 It's still plus politics. I am Mary-Anna Cohen. We still have at the studio the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Prince Adeole Adebayo. And we're looking on this side of the show at May 29th, the swearing in. And of course, what happens right after that? Before we go into this, we were talking about President Mohammed Bawaria who of course is getting ready to go back to Dara. He said, if it's a bit too disturbing for him, he'd move to Niger. He's found a quieter place there. But he caused a question and a lot of other things has happened under his watch. You spoke about the fact that he abandoned the issue of corruption, the fight against corruption. But as we speak, the National Assembly has ordered for the attorney general and the finance minister to come and give account of some monies that they have not been able to account for. Again, the IMF had warned recently about borrowing and spending on the wrong things. And also, I think the World Food Programme has also raised the alarm about food shortage in 2023. So there seems to be a lot of things piling up, waiting for the next government to come in. Our level of indebtedness has gone, it's more than doubled as we speak. And again, I must say that impunity has held sway under this government. Before we went, while we were on the break, we talked about the fact that the CBN government, the CBN governor at some point, decided to run for presidency. It was shrouded in a loss of secrecy, but then it made the light of day. These are things that should not happen in a democratic dispensation, knowing that we have a constitution, which we follow that guides what we call a nascent democracy. But all of these things happening and the APC is still going to be in the range after May 29. What lies ahead for the next president? Well, it's one who lay his bed and lie on it by himself. The president elects, when he becomes president, it's a clean slate. How so? Because he has, there is none of the problem that is not reversible. Nigeria doesn't have irreversible problem. So Nigeria has like 2,000 problems, but Nigeria has like 1 million solutions. So Nigeria has like a deficit of 30 points, has positive of 3 million points. So Nigeria is a good country to be president. It's a good country you can run. Really? Yes. If you come in, you can start to reverse the issue. Our problems are artificial. There is nothing the new president needs to bring with him. Everything we need to succeed, we have already. Ashibi was right. That leadership is the problem of Nigeria. So the president elects come and he provides leadership. Everything will follow. If he comes and provides comedy, then comedy will follow. If he comes in and is, we are managing him, instead of him managing the country, then we are in for it. If he comes in to bring people to come and compensate them with position, then we are in for it. If he is trying to pay his campaign debt through the way he appoints people, we are in trouble. If he doesn't want to take tough decisions, if he doesn't want efficient government, so it's up to him. And we will not be surprised because Nigerians had 18 people decided to go for this one. There are many people who would argue with you. They will argue. Those who voted for me will argue that they didn't vote for him, but it was a majoritarian system. So the issue is that he is the one who has the highest number of votes. Therefore, we have laid our bed through him. Hopefully, he would be about himself. He would not be about the country. And there are many ways you do that. You know that you have reached the apex of power. There is nobody who has become Nigeria president needs anybody to pray for him again that your official will be bright. You're already there. So you may now use that time to transform the country. And it's his choice. There's nothing anybody can do. As much as I totally want to agree with you, there's something that's called the establishment. And the establishment obviously, I mean, we've seen many people raise a lamb about this under the Bahá'í red administration. At some point, his wife said that there was some form of a group of people. I don't want to use the word that she used, who she called them names, animal names, who were taking over her husband's government. And we see this is not just in Nigeria. There are people called the establishment who sometimes see that, you know, maybe you have the best interests, but then they're the ones who are like us, the strongholds in these governments. How is one man going to be able to deal with the establishment? Why is a woman running for the office if you can do it? You see, I don't know what animal she called them, but those people are political animals. And you'll find them in any power place, all the time. That they are there for their own interests, or they are there on behalf of some powerful interests, domestic or foreign. The most important thing is that you know my desire to be president of Nigeria. You know how much I want to be president of Nigeria. So if you ask me today that you caught one of my hands and I'm going to be president, I'll offer it. So, but I can't force myself. He is the one who is the president. So if I, as much as I desire to be president, I cannot force myself to go to the villa. When Buwari is leaving, he leaves with all his people. So only two people are attracted to go there. Bola Mertinubu and the first president, Shetima. So when the two of them go in there, it is up to them. Remember you said earlier that it took President Buwari months to appoint his cabinet. Nobody forced him. It took his time. He wasted his time, but nobody forced him. So nobody can go and be a cabal inside the villa unless the president is cabalistic from the beginning because he can gather everybody together and say, thank you all and lock his door. He's the president. So if he brings anybody in, you have to know that like attracts like. And if you study President Buwari's previous encounters and outing in government, you will see that wherever you find Buwari, a smoker bar is always with him. So it's just his own style. Now, when you now bring President Titinubu now, you will now see his own style. That is why nobody can vouch and say he will do so well and nobody can swear that he will never do well. It's you just let him be. Let him set up his team. If you have any piece of advice, you can throw it in the open air. If you have any relationship with him or somebody you can send advice to him, they don't count on any of those things. When he comes out, the pronouncement he makes, the announcement, but then he announces he's chief of staff. You cannot know the kind of government he wants because from the characteristics of that person, you know that every person is lazy, clannish, too much. But let's start with the guys that he put on his transition team. That team is headed by someone who some would call a journalist, but we have seen him display hate speech and feel hate crimes, especially in Lagos during the election with certain kinds of rhetorics that was not necessarily good at the time because, of course, we know that our country divided along ethnic and religious lines and then, of course, during the hit of the elections, BioNanuga was one of those who were telling people to leave Lagos and go back to where they came from to leave the Yoruba land. And this is the person who's leading the transition team. What does that spell for? Well, I don't know. First, I don't know BioNanuga and I don't know why he shows him there, but what I can know is that as a person who trained very well to be president, a transition committee is not relevant to the governance. They are just people to go and say where soja will stand. This is where the president is coming, it goes like this. They have no impact on government. And what people did in the course of the election is another matter. Although they were crazy. But should that, should those issues not be addressed? No, they will be addressed. Are they going to be transitioning to the government with the same kind of rhetoric? No, they will be addressed in many ways. How? The first one is that the political parties involved, the politicians involved on all sides because I saw what they were doing. So we were with Lagos here with Wutman, talking about how to develop Lagos or the plans. People were not interested in those. People, media, social media, politics, and they joined whose father, grandfather was in Lagos, whose grandfather was not in Lagos. So people like me who came from London State, worked my business in Lagos. People are doing genealogy and biography and all that. So they derailed, that's their problem. So, but what I can tell you is that the president-elect by being elected is asked to show his true colors. And when he's bringing his people out, just watch them because you have elected them. Then you start to watch what he's doing. So what I see generally is that the transition committee, whatever they set up, they will not go past May 29th, just to go and parade there and take some oaths and then dance away. Then proper government will be announced from that day, chief of staff, secretary of government, some special advisors and things like that. Then you will now know whether they want to do what we call FAAG government. Just like we are big guys, we are here now, or they really want to work hard and serve the people. Whether they are people you can say ordinarily, they can monitor the schedule of the president, they can prioritize the issues, the commission doesn't waste its time and that he transit from being a politician to public servant. Because as a politician, you are interested in who likes you, who is on your side, who is carrying your poster. But as president, you are now a servant. You are now know that I'm working for everybody, whether they voted for me or not and I'm managing my time where to see that I tend to my job. And I'm looking for competent people whether they are worshiping me or not, but people can actually help me solve the problem. So because the aim of the politician is to defeat his opponents, but the aim of the president is to defeat the problems of the country. But you cannot guess, you cannot circumgress. And people should also learn one thing. The people I see around him are the kind of people I would not even want to deal with. But I'm not the president. So you cannot impose your own will. But in the end, what the media holds, the president is accuracy of report. Don't carry out the animosity of politics that during politics, I was hired by this group. During politics, I was leaning towards this other side. Now that this man is coming there, I was making sure that even if he sneezes, I report it badly. If he blinks, I report, no, no, no. You have to realize that you like him, you don't like him, you are impressed with him, you are not impressed with him. He is now managing your affairs, managing your security, whether you live or die. Managing your resources, whether you are a prosperous country or not. Managing your image, whether you are respected overseas or not. So you now have to give him all the good will. Don't say, oh, if he's going to the left, I go to the right, I sabotage him. No. That is the attitude to go there. In one statement, because my guys are saying we have to go, what should be the first thing that the tune of board administration should, you know, delve into after May 29? That's their own problem. They have their own manifesto, they renew hope. I wasn't interested in it before, but I'm reading it now to see, because some of it comes... But as a Nigerian, understanding the different problems that we have, what should he be focused on? When I was campaigning, I said, what I'll be focused on? First. Well, you know, I mentioned poverty, insecurity and accountability. So it is his choice. It may go opposite, it is his right. But if I were there, that's all I can say, but I cannot tell you. Because I was convinced in Nigeria that I'm better than him. Nigeria is better than me. So let me allow him to go and show how he's better than me. But the issue is that he has his own priorities. So if he follows them, you will know, from his appointment, from his pronouncement, from his priorities, what are the places he goes first? What are the things he does first? Who will see him most of the time? You can know a man's value by where he lays his treasure, by how he spends his time, who he goes to see. And all the people who come to see him, don't be in a hurry. You know, he will, by himself, tell you what he wants to do. And in a few months, we start coming here to review or see. Okay. Well, I mean, it lost the remains to be seen after May 29. I guess all Nigerians will be keeping their fingers. But all of us should be proud that we are in a country that's now getting used to civilian to civilian. Hopefully, we will now not stay at a minimum, we will now start to go from quality to better quality. But right now, at least, we are going from civilian to civilian. We are not Sudan, we are not Mali, we are not any of those people in crisis. So we can say that we go bless Nigeria for that and then we start to now climb because the fact that you did civil transition smoothly and all of that, doesn't mean that property will go away. That's not employment will go away. So you need to be serious about those things as well. All right, Prince Adil Wali Adil Bayer is the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, always a pleasure to have you in the studio. Thank you very much. We're all looking forward to May 29 with Bates and Brets. Well, we look forward to a good day and we say God bless Nigeria. All right, well, that's it on the show tonight. Don't forget tomorrow we will be back talking for development, but if you missed any of our shows, go to our YouTube plus TV Africa and play catch up. I'm Mary Annakul and have a good evening.