 The 2023 General Elections recorded violence, intimidation, some notable Nigerians made inciting statements among other undemocratic activities that challenged elections. On Monday, the United States of America announced it has placed visa restrictions on some Nigerians who undermined the 2023 elections, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who made the announcement, did not, however, mention names. We'll be taking a look at this U.S. visa ban on electoral offenders on the breakfast this morning. Nigerian businesses but so to stay afloat as operating costs continue to surge. Africa's most populous country grapples with double-digit annual inflation since 2016, with a consumer price index heating 20.5%. So what are the ways forward? Just how can they cope with seeking to find answers on the breakfast this morning? We'll also be taking a look at some of the headlines on some national dailies without the press when we get our analysts joining us to dissect the headlines on the breakfast this morning. A very pleasant morning to you. I am Maureen. You're welcome to the breakfast. And I'm Justin. Good to have you join us this Thursday morning. We trust you are doing well. Yes, we hope you are doing well, especially as we prepare to go to work this morning. It's another wet day and I love the rain, Justin. I love the rain. You know what they say about this one? When there are lots of issues, they blame it on the rain. You know what I mean? I love the rain. It makes you relax. The weather is cool and everything. You're a bit calm. But when you have to drive through the roads of Lagos and the rush and the curses, what are you doing? What are you doing? It could be so, so cringy. But then, today, it's raining, but we just have to find a way of walking around the rain. Yeah, I mean, here we are. In spite of the rain, and in spite of the rain, you will get your place of work. It's a beautiful day. And well, our theme for the day is small business, the backbone of a functional economy. In Nigeria, SMEs contribute 48% of the national GDP. And it accounts for 96%, 96% of businesses in the country. And that's according to the ILO, that's International Labour Organization. And then it accounts for 84% of employment. Yes, the highest level of labour. Yes, it's huge. Because if you find out a lot of people, because of one issue or the other, they just have to start some small business for themselves so they can keep them, you know, body and soul together and be able to take care of expenses for their immediate selves and of course their family members. But then often times, you find out more in that hand, there are lots of issues plaguing their survival and of course their development. Yes, the lack of electricity is one of them. Infrastructure generally in Nigeria is just in a bad state. It's a major problem for them. So how do they cope? This very important sector of economy. If they are generating 96%, 96%, it's amazing. It is amazing because practically every individual or businessman is a government on his own. You supply your own electricity, you provide your... Some people even have to even tell their own road so that they can actually get access to moving from one place to the other. It is really alarming because at the end of the day, if government doesn't really take care of that particular sector, it will actually just die a natural death because a lot of the people will suffer because the bulk of Nigerians are under the SME sector. Yeah, a bulk of them. If it accounts for 84% of employment, we already have a very bad record of rate of unemployment. Inflation has gone high. And so this is a sector that is critical to our development that must not be allowed to suffer as much as it is being suffered. Any government that knows its audience and wants to grow the economy must ensure that the SMEs have all that they need to thrive. Like you said, they actually contribute about over 40% to the nation's gross domestic product GDP. Looking at all the sectors that we have in the nation's economy, they are small business, contribute almost half of it. They're taking half the chunk. So you can imagine that the other sectors, aviation, transportation, trade and all of that, that share the minimum 50-something percent. So it is really, really significant, or they are really very significant. A whole lot should be done to actually make that sector really thrive. Government has to put in place a lot of good playgrounds for them to operate their businesses and, of course, their services. They have a small and medium-scale development association of Madden which actually fights for their cause over time. But sometimes you find that they do all the crying, all the push and the results they don't get to see because I don't know if government doesn't really take them seriously. The manufacturers, was it not yesterday we saw in the headlines? The exercise duty has gone up and they are crying against it and rightly so. I mean you cannot do that. They shouldn't be doing that. They should be encouraging them rather. Even if you want to diversify the economy, you don't diversify the economy by crushing the egg that you have. You don't do that. It's just so unfortunate that we're seeing that happen. But today we'll be taking a look at the cost of building a business in Nigeria's second hot topic. So let's look at the top trending. We have the first top trending which is Please Brutalize Okada Rider Sees Motorcycle in Lagos. We saw that short clip there. It's a part of Lagos somewhere around the Abul area. It was a very short clip. We saw the two or three police men manhandling Nigerian Okada Rider and it just didn't look good. Especially as we are talking about how Shio Kuti disrespected an officer in uniform. They should also not be seen to be doing the same thing. Yes, because right now they are in the eyes of everyone because of what just happened with Shio Kuti. But over time we have to say that the issue of police brutality has not actually gone down as in the frequency and all of it. One would have thought that after all the answers and protests and everything that we've had that had been like a change. The narrative would be changing by now. But we still hear pockets of police harassing the citizens, the Okada riders and of course even the KK Napa that are the tricycle operators. I wonder why that is. Most of the time if you look at the case seriously it might be something very petty. Yeah, we saw a video. Was it not last week or this week it trended? A lady that was being whipped by some uniformed officers and like no matter what her crime was just take her in legally, the lawful way. Do it the lawful way. You don't begin to physically assault anyone, especially not a woman. Or anyone, a man or woman. Not at all. She didn't hold any arms. She only had her phone in her hand and in the course of being whipped her phone dropped she bent to pick it. That was all she had with her. So to find them, brutalizing how they were doing was quite disturbing. So that's the first hot topic we have for today. And the second one is the four people that were killed by gunmen in an attack on U.S. embassy officials in Anambra state. They went on a humanitarian mission but there they lost their lives. In the most gruesome way. Two of them were burnt alive. They were burnt to death beside their vehicles. And I just... I don't understand it. Well, we heard that there's an ambush on their location where some of the residents in the community gathered to receive medical treatment from UNICEF officials. And the victims were two police and mobile force operatives and two staff members of the U.S. consulate. I said gunmen in making their escape from responding joint security force. Anyway, it is really something that should be condemned because at this rate where people are actually doing something that is humanitarian and they were attacked by gunmen it says a lot about the security situation in the southeast part of the country. You know, over time we've heard of the issues of IPRO, about the ESN and you know, stay at home and all of that. And one wonders how we can actually stem this issue of southeast insecurity in the bud. The southeast governors need to come together. I thought they had ones. They came together. There was a network they called Ibu Bagu. One would have thought that they would have been able to streamline operations and by now should have been seeing some sort of changes. But then that has not really changed. People are still afraid to come out on some particular days of the week and all of that. I understand there was a meeting this week or last week where they had some disagreement also over state police. The Igbo governors, the Igbo elders they need to do more. They are not doing enough in my opinion. They are not. Because what is going on in the east is just so deplorable. Is it a level of development in that place? It's nothing to write home about. The east can do so much. Is it obvious state? Is it on nature? The east is very, very endowed and if the governors will look inwards and stop being so self-centered and stop wanting to be all eyes on me they can just come together and develop that place. Aside from the region of security like you have said there's a whole lot going on in the southeast in obvious that we have a very commercial north center there that's a bad area market. We have the Onitsha main market and these ones are even international. People from all over Africa come to those markets to actually trade. So there's a huge potential there and if there's so much coming up in terms of trade and all that issues of security, issues of road and everything should be addressed holistically by the governors because at the end of the day the development is actually coming to their own towns. Because they didn't come together to fill the strong force. Everybody wanted to run and at the end of the day what we saw was the dollar gate and yes, Artico emerged and yeah, he played his games well. Politics is about calculations. You don't expect them to drop it on your labs. So the Igbos must come together really come together and have a common political strength not each man for himself. I want to wear the cap. I am most this. It should be me. And they have a lot of issues in this country. They need to come together and really sort themselves out to avoid all of this because it's really becoming very embarrassing. I think I should even stress more on what you said about the leaders and of course community leaders specifically because you wouldn't tell me that you don't even know what your son or your nephew or the companies they keep. Over time, you'll know if they're actually with those hoodlums over time because from association and all that you'll be able to find out how, if they are going but so if our community leaders maybe call for some meetings with the people that they are leading I'm sure in a long way it will go a long way in actually addressing the issues of youth restiveness and the insecurity but even the families also have a huge role to play in that regard. Yeah, it is. And you know this incident that happened in Anambra where these people had actually come to give aid to the people in the land. These staff of the U.S. You then begin to wonder what exactly do they intend to gain from such an attack? I wonder. When they actually bring in some sort of relief and you know aid to your communities you should even give them all the security and protection and even encourage them so they can even come some other time just in case they need them Yes and if you are agitating for something for instance, if they are agitating or seeking for any kind of they have an agitation, no doubt we see that they have an agitation we hear that the channel is the right place. Don't kill your people. You don't. You would need international sympathy too so when you begin to kill people belonging to another country we really want to see an end to all of this and they both can do better and they can be better and they will come. We are still watching the breakfast on the on Plus TV Africa. We will take a short break, give you the weather report and we will be back in a minute. Stay with us.