 All right. Thanks for staying with us now. There's flooding in the land and we're really concerned, right? Why? Wide areas of the state of Kogi are under water after the Niger and Benwe rivers broke their banks now It's it's capital Lokoja is at the confluence of two of West Africa's biggest rivers, right? The River Benwe and the River Niger now During the raining season the rivers overflowed their banks causing flooding according to the BBC report local authorities say poor building practices are also partly to blame and one of the factors why it's worse is that people continue to build in water plain areas says Abdulahi Abubakarov, the Red Cross Acting Secretary in Kogi state So as soon as the flood subsides people also go back to the same places and block water channels Now experts say there are the causes of Nigeria's seasonal flooding at complex and include poor infrastructure And erosion, but that climate change is adding also to this issue With further heavy rains forecast The situation in Kogi state remains Picastrious. All right, and the existing floodwaters are not expected to recede For another month and the situation seems to be getting worse lives and properties have been destroyed And we really want to look into this situation and discuss a long lasting solution. Hopefully Right, that's the conversation now. Please let's hear what you have to say. Remember You can join the conversation send us an sms or whatsapp is read one 803-4663 You can also tweet at us at Wayshoe Africa one with the hashtag Wayshoe. All right We have Mary has just joined us and Alera. I believe has also joined us. Thank you so much, Mary Today was another day. All right, so let's quickly jump into this conversation, right of the flooding First of all, does this seem to you like we did not even care about what's going on in Nigeria because it took foreign reporters foreign media houses to talk about it and now That started getting the attention. I don't even think it has gotten the attention of Nigerians But quickly, what do you think is causing this flood in Lokoja? And because I really want to bring in our guests Okay, they overflow I mean they release to pour every 10 years because this the same thing happened 10 years ago Which was about 2012 or so and now we're seeing the same thing apparently the year 2013 which was after that The Cameroon government had informed Nigerian government, you know, we are supposed to also build a dam There as well or they're supposed to inform us when they're going to offload the dam, maybe for us to have precautionary Measures and stuff, but clearly none of that is done. The state governors are not saying anything, you know, I mean, it's like Why alone in the this is where the man made problems coming because what you're saying is that they ask for a collaboration between Yeah countries that we have to do it from both sides We can just sort our side. We have to consider your side So this is what we're planning to do and we need you to follow through But again, Nigeria is being Nigerian Let me bring Alera, are you there because I want to bring in David And I think David is also there Yes, I mean, this is really disheartening About 169 communities have been displaced. This is crazy And it's so scary that the houses, I mean the flood is up to the roof and I know that a lot of people cannot swim A lot of people cannot swim, which means a lot of people have drowned I mean, there was a video I saw online that a baby was floating on the river and a man saved the child So I'm wondering how many people have actually died and like you mentioned, this is an artificial Disaster that was caused by maybe not be fixing good roads to allow, you know The water system to flow and then the dam again So this is really disheartening and I'm really hoping that you know Something actually comes out of this I mean positively because I know a lot of people are started, you know, making noise about it to cause attention Thank you You know, what is really hard for me to understand? First of all, we have problems with sensors We don't even know our numbers. So now again, there's a disaster that has happened I am I can bet you that the numbers are That are giving up It cannot align with what has really actually happened So we really do not know the extent to which lives have been lost It is okay to I mean rdj always says what does not cost life can be replaced Is see it is okay at this point to lose property But lives of Nigerians, that's the one that really gets to me But let me bring in david today Um, he's an investigative journalist and a broadcaster who works whose work rather has appeared on cnn the report The african report Al Jazeera and the washington post His work as a satirist on the other news Nigeria's answer to daily show has featured in the new yorker magazine and in netflix The netflix documentary larry chow's dangerous world of comedy and as you already know, he's joining us live via zoom as well Thank you david for joining us this evening Thank you very much for having me all right david. I mean you seem to have a vast What's he called? You've done an in-depth work on this particular story that we're talking about and we're really honored that you You know you found the time to talk to us about this because I think many nigerians do not understand the extent as to what has happened with Lokoja kamerun and nigeria because I hear now that what whatever flaw that is happening the story that lady took about bielsa Is actually also linked to this same kamerun Was called damn release and all the the flooding that's going on in lokoja. Maybe you should help us walk us through What exactly is the situation Okay, so basically there are two major river systems in nigeria as you know The nigeria river and the bernie river and the confluence is at lokoja So essentially where you have had very heavy rain falls Which tends to happen as the previous speaker said approximately once every 10 to 12 years Those river systems tend to become Flooded the estuary tends to become a little bit flooded now what normally should happen is that When the the lakdodam in northeastern kamerun Is open so as to prevent the dam from bursting as Has happened on september 22 this year which has certainly happened 2012 When the dam is open the excess runoff from that dam is supposed to be captured by dam on the nigerian side in adamawa state That dam is called the dasin house at dam Now when the lakdodam was constructed in kamerun was opened in 1982 There was an agreement that was signed between nigerian kamerun that The kamerunians had built their own dam which was supposed to to generate hydropower for them and to irrigate 15 000 hectares of farmland in kamerun So but on our side of the border in adamawa will then build our own shock absorber dam which was dasin house at dam And it was supposed to it was supposed to irrigate 150 000 hectares of farmland in adamawa, bernie and taraba states And to add a i think 300 megawatts of power to the national grid Uh, unfortunately after that agreement was signed A certain umad abu harry came into office in 1983 And as you know, one of the first things he did was that all the development projects going on in nigeria at the time He basically halted everything So that dam basically never got built same way the legos uh Urban metropolitan real project at the time which was on that construction also got halted For the same reason supposedly he was fighting corruption So all this develop important development projects got stopped And the result was that basically 40 years later that dam Has still not been built. It doesn't exist now Uh as recently as 2017 the minister of water resources, uh, eginia sulemana dam Promise that by 2019 this dam and a few others would have been completed would have delivered said he was speaking to investors Uh by 2019 he gave a guarantee that this dam will be complete Right because bear in mind that even though the flooding is very heavy approximately once every 10 years It doesn't mean that it only happens every 10 years. It actually happens every year Right, these floods happen every year. They're just not as severe So they don't get covered in the media Usually except they are to this extent, right? So this flooding is I think that happens every year every time this dam is opened But because you know the Nigerian government being the you know, very irresponsible entity that it is If nobody's talking about it. It's just you know, it's not a priority So in 2017 he made that promise that by 2019 the dam will be delivered And this is what five years later and nobody has why held him to that promise to explain that What exactly happened that you made this guarantee That as a minister you're going to ensure that this project is delivered and it wasn't delivered till today We don't know so as it stands Then what tends to happen now is that we're basically at the mercy of the Cameroonians whenever they they decide to open the dam Basically, you know, and the entire tail or quarter of Nigeria basically drowns Because we are we are downstream of them and ultimately it's not their fault. You can't blame the Cameroonians because in the most recent the most recent time they opened it down for example on september 22 The the company that oppressed the dam is called the annual Cameroon is Cameroonian state-owned power company They said that the Lago reservoir Had hit 91 percent of its design capacity So basically they had allowed the dam to fill any longer without opening it It would have burst The water would have bursted them and then what we would have had is not flooding What would have had would have been a tidal wave of flood waters moving at Hundreds of kilometers and you know the amount of damage That would have caused yes, you know currently we say we have about 600 dead according to the official figures We might be talking about thousands if not tens of thousands if the Cameroonians hadn't opened the dam so Really the only long-term solution here is to ensure that that dashing house a dam gets built because You know, there's a lot of talk about how um people build on In flood plains people build on waterways and yada yada yada But the truth is that that part of Nigeria is already so heavily populated that well on earth Do you want to relocate? Everybody too and by the way, Nigeria is not the only country in the world Where people live in places which are flood plains or which are flood prone Approximately 26 percent of the netherlands is below sea level For example and as far back as the 17th century the dutch had figured out Engineering solutions to keep their land dry So I don't see why in the 21st century it's such an undertaking to build a simple dam That all of a sudden, you know, it's everybody and everything else is Responsible and to blame except the Nigerian government. So Nigerian government has blamed everything except its own failure to build a dashing house a dam It has blamed climate change, which is a very convenient bogeyman Which can't be pinned down to anybody because climate change is everybody's fault and hence it's nobody's fault They have blamed Nigerians themselves for building on on waterways You know supposedly even though no data has been presented to explain exactly how Nigerians have supposedly built on waterways You know at that kind of scale. They have blamed Wrong disposal of Plastics things like rather block Drainages and the truth is that these are all just excuses the main cause of the flooding Is that this dam has not been constructed? Yes They have been heavier than normal rains this year and yes, there was always going to be some level of flash flooding especially on Along the Niger River estuary that was always going to happen But not to this extent the reason it has become this severe is because all that runoff water Coming from lago in Cameroon has nowhere to go And it's not being properly channeled. Which is what the dam was supposed to do So the Nigerian government, you know, really needs to Prioritize this thing so that we don't end up maybe in sometime in 2031 or 2032 Having this conversation all over again because in 2012 this conversation almost exactly like this happened It was almost the exact same situation in 2012 Like half of Lokoja was under water They were you were seeing crocodiles, you know swimming along the streets and the people were drawn. It was just like this And 10 years later. It's the exact same thing. Nothing has changed. So I think The that which is why I'm happy that Unlike a lot of the discussions in the Nigerian media which have been in my opinion I've been very misguided This conversation this night has been sort of focused on the actual issue Which is the failure of the Nigerian government to build that critical piece of infrastructure So that we can stop letting them off the hook so that we can focus on the actual issue and stop shadow boxing Absolutely Absolutely Should we let Mary come in at this point or I mean I'm speechless to be honest because 10 years I believe it's one party that has been that has been ruling for these 10 years And still are we going to vote them in again? That's the question of the day For me what I'd like to ask is Since we have warnings and we have history we have meteorologists that tell us about things It's not just the dam that we didn't build Is the fact that we knew that we tend to have heavy rains Even in Lagos we've had heavy rains where people were bringing out canoes and canoedling in town and everything So we're not even where they are and we've had that issue And we know all the time that we talk about july rains come july next year again Same thing would happen They don't think about it as anything important that they should pay attention to Then you've heard us say on the show many times when they say they are pumping money towards AssoRogs, Wi-Fi, installation They are pumping money towards causes that don't make sense that don't serve the community that don't serve the people We have a whole community of people displaced Children drowning Lives caught short And nobody wants to take the blame for it And then the presidential candidates that want us to vote Are having dinner in paris And cracking jokes I don't have a question with David at this point in time I have a statement Where is the love for humanity? Okay, that's a question You don't want to come in Hello David are you there So, I mean this This goes to the heart of what I think is one of the biggest issues with governance in Nigeria and is that um Those in power don't really see themselves as public servants They say they see themselves as rulers So if you see yourself as a public servant as somebody whose job is to work for the public You don't understand that your KPIs in that job Are to do things that make the life of the public easier Your KPIs in that job is not yourself your personal self-accompaniment But that's the problem with the with the Nigerian system of governance I I I have a theory that When the the colonial administration left the structure of governance in Nigeria did not fundamentally change So instead of external The an external colonizing force we have An internal colonizing force which works the exact same way the structures of power are the same The system is the same it's built for expectation of people instead of service The people because if it's not that then I don't understand why in a situation like this The government don't seem to see what is happening right now as a scandal because Truth be told if this were to happen in you know, the places that we think of as as model democracies Governments have come down for less than this You know, so currently in the uk there's a the uk prime minister Liz truce is currently going through this whole situation where she might be she might be removed soon Why because she she put out a mini budget which basically didn't work out and it led to some financial market crisis And she had to reverse it If that was in Nigeria that would die. I'm not sure that would even make headlines Right, but because it's it's a place where you are actually supposed you have kprs that are measured in terms of service to people She can actually lose her job For this but in Nigeria you have a situation where 600 people at least 600 people And counting have died as a result of a completely avoidable situation like this And then you said you have the Nigerian government sending Sending out its proxies on social media and elsewhere to spread this information and to tell people that no it's somehow it's Cameroon's fault The Cameroon is some kind of aggressing entity that they open their dam as if it's something they did with the intention of drowning Nigeria or something like And they know that obviously people don't know any better So that kind of narrative of like I feel as if that's one of the biggest problems with governance in Nigeria It's not built for service. It's built for exploitation. So How is that probably going to be solved? Well, it's Nigerians themselves that going to answer that question Absolutely No, let's go on a very short break when we come back from the break. I'll take a question from Mary and Alara. Stay with us. We'll be right back Thanks for staying with us now if you're just tuned in we're discussing the flooding in Lokoja And we have with us David Hunain. Now, please. Let's hear what you have to say Remember, you can join the conversation send us an sms or what's up to the raid one 803-4663 you can also tweet at us at Weshaw Africa one of the hashtag Weshaw So David, I I want to come in then I'll come to you Mary because I think you have a question Currently we know that Nigeria as a country apart from the work the extensive work that What's his name L5 did when he was minister in the FCT right where he remodeled Abuja I can comfortably say that most states are not structured for eventualities like flooding right I mean take for instance even in legal state if any little thing should happen today I think the entire part of most parts of legal state will be submerged in water as well So it is not unique to Lokoja Right, so if we want to find lasting solutions to some of this problem, right How do we begin to approach infrastructure in Nigeria? What are the things that And the people also would look out for from this government because you see it's one thing for us to talk about things Yes, there was an ill-preparedness, right? I mean 10 years. They gave you people 10 years up front. You know that every 10 years There would always be an offloading, right? It's just like the one that happens in Arakpo between, you know the one that happens between Oregon state and Lagos state at the Arakpo axis It's the same thing, right when they have to release their dam So if we want to approach infrastructure, what should we start to look out for because this is not unique to Lokoja If anything you happen tomorrow that has to do with maybe excessive or extensive rain Most parts of Nigeria will be submerged in water, right? So how do we begin to look at infrastructure as a country? I mean, let's let's look beyond politics right now, right? There is a big problem We do not know how to build people just pick up lands and they just go and build And that's why you can hear a government official now happen on that and trying to use that as an excuse for their failure Right because we cannot also look away from that fact that we have people that go and they just go and build where they're not supposed to build So how do we begin to approach infrastructure because there was a time that even fashion law had to demolish homes, right? And we also came at them and say no, no, no, you can't do this. You know, you can't do that So how do we move forward? So the thing with that is yes, fashion law demolished And yes, you know Governor wiki in the river state does something similar and yes, everybody did something similar at FCT minister But in the first place, how did those buildings those structures get to be there? People don't just get to, you know Carry blocks and cement and start building where they see fit. That's not how it works If you had to try that your building will get demolished yesterday There is always some form of permission It is the government itself that allows it to own urban planning regulations to be flouted because people can You know can go through the back door people can pay bribes and I know this for a fact My dad worked in lsdpc during his civil service career Lagos state for example because I can speak for Lagos and maybe I can't speak for the rest of the country I can definitely speak for Lagos Lagos has one of the best urban design master plans In Nigeria, if not the best right and I know this because the man worked on it personally There so a lot of the infrastructure which is being touted today that this is planned Blue blue blue line Lagos real red line, you know these things were planned 40 50 years ago Right, the problem is that the government itself allows its own master plan to be violated Right, so you want to build in a place that is restricted. You are not supposed to be able to build here You can go to the ministry of lands or to the lsdpc or departments of urban planning or whatever You have a connection there You pass a few million naira under the table and you get anything done So for like have you ever wondered for example, how it is that you have some areas in Lagos Which are obviously supposed to be residential areas and then you have like Businesses cited there Like, you know industrial places cited in residential areas. How did that come to be people didn't just go and cite their factory in the residential That's not how it works because they are zoning laws So you have to go to the lsdpc or somewhere And pay money under the table to get permission to build stuff where you are not supposed to be able to build it And that's a microcosm of what happens across the urban planning That scene in in Lagos and across Nigeria people obviously They do violate the law, but the government itself is party to it Right, so it's very it's very dishonest for the government to then come and present itself as if It has no idea how this happened that Nigerians are just so You know so lawless and the government is an innocent party in all of this and you know, it's Nigerians fault No, the government was an active participant in this civil servants are active participants in breaking the law in Nigeria And I know this because I've seen it firsthand Right like a lot of my dad's career A lot of the pushback and the conflict he faced during his time in civil service was built on that basic issue of Will you play ball or will you not play ball because that's how civil servants make money It's not from their salary. How much do they get paid? But if you know you're a civil servant, you need the ministry of lands or the lsdpc or whatever your official salary is Maybe 180 000 a month or something But you want to live the good life, which obviously you can't live on that kind of income That's how you do it. That's how you make the money So the government is a is a full and active participant in this and everybody knows this up to and including the politicians The governors the ministers they know So if the Nigerian government decides to start enforcing its own laws in the first place, we wouldn't we wouldn't even be having this conversation, right? So they and by the way These um these violations of these laws They they never stopped. They still continue to this day To this day if you want to let me give you a very practical example of this So, um The the place you know as park u.s. States in Lagos in iqoi park u.s. State technically is an illegal development. It shouldn't exist Right. It's essentially marshland. It's supposed to be Basically when when it rains, that's the place where iqoi is supposed to drain into It's not so it was never supposed to be developed according to the master plan of Lagos And i know it's because i've seen that master plan in my own two eyes and yet Somebody gave permission to a developer to go sand field a place that was marshland That was meant to be a drain basin somebody gave them permission someone in government did that And that place is now some of the most expensive real estate in Lagos You have property with billions of naira there now and now every time it rains in iqoi the water has no way to go to The entire the whole of iqoi disappears on that foot of water. That is how come So are they going to enforce their laws are they going to demolish park u.s. State? Obviously, they're not going to but then they will then find a convenient scapegoat to blame that oh, it's somebody who threw pure water They threw pure water back into the drain or it's somebody in it's always somewhere in Ijora or somewhere That's where they go and demolish houses. They don't go to iqoi and demolish houses there Even though those guys are also breaking the law So I think the Nigerian government needs to sort of come clean Right that look we have we are all lawbreakers We've all broken the law to to one extent or the other because Nigeria has been a free for all for 30 or 40 years So now that this is the case and obviously we cannot go around destroying billions of naira What the property now that Rubicon has already been crossed. So we need to find another solution An engineering solution for this and build around what we already have now Absolutely and that engineering solution is going to be expensive. Well, let's take And to take it to take a long time to actually get done Like a really long time and by then how many people would have lost their lives out of Being displaced or not even having food to eat. It's really a scary situation He's just asking in this country. We are moving from one problem to the other Like one problem that is that's been hiding we resurface maybe next month another one resurface again And hopefully this would help all Nigerians to open their eyes and be very angry. I'm so happy that a lot of people are getting so involved now I'm god has a reason why this is happening It's so sad that it's affecting, you know, people are losing their lives to this But this incident is making a lot of people pay attention to understand that hey guys Let us not joke next year because it is the the things our fathers and our forefathers refuse to do That is causing all of these things now are saying what they're doing it for their children Which children the children that are dying now It's ridiculous. You can see what's seen now. See never to show me pepper This is what we're talking about The flood in Lakotja Kogi state is really under reported Imagine the number of people this rendered homeless overnight. This is sad and heart breaking My heart goes out to all those affected by this flood in Lakotja Kogi state I pray you get help fast in the same vein We pray for pakistan and florida that let god arrest the flooding situation too in those countries The flood has taken many parts of countries though Government need to be proactive to prevent further occurrence bobby kennedy jalingo Thank you Mary you have some comments. Okay I have no evidence of any agreements with camarón to build any dam The dam the minister was talking about to be competed is Kashi beela dam, which has been completed and is generating 40 megawatts of electricity The lado dam in cameroon Contributes only one percent of the flooding in nigeria. This is the fact Interesting. Who's this? I Is the second one the same person The agreement with camarón is to inform nigeria whenever they want to release the water They release the water 24 hours before informing nigeria and for the and for correction the government sending Sending this just seven years In government not 10 years This person seems very funny to me. No, he's a pro-bwari government But David I wanted you to respond to what the person had said You know about the first part that uh, Mary took I don't know if you got that part where he said that there was no such agreement There absolutely was an agreement. So like and again, I don't like it when people come on air and just tell lies They absolutely was such an agreement first of all And secondly, he said oh that uh, the the dam the minister was talking about wasn't dancing outside dam It was the kashi beela dam. Um, excuse me. You can google it This was a statement made by engineer sui limana damu in 2017 when he was giving when he was delivering his call card to the senate You can google it. It's on the nation. It's a it was reported widely. You can google it I didn't make this up So I'm not sure why people just come on air and just decide to tell lies as if only with the internet age You can google these things And he then goes on to say if Information was released to various state governors since much of this Uh, yeah, nothing was done by the state governors on the issue of the flooding Now when he's saying that this government for correction the government sending, um Is just seven years in right north ten years I mean is that what we're talking about? Is that what we're talking about? Is it seven or ten years that we're talking about? They said Please let alera before you talk because I'm boiling. I don't know the man's name And I would need to find out it's not about the seven or ten years So stop talking about semantics and arithmetic that you're probably not even thinking properly They say there's a problem Your fellow citizens are being drowned Generations of them fourth fifth that they're being drowned in this very Nigeria that we're all sitting Comfortably in front of a camera talking to you and you are talking about whether it's seven or ten years And okay, even if cameroon told you within 24 hours as you mean they did something wrong What measures did you have to evacuate those people within that 24 hours that they did something wrong so that the lies that were lost were not as many or lives were not even lost at all Why don't you answer that? It even took international news bodies to call attention to it Oh, we could pay attention to it That's sad. Alera take your command and I'll go back to david Yeah, um, so we have a comment. So the cookie floor and other riverine areas are unfortunate However, the unregulated expansion of settlement by government also play a role when a dam is built It holds back water in the in the upper track tract of the river the river below the dam shrinks by the bank People now expand their settlement over years to occupy and expose riverbed When the dam gates are open to in future In future due to high rain and on upriver This now floods the upland development on the formerly exposed bank This is the main cause of the flood from open dam and cameroon and upper and upper river ninja This is from ufuma. I mean honestly speaking I'm really really feeling for the people that this has affected and i'm i'm happy That ninjirians are getting angrier like this this part is really making me more excited because it's something has to happen Well, our eyes has to you cannot say it's cameroon. That's the reason for what you're not counting No, it's not 10 years. What does that matter? A lot of people have died and more people will still die if nothing has happened They haven't called for a evacuation. If it's the civilians that are busy, you know A lot of people have actually been asking people to donate it so that people can send food to people The people are starving like I don't know when You know people will pay attention to this thing. Oh, hopefully maybe our answer is in 232 And we're really hopeful that that is what's going to save ninjir But it's taking a while Absolutely, but I want to quickly go back to david right when they say that after this water settles We then go back to This same houses that were submerged in water. Are we not also part of the problem? Or how do we begin to educate people? Or how do we move away from that because that also is a problem in itself Well, I mean except you have a solution for relocating I don't know how many million people say 1.2 million people have been displaced So except someone has a solution for relocating those people I don't think that's a problem that you and I can solve. I think that's a problem that Can be solved only at government level So then it's then a question of is the government willing to make that kind of investment? Does the government even have that kind of money to make that kind of And ultimately I think the the the long lasting solution Is just to build that dam and any other dam along that estuary that needs to be built Because it just solves so many problems. As I said earlier, Nigeria is not the only place in the world Where people have built or settled in low-lying regions or in flood plains 26% of the Netherlands is below sea level. You can google this And I'm not making this up. So if other people have found Engineering solutions so that they don't have to completely upend their lives every few years I don't see why it's such a technological feat Insurmountable technological feat for Nigeria to build a couple of dams I mean if Cameroon could build a dam in 1982 Why can't Nigeria build a dam in 2022? Cameroon is not a wealthier country than Nigeria Cameroon is not a but it does not have more technical capacity than Nigeria As far as I know, why is it so difficult? Is it because maybe a dam is a dam is not a visually spectacular project that people will see and say oh The government is walking or something That might be Good evening my dear beautiful sisters of what are you saying? Hashtag ways flooding in Lokoja. It is so sad That we're still talking about flooding in Nigeria, especially Lokoja It is a terrible nightmare when funds are released to stop flooding They use inferior materials and pockets and pockets Already and pockets the remaining funds. That is why flooding will always remain like this Let us be careful who we vote for next year. It is very important My name is Daniel illo ways regular fan. So I wanted to quickly touch on drainages David right so in all of this part of the conversation, right We know that most I mean Lagos. I say that is the some of the roads are so horrible You have a road. There's no drainage. It's just a matter of time the road will go bad Is the same thing with some of these houses and some of this location It's only in Lokoja and all of that you already know that this is a situation How do we start to pay attention or start to call the government to To really focus on building. You know what really upset me about all of these things, right? When the video broke about the Lokoja flooding and I saw a video of the first lady of that state Driving in a maybach 200 million watt of maybach messages going to the gym You know like that for me was the height of it all like do these people even care? They don't understand that this is so so insensitive People are dying people have been displaced people do not have and you took A 200 million watt of car that you were going to the gym And you did a video and posted it online Like I am speechless the audacity, right? So Drain aging because even damn is one hand We do not pay attention to drainages in this country You see people build really beautiful roads. No drainage to if there's any rain or whatever So how do we even start to become a lot more conscious? So when a government is building a road, we can stop them stop this road Please one do the drainage first before you come back and do the road How do we start that because we have to be very proactive as the citizens and all these people to account And lynch them So I I completely I like that that it's the hoops announced to be a bit more proactive to To be almost militant in our role as citizen watchdogs because clearly when you are presented with The kind of governing Culture where as you mentioned the the first lady of estates. Well, she's not the first day There's no such office as first lady of the state But the wife of the governor of estates Is driving around and it may back while half of the state is on the whole time The optics of it don't even make any kind of impact on this person may have confronted with that kind of governing culture I think it's then up to the citizens to become a bit more militant in how the police They are elected So as you said when Basic infrastructure like roads are being constructed. I think one of the one of the things that I absolutely detest the most About Nigerian public culture is that when like a governor is is As awarded a contract to build a road I won't say he built a road because he didn't build a road. He just awarded a contract And it's not his personal money. It's state money. So he awarded his state contract to build you And then the road is being built to whatever quality standard or whatever. It's not it's not even important You get people applauding like wow, he's building roads. He's building a school. He's building a hospital. Wow And meanwhile, it's not his personal money. It's your money He shouldn't be applauded for it. He should be policed He should be what you should be more concerned about is This thing that is building how useful is it to me? What quality standard is it being done to how long is this thing going to last? How much utility is it going to add to my life in in the future? Back in I think around the 2013 2014 period when I just come back to Nigeria There was a there's a website that I used to be a very frequent visitor on it was called the skyscraper city Now it's like a it's like an infrastructure slash slash development forum and on the west african Side of west side of of skyscraper city the nigerian forum There were a few of us who were active posters there and what we used to do Was we used to track projects basically used to visually track Projects so there were a few of us who were just like regular citizens. There were civil engineers There were also some engineers on platform as well. So basically all we used to do was just track Projects track project delivery track quality Share images. It was a very like highly informative forum, but the problem is that There were just too few of us. I think in total, maybe there are about 200 of us who were active Participants on that forum So if 200 people are trying to hold a government accountable And there are 20 million people out there who can't be bothered the government can just ignore you Because your voices are just aren't loud enough. So I think if there are more people who are more interested in things like that If there are more people who are regular Contributors on forums like skyscraper city where you can actually track projects in real time Where it's not like how it usually happens in Nigeria where Let's say a real line is being constructed and it got the spokesperson. Whatever come out and tell you like That oh at 85 completion the project will be delivered by so and so month If you're on that forum and you're talking to actual engineers and people who are on the ground You are analyzing satellites footage and you know live visuals. You can already tell This is true. This is not true. That's sort of citizen watchdog thing. That's what we need more of I'm not sure that we do enough of that Oh my god, and unfortunately we have run out of time, but thank you so much, David We will keep on talking about these things because we will we could all have work Our work is to keep on saying the right thing. Are you sure? I don't have work This one is to keep on saying the right thing and driving the conversations That will get you thinking that will provoke your thoughts and push you to actions, right? Thank you so much, David today. Thank you I laryl, mary, and lydie Now before we go and show you follow us on instagrams at waste your africa You can interact with us further drop a comment and most importantly follow all our engagements on social media Like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation Now if you missed today's quote here, it is again. I like this quote so much Even though some flood is also man-made Floods are acts of god, but flood losses are largely acts of man Right the losses that you experience from flood are actually acts of man We'll see you guys tomorrow at 8 p.m. As we bring another great conversation to your screen. Enjoy