 You're welcome back. We're going to lift from off the press what made the headlines on national dailies. We're going to have National dailies like the daily trust the punch and the independent just three newspapers this morning And we're starting with the daily trust, but we are being joined by our guests for this morning Mr. Ezekiel Nyaito public affairs analyst talking to us from Aqqaibom state. Good morning and welcome to the program sir Good morning, and thanks for having me Okay, let's begin first of all with the daily trust newspaper and They are some very interesting headlines like the one they're leading with it says Ganduja tipped as APC National chairman and the writers are tinibu shatima host ex-governor then uza dimma and two others progressive governors back move For maybe him to become the chair an announcement to be made soon jubilation in Kano APC, okay your take on the fact that The former Kano state governor might just be the national chairman of APC Yeah See politics in Nigeria has become the main game and not governors. I Was once a national chairman of a political party that was then rated as the fastest growing And that's when we set up the young democratic party where I was a co-founder and the pioneer national chairman Now when you look at what we try to do that really like him set the fire was because We realize that there's a demography that is not captured in Nigeria That is not brought into mainstream politics and that's the youths and we went out for the youths and it opened the door You know Most people may not know this that today YPP young progressives party is an offshoot of why DP? We are the current chairman was my national youth leader and I handed over the party to him and One word you had there was a movement from YDP to YPP But then it's a party that is still there and making some inroads here and there But coming back to what I wanted to establish now a PC in trying to get a national chairman Has to have setting considerations One of such considerations is what do we want to achieve? Do we want somebody that comes out and is a breath of fresh air a departure from the conventional? Do we want so that the youth demography will go with them? Do we want somebody that will come and he has his personality as his character? He has these good conscience He has this you know something that Nigerians will say the new face the new face of hope for Nigeria Or do we want you know the old blood the old game? We don't care about the young people who don't care about morals and ethics We don't care about anything. We just want to be able to plot our designed and you know be able to get a certain section of the country and How will that work out at the end of the day and don't forget that there are two options on the table Option one is that the current government Wins at the tribunal wins at the appeal and wins at the Supreme Court So they stay if they stay what is the future of the party? Does it really matter? We are talking of the next election in the next election? What are the permutations and combinations or is a possibility that the tribunal could as a for a rerun of some sort and on the basis of that how do we so I think is Elected the politics of numbers and in the numbers. They are looking at Kano But I think that I'm not a member of a PC I think that they may be making a very strategic mistake Along the way and they may be losing both ways and there's even a third factor Which is the internal politics of Kano? you know of For a while, there's there's been this seeming romance and relationship between One very important indigent of Kano and the current government and the other people are feeling what's going on here You know, there's unease within the APC camp in certain quarters But I think that President Tinnable should as much as he cannot jettison politics It should look more into posterity God has made you a president no matter how you look at it Even if you are subsequently removed, I mean you've been able to sit there for a minimum of six months. I would say We seem to have lost the audio of Mr. Ezekiel and I took public affairs analysts trying to make sense of the Headlines that we have and the headlines he was addressing was that Gandhi jay has been tipped former governor of Kano State has been tipped to be a APC national chair the next APC national chair. Remember that they They national chairman of APC and the secretary of Mr. Resigned a few days ago. It has been made public and official right now and the people who are holding brief placeholders are there and We had that word when we we were doing the run-up to the elections the placeholders are there Now we are talking about a permanent solution to the chairmanship of APC We do hope that Mr. Ezekiel is back on now. Mr. Ezekiel, can you hear me? Yeah, I've been hearing you all along. Can you hear me? Yeah now I can hear you. We lost your audio before now So, please go ahead. Oh, sorry. I was hearing you all along. So I was wondering what happened I was actually hearing everything. Okay. Okay Anyway, bottom line is I think that the PM APC should really Sit down and ask themselves exactly what they want because some of those calculations and commutations that they are making At the risk of sounding uncharitable I think that Mr. Tinibu needs to know what sort of you know image he wants to Put forward to Nigerians Somebody who has come as a fantastic politician And a master of the game or somebody who has come on a rescue mission To rescue Nigeria To save Nigeria even within his party Somebody who has come to say look let's have a face that is inclusive They are extremely vibrant young articulate people in apc From the north that if you made them chairman today, wow, you will cut the rants of the obedience You will capture a section of the youth demography You will get a lot of the people in Nigeria who are saying look we are sick and tired of all this Government I know all these old people. We are tired of them. Give us something refreshing and for you to now bring Mr. Ghandluje as your preferred candidate I I have my very serious reservations as to what what informs your choices And what your choices are going to be going forward because the morning tells the day They they concern Of of some people as well is that no not only is gandu j part of the whole old stock as it were He's also on the investigation You know that they have renewed his investigation the investigation into the case of his dollar bribe that they used to call Gandola in those days So now he's under investigation and he's being touted to become the next apc chairman seems like You know every principal officer has a baggage that has not been taken out of their their necks But uh, they're still good enough for the apc But right now Let me say this Like I ended earlier the morning tells the day I think somebody close to president tinnable Should let him know the mood of the nation and what I may call the imperatives for success There's a very urgent need for a rebranding And you could not have a better option than this choice of a new national chairman Let him look for a relatively young person That is very vibrant and is very engaging that has a good record and there are many of them Very many people in apc are my friends Okay, they are my friends and I know that these people they are there and Let him look for one of those people and rebrand start from rebranding apc to rebranding himself so to speak And you'll be able to carry a lot of Nigerians along people are getting detached and they are falling off On a daily basis from what is going on They expected that he would hit the ground running and then there'll be a team to be able to manage the economy Things are going haywire We don't know the first subsidy thing is he's killing Nigerians and we just want something to say wow That's nice. You know all these other things and there's too much politics already There's too much politics And too little governance and something to make the average Nigerian to smile. Okay. Just talked about fuel going higher and higher The the other headline there on the daily trust is more knocks for federal government over petrol price increase Remember that melee carry came out and said that market forces are the ones controlling the price and we were even asking Do you really call these market forces when just a few people are in charge of these Is that enough to call market forces? Maybe there are four or five people that can form a clique or a cabal Are you you call that market forces? when The prices go high like this and then I saw this morning someone on twitter was saying that if you are patriotic enough You should be happy to buy fuel at 700 naira. I don't know whether that is patriotism or Being docile or being I don't know how to describe it What is your take on what is going on in the oil sector where we are now buying fuel in kalaba I think two days ago. We had reports that they bought for 700 naira when they were selling for 6 17 in abuja And some parts of legos and all that so what's your take on what is happening in Petrol so so to say not let me leave out diesel because that one has gone up a long time ago The kerosene has gone up a long time ago But now it's petrol that every aspect of our life seems to be tied to and it's going higher and higher It might get to a thousand naira Two things the very first thing is that Last night I bought you know because of the way things are so of course have devised ways of redesigning our houses and um kind of um running on what is sustainable, okay Right now they have petrol Generators that can carry three aces if your bedroom aces on maybe your private parlor aces on you can leave one more Do you understand me and many of us have resorted to that Some like myself sometimes we have two or three of those you know standing by so the big Generators that take so much diesel we just keep them made and wait for now So we are kind of redesigning our lives to fit the current lifestyle Even the big man you discover that you are leaving your big SUVs for some days And then your daily runs you are looking for one other smaller car that has fuel efficiency We are starting to redesign and become more Especially those of us that are not in government but our private citizens but even with that Last night we bought petrol at 650 in Uyo So it hasn't reached 700 thank god, but I bought 650 in Uyo, but let's drill down And talk about this petrol thing One of the biggest problems that we had in Nigeria is this thing of everything being opaque There are two things the first thing is that you must Understand that nobody buys something for two Naira and sells it for 150 except Government So the first thing you do is engage the public Tell them come clean. Tell them that the cost reflective Value and price of electricity bring it out transparently honestly with integrity is five Naira per kilowatt hour Nigerians see that Come to petrol Bring it open There are two things about petrol one is do we have a swap deal? Swap deal means I give you so much barrels of crude in exchange for so much, you know petrol If that be the case, there's nothing like exchange you there's nothing like exchange rates nothing like dollars pressure on dollars If you understand what I mean, it's like it's like a trade right back on yeah Yeah, it's like a pattern arrangement If we are stopping that arrangement, what is the reason? Because if you come clean and say Before a barrel of crude will give us maybe three million liters of petrol But because of price differentials a barrel cannot give us three million barrel three million liters again, but maybe 2.9 So the the the the differential is in how much you get back But it has nothing to do with dollars. It has nothing Second option is you buy my crude at the market rate And then you pay me my dollars I use my dollars And buy your own petrol at your own rate And my question is why would I rather not do a batter? Which is the the swap deal What is the problem? My brother the problem is Corruption being opaque lack of transparency lack of accountability as at today Every country has access to know the production from the rig From the extraction the president can know in his Office on a screen the amount of food that comes out from every Oil well, he can know But he would rather not know That's why we talk of bunkering well We talk of how much is lost because if I know how much comes from the from the from the drill head And I know that today I have two million barrels There's no question on of why I will not have value for my two million barrels Oh, they stole this edin still that way. Did they still at what point did it mean whose section was it? What is the explanation? Mr. Tinugu my governorship my presidential, please Think of transparency and accountability That is why people just drove towards pital b It wasn't like there was anything, you know, fanciful about pital b They just expected that he will come with a different mindset because that's what he did when he was a governor Even when they impeached him he still continued his state on that lane and said look public funds should be done with public conscience Good conscience. So what am I trying to say at the end of the day? We really don't know how much code we are making We really don't know how much it is that comes to Nigeria When it comes to Nigeria, there's plus plus plus plus plus tax tax tax tax If you remove all the plus plus all the tax tax What's the bare bone? Because you can collect tax on one hand and they tell you are subsidizing on another hand It doesn't make sense to me doesn't make sense You know when you remove you say I'm buying for tune error. The exchange rate is this so it's landing at The wall for x amount of money And every Nigerian knows that x amount of money. They know that this this is a cost-reflective price for power This is a cost-reflective price for fuel and other things and it tell Nigerians If we are to subsidize this and subsidize this the two subsidies coming together will cost us say Five million Naira, but we don't have five million Naira We have an option to borrow and borrowing we cover a problem or we ask you to just pay a little When you pay this little what is cost-reflective for the people that can afford Then we create an alternate window that alternate window could be if you go to nnpc stations And you know, you are ready to sleep there. You can buy it at this rate Baby I businessman and you don't have that whatever you can buy from this other station. That is one option Second option is gentlemen Let's make this thing you have your cars. You can go your cars, but the poor man does not have his car So we're going to make public transportation system available for them within the next we have an emergency train that cuts across and then internally bosses that run on setting Principles based on a PPP arrangement Private public partnership arrangement so that a businessman works on it to make it to the sustainable number three we tell ourselves how come that AAPC was in government for eight years and not one refinery was fixed Who has been able to answer the question as to the mystery why they could not fix one refinery If this my refineries are unfixable Can we not plan to Build a new refinery from the scratch like dango TD Eight years is more than enough In fact, it gives you a basis for people to say Oh, let him have a second term because this refinery has already gone to about 70% completion We don't want it to stop so let it and then you now say these other three Look, what do we do with them? You scrap them? You sell them? The american said cut your losses I mean this is a sort of thinking you come to Nigerians engage them and say which route do we take? And you get the buy-in of the generality of Nigerians and you attack that route Honestly and sincerely and they will stop having these Nigerians You now know if they are making sacrifices they can see the light at the end of the tunnel You know I think it's well No, we see church here that says that hope is the anchor that stabilizes the soul Once Nigerians can see where we are going they can make sacrifices Knowing that there is an ultimate end inside But for right now everything is okay. Everything is is mysterious Everything is just there and we don't know where we are coming from where we are going We we know where we are going. We're going to have 8 000 naira given to us for six months No, no, no, they say they said we will consider Reconsider All right Who are they we okay everybody knows how government is run That's why they said there should be ministers. There should be ministries. There's organized private sector and there's labor Do you understand me when you say we we're talking government The whole apparatus of government sitting doing the necessary, you know works and coming up with a national reflective You know consensus So when you are there alone as mr. President no ministers the boards are not there and this and you say we Well talking about boards. We've just seen that Tinobu is still in on daily trust The president tinobu returns n e dc board members and management replaced by buhari when buhari came some people were Were removed by the jonathan administration. One of them is Mayna abdu rashid mayna of the pensions saga jonathan removed him buhari came and replaced him and brought him back rather and The case continued like that now tinobu has come people replaced by buhari He's seeking their return into the board the n e dc the not east development commission He's seeking the return of these people these board members. So what is your take on that? One government removes some people another one returns them I think that every government has the right to say this was not properly done Um, there was no basis for this removal bring the file. I look at the files and I see that look There's no basis for this will be removed as a result. Please let them come back and continue their work Now that is possible. I actually have nothing against him The only the other thing is that he could be a political expediency because this has to do with the north And he feels that he has two options. First is that he could have been an opportunity for him to put a certain quality of people back there But if these are the people that um during the campaign they worked for him and them like they had a deal That an understanding and they delivered then he might also have to Reward them by keeping to an agreement they had before time So I don't know why he's bringing them back either. He's found them to be extremely competent, you know So he brings them back that could be a good reason Or they had a deal before election and said oh god, we'll rub your back You rub our back we'll come together we'll deliver this and then when you win you bring us back since we're already there That's a possibility the third possibility is that he just thinks that For whatever is worth let him satisfy setting blocks or understandings the final is that They could have been people that he must have minded. They are being there And then present who are eager to know that wow somebody has caught the carpet You know believe beneath my feet And he's like no no no this tune who is having his tentacles everywhere. So bam get them out. They got them out and then tune who comes back and he's like Sorry guys You know, there's a return of the mark. So he brings them back Whichever game that has been played I pray that it is done on account of the fact that he's found them to be extremely Extremely competent and you know square pegs in square holes And he brings them back in the larger interest of the north east Development commission because that commission is if you know the history of that commission, you know It was liking to some like the ndc for the south south So I think it's a commission that should be extremely important Especially now that the north east is so ravaged Is a commission that should come in as an interventionist agency and really hit the ground running and really work for the Good of the generality of the people of that Constituency if that is his consideration god will bless him because the people that are suffering man Okay, they are suffering in there. They are suffering those guys are suffering Yeah, let's move to the punch newspaper are the biggest headline there is fuel price hike business operators panic Fear shutdown and job losses the writers on that story are hike to worsen manufacturers woes many sms will die manufacturers association of nigeria lcc i lament and we also have nlc considers emergency meeting pdp slams federal government as Rep someone nnpcl boss now. You are an architect. You're a businessman as well. Tell us how biting these Hike in fuel price is to you as a businessman so that we can use that to relate to all the businessmen and manufacturers that we have I'll tell you that I don't know the word to use on this issue of fuel a bad combination to a businessman Of fuel and exchange rates I'm a developer And I have an estate Some people have paid me full For the houses I develop I had done my mathematics and everything The fuel prices have just come and destroyed everything I had done Because all the prices of all the products in the market have all changed What moral rights do I have to go back to a man who had paid me full and he will have his house by december And I was working according to timelines and I was meeting timelines and all of a sudden in the past One month or two months everything has gone haywire I'll give you a very little example And how do I do this without getting too personal my family members have suffered so much I decided okay, let them take a break because of my involvement in politics So I told them okay, go take have a break. They were going Bta Applying at 400 and something naira Bta they were applying they are already applying everything all of a sudden within one week That window was closed A new window was open Sunday is my wife's birthday I'm now having to move from 400 maybe from three family members maybe $10,000 from about four million you have to bring out about About 10 million eight million. There's a differential that just doesn't make sense within a few weeks Come back to business in petrol All your calculations that you were working on Prices in the market You now have to up your calculation by over 30 whereas you've already collected the money from the people So right now I'm having to do everything to cut all my losses I'm just wondering my guy even to say let me return your money How much will you charge me if if it's like 10 it becomes easier for me to return your money than for me to Know what it's not 30 to come and complete and meet the contract and maintain integrity It's a difficult thing. How do you call the people back and say, please don't be annoyed prices have changed They said my guy. Sorry. We have another contract. I paid you 100 percent and as a result So as a businessman now the question is How much can you take upfront on something you're about to do because you don't know how the prices are going to change The foreign exchange rate is just going a wire the petrol rate and petrol affect, you know People don't know this petrol affect everything Everything including vegetable in the market. You say, uh, how does that woman paid transport to come to the market? And that transport has changed because of petrol. So the price of gary has changed the price of vegetables have changed Businessmen are just wondering. What do I do? Can I just shut down at a stage? I actually considered selling my whole estate Looking for somewhere that would buy it off me and get the bulk money Exchange it at whatever rate November one out of the 60 and just go and relax. I've had enough But the question is If we do this What are we living back to Nigeria? That brought us up and for someone like me my case is double Joe Paddy I am one person that owes Nigeria This will be very strange to many people Nigeria gave me the best education that anybody could give anybody in the world It sent me to a school from the village where I lived with my grandmother and I knew nobody I had no connections I had nothing I moved from the village in In Buick or in the Kono Loko government area where I lived with my grandmother to federal government college worry That was rated the ninth the best in west Africa and the ninth best in the common world And today I can be speaking big English and be appreciated by people because of the education Nigeria give me How do I leave this Nigeria and go away to another country? I will not my conscience won't allow me But when Nigeria allow me to breathe, Nigeria has their knees on my neck It's a problem for me. Others Nigeria didn't do anything for them. They can have jackpot They can do anything but I can't do that. My conscience can't allow me So let people who come into government, please know that they came to serve let them have a conscience And take decisions that are in the larger interest of the generality of the poor And the poor are so much go to the villages you will whip In our language, I'm sorry to say this. There's what we call it Ubi Idiom Idiom is like is like a native doctor of the worst order My brother I'm telling you on tape recorded by NTA crew that went with me from village to village They are graduates that have gone to learn How to do that witchcraft and everything and they are initiating others because they have no work to do They are graduates that at night use touch light And climb palm tree have vested carry it on their head And come down because if it falls people will hear To steal things are difficult things are hard Things are terrible with Nigerians are going through stuff. And then we we are talking of buying bulletproof vehicles for for principal The water or the national assembly. We are living innocent to go and bring imported SUVs For for national assembly members. We have the God has to help us we can't continue like this We can't we need to have a little bit of conscience for the poor people are suffering This night a woman who has fasted to have a child for seven years Is going to lose that child today today to the wife She does not have 2000 naira to pay for the medical bill that is required And these nurses they've developed the thick skin because too many people have put too much Wahala on their heads and the others of the hospitals are like you take another person you lose your salary So madame if you know if you pay that to naira, sorry And he will sit there and watch that boy break his last and he's gone People are going here why people are going this this you know, I don't know people have this problems But only that's don't seem to know And you're going on love convoys. They are going on private jets. They are going on when people he said wrong Is burning while you know narrow is Having headphones over he said, you know, I don't seem to know what is going on How long will it be? I think the time has come when we should be sorry. Let me just end on this because I don't know today. I'm just not I'm not just not feeling it I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm not I'm not I'm happy People are suffering And our leaders don't seem to know they've forgotten the past Included people like me that grew up in the villages. They've forgotten what the villages are like The elitists they are in their mansions and forgetting what is going on in the villages. Sorry No, I'd like you to just give me a one minute Answer today's we've seen headlines in in daily independent reps ask tinnable to leave the embargo on employment But we another smaller headline says Senate tells employers to remove age limit from Employment that's on the daily independence. So there's embargo on employment And if the embargo is lifted does Nigeria have the money to pay more employees If that embargo is lifted because the first the reason for placing the embargo possibly is that okay? We have enough hands and maybe we don't have enough money to pay the other people that would be employed All right now another group is asking the senate is asking employers to remove age limit from employers or would be employees rather or Applicants that were trying to get a job and all that so just combine this together and see how You can answer it briefly On the one hand embargo on the other other hand age limit Just just like state of origin. Yeah Sorry, just like state of origin people are saying remove it from all applications. Yeah I want to tell my people in the national assembly that Sitting down there and legislating setting things without wondering how practically it is just let it sound nice We say they should employ At the end of the day, I don't know how honest you are with Nigerians and with yourself How do you employ? How do you raise many moon wage? What is our national income? What do we have? Can you afford? Come clean number one number two Why do we think creation of jobs has to do with government employment? Which is a I to put it in a very harsh word a redundancy camp No, with apologies to very few civil servants that are really giving their lives to save this country You know, you realize that it's just going to civil service. I like now some some states are saying work two days Work three days bring more people in if you want to create jobs Stimulates the private sectors msm is I will tell you for free what to do number one late president will know that foundationally You cannot have a stable economy without food security That is the highest national security and threat is you look at you cannot have food security except farmers go to farm Farmers cannot go to farm where the major farm bells have been taken over by this insurgent I expected that the first thing that the president would do is to create Peace and stability by stamping out. He calls the Service chiefs and tells them. Look, I want to give you this appointment Can you give me a man taking that within six months? Tell me what your profile will be pitch to me You know what what I'm going to benchmark you on and I'm giving you this for a provisional period of three months Tell me what you're doing three months. It's not so I'll remove you the issue of making you a service chief and your permanent Paramount rule is not going to happen again So if you are a service chief tell me i.g. What are you going to do? Minister of defense or no no no Chief of defense staff chief of army staff chief of never staff Give me your templates on what you want to do for me in the next three months Then the next three months three three months milestones. You don't meet them. I change you okay when he does that The people will go in with the aim of Hello, yeah, I can hear you just wrap up. Yeah These people will go in knowing that they have a target And then you don't meet the target Nigerians know that oh boy You don't meet the target You're gonna move that I'll be willing to change my service chiefs every three three months every three three months But that peace and stability. I must have it I will not compromise it and declaring an emergency because without peace and stability. There will be no farmers working Without farmers working. There will be no food security without food security The inflation is going to go haywire with inflation going haywire. There will be no economy is just Foundational peace and security stability in the north is farmers going back to IDP camps being dismantled within six months Everybody goes back there. That is my priority one priority one peace and security South is what is going on ipop ESN come what's the problem all the leaders of the south is come and sit and have a meeting with me I release namdee to you as from today no longer sitting at home As from today if I have any problem I will remove anybody declare a state of emergency and take over the south because the south is is very important to me all this abominating industrialization I'm coming back to abac to make sure that before used to have two inferior products in Nigeria before Abominate and Taiwan in my days abominate and Taiwan those were the two inferior products Now where is Taiwan where is abominate? I'm coming back that abominate has to come back Whatever it takes. I'm going to nail it. What we innocent now. This is your car thing There's a government policy. We are going to use locally made vehicles Tell me what you need and if they're not you can also assemble a vehicle and they say let me know Let's balance out so that it's not like I'm only support supporting the south What can happen in the north textile industries the north it must come back We leave the rest of those paraphernalias and all those heat majors and fundamentals Then they space the food security the economy starts to breathe and we start to have a Nigeria that works Anyone think how does a increased salary? This is all those things are just things that will not take us anywhere Okay. Well, this is where we really have to drop it this morning Would like to thank you. Mr. Ezekiel Nyaitok for coming on the program and helping us make sense of the headlines Thanks so much. I promise that next time I'll be more Well, you can never predict that and say us well to madame who will be Celebrating her birthday on sunday. We wish her Okay, we'll take a short break now and when we return we'll be looking at our first hot topic Which is a Nigerians grown as high fuel prices shrink incomes and wasn't poverty stay with us