 A democratic coup. As mostly feared from our military history, when the coup is mentioned is usually related with treason and overthrow of government, scary things happening to our economics, well fortunately in democracy it provides as allowed within the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to unseat some elected officers without waiting till when they are taken. These are perfectly constitutional, legal and endorsed to be tried in your constituency as provided by the constitution. The basis of the democracy as the concept began was on representative governance and has its foundation in the legislature, which of course comprises of the state house of assembly which is in your state. The central house of representatives, the green chambers, the senate, the red chambers and they are charged with responsibility of oversight on the executive as one of their first functions. The second function will be amendment and law creation. At this structure, I would like you to note that constituency projects are not within their job description and can be considered as nothing else but an anomaly without constitutional backing. The legislature are also tasked with the power to impeach an executive, that is a governor or a president. But what goes on when you feel underrepresented and what is key to your representation is lost in political translation. Members of the legislature can be recalled and hears how to go about it. Step one, identify the constituency which you are unhappy with and representative you are unhappy with within the legislative government and find out how many total votes were cast in the election that brought the representative to power. Two, get 50% plus one signature at least and PVC numbers and please note, INEC only accepts this in manual form. Three, send the petition to INEC which will be verified and a referendum as regards the representative's position will be placed in that constituency in the next 90 days. Four, if the representative loses the referendum, the seat will now be lost and INEC will declare the seat vacant and conduct a fresh election in 90 days. It looks like this can be done which is most of the time what we say when the middle class don't want to make a move to repair the country. I will tell you the truth, do you want to know the opportunity cost of that? I will tell you the opportunity cost. The present electoral act we spent so many talks over and it has hurt us to see that it seems our own independent electoral commission is now going to be a puppet in the hands of many different other positions within governance. There is poor oversight of the executive and we watch as state governors push up high budgets, the presidency ignores a heightened insecurity and worst of all, laws that repeal basic freedoms like speech and movement of people in the federal republic of Nigeria. You can do more than a hashtag against a representative you dislike. You can stand your ground or fall and watch the country bow to anything. Wow. Nobody claps. Thank you for the democratic comments. That's very apt and quite honestly I think there's so much we don't know in this country. I've been sitting here and wondering is it this simple but it's not, it's made to. So when you say constituency project is not part of, because that's the major thing these guys go there to say. No. I'm telling you when we find people there we are waiting for the constituency project to be executed. So it's a case of okay whose constituency project is better done or bigger. So if it is outside of their purview, who should be charged with the constituency project please? I think before you come in as the, what is it called? The Oracle in this part. Now my view I think we are Nigeria as a country is in a fix. In the sense that there is what the constitution says and there are laws that have been passed by the National Assembly which does not amount to an amendment of the constitution. In over the years some things have been added in the constitution but there are some things that take place in the National Assembly that are not necessarily part of a new constitution or an amendment to the constitution. That are just probably, I don't know if to call them bylaws or stuff that just happen within them. I think that's where this falls. And then the question is will it be illegal for them to take it on or will it not be. And that I think is always a challenge in Nigeria. We are always too scared to approach the courts. There are some things I like what PDP is doing now taking materially to courts. I love it. We need a solution to that. Yes we know that there is a law that says if a party is going through, is fractionalised you can bow at another. But let's try the courts. We don't. We need to try the courts. We need to go to court over cases like where was I the other day that I heard about health, birth and death now being a federal issue. We need to just go to court. The constitution says primary health is responsibility of local government and the state I believe. And now we are having primary health in the federal and all that. Let's try this. Do they have a right to do that? You are not fighting and such things you realise that government will not go against you. Because you are not fighting anything that touches them to the core. You are only looking at the processes and the systems. And these things are the things we don't do that allow everybody to do whatever we want in court. But going to the court is not a cheap way. PDP dragged the government to court. It's an institution, it's a body. My brother, it's too scary going to the court. And I want us to look at it from the generic point of view. That word you said is the problem. Scary. It's not as scary. For example, in Nigeria, if you have cases, there are people that do pro bono in Nigeria. Lawyers. There is even the national legal aid. I don't know if it's called legal aid. Is it a government? Why would I go to government? No, I'm talking about normal issues. Now, if you are able to rally around, what do you call them? All these things we sign online. We sign in petitions and stuff. You can rally up people like Sarah and other institutions. Let's push this and try. You said something about in Kunle's speech. Kunle said something about when you want to recall a rep. And he said, so you get petitions signed like 30% of that. But he said, Ainec will not want that electronic physical. That's fraud. That is where the scam comes in. So why is Ainec? Because the moment Ainec says it has to be physical, then it cuts off a demographic. Let me explain something. If that is going to stop you, do you know what the backlash is? The backlash of not doing that is what you have now in the National Assembly. You asked me a question, constituency project. For once, anyway, it's been a long time so I can talk about it. Constituency project came into Nigeria when Abbas was looking for third term. It's a direct infringement on the operations of the local government and its functions directly. There is no legislature in the world that does projects. U.S., U.K., Zimbabwe, Congo, Ghana, Egypt. They don't do projects. Your work in the National Assembly is oversight. First, oversight on the executive. Second amendment of laws. Between 1999 and 2021, the U.S. Senate and its legislative arm have amended approximately over 4200 laws. Do you know where your country is on that? I don't need to tell you. An electoral act of 1999, after a little touch-up and brush-up in 2014 to amend for card readers, we are just facing it. Are they really doing what they are supposed to do? Let me tell you that Nigerian lawmakers end over $400,000 per annum. That is higher. That is more than 20 times higher than those in the U.S. 20 times? The U.S. Senate turns about approximately $40,000 a year. We end about $400,000. And still infringing with that word, Constituency Projects. The first handshake of democracy to the people is the local government. If you take the functions of that, how can you deliver democracy to the people? That is direct infringement of an arm. Remember, state governments are of the wedging that they are on top of the local government. No, local governments are the separate tier of government like your state government, local. They are not under the state government. But state governments have even grown wings enough to begin to fire elected, duly elected chairmen. Or your case in the example. So that is dismissal of the chairman of the local government? State governments do not have the power. So how did that happen and nobody challenged it? So that is why I am... The Supreme Court has reinstated them. The government does not have jurisdiction. No, you see, and why did the Supreme Court reinstated them? Somebody challenged it. You see, why you don't challenge, why you don't try? It was not within the administration that fired them. No, but that's the thing. If they had been challenged during the administration or present, they fired them. They would have been reinstated. And that's what we see. There is so much laxity in our system. Let it be. Because we do something, don't make them constitutional. So like state governors taking, preferring into local government funds. It's not supposed to happen. Money is supposed to flow from federal government directly to local government. But state governors do it and realize. Okay. But it's not supposed to happen. Money is not supposed to pass through any fictitious ministry of intergovernmental affairs. In quotes. And you know why that will continue? They will continue the same reason we cannot get the 50% plus one. Because you see, you can only get 50% plus one when you are voted. When you are absent from the vote. No, no, no. No, no, I'm coming. When you are absent from the vote. You get where I'm going to finish this point. Your position is not absent. It is you the voter that is absent. Somebody will vote for you. And that's what you call Reagan. So at the end of the day, maybe in a constituency, constituency where you have about 400,000 people, you see about 250,000 people that voted. And that came out to vote were like 50,000 or 30,000. So when you want to call somebody back, once the 50,000 go and sign, where are you going to get the other people that came to vote? So how can you call them? But I'm going to point out something. Now, this democratic, why is it really interesting in Nigeria to even attempt? We know most of us are looking at it at the federal level. Let's come home a little bit. State House of Assembly. Now, Nigerians, you know that we do not, State House of Assembly elections get as poor as 13% of total voter percentage. So I'm going to use, I don't want to pinpoint anybody, but there's one I was aware of somewhere around Mushi. I didn't call anybody's name. And she got into power. Anybody can assume who I'm talking about. She got in power with approximately the total votes were about 37,000. Meaning if you want to take out of office, you need just a little of a give or take. Well, 14, no, not 14. About 19,000. 19,500. Let's say anything above that. So 19,500 signatures, and you've removed the State House of Assembly. If you remove one, everybody will fall in line. But you know what's even more, what even closer home is that, like what you said, the local government, the states, the federal and the national assembly. But what about councillors? You know, councillors also play the role of quote, unquote, there's an assembly in the local government. They are the legislature of the local government. Exactly, they are. So they play that role. But we ignore them. Why are they very silent? Because you haven't voted for them. You know the problem, one, I can tell you, averagely across the 36 states of Nigeria and because of my work with the Electoral College, and you get so bad, they don't know their job description, they don't know what they are supposed to be doing, they don't have an idea of what they are supposed to be doing, which is a massive problem. Then second, local government chairman, do not even know what councillors are supposed to do. I can tell you that as far as it goes up, even some SA politics to a governor do not understand that the legislature and the council are legislature and the chairman are executive. Exactly, they don't. Are you kidding me? I don't be surprised with many governors. So the thing is, why is this information, who is, who is, you know, like budget does, you know, they take that big complicated budget and they break it down. Who is breaking down electoral laws and interpretation to the masses. That's what we don't have. Well, I'll say the Electoral College try. Electoral College does not have that. Honestly, you know that it was, I feel very embarrassed saying this on the television. But it was a flyer I saw of you doing a program that I even knew that Electoral College actually exists. We are not a government body. We are not a government body. No, I'm only saying that the information, so if there is an Electoral College that is doing all of that, it's not yet very popular. People need to know it. It's not widespread. People need to know it. I know where to go to. It's a federal government budget. Typically, you know, it's not, it's very vague. Budget it has become the go-to place. Maybe Electoral College needs to position. We just started, we just started. We are less than three years old. We are about three years old. So we think we will get the budget. I knew when budget started and of course, it took them seven, six years to get down the line. I think the Electoral College is very much welcome and please, you people, because this information needs to be public. I must tell you that when Nigerians have full information about something, they will act. But you know what, you know what, while we're waiting for Electoral College and this is where I challenge you, that listen, the same way, we'll look for any information about JZ. Let's use the internet and just search. It's like when people talk of police, we need state police. I believe we need state police. I believe we need community police. I believe we need to break down police. We are not using it. We are not implementing it fully. Do you know that as much as, yes, we say the police reports to the IG and everything, if you are in the states, it is difficult, quote unquote, for it to be controlled and it's been proven even in this dispensation. When this guys came to Rivers and approached the UK, what was his name? Amici, when there are convoyments, the one coming from Fredra had to calm down for the one in the states. There are so many things online that you can't search, but we don't look for it. We can talk on and on and look back, you know, the show has to end. Okay. So as usual on the advocates, there's always an interesting composition. That's all we have time for today on the advocate. Join us again next week. 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