NIGERIA UPDATE: “Moving forward together” - Remarks by Malam Nasir El-Rufai at an interactive session held in Owerri on 5th September 2025 - Part 1/4

PROTOCOLS

1. Let me start by expressing my gratitude to the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri for inviting me to be one of the Okwado (supporter) of the Odenigbo 2025. Ahead of that event, my brother Right Honourable Nnaemeka Maduagwu, my colleague in the service of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, over 20 years ago, decided to host me and all of you here. Nnaemeka requested me to speak to you about any burning national issue of my choice. I have chosen to make a few remarks about true federalism. I hope this will help spark debate and introspection that will assist us all in our search for peace, progress, and prosperity for all Nigerians.

2. I believe firmly in the prospects of this country if we direct our minds to pragmatic solutions and put our hands to the heavy lifting needed for a new path forward. Across our diversity, we can move forward together, united in a common endeavour for development and prosperity. In that quest for peace, progress and development, we need elite consensus. Such a consensus ought to be constructed around the equal citizenship, rule of law, public safety and a programme of national development that invests in growing our economy and uplifting our people, an effective architecture of security, a deliberate focus on merit and a commitment to practising and maximising the potentials of federalism.

3. In my view, one of the most pressing items for elite consensus is how our governments emerge in a democratic process. We need to agree on how to build trust in the electoral process and promote citizen participation. Our country has since 1999 conducted national elections as at when due. Given our stormy history, 25 years of unbroken rule by elected governments indicates that our country is on a pathway to democratic stability. But voter turnout at presidential elections has been declining since 2007. Less than 30% of registered voters bothered to vote in 2023, down from over 60% in 2003! Also, the integrity of every presidential election result from 1999 to date has been challenged in the courts, except in 2015 when President Goodluck Jonathan personally and commendably chose not to.

4. Low voter turnout should worry every democrat because apathy by citizens who feel alienated from the political process could lead to unwelcome fragility. We should engage our citizens to find out why so many consistently forfeit their constitutional right to vote. We should try to ascertain what could encourage them to resume exercising that fundamental democratic right. This, in my view, should also include measures to assure them that the election process is free from threats of violence or coercion, while ensuring that the results would accurately reflect the preferences expressed by voters at the ballot box.

5. Can we not agree to say farewell to electoral malfeasance and any appearance of it by adopting electronic voting and real-time transmission of results to collation points without interference? I do not see any compelling argument or unbridgeable barrier to adopting electronic voting and transmission of results for the 2027 elections. Based on our experience in preparing for and conducting local government elections in Kaduna State in 2018, I believe there is adequate time today, for INEC to acquire and deploy the hard an soft infrastructure needed to deliver this for the entire country at a much lower lifecycle cost than the current, unreliable system that has repeatedly been subject to human manipulation. NIGERIA UPDATE: “Moving forward together” - Remarks by Malam Nasir El-Rufai at an interactive session held in Owerri on 5th September 2025 - Part 2/4

6. We can adopt electronic voting machines that are designed and configured to do at least five functions:

a. integrate the simultaneous identification and verification of the voter,
b. provide a paper trail of votes cast at every polling unit,
c. shut down the system at the predetermined deadline,
d. Provide a printout of the polling unit result for each party agent, presiding officer, the media and the security agencies, and
e. seamlessly transmit the polling unit results on conclusion of voting, whichever is earlier.

7. It is a question of how eager we are to make our elections fully transparent and the level of ambition we wish to apply towards strengthening democratic stability. As alluded to earlier, when I was a state governor, we adopted electronic voting for the 2018 and 2021 local government elections in Kaduna State. In both elections, the ruling party lost some local government councils, and we lived with it. The weaknesses in the electronic voting machine process we deployed in Kaduna can be identified and eliminated, and the design robustly strengthened for a national rollout within months, if the political will exists to do so.

8. Political culture in Nigeria tends to be primarily about contriving an arithmetic for power, for those who have it and for those seeking it. That arithmetic tends to have little to do with actual policy and coherent governance. It is no surprise that political drama and manoeuvrings take more bandwidth than the substantive discourse on governance in our country. There is an urgent need for our current and prospective office holders to focus not just on an arithmetic of power, but on a national programme that addresses and solves societal problems.

9. To attain sustainable progress, our country deserves from our politicians a programme of service, a governance framework that is pragmatic about the policies to be rolled out after winning the elections, and the choices to be made to solve urgent national and subnational problems. We cannot play the politics of nostalgia when the times call for policies to prepare our people and empower them to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This concentration on the arithmetic of power has made it difficult for governance to be a consistent priority of elected governments since 1999.

10. For the sake of our people, we need to have a roadmap for beating mass poverty. It is deeply embarrassing that, judging from the population estimate in 1960, there are now more poor Nigerians than there were Nigerians at independence 65 years ago. China has beaten mass poverty, while India is on a path to ending it. We too can do it, if we make it a governance priority to move our people out of poverty. We need an economic programme to achieve this important human goal, a programme that is pragmatic in execution but ambitious in its goal. In this regard, what is needed is not new agencies of poverty alleviation or ‘humanitarian affairs’ with a massive bureaucracy, but innovative ways to make honest, hardworking citizens more productive and better-rewarded, while discouraging rent-seeking and other ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes in our society.

11. Key to this is asking at least six tough questions about governance policies, strategies and and sequential implementation of reforms:

a. In pursuit of growth and development, how are we going to structure our economy to create jobs and make things or services that we can sell to other countries? How would we expand the domestic market? How quickly would we end the many restraints of trade that our farmers, manufacturers and traders confront every day?

b. Where would we unleash the genius of the market within the broader economy? In which industries should the government provide pragmatic support to build national capacity, or nurture an emerging industry, and in what

NIGERIA UPDATE: ABC of Currency Redesign vs. XYZ of Cash Confiscation Explained:

(1) Currency redesign was approved by the President and announced. Currency recoloring resulted. ABC of Currency Redesign vs. XYZ of Cash Confiscation Explained:

(2) Currency swap was envisaged by s.20(3) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act as approved by PMB. Swap means I take N100,000 to the bank in old notes & I receive N100,000 immediately in new notes. No more, no less.

THURSDAY THOUGHT: (1/4) - “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the USA THURSDAY THOUGHT: (2/3) - …. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the USA

APC NATIONAL CONVENTION UPDATE: Ahead of its national convention billed for March 26, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has finally set the ball rolling by zoning party positions. APC NATIONAL CONVENTION UPDATE: Speaking with reporters on Tuesday after President Muhammadu Buhari held a meeting with APC governors, Nasir el-Rufai, Kaduna governor, said the northern zone would have the positions the southern zone held before.