Hello, welcome back to the run-up. Well, we're talking about the candidates for Saturday's election, and especially their manifestos that they have presented to the people of Nigeria. We are being joined by Mr. Biodun Shoumi, a public affairs analyst. Welcome to the program, Mr. Shoumi. We also have Mr. Shagun Shokweton, a chairman, accountability, candor, and transparency network. Welcome to the program, Mr. Shokweton. Thank you very much. And then we have a political scientist in the house as well, Mr. Omoshola Deji. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the program. OK. Well, as a person, I am more concerned about the fact that we've been having manifestos all these years, and they don't seem to be followed to the letter. And that is my greatest concern right now. But for now, let's just get to look at the manifestos so far presented by the candidates, without having a particular candidate in mind now. But we've heard the manifestos of especially the three or four leading candidates, because everybody wants to identify three or four leading candidates. But there are other candidates. We have 18. So the other 15 candidates all have given manifestos. But so far, how do you rate, how do you assess the manifestos that have been given by these candidates, and how you think this can translate into a better Nigeria tomorrow? Let me begin with Mr. Shokwomi. Yes, manifesto, just statement of promises, intentions, statements of intents, on what you intend to do when you get to a program. It's a different thing when people get elected and then get into office. Other variables come in. Other subjective factors, even objective factors can come in and they rule the manifesto from being implemented. Again, you also have people presenting manifesto under the guise of believing that that's what the public wants to hear. And if that is what the voters want to hear, they would rather say that without any intention to implement it or any capacity to deliver on those promises made in the manifesto. This is the pattern globally. It's not peculiar to Nigeria where manifestos are not there too strictly or are even abandoned in some cases. These are facts and realities. In relation to our current presidential elections, the 2023 elections, we have had many beautiful manifestos. All virtually all the aspirants came out with their own idea of how they intend to deal with the problem. You have one coming out with, for instance, you have Matikou coming out with a purely capitalist-oriented manifesto based on the regulation of the commanding heights of the economy. You have Etinubu coming out with a liberal market perspective in his manifesto. And you have Obie coming out with a clearly entrepreneurial, private-settled manifesto. In all the three leading candidates, in my view, they are the three most leading. You also have Kwakwanzo, he has his own manifesto tree, which I have issues with. They all have brilliant points. They have their strengths. And they also have their weaknesses. The problem is not the manifesto. The devil is in Aso Rock. Is when you get into Aso Rock, what are the variables coming to it? How do you tend? How do you end up implementing them? For instance, all the aspirants did talk about restructuring in one way or the other. All of them actually touched on it. But when it comes to the practice, you may now need to consider who is better placed to restructure the country than the other. They call it different things. In the case of Matikou, he was actually clear. Restructuring would be spoken about the same thing. I think they will call this reform and regionalization, which is basically about restructuring the country. And Kwakwanzo also did the same thing. And even went as far as mentioning some specifics. So probably the problem is the whole of good manifesto is a subjective evaluation to determine which one is better or not. So it's always very good. It depends on who you talk to and what are the factors and the parameters being considered. But they all have good manifesto. The reality now is, are they all able to deliver on the manifesto? Do they have the strong will, the character, the political will, the character, will they have the backings in the National Assembly to ensure, for instance, that they're able to rule the restructuring agenda through? Because if you don't have the figures in the National Assembly and you don't have a bipartisan agreement, you may not be able to execute it. And that is exactly what I mean by the reality comes in after people get elected. There are other variables, other factors that come into play. You have the issue of the negotations to ensure that all interests are well protected. And this could take some time. So I think, luckily, Nigerians need to focus more on capacity to deliver on experience, on track record, and also political courage in leadership, audacity, of course. Audacity to give hope to our people. And that is what matters. In terms of implementation of manifesto in Nigeria, we always have a problem with that. Because you've never had a party having to talk of the mass of reps and the Senate at any point in time. So you find yourself having to negotiate with those who are probably opposed to what they are trying to do, or to your party's agenda. And that is always a problem. So today, we have never been able to modify or amend that constitution significantly, simply because of this problem. Because you have to talk in the National Assembly, and you must have to talk in the state's houses of assembly. So these are the practical reality between promise and reality. So all those who spoke about we would do the structure, and we would do this, do that. Everything depends on the numbers in the National Assembly. So at the end of the day, you may have it happening, or it may not even happen, depending on who wins the presidential election and the composition of the National Assembly. OK. Well, when Mr. Shoumi was talking, Mr. Shokuton, I'm coming to you, I remembered a novel that the past president of, the as well president of America wrote, The Audacity of Hope, a very inspiring novel. I have that, and I really loved it. But right now, let me just listen to the manifestos. We've read them. Especially the ones that we felt we should pay close attention to. Are there some things that you would rather have in the manifestos that seem to either be missing or they were not given the kind of prominence that they needed to have given in these manifestos? Mr. Shokuton, do you have any item that you would have loved to be in these manifestos or given more prominence than it was given? Well, thank you. So for me, to say first of all that I agree with everything that Mr. Shoumi said, in addition to that, I think it's, I think it's very, very important to understand, for Nigerians to understand that the manifesto of any political party and thereby their candidates is supposed to be the contractual documents between that candidate and his party or her party and the citizenry. And being a contractual document, therefore, means that it becomes the reference point to measure performance by. This is what should be the standard. Unfortunately, that has not been our experience. Our experience has been that the manifesto is regarded as just a right of passage, if you like, or fulfilling righteousness. Just another ritual to perform in the electioneering process. You know, you have to have a manifesto and everybody knows this, so everybody does one. I do think that any of the parties have done these manifestos with a clear and very deliberate objective of being held accountable to the content of those documents. So when you say what is, what maybe what's missing in those manifestos that I would have love to see, I think in terms of specific policy areas, areas of focus, I think all of the manifestos have been really very similar, you know, approaching the governance issue from different angles and from different areas of focus, perhaps, but they all addressed the key issues that Nigeria is contending with, whether you're talking about infrastructure deficits, whether you're talking about, you know, the governance, the atmosphere, or the rule of law, and all of that. What I think is missing, and I think we need to really begin to look into this and see how we can do this, what I think is missing is an action point and in climate, if you like, and if you're at a time table to say that, okay, you don't all of this, you put in your ideas in terms of social infrastructure, you put in your ideas in terms of the structure of the country, you lay down your ideas in terms of power and all that hard infrastructure like that, you lay down your ideas in terms of the economy, agriculture, and so on and so forth, education, the health sector. In each one of those areas, is it possible or is it impossible? Is it that it is impossible for each of the candidates to put timelines and implementation plans? They don't have to be very exhaustive and learn project implementation parameters, for example, but is it not possible or is it impossible to say, for example, you know that you've got a four-year term and in those four years, this is what I will achieve in this area within this time frame. That is very, very missing in all of these documents and once you take that out of those documents, then you find that all those documents you represent are just pieces of paper, it becomes very difficult for you to hold anybody to the thing that are in those documents because they have not been specific. So if I decide that I want to take somebody on, for example, on the issue of restructuring, they can say, look, I've done my bit, I tried all that I put and that would be the end of the conversation. So if, for example, I want to hold the APC government, the current incumbent APC government on the issue of restructuring, remembering that they were very, very, very elaborate in speaking to that issue. In the manifesto, they released in 2014, leading up to the 2015 elections. It's possible for them to say, we did our best. For example, there has been some level of devolution of powers from the constitution that we had before coming down to the constitution that is the current review that is going on. They could argue that there will be some devolution. They could argue, for example, that the president has, via some presidential orders, addressed the issue of restructuring to some degree. But you see, if there had been very specific promises with very specific timelines, with very specific implementation plans, then all I have to do is whip up that document and begin to tick it up. You see, this one you said you're going to be within this timeframe, you have not done it, therefore you are paid. And on the basis of that, then for the next elections, it's very easy for Nigerians to say, look, you've performed and this is your scorecard, or you didn't perform, and this is why we say so. So for me, that would be a very, very significant missing element in all of the manifesto. And I think that all the political parties are guilty of this. Of course, in addition to that, or aside from that, the will and the character to implement the manifestos is a completely different question. And one of the candidates have been, you know, happy on this and saying, look, everybody has a good manifesto, but who is going, who has the intention and the integrity, proven integrity, a proven track record of fulfilling their promises in the public space to go ahead and implement those manifestos. So that is a different conversation. But I think that it would be very beneficial to Nigerians and to Nigerians and to the electoral process if our manifestos can become a bit more measurable as these trues in those in business, what you do not measure, you cannot entail. So there are no frameworks for measurement of these promises in all of the manifestos. Okay. Well, very important timelines, time frame, with which they want to implement these things, maybe first hundred days, like all of them want to celebrate, first one hundred days I'm going to do X, Y, Z. That's a very good point, Mr. Shokweton that you brought. Okay. Well, just briefly before we take a break, let's go to Shola. What are your thoughts generally? Just very briefly so that we can take a break and return. Well, my thoughts as regards the campaign so far is that the manifesto has showed that the candidates knows what the key real problem is, especially as regards the basic. So the manifesto has likely covered a repetition of what we can over the years. We'll provide these, we'll do them with base, salary on time, we trust, we'll cover the security. So it has likely been a repetition of the challenges that past competitors promised to eradicate but still succeed. So they are kind of reoccurring it but what I think should have stand out is for the candidates to now say how they are going to achieve what they've said. If a candidate stands on the podium and says I am going to end in security. We've had that a number of times. We should be able to kind of like give us a little bit of the background of how you intend to at least tackle it that will make us to select whoever we think is right. Because all of them are basically the same people. They are strategy, not in details, but at least stand them out. For example, we say you want to turn that you have for consumption to production and economy. How do you intend to do that? We don't have electricity, we don't have some key infrastructures that are determinate to the success of that. How do you intend to achieve that? And if you say you want to make the economic viable, you want to provide infrastructure, how do you intend to do that based on our gridling resources when we are using majority of our finance to service debt? These are crucial things that the candidates should have addressed. It's easy for any candidate to come on board and promise everyone that. But how do you intend to achieve those things? We are promising and we balancing it with the resources that is on ground and the track record and capacity as a person. They are kind of like you. So the manifesto has been largely addressing the basics and the reputation of what we've had. It's just like more of a copy and paste kind of thing from past administration now. For example, the renewal of the APC is more like a plagiarized one of the 1990s, MQO, ABUALAC, the Peter O'bill Cosocial Fund, production appears to be in big times. There's no proper kind of strategy of how we intend to achieve that based on the reality of what we have in the country. Right now, Mr. Tipua-Hubaka has been preaching unity but at the same time, I think even us are in test to come about that and if what we are seeing in this party now is anything to go by, that contradicts what he's saying in terms of going all out to unify the country but he hasn't been able to unify his own party. So they have likely come up with the basics but what will make them to achieve it and how they will push out things is missing in the old manifesto itself. So for me, it makes it kind of like uninteresting, uninspiring because we've not gotten any new thing. So to say, what could have been the new thing? This has been a repetition of what we had in the past is for them to tell us how they will be able to get the ground running, how they will be able to achieve the network with a structure, manpower, foreign policy, a lot of things for them to move away from all this space, it will provide some even go to the podium and they don't say any of these things. They'll be like, vote for us, will you vote for us? And I have watched series of campaign. There's even nothing like manifesto there. They just say dance and everybody goes home. For me, that's based on the volatile situation of the country now. That will lead us to nowhere at the end of the day. Okay, thank you, Shola. We'll take a short break and when we return, we'll go into specifics and especially like I said at the beginning, I'm concerned about why it is not, they seem to always get away with it. They promise one thing and they're not able to do it. Maybe they need to be one proactive measure or the other from the citizenry, I do not know. When we return, gentlemen will deal with some issues. Stay with us. You're welcome back. It's still the run up and we're looking today at the presidential candidates and their manifestos. It's funny anyway that we seem to lose track of the fact that this election will be national election, like there will be presidential election and there will be national assembly election, which means we'll be electing the senators and the members of the House of Representatives. And nobody's talking about the senators and members of the House of Representatives, even though they are the people who are closest to us, whose constituency office is we can access and who we can take our complaints to, even though that is a debatable issue, whether they are close enough to us or not. But at least these are the people that are from the grassroots, but we don't seem to be talking about them. Maybe we'll talk about them tomorrow and see what we can say. Or maybe it's because it's too wide. Everybody in what state can you be talking about at the same time? But today we're dealing with the presidential candidates and their manifestos and all the issues around that. We have Mr. Biodun show me a public affairs analyst here. We also have Mr. Shagun Shokweton, Chairman Accountability, Kanda and Transparency Network and Omar Sholat Deji, political scientist. Gentlemen, we're back here again. Mr. Show me, let me come back to you. When you were talking about a particular, you used the word devil in Asurog and we just wonder, because this administration, for instance, could have had it all because they have a loyal, if you ask me, they have a loyal national assembly, the House of Representatives and the Senate. They were loyal to the presidency, but it seems as if Nigerians still have cause to complain that everything, all the pillars that they rode on to power were maybe not fulfilled the way we should have seen them fulfilled. For instance, they talked about security. Is it better now? They talked about corruption. Is it better now? And you pointed out also, they talked about restructuring. Did they do anything about it? And so many other things that were promised. What do you think really constitutes this devil in Asurog? What are the issues that you said? It is when they get there that they find out that it's almost impossible. What do you think are these things that make it so difficult for anybody with even the best of intentions to fulfill their promises that they made in that social contract they had with the people in the name of manifesto? Yes, Asurog is a sprawling complex on the seat of the president of the country.  But by the time you leave Asurog, you end up with a different personality, somebody who probably you think that was not the man I voted for or I got into that place one way or the other. Because the moment they entered Asurog, other forces come into it. And what are those forces? The forces are great. It's not only me that alluded to that. There have been so many people alluding to it. I remember Professor Sylvester Dionne, Ubena Bhatia and so many other people based on their own experience. You have the first problem, which is the overwhelming power of the president of Nigeria.  And that could be very overwhelming. It's not many people that can manage that or handle that in some cases. It tends to alter their personal construct psychology and their disposition to collective psychology of their people. So consequently, what you see is that their personal construct psychology gets inflated to the point that it overwhelms the collective interest which they were elected to deliver. When you look at, let me give you a good example, there cannot be any justification for room to be put on him and for Nero to travel to Cairo. When you look at the crisis surrounding the issue of currency swirl and the fact that the country, we were beginning to put next without one another before the garland security officers managed to put things back in place, our president gave us, which allowed the country and went to Ethiopia to attend the OEU conference, whereas the vice president of the country could as well have achieved the same thing, which will not diminish either our contributions at the meeting or diminish our status. So it shows a level of insensitivity right to you to the plight of the people. We now realize that we have the president whose personal construct psychology has overwhelmed the collective goals and desires and well-being of the people. He might be that kind of person. The second factor is when you get into a sort of, you are now going to be faced with different interests, competing interests in a way that while you are trying to graph it, gratify one interest, you have that net getting another interest, which in some cases may be your own personal interest. Let me give you a good example also with Guari's administration. Guari came in with the agenda to build a stronger United Nigeria where everybody would feel safe within the country. So within that context of building, developing our unity, the president tried to implement grazing reserves, no, sorry, open grazing and he was supporting open grazing and that created some tension. We have people moving into our country from different parts of West Africa and then it led to tension with the local communities in different areas, both South, West, Southeast, the middle belt and even in the north. So that created some problems and that problems were not easily overcome till now is still one of the underlining issues that we inform the selection on the part of those who usher as the president's viewpoint and the thing that is there's a major stake which they need to guide against and make sure that whoever becomes the president can protect their interests. On the other part again, you have those who have been the victims saying that look, we're not gonna allow these to continue again, a particular extraction created this problem and therefore we won't allow, they gave each extraction interpretation for obvious reasons because of all the president's. So you have those devils between reality and when you get in, even when you intend to implement it, you then face some other problem. Look, there was a time in Nigeria when in particular for my head of state, I think it's Ibrahim Babanguda, wondered why Nigeria has been able to survive all the pressures when it was in power. So when you look at the situation, when people get into office, one thing, what they do while in office is that it is conditioned by the asshole work devil which is overwhelming power in that very office, changing people's psychology and personality and then also the power game between the extractions in Nigeria and how these games are negotiated by the leadership. Interesting, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. This is what is playing out right now. Okay, Mr. Shopwatzon, taking from what Mr. Shobomi just said now, we had a Yara Dua in the same Asurok and he seemed to have succeeded somehow. At least he gained the confidence of the citizenry. I don't know whether because his life was cut short that is how we can, why we can sing his name as a hero but is it the will, does it have to do more on what's the makeup of the individual is or do you believe like Mr. Shobomi said that the powers that be within Asurok can make a president even with the best of intentions to become something we didn't know he could ever become before he was made the president. Do you blame it on the individual presidents or you blame it more on the power tussle within the presidency? Well, I mean, thanks for the question. This is, it's an interesting, you know, this is almost a sociology kind of question, psychology and sociology kind of question and there are a lot of theories with regards to this. I've actually come across one particular work, research finding that actually suggested that the actual physiology of the human being changes when they come into public office. A study was conducted and they found that a particular part of the brain that processes and logical reasoning and all of that was affected negatively in people that were public office and the interesting part of that finding unfortunately I've forgotten the name of that work right now. The interesting part of it is that when those people left office their brains return to normal. So I have sort of held on to the idea that of course when you get for public office Australia political elected public office there's a very, very strong tendency that your behavioral patterns that you are used to as a person will tend to be affected because you are contending with more than you ever have especially for a country as complicated and complex and large as Nigeria. Speaking specifically about maybe the presidency of President Yardua, I hold a different opinion. I don't know if it's a popular opinion but I've never really considered that administration as being a great administration or being considered Yardua, may so rest in peace as being a hero. I don't think we have enough evidence on the table to make those assertions. I think that he did not stay long enough and indeed even before he unfortunately passed most of the time that he spent in office was spent taking care, attending to his health. So we never really saw a Yardua presidency in Nigeria as far as I'm concerned that was just a blank period in our history. The only thing that I remember him for and that I think he must be commended for is his continued insistence in those early days of his presidency. On the will of law, on being a servant leader he was one that coined that introduced that phrase more or less into a modern political lexicon in Nigeria. He was very particular about being a servant of the people and he was very particular about ensuring that an atmosphere that were the respect for the will of law is an atmosphere that he was determined to institute in the country. And that was evidenced by the fact that he acknowledged immediately that the elections that produced him were flawed and then he started the process that led to where we are today. That will always be his legacy, but beyond that I don't really see anything particularly spectacular that happened in that period. Still talking about holding our political candidates or office holders to account, especially on the basis of their manifestos. I think one of the things that I've also observed and this will tie into how they behave when they do get into office. It's very, very clear, as has been earlier said that none of them really intend, I don't think they put out those manifestos with the intention of implementing them because if they did, one of the evidence that you would have, for example, is that they would be more deliberate about putting the message out. And I had cause to say, to suggest on air on other platforms, why, for example, do we not have the manifestos distributed into, for example, say flyers, one-page or two-page flyers, maybe a fold-over flyer that puts clearly the key points of those manifestos and how they intend to achieve them. In those small documents that they then distribute all over the country, translated into different languages. You know, if they really intend, if they believe that the manifestos would have an impact and an influence on the outcome of the elections and that it would have an impact and an influence on how they govern the country, then they would have been more deliberate about putting the message in the manifesto out there. While I was preparing for this program, here I go, I decided to conduct an experiment. Of course, I have the documents with me by virtue of what I do, but I decided to assume the role of an average Nigerian and went online to look for these manifestos and you will not believe how difficult it was. I was eventually, I found the one for the Labour Party relatively easily. I just went, because you know, as a member of the public, all I should do is go to the party website and it should be there. I found the one for the Labour Party with relative ease. The one for the APC I eventually found. What I found, for example, was that there were several websites for the APC and eventually there was one that had the next level manifesto. It's still there online, as I speak, and on a different website. And I eventually found another website which apparently is now the official website of the APC and I was able to download that manifesto. As I'm speaking with you, I'm still searching for the one for the PDP, you know. And I haven't even attempted one for the NMPP. What am I saying? These documents should be easily, readily available. In fact, I shouldn't need to look for them. They should be in my face, as a voter, because the political parties and their candidates are putting those things out as the promises they're making to us. But unfortunately, that is not the case. So therefore, when they get into office, because they know very clearly that their election was not necessarily based on any of these promises. Like one of my colleagues on this panel has said before, when you go to the rallies, you don't really make any significant effort to put in out clear, actionable plans and promises to the people. No, most of the time, they abuse their opposition. They abuse the opposition a bit more. Say one or two things about what they will do. And the rally is over. This is, unfortunately, the cycle of an electionarian in Nigeria. As long as that continues, you continue to have a situation where people then get into office and then they start blaming demons. I mean, the point that Mr. Shomei referred to, I remember that article that Dr. Ruben about to put out. And look, he wasn't joking. He was saying that there were demons in Aso Rock that were preventing candidates from performing. And I found that very laughable, because you can't come to the public space and begin to blame spiritual forces for your governance failures. It's a bit of an insult to the sensibilities and the intelligence of Nigerians. I think that what happens is that politicians know that they do not hold their office. They do not hold their presence in the public space to the public. And therefore, they don't really feel that they must be voting to them and they must fulfill any promises. So they continue to fulfill the promises they make to the interests that produce them. It's one of the biggest problems we have. So you have a contending forces of interest fighting for policy actualization, rather than the public good and the interest of the average Nigerian. And I think this is the problem. So for me, until we fix this issue of being able to hold our political contestants accountable to probably things that they make, it's going to be difficult to have them behave the way we expect them to behave when they get into office and for them to do about good governance. OK. Mr. Chokotan has just given us, I'm coming to you, Isha'Allah. Mr. Chokotan has just given us action plan. It's like the politicians know what they're doing. The politicians are answering to other powers rather than the people. So it seems as if the ball is in our own court to play it will be our choice. And to play it well will be even a greater choice. What can we do in your thinking, Isha'Allah, to make sure that we hold these people whom we have elected accountable to us? Because in these documents, I was expecting that there will be some kind of, like Mr. Chokotan said, the Yeridu administration was particular about obeying the rule of law. I was expecting that there will be something, some kind of channel of feedback, some kind of thing that will make the people know that if the people who are at the helm of affairs are going wrong, there's a way that the people can hold them accountable and say X, Y, Z that they will be open to the people. But they're just telling us we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And as the other people have said, there's no timeline. There's no time frame. There's nothing to hold them and say, OK, at this time, like my people say, a dog that will be a hunting dog, you will know when it is still a puppy. OK, so what do you think the people, the citizenry, can do to hold these people accountable? As brief as you can be, please. Isha'Allah. Well, what we can do to make a political person accountable in working performance, the only or major criteria for winning elections. If you have not heard any political office before, you're antecedent.  We should be able to trace you back to the room. We should be able to trace what you've done with your life. We should be able to trace how you've solved problems, how you've impacted the society. Then we're making that the criteria for winning elections will be better in politics. And if you've heard any political office before, we should be able to go back and examine the performance. When I say the performance, I mean realistic examination of how you really perform the government. You are one of the road contracts where you are in office. How much do you have more in your contract? How much is the road contract in countries with similar climate, similar temperature, similar circumstances? How much are they awarding their road contract? What is the value of the road contract itself? I think those are the kind of things that we should be looking at. We should be looking at the performance of it is candidate. Deeply, if you have been a legislator, what is your performance in the National Assembly? Because if you are there and all you do is sleep, and most of the people that even want to vote for you don't even know the function of a legislator itself. And with no restating motion, with no subordinary motion, you're not participated in any debate, and even look at the floor of the National Assembly sometimes, the streets are virtually empty. These same people will go back. And some of them will win the election. So not until we make performance, the criteria for winning the election, where politicians go that the criteria for winning the election is performance. Definitely, they would go all out there to perform because they want to win the election. But if there are opportunities for them to put corners, if there are opportunities for them to buy votes, if there are opportunities for them to use force, to increase the security, just if there are opportunities for them to just use one, one kind of, to just, should I say, magumago or something, they would rather go for that. And I've studied on other platforms before the Nigerian politicians are like a student. And I can tell you from here as well with the pace in political science that some of our students, if you don't hold them well, if you don't hold them accountable, they're not ready to read anything. So if politicians exist in a policy whereby they can easily act their way without performance, just like the students who have been in various institutions, who are not ready to read. Politicians are also not ready to perform. Did you like to have that? If I can sort of, the question that you ask the director that what limits like the performance of some of these politicians, they won't be able to do it. Please round up, yes. Round up, just round up. Okay. I think we should just have a society where performers can win elections and we should have strong, ready-to-win institutions in such a way that you can't cut corners. There's no way you can provide vote. There's nobody you can address. And the security agencies are able to do their jobs. The political talks have not been until the, I think that will improve our electoral system and overall the performance itself. Power should return to the people, the ordinary people, the dimension of the majority of the population and this population should be well-oriented, should be well-educated to know what it means to elect somebody into office and to educate them against some issues such as vote-buying, not for political participation and all that. Okay. I'd like to thank you. I wish we had more time, but there's no time. Gentlemen, we've had a beautiful show on me, a public affairs analyst, Mr. Shagun Shokleton, Chairman Accountability, Kanda, and Transparency Network of Moshallah Deji, political scientists. I know that gentlemen when it comes to Saturday, maybe some of you will not be at your polling centers because you will be monitoring elections here and there, but I do hope that Saturday will come and go peacefully and that we're going to have a leader after our own heart and after the heart of God himself. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming on the program today. It's my pleasure to meet you. Okay, we'll take a break for the news and when we return, we just conclude the run-up. Stay with us.


It is so great to see so many faces, I know we've been talking with people, it's like it's so great to see you three dimensional instead of two dimensional in this screen. We know that people have traveled near and far so again we are so grateful to see everyone here. Before I get ready to introduce our first keynote, I do want to remind everyone that we partnered with a women's local community to bring the Lama game today and so we want to make sure that everyone please make sure you go out and play the game but we also want you to know that it's not just a Lama. These were actually all individually handmade and we're so able, we're so glad that we were able to work with the local communities so please make sure you go out there, have fun. I heard some people giving tips and tricks on how to make sure you get that Lama so make sure you ear hustle or work with someone that you know how to get those Lamas but again make sure you take one as a souvenir and a token of appreciation for coming to be with us this week during our CSV comp. So now we are getting ready to have our first keynote, we do hope that you all have enjoyed your sessions earlier this morning and so I am pleased to be able to introduce someone that I've known for seven years and have never seen her personally in person until about three hours ago. So that was pretty exciting but today I get to introduce Laura Acyon, she asked her what do you want me to say about you and she said it's really not about me and you understand why but she's going to talk to us today about Collective Creative Open Science and as you've seen in the talk really we're going to learn today about how to co-create and co-develop communities particularly in open science in the global south but she's going to give us a little bit more detail so I don't want to spill the beans or give you too much or give you too much of a teaser because she's going to tell us everything that she wants us to know so let's give a warm welcome for Laura Acyon. Thank you so much Sarah for that interaction. It's been lovely to meet you and I didn't, Zoom doesn't make you justice of course, none of you indeed. So I'm, oh heck I'm nervous, yeah but I'm pleased, this is my first international keynote. I'm 47 years old, well okay, don't mess with the time please. Keep all the applause for the end, okay, deal? Deal? Thank you. So it's, yeah, and I'm very grateful that it's happening in my city because yeah I'm nervous but I didn't have to do a long haul of eight plus hours for once to an international conference or deal with visa issues or deal with lost luggage or, you know, all our visitors here may have had to go through so I feel you and I thank you for the extra effort because it's nice not to be the one for once when you get to travel of course, right? And I hope, we're going to make it worth your while so and I hope you're already enjoying beautiful Buenos Aires. With that collective creation of open science, it's going to be inspired in worker bees because we know that excellent science is done by a bunch, a ton of worker bees, invisible bees, so that's going to be the whole metaphor all over here. Okay, but first things first, this is the hive that is behind me and that has worked really very, very hard and even a lot more than I to put together this talk today. So thanks, thank you metadata team on that. Lorela Sensi and Julián Huere that had put a lot more, yeah, Lorela, please show yourself. Yeah, yeah, just like that applause is definitely welcome, thank you. So these two guys worked a lot more than I, I'm here just like because I had to be here. Yeah, that's my name, I wear a lot of hats and I've been wearing a lot of hats since over 30 years ago in research because I started my first geek in research was when I was 15 in the Natural Museum, Argentina Museum of Natural Sciences in Parque Centenario in the city. I bred fossils and also type a PhD dissertation reference because back in the age there was no point and click, you know, reference managers and so and they paid me like not for my time really or the person's time but they pay me some symbolic honorarium for that work volunteer work because, you know, so I at least I didn't have to pay out of my pocket to travel there. So it's been 30 over 30 years, it's a really long career. So many, many hats over the years, many, many hats still today. For the sake of this talk, I'm a researcher coming from biostatistics that specializes in health artificial intelligence or data science, particularly the responsible use of data at the University of Buenos Aires and I also co-founded Metadosensio. And you think maybe we have someone that was born in Buenos Aires, from Latin America, we got diversity here, well, no. I come from an ultra-privileged elite in this city and in the region because I'm white, I speak English, I got a PhD in the U.S., I'm a ten-year academic, a real kind in Argentina and you get the idea, several intersectionalities of privilege, which that's why I'm here and a lot of other folks are not. And the majority of the folks that should be here are not. So now let's go to the hive and what are the experiences we had of collecting creation of healthy and safe community, inclusive communities in the Global South in Latin America. It all started in 2017 with our ladies Buenos Aires, I co-founded the first active chapter of our ladies' global in this city back then and well, then it grew up a lot in the region and up to being today 30% of our ladies' global in Latin America, which is the same as in the U.S. and in Western Europe. But let us hear about our ladies Buenos Aires today because it's been a while I don't do anything with them. Oops, and that's something that it's going wrong because I didn't turn off Spotify. Okay, now it should work. Hola, mi nombre es Monica Lanzo, vivo en Buenos Aires, Argentina y represento a Ladies Buenos Aires. Formamos parte de our ladies, que es una organización internacional que promueve la diversidad de género en la comunidad de ARRE y tiene más de 200 capítulos en todo el mundo. Desde a Ladies Buenos Aires realizamos talleres, online o presenciales y abiertos a toda la comunidad para aprender sobre ARRE y difundir novedades o trabajos realizados, nuevos paquetes. También interactamos con comunidades amigas, por ejemplo las de sistemas, women in data sañes, metadosencia y otras. En estos casos lo hacemos promocionando eventos, dictando terceres o participando de mesas en algunas conferencias realizadas por estas comunidades. Thank you, Moni. Thank you very much. And as you heard, our ladies Buenos Aires already has a hive of communities around, right? Moni named a few. So that's the idea, you know, little hives that get together with other little hives and make a larger hive, it all started here. Then 2018, 2019, a huge among us amount of work, a ton of communities that I'm on the record talking about, so that's all news. Newest news is 2020. And there, Worker B, Maldica Sharon, came to this Worker B, hey Laura, you should know or less, it's a cool hive, safe, inclusive, diverse, and we would like to connect more with the Latin American hive, come visit us, and the same thing for the Trinway. And I went flying there and I was like, hmm, this feels really good. I really feel included, I really feel well. So I buzzed back to Latin American and say, hey, we should all go there. Let's start buzzing around these communities. So let's hear about the Trinway, and maybe some jazz will pop up. The Trinway is a collaborative project of open code that allows the diversity of its members to ensure that data science is beneficial for all people. It's a book, a project of open code, a community, and a collaboration culture. A book is about reproducibility. The objective of this project is to make the reproducible research too easy to do. To make it completely reproducible, we have to take all the steps in the cycle of research, and that can be overwhelming, but that's what the Trinway is for. The project is co-led by Kierci Wittecker and Malvika Charan, and has more than 400 contributors worldwide. Thank you so much for your allership, the Trinway, and if you want to learn more, do not miss their talk tomorrow at 2.30 pm in room A. But in 2020, March 2020, we all know what happened, so the Latin American hive was What do we do with the online classes? Oh, we didn't know how to teach online already. And folks really need it. So that's how Metadocencia came along. And let us hear about Metadocencia from someone from the community. We say that since Metadocencia, we have been building communities collaborating for the availability of high-quality resources, which accords with strengths, the strengths of inequality that enable key sectors, and that allow the development of regional capacity, technical science, and research. We work so that production, exchange and application of scientific knowledge are globally equitable, all of this with a local perspective. Thank you, Rami, and if you all want to know more about the amazing research work that Metadocencia is starting to develop because we are all researchers and technicians, go tomorrow to their talk at 2.30 pm in room B. So till here, all the work that I was mentioning, except for a lesson that you know, I'm talking about them, it was volunteer work in the Latin American high. And, well, it's not a beauty. It's a problem. And it's pervasive in open science, in open source, in academia, even in activism. Why? Well, it's not sustainable. It's prone to burnout. It's prone to exploitation. And as of late, I've discovered that it's also a huge guilt trip for those that do not have the privilege of time to volunteer for free their time. So, well, it's actually a barrier for real diversity and inclusion. You have the privilege of time when you know when, right? So this symbolic honoraria of paying at least expenses of what it gets to be there, even if these are symbolic honoraria paid by the Global North, oh, well, they go a long way. So never diminish those and try to do those, or micro grants. And don't take me wrong here. I'm not talking about grassroots organizations that are just starting. Of course, I'm not naive. You need to start somewhere with volunteer time. I'm talking here about global organizations with millions of dollars of funding, or with access in the north to get them. So, and if you are starting a grassroots organization, you need to start thinking about funding on day one, because otherwise you will not be sustainable.  And believe me, I know it's not easy, but I've been there and done that. So don't repeat my mistakes. And with that, I want to tell you that we were survivors at Metadocencia, because at the brink of burnout, it came God, Foreign Science and Society, CES and S for the friends. And not for the friends, but, you know, acronyms. And, like, and we get to them because our dear Kate Herrwerk just convinced me that I was not going to be bounced back once more. And with them, we won a first event fund, and then a second event fund, and then we even got fiscal sponsor by them. When I couldn't even find any funding among friends in the region or anywhere else, and less fiscal sponsorship. Because apparently the little apple was too fun or something, I don't know. So, and that structure, and don't get it wrong, God, Foreign Science and Society is not just a fiscal sponsor. They also have buzzing communities of practice. And as of late, they are developing one that is at the intersection of climate change, infectious disease, software development, and then users. And it's looking very interesting. I don't, and they are inclusive of Latin America. So, you might want to check it out and make sure to reach out to them. And by no means miss out on the reception today, I fought PM at a really beautiful rooftop a few blocks from here. So, and with that structure and fiscal structure for metatosensia, and this, that little money that make us run through 2021 came along ZZI. And let us hear about ZZI. My name is Kate Hurtwick. I live in Seattle, Washington, and the United States. I'm speaking to you today as a representative of Chen Zuckerberg Initiative, where I work as a program manager on the open science team as a part of the science initiative. CZI science aims to cure, prevent, or manage all human diseases by the end of this century. CZI engages in this work by building open source software tools, funding scientific research, resources, and infrastructure, and doing science via our family of institutes. On the open science team, we support this goal with a vision for universal and immediate open sharing of all scientific knowledge, processes, and outputs. When presented with the question, how do you build community from your organization? I reflect on our vision. Universal sharing means a global, diverse, and inclusive community has access to all parts of science. At CZI, we build this community by funding organizations and projects that increase access to scientific research, support underrepresented individuals in science, and more generally support open science practices among the biomedical research community. We build community by listening to and learning from the communities we want to support, so that we can help them create the resources they need. Thank you so much for your allyship for the open science team at CZI. And with that push and that sustainability grant we got from CZI that allowed Metatosensia to go from almost fully volunteer to fully funded for a couple of years until we get farther, came more opportunities of collaborating with OLS, and I want to take this opportunity to thank Yoyehudi in the middle of the screen here for insights about this talk. And we were able to start buzzing around other hives in Africa this time, more global south to south graduations and Boalab in Cameroon, Talarifi in South Africa. But it's not like we forgot Latin America, don't worry. We also met La Congo physics from Andean Latin America, and no less incubated this super cool kind of new community, but here them out. In Conventoreal, we develop educational resources linked to the scientific edition, and we create spaces for sharing experiences and knowledge in the field of the scientific edition. Our objective is to promote scientific science, the scientific production, and the promotion of growth of research magazines in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Conventoreal, we create and promote a work that is with respect to the times of all those involved, with prioritization of mental health and personal development. Thank you so much, Jose Luis. And the hive kept growing over 2022. We got to work with Cabana and with the Latin American Initiative for Open Data with Fundación Vía Libre. And by the way, do not miss Fundación Vía Libre's talk tomorrow at 3.20 in room B. And oh, and I forgot to mention OLS also. It's having a presentation tomorrow at 2.55 in room C. So do not miss if you want to learn more about OLS. Sorry OLS. I love you, you know, but I forgot to mention. And we also got to buzz around this other project. Thank you Sabrina, and I recommend you her talk today at 3.20 p.m. in room B. And well, the hive keeps growing and growing and growing. And these are all communities that, you know, kind of work together indirectly because healthy, inclusive. And there's also, you know, there's it's a huge hive at this point. I will show you one last video about this brilliant team. My name is Emmy Tang. I live in Detroit in the Netherlands. And I am the Engagement Lead at Invest in Open Infrastructure. Hi, my name is Jerry Selanga. I live in Nairobi, Kenya. And I'm the Communications Associated IOI. IOI is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to improving funding and resourcing for open community-owned technologies and systems supporting research and scholarship. We aim to provide targeted evidence-based guidance to funders and supporters of open infrastructure worldwide on how and where to invest. So how do we build community? We're very grateful to be in partnership with value aligned organizations across the globe, like MetaDocencia and the West and Central Africa Research and Education Network, WACREN. Working with them has enabled us to always think about the people whose voices are missing from conversations about funding and infrastructure and how we can listen more closely and help to amplify their voices. We are really happy to be part of this buzzing community and we're looking forward to opportunities to know more about you. Thank you so much for your ally-shaped IOI team. And the latest addition to our wonderful inclusive hi is NASA. Yeah, NASA, the rocket science thing. And I kind of believe it, but it's true because, well, we're going to be teaching how to transform research to open science in Spanish from MetaDocencia, but together with OLS, two I2C, and God for Science and Society. So healthy hives, right? Excellent science. So some practicalities on how we get to the healthy hives. Essentially, we all know it's not solo science, right? It's not one, two novel prices. It's all about workers. It's been for decades. And I don't study those phenomena, but it's pretty obvious. We all know it. So how does it... So in a nutshell, go collective. Let's go really collective, for real. And how do you do that? Well, you pay for and invest in persons and high building, safe, high building, inclusive high building. So you don't use volunteers when you have money. And how do you get to safety? You include the locally marginalized in your decision tables, and they get to vote. Why? Because otherwise, you will not get safe communities because they have no power, and you will not get to know when they don't feel included. And they are unsafe because they have no power. So you need to include them. And, well, have you noticed all these wonderful, diverse communities from all over the globe, and how potent they are? Incubate geographical diverse grassroots initiatives. It's a really good idea, in my humble opinion. And let's stop solo keynotes, please, and solo awards, and solo prizes, and solo personalisms, and individualisms. Let's cut that. Yeah, I know, right? I'm solo here, not for too long. So let's prioritize collaboration, the greater good, diversity, transdisciplinary, which is a special kind of diversity. Let's, you know, all disciplines the same stage, not like just computer science, like the green and then the rest. And the last one is the most important. Let's keep ourselves really accountable, because it's very easy to come here and say very nice words, and then go home and do nothing, and give, like, these recommendations. They're easy for me, right? I know none of the above is easy to do. But really, I know, I empathize. But let's keep ourselves accountable for real. And if we don't do the above, let's lose the funding. That's, you know, this capitalistic work only understands money. So let's keep ourselves accountable in the real world. With that, I want to invite you all. I only show you a part of the hive, and you can go to this link and know them all. It's a lot larger than what I show you, thanks to the huge amount of work that Lorel and Julian put there. And now, when you think about the questions that you have about these topics, I want to invite here with me, this is going to become a mini-panel, and I would like you to join me to welcome with a really warm, and all the screams come now, okay? Not before. Please join me to welcome Dr. José Luis Vilca Villegas from Connectorial. Please, Jose Luis. Dr. Tania Hernandez from IOI. Dr. Sabrina Lopez from RFI. Dr. Jessica Formoso from Our Lady's Buenos Aires and Meta docencia. Dr. Malvika Sharan from The Turing Way and OLS. And last, but not at all least, Dr. Kate Herwood from the Open Science Team at ZZI. Yeah, okay. This is starting to look a little bit like the obelisk when they work up. I think you watched that video. So, okay, so probably, right? So while you keep organizing your thoughts and questions, I have one for them. That is, if you had a magic wand that could grant you anything for your project, organization, community, what thing would you do? Would you, what wish would you ask that magic wand? And why? And who would like to start with that one? Go ahead. Kate, please. Thank you. I represent, oh, take mine. Gracias. If I had a magic wand for my community, which is very diverse, globally distributed, includes people like those you see here, a lot of open source developers, people who are in technology, people who work with people, I would want for them the time and the space to really talk with each other and learn more about how they might be able to interact. This is a cheater answer because we also know that time and space require money. They require the ability of people to meet together. But I think ultimately it's that communication that's really necessary to help people understand how they might be able to interact. And I think that what Laura has been discussing today is creating that space for people to be able to do that. So in fact, you have brought the magic wand. Thank you, Kate. Who wants to go next here? Somebody. I just saw you move your hand. So go ahead. Yeah, you don't have a lot of time to be too polite here. Well, I'm here representing our fight. That is a community that is just starting. And we always need more funding, obviously. And we want to have the opportunity for more calls for funding. They're truly centered in the global south because it's not easy to apply to these. As Laura said, for example, speaking English or writing English is a privilege in our region. So we want truly calls that, how do you say? Say it in Spanish. Consider it. That consider. That consider. Communication issues, not just the language because we can afford that in some way. But for example, the calendar, the seasons, maybe the application is in the middle of our holidays, summer vacations. And that is really, really hard. So that's the whole community desire. Great, Savry. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, for me, it will be the same that Kate. And in Best in Open, we truly believe in collaborations, but always the constraint of time. We don't have the space. And also, there are not that many incentives to collaborate with other organizations because funders assign the resources to only one organization. So probably I would say that change kind of grant making is being made to advance more collaborations and also recognize that those collaborations need to have local representation. If we are talking about Latin America, grant makers need to be sure that there is a local organization or collective making that effort. Thank you, Tanya. Maybe we can all ask together nicely. Jesse. Hi, I'm representing our Ladies Buenos Aires. Our Ladies Buenos Aires, we have right now 10 organizers, so I'm talking on behalf of them. And I kind of asked in advance what they wanted to say. And the first thing that came to mind was we want more than 24 hours in the day to get things done. Who's going to pay for that? Yeah. So finally, we agreed that that was kind of hard. But maybe at some point, if the work was, even though volunteered, it was also paid, that wouldn't mean that we could maybe dedicate more quality time to these activities. Also, in Argentina, like in many other countries, women are still in charge of the care and paid work. And it takes a lot of time in our day. So I think that in line with what Laura said before, volunteer work, it's beautiful and sometimes very, very hard if there's no money behind it. Maybe you could all ask our friends in Posit. They may have some few dollars to send us to the cloud. I don't know, just an idea here. Maybe there's some friends that could reach out to them. Malvika, thank you. First of all, I feel so emotional for the inclusive leadership that Laura is providing. And I think when individuals feel valued, there's a lot people can do. And that's authentically what I really, really care for, to create safe and welcoming space where people can come, connect, identify solutions together, co-build it and benefit from it. And often when I'm asked, what should you ask the funders for, I think about, oh, they are looking for big software, big output, big research stuff. But really genuinely, I think we need to care about process development, which is not the output. Can we invest in that? And I'm just going to extend to, I was going to say, can we pay the volunteer, but not just that, can we actually give them the job that they deserve for the skills that they have? Because volunteer work isn't sustainable. Some of the work these volunteers need, because they're creating solutions that are individually important for them, is someone else doing the, I'm using the word, shitty job of admin work, applying funding for them, advocating for them, talking for them, giving them spaces, helping them in the background, make great talks. I feel like we need to just create and diversify positions and pay for the process development. Thank you so much, Malvika. And yeah, totally jobs, of course. I mean, I was criticized in volunteer works, but I'm not saying it should be jobs for real, because all of these volunteers have PhDs, boss dogs, early career researchers, mid-career researchers. I mean, this is huge talent from the region. It's not like some 15-year-old cleaning false eyes in the museum. It's like really highly formed folks that you have.  Okay, I think it's your turn, Jose Luis, and if you want to go in Spanish, I'll do my best. I'm not a professional translator, but if you want to go in English, go ahead, and whatever you want. Well, I am part of Connectoria. We want to create inclusive leadership in good editorial practice in Latin America, in, well, in Korea, and well, it's our dream to create a network with other editors and potential editors in different areas of science. It's the part of a dream to include more people in, well, in speaking with... Yeah, that's your wish? Yeah, that's my wish. Okay, and awesome. And we really need that in Latin America, because we are, you know... Well, other dreams, we want to collaborate with data science, PECAPE, a public knowledge project, because this organization developed a software that we use, AI use, so often journal system. It's a good software to publish research. Awesome, thank you very much. So that was the question I had for them, but what questions do you have? You had plenty of time to think now, so please. Yes, please. Let me... Hi, thank you for all the insights. One thing I'd like you to talk more about is work relations on those... I'm a software developer, and I'm super privileged, not only by my origin, but also by my job, because it's a hype thing. Everyone needs software developers. We get high salaries, a bunch of shitty companies, but if you search enough, you can't find a decent work relation because of all this privilege. And then we... When you look around and you see people who work in nonprofits, in organizations that... Well, they have a mission to fight for social justice. They have all these beautiful things they're aiming for, but when you look at the people working there, they're getting poor salaries, terrible work hours, no internal democracy, and all sorts of things that you expect from a big company. When you just go work in McDonald's or whatever, you expect this kind of work relation, but when you're working for an organization that supposedly has a mission of making the world better, they should probably start with their workers, right? That's a great question, and I can think of several folks here that could add... I'm like, Jesse could tell us about... Could tell you about the governance building from a title sense, yeah? I think Malvika could tell you a lot about it. I think Tanya can tell you a lot about it, right? I mean, who wants to crack at it? Well, Laura just mentioned we, in Metalsensia, we build governance as a community. I'm only a part of Metalsensia since 2022, and through the process of creating it, I was part of it, and my opinion was valued as well at the same level as everybody else's, and we decided together what kind of structure we wanted, how the decisions would be made, how the people responsible in the coordinating areas would be held accountable if there was something that they weren't doing according to what we thought of together. So I think that way of organizing governance guarantees that the people that it's involved in every level of the organization will be... It's a good relationship with everybody. It's taking care, it's a safe space, and I love it. This one, I have to give shout out to Danielle because we were talking literally about this in the morning, how open sense work is advocacy work, and how it kind of expects... People are expected to work in bad hours and fight for it because they are passionate, and it's very hard to then draw the boundary where does my work stop and me as an individual exist? And I feel like applying feminist lens to the work that we do, recognizing the care work as actually important professional work, accounting for that in terms of monetary... I mean, not everything can be paid, but I think we need to start valuing care work as very expensive work and not free work. And slipping that dynamic at the leadership is very important because if your leader can demonstrate that they are doing the right thing, their employees are more motivated to do it.  I think, and I know it's hard, but really, if you are going to inspire a younger generation of leaders and you're really showing them a bad leadership, you are building a bad narrative for open sense leadership overall. So the responsibility should be on the leaders. Internal advocacy, if your leaders are bad. Yeah, at the IOI, recently, we did our research on labor arrangements. And other than the volunteer work that Laura mentioned extensively, we also found a lot of disparities in terms of multi-year contracts versus one-month contracts. So even though when we are talking about page job, there are a lot of complexities on that. Also, there is a new trend that employees are getting paid based on the country where they are based, which is really, I mean, there can be pros and cons, but the thing is that people are getting different base doing the same job. So that's also another thing that should be accounted for. Okay, I hope that covers a little bit. And how these communities are... I'm not saying this is done all over. I mean, this is how these vasting communities of Align Value communities is trying to do things. And I admit that essentially we were able to do that because we had the sustain of open science teams. The grant from CCI. You are too complex folks for us. I'm sorry, but yeah, I know it's not your fault. But you're representing the thing here. You said so. Okay, I love you, Kate. Okay, so you need money to get that. It took us several months, a ton of meetings. It's all recorded. It's all documented. And then we tried to share how we did it. And we graded the mission, the vision, the values. How we behave every day according to those values. And every three months we talk to each other. We are a 15-person team. We talk to each other, evaluate how we are doing. And if there's something to correct. So we are trying to build a good culture with what we have. And I forgot to mention that both Sabrina and Jose Luis in their videos mentioned mental health. I don't know if you noticed. But well, in Latin America, we work with really few resources. And we work very, very hard. Maybe the results are not there and communicated properly because we don't have the resources to communicate them. But we really do a ton of work that doesn't get seen. So mental health is more important. Taking care of mental health is more important than ever. So we are trying to build this healthy hive, taking all of those into account. It's working so far. We are keeping fingers crossed. This is not easy at all. We live in a world that goes against all of these values. But I know this is a wonderful community that aligns. I mean, this conference, it's my first time at it. But I know that a lot of you align with these values and support them. So this is an invitation. And if the recommendations I gave you are still very general and you don't know how to implement them back home or in your projects, I'm available to give you more specifics. So reach out anytime. And with that, I think we're going to be closing because I know we have a couple of more minutes. But who, I mean, you all can use a couple of more minutes to go lunch. Thank you very much. Wait, wait, please. Metadocencia team in the room, join me here because this club is for you too. Come on, all here.  The high thing, it was all her idea. I am not that creative. Okay, thank you very much.


Well, hello, this is Guy Page, publisher of Amont State House Headliners, back for our third show. Welcome back. Today, I thought I'd take a special look at what the House Judiciary Committee is doing regarding drug reform laws. And by drugs, I mean illegal drugs, narcotics, sales of illegal drugs. There is a definite trend of bills that are introduced by Judiciary Committee members into the House Judiciary Committee that seem to have a lot in common. And we will go over those in detail today. The highlight here is there are bills that would expunge criminal records for marijuana and hashish possession, decriminalize possession for up to two ounces of marijuana, limit judicial forfeiture of assets.  This would limit that. Another bill would reduce hard drug possession from felony to a misdemeanor. And yet another bill would legalize safe spots for drug use. Now understand, I'm not necessarily saying that these are good or bad, but these are all new bills that have been introduced recently into the Vermont House that I think people are interested in. So I'm telling you about it. If you want to receive Vermont State House Headliners directly, our column that comes out almost every day now, you can email Page Communications for VT at gmail.com. That's Page Communications for the number 4, VT at gmail.com. So back to our drug reform bills. Several bills introduced by members of House Judiciary Committee seek to push back the current legal boundaries on marijuana and heavier drugs. For example, H-251, and you can get a good look at exactly what H-251 says by going to the Vermont Legislature's website, that's www.legislature.vermont.gov, H-251 would expunge misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions imposed prior to legalization last year. We all know that possession of marijuana in a small amount, one ounce or less, became legal July 1 of last year. What this bill would do is if you were convicted of a marijuana possession before then, this would expunge that record. It just wouldn't show up anymore, it would be eliminated. It also would decriminalize possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana or 10 grams of hashish. So that's twice as much marijuana as was legalized last year in the legalization bill, twice as much would be decriminalized. It's not exactly legalization. Decriminalization is like getting a parking ticket or speeding ticket. It's a civil fine. So it doesn't go on your criminal record, but on the other hand it's not a completely legal activity either. So this would be decriminalized possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana or 10 grams of hashish. The sponsors for this bill, H-251, are Maxine Grad, chairman of House Judiciary, Celine Colburn, and Barbara Rachelson of House Judiciary, two Burlington members, and also Sam Young of Glover, who is the lead sponsor for the house's tax and regulate retail sale of marijuana bill. So as I said, right now it's legal to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana. This would double that, at least to make it a decriminalized amount. Two ounces of marijuana is enough marijuana, I am told, for about 120 joints. Depends on the strength of the marijuana, of course. But figure about 120 joints for 2 ounces of marijuana. Now, one of the arguments for legalizing possession of marijuana is that, well, they're already selling it. Why not just completely legalize it? And that way maybe it'll help get rid of the black market. What seems to have happened after, since the bill was passed and went into effect of July 1 of last year, is that in our larger towns and cities, anyway, the black market seems to have picked up. I've heard this at various forums. And for example, there is the owner of the Good Times Gallery. That's right across Church Street from City Hall. Literally in the shadow of Burlington City Hall. The owner was arrested for the sale of marijuana on a federal charge. And I've read in seven days that the sales involved edibles, which is a highly concentrated forum, can be a highly concentrated forum of marijuana. And there are teenagers there as well. So apparently to some degree what's happening is that the legal pot, grown legally or possessed legally, is emboldening the sale. The illegal sale of marijuana, which has TJ Donovan, our attorney general. And others saying, well, I guess we might as well just go for full tax and regulate, retail sale, open up the stores and cultivate in Vermont. Might as well do that because obviously something's not working. Again, that's being done in Colorado and other states. And there in those states, the black market is thriving. The idea that you can legalize your way out of the black market just doesn't seem to work in the real world. So another bill, H-250, that is a tax and regulate marijuana bill is in house judiciary. And that's exactly like the bill that is running its way through the Senate right now. And in fact, I think today, as we speak, is February 19th. And I believe it was approved in the Senate today. And the only difference between the Senate tax and regulate bill and the House tax and regulate bill is that the Senate bill doesn't collect as much taxes. Collects about 10%. The House bill would collect about 20%. And why this is important is that Governor Scott has said that, look, if we're going to have a tax and regulate marijuana, retail scheme the way Colorado and other places do, we need to get the money from this to set up the whole regulatory infrastructure, which will cost millions of dollars to get a state lab going and to have education and prevention for our youth and more public safety on the highways, all of which costs a ton of money. In fact, the state tax commissioner estimated it will take at least a 26% tax on marijuana to raise this money. Just to pay for these expenses, no one anymore is talking about, we're going to help pave the roads and teach our kids with marijuana money. Because the only question is, will they be able to raise enough money with legal retail tax and regulate just to cover the costs of legalization? And the Senate bill says 10%, the House bill says 20%. But the administration and their tax people said we need at least 26%. So already, the two bills that are in play right now would apparently not cover the costs of tax and regulate marijuana, the education, prevention, public safety, and regulatory costs. So, moving on to some other bills out of the marijuana realm and into the realm of harder drugs. There is a bill, H102, which would legalize so called safe drug consumption programs. That would be like safe spaces to shoot up, needle exchanges. This would not only legalize these but would limit criminal liability or civil forfeiture for the users, for the staff, and for the organizers of these programs. Would protect them from the government coming in saying, well, that's a legal activity and we're going to arrest you and seize your assets. This would be so that drug users would have a safe space to come and shoot up, get new needles. Presumably not reusing the same dirty ones. Get advice on treatment, receive assistance in case of an overdose. The idea is that they're going to do this anyway and so want to do it in as safe a way as possible and leave open possibilities for treatment and for getting off the drugs. That's the benefit of it. The critics of it say that it really just in a way sort of legalizes and enables the practice as well, that it shouldn't be, should not be making it easier. I'm not expressing an opinion one way or the other, but I'm just saying that this bill would definitely legalize that, set it up, make it doable. Also, this one, this one's interesting, folks. Each 151 would limit the forfeiture of assets of accused criminals. Organized crime criminals, including drug dealers, by eliminating judicial forfeiture in the case of plea bargains. So judges could only seize the property of a convicted person, if the alleged perpetrator not always but often a drug dealer is convicted of the underlying offense. But if the accused criminal cops to a lesser plea, there could be no forfeiture. So you have a situation where you have someone who's arrested for being a drug dealer and he's got maybe a nice home, he's got a nice boat, he's got a car, his ill-gotten gains as it were. And the prosecutor has got a good case against him, but they know that, boy, if they just plead to a somewhat reduced charge, they know he's going to plead guilty. And they won't have to go through the time and expense and the possibility that maybe the jury sides with them. It's an easier thing to do, let's just plea this out. Well, if you plead out, no forfeiture of assets. This law says, can't do that. So makes the police and the judges work harder and, in a way, kind of protects the assets of the convicted drug criminal. The other thing about this is a lot of people know that what happens to these assets once they're seized? Well, a lot of the benefits of that, the proceeds go to law enforcement. They go back to our police and our prosecutors and our law enforcement system that is doing their best to limit and stop drug crime. And they take these proceeds and sometimes they actually use the vehicles themselves, sometimes they sell them and taxpayer burden is greatly relieved. Because the drug dealer no longer has his ill-gotten gains, his or her ill-gotten gains. And instead, that's been converted to the benefit of law enforcement of keeping people safe. Well, this law, this bill, H-151 would say, no more of that. The police don't get these assets anymore. In fact, the assets would go, they go to us. They go to the General Fund, the State of Vermont General Fund, which is overseen by the Vermont legislature. So a lot of the bills and aimed at reducing drug crimes, they say, look, we're just trying to help these poor addicts who are caught in this. And we're trying to help them not just send them away to jail, but help them get treatment. Maybe have them approach police and the authorities without a threat of being arrested quite so much and actually looking for help. This bill would really seem more to be aimed at just no other way I can really see this, except that a drug dealer could plea to a lesser charge and not have his car, boat, house seized. It seems to benefit the bigger fish. So I'd like to know more about that, and I think maybe Vermonters would too. So another bill, H-103, would restructure drug possession laws to make possession of marijuana, cocaine, LSD, and other illegal drugs a misdemeanor and possession with intent to sell as a felony. So right now, possession of these hard drugs is a felony. This bill would say, nope, not a felony, because as I mentioned before, there's a real feeling that if you remove the barrier of the felony that the drug user is more likely to seek help from the system, from police, from whomever, rather than hiding and suffering in the shadows. And I guess, I don't know. It'd be interesting to see how that does play out. There's another angle here, though, is that the backers of turning these felonies into misdemeanors also for several years have been promoting the idea of not just misdemeanors, but decriminalization of possession of all hard drugs. A couple years ago, the same supporters who were backing H-103 in a house judiciary meeting a couple weeks ago, a couple years ago, they were in house judiciary talking about how great it is that Portugal, for example, has completely decriminalized its hard drug laws. So there's a lot of concern whenever you're talking about drug reform of the slippery slope. We saw it with marijuana. It went from being a crime to medical marijuana, to decriminalization, to simple possession. And now this year, possibly to selling it on in stores. And there are people who do wonder if the same thing may be happening with hard drugs. That moving from a felony to a misdemeanor in this bill and perhaps eventually to decriminalization and who knows maybe complete legalization. There's another bill along those lines. H-182 would transition our correction system to mental health rehab clinics, which in a way sort of makes sense that if you are going to completely legalize or decriminalize drug use and if a lot of our criminals are in having to do the drug trade, either possession or sales or whatever. If that's why they're in jail, then if you're going to stop looking at this as a crime and more as an addiction that needs to be treated, it's a mental health problem that they need help with, then it does sort of make sense to transition your correction system to a mental health facility. Of course, there are many other crimes and I think known as saying that you're going to just completely get rid of jails and open mental health clinics, but I think they're moving in that trend and that may be one reason why is that the whole emphasis on treating drugs as a crime may be changing and therefore your correction system needs to change too. And there's a sort of an ironic ending to this, I think. I was in the state house this morning and a senator was walking down the stairs and she knew that I'd been very active in stopping smoking in the workplace, for example, years ago, smoking in the workplace loss and she looks at me and says, hey, we're working together again. I said, really, what are you talking about? She said, well, we're working on getting the smoking age, tobacco, smoking age raised from 18 to 21, which I'm not saying right or wrong on that, but I do know the rationale that they give is that brains of 18 to 21 year olds are still developing, that judgment is still in process and a lot of young people start smoking, tobacco between the age of 18 and 21. Therefore, let's just make the sale of it illegal because maybe they'll smoke it less. But the same thinking does not seem to apply quite as well with marijuana and other drugs and in one case they're making the law tougher because they want to discourage it with tobacco, but that doesn't quite seem to be playing out with the marijuana and maybe even other drugs as well. So that's the latest I have for you. These are some of the bills that are in the Judiciary Committee. Doesn't mean that they're all going to get passed. Doesn't really mean that any of them will be passed into law. That's what the committee hearings are for. That's what the votes on the floor of the house and the senator for and then the governor finally has to decide whether he wants to veto something or sign it or just let it pass into law. There's a lot that has to happen between now and then. But it all starts with a bill being introduced and certainly the tenor of the bills that have been introduced about drug use are going towards making it less of a crime, making it more legal. And we'll see where it goes. This is Guy Page from Statehouse Headliners. Thank you for listening. Thank you.


With Hogwarts a legacy, there is so much on offer within this game, it's unreal. Another exciting feature is the room of requirement. This is basically your own area within a game which you can customise, craft and create and even collect and look after beasts. Yes, sounds cool right? Well today I will explain all. How's it going guys? My name is DPJ and if you do enjoy the video, leaving a like really helps out and if you like what you see and want to see more, be sure to subscribe. So this game is full of surprises. The room of requirement is another one which is just absolutely amazing. So the room of requirement is your home within Hogwarts, your own personal space which you can heavily customise. You can literally guys make this place your own. Firstly, a little more honest place as it's your own within Hogwarts, it's going to be a place where you spend a lot of time. So it's that no doubt why we can customise it so heavily. But besides actually customising the area guys, this is where you will upgrade and create for your character in regards to potions and tools for the battle, gear pieces and much, much more. These I believe are all crafted and brewed within the room of requirement. So to start here guys we are seeing the ability to change the entire ceiling within this area. But it doesn't end there, you can change, add, remove, edit most objects within this room to furniture, chairs, workbenches, wall ornaments and much, much more. You can truly make this place your own. Now back to the main purpose of this area, which is indeed customising crafting and upgrading your player. Okay so firstly we are seeing here the enchanted loom. Now this will be a feature which you will unlock in which you can upgrade your mobile gear by adding many different buffs to said gear. Now I will have a video talking about upgrading in depth which will be a part of my Hogwarts playlist so you can check it out and many other videos on the game. But to simplify it, the loom allows you to apply upgrades, traits and other things to perfect your wizard or witch in regards to the spells you want to use. So if you want to go down a certain route of sorcery, do a certain trait you can apply to certain gear or to your gear which will help you along the way. Now you can they say look how you want to look meaning if you find an amazing piece which you just want to wear that's fine. The loom allows you to do just that which is sort of like a transmog system I guess but I'm not sure it works that way. But you can apply traits and upgrades to gear which allows you to do this which is cool. Also within this room is the identification station. Now as you play this game you will find gear which you will need to identify to see what it offers and what's possible with it. This is where you ring it guys you bring it to the identification station. Now another part of this room is the part in table which you can customize as well, change the look of, change the color of and so much more. What these are used for is basically to grow things to use within your tools your potions to help you in that battle. Again in depth look at this will be a part of that upgrading video. We also guys here have a potion station where you can brew those potions. These again are used in battle via that tool tab. Let's know that guys going to be other stations here which can basically earn an unlock which help you along the way in regards to brewing said potions. Another amazing part of the room requirement guys is the beast care section which consists guys of you basically taming wild beasts you will find out in the open world world via dens etc etc and you'll be able to bring them back here keep them and lock after them. In doing this guys it means you'll have to care for these beasts here and that means you'll have to feed them too. Now what are the benefits you are wondering well certain potions or even gear which we've spoke about just will require certain materials. So whether that's a item you're crafting a potion you're brewing materials will be needed and certain materials guys you will receive from these beasts once they have become accustomed to you via you raising them good and treating them right. Now another thing about the beast care area yes you can customise it a lot like inside the room requirement and in objects to the area to make it look better or even once you unlock them via playing and leveling up you can add things like beast feeders which allows for the beast within the area to feed automatically so you don't have to do it manually which is cool and you can even purchase toy boxes so you can play with these beasts but it doesn't end there you can also name these beasts at the same time so they are truly your in-game pets and as you play guys this area will only expand and your options to customise it here get bigger and bigger so yes people that's basically the room of requirement you're home within Hogwarts and what you can do here this is your goal to place to craft build brew and so much more and there we have it guys guys if you enjoyed the video leaving a like really helps out if you like what you see and want to see more be sure to subscribe and hopefully guys i will see you on that next one