 As the federal government strives to fuel the coffers of the nation, it begins reform to end 20 trillionaire yearly tax losses. Also on the program, we are going to be looking at how adoption of technology can help businesses in Nigeria navigate inflation. We'll also be lifting from off the press some of the headlines that made it to the front pages of our national dailies. Very good morning to you and thanks for joining us on the breakfast. My name is Nyam Gul Agadje. It's a Thursday morning and whenever we get to Thursday we talk business and we set your mindset on the part of making more money for yourself and improving your business environment for yourself. You don't have to wait for the government to do a lot of things for you. So you think business, you think streams of income, you think of wholesome things that you can do to put food on your table. So today, before we get into our hot topics and the off the press that we're going to be looking at the headlines, we're also looking at some top trending issues. Senators sent money to enjoy a holiday amid rising poverty in Nigeria. I hope you heard that story. The Senate President Gotswil Acquabio confirmed that an undisclosed amount of money had been sent to members of the upper legislative chamber to use to, in his words, enjoy their holiday. Acquabio made the revelation in a video which went viral on Wednesday morning while addressing his colleagues before the adjournment of a motion moved by one of the senators. In the viral video, Acquabio said, in order to enable all of us, and I'm quoting this, in order to enable all of us to enjoy our holidays, a token has been sent to our various accounts by the clerk of the National Assembly. Now this comes amid rising inflation and astronomical rise in prices of food in markets which have subjected Nigerians to deeper poverty, especially since the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinnabullet government. Now before the president directed the review of the palliatives to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians, extremely poor Nigerians, that's how they described them, the households were promised 8,000 Naira monthly for six months while the Senate and House of Representatives plan to spend 40 billion Naira on vehicles for members, at least 107 units of the 2023 Toyota Land Cruiser model and 350 units of the 2023 Toyota Prado model would be procured for federal lawmakers. And you see, this is why it is really difficult to trust the government that has told you to bear it for some time so that things will get better. Because these are lawmakers less than 500 of them buying cars for 40 billion Naira. Now if you take 40 billion Naira out of the about 500 billion that was supposed to be taken for palliatives, that means you have 460 billion. And then there's another 30 billion which will make up the 70 billion which is going to the National Assembly, you take that out so we're left with 430 billion to be shared amongst over 200 million people because like we usually say, now in Nigeria there's no middle class, it's either you're rich and stinkingly rich or you're poor. And if you're talking about people who are less than 500 enjoying their holidays when even the 8000 that was promised to the vulnerable households, the poorest, extremely poor households has not been paid, they have not begun paying that. Even the registrar that was supposed to be used to pay these monies is not trusted by the present administration and so they have jettisoned it and they are going to look for ways of finding out who is qualified for what. And maybe that will take till December after which time maybe there will be less people that will be waiting for this palliative to come up. Now, Gotswila Kwaabiu, the senate president has apologized for that statement that he made that they were going to enjoy themselves. But apology doesn't mean that the money is no longer going to the National Assembly members. So whatever money has been sent by whoever has sent that money that the clock of the House paid into their various accounts for them to go and enjoy themselves. Now for a federal lawmaker to call it enjoyment, you know it's not something of one million because a flight to London, UK now is about 1.5 million Naira, so traveling alone to the UK to go and enjoy yourself will take more than a million Naira already. So where will you lodge? What will constitute the enjoyment? What are the sites that you're going to see and all that? So we're looking at millions going into the coffers of each and every one of them while people are still suffering. Some of these things, even if they happen, it's just best for them to happen under the bridge so that we don't get to see them. Now yesterday I saw a clip where the senate president was also talking to some people that visited the National Assembly, okay he was talking to Libo I think precisely and he was saying that all this money, it is the press that is wicked, they are mischievous and interpreting the 70 billion as coming to the law makers to enjoy themselves. That they cannot do their oversight functions using kekena pep. Those are the words that the senate president said are used and I'm wondering is there any of them without a car? Is there a special car that needs to be used to do special oversight functions? If a lawmaker from Lagos is coming back to do oversight functions here in Lagos from Abuja or is going to another place, another state to do the oversight functions that they are talking about, will they take that vehicles, will they drive the vehicles to where they are going to do the oversight functions? When they get there are they going to be without cars or is it because they just want to buy bulletproof cars to prevent them from or protect them from the masses who are hungry and hungry? Is that the question that we should be asking? So while we say okay we applaud you, you are trying your best, you want to give us laws in Nigeria, you want to make the lives of Nigerians better. But Nigerians are seeing that you are not waiting for things to get better before you begin to enjoy. A good leader is in the trenches with his people, a good commander is in the trenches with his army. So why are you in the office and sending orders to die? That's what it is right now, I'm just using that as an example. So if the people are hungry and the national assembly people are saying they cannot do oversight functions with Keketna pep, I don't know what it is. And so Nigerians are asking if law makers are being paid, if law makers are given allowances even including hardship allowance, so all these monies that they give them extra is for what? If you're paying me a salary and then you're giving me money for clothes separately, you're giving me money to rent a house which I already have a personal one anyway separately, you're giving me money for newspapers which I don't buy because all of them have tablets, all of them have the latest phones and all that, I'm not sure they buy newspapers anymore but newspaper allowance is still there. And then the senate president said something yesterday that really baffled me, I don't know if that clip was from yesterday or the day before yesterday but he was meeting with Labour, I think it was on Tuesday and he said that when it is four years what they do is they sell out those things that they use and when they came into office the tent assembly came into office there were no tools to work with, no seats to use and no computers. It's computers that really caught my attention, if the seats have gone bad well let's say they have gone bad but by the way if they go bad they are the same people who buy these seats, who buy these cars, who buy all these things that they say are not good enough but they can use it for themselves, they cannot use it for their official duties, okay that is understandable. What computers, if you don't have computers in your office what do you use? No continuity, nothing, every set comes in and buys new computers, so what you take from the previous administration is just maybe a hard drive and put in a new computer, is that what you do? So you buy a Mac computer, a very big one, you keep the international assembly and four years later you have to remove that, give to someone else to buy and then you buy a new one and put in that place, I don't understand, a lot of us do not understand, it's annoying enough to have spoons go into the budget every year, it's annoying enough enough to see a lot of things that repeat themselves in budgets every year but how do you say a computer for instance after four years they change the monitors in my office right now, they change the tables in my office right now, they change the computers in my office because a new government is coming, a new MD is coming and all that, even though they're still working it doesn't make sense to a lot of us, so if the government has to be transparent enough they'll have to explain to us how these things work, you come in, you're voted in, you remove everything including computers and change another set of computers, I mean how does that work? If there's a television of 150 inches you go and remove it, take it to your house and use but you cannot use it in the office, how does that make sense to us? Just make it make sense to us, that's what we're saying, so if we have to suffer please let our lawmakers and people in government just hide to do some of the things that we know already that they do but they shouldn't tell us to our faces, that's what Nigerians do not like, so he has apologized, the Senate president has apologized that he shouldn't have used those words but hey the words may not be used anymore but the reality is that the reason for using those words is still there, so if let's say every senator was to go home with a billionaire to enjoy himself he has come to apologize that he shouldn't have used enjoy themselves but the one billionaire will still go when we're struggling to make sure that we fuel our coffers and become you know a country that has so much money in our purse as it were. Well let's leave that to rest. There's another incident that happened when you talk about legos, if you own a car or you've ever bought one or a bus or commuted in any way except maybe when the trains finally come, this is 16 or 17 years we've been told about the trains, they have not started working, when they begin to work maybe that's when we're not going to see this group of people called LASMA. If you know LASMA, the fear of LASMA is the beginning of wisdom in Lagos state, so LASMA official exchanged punches with a soldier if you can look at the clip right now, it was exchanging punches with a soldier there. If you stay in Lagos that's a site that you'll have to see, I used to call Lagos a five-minute city, if you walk five minutes there's everything that you can see, you stay in Lagos or you visit regularly, you'll be used to the site of LASMA official, sometimes though the sighting of a Lagos state traffic management authority official we call LASMA isn't a good omen. LASMA day here is what you hear from bus drivers and all that, sometimes you might see them get into arguments with motorists including private and commercial vehicles. Usually though such incidents only tend to involve civilians, however in this story the LASMA official seem to have gotten into an argument with a soldier which devolved into a brawl, so they were fighting, LASMA was there fighting with a soldier and whatever the case may be. We think, I think as a person, let me not say for everybody else, but I think as a person that these people do a good job, but there are so many, so many among them that give Lagosians nightmares. These are the same people that will go and hide and make sure you take one way even though you're visiting Lagos for the first time or you're going to a particular area in Lagos for the first time and you do not know that there is a one way that you do not have to take. Of course there are no sign posts that will show you that that road is one way, you cannot take it and then you enter it, they wait for you to get there and then you are arrested. If there is a sign and I see it and ignore it it's a different case. If there is no sign, what justification do you have? You just assume that I know that road good enough for me to know that I shouldn't pass it. And sometimes you see traffic is actually diverted to some other places and they ask you to pass where the traffic is diverted only to arrest you a little bit into that road that they have shown you that you should pass and then demand so much money. I've seen this happen once when I boarded a car and he was taking me somewhere and I said the road had been closed somewhere else. The same officials now said, okay, this is where you have to pass and the vehicle passed there and he got arrested. What did he spend? 70K. Well, that's what happens here. So maybe there should be an independent body that monitors them or whoever is in charge of LASMA should make sure that there's some kind of monitoring, there's some kind of channel for reporting these people to the authorities because I'm sure the people who sent them to the roads didn't ask them to do a lot of things that they do because if we have a problem on the road, we are supposed to go to LASMA and ask them what can we do in this kind of situation? We're supposed to get directions from them. We're supposed to see officers that smile at us and make sure commuting in Lagos, which is already stressful. It's not even more stressful because we'll find them. So you just see their uniform and the next thing is LASMA didio and they're clogging another road that they feel that LASMA will not be there to arrest them or to harass them for reasons that may not even hold water anywhere else. And there's one thing with security people that threaten you with taking you to the station, taking you to the office and all that. And you know what it means to take you to their office when there is a cabal that's doing something. It's just a call that someone will put through and you get to the office and that crime, in quote, that you committed on the road, will now become a monster crime when it gets to the office. So people just naturally want to settle. After all, in scripture, it's also told that if someone is accusing you and is taking you somewhere before you get to the judge, try to settle your matters, policemen actually quote this section of the Bible and tell people that it's in scripture that you give bribe. That's not bribe giving. It's just trying to tell you that as it is written in another part of the scripture that for as long as it is possible, live peaceably with one another, live in peace, live as a man of peace with one another. So that is what it is. Avoid trouble in every form that it might come. Do not engage in fighting. Okay. Well, well, these things happen and when they happen, we'd bear the consequences and all that. Nigerians, let's be patient for people who are in government, who are in charge, who are in positions of authority. Do not throw it in the faces of the people who are suffering. We are in this together to repair Nigeria and if Nigeria has to be good, it will start from top to bottom. Let this top to bottom be not the one that Nigerians will hear and run and hide because someone used it at one point and we saw how the rot started from top to bottom and Nigerians are the worst for it. We do hope that there will be a change of mindset for the leaders and the lead. We do hope that when the leaders do wrong, we will think about recalling them, we'll think about justizing them, we'll think about correcting them, we'll think about asking the relevant questions rather than trying to give them chief-tensor titles because they have done wrong. When they come back into the society and we make them feel that the man that should be honored is only the man that could acquire so much wealth so that he can be giving us piecemeal, then we are the ones that are the problem of ourselves. If a lawmaker comes to the village for instance and nobody visits him, even if you don't say anything to him, nobody visits him, he just comes into his house, he goes to church or he goes to the mosque, people see him, treat him like anybody else and let him be, he will know that he's not as important as he thinks he is because he was elected by you and so you are his employer and when the employer begins to behave like the employee or the slave to the employee then there's a problem, that's what the average Nigerian does so it is high time we stopped those kind of things and make sure that our leaders are accountable to us and not the other way around. Well that's just me talking, we do hope that you'll have a wonderful day but for now let's take a short break when we return we're looking at the newspapers what made it to the front pages of the newspapers of the press, just stay with us.