 Welcome back, it's time for Off the Press and I have my guest Jida Johnson, Chief Lecturer at Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lake of State joining us. Good morning Mr. Jida Johnson. Good morning, it's a pleasure to be with you and good day to have you give us all about the world. Yes, it's always a pleasure to have you. So I'll just take all the headlines and then we'll begin to dissect them one after the other. We'll start with the Punch newspaper. The Punch newspaper leads with DMO worries over low revenue as Nigeria's debt nears 81 trillion Naira. Right as there, FG's 10 trillion Naira revenue can't support fresh borrowing, that's according to DMO. Government to issue promissory note as judgment debt nears 3 trillion Naira. As the lead headline on the Punch newspaper. And then you have Paris summit, subsidy removal, FX policy needed for survival says to Nubu. In front of the Punch newspaper there, you can see the president with the president Emmanuel Macron of France and his wife. There he went for a summit in France and that picture was taken. Of the must head on the Punch newspaper, FG states LG's share 786 billion Naira May revenue. Details of that is on page 24 of the Punch newspaper, labor discos on collision course over electricity tariff hike. Details of that is on page two. And then terrorism planning attacks on religious fund centers, DSS ones. Details of that on page 28 of the Punch newspaper. All right, that's the much I'll be taking from the Punch newspaper. I move over to the next, which is business day newspaper. Business day newspaper leads with petrol marketers, regulator, see merger as competition begins. Petrol marketers, regulator, see mergers as competition begins. And then on top of that you have FMCG firms profit margin drops to 10 year low. MTN demands board meeting over ripped with IHS. And there is an explainer there from business day. How Nigeria can curb crude oil theft. We move from business day newspaper to nature news. Nature news leads with Macron summit, world leaders seek debt solutions and innovative funding for climate action. There again you see the picture of President Nubu with President Macron of France and his wife looking very excited and laughing as a happy picture. You have UDE unveil agricultural development scheme in Eboni state to boost food security. Lobster said to acquire talented forward from DOMA United, buyer and energy green FG to produce bioethanol fuel from cassava. We have talked about this some years back, I wonder what happened to it, we are going back to it, FG to produce bioethanol from cassava. And then we go to the Guardian newspaper. You have flood of fury, no respite for Bielsa, Kogi, rivers, 30 others ahead of another cloud burst. It is a big story of the Guardian newspaper and details of that can be found on pages four and five of the Guardian newspaper. And going down from that you have again NNPC fails to remit as federation shares 786 billion Naira for May. Again NNPC fails to remit as federation shares 786 billion Naira for May. It is no longer business as usual in Nigeria to Nubu rally's investors. Missing Titanic suffered catastrophic implosion passengers dead. As a very sad news, they have been searching for this submarine for days and finally this outcome, very sad outcome among the passengers were a father and his son. So that is a very tragic, very tragic incident there. Forensic expert claims INEC deleted results on Beaver's machine. All right, details of that on page three. Forensic expert claims INEC deleted results on Beaver's machine. That's coming from the tribunal, the court. And then going down you have 20% doctors, 33% nurses diagnosed inaccurately, federal government hints. That I think is the most alarming news of all the news this morning. And details of that is on page seven, 20% of doctors, 33% of nurses diagnosed inaccurately, federal government hints. And then finally NLC caution government against increasing electricity tariff. All right, so it's time for me to discuss with my analyst, Mr. Jeter Johnson, Chief Lecturer at Nigerian Institute of Journalism. Good morning again to you, Mr. Johnson. You listened to the headlines there, but I think we should start with this piece of news from the Guardian newspaper, 20% of doctors, 33% of nurses diagnosed inaccurately. And that's coming from the federal government. No, that should not be shocking to anybody because the major cost, the major cost is of death, is wrong diagnosis globally. Even in the 2020 coronavirus, the global pandemic, you've seen different reports coming out talking about the efficacy or non-efficacy of the vaccines that we were made to take and then the side effect, the eating side effect of the vaccine. So when federal government came with this report of wrong diagnosis, wrong diagnosis is the major cause of death in the medical industry. When a doctor makes a mistake, the mistake or nurses, when they make mistakes, their mistakes are the grief and you can't go to the grief and go and ask someone in the grief to come and explain what was the major reason of his or her death. And besides that, doctors always also cover for themselves. It's an industry now for them to cover for themselves. I can see for a fact because I almost practically lived in the hospital for about two years between 2017 and 2019 and I witnessed first hand and I came back from the hospital because my wife was admitted then and then when she was running through treatment for cancer of the blood. So I knew what happened. I came out and I told people that if I ask a journalist, I say to you now a journalist, if I write what I experienced first hand, I'll set you on fire of what really happened of how lack of attention to titties, carelessness in human treatment, the desire to make money and exploit the family of the patient, all of that too, went with that government. We hear the report, you will not see anything come out of such reports. So it's not surprising to me because first hand I have seen it and I've seen it. I've seen medical personnel accusing one another while you are working with that, you know, you've killed that person. You've killed that person. It was out of your mistake. And the person cannot come back. The person cannot come back. When you say worldwide, when you say globally, you're saying it's not peculiar to Nigeria? It's not peculiar to Nigeria, however, if out of your negligence, something of that nature happens and it is discovered, there are consequences. The challenge we have in Nigeria is that there are no consequences for bad action, there are no consequences for negligence, there are no consequences for decision rather. The consequences for bad decision and bad action is a reward system, it's elevation and you've seen it left, right and center in a national light, where you look at the story where the debt management office is saying that as a result of low revenue, Nigeria can no longer service, can no longer take loan to service the budget. The question you need to ask is what was the debt management office responsible for in the first instance? How many flags did they raise in the last eight years when the Barrier administration was busy collecting loans, left, right and center, how many flags did they raise? We put people in position of authority to be the deities and the heirs of people, to ensure that there is due diligence and compliance with laid down rules and procedures so that there are no abuses of office and privileges. But what do you have for it? So when you have abuses in the medical industry, it leads to debt. Now you could rather be remedied for abuses of an engineer probably at a default or sometimes equally to debt. Let's talk about the collapse of building that we have seen. The collapse of building we witness in Lagos in 2019, in 2020, 2021, 2022, you know in 2022 was left, right and center, the collapse of, what have you heard of it? So this one, just like the building that collapsed in Nekui and various buildings that collapsed everywhere, you will just see the stories will be flagged, nothing, there will be no consequences. Now the government is going ahead to destroy structures in Alaba and the rest of them. I ask the question, who are those that give approvals for such buildings? Who are the engineers? There are engineers that are struggling in the buildings, there is an engineer for that environment, there is a superior for that environment, there are people that the public have entrusted with responsibility for the safety of lives and property within the state and the state pays them adequately. Now what happened to licenses of such people? What happens to them? Business might be shocked that the engineer in that environment will be elevated, will be promoted because he needs somebody somewhere. So the bottom line is that we reward failure, people don't pay consequences for the action. In other climes, such engineers, what happened to such engineers? Such engineers will lose their licenses of practice, they will lose their licenses of practice. But that same engineer, that same structural builder and the rest of them, you still see them building and what they contract to build buildings across the length and breadth of the country. So the bottom line is to hold people accountable, holding people accountable. If you are given a responsibility, you must take actions to, the world responsibility is the ability to respond, to respond to issues. So the opposite of responsibility, is irresponsibility. Now when somebody is irresponsible, given an assignment by the state, if you face the consequence of is irresponsibility. So just yesterday, I learned that a governor in one of the northern states visited one of the hospitals, one of the government hospitals, unannounced, unshadowed. And he found that there has not been electricity in that hospital for the past nine months. They were working with touch lights. And that's just one of many. Yeah, you can imagine that happening. You can imagine that happening. The nurses were seated outside, the doctors were seated outside because of fear of being bitten by mosquitoes. You know how it gets worse when there is no power to chase away the mosquitoes with fan and AC. And that's been the clinician for nine months, even though there was a governor in that state before he took over. And then one of the things you see is that they would do that for the press, they would do that for PR after it's done that, what comes out of it. So they would be ready for a lot of playbook at the beginning of new administration. When new administration comes in, they do a lot of razz mataz, they do a lot of window dressing and a lot of PR. What we want is decisive action, decisive action with respect to that. Who are those that are responsible to provide light? Who are those responsible to provide light? What is the budgetary allocation for that also with respect to electricity? I'm sure that the money allocated for that purpose is going to private coffers. But nobody will be here accountable with respect to that. Okay, before we leave the Guardian newspaper, again, NNPC fails to remit as Federation chairs 786 billion Naira for the month of May. Now, that's not news, that's the norm. You have state actors, bigger and larger than the state. You have institutions within the state. You begin to question yourself, what is really happening. And I think that we should adopt the NITEL approach. What was used for NITEL, the revolution of that sector, brought about other players in the telco sector. And you recall when the new operators in the telco sectors were scheme. When the first scheme, it was very very expensive. It was very very expensive for you to purchase a sim and for you to even maintain your line, even play a line maintenance fee. However, as competition goes in that industry, what happened? Initially when they came, they said per second being was not possible. But when the kid, when one of the, when a truly looking investor came into it, the whole conversation changed and the whole conversation changed. And the responsibility of government is just to rebuild that business industry. I think that there is a need for us to do it with, to use the Saudi Arabian model, to use the Brazilian model, the Saudi Arabian model, the Aramco and Petronas. The Petronas is Brazil state owned, but there's a lot of them. The investment with a lot of players in it. Aramco is for Saudi Arabia. Why can't we borrow a leave from this country from Venezuela as well? So that we have this yearly NNPC, not remitting money into the federation account. NNPC operating as on its own. I thought that the president will also have dissolved the management of the NNPC because they are the one that manage the issue of first subsidy or no first subsidy for Bari's administration. And then if there is a budgetary allocation for first subsidy until June, in the end of June this year, and then there was no money when the president came in, when he was one in May 29, all of them should have gone. They should have gone. So the one for NNPC, should not shock anybody, should not surprise anybody. What we need to do is for government to totally invest what is happening in NNPC. Allow private regulatory, we need to take government hand out of it. We don't even know the amount of food we pump in a day. Now look at the figures they are giving us. They say we are consuming 67 or 61, 61 or 67 million of Bari's work during the subsidy regime. Now you remove the subsidy regime. All of it is certain. The number of food we consume will reduce considerably. That's what Fela called government merging. You know customs, customs and NNPC have traded words over how much we control on a daily basis during that subsidy regime. You remember, Collette Amedali went to say that we are consuming this amount of food. They said we consume daily. Like we said, the playbook is we will receive it, press statement, we will see actions of government. We will release it in the night. Everybody will digest it in the morning and then two, three days later, another story, we gloss over it, and then we continue. I saw a video of one of these Arab countries that took media, a journalist, into their engine room, so to speak, their system, to show how it was so set up in such a way that one drop of oil, one drop of oil cannot disappear without it reflecting in the system. It was so beautifully done, so seamless. That's against what we have here, where you have oil theft, millions of barrels, that almost on a daily we hear of oil theft, diversion in this country. Our shock system seems to be very, we've grown our shock system as a people in this country, we've learned to absorb these shocking stories that we hear every day from different angles of our economy. But let me ask you, as one musician asked, because you have said, well, that is the way it's going to go, nothing is going to come out of it. Shen and I like this, Iguodidei, and if that is a situation, what hope is there for this country? You see, you said that they brought automation, they brought technology. You saw one non-state actor, I don't want to give you the benefit of mentioning this name. One non-state actor visited the president and he accused the military of being responsible for oil theft and nothing has come out of it. No panel was set up, no investigation, and the rest is story. Two days later, the same, one week later, the same non-actor was brandishing AK-47 threatening some other groups accusing him. So as far as this issue is concerned, as long as you don't bring about, you see, it's exactly as I said for you to do this in the same way and spread a different result. That is the beginning of insanity. What we need to do is for government to take its hand off it, reinvest it, and regulate that particular industry. A private individual was able to establish a refinery, 24 years under a democratic administration. None of the successive administrations, either PDP or APC, succeeded, one in having a term around maintenance of a refinery, two succeeded in building a new refinery. The refineries that were built between 1976 and 1980, what the refineries we still have to do. When you ask yourself this question, what is really wrong with us? But those in public office knew how to purchase new cars, they knew how to purchase new cars, they knew how to build new offices, they can budget money to build religious houses in national assembly, they can budget money to buy them expensive gas, they can even propose to increase their salary by 114 percent, they can also add to the revenue of each they have. But what provides the resources, what provides the needed revenue to run the state, they are like a dacy code about it, they don't think out of it. And I've said it, it's just because the oil is there, if the first criteria that you should use in public service is, if you offer yourself to serve us as an elected official, to be a governor, to be a president, is that how are you going to generate funds? What is your economic blueprint to solve our problem? How are you going to generate funds without putting tax burden on Nigerians? Despite the fact that we make money from this oil and gas sector, and people, we collect a lot of debts. Let's talk about the tax burden on the citizenry, there's a particular story with respect to that, the tax burden, the multiple taxes you pay, you pay income tax, you pay that, you pay consumption tax. Now they are thinking of okay they remove subsidy and then, and now the electricity, the discourse want to increase electricity tariff. How many times did they increase the electricity tariff in the last four years? Let's just talk about the last four years. In the last one years. The number of times, the number of times they've increased the electricity tariff. So you are muscling the people. You took away first subsidy. What are the palliatives? If you are not subsidizing it first, why don't you subsidize agriculture? There's no country that does not have one form of subsidy or the other. There's no country that does not have one form of subsidy or the other. In civilized terms, they have a welfare program for the needy and vulnerable segment of the society. That's a subsidy. That's a subsidy. So they need for government to look inward and look at what they need to do. And then to plug the woes and hold people accountable. And that starts from the head, how the air manages its office. What number of retinue of each does he have? I saw the picture of the senate president living, the visuals rather, of the senate president living. Look at the retinue, retinue of cars in its entourage. And then you are asking the people to make sacrifices. People that are elected, they are not ready to make any sacrifices. I did it. You see? Like let me say, in Luku Palas, Mokidu will work, baboon the job, as they do come. So you see, the more Nigerians see it, the more frustrated they are, the more hopeless they are about the situation. You are nine. If we look at what we have done in terms of analysis in the last eight years, we have become paralysed with those analyses. Because it is the same analysis, it is the same issue. We keep recycling over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. Well, petrol marketers, regulators, sea mergers as competition begins, that's on business day newspaper. Still talking about the sector. That's the welcome development, it's the welcome development. Because a lot of them are feeding fast, and there are some that existed just on their letterhead. They have no office. They have no office. But they have contacts within government. So a lot of... The ones are self-contracts. The ones are self-contracts. Exactly. So what do they do? They just portfolio business. They have a lot of portfolio business without any portfolio with respect to their business. So there's no doubt that in this short, we just hope that the president will see it through, will follow through beyond removal of the subsidy. Then there's the need for us to set a panel to investigate. Where did we get it from? Who are those that have made this country try? If there's any need for them to make a refund, we should get a refund from them. If there's any need for us to recover our asset from them, we should recover our asset from them. The people that have made money from this subsidy regime, they are not ghost. They are human being. You can track them. They gave us all manners. They took us to pay. You remember the pain of one single account? You remember the pain of opening your BVN and the rest of it that... Mr. Jitestan Singh, can you hear us? With respect to putting Nigerian truth, the stress of getting their BVN of opening government having one single treasury account and the rest of it, yet we still see and talk about corruption in high places. Well, until the issues of personnel overhead and capital expenditure properly addressed, Nigeria cannot stop borrowing. I'm taking you back to that headline that you alluded to while you were talking about how the DMO, where were they when the last administration was borrowing endlessly and now they are giving us warnings. You talked about the Senate president, Joseph, and his retinue. Let's go back to that subject on the punch newspaper. DMO worries over low revenue as Nigeria's debt nests 81 trillion Naira. You asked, where were they? Where were they? Can we borrow money to fund a lifestyle? Of course not. Government borrowed money to fund the lifestyles of public official. You can't borrow money. We can't borrow money as citizens and as employees. We can't borrow money to fund a lifestyle. We can't borrow money to buy cars. We can't borrow money to buy expensive cars and a fleet of cars. What did you witness in the last eight years? Even Nigeria was buying cars for Nigeria Republic. Nigeria was building infrastructure into Nigeria Republic and then we lacking infrastructure. Where was the debt management office? Where was the National Assembly? Where are other agencies of government that should hold government accountable? You see, all of this is because there's a new sheriff in town and people want to justify that, oh, okay, well, we are working. We are working. We don't want to be removed. You know, this is the decision of removal at appointment of new ministries, department and agencies of the government. They want to justify and show up. They must have planted this theory to justify that there is an office that existed as debt management office. Look at the amount of money we borrowed. Look at how the National Assembly was just redefined and then they came and deceived Nigerians that were borrowing money for that infrastructure. Because if I don't express within the span of the eight years of the administration and they had a super minister of works, a super minister of quote unquote, that is from the leaders. Yeah, the leaders, if I don't express with the trunk A road, the first trunk A road in Nigeria, they've not been able to complete it. You know, the amount of time, even and natural resources we have lost as the result of travel time on that particular, on that particular, on that particular route. You know how many, the number of lives of people that have been lost as a result of accident through the, through the narrowing of, of, of that space during construction. So it's not surprising to me when you have actors and players that are given responsibility to do and they feel to do that responsibility and they come, they use the platform of the media to project that they are doing something in order for them to be retained in the office. In order to suggest that they are working. Where was DMO when they were just collecting this money left, right and center? Where was DMO when the central bank was busy printing money? Do you remember the governor of Wiedersty warned that the CPM was busy printing money? That Nigeria was not making money. That CPM and they shot him down, he made iiiiii, come on and don't, don't, don't, don't forget that almost 60% if not 70% of those that worked with the last administration, would see P in this judgement, there's no Because majority of them are in the civil service. So majority of them are in the civil service. And at the same time, majority of them are in the political class. The person that headed MPA, that was unsanmoniously removed as the MPA, is now a special advisor. So it's just, it's just, it's just, where you ask me a question, saying that like this is what they did. You don't see this that right now. No, they didn't like it before. Now wow. All right. Because it will soon be out of time for this segment. Let's pick a little arch on Labor Disco's on Collision course over electricity tariff hike. You know, the one for the electricity. Do you have the electricity you show for it? And I've asked myself, have you truly privatized that sector? Even the government is still holding on to the gen codes and the discourse. No doubt about that. Because there are three value chains. The generating company, the transmission company, and the distribution company. The areas we have worked is the distribution, is the distribution company. If you listen to the argument, you see, they will always justify to you that it is what they buy, that they also sell back to the public. So in the idea when the discourse, if you understand the value chain within this industry, when the discourse increases the tariff, is as a result of what they've gotten from the gen codes and the discourse. However, the question we need to ask is that, have we truly privatized that sector? Have we made the immediate and the right investment in that sector? Have we replaced government monopoly with private monopoly? Those are the questions we need to ask with that sector. Because if you look at, if you use the prepared method, now you have removed first subsidy. You have removed, the electricity tariff has been increased over time. Now you are going to put 7.5% on per litre of petroleum products. You are already ready to eat you. And then that 7.5% is on every part of my consumption. And don't, don't, it's just a matter of time when this administration begins to build road, I'm sure they are going to, they are going to put a toll on some of the roads they build. Because if you judge from the experiences in this, because I might be wrong. And then that means that also you are a tax payer, you pay your income taxes. Then you pay your consumption taxes. And then you pay tariff on your electricity. And then you also pay toll on using the road. The question is, what is government giving back to you? That is a good question. I asked the same question when we were told that we should brace up for the increase in electricity tariff because subsidy will be removed from that sector. What sector? Where is Nigeria? Where are Nigerians receiving some sort of subsidy? Just as you have said, every society subsidizes something for the people. We need to see something for Nigerians. Yes, economic reforms are inevitable, but you cannot do in such a way that the citizens themselves begin to feel like life has been taken out of them and they are struggling to breathe. So before we go, let's look at another headline quickly, still on the punch newspaper. And that's from the DSS, a warning from them that terrorists are planning to attack religious centers and foreign centers. What was the essence of the DSS? Who are those terrorists? Who are they? Identify them, prevent it from happening. That's their core responsibility. They call responsibility the warning to attack. The religious sport of action. DSS should not be very active to arrest state officials who are quote-unquote that have run foul of whatever assignment they have given. The swiftness with which DSS moved to arrest public officials and the rest of it, they should use that swiftness to deal with is the state security services system. So direct rate of state security services. So what we secure, the lives and property of Nigerians, they should not heighten the fear what they should do. They should work clandestinely and deal with that particular issue. That's their core function, that's their core responsibility. Who are those that are involved? Those that are involved, they should take 10 steps to address that. And there's this particular story that I think we just need to talk briefly. It's the issue of the forensic expert talking about INEC. Oh, yes. Thanks for taking me there. Thanks for taking me there. The results of the presidential election from the U.S. March. If that is proven, it's just a witness account. If that is proven, I think that there is a need for us to have a conversation in this country whether we want to practice democracy or not, whether we want democracy to survive or not, because if that could happen in 2023, what happens in 2027, what happens in 2030, 3031, these are pure conversations that will not happen for the sustenance of democracy. That's in addition to the fact that a witness had also said that there was no technical glitch on the day of the election. People cannot take the sanctity. The elections is the sanctity of democratic society. Free and fair elections. And people should know whoever is responsible for that, I think there should be consequences and not a reward. There should be consequences for bad behavior. If that happens, it has thrown away the trust and confidence of the people in the democratic process. And anyone that truncates the democratic process, the basic word for it is treason. It's treasonable and felony of events. And we know the consequences for you to engage in treason. If it is proven and it is established by the court that that actually happened. And I think that some people need to go to jail so that we make an example of it so that the people confidence in the democratic process in free and fair elections in which the people themselves on their own freely and willingly elect their representative who they can hold accountable. And whoever is elected through a free and fair process understands that the mandate he gets comes directly from the people and it comes from God. So there is there is a lot of what's public because the voice of the people is the voice of God. If we don't have that then we are working culturally to the plans and purpose of God because I can't imagine this. I've still not been able to recover from the shock that there will be a deliberate attempt to delete such when there are short answers by the electoral body that nothing will tamper with the result. That's if that happens that's manipulation that's altering records. It's a high crime. It's just a high crime and such those that are involved should feel the consequences. Not to talk about the resources the nation devoted for that project. The amount of money we spend every electoral cycle the amount of money. I've said it if we don't and the tenets of democratic society and the principle that guides democracy then they should just share the money to every Nigerian they want to use for the election and then we allow the kings and the Baaleys and the rest of them will go back to Mopunakaika communal style of governance and every four years the money for the election we share it to all Nigerians and then we'll be good. The people will not die if not many people that died during that election have not been consequences for that those that perpetrated Baaleys there have not been consequences for that those that have promoted a speech there have not been consequences consequences for that too what's the essence of doing an election where the integrity of the election is challenged I laughed because according to my people bad thing bad thing they make person laugh bad thing they do funny the petitioners and the defendants they both know the truth it is the judiciary that is on trial so let's wait and see the outcome of all of this and let's also wait and see whether there will be a change in the way Nigeria is being is run because what we've seen over the years is just nothing to write home about Nigerians are crying for help Nigerians are crying for justice and Nigeria is bleeding thank you so much Mr. Jida Johnson it's a pleasure to be with you have a wonderful weekend you too, you too Jida Johnson, Chief Lecturer and Nigerian Institute of Journalism has joined us on half the press to take a look at headlines on some national dailies it is the breakfast Friday flex edition on the Plus TV Africa we'll be back with our very first hot topic in the morning from the DMO saying that no more burrowing but then the question is where were they we'll be back