 Condemnation has continued to trail the bombing of a country home. Condemnation has continued to trail the bombing of the country home of the leader of Ohaneze and Igbo last Saturday. We have the spokesman of the organization with us on the program this morning. Mr. President has been back in Lagos, the commercial capital of the country. This time to commission projects that are important. We look at the prospects for these and their impact on the Nigerian economy. And we dive into the headlines on the front pages of today's national days. Very good morning to you. Welcome to another episode of The Breakfast right here on Plus TV. Advocates a beautiful Wednesday morning, reaching you live from our studios in Victoria Island, Lagos. I am Kofi Bartels. As usual, we start with a trending topic right here on a trending segment right here on the breakfast this morning. And important, very interesting occurrences and happenings that Nigerians have been commenting on, especially on social media. What we do is we get into that space and bring you some of these stories and some of the comments, as well as provide analysis of this very interesting happenings in a country and around the world. But let's start with one interesting one. Of course, COVID-19 has been around with us in this country at least since the year 2020, a year that I was really looked forward to in many regards, but unfortunately brought something that we had not expected. Unfortunately, Nigeria's federal government has scrapped the PCR test for fully vaccinated travelers. And I don't know how many people had expected this coming. In a statement, the government says fully vaccinated inbound travelers would no longer be required to take a pre-departure PCR COVID-19 test. This was released in a statement by the federal government on Monday, rather. It said, however, that they would be subjected to what is called the rapid antigen test at the airport. So it's not that they won't be doing any tests at all, but they'll be subjected rather instead of taking the pre-departure PCR COVID-19 test. Now, when they get to Nigeria, they would have what you call the rapid antigen test at the airport by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control within the arrival hall of the airport. And this is coming free of charge, F-O-C, free of charge. And the decision, now, why is this happening? What is going on? What's behind this decision that may have surprised not a few people? This decision was coming after the complaints by many travelers. They were saying that the cost placed on the PCR test was high. This is what not a few people had been complaining about. The cost placed on the PCR test was high, and this is what has been said for some days now. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, a boss, Mustafa, is also the Chairman of the Presidential Staring Committee on COVID-19. Of course, over the past few years, since this COVID-19 became a reality and the government started responding to it, that Presidential Task Force had been having press conferences, you've been watching on Plus TV Africa. And so in this latest briefing by the Presidential Staring Committee in Abuja, he revealed this to the public. Now, he also added that passengers who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated are mandated to take a COVID-19 PCR test 48 hours before departure or do a day two or day seven test on arrival, noting that such passengers must pay for the test. So if you're coming into Nigeria and you are not vaccinated or you are partially vaccinated, means you may have not taken your second job, then of course this news is not for you. You still have to do the PCR test or the rapid antigen test, but the PCR test 48 hours before you leave your country of departure to come to Nigeria. And of course when you do that, you can come in and move safely to your destination. But if you do not do that, then when you get to Nigeria, you have what you call a day two or a day seven test, a day two and rather a day seven arrival test. And of course the money is going to come from your pocket. So this is quite interesting. Not a few persons online expressing relief, expressing happiness at this, but there have been several complaints about the cost, not just of the tests in Nigeria, but abroad, especially by those travelling to countries in Europe, in North America, we have people travelling to London and they've been complaining about the cost of these tests. And if you look at the United Kingdom, for instance, you've had Prime Minister Boris Johnson in recent times relaxing some restrictions as far as COVID-19 is concerned in that country. So a welcome development as far as travellers to Nigeria, both Nigerians and foreigners are concerned. In these times when, you know, if you looked at some of the comments online, people have been talking about the economy and how difficult things are for the rest of us. So some good news and we'll keep watching this space, but that is what we have for now that the federal government has scrapped the PCR test for vaccinated travellers, no, vaccinated travellers, but there will still be the rapid antigen test that will be done, you know, in the important government will pay for it. How does that sound? All right, let's move to the next trending story and this is quite a, quite bizarre, but a good news, a few good story. You know, we've been lacking a lot of few good stories in recent time, you know, heartbreaking stories. We had the issue of Bami Shea, we've had other issues like that of, you know, Sylvester, Romani and others, but this is a few good story because we hear that an ondo businessman escaped from a kidnappers den when the kidnappers fell asleep in a forest. This is something you hardly hear about, but it's a few good stories. He's identified as Ido Shaba and he's supported to have escaped from the forest. He's a cocoa dealer and he was together with an unknown lady and they were kidnapped according to the reports on their way to, I would say, local government area of that state on Saturday for a church program. They were going for a church program when the hoodlums ambushed them on the road and dragged them into the bush. Now, a source who spoke to the press narrated that after these two people were abducted, there was a demand placed of 10 million naira ransom and this source demand was channeled to the victims' family before they managed to escape. You know, the kidnappers fell asleep in the forest according to the source, the man who escaped. Shaba, he reported that the kidnappers were snoring heavily in the night. This is what he said. Let's take a quote and he says, quote, after the abductors saw that the victims had slept off, they too fell asleep. So he said he sees the opportunity to carry their weapons and then use their sharp cutlassies to kill two of them and wounded another who ran away. He is also said to have taken the abductors, AK-47 rifles, cutlassies and other dangerous weapons in their possession and used the opportunity to rescue the other lady and they both escaped. He reminds us of the story in the Bible where some disciples were in prison and they had to pray and praise and then they said what the prison doors opened and they escaped. This is something you only read about here in storybooks but this happened. It's quite bizarre but it's a feel-good story that someone kidnapped was able to regain his freedom. It gained pains in a picture of a security situation in the country where no one is safe. You have to really be careful. Every single person has to be careful out there. Fortunately this ended with the victims escaping with their lives and it's good to hear. It's good to hear. Let's go about the cross river state. The honorable commissioner for health in cross river state has come under fire. Of course cross river state is really hot because the battle for the soul of the state has the elections approach between the all-progressive congress and the people's democratic party has heated up. After the governor of cross river state, Ben Ayade moved from his mother party, the people's democratic party, a party on whose platform he became governor to the all-progressive congress and some of his commissioners and some of the aides of assembly members moved along with him. And for the first time in the history of cross river state we have a proper, proper battle between two political parties. For the first time I would say rather not in history of cross river state but since the return to democracy in this current republic in 1999 we have a proper battle between two political parties, two major political parties this time the all-progressive congress and the people's democratic party. One of those commissioners who moved from the PDP to the APC with the governor is a commissioner for health and lawyer list of Governor Ben Ayade Dr. Betta Edu. She's been embattled and embroiled in controversy especially during the Ansar's period when cross river state was accused of putting up false and fake figures of COVID-19 infection rates and the state said they didn't have any single case of COVID-19 inspectors and officials of NSEDC were set up and prevented from getting gaining access and doing their job in cross river state. She had battles with the Nigerian Medical Association and her professional colleagues in cross river state and was almost losing her license to practice as a medical doctor but was able to escape from that and Betta Edu has done well for herself she moved from being the head of the primary healthcare agency in cross river state to becoming commissioner of cross river state. Now she's going for the position of national women leader of the all-progressive congress and some of her previous statements have popped up. I saw one that was shared by the current chairman of the People's Democratic Party in cross river state, he's also a former commissioner in that state under Donald Dugue and this post that was shared showed Betta Edu condemning President Muhammad Abu-Hari condemning the all-progressive congress condemning the federal government of Nigeria over and SARS and so of course what they say is that the internet never forgets and some of her screenshots of her posts on Twitter her posts on Facebook have been shared by her political those who are not in support of her and she has adversaries of course coming from outside a party being the PDP in cross river state and she has adversity from within her party because she is vying with other people for the position of national women leader so she has had to come out to defend herself and also in that defense she's also apologized to the all-progressive congress for supporting the end SARS protest she's been confronted rather by her past tweets as a position within her party is calling for disqualification you know from contesting for that position we just talked about being the national women leader you know so she is saying that she's totally and completely loyal to President Muhammad Abu-Hari she's saying that she's totally and completely loyal to the all-progressive congress I'll just take a few words on what she said I do acknowledge that a few of my spur-of-the-moment tweets and it's quite interesting she describes it as spur-of-the-moment tweets an impulsive reaction she says to the reports of the climax of the event that's end SARS may have been indelicate and distorted my true position on things I'm human I'm a mom and thus given to emotions she said however she continued I want to reassure and appeal to my progressive comrades who are expressing concern not to reduce my intentions and nuanced political views in the past to a couple of badly worded tweets so she calls a condemnation of police brutality a condemnation of the leaky massacre badly worded tweets that's what she calls it badly worded tweets she further went on to say that her support for the end SARS protest was informed by a past experience at the hands of Nigerian police so she said a lot of things the internet never forgets and when we wonder why of course better I do commissioner of health is calling her condemnation of police brutality and a condemnation of attacks on protesters peaceful protesters of the leaky target a few badly worded tweets but of course Nigerians have had social media comments pouring in from left right and center as most people saying that she's just changing her mouth because of where she is right now but I think apart from worry about her ambition to be national women leader of the all progressives congress better a do also has to worry now about whether she'll be commissioner in cross river states beyond 2022 because her governor her principal we'll learn in the next few days in the coming days whether he will still be the governor of cross river state interested times in the Nigerian polity you might want to and add well that's it on the trending segment right here on the breakfast and plus to you Africa we have more conversations coming in coming up up next as we look at the headlines on the front pages of the national dailies stay with us