 A renowned scholar and director of the Buddhist School of Social and Political Thoughts and ex-NERC boss Dr. Samamadi has raised concerns over INEX plans to use the Likas Parks Management Committee Chairman Musliu Akinsanya also known as MCO Luomo in the distribution of voting materials, saying it will be a big risk. In a statement, he said that INEX should go the extra mile to ensure that it does not jeopardise the credibility of the elections, adding that any dealing with MCO Luomo's controlled platform is a complete negation of the objectivity and neutrality. He also said that the logistics contracts for the distribution of election materials is with drivers and not transport unions. Joining us to discuss this is Achike Turei, he is a Public Affairs Analyst and Shagu Shopita who is the Chairman Accountability, Candour and Transparency Network Act. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us. Good evening. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Great. Let's start by looking at this situation. INEX has come out to say, this is what we naturally do, we have a relationship with these transporters because we need them every election cycle in the distribution and transportation of these very sensitive materials during elections. But then I want to start by asking you Shagu, how do you separate the man from his drivers? Because whether it's a union or it's a group of drivers, this man one way or the other is involved. But INEX is saying it's not the umbrella body, we're just picking drivers who would do our bidding, which is to make sure that our materials get to the destination that he has to get to on time and of course intact. Can you really have this conversation without mentioning MCO Luomo? You know, thanks for having me again. It's a very, I sympathise with INEX to be honest. It's a difficult place that they find themselves. And I think that it's a good thing that these concerns are being raised so that for future elections they have to find an alternative. Because when you look at it on the face of it, it makes absolutely no sense for you to move sensitive materials during a general election and have the logistics of that movement being in control of a major player in that election. I mean we all know who this gentleman is, we all know his antecedents, we know his origins and how he's become what he is today and he owes his very existence as, you know, that name MCO Luomo would not exist if not for one of the candidates in this election. So to have him being the one more or less coordinating, serving as a coordinating point for the movement of materials is wrong. However, having said that, you do also have to recognise that elections in Nigeria, I mean in Lagos State alone is the size of, is much bigger than many countries in Africa. And running elections in Lagos State alone is a logistic challenge, it's a big job and aggregating enough vehicles to move materials during an election day and maybe just before elections and just after elections is a lot of work, can, are there alternatives? I think there are alternatives but those alternatives are not easy to activate and will take time. So I sympathise with INEC, I think I kind of agree with them that they may not have a choice at the moment but I think if there is any way that some sort of controls can't, control mechanisms can be put in place to prevent manipulation of the system because of this compromise that they have to take, then I think it would be very good to do that. Atchike, just to pick up from where Shegun dropped off, he's saying that there are options but then he doesn't know how realistic or how accessible these options are. I heard somebody on the radio today talk about the fact that we have the army, we have several other options, if we must rely on road transportation workers then we need to have extra security. My question is, do we even have enough security for election day? We have adequate security, I mean if this is the very first election we're having in this country that would be a different thing. So between the police, the army, the navy, the paramilitary forces, road safety, NSEDC, we will have enough to patrol the polling stations but then you go back to, so we have adequate security personnel for this election but to go back to the issue of the logistics that we are talking about, it is like the case I look at it as a case of sleeping with the enemy, in the sense that this is a major player, this is a very seriously politically exposed individual who has taken sides and they're one of the most ardent supporters of a candidate, one of the candidates and he has made it very clear and in many videos we have seen online about the absolute imperativeness of his person and as a presidential candidate of the APC, imagine the president of this country, so he has thrown his hat in the ring and then beyond that, where you talk about the garages and packs which the INEC wants to use, it is a government agency, a government that is controlled by the politicians that have thrown their hat in the ring that are going to be involved or that are involved in this electoral process and this is one of their most ardent supporters, so why give this kind of responsibility to him and it's not about time and if they say look we don't have enough time, they've always had time, I mean everybody knew that logistics would form the basis of what INEC will be doing on election in terms of the employment of materials and then these garages and packs came out as a result of, or managed as a result of the intra-union crisis between NCO and LOMO and then the leadership of the national union of road transport workers, NURTW, headquartered in Abuja and eventually there was a excuse, faction and then the legacy government took side with one of the factions, this happened about over a year ago, so the election was always good, everybody knew when the election was going to take place in the country and so the issue of logistics was always one of the most important so if anybody says that time is short, it is strange, they knew, I mean INEC knew that NURTW was no longer as seriously involved in the legacy as they used to be and INEC should not tell us really that they signed contracts with drivers, they don't sign contracts with drivers, they signed contract with the unions with NURTW to hold their union members to account. Let me come in there quickly, the NURTW has said and I want to quote them directly that they have appointed coordinators to arrange transportation of polling materials and personnel for the forthcoming elections, not just Lagos but other parts of the state where its activities were originally banned, so now they have said that look we're not going to be doing this with Lagos garage and parks management, we're going to be working in the states across the federation as the NURTW, so again it looks like INEC might be caught in the middle of some NURT politics in itself. Yeah well obviously because if you look at that, so I was saying that the issue of signing contract with drivers is not exactly the truth, that's not the case this time and you can see from what the NURTW has said and we have had many briefings with INEC at the highest level of INEC, also together with the RECs in some states of the country and so part of what we have always considered as of primary concern has been the issue of logistics, the deployment of men and materials at Hockstack of INEC and materials and each time they have always talked about the collaboration that they have with NURTW, they have never talked about individual individual union members, so it is not about the individual, so otherwise they will give us names of the real names of the individuals that are now driving the vehicles that will be conveying all of these electoral materials to the various destinations, so it's a problem and like I said you know apart beyond even the NURTW, you have the UBAS, the UBAS now have an association they are registered with I think the TUC and the NLC and then you also have the other interstate road transport organizations and these people are also responsible organizations and all I negated to do was to have started the process of discussing and negotiating with them very very long time ago, that obviously maybe did not happen because we have not been told that they had tried other alternative arrangements, so I think that this is one situation that INEC should not have gotten itself into, you can see what is happening on social media, everybody talking to some other presidential candidates are talking about the fact that they cannot trust the process that is handled under the control of the present REC and then this matter has now brought its participation in that election in Oshu state to the fore, perhaps he has not done anything wrong but people are beginning to also talk about his past activities in Oshu state and the fact that they had a wrong election at a particular point in time. Okay let me come back to you Shegun, now the presidential candidates of the People's Democratic Party, former Vice President Atikua Buwaka has requested for the removal of the INEC REC in Lagos for even considering to use MCO Luomo or members of his platform to move or distribute election materials and this is not one call, governors of different political or governorship candidates of different political parties in Lagos have also you know conducted a press conference you know speaking about this issue it seems to have ruffled a lot of feathers even with INEC coming out to say well we don't have any business with MCO Luomo we have a business with Lagos parks and garages, do you see INEC you know let's say side stepping on this issue taking a walking back on it and deciding to go another route or like Chiki said is the timing too short and where does this leave the average Lagos voter in terms of trusting the process? It's a sad situation that INEC has, they box themselves into a corner basically because you know it's lit and we're saying this is two weeks away from the presidential elections you know it's exactly two weeks away from today and four weeks away from the covanitorial and the state House of Assembly elections it's lit the process involved people need to understand you know I know Atikua would know this people need to understand that the process involved leading up to elections starts months sometimes years before the elections so the meetings that concretize this arrangement would have happened last year for example you know signing of the agreement with the NURTW slash Lagos State Parks Management Committee would have happened last year not now after those meetings the operational side of activating this agreement would also have started happening last year you would have had trainings for those bus drivers you would have had engagements between the bus drivers and the various wrecks and the various you know they're going to explain to them the nomenclature and the architecture of INEC the structure of INEC you know so all of those things cannot be undone in two weeks sadly you can't go into an agreement with another union you know like like my colleague has said there are so many options actually but you can't activate those options now because you know you you you simply can't train people you can't you know the meetings that will need to happen the back and forth before agreements are arrived at how much a program to be paid for example tell the commercial side of the the conversation will take weeks maybe months you know so it's too late there's nothing that can be done so now I think it is now the duty of INEC to show very concrete terms what control mechanisms they are going to institute perhaps outside of their ordinary mechanisms to ensure that the transparency of this process is protected so that the credibility of the elections will not become a challenge now let's not forget that in Nigeria the standard practice is that elections are challenged it's almost inevitable that regardless of this issue this particular issue most of these elections are going to end up in court anyway so what INEC is doing invariably is that you're already giving ammunition to the combatants in court in the elections to contest the outcome of the elections if it doesn't go their way you know because you know I mean like this gentleman is an active participant in the election how can he be the custodian of the materials and moving people how can we guarantee that they will not sabotage the process or something else would you know below the table will not happen in the process I'm not in any way I'm not in any way holding brief for MCO Luomo or the packs and garages people but I'm just out of curiosity what exactly could he possibly do I mean we're told that the beavers are going to work really well this the process is going to be pretty fair incredible because of the beavers I mean we're made to believe that what can MCO Luomo possibly do in the space of taking it from where from INEC's office to wherever they're being delivered I'm just saying out of curiosity what can he possibly do if you are a straightforward thinking person if you know like you are and maybe I am and my colleague on this panelist you know then you think the way you just talk now but politicians don't think like this they look for every loophole that is available in systems there they set out from day one before the elections start they're having meetings as we speak now on how to compromise this process they're not concerned with winning the elections fairly they're concerned with winning right so every loophole that you make available they will exploit so for example um or shown elections please can somebody explain to me how overvoting happened in spite of beavers you know so so so anything can happen along the way the materials are going to be moved to the polling unit they're going to move to the racks and then to the polling unit you know before the elections and the materials will be moved back after the elections that process of moving the materials back anything can happen you know beavers is supposed to scan election results at each polling unit who's to say what would happen between when after the elections and they moved to the to the to the various destinations you know during the movement anything can happen you know so it's it's it's really really unfortunate like I said I think INEC has a duty their duty bound because of this compromise because of this change in their ammo to provide I think INEC needs to address the public in order to not to break public confidence in this election and give us very clear measures that will be put in place maybe they need to install cameras I don't know you know they need to think they put themselves in this mess so they need to think out of the box to ensure that whether in terms of public perception or in terms of in case of litigation they need to be able to prove that using this compromised player in the system has not compromised the election in any way finally actually because we're out of time there have been concerns today I was speaking with the director of enough is enough and then I looked at their complaint log and a lot of people complained about the fact that they went to the appalling their registration centres and I'm talking about pvcs now to get their pvcs and they were told that the pvcs were not there but a few of them those pvcs found their ways into the hands of certain people in their areas who came to their homes with those pvcs to hand it to them and then ask them who they were going to be voting for and so this again calls to question you know how trustworthy INEC officials are in terms of handing out pvcs because INEC on its own has said no third party can come and get your pvc you have to come in person but how did these pvcs get into the hands of these supposed party men yeah yeah when this goes to the heart of the question there was a vision you made to shegu which adequately answered what could possibly go wrong what could you know and the members of the drivers of the garages and tasks what you know how could they possibly do and I think shegu's answer was really apt and succinct you do not you know create this situation for conspiracy theories for people to become you know suspicious of course you just talked about one bridge for instance and so you can imagine other bridges that we might not know about that the politicians have already worked out look if anything goes wrong in this election even before it goes on they will remind you that people have been saying all this while that there were certain people that are going from house to house for you know all this time collecting the details the biometric details you know the numbers from the numbers from people's pvc cards and so that that that's that's how you know one side so which you now are pointing somebody that you closely aligned with the government or you know with a major presidential candidate people are going to put two and two together you just talked about people carrying cards from the pulling you know from the inek centers to people's houses and asking them when they're going to vote they're also going to remind you you know how people went to houses and collected by metric numbers or numbers and for whatever purpose and then they will also now add it together with the fact that a particular you know uh uh organization agency of government that is heavily involved in the support of a particular candidate is now being given the responsibility for the logistics so by the time you put all of this together and then you also the speculation about the possibility of people being able to break into the business and compromise the machines so when you look at all of these things it is not too far it to be too fast it's for people to say look we told you that there's something going on and that this apartment of a garage some parks is the combination of all of the plans that are being undertaken by certain politicians you don't give that people that opportunity to begin to look at things from that perspective well there's a lot there's a lot to talk about I'm hoping that we'll have time next time to continue to have these conversations even as we get ready for the elections Achiketude is a public affairs analyst and Shegu Shopita is a chairman accountability candor and transparency network that's Agnes Rock thank you so much gentlemen unfortunately time is not on our side but thanks for being here thank you all right well thank you all for being part of the conversation tonight and that's the show this week I hope that you enjoyed every bit of it but if you missed here is a quick highlight of all of our conversations this week I'm Mary Anacorn have a pleasant weekend see you on Monday