 Welcome back. It's time for our very first hot topic and we'll be taking a look at Nigeria's dead burden on citizens and we have as our guest Marzi Sam of Hoabunga OFR, founder and former CEO of Nimet Pharmaceutical, 2023 presidential aspirant, is an economist and he's joining us this morning to take a look at this burden that Nigerians are afraid to carry. Good morning Marzi and welcome to the program. Good morning Nigerians. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks be to God. Well Marzi, before yesterday Nigerians have been talking about the borrowings of this government, the huge debts on the economy. But yesterday, Monday, the headline on the Guardian newspaper kind of helped us to break down these burdens to see just how much debt is hanging over the head of every Nigerian. And according to that report, 17,800 was what I was owing, you were owing with regard to the public debt under President Obasan Joe. But today under President Mohammad Ibohari, you are owing, I am owing, 368,421. Not forgetting the Nigerians in the villages and all across the country. First of all, do you think that we should be worried? Or are we just crying wolf, Marzi? Well, I think we are not crying wolf. We should be worried. Because sometimes Nigerians, especially our leaders and public servants, try to casualize with comparative statistics. We use them when they are convenient for us and then we debunk them when they are not convenient. We say this is not America, this is not UK. But then we use those comparisons. Now when it comes to debt to GDP ratio, if we compare the rest of the world at about 35% or so, we show really if we come to GDP to debt ratio. However, the worry is that if you look at GDP to income, debt to income ratio, or debt repayments to income ratio, you become worried. Because today the money Nigeria is making is some hardly enough to pay our debt that is due. Capital and interest repayment is almost equivalent to the entire money we are making from oil, from entire generated revenue and everything. So that is where the fear is because it is not that you have a large population, you have the capacity to produce more, but you are not producing. And when you come pay your debt, you might get to the point. One of the years, I can't remember which year, it was clear that we need to borrow money to pay our debt. We borrow additional borrowing to meet our debt obligation as they found you. So the payment is all the money we make as a nation today. We pay them as debt. So we now borrow at some point, we also borrow to pay recurring expenditure. So that is where the worry is. And I hear Nigerian ministers, minister of finance talk about our problem is revenue. Yes, our problem is revenue, sort out the revenue problem or cut your quotes according to your size. If you must borrow, then borrow on what you can be sure you generate income from immediately. But we are going to pay social welfare, borrow to give money to transfer to poor people. That is not reasonable borrowing. We are taking on necessary risks and not gauging the future of our country. Yeah, this also brings to question what the forces are the root of shaping Nigeria's debt profile could be. Sorry, I said this also brings to question what the forces are the root of these borrowings. The two forces are one, poor revenue collection and irresponsible expenditure. You cannot be spending money like this are going to retain as if money was not a problem. All you are saying is that I need to spend money on this thing. So what do I do? I don't have enough revenue. So what do I do? If I can borrow, print more money from central bank, if central bank is not producing enough, both from foreign banks, you know, this is not the way to do. We agree that this country needs a huge investment in infrastructure, even in social services. But we have advised that government should seek and check what it means it can do with its resources. Which to our opinion is in the area of improving security, improving healthcare and education, the social services. Then we invite the private sector to come and invest in capital development. That way you still achieve infrastructure growth without putting a debt burden. I give an example. We build a rail line. I remember I was a member of the short P when President Jonathan began to build the rail, the standard rail gauge between Kaduna and Abuja. Now that rail line was being built on 70 percent loan from China Export Bank. Nigeria's contribution was 30 percent. So at the end of the of the body, like we have finished it, we are in China. We are going to be paying them both loan and we are going to pay them also the capital repayments and interest. The train stations are not operating. The train line is not running. So everything to the rate of money from the rail line. And here we are paying going to pay the interest and pay the capital. I have suggested why not ask China come and view this road line with your own money. And then we give you 25, 30 years to recover your investment through trawling or through charging fares. At the end of 20, 30 years, the infrastructure becomes Nigeria's. Who cares? Who builds the rail line? What is important is that we get the service. Yes. But rather than do that, we go and take a loan. The loan we don't have, we have not properly dimension our financial and cash flow to be able to meet the loan requirements. So we are just, we're just taking one loan to pay another loan. That's where they see mismatch. Yeah, that is why it is very, yeah. That's why this very crucial question about the forces at the root of this borrowing, because the states are owing, then the federal government is owing. And then you look around, you do not see the benefits of this debt, these loans that are being collected. Inflation has risen. Nigerians are suffering. And what concerns do you have about incoming government? Because here we are, there is the fear about default in the repayment because we can't even service this debt as well. Meaning that the incoming government will not even have enough capital to implement development. But at the state and at the federal levels. Yes, I think it's a big burden we are going to give to the incoming government. And I do hope that they will not be as profligate as this government. This government is profligate. What I mean by profligation is that you are spending above your earning power or the consistent basis for the eight years. It doesn't make sense to me what I think the the incoming government ought to do is to reprioritize. Yeah, everything is going to be done, but we can't do everything at the same time. More so when we are not having enough revenue. So state governments, federal government, reprioritize. That is number one. And then do complete cost saving. I'm not hearing this government do any cost saving. I'm not hearing any rationalization of of parallel and multiplicity of MDAs that have been not recommended. Streamline government, you know, reduce expenditure overhead. Yes. This government, one good thing that this government has done in quote is because they don't know about money. So they found that they have funded more budgets than many people. Their budget performance is better than the past because money is not an issue. There's no restraint. But that is not the best way to run government. You prioritize and then you cut down cost and then seek the creating ways to raise revenue. Raising revenue doesn't mean you need to punish your people or increase taxation on duly. There are many creative ways you can raise revenue. First, increase the tax net. Expand it. Find simple ways to make everybody contribute. Little months, little payments, and they'll participate. Number two, it promotes enterprise development. It is when you have enterprises developing, those enterprises will pay taxes. The employees will pay taxes and therefore you get more money on revenue. You expand opportunity for investment in flow. Let investors, both domestic and foreign, come because when they come with their investment, investments will not create businesses and projects. Businesses and projects will create jobs. Jobs will create wealth and wealth will drive away poverty. So you are increasing your tax net through increasing productivity and investment. You're also helping Nigerians to be employed. So you're meeting this same issue. Instead of taking money and giving it to people that you're not sure who gets it and what purpose it's having, you let people get jobs. And that is making the place investment-friendly. The government should focus on in making their, whether they are states or federal, the environment-friendly. And to do digest three things. First, ensure there's more and more than safety. Two, have stable policy framework. Don't change your policy day and night. And thirdly, introduce incentives. By doing those three, you attract investors domestic and local and foreign. And you can create your economy, create more wealth, create more revenue. It can do more projects. Well, Ma, a while ago we had Chris, who is a member of the Chartered Institute of Abiturators in the UK, who joined us on Off the Press to look at the headlines. And one of the things he suggested is that the constitution be amended to enable states own enough, you know, to boost IGR. Do you share this thought of his? There is enough right now for even local government to regenerate IGR. It's just that we don't have creative or innovative leadership. We don't have a leadership that is driven to increase productivity and income generation. There is enough for local government. We don't need to amend any budget or any constitution. Yeah, constitution, we agree, we need to do more decentralization. We need to give more power to the federal units. That I agree. But I am saying that that is not what is holding us back. There is enough provision in the constitution for the, I live in my village. The road to my house is not graded. It's not clean. Every season I have to run, make it. Otherwise, the place is eaten up by Russia. I am there by time I come back. I do face on myself. One of you, the local government just came and graded that road. And they put, even if it says, man, I graded your road, you should pay this money. All of you living on this street should do this. There's no service. There's no water. There's no electricity. They can put a power, reticulate it and begin to ask people to pay for it. They are doing nothing. The local government are collecting money, share to staff, share their own to political office holders. They go back and wait for the next money to come. Nothing is going on in the local government. At the state level, whether there is rain, there is sunshine, whether there is farming or there is plenty, the moment that comes, say Governor takes his security vote frontline. It doesn't matter whether the salaries are paid or not. And he takes all the money that he needs to take and the money that goes around him to date and he just moved on and be watching us in amusement. Whereas there are too many things states can do today, today, without changing the constitution to be self-sufficient. There is no competition among states to attract investment. They are allowing their even state indigenous to go elsewhere and invest. What will happen if a number of states, even states, other states, all the Southeast states decide to turn their states into investment heavens? The first one that will benefit are the aspirant people living outside the Southeast. They are willing to come home. They come home and come home and the roads are not done. There is no pilliness. The roads are dirty. The environment is dirty. Nobody cares for you. And so when they are moving, they move on with 12 or 30 vehicles in their protection. They don't care about the ordinary citizens. How do they want investment? So it is not constitution only. Constitution will help, but if they continue to behave this way, constitution will not make any difference. Constitutional amendment. Yes, yes. Chris also did allude to the fact that we already have arable land, we have enough crops that this government, the state governors could invest in to boost the economies of their various states, even as they clamored for that constitutional amendment of a sort. We are in a democracy mazzi. These pictures you've painted are quite gory and sad, but they are the reality. That's what we see playing out across most of the states in the country, if not all, except for maybe Lagos and then one or two others. They disconnect between the leaders and the led in spite of all the loans that they've collected. How do we reverse this trend? How do we see a change in this narrative? Because in a few days from now, 13, 14 days, a new government will come in at the federal level and even in some states. How do we begin to see a change? And what can Nigerians do on their own to hold governors accountable? Let me remind you of a time when we had Dr. Angazio Conja Uwela, who publicized allocations to states so that citizens can begin to engage their governors as to how allocations were spent. You're right, Menor. We have responsibility on both sides. In my book, Nigeria Need for the Evolution of a New Nation, I wrote in a chapter the leadership, the fellowship that deserves the leadership, the fellowship that deserves the leadership. If the fellowship is docile, unconcerned, you know, then the leadership will also be docile and unconcerned, but even if the fellowship is demanding for accountability, somehow the first leadership to be more accountable. So it goes that way. But what we believe is that we are looking for leaders who do not need or do pressure to be accountable. We're looking for leaders who have conscience, who fear God, who know that leadership is an opportunity to be of service to serve God and man, and that you're accountable to God, your creator, and also to man, but not to God, even than to man. So that's what we're looking for leaders with conscience. If we can get them, then things will happen better for us. We're looking for leaders who are empathetic, who have the feeling for the suffering of the masses, who share their body, not pretending to show show or shedding prokolite care, who are passed through where they are to and can identify with their issues. That's the kind of leaders we're looking for. And we're hoping that 2023 has offered us an opportunity to enthrone those leadership at both national and subnational level. And I'm hoping that at the national level, we'll have a model of a president who will model how a country can be wrong. And the moment that modeling is properly done, then it is easier for people to look at him, like the state governors to go and leave because they say people behave as their leaders. So we want first and foremost to have these leaders who are concessions, who have shown competence in their past activities, who have shown character that they are good to be trusted, who have shown that they have competence and also that they have vision. Because if you have character, competence, and capability and you have no vision, you just be a good, you've got to be a good follower. If you ask to do a job, you do it well. But to be a leader, you must be visionary. You must point the direction, you must determine the end point. So I'm just really wishing that our leaders as they come on in the next couple of weeks, we'll first start with agreeing on a vision for their states, for the national. In four years, where do we want our country to be? Where do we want our states to be? One, GDP contribution to the economy. Two, per capita income. What will be the per capita income per each individual? Three, what will be our educational ranking in the state or nationally? What will be our healthcare ranking in terms of infant mortality, maternal mortality, life expectance? You know, we'll set those goals because if those goals that will drive us, not just responding to things, when we set these goals, we can determine what kind of resources do we need to achieve these goals. I suggest that we do the planning. First year, second year, third year. They will ask us, we have the resources, we say no, I don't have all of them. So how do we achieve the resources? We'll begin to plan for internal generation. We'll begin to plan if we need to borrow. We'll begin to plan for private public partnership. We'll begin to plan for franchising, for giving up, asking people to come and take certain responsibilities and reach on behalf of government. And government can even pay them a small charge, instead of if we put it in the budget, instead of government trying to do it and doing it in the most inefficient manner. And then when we do this, you can do face payment. Even in the private sector, you don't have to pay everything at once. So by so doing, you reduce the debt burden. Borrowing money to pay 100% for everything or pay part of it is something we might do as a mass resource. Thank you so much, Mazisam O'Hua-Bunga. Such an honor to have you as our guest this morning on the breakfast. Thank you so much for your insight and depth on this matter. Mazisam O'Hua-Bunga, OFR, founder and former CEO of Nimet Pharmaceutical, 2023 presidential aspirin and an economist has been our guest this morning as we consider Nigeria's debt burden on the citizens. Just stay with us. We'll be about to take a look at our second hot topic, which has to do with technology and agriculture.