 And we're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa. Ambrose Bokeh joins us this morning for Off the Press. He's a chairman in the state chapter of the Guild of Public Affairs and the list of Nigerians. Ambrose, it's a pleasure to have you join us this morning. Good morning to you. Yes, thanks. All right then, let's quickly take a look at the punch newspaper this morning. We have other papers, but we'll set up for the punch. And the punch says, INEC votes three billion narrow to fight electoral cases. That's very impressive. APC, PDP, Labour Party, Defence and Commissions litigation budget. Litigation costly, budgets may not be enough. That's what senior lawyers are saying. Probably might just be a period where legal practitioners are cashing out. Now you find on the punch, PDP vows to probe as Bainway Ward suspends, are you? And United Kingdom to sanction Nigerians, and avoid childs of Fanny Coyote. So you're looking at the punch newspaper this morning. A Fanny Ferry. Knox. Why and who's and demands O'Hanei's is clarification. What is what you want to ask now? FSOAR is Foreign Airlines Hike Exchange Rate. I remember someone having a conversation. I mean, you know, maybe local flights would definitely just go out to order. Nothing has ever gone down any time it goes up. Especially when you talk about the prices of, you know, airfares. So that's not the case now. Just before move away from that ex-governor donates 240 truck of food stuff and groups to feed 2000 daily. That's what you find. We just move away from the punch. Let's go quickly to the Guardian this morning with the following headlines. NLC reconsiders strike as CBN opens vaults to banks. There's some writers there which you can see on the screen. Greeley Cabau delaying refineries takeoff. UNN confers doctorate on Zenit Bank Co. We have more from the paper. CBN's new lending rate to raise construction materials cost. And Edogastentative approval for airport in Aochi. One of the few stories from the Guardian why Africans need knowledge transfer more than grants. An opinion and a kill there by Abu Yeji. You have Dia, the life and times of Army general who cheated death. Immamales quickly turn her attention now to the Guardian newspaper. We just took the Guardian. Okay, we just took the Guardian. So I'll move away from the Guardian and look at the daily trust. How NIS operative extort travelers at airports. That's what you find. That's boldly written. I paid $100 to get my virgin passport. Don't understand what that means. If you want to say new passport then. Clint, that's what the passengers say. Eight officers sucked. 88 facing disciplinary measures and found the cries extortion. These are some of the riders you find underneath the board caption. Our production increases to 1.7 million bar per day. That's what the federal government is saying. I mean, once upon a time we did 2.8, 2. something. We shouldn't be talking about 3 million. Shouldn't we exceed it? Well, should we be celebrating that we're doing 1.7 now? Question and of course can't wait to share the thoughts of our guests. The Anambra Indians deny us accommodation. And a CBN raises the alarm. Kogi Baosa imo governorship polls. APC ricks in over 1.3 billion from funds. It's like, you know, a revenue generating machine. And of course another says the general who escaped execution finally bows out. And when it's time, you definitely have to go. We talked about it this morning. We'll just leave it at that for the want of time. Finally, the nation newspaper has the following headlines. Post poll crisis. Are you under pressure to quit as PDP chair? I thought we'd hear the last of this. More from the paper. Foreign reserves dip by 1.43 billion in 10 weeks. Cowan bundling of railways. Power boost economy by experts. A writer there. Devolution will encourage a competition enhanced through federalism. 3.4 billion narrow debt. Court blocks. Oil governments accounts in four banks. APC Klesuzodema silver. Lion and DME for primaries. Interesting. Some old names popping up there. And why I dropped my ambition via Falake. All right. The nation also has a special. It says Donaldson Oladik-Bordia. That's what I was looking for. 1944 to 2023. His last moments by family, friends, aid. All right. We'll go over to our guest embassy book. Before we look at the other stories, just give us your thoughts on the life in times of the late general Oladik-Bordia. He's been described by one of the papers. I think he's a tribune as a general who escaped final execution and by the guardian as the general who cheated death. Ambrose. Well, general Oladik-Bordia. It's a name that I knew when I was growing up. I remember as a kid in primary school, where we used to do current affairs. The name of general Oladik-Bordia ran out with some certain names of the military elites of that era. From post-1993 democracy to 1999. There was some site of a military who were mixed from general Bolanagan, Diabom, Babanjeda, Bichu, Kiwi, John Chadiya, Joshua Dome, Dome Katsbali, John Martin Yenga, David Mack. So general Oladik-Bordia was also among the general events who came later. Then his attendance to the height of the military career was when he was the chief of general staff. That was now stated by some colleagues of Phantom Coup that was said to have been planned. Remember that during that era too, a lot of former Nigerians were also shown to jail for so-called coups, which was found out with Phantom Coup. Chief Oluxia-Bordia was shown to jail. Aladik-Bordia was shown to jail. And the cost of all Nigerians were shown to jail that period. General Dahl was not lucky enough to make it out alive. Chief Oluxia-Bordia went back again and made it alive. General Dahl was very furious because he was in government. The others were not in government. Well, he was in government and he was in over two months. And then he was hooked into that coup that was said to be Phantom Coup. I was convicted to die by some stroke of luck. And my Christian tenors, we say by divine intervention, the person who was supposed to kill him died before him. And then Abusalam took over and the rest, we say, they were all released and there was a lot to go home. And they had survived almost 25 years later after that dwelling ordeal. So he has lived his life. And one more thing, the Nica size, General Dahl was a handsome man. So he was young days. His teachers, the ladies, had got shown at his teachers then. And the way he was doing all that was through that, I used to admire the stroke of white hair in front of his hair. It looked very handsome. So he lived the process by establishing a front of him. So we wish him that he should rest today. There is so much to do. All right then. Ambrose, let's move away from that now and talk about INEC. I'd like you to show your thoughts on INEC's budget to fight electoral cases. They have put the figure of three billion there. It doesn't sit well with, you know, the political parties that contended for, you know, contested this election. Let's not use the word contend. For those who contended or contested the elections, Labour Party, PDPA among others have said, hey, this is so much. What are your thoughts? The cost of litigation in Nigeria is very expensive. This is because the litigants is basically meant to carry the entire cost of litigation. There, the defense also has a lost cost to entail. Now, when you come to INEC, different election cycles have shown that INEC is always answered as a respondent in many, almost all, cases that have to do with election matters. These are election matters, these post-election matters. And sometimes these issues drag for long. From stages of House of Assembly to the State Government to the House of Reps to the Senate against the presidency. So imagine how many cases. I remember that these cases are expected by persons and by political parties. So what we call for House of Assembly election, for example. Imagine the number of party aspects. Imagine even the number of intraparty issues. As each of these people, I joined INEC as a respondent. So what I'm trying to, the barrier of such a layer is that INEC has a preserver of litigation cases. So I tend to. Some of these identified profiles which are senior advocates of Nigeria have to be assembled, but a gamut of them have to be assembled. So the cost is not, it may be staggering when you look at it, but at the same time, when you know the cost of litigation in Nigeria, you'll find out that it may not be too much. I think INEC should be looking at voluntary in consecutive some of these cases. Because if we want to pay all the lawyers the requisite legal fee for the 20 INEC in every of these cases, then I tend to not be able to bear the financial burden. And Nigeria tax lawyers' money cannot bear that financial burden. So this is the time to start looking at constituting a team of volunteer lawyers. I mean intelligent lawyers that we have INEC to prosecute some of these litigation cases and costs. Going forward, we can start it from now. I saw the auditive allowances, solicit stipends, the lawyers solicit stipends and allowances. I may be a certificate of commendation and some other things that we compensate for their time at the cost. But so I would say that the legal fee for each person present in them given the three below will not be enough. So INEC should be a creative in trying to contact costs of litigation during election seasons. Thank you, Ambrose. There's one that tickles my fancy. This is on the front page of the Daily Trust. It talks about the Nigerian Immigration Service operatives who are extorting travelers at the airports. And the reason it's making me laugh is because I remember very clearly the months, weeks, let me say weeks and maybe months immediately after President Mahoud Buhari was sworn in. The airports were free, empty of these touting profiteering, racketeering and extortion. It wasn't there. So I mean, what do you say about this? This is a few months that the President leaves and it seems to be almost like a post mortem on his administration. I remember even on the roads, Merci, we didn't see policemen collecting money. All those points. The day two days, three days, five days after the President came up. So what I thought on this current article now where the Daily Trust has gone under to find out that immigration operatives at the airport are extorting still, extorting passengers. I think big shame that we have still suffered this kind of ignorance in our country. When we go to our sister African countries, even in West Africa here, like Ghana, you don't see this kind of thing. Okay, sometimes like there was in Ghana, I had an issue with vaccination, women can't, and then the Ghana, the flight was attended to be said, oh next time, Allah needs to fix the police operatives. We are lying about, because we are one time taking the vaccination, but next time it has to be so, you know, extorting to me, and then we are not going. And then I crossed the line, I entered the city of Akra, I said hey, if this was Nagos or Bujak, they would take me to a room and miss the hell out of me, collect all the things I can. That is the concept. So my joint immigration service has been a search tool of corruption. And anybody who pretends that he doesn't know, it's not a search tool. And we go to Ethiopia, see where their airports are working, see where their airlines are working, go to Portugal airport in Ghana, see where it is going, go to South Africa, go to African countries. Let's not compare ourselves with European countries. Now we have people who are basically jobless, mingling around the airports, asking people who are coming in from... from... or from... anything for us. What besides you, if your documents have any issues, even the one they can sort out, they are dead, they will magnify the problem, complicate the problem, all in a measure to bring out a split fuel of your unend money. And nobody... Why is it continuing? Nobody is prosecuted. Nobody suffers any consequences. So it is like I will stay there to make money, maybe for your guard back at the office. So if it is... if it is something that we need a change of mindset in Nigeria, the staff of Nigerian immigration service are in Nigeria and we are part of them. So we don't expect Nigerian immigration service to be holding? Ambrose, you remember the... When a power country is not in a right state. Ambrose, you remember the immediate aftermath of President swearing in at the airports. It was like we had brand new airports. Those people were nowhere to be found. Ambrose, are you there? Okay. Earlier I talked about the immediate aftermath of President Buari's swearing in. These things, these practices had disappeared from the airports because of the perception that President was going to come and fight corruption. But we don't have time. I think we'll have to say goodbye to you now. Alright. Ambrose Bokeh is a chairman in a good state chapter of the Guild of Public Affairs Analyst and you can tell why. Because he did absolutely justice to the few headlines that he was able to analyze with us. I will take a break. When we come back, we have more discussions ahead on the program. Please stay with us.