 Good morning and welcome to the run-up. I am Uche Chuku Onodo. And my name is Nyam Goul Aggadjou. We're glad to know that you're there and watching us today. And we hope that today will be both informative, educative, entertaining, and everything that you want to have in a program. And today we're looking at the statements made by Governor Godwin, when he said that Nigeria would break if the current ruling party, the APC, wins the presidential elections come 2023. We also will be talking to someone who is doing a very marvelous job in the hinterlands, in the slums, trying to get children to read by gathering a lot of books and opening libraries for children to read in Ajaegunle. And hoping that someone watching today will also make it a point to do something positively to further the cause of education in Nigeria. And moving on from there, we're going to be having, like we usually do, a surprise guest towards the end of the show. And we hope you have a great time having these amazing conversations with us. We do also hope that we are going to have Mr. Okéosain Toulou, who was this morning tackling the fire that erupted in Yaba to get an update. But whether we get him or not, we're hoping that they have done a very wonderful job this morning. But let's kick-start immediately with Honorable Kande Bambuton, the former commissioner for information in Lagos State. Good morning and welcome to the program, Honorable. Good morning. Okay. APC, PDP, Labor Party, and so many other parties. But there seem to be a lot of problems within these major three parties. I'm talking about the APC and the PDP. Let's start with you, the APC. You are a chief ten in APC. What are the chances of seeing that we have so many problems within the party and the cry of some Nigerians that some of the things that you did did not sit down well with them? What are the chances of APC from your perspective in the 2023 election? I think they thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to be part of this event. The most important thing that happened is the launch of the manifesto of the APC. It responds to the yearnings of the average Nigerian. It has done a self-critic of what we have done in the last seven and a half years. And it has proposed new measures, new perspectives, new targets to ensure that the party continues to respond to the yearnings of the Nigerian people. So I think that is a major landmark in this campaign. The fact that we have been able to do our own self-criticism, we've seen where we seem not to have done very well and we have seen where we have done extremely well. And we want to improve on this and we are offering Nigerians a better and improved version and a more popular democratic option going forward. That is basically it. And that tells us that in terms of the mass of the people following us, we have already done our registration and we know that we have a large number of people across the length and breadth of this country ready to vote for our party. We, however, do not think that we should rest on our horse. We are every day trying to develop early warning systems, re-gig our structures, engage, and as much as possible, convince Nigerians that we have an improved model and improved mechanism and a better delivery package than what they've witnessed before. And that basically is where we are now. Based on those factors, I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to win our elections come 2023. I know my colleague is itching to also pitch in something, but let me just add this, or have you clarified this? Before this manifesto was unveiled, as it were, your party, especially the presidential candidate of your party, Bola Amit, Shinobu, had always said that it was going to continue with the legacies of President Mohamed Buhari, which means whatever Buhari has done, he will make sure he continues and solidifies whatever the gains have been. Now, with the... That is because you don't correct. Your interpretation is not correct. When you say you are going to continue with the legacies, it means those ones that are admired by Nigerians, it doesn't mean all the Eau Claire and Sinka acceptance. So I think we need to... When we take the words, let's also interpret them very well. It doesn't mean that it will be an old thing. If you take the legacies, the ones that are admired by Nigerians, the more that Nigerians can access to, as having worked, will be taken, but the ones that have not worked will be pulled upon. That's basically what it means. Thank you very much. Can you identify some of these ones that will be jettisoned for the greater good of Nigeria? When you say jettisoned, I use the word improve on them. For example, we have seen, for example, what we talk about security. And we think that there has to be more work in terms of security. For example, in terms of mobilizing Nigerians behind our security forces. There is a lot of inadequate communication about what our security forces are doing, about how the challenges are facing on the field. And the point is, can we improve the weaponry, for example? Can we improve intelligence-gathering, for example? Can we also collaborate with other missions that are having the same problem and increase our capacity for combat readiness? These are areas that we can improve upon. That's why we say that people are complaining about the forces that will be the research across the country getting what people think about some of our policies. And we have seen some of those things. We are working on those areas that we think people are being used. There, for example, we are talking about agriculture. And this government has done a lot about local rights. But we could do much more than that. Right now, we know that 35% of the land available in Nigeria is under cultivation. We intend to move it to 75%. And to achieve that purpose, we are looking at the river basins to see how we can use river basins to irrigate more land and therefore bring them under cultivation. We are looking at generating commodity birds to ensure that the farmers have a better deal for whatever they are producing. We are looking at creating, establishing more farmers cooperatives and providing them credit and also providing more mechanized machines and the implements that they can use on the farms. So, once the water has gone, we have to improve on it. In terms of security of the farmers, the body government, for example, in Tutuwa, we call the Rangers program under the NCDC. We have Rangers move to the farms and try and stand by the farmers and secure them. Now, we want to expand that by developing also a civilian version of it. So, so that the farmers can feel at home, can feel secure when they are going to the farms. These are areas of improvement. And of course, we are looking at the exchange rates. We have orders to do that. This exchange rate that we are talking about is partly due to the monetarist perspective, the dominance of monetarist tools in managing the economy. We are saying that we want to shift the focus from monetary to fiscal options. In other words, we are trying to say that as much as possible, exchange rates will depend on the productive capacity of the economy. And therefore, our challenge is to see how fast can we encourage more production, that more production, how can we encourage more exports so that the money can be shredded. We are looking at debt obligation. Debt issue is also one of the issues we are having. We are seeing how do we now generate the kind of revenue to be able to pay back our debt as fast as possible. And that's why we are going to have a lot of taxes being lowered but being spread so that more people can pay. So we are not just coming with an old thing. We are not just pitching what has been done. But we are looking at those areas where people are complaining, where the show is pinching their religion and trying to see how fast can we within a short period respond to their earnings. So that's really easy way for all of us. All right. Let me ask you this question. The APC primary elections in river states has just been nullified. Can you give us an insight on why you think this happened and how do you react to this situation? That is never a perfect election. We love an election. Things go wrong. There may be one or two imperfections. And therefore, until a litigant goes to court to raise issues about the process of an election, you may not know exactly where things went wrong. So I'm just saying basically that whatever may be, whatever may be the outcome of the investigation, I'm quite sure this is also not the end of it because there will be appeals. And until it gets to the final supreme authority we may not exactly know the state of the matter. So I want to caution myself that this is not too early to begin to comment because there are secrets that this matter will go. And until the final judgment is taken, you cannot really be able to know whether you are saying the right or not. And not being a lawyer, I have to also be very careful even though I'm a political consultant and scientist, but I know that when you start at the primary level there will be an appeal. And then until we find the final judgment, that's where we know whether this has really been not or inconsistent. Some people have said your party has some kind of arrogance. You do the things that you like to do, whether it has public opinion or not. And that is one of the complaints that the reverse people, the person who took the APC reverse state to court brought that the people that were supposed to be on the delegate list were not put on the delegate list as some other people were put. So it was wrought with irregularities and the people that were thrown up as the candidates were not supposed to because they were not elected by the bona fide delegates. How do you respond to the perception people have that APC is arrogant in the way they do their things in their selection, in their utterances and all that? Well, that's a little wrong impression and it's unfortunate that some people can have that opinion. It's basically important that a governing party that has control of the presidency and more of the governance cannot afford to be arrogant to the people. It's their old thing, whatever is old thing that is as power in trust for the people. And that basically means that if you start with our president you will see what we preach and what we do is the humidity and recognize that ultimately power belongs to the people. So there's no reason any sensible, serious politician or representative of the people cannot afford to be arrogant. Because sooner than later you have to call back to these people and seek their mandate. Now, I will say that the process of election of delegates is quite very, very clear. And it basically starts with the fact that every word has a certain number of people that should elect as delegates. Five per word, that is the prescription of the party. And for you to qualify to do it you must have spent some time within the party. You must have taken the forms, paid for the forms. Now, in this process we talk of management of a particular process. Along the way, in the process there must have been one hiccup or the other that has led to this. But I have also said this is the complaint that the court, the lower court has had two parties and they have taken the decision. But the party that feels it has not touched enough justice. He also has the estimate right to go to the next level and play this course. And that's why we say that it may be too easy to be judgmental about this matter. What I know is that if really people who are not supposed to be delegates became delegates, then you have to ask yourself I mean, how did that happen? I mean how did that happen? But it's not a matter of arrogance. In politics too there is a lot of competition. Groups and the tendencies who are always competing for advantage within the process. And in that process influence will be part of it. So I don't want to prejudge this matter. All I want to say is that a party is an organization of human beings. Human beings compete for power. And in that process people can take advantage and try to put this can actually be abused. But until we get the final position of this matter I would not want to also rush to the press. Let me ask you this question. Yes. Just very recently Governor Obaseki of Edosti has come out to say that in a statement he said that the country in Nigeria would break if the APC wins the forthcoming presidential elections. I am not asking you to react directly to that. But then why would someone make a statement like that? Do you think that your party probably somehow has given off the notion or the body language that your party is not in for the unity of the country? What do you say about that? It is that Governor Obaseki is one of probably one of our very, very, very worst governments. He has not done very well. You are aware that he just recently went to a water facility and wanted a previous over six, seven years he just visited the water corporation and wanted to now suck everybody complaining about the way the people have been run down. That should be the result on top of his job. Now if a person who is with him is not on top of his job, I think he will be taking much more than he can chew if he attempts to go into the national platform and begin to ventilate what basically is the very wronged idea. The part of the matter is that knowing the pedigree of the president who served Nigeria in civil war, who fought to make Nigeria one, you will expect that one major thing that you cannot take from President Buari is that he's committed to the Nigerian federation and he is ready to defend it to the last point of his blood. Now if there are issues of crisis insecurity in the country which the government is doing everything possible to stop, to combat, I respect the very responsible governor who attends the council of state meetings and who has intelligence within to be much more responsible and patriotic in the statements. These are not the kind of time for you to make very divisive comments where you can play politics you can campaign, but campaign on what you province Nigerians to do. Your party the PDP which you used to be in our party when you ran into another party that of course showed that there was no principal basis for him to have been in the party but if you even want to campaign that was campaign based on what you promise Nigerians how Nigerians will look better how will the country will improve how the exchange rate will come down how the inflation rate will go down those are the basis on which we should be engaging each other not on such crisis such backcode ideas say the party coming back and that mean that Nigerians will be deeper. Is he the only Nigerian we vote? This is an election and people are going to vote you should allow Nigerians to vote he himself will face this very soon. So Nigerians are the ones who have the votes to determine the fate of everybody and making irresponsible statements about the future of Nigeria is rather on becoming of the governor and I think this is something I should but if you feel it should be honorable enough to withdraw that statement because it is clearly very irresponsible Revisit the achievements of this present administration and some of which you are going to build upon if you become the party at the center again in 2023 the present administration came on the heels of poverty, corruption fighting of these ones they will bring the economy to a level that one dollar will be one Naira and right now one Naira one dollar is almost like a thousand Naira so the way to solving a problem is by identifying what the root cause of that problem is what have you identified your party that is trying to give us a new lease of life according to how you are saying what have you identified as the reason for the failure or at least the perceived failure because you may not agree with me that security economy and all the corruption and everything it really didn't rear the head that we hoped or didn't really get the kind of fight that we hoped this administration was going to give it so what are the problems that led to the perceived failure of the present administration in fighting these three areas that you intend to address that makes you have the confidence that the incoming administration if you win will be better than this one now let us understand very clearly that the initial has a history and the economy also has a history and let us understand that as time the APC government came into being there have been another party the people's democratic party which are being governed for 16 years let us also understand that it was a consensus in fact the basis on which that government lost power was a general agreement that sit as we said resources and set nations back many many decades now the human's job of transforming deficits to plus within the shorter period is a major challenging issue and we have to recognize that for many many many many many months many of the structures put in place by the PDP have to be undermined have to be converted have to be transformed and one of the single purpose initiatives in that respect was the TSA the TSA was meant to ensure that a lot of agencies and ministries and departments who are holding onto government resources were forced to remit them back when they were not used so that there could be a central accounting system for more government operations and by the TSA alone millions of Naira were saved because of many ministries having over 20-30 accounts in various banks Bank Shagid and all sorts and of course it also meant that the corruption environment was reduced to the bare minimum people didn't have the kind of leeway that they had under the PDP to go out there and concord and engage in various dubious transactions which took away a lot of government money so the TSA remains a major factor and we have to look at it very well as a major achievement of the government and another area where you have to look at for example is that the government is attention to agriculture, the government said let us eat, let us produce what we eat and government too that seriously to the extent of having to shorten the borders of the country to limit the importation of rice so that the local rice you know could work and we saw the evidence at the end of the day the return of the rice pyramids in Kano, Katsuna and Kebi in particular where we were able to achieve increased production of local rice also went to Kasaba you know also went to other products now that means that we have been able to at least work our talk of saying that Nigerians should produce what we eat and interestingly one of the people working against this is one of the president kind of the Liberal Party who is an importer of big things you know and also that means that what is important is killing the beans the beans farmers who are not able to get the kind of rice for their products because of this massive reckless importation of food items into the country which continuously suppress the living standards of our people and our farmers we need to do that as culture is one area where we can that we have done very very well and what we are going to do is to make sure that as we fight insecurity and reclaim more farmers more farms from the insurgents more farmers return to their farms and the production of food will become another issue and of course going forward in this area we have already said at the bank of agriculture which is a major credit agency for funding a Greek we will resume its operations right now what is happening is that you are turning monetarism into fiscal areas where the central bank is the one producing money when in fact the bank of agriculture is laying prostrate so we intend to ensure that the bank of agriculture takes back its place as a major funder and credit agency for promoting and producing better food for the country and not just that we also said that we intend to increase cultivation of land from 35% it is to the 275% and our strategy is to start with the river basins to use irrigation to reclaim more lands to come under cultivation and target crops that have very strong yields so that negatives will have no reason to import food items into this country we have discussed that we have said that the farmers need a better deal and in better degree we say that we are going to set up bring back the commodity boards of old we are trying to have a conversation if you are not going to listen to us so that we can have a conversation this is where you are you know we all did it manifesto and it is very, very easy for you to also let us there are other things to turn that you have a stock for them ok we have a few things you know when you say some things would like to just let me forget ask some questions that are pertinent to what you have said but because for lack of time let's just see this the common man on the streets doesn't really know what TSA has done to Nigeria all he knows is that the debt profile of Nigeria is getting to 60 trillion dollars all he knows is that the dollar is higher all he knows is that a bag of rice that was 16,000 is now up to nearly 40,000 and when you talk about you improving agriculture you improving the economy you bring in some innovations that have helped to save the Naira everybody will just be wondering what that is but maybe since we are still studying the manifesto together that would be a matter for another day we have just discovered that a lot of issues have been raised and we might need to call you back another day to come and say some things so for now we would like to just thank you for being a part of our show today thank you very much, you're welcome beautiful okay I really wished that he would have had a conversation so that we can ask all the questions and then make it clear to Nigerians answer the questions that are burning on the regular Nigerians mind because when you begin to use terms like the TSA and they don't understand it you understand I probably would know what the TSA means because I had to do research over and over on certain issues because of the programs and the kind of work that I do how about the person that is selling foodstuff in Yaba markets does the person understand what TSA is now even if I know the meaning of it and even as a learned person if it doesn't translate to making my life better and food on my table will I even really care all those terms you tell me big terms and it doesn't translate into a better livelihood for me how would I even see that you're doing something for me I will say take us back to Egypt where we'll eat our cucumbers I hope he's able to answer the questions in a better more relatable manner the next time we'll have him but it's actually he was amazing talking to him otherwise it is still the run up and we're going on a quick break when we return the run up will continue and we're going to be having even more interesting conversations do not go anywhere stay with us we'll be right back