 On the breakfast the Independent National Electrical Commission has expressed a divergent view with the president of Nigeria Mohammed Buhari on election funding. What does this mean for the 2023 elections? Also on the breakfast the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN says policy of cash withdrawal limit with aid in covering electronic fraud that's the e-fraud will have further discussions as we proceed. We'll also go through today's new super headlines analyzing the biggest stories of the day all this head on the breakfast. Very good morning to you welcome to the breakfast and plant TV Africa my name is Kofi Patel. It's a beautiful Monday morning and we're set for wonderful discussions with in-depth analysis of topics and subjects that are of importance to you. Well I am Messi Boposki to have you join us and compliment of the season. Right interesting one. Messi we have Albert a good weekend that of course I've not been going on this weekend I mean and conversations on social media in the space fantastic very busy yesterday I saw more than three million tweets of the word Messi yeah the name Messi yesterday. So is it the message with the MESSI or the M-E-R-C-Y? Stop giving yourself a L. But before we get to that let's go over to airborne estate and of course look at what's been happening there because the government when you said has made one or two pronouncements which you know got people talking I mean that's what people do these days we just talk you sleep people talk you wake up people talk you eat people talk you don't eat people talk so but anyway 111 billion dollars at Naira sorry is what the airborne estate government has approved for the indigents of the state to celebrate Christmas I mean this wouldn't be a bad time to come from airborne estate well according to the state's special advisor the special advisor to the governor rather on the media and strategy he announces involvement on Saturday and they're saying that in a bid to celebrate the Christmas and the Yuletide for airborne people at home and in the diaspora the state executive council on the 13th of December 2000 and 22 approved the release of the sum of 111 billion 250 000 Naira covering the transportation of airborne yams that's a guy how do you call him or indigents of a voice who are living in Lagos and Abuja to a boy state for the Christmas celebration including also not just transportation but including the cost of rice uh Christmas gifts and largesse uh to selected 1200 and 70 boyans living in Lagos and Abuja are going to give them um those things uh so that is one that is one another one another one is that uh the airborne estate executive council approved the naming of some through some roads after i.m. pious i.m. former senate president and former secretary to the government of the federation and uh paula metin with the presidential candidates of the all progressives congress and former governor of Lagos but the the controversial one the controversial one is the naming of approval of the name uh naming of the new so-called olympic stadium in abakile kia after the late general sani abacha the late general sani abacha former major dictator uh of nigeria i don't know if there's anything named after abacile but that's one that was uh that was the most controversial one from airborne estate mercy so i i think i set off with uh airborne estate and the fact that that's very controversial you know there's been a lot that has happened this weekend one of it is this you know incident so yes let's even look at it what exactly are we talking about what exactly are we dealing with here is the fact that uh you have the government of a boy state or the however renaming a stadium after ex-military dictator sani abacha and it's quite worrisome but let's look at where you know the arguments and conversations come from and some people have said oh yes uh if you look at state creation if you also look at reorganization of nigeria at the time uh sani abacha has been on top or has been part of it one would say renaming at the time a boy says also one of the states if i'm not mistaking in 1996 that was created uh a boy by osa nasa or zamphara gumbay and akiti state uh were created by you know the ex-military uh governor or dictator however you want to look at it and so this also it's where this argument is coming from that yes it's valid he he was part of state creation it's okay for you to name infrastructure after his name but on the other hand some persons have also created why should we especially when we say you know he's a military dictator and there's been a comparison to to you know this particular action from the government of a boy state so it's like saying you are naming uh so you have Ugandan saying we're naming government or infrastructure we're naming for structure after idiamin yes that that's you know like the comparison or you know germans saying that we are naming infrastructure after uh hitler so that's that's it but at the end of the day uh you want to begin to ask what is right and what is not right should that be the case because this is the argument state creation I saw a lot of comments and some people say it's a shame it's a shame how could he how could he not and others are saying oh he was involved in state creation but I understand those who are actually making an argument for uh you know the naming of uh this infrastructure uh or in an infrastructure really uh after the ex-military dictator that's sani abacha and those who are saying that are coming from the place of morality so but we also know the argument that morality is not law kufi morality is not law that's what it is and I don't think that in our polity as a country I don't think we've gotten to a point where morality is a yardstick because I think that we're getting there I feel like you know in years to come I don't know how many years it would take but we eventually get to that time where before you become a governor before you become president or everything that you do there would be that particular question morality would be a yardstick to measure whatever it is but I don't think that we're big on that but it is just a reflection of who we are of the kind of leadership that we have especially when we look at how much of funds have been looted by the sani abacha government when he was in charge and because Nigerians are very comical and they find humor in everything some people say oh yes let's always say sani abacha is the president of nigeria he's he's done a lot I mean he's done a lot than you know the current leaders he's he's given more money than the current leaders but we also need to understand that the funds that he took out of nigeria whether or not is true because it's also another thing some people think that oh all of this is that you don't have the leaving defending himself and so every other thing is about sani abacha every fund that we have oh is sani abacha sani abacha but let's also look at the fact that we have a climb that's that's decent enough to say hey this is what it is and we're remitting so what if you know on the other hand where these funds have been taken to and this government is not sincere enough to say we're returning it to us what what happens then so it's a very dicey conversation that's been going on over the weekend and I totally understand where you know the argument has been for those who are saying yes he's involved in state creation well is that enough reason why an infrastructure should be named after him despite you know the issue of corruption and you know basal mental funds public funds what does he mean is it that we have trained us of you know to be very corrupt people to say we give excuses we make excuses for wrong behavior and what have you but like we say morality is not law yeah you know I think I think you've said oh merci little much to add than to say that you know uh this isn't the first time abacha is being signed abacha has been honored in the country yes indeed he was military dictator uh from 1993 to 1998 uh right here in Nigeria and um he he had some some good good sides people have talked about that the fact that abacha you know accomplished some things um I mean uh during Nigeria's uh what do you call it again uh centenary celebrations I think in 2014 uh bacha was um given an honor alongside the likes of Babangir and people came out to fault the federal government for you know as to why they gave abacha national honor but um what the government said that uh in in defense of Sanya bacha and the fact that he was given a national honor at the time was that uh he oversaw Nigeria's um at the increase of Nigeria's foreign reserves foreign exchange reserves from 494 million dollars in 1993 uh to 9.6 billion US dollars by the middle of 1997 he also reduced Nigeria's external debt from 36 billion dollars rather in 1993 to 27 billion dollars in 1997 if you look at the time also noted that uh Sanya bacha brought all the controversial uh privatization programs of the Babangir administration uh to a halt he also reduced an inflation rate of 54 percent inherited from the IBB as it's publicly called a prime about the Muslim Babangir regime uh to 8.5 percent between 1993 and 1998 while the nation's primary commodity oil was an average of nine uh dollars per power he was able to do all of that and that's why the federal government at the time uh said that he uh uh deserved to be given a national honor people kicked against it you know but uh he was given that um that but of course like you said the people of Eboni still have a peculiar uh affinity with the man because of his role in giving them uh their their state so that's that i think we'll leave it at that uh the the stadium has not been completed however i wonder why they're calling olympic stadium because i mean i would think that if you want to call a stadium olympic stadium it should be it should have hosted the uh the olympic games but also well you can look at the fact that maybe they want to have all the facilities there it has a calling olympic stadium but it's all good uh congratulations to him i think uh nigerians can afford to live with that people are even these days saying the military era had a lot of things to remember a lot of things to celebrate um there was more money around i saw someone put a comment you know in the post saying that they've even had more money uh coming the way of the citizens when abacha was uh was president so that's that mercy let's move on well so so another one is that uh there's a caller suspected caller outbreak that has claimed 20 lives in cross river state uh you know that's the reports that that that we have and according to the uh you know the primary health care director genetic pion she said that uh you know this is really bad and the government of the state is making efforts you know to call all of that but cholera is one thing that has lived with us as a people in our country i mean if it's like saying there's malaria in nigeria so there's cholera you know cholera malaria uh what are the you know illness can you mention there are some things that that have become a norm and so i'm wondering well it's cholera cholera is is is quite kind of you know not like malaria it's really deadly no i'm just saying malaria is also deadly but i'm saying that in nigeria kofi there's some things that have become natural for us or there's some things that we have decided to adopt and so so when you say there's an eye-pop attack or you know there's an attack there's a security someone has been kidnapped but i'm like okay oh really who who was it that's the point but but in nigeria we have a fewer than 500 cases per year you know it's it's extremely rare in the country and that's why i think uh it should not be compared to malaria because we all walk around with some form of malaria in our body or the other you know it's part of i'm sure if i go get tested today to see malaria i don't think that's the case no we all have we have the parasite you know if you go get tested you might have some form of malaria that's why you're able to fight that's able to to live in africa you know but in in in terms of um cholera it's extremely rare we have less than uh we have fewer than 500 cases every year in the country you know in nigeria it's treatable okay it requires a medical diagnosis uh but it's extremely extremely uh dangerous like you're hearing people are dying uh the villagers have said that about 20 people have died so far uh in in cross river state cross river state is a state that's there to my heart and i know it's there to your heart too because that's uh you know uh where i belong but but um the villages in question are ecoreal community in abi local government area of cross river state merci i'm sure you're very very very aware of abi local government area we're hearing that the the outbreak affected at least 10 villages in ecoreal community below beginning from Thursday um so we've had from like you said the head of the primary healthcare uh agency in in in cross river state we also had from the permanent secretary cross river state ministry of health uh dr warai wara um uh who confirmed the outbreak he said it cannot give a figure you know of the death toll but the villagers are the ones saying that the village head in particular uh one of one of the village heads sorry is saying that uh about 20 people have died so far they've sent they sent a sent an sos to their the indians who work with government and they're hearing that unicef and whho will soon arrive to contain the situation um i do not know why the cross river state government does not know how many will have died till now i do not know if they are already on ground but i am sure that unicef and whho once again the information will definitely be on ground but in all of this mercy we've heard from the head of the primary healthcare agency we've heard from the permanent secretary ministry of health but someone is missing in all of this you know what i'm talking about stop that mess no no but the the the the commissioner for health in cross river is she still commissioner that's the question yes she i've not i've not heard from her no no so so the thing is the question is is she still the commissioner she is i mean is she not so yeah so i mean we cannot set in if she's still the commissioner she is i mean i really yeah are you sure i i think the last time i checked so so i'm all i'm saying is that i'm not talking about one person messy i'm talking about the committee there should be there's isn't a healthy health commission across the state it's it's not personal i'm just saying i'm just saying please no calm down calm down i'm just saying that in all of this we've not heard from the commissioner of health in cross river so who is the commissioner for i don't care who it is okay must i don't know is it better i do even if it's i if it's nobody doesn't matter whether it's better i do or not i'm just saying that why haven't we heard from the commissioner of health in cross river city so so about about this if this was legal state dr professor bio me would have been the one to be talking not the permanent secretary cross river state minister of health or legal state minister of health not the head of the primary health care agency the commissioner will come by me professor by me so i'm saying i hope that if indeed better i do is still the commissioner for health in cross river state i'm hoping that her activities and with the apc campaign house have not distracted her from a primary assignment which is being commissioner all right and i think that if if if this is the case then it needs to help we need to have a conversation as to whether seven ministers of the federal republic and seven commissioners should be leading campaign groups or campaign teams at a time when they are still supposed to be working okay their tenor is not up you see mercy in river state and some states of the country i know if you are a commissioner for instance so you have a an appointment with government and you want to contest an election you want to hit a campaign tree you know what happens mercy yep you have to resign you have to tender your resignation uh and even for the the apc primaries you saw that the likes of america and co had to step aside you know engage changed his mind so i'm saying that i hope i hope are you with me mercy no i'm with you i mean i'm saying that i hope that uh if if better i do is a commissioner for health that she is on top of the situation and not to tear it away with her responsibilities uh as the head of the apc uh women's campaign you know team that's all i'm saying right that that's a very that's a very valid point that you can raise but the next question would be whether you know she is the commissioner even if she is not i'm saying that we what where is the commissioner of of health in crush versus i in all of this there should be a don't forget we are talking about the people here no kofi not not betta betta is me okay so why don't you allow me you know just put out where i want you so the thing is that valley point that you have raised right and we know that once upon a time dr betta i do i mean is has always been the commissioner for health but at this moment we cannot ascertain whether she's still the commissioner for health why can't you ascertain if you're supposed to know mercy what am i supposed to know your journey so so the next thing i mean but i don't know because that information is not available and you know all of the efforts to ascertain that i we can't really say whether you know she is and if there is a commissioner for health but the next thing are you telling me there is no commissioner for health in cross because that would also be that would also be so why eat there's no commissioner i mean if there's a commissioner i'm telling you that last time i checked yesterday betta was commissioner for health in cross river state so that's what the that's what the that's what the papers are saying that's what you you have no no except you can't give me another name i don't know so that's what i'm saying that's in that's what's wrong why why why you fixated on whether she is i'm not see this is what i'm saying mercy you're not even allowing me to drive all i'm you're getting me wrong because i have to defend myself all i'm saying is that we need to hear from the cross river state commissioner for health that's all and i'm saying that it's also another question to ask who is the commissioner so if you if you have in the books we live in the society where there's a lot of things going on in the in you know by paper there's a lot going on why do you then have uh you know another person speaking like you have rightly stated you should be commissioner that should make this information public but why is the commissioner for health not making this public is there a commissioner for health and if it's the commissioner for health what exactly is going on because we can't really accept it and we know that we had a commission i don't give you a time doctor but i do has been the commissioner for health and for cross river state but so far we haven't heard anything from her and the next question will be is she still the commissioner is there another commissioner why has a commissioner not spoken this are some of the questions i'm raising but very valid point is you know what is we even really responsible for cholera and its outbreak up until this time we're still talking about is it preventable i mean is it like you know Ebola is it like COVID can it be prevented is that something that can be done to prevent all of this food contamination water contamination and you know it talks about a lot especially in rural community where people don't have access to you know to potable water and what a view so there's a lot of work that needs to be done messy now even if the commissioner speaks yeah even if the commissioner say does it does it even you know change anything not to make an excuse i'm saying does it even solve the problem kofi does it even solve the problem that 20 people have lost their lives however from community leader does that even solve the problem that you know cholera would end you know so it's a lot it's a and compassionate not to not to say that i think it's quite disturbing to hear you say that if the commissioner speaks uh would it solve the problem i i it's quite it's quite disturbing what i'm saying this is this we need to demand the highest levels of accountability and it's not to to you know cast a spell on your person i'm just saying that for me you know we need we need to demand the highest level of of accountability uh from an excellence from a government um officials you know i'm saying um in government the highest person in the ministry who is going to be able to interface with a governor and lead interventions parents that people are not going to start i'm you know saying less sales advance they do as they're told okay but the commissioner when the commissioner for health speaks you know that the governor is speaking because the cabinet level appointment now my my my my insistence on why isn't the commissioner of health spoken about this outbreak is that this is the same state where the health commissioner told us that there was no kofi 19 miss were you happy about that happy where you were you impressed with that this is the same state that's a very where where the the the the governor who is the medical doctor convinced the commissioner all right of health to go before the press sit down medical doctor and tell the entire world that cross river state was kofi 19 free even when medical doctors in the states were getting infected because they were get they were they were not protected and they were interfacing or treating people who are kofi 19 you know even when delegations from the the international community and national center for this control and minister of health we're trying to get into cross river state to ascertain okay they they faced the press and told us that cross river state had no kofi 19 and did the press conference another one and dance there what did they call that dance again you know to tell anyone say it was a charade you know so we know where we are coming from is it not the same state where doctors when we strike okay we know we are coming from that's why i ask the question i i know i'm asking this question where is the cross river state because the next thing i don't know that's a very valuable question i don't want to hear i don't want to hear that the government to start to downplay things and hide things you know what i'm talking about message it's your state it's my state too so okay i don't hear now that government to start to hide things and just look good we don't want that let's let us know the real situation okay let us address the issue and let us save lives not to have a cosmetic government approach to make government look good you know i'm saying so that's that's my concern no no it's for the people and your consent and your consent is very valid not for any any government official for the people you know so your concerns are very valid and you know the questions that i've also raised and the concerns are also very valid we're also trying because i mean as much as we say that we haven't been able to um i can't really say what it is i remember when covid broke out i was there i remember when you were there cross river state of course so you know what i also remember when you know there were stuffs about i went to the health center the isolated center at the teaching hospital to see all that the government was talking about the bed space and what a view you know i i physically was there and i was present and i know what i saw and i know what i said so um but but it's the questions that we have asked are very valid but i'm also saying that yes we're looking at all of the question because what do you see what do you say what do i say no i mean what did you see when you when you went to the info of course was a government was was not being truthful of course the government was not being truthful so they lied about about covid-19 not being in cross river state it wasn't even the case it was the fact that you know you had um uh you know there's supposed to be like bed space and centers where um you're supposed to have bed space and centers where those who are infected or those who are coming from other parts quarantine center that's what it's been called quarantine yeah i hope i'm correct you're absolutely right yes and so that's what that's what it was and there's a lot of oh it's all you know 100 bed and space i could count how many beds were there or how many rooms we had but we need to move away kofi you know and and so that's my concern you know that um but but my concern is they shouldn't strip anything on that so does it also make another difference as much as it's very important we know the climb that we live in kofi it's a lot of talk there's a lot of talk that goes on in our political space so even if the commissioner i'm not trying to say the commissioner is not supposed to speak that's the point you're not getting but also on the other hand i'm saying even if you have the minister or the commissioner coming to say oh there's an outbreak doesn't make any difference is there anything that will be done it does can be done it does because right now the the does the right now the secretary messy sorry the prime minister you ask the question you know we are being prompted to move on but the parent secretary told us that he doesn't know he can't give us the figure of how many people have died that's worrying that's worrying because parent secretary sit down but it's a movie move that's worrying but let's let's move on anyway uh to the next one at top 2017 Argentina won their first uh a world cup in 36 years i mean i remember the the last time they wanted Diego amando maradona was the captain and the star of that argentine side albisa leste you know and uh in that semifinal against uh england where he produced a master class and another contra and a controversial goal a master class goal do you even bring it from one end of the field to the other and slotting the ball past peter shilton who was the uh the gokipa for the three lines at the time fantastic goal uh i think the best goal in walk-up history and then he he topped that up with the most controversial goal in walk-up history probably known as the hand of god you know hand of god yeah you know you know but but but he won the trophy and cemented his place in history as one of the greats behind their legendary pele who also want to walk up and you know for you to be regarded as as a great alongside these two you must at least have won one walk-up um so mesi he's 35 uh he is uh going to be i mean he's he's just about to retire uh the question was could he retire with a walk-up trophy that was the only question mark on his legendary status and he didn't know and he delivered uh spectacularly it was this is the best walk-up final that i can remember i mean we can look at argentina was in germany uh in nineteen eight six three two we can look at um some of the great matches over the years italy brazil 1994 uh but this this was it this was it this much delivered you know in all accounts you know uh thrills goals controversy excitement and the teams kept going at each other we didn't see a a match where they came calculatedly to try and play safe they all went out and like it was it was a question of kylian and bapi uh the young star the french young star who had all the hopes of the country on his shoulders could he also cement his place and lay a stake to becoming the natural successor uh to christiano Ronaldo and leonard mesi he did he did his best by scoring three goals uh but it wasn't enough for the french national team 33 at the end of extra time in the last four two on penalties so i mean he should repeat that itself yesterday and that's what it is uh like you have rightly mentioned argentina has been there before this would be you know the third time they're taking this away 1978 1986 and 2022 was a great one if you look at the lineup of players i mean prior to this time you have mentioned uh the the very popular player uh mar was he called again the hand of god yeah maradona maradona i'm just imagining what would have happened if he was still alive and you know in that stadium yesterday would have been you know a great one but unfortunately even though this is also controversy in 2022 because i mean we've talked about that the hand of god and the result but really we're not going back to what happened uh back in time but um it was a repeat of history would have been very great to see fans win it would because history would have been created but of course history repeated itself and great one but if you look at the lineup i mean players especially with the fact that mesi i'm sure he was very determined to say hey i have to take this home he's very talented but if you look at the game because i saw the game in the first half i saw the game in the first half it was quite depressing for me because you know french thing was very overwhelmed already it looked very overwhelmed and i think the trigger started when uh that penalty was cost there's also now another argument following the penalty that was cost as um what's it called de maria uh causing the particular penalty and some people say there wasn't supposed to be a penalty it wasn't water penalty i saw the game closely but i think that that's where they lost it but prior to this time if you look at the predictions and all of the conversations surrounding who would win you find that argentina was a better team yesterday in all sense yes there was a comeback for the second half and you know the france team actually made it very great and bar pay was really outstanding he lived up to his expectation a lot of people put so much money there was so much expectation and it would have been very very fantastic for those who were supporting the french you know team to actually win but it didn't happen but not to say that you know the french team didn't come up they came back so there was a comeback in the second half right and but it happened what happened and that's why i don't like penalties really because uh messy you don't like penalties no i don't like i don't like when you play a game and then there's a draw and then you have to do penalties a lot now growing up i remember one time i messaged a fantastic player but i really had emotional breakdown when i watched you know argentina nigeria play sometimes much younger and the one so he always made me very sad you know for god's sake you can't forget so i always like know who you know he was he was the reason we lost because he's always you know on top of the game he's caught against nigeria and i don't even see of recent time any game that nigeria has actually played with argentina and coming up top so he breaks my heart i remember i cried i cried i cried very well and i stopped watching nigeria and football so that's why he wants argentina to lose no not necessarily but he doesn't grow to see you know friends come on top of the game but it was it was it was really a thrilling game i think it was argentina to win that game three times to to finally get messy what he wanted i mean you go to goes ahead first off they pull it back to no it was just a game over i felt like extra time three two and you feel that you've won the game only for them to come back you know i think the referee did very well i think he was able to have a balanced game he allowed the game flow you know i hear that the head of the fifa referees committee pierre luigi colina you know he's a an old-time referee and this is how he used to referee back in the day they get the bald guy with the large eyes you know and he used to allow the games especially not to be don't influence the game too early you know if anybody makes a mistake just issue a red card very early you know you allow the game flow and that's a referee they did well um all right so we have to go but killing on baton he set a record you know uh the first time since uh i think geofaust or george best i think geofaust in 1966 to score high trick in a workout final you know that's that's that's a great one so relations a little messy maybe they should settle the goat debate between him and ronaldo you know he's been able to discourage it so i i i wish i wish you would see a picture of ronaldo when message to that joke we have to go up next we have a look at what the papers are saying and that opener boy for taria our guest analyst is standing back at jobs please stay with us