 PDP's National Working Committee names Yemi Akinwami as national chairman. This is happening as a court restores Uchizakandas as a party's chairman. With the party in disarray, what viable opposition can there be to the rule in all progressive Congress? Bento Hamada Buhari announces NNPC's first operating profit in 44 years. Also coming up is a review of the day's newspapers. We have The Punch, The Daily Independent and The Guardian. With that we say good morning and thanks for joining us on the breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. It's another Friday mornings edition. We hope that you will enjoy the next two hours. I am Osawa Gie, Ogma. And I am Annette Felixen. Good morning and thank God it's Friday. Good morning Osawa Gie. Good morning. Our first top-trending story today is one that many Nigerians will be excited to hear. The fact that students who have been in captivity for about 16 weeks have returned. First of all, the thing is that with the principle of this particular school, it's a school in Niger states and it's called the Tagina Islamiya School. The bandits had called the principle asking for ransom. And the state governor had said that no ransom would be paid, but that they were negotiating with the bandits. But what we know now is that 15 of these kids have been freed, even though six of them had died in captivity because they were ill. So we have no idea if a ransom was paid for their release. The good news is that after almost two months in captivity, the students are now back home and safe. Yeah well, more than two months actually. 16 weeks is quite a while. That's about four months actually. I guess the parents can celebrate and say and thank God that their kids are finally back home in their arms. But unfortunately six of them died in this time that they were in captivity. According to the news story it says they died after falling sick in captivity, which is really, really heartbreaking. And so there is some parents who while others are celebrating a morning and realizing that their kids will never come back after they were kidnapped. There will always be the conversation about whether ransom was paid or not. The government will of course have said that ransom was not paid, they were negotiating what are the details of the negotiation nobody is sure. Lately we've heard about bandits and kidnappers requesting bags of rice and requesting motorcycles and some of all of that. There's also been parents who said that they paid ransom even if the government would say otherwise. So it's important that we find clarity with some of all these things. The question of course will be what next after these people have been set free? Will these bandits, these kidnappers rather, will the government go after them still? Are they still a threat to the society across Nigeria? Will they be arrested? Is it possible that we can pinpoint their location now and know where they kept these kids all the while? Is it possible that we can track them and find out where they are and very likely what their next operation would be? What steps have we taken to prevent school abductions in Nigeria? Over time, and I've said this repeatedly, that over time Nigeria as a country doesn't seem to learn lessons. We see very, very tragic incidents that we don't seem to learn. We only just would mourn and we'll be sad and we'll talk about it for a couple of days but the government itself doesn't seem to learn what lessons that it can take from every single incident. In what ways have our security agencies been improved on? In what ways have the processes with regard to security been improved upon to prevent another school kidnap? There's been talk of, I think you mentioned a few times that schools should be shut down temporarily on some of all of that, which I personally don't agree with. I feel like we need to do better as a country in protecting school students and not just students. Everybody who is a Nigerian needs to be protected by Nigeria's security architecture. From kidnappers, we should be able to improve on the processes. There are still people who are in captivity currently from Kaduna State and a few other places. We should be able to learn and improve on the processes with the grad security so that we can protect school students in the future instead of waiting for the next kidnap to take to happen and then we're back at it again. Congratulations to those parents. Happy that the kids are back home. We hope that this never repeats itself. But from the way that we've continued to run government and run the security architecture in Nigeria, it doesn't seem very likely that we will not hear of another kidnap any time soon. Our next top trending story is about something that social media has been talking about in the past few hours and it's about an alleged arrest of reporters or presenters that work at channels, television. We saw the NBC, the National Broadcasting Commission put out a statement that called a notice of infraction. It drew attention to the broadcast of the programme, Sunrise Daily, that aired at 7 on Tuesday, August 24th, 2021 saying that on this programme they had the guest, the Executive Governor of Benrey State, Samuel Autumn and that that interview was observed to contain inciting, divisive and unfair comments that the anchors did not thoroughly interrogate. They went on to say that these negates the provisions of the NBC code and it said that broadcasters shouldn't show professionalism, that they should not focus or lead to unfair treatment, that no broadcast should encourage or incite crime or lead to public disorder or hate and that all broadcasts should be equitably presented for fairness and balance. So they went on to say this and the next thing we heard on social media was that two presenters of channel television had been arrested but contrary to that, we've seen a statement from channel television, it titled this No channel television anchor was arrested. We also saw statements from the DSS as well saying that they did not arrest any presenter on channel TV, saying that they were actually invited, that's the word, they're not arrested but invited for a meeting by the National Broadcasting Commission in Abuja and that they have since returned from the meeting. The DSS also clarified that they were invited by the Secret Service and that stories in the media of the arrests were false and misleading. So that really is the fact according to channel television, the anchors were in Abuja after being invited, not arrested again and that they're back. Well, I'll start from the DSS angle, talking about them being invited and not arrested. What's the invitation for? In what ways did they cause a security breach across the country? In what ways are they a security threat to Nigeria? And I'm talking of those two presenter anchors now. The lead of the DSS invitation in the first place is that, isn't that meant to be for high level security breaches across Nigeria and threats to Nigeria? What concerns the DSS with what happened on the television program and the conversations that we had on the television program? There have been other people who have been on television across Nigeria that have created pretty much the same conversations across the country but didn't get the same invite from anybody so yes, they weren't arrested and immediately I saw that also on news I knew that that was a fake story, that they weren't arrested but the DSS is going to have to say that they were invited. What exactly is the invitation for? That's what I don't understand. Second, the NBC has its rules and there was always also complaints when there was going to be an amendment to the NBC law a few, not long ago, a couple of months ago. People pointed out that some of these things are a little bit stringent and it doesn't seem democratic in quote but it has its rules and of course every television station and every media organization needs to play by those rules and with regards to fairness and balance and being able to counter. It's not the easiest thing to be able to and speaking as someone who has been on radio and is currently on TV it's not entirely the easiest thing to be able to spot when a person or to predict when a person would go above the rules. It's not very easy to know that the guest that you have might say some things that may not be palatable to society. So it always puts you on the edge basically that when you have a guest you would always be very, very cautious and pay very close attention to everything that they say but there's also possibilities that when things you personally as a radio or TV presenter don't see anything entirely wrong or inciting with the statements that they've made and so you would ignore it. There are times when you would have to tackle it. I remember when I was on radio there are times when I had to now be extra, extra careful and there are things that maybe weren't even issues but I would still go ahead and tackle it because or to put some caution just because you know I needed to stay on the safe side of the NBC and so it puts TV and radio presenters on the edge every single time knowing that there is a there is the NBC who continues to almost threaten to sue or not to sue now but threaten sanctions and punishments for some of all these things but that's the life of people who work in the media space but we always still have to respect and work with the rules laid down by the NBC. Another thing that I would also say is the part where it seems like clockwork every time that there is an incident on TV or on radio statements that are made that create some level of conversation. There's a particular level of conversation that seems a little embarrassing to the Nigerian government. There's always some action or reaction. There's always some knee-jerk reaction by some agency, some place. You know taking these actions every now and then. The midst of information, Garbashir who has also been seen every time that there is some conversation that seems a little bit embarrassing to the Nigerian government, happened with Twitter and when the Twitter thing happened they blamed it on Nandikano and IPOB and some of all of them said that they were a threat to Nigeria's unity and some of all of that but everybody who looked closely at that saw or could see what happened in the past but because of that particular Twitter was deleted that's what spoiled all of this and it's pretty much the same thing with this incident. It wasn't government from what I see, it wasn't really government statements saying the things that he said, being critical of the current administration and speaking concerning Islamizing and saying that from what he has seen it doesn't seem very he can almost now believe that there's a plan to Islamize Nigeria those were some of the things that he said but it doesn't seem like that was the trigger it feels more like it was the interview which was 48 hours ago of retired, you know, Kuma Ador, Kunlea Keumi who made some very, very, very shocking revelations and made some statements on their platform also that seems to be the trigger, not Governor or Tom, but of course, you know, they have taken the steps that they feel is right for them to take the steps that people have also pointed out that this might look like silence in the media or trying to silence a position in the country and also said that there have been other people from the Arab Consultative Forum from Sheikh Gumi, many other people who have said things that Nigerians have seen as threatening or seen as incited but there wasn't the same reaction to it. Well, I think I'll leave it there and just I'll probably just leave it there. Thank you Mr. President. Many have likened it to editorial military style rule because when they take a look at the amendments that were to be made to the NBC Act remember how basically many media organizations came up to publish this in the media to say that they refused to be silenced by the media. The big headlines then read information black out that that's exactly what's going to happen if these amendments are made that Nigerians find for journalists also penalties including arrest of journalists who say things that are deemed incited so imagine if that had become law maybe it's a bit different story we're talking about regarding these presenters and any other presenter that was deemed to be said or condoning inciting statements on their platform so that's really is what it is right now you only take a look at this situation and so many other journalists that have been in prison for a while it makes you understand when people put 22 together and criticize the present administration as being unfair to the media or attempting to gag the press let's move over now to the story in Afghanistan we know what's been happening there regarding the crisis with the Taliban takeover but yesterday we saw twin blasts were just outside the Kabul airport where lots of Afghanistan had been thronging just to get a flight out and into safety there were twin bomb blasts we've seen different reports one mentioned that just about three U.S. Marines were injured another report we've seen from the New York Times said about 13 were injured many others and many others are not U.S. citizens injured as well you know so they have an August 31st deadline to make sure they evacuate all U.S. citizens and all foreigners out of the country so you can totally understand why whoever was responsible behind that blast would choose that airport as you know that site because that's really where people are you know just going to make sure that they leave the country in due time so this bomb blast is just coming at the back of a UK government intelligence reports that there was credible threat of an attack at the airport because of course there's been an unprecedented surge in travelers as foreigners and Afghanistan scamper to leave the country in the wake of that Taliban takeover but United States President Joe Biden has responded to this and he said that to those who carried out this attack as well as those who wish is America ham know this, we would not forgive we would not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay Joe Biden added that they will respond with a force of precision at their time and the place they choose and in the moment of their choosing so the US here saying that they are determined to not forgive or forget and punish all who were responsible for that and that has led to the injury of some US Marines well I don't think it's just injury, I think about 12 Marines lives, 12 Marines were lost yesterday according to reports that I have seen they weren't just injured about 60 people according to reports also died yesterday including 12 US Marines so I'm sure that's where Joe Biden is speaking from the loss of American soldiers once again all of this is coming from the confusion with regards to America's pulling out of Afghanistan and who really used to blame for the chaos that ensued after why didn't the Afghan forces be strong enough or weren't they strong enough to continue to hold their country together after United States pulled out there is different analysts and I've listened to a lot of podcasts from the Washington Post or the daily numerous BBC podcast also analyzing the situation and trying to figure out what exactly if there was any way that the United States could have pulled out and still left the Arab or the Afghanistan army strong enough to hold their country together a lot of people have said that there's almost no way that that could have happened mostly because the Afghan forces had read the room and seen the different stages with America's pulling out there's also been controversy and discussions concerning the strength of the Afghan army they were about 300,000 compared to 75,000 strong Taliban army and why they weren't able to defend themselves but that's on the side of people who will be questioned in the next few months about what happens after Afghanistan's pull out after US Marines rather pull out there's going to be questions about what really happens in the next few weeks and who really is to blame if it was from President Donald Trump or it is Joe Biden's failure to manage the situation properly and is this also the war engine the war machine of different countries to creep up again because there's people who finance these things who sponsor these groups, ISIS the Taliban, Boko Haram and some of all of that what message are they trying to send after that bomb blast yesterday is there need for Americans to stay back a little longer it's many many many many questions that I feel need to be answered in the next couple of weeks as we continue to see things unfold in Afghanistan Yes, we'll take a break here and we'll come back to analyse the papers on after press, stay with us