 walking back is the breakfast and plus TV Africa we look at the ocean elections and we have a lady and a fine gentleman who joins the conversation. Nika Goulet is in standby he joins us via Zoom and we also have Antonia Ander who is a senior programs officer at Yega Africa. Antonia it's good to have you join us this morning. Thank you very much good morning. All right then and Nika Goulet thank you so much for being part of the breakfast. Thank you very much good morning to our viewers I'm happy to be here. So I mean let's just go with it now and we start with the figures a number of registered voters according to INEC is 1,952,387. Now accredited voters it's been pegged at 827,218 and valid votes at 804,450 rejected votes were looking at 18,674 and total vote cast at 823,124. Of course our Shun state has an estimated population of about 4.7 million as of 2016. It's no longer news that a demola delay of the People's Democratic Party was declared wiener after wiening with you know huge margin defeating the all-progressive Congress to become the wiener of our elections and making sense of all of this we have Antonia who joins the conversation on there who's a senior programs officer of Yega Africa and Yega Africa has been on top of these elections they've had a lot of personnel been deployed to monitor the elections of course and involved in the analysis as well. Nika Gula is also a political analyst joins the conversation but I'd like to start with the lady of course Lady Spas, that's what they say. Antonia Onda thank you for joining us once again. Thank you. How would you describe the ocean elections 2022 especially with the involvement of your organization? I would describe the election as it was successful when you say an election is successful you comply with previous elections and you see how INEC has improved in their deployment with the introduction of a new electoral act, how they have implemented it. Just coming from a case there are a few improvements there which make the process better and so I would really say that the election was a good one and you can also see that the election was concluded the process went very fast and this could also be from our own observation we saw that INEC destroyed their staff very early, the materials got to the unit on time and then it commenced on time which really actually influenced how it turned out and so on the part of INEC it's just a very good one and an improvement and a better improvement of the implementation in future and also for citizens the people came out and conducted themselves on election day we encourage them more but we can actually see that people are thinking the process seriously even the political parties have actually seen that yes it really counts and so it was a good one. All right, Antonia on the great one that you have actually brought there but we definitely come back to you now it's important that you turn off the devices it's more like you can eat your cake and have it back so if you have you know maybe the tv on or something because we're having a feedback from your end but we'll come back to you in no time all right we also have Nika Goulet, Nika Goulet what parts of the world are you in this time last time we spoke you were in the UK I mean London the United Kingdom okay so you're not back in Nigeria all right then how would you describe the elections looking at the results and following all of the procedures what would you really say that election was can you say that it was free fair and credible thank you very much merci I will describe the Osho governatory elections that happened over the weekend that it is a watershed in the democratic journey in Nigeria it is a dawn of a new era to see an incumbent governor of staged is not an easy thing because there is something that is called the power of incumbency and that includes the fact that an incumbent who is in power has control of resources has control of people around him and not only that the incumbent belongs to the ruling party at the national level and for him to be defeated in this election shows that a number of things must have come together firstly INEC certainly did his work because if INEC did not do his work we will not be having these kind of results it also shows that the people of Osho state stepped out as with their pvcs because without the people voting who cannot have these results that we have today and so for me this is really good news heading into 2023 that the people who doubted that pvcs don't matter our votes don't count have been proved wrong in Osho state and if there is anybody who is yet to get on the electoral register now that INEC has extended registration to the 31st of this month please go and get yourself on the electoral register because Osho state has shown to us clearly that with our votes we can always elect the leaders of our choice so this is my summary about the outcome of the Osho election well uh you know as we proceed in the course of all of this Antonia Onda well now yes I can hear you loud and clear okay so um we have like about 80 over 80 civil rights organization under the ages of the in our dreams civil society situation room uh who raised doubt over the credibility of the governorship elections you know Osho state and I know that your organization um you know was very very present they had huge presence in uh the Osho state elections and they were almost everywhere do you agree with this the thing that you know the process wasn't entirely free because uh you had um the fact that uh the credibility of the elections was not sustainable so some quarters reported that there were gone shots or they said that they were vote buying all of this would probably mud the entire process what are your thoughts okay um for Africa we deployed um citizens observers to specific pooling units and we were we covered 250 pooling units and then we have um about um 32 other observers who rove around to observe the process around the local governments um the 30 local governments and so um good we were able to observe some of um irregularities and um especially like you mentioned um voter inducements in in in some of the places and um then there was also issue of secrecy of ballots so this tells you like Elia said that uh these people have understand that the votes really count and so um they come to the pooling unit um to buy votes are we in some of the pooling units where observers are where they witness or they observe um vote buying by political parties agents at the pooling units who um were inducing people with money uh to vote in favor of their political parties and we also saw the the issue with the secrecy of ballot it is the law says that the citizens um will vote in secret and then come out in an open to cashier vote and um the cubicle is should should be set up in a place where um people will not see how people uh um print or which party they actually voted for but the way um we observe um in some pooling unit people could see how um citizens were marking their votes and um to to see as early the party that they voted for of which um was something that undermined the process and because of that um uh the security officers and even the INEC officials should um in going forward to other elections should be mindful of the way that these cubicles are set up and then the security officers you also step by so that people would actually um do the right thing um you know when you when voter votes after some printing there is a way of holding it and and and I think the flat the role and flattening method and then bring it out and then have people stay away from that cubicle so that they won't actually see because they were actually using that to confirm that there's this particular people voted for um the party they want before they go drop it on the ballot paper and then go um to to to collect their money and that and so um those were some of the things that we observe and also um there were a few uh community where voters were intimidated and um then the beavers um malfunctioned in some places but uh good enough it was replaced and so the process and still went on in in those areas so the basic things um um issues with the election that we say was disengagement and um the secrecy of ballot that was compromised in some places let's quickly take this video right down our track if you like to say when we return we continue with the conversation and also Antonia under with us this is the observation we have seen I was there like I was the one that paid attention and I looked at what was happening and I accosted the lady and I called the security agency in fact when I was complaining uh there was a radio station on the roof and uh one radio station from you had interviewed me so I was there in there was there no I uh what do you call it AFCC is there who is AFCC here no there was no AFCC in new book so there was no AFCC to arrest so I can't arrest we observed it and then we can't do any arrest the police officer there they can't do any arrest they were just sitting down in fact it was by their side they were going to collect money for for the vote that they had for the vote that they have sold I don't know how they do it they give them small paper and I don't know there but what are you observed and we saw this look at government yeah you look at government vehicle parked behind the building there was a lady inside there was another man and they were the one who are exchanging um what do you call it cash for for votes he's unfortunate well we're still on the breakfast and we're looking at the ocean elections and everything that panned out during the elections because this is part of our democratic process we have Antonia who's a senior program officer of Yaga Africa and Nika Gulli who's a public affairs analyst has joined the conversation all the way from the united kingdom uh Nika Gulli let's come to you now and Antonia has talked about secrecy vote uh voter I mean you know the secrecy of voting or voter secrecy however you want to put it put it but it was also something that was very eminent because we saw it on social media on Twitter and other you know platforms and we know what the electoral act talks about this if France had it the question now would be what's the entire process really free fair and credible what are your thoughts Nika Gulli thank you very much merci and I also want to thank Antonia uh from Yaga because they are doing a great job I mean they are doing a thankless job but it's what is needed you know this is part of governance we all have to have hands on on deck to ensure that those who have elected are doing the right thing so when we come to vote buying uh first of all uh this is a new lexicon in the political landscape and it's coming because the politicians have realized that the votes are not counting and that is why for people who are still doubting that votes don't count they need to understand that politicians will not be buying votes if the votes don't count because gone are the days when they snatched the ballot boxes mass-comprinted and all of that they didn't need our votes that time but all those things now have been dealt with with a strength in the electoral law so that is the first aspect of it the second aspect of it is that what is happening in these elections a kitty Osho and maybe even a number should be test runs should be taken as test runs by INEC and the security agencies as preparations for 2023 so those issues that they are seeing like vote buying like the lack of secrecy of the ballot which Antonia is talking about and other logistical issues that they are encountering that is the job of INEC caught up for them they need to fix those things and get those things ready so that when we come to the 2023 general elections INEC will be ready to deliver a credible and fair elections that globally people will look at it and say it delivered the verdict of the people so vote buying which has become the new lexicon in our political landscape will not happen if the security agencies do their job and for security agencies to do their job is that I heard INEC say or was even the police the DRG say that they have extended the code around polling units to 300 meters 300 meters is that three football three lengths of football field that people should not get close so how can someone be in a position to watch the voting pattern of the electorate if that cordon was enforced by the security agencies because once you are not able to see what people voted for they will probably not buy the votes because I can take your money and go and vote my mind the only way they buy votes is that they have to find a way to see that I actually voted for a particular party for which they are going to pay me and that is what people used to snap their votes their ballot paper but the security agencies must ensure that people are not taking their phones the polling unit that is also banned. I understand and let me come in now at this point we understand the fact that you know vote buying the electoral acts frowns at it and you know you have all of that very valid statement that's been put out we also know that INEC had said that they were going to be very stronger and as a matter of fact police officers were also deployed I mean security personnel were deployed to ensure that those who were involved in vote buying were apprehended and arrested but does it really change the issue why do people engage in vote buying have we even answered the question now it brings me back to the fact that D or law of Yorland had mentioned that Oba Kanbi had mentioned that vote buying cannot stop in Nigerian democracy with the way you know politicians run the system and he constantly talked about I mean he talked about the challenge that the people have to get what they can get because the situation is bad it was like you know what we understand that this is what you're doing but let's come here and go where we can get and just move away it's our own even if it's 2000 3000 5000 I mean you ask us are working this even do for the people vote buying is one thing that has constantly truncated you know the democratic process and we can't say that it wasn't part of the system you have a Yerga Africa confirming that as well where you have Anthony on the phone this morning I mean being part of the conversation and we're going to get to her so the question here is is that the approach because the approach has been we have to you know use force arrest anyone involved in vote buying though we also stop about the fact that we also look at the fact that the people are suffering they haven't benefited from the dividends of democracy and there's so much poverty in the land so you are very correct that the vote buying in us can be tackled from the soft perspective and the half perspective you have perspective with the security agencies doing their work on the softer side we need to do a lot of voter education you see the people who are selling their votes they are doing so out of ignorance perhaps because of the harsh economic situation we face in Nigeria but despite that they need to be told that that vote you are selling for 1000 2000 5000 ever is more engaging your future for the next four years that vote you are selling is what has exactly pinned you down into poverty so we need to to do more and I need needs to lead you know the media houses need to lead civil society need to take a lead here to educate people but then the other aspect of it is this because of all of the shenanigans that have been happening in the electoral process right from 1999 especially in the first three electoral sequels those who we most likely not say their votes have totally alienated them from themselves from the process they are the ones that don't step out they don't come out either they have not registered to vote or they have their voters cast but they never step out to vote and that's a chunk of who we're talking about because if you look at 19 if you look at 2019 elections voter turnout was around the neighborhood of 30 percent 30 plus percent it then meant that about 70 percent of Nigerians who were on the electoral register never stepped out to vote in that group the majority are those that we approach a ballot box and vote with their conscience and vote for the right candidates so a lot of work needs to be done to convince this group to also come to the ballot box because if they come to the ballot box they will probably overwhelm those who are selling their votes so that at the end of the day we will still get computer leaders emerge all right well we still have Antonia on there who was still with the show this morning Antonia are you still with us all right so let's get to you know the part of voter apathy we're talking about the turnout now would you say that the turnout of voters has been very impressive especially looking at the population of the youths now a little bit of background in our shown governorship elections figures were looking at figures from 2003 2014 and 18 now in 2003 we had registered voters figure pegged at 1.37 million persons and the total vote cast 801,081 voters and the you know the percentage voter turnout percentage was pegged at 58.63 percent in 2014 1.41 million registered voters with 750,000 and 2,000 vote casted and the percentage was pegged at you know 53.14 percent in 2018 where you also had a delicate losing that election to you know just a few what you want to say there was a rerun election election was inconclusive 1.68 million persons registered to vote and 769,005 you know voters turnout then you also have the percentage at 45.74 percent now and we have in 2022 prior to 2020 40 elections you have registered voters at 1,952,387 how would you describe the voted turnout for or shown elections would you say that we experienced voter apathy looking at the number votes that were casted 800 you know 804,450 you know votes that were casted if I'm not mistaken now 823,000 I beg your pardon 124 votes that were casted would you say that we experienced voter apathy if you look at the figures that you call like I limited on these statistics you can see there is a decline in the percent we have in 2014 we have 58 percent of the of the people who turned out dropped to 45 and now we have about 42 percent that turned out to vote in this current election so you can see there is an obvious decline and we increase in the number of people who registered to vote because we just the new registration was suspended in a shoot for to provide for the people who registered to get their PVC so if you add the PVC collected after the new registration it increased the number of people who should have come out to vote but yet we have a decline and this comes to the distrust that citizens have on the process and you also asked a question earlier that why do politicians buy votes and so these are the reasons I need we need to tell the citizens that these people are buying your vote because your vote actually turns and so we should encourage citizens to come out and participate if you complain about a situation and this is the process where you can make a change so they should come and for us at the Africa we look at election as a whole some activity not just the election they so we engage in voter education pre-election period and other activities to encourage people to vote and so we should have every stakeholder in this process educate the citizen on this because we cannot we will not have the moral justification to comment or to to to get angry on the probe on the process we do not engage ourselves if you know these politicians are not working and you think that they do not represent you well and this is the part this is the chance for them to show or for citizens to show that yes I also participate I also contribute as the citizen as a citizen and and that will show by coming out to participate on election and so it's very bad that we keep having a decline in in in in uh citizen's participation and so we really should look into it as stakeholders in election and through voter education sensitization and we'll collaborate so so so would you say that yeah Antonia the question here is in all of this I mean val ponzi you've raised but would you say that we experience voter apathy in or shown elections yeah because we can obviously see that from the statistics and is is is declining rather than increasing and so people actually like I said do not trust the process and Anton did not come out to participate and so there is this apathy that they feel their vote will not count whatever it is the decision has already been made is just an election day the process comes and happen and then they announce whoever they want but we should encourage the citizens that it is important that they participate and that INEC has put a lot of strategies in place they have tightened a lot of knots that is making it difficult for this politician to manipulate and that's why they're actually retiring to the voter inducement and so the citizens should understand and participate because there is actually an apathy in the voter uh in the citizens participating elections but um I mean the fact that we're still in the process of a lot of peasants I mean I'm saying this now because the process of peasants getting registered and you know you know something out voter card issues are still ongoing and all thanks to INEC because they have actually sustained the process but if you also look at it in a kitty elections the figures were really high and yoga africa really found that it now in those shown elections we're looking at you know votes that were void rejected votes if you want to see 18,674 votes were rejected not valid votes don't you think that all of this also contributes to the fact that we do not have an impressive figure in terms of you know the number of peasants who turned out if you look at the number of registered voters this time 1.9 million or approximately 2 million if you want to say juxtaposing that with the number of peasants who counted their vote some people would say that this is quite impressive and all the factors would have been very responsible because you would have issue of double registration uh as a matter of fact that a lot of people are not aware because if you registered you know a couple of times it would just disenfranchise you so don't you think that all of this also might be a reason and not necessarily the fact that the people are tired it's quite impressive some people have said or over I mean half a million peasants turned out 800 and something to decide as against 1.9 million people think that this is a plus and this is good for democracy so um wonderful participation especially to the process and um you talk of rejected votes um sometimes is an issue of um of education and a proper education on how to vote right and that's why we also encourage uh political parties who are defense beneficiaries of um of votes to citizens while they why they they engage in their campaigns on how to vote right it reduces the number of rejected um pilots that we experience on election day and I'm looking at the registration and um so you talked about um um double registration and for Aina for any double registration if they run the uh AFIS um after the registration they cut down um they delete the double registration that they already have which means that these people have already registered and so and at the end they bring out the figure of valid registration that um that they have per state and then um we they release that data ahead of the election but I think for now we should actually look at the number of registered of pvcs collected rather than the number of registered voters on on election day because um the people who collect their pvcs are the only people who have will be allowed to vote so we should actually do this analysis based on the pvcs collected at um in the state rather than the number of registered voters because the lots of red or a lot of pvcs are still hanging at the INEC offices that um the cities have not collected and so it won't even be referred to to um even um uh put the the the voter turnout on the number of registered voters but it should rather be on the number of pvcs collected um in the state all right and let's also have nika gulay now and um you know come in as well nika gulay yes would you say that you're impressed with you know the voter turnout and we're going to get into other parts i'm hoping that we have enough time you know to talk about it now looking at the electoral act and the fact that some people think that there's a plus but looking at uh how you know the or shouldn't people decided this election 1.9 million persons you know registered registered voters and the the turnout's about 800 and something or approximately 900 000 if you want to say well let's leave it at 800 would you say that this has been very impressive how would you describe you know voter apathy in oshrine state i think the people have all shown are politically aware and mature uh more than the average state of the nigeria for them to post near 50 percent voter turnout it's a good thing because at the national level we are posting voter turnout in the 30s in the 30s percentage so that that is very good for oshrine however as uh antonia is saying the the numbers are declining because if the voter register is increasing in numbers you expect the number of voters turning out to also be increasing but it's on the decline so it is generally something that needs to be watched uh all over nigeria especially as we head into the 2023 election so we need more voter education to get people to the electoral register and for those who are on the electoral register get them to the ballot boxes but there's also work that needs to be done by inek you know inek needs to clean up the register because i am not sure inek is up to date with cleaning the register in terms of people who have passed away you know uh double registrations and people who may be uh under age or shouldn't be on the electoral register and all of that because all those numbers are counting towards the total number of registered voters and you will discover that uh those guys are not there to step out to vote so their numbers are counting negatively to voter turnout i mean uh there are countries like here in the uk where i reside there are very simple things that the government of nigeria can can do for instance we need a database of nigeria in the uk here it is called national insurance number you know once a child is born that child is entered into a database of of of citizens and the the details about that child their name their date of birth their parents and all of that are captured and it is from there that you are going to link to the voter's register so it's also uh the fact that that national insurance is cleaned with people who have passed away you know because like here in the uk if someone dies you can never go and bury that person except you go and get a permit from the government because the government wants to know how that person died he did that of natural causes or there was an issue that the police needs to be aware of and so that national database of citizens is constantly being cleaned up okay and so we have a database we can work with city database does not exist in nigeria and that is the kind of thing that i can latch on to have a more credible voter register let's quickly run through all of this now uh the president via his verified twitter handle said that this is what democracy is all about respect for the wheel of the people the successful conduct of the ocean elections is a demonstration of maturity and commitment of all stakeholders towards strengthening the integrity of the electoral process in nigeria our men committed to leaving behind a legacy of incredible elections and you want to juxtapose that with the fact that so many persons also have commended mr president you know including myself that i think that he's done a great job that he left nigerians with a gift the electoral act that allows direct transmission of result in each polling unit which makes it almost impossible i said almost impossible to rig the elections what are your thoughts on the electoral act yes so i most comment mr president because uh from every indication since he's been in office he doesn't get involved in the electoral process he allows elections to play out the way they should be so on that counter commanding also of course commanding for signing the electoral law even though his hand was forced by civil societies to to sign it and the electronic transmission of results is a game changer in our elections actually because we can now all follow our results on my polling units to the i-next server and like you said it's going to be very difficult to now change our votes in that so-called black box that is called coalition center so definitely i will give mr president the kudos on all this all right then we still have antonia still with us this morning under of yaga africa antonia can you hear me now yes i can hear you so quickly what what would you say that i-next what would you say that i-next needs to improve on uh with the conduct of the elections what do you think would be an improvement this is probably the last elections a lot of persons have described this as very important and critical critical elections uh you know because as the election is closest to the 2023 and so what lessons do you think that we need to learn with all of the stakeholders now we're talking about the umpire uh you know the people and as well as the politicians themselves um for i-next um they have done very well to extend the voter registration um they should try and make the process of pvc collection very very easy for people um to to collect their pvcs because um a lot of pvcs since 2011 registration are still lying um at the i-next office without them the citizens collecting their pvcs because it determines everything without the pvcs citizens cannot um and not participate in the process also um the new electoral act the provisions have really seen after the deployment in um anambara equity and now we've seen um how important and how it has actually affect positively the process of elections um i-next should also try to increase the deployment of beavers to the polling unit and there are some other polling units who that still have a high number of people who are still registered there and so they should deploy maybe one as a more than one as a backup at the polling unit and also the new the the new um polling unit that were created to to to give to create more access at the polling unit a lot of people are not aware and then um and then the distribution of voters by this new polling unit is not um very um well done yet so i-next should um look into it and um distribute voters um to this new polling unit so we can have even distribution of voters across them the polling unit for easy access on election day and the polling unit and then when we talk about the secrecy of ballot i-next should um also uh be firm when there are certain of their um the polling unit on election day people should actually stay when this is also where the um security agencies should come in and and make sure that people at the polling unit respect the rule set in place and stay away um from the cubicle uh where people go to to to cast their vote and for political parties i-next should do better at citizens um inducement at every point rather than having and engaging citizens at the pre-election stage but through their um through their campaigns and having issue-based campaign they should rather focus on the issue-based campaign rather than going to buy um uh citizens vote on election day and ingesting them to vote for them and um for citizens they should know that for i am for politicians to come out and act give them money it means that there is a value in that vote that they hold and we have to let you go and their vote is their power and they can make decisions that could really affect them on death thank you thank you so much we have to go i mean we're really out of time we're joined the newsroom at nine o'clock this morning thank you so much anthony on death for being pad of the breakfast this morning nika gully has also been with us gentlemen and a fine lady thank you we appreciate you thank you have a nice day you too it's been very exciting speaking to you uh those beautiful people this morning you know uh you also have a senior senior program officer of yaga africa speaking to us they've been really involved observing the elections and all that's gone through and also nika gully as well thank you but it's important that you understand that the power is with you and you need to get your pvc and don't forget to cast your vote when it's time and stand around to defend and protect your vote because democracy is yas thank you so much i'm messia bopo if you missed that i'm in the path of the show it's all right to follow us on facebook twitter and instagram and do subscribe to a youtube channel at plus tv africa and plus tv africa lifestyle my name is messia bopo have a great morning