the promise and the characters and the personalities that fall for democracy to return to Nigeria in the days of Babangida and the days of Abacha. We can talk about Nadeko and the characters that were associated with Nadeko and the pro-democracy struggle as a whole. Some say that the characters that emerged as governors and at the executive level around the country, the House of Assemblies, Senate and the House of Representatives, were not the right persons. And that's why we got it wrong from 1999. That those who were meant to step in, we're not sure the military was going to stay in the barracks. They felt the military was going to come back and do what they did in 1992 or 1993. So are you of the same thought that the right persons stayed back and where I gave the opportunity to people who were not probably qualified or didn't really have the right mindset? And that's why we got it wrong from 1999 Listen, if anybody is saying that the person's mind is biased, it's not sensitive to what is on ground. If people believe, why don't you come out? Some people struggle, they suffered for this. And you are now saying that the right people did not come in because some of the people they were afraid and they ran away and they didn't come back again. Intellectuals, pro-democracy activists. But some people stayed behind and they came in. And these intellectuals, they were waiting for their time. Who will give you that time? If I am in the country and I fought for something and I'm sitting down to have the phone with what I fought for, will you terminate? I have to get out of the picture. I've met a lot of persons who say, see, I just, I even bought the phone for one tout in my community. I told him to go and run the election. I even paid for him because I didn't feel that this democracy will last. That's your feeling. If somebody feels democracy will not last and is now complaining that, oh, I should have waited. I should have seen this happening. The person is not having the right mind. You have to be positive to understand that politics is not for everybody. To be in a political position. I might be talking today. I may not want to be a chancellor. I may not want to be a governor. But that does not mean that I cannot express myself about the governance. And that does not mean I cannot support whom I fear is good to be there. But to say that, oh, the right people, who are the right people? The first thing I know is that. Because look at the results you've had since 1999. It's because most of us. That's why you're here. So if the right persons were in governance in politics, they probably would not be here complaining. Will you say Trump was the right guy when he came in there? I'm talking about like this. Yes, because you said we took this thing from America. We are comparing. We said, give me a country. You said America, for instance, was Trump the right person when he came in there? Now that we have seen what has happened, will you say when Natasha was there, she was the right person in the UK? Will you say, but you can say in Germany, was Angela Merkel, was she the right person there? Because she still lives in a flat where she stays. She still watches her clothes with them. So now what I'm saying is this. Why don't we check the backgrounds of these people? Why don't you excuse me? Why don't you begin to say, listen, now that we have learned a mistake, we have learned a lesson from this, we have seen the mistake. Why don't we say, listen, the candidates, Attiku, can you tell us what you have paid? Taxes. Can you give us your tax return? Can you tell us, Ashwaju, what's your tax return? OB and Guapanzo and lots of them. It is not just about showing us or medical record. If the constitution allows that, the constitution says that even the bank directors, the bank staff, they have to declare their asset. Have they been declaring their assets? So when you compare the people to declare their asset and they take us for a ride, so how do we now say no? It's we, the citizens, we have the problem with ourselves. We don't ask the right questions. They are coming again with these same promises. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. But how much have they been paying for taxes? We have to ask questions, and that is the problem. Now it is difficult, I tell you what, I can understand that it's difficult to buy the form. Who is that person that has a genuine person? Where is he going to get 100 million? Where is he going to get 100 million to pay? So we have not, all of us can all be pressed at the same time, but we have to begin to look at it, let's start from the local level. And that is the issue. So we'll be able to look at some of the issues. I mean, it's a good time for us to reflect as 62, 62. And we are a federal system, it's a federal republic of Nigeria. We have a multi-party system, and that's why we have several political parties. We have two houses, so you have the upper house and the lower house. And do you think that the problem lies with the system that we're practicing? Because some people have been calling for us to go back to regional government, you know, 1963 or thereabouts. And that would be the solution. So my question to you now is, do you think that the system that we're practicing with multi-party system, what have you, you think it's the problem? What exactly is it? I think it's part of the problem. No one can specifically say that this is just a major problem. In my own opinion, it's part of the problem because it's to elaborate. We don't even know those who are there. Listen, if you look at other people, you'll see that some people just go in there and they just slip off. Some don't even go. Some don't even go. But if there's an issue that they're going to do something or whatever president is coming, well, everybody will rush to that. Something that they have to benefit from. Yes, they'll go there. You know, in the first instance, why do we have to give these guys the consistency allowance? It is not the duty of a senator or a rep to take money to his constituency and start distributing it's a kohan machine or whatever they distribute. You have to make laws. That's what I'm talking about. Calibre of persons who got the forms in 1998 to step in in 1999. Kofi, I think it would be okay for him to, let's talk about the issue of the system of governance that we practice. The system is faulty, really faulty. We don't even know how much we pay them. So it's faulty. If we go to the regional one and it will enable people to understand how we share the government or the federal, from the federal bucket, it will enable us to know who gets what, how this is being shared. For now, it is not being shared well because we have so many agencies that we cannot even control. We have so many, you know, that is why you see strikes going on. And that's why you begin to see that at the end of the day, people begin to tell you, listen, we are not doing the right thing. The system is faulty. Okay, very quickly, please, very quickly. We have an election coming up. Right. Will Nigeria get it right in 2023? Nobody can promise you that. Nobody can promise you that because what I'm saying, I'm seeing the same people saying the same thing. Not even anything different? Nothing different. What is the difference in what they're saying? We have infrastructure problem. You are saying you will do it better. How will you do it better? We have not seen their programs. But it seems to be a new wave. A new wave, we are talking of the that, the obedience. Right, it's a good thing there's a new wave. A new wave has to come. In every society, we expect this kind of new wave. But even if they don't win the election, please, they shouldn't just stop there. You know, and I want to tell you something. Even in America and all other places, you are saying that it is not just one election that will bring a new party or a new candidate into the government. I would have expected with this new wave. Even if this new wave, I wish them well. If they don't get the presidency, let us have governors from the labor party. Not the governors that we get there. And after six months, then they go to another party. We are jumping from one party to the other. And I think we should make it as part of our law that you cannot just be jumping from one place to the other. Like the man himself has jumped from Abga to PDP and from PDP now to labor. So you see this is causing a lot of problems because people jump from one place to the other. That is not showing character. That is not showing principle. That is not showing ideology. What are they promoting? They are promoting the same thing. And that is why the young people are just looking at it. Let us just get out of it. It seems electoral act is already, it seems to be addressing that to an extent, to an extent, not totally. With, for instance, not Kwan Kwan Suu now, Shekhar Rao, says, oh, I got the ticket on NNPP's platform, leaving NNPP to join PDP because I can't see Kwan Kwan Suu in Kano and Tiku is courting me. And NNPP say, no, no, no, you are listing your candidate for NNPP. The same thing with Lawan, who said, listen, somebody has already won the election and said, I want to get it. Which is to happen before. So is electoral act, are you confident that, it will help us get it right this time? If we continue, I repeat, consistency is just the key word there. We have to be consistent with what we have improved upon. We have improved. Even the infrastructure we're talking about, we have improved on infrastructure. We have improved on all these edges, all these corners, but are we going to be consistent? This is what people point out in Lagos state that they have 25 years development power and they are consistent on developing the plan. Look at the third mainland bridge was not built by any politician. You continue to blame the military. The military, they did something good as well that we're still upon. So what stops us from having this fourth mainland bridge? What stops us from having the second Niger bridge that this government is completing soon? All right, we have to go. It's, I wish I had more time with you. Yes, yes. But we've spent quite some considerable time to talk about the important things. Nigeria 62, politics and democracy. And Joe Femi Dagunro, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. And happy October one. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Joe Femi Dagunro is the founder of the Lagos Forum. And of course, that brings us to the end of Independence Day special, right here in Placime Africa. I mean, it's been a thrill seeing you on a Saturday. We don't always see, I think it feels very strange. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. But it's great. I mean, thank you so much for being part of the show. We appreciate you, everyone that's, I mean, being part of the show. And if you miss that on it, it will be okay to join us on social media on Plus TV Africa on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. Now, the next show will come up. John and Helen, please come with us. Oh yeah, the John and Helen show. It makes, what are your plans for today? What are you planning to spend here? I don't know. I will just relax and something. You know, you have to go out or somewhere. I might go have dinner with the madam, some, you know, somewhere. That's fine. I will definitely do something. But don't go to Admiralty, by the way, because they just might be blocked. My name is Kofi Bartels and we'll return on Monday. And I am Messi Boko. Have a great day.