 Welcome back to the Breakfast in Plastivia, Africa time for Off the Press. Well, we check out the front pages of the National Dailies. We do have Ezekiel Iitok, who will make sense of all of the stories with us. He joins the conversation in no time. I set off with the leadership newspaper this morning. Now, let's find out what's on the leadership newspaper. The Banner caption reads, COVID-19 amid Omicron concerns on vaccinated federal workers bad from office. Seek deadline extension. That's the banner caption for the leadership this morning. You also have riders, exercise records, poor compliance, several MDAs deserted, workers crowd vaccination centers. And federal government confirms three cases of Omicron variant. Niger, once again, vaccine equality at the UN General Assembly. These are riders you find underneath the board caption. Away from COVID and Omicron variant. You also find why bandits were declared terrorists. The Atoni General of the Federation is quoted on that. Kogi gives late Eskott's family two houses. And you also have fire me, cocker, others decry wassening leaving condition. Nigeria, South Africa to strengthen ties. It's also another bold caption this morning on the leadership newspaper. And Senate chiefs aviation ministry over Nigeria ego. That's the much we can take at this point in time. All right, away from that, we'll move on to the daily independent. The leader headline for this morning is a death of skewed manpower may delay deployment of 5G. All right, customs police heard trade facilitation at ports and borders. Below that on the red strip. Work has locked out as federal government begins vaccine mandate implementation. Buhari travels to Dubai to attend expo 2020. All right, just beside that to the right, APC, ADP and nine other parties challenge Saludos victory. Well, the rider called the Smith's suit second Saludos removal as governor-elect. Death toll in Canobot mishap rises to 29 while wins independence. Southwest federal lawmaker of the year. Also on the daily independence this morning above the must head. And CDC confirms false cases of Omicron variant in Nigeria. What a writer there. All right. Moving on as a key lead Senate field by confirming Malami as minister. That's according to ADA says ministry of justice field with incompetent lawyers. Those are the stories you can find on the front page of the daily independent away from the daily independent. Let's check out the daily trust newspaper and the board caption says COVID-19 Omicron. Buhari ten ministers jet out to Dubai. How Nigeria dictated three cases. Ramaphosa visits successful despite scour. That's what the president is quoted to say. Of course, the president of South Africa visiting Nigeria. Federal government's directive flops as unvaccinated workers access offices and ignores emotion threatening national unity. Soul ten is quoted. It's also another caption you find on the daily trust this morning. Electoral act. What will guide us in replying Buhari's letter? Inaq is quoted on that. And death toll in Canobot strategy rises to 29. ESWAP abducts six Borno officials. And despite receiving millions monthly, FCT council chair denies teachers' allowances. This is some of the headlines on the daily trust newspaper this morning. And finally, we head out to the punch newspaper. Omicron is in the news as well. Omicron, Canada bars Nigerians fear spread as NCDC records three cases with several writers there. Varian detected in three persons with travel history to South Africa says NCDC. Contact tracing never effective variant already in circulations. According to virologist, Africa accounts for only 43% of COVID-19 global fatalities. States echo us. Government bars on vaccinated civil servants and military issues directive. On the blue strip there. Resigned before December 18, FMI tells appointees nursing governorship ambition. Lagos hoodlums. Hock, NURTW bus at home. Shoot him dead in hospital. Or some sad story there. Five or 6.9 billion nerve fraud. Fioshe's ally deposited 209 millionaire cash for property says witness. More stories on the punch this morning. 200 millionaire needed to refeed grounded Navy flagship according to the NNS Aradu. Senate panels. Fort invitation or aviation ministry over NG Eagle operating license. Ramaphosa alleges discrimination in South Africa. Others travel or others rather travel ban over Omicron. External reserves lost 610 million dollars in November. CBN battles to save Naira. Those are the stories you can find on the punch newspaper at this fast day morning. Let's have Ezeko Yai to share his thoughts on the headlines. Good morning. Ezeko Yai to thank you so much for joining us. Good morning. Always a pleasure to be with you. All right. We set up with the leadership newspaper this morning. And on the leadership the consents of Omicron variant. And you also have the fact that on vaccinated federal workers bad from office and seek deadline extension. Let's share your thoughts on that. Yeah. There are several things to consider in that headline. The very first is our national position and what we should expect from the nationals. What would you expect from the citizens? And I cannot see anything short of confusion. We're just trying to see to what extent we should understand the body language, the statement, the actions of the federal government on this issue. Is it really expedient that at a time like these when we are having a new variant come in that rather than dig deep, set ourselves back and look at what we should do. The president of the federal republic of Nigeria with 10 ministers are jetting out of the country for an expo. We are our priorities. How do we really think as a government? That just gives the average Nigerian that grows leave that thing. You know, they see us, you can see us or go for their house. Then we see what to do. He's living in the country is living with 10 ministers for an expo for a man that has less than two years in office. I think that this is a time for the president to embark on what he calls completion agenda, where he shot just some months back or some weeks back. He was going around the country looking for investors. Which investor is going to come to your country in a country that didn't have succession and invest less than two years to your living office? I mean, who's going to do that? Who thinks that way? Where this guy is coming from? Investors come to your country less than two years to the end of your tenure. Knowing that whoever is going to come in is going to say, look, I don't know what you guys did. I need to learn everything. And I want to stand on a clean slate. What you should do is what they call completion agenda, which is what my state government is trying to do in a quiet bomb set. And I hope they're being right. Where you sit down and you profile all your projects into three categories. You have the one that you call the necessities as they must do. You have the ones that are the general, which means that, well, and then you have the ones that maybe, maybe not. The first one is the legacy, rather not, not necessary. You have the legacy, you have the necessity, you have the general. In the legacy, there are one or two things that you just think, this is my stamping ground. I'm really passionate about it. One, two, three things. You break the bank and you complete it, no matter what it is, because you are looking at the funds available to you. The necessities are things you must do. Salary is everything. The cost between the necessities and the legacy, when you put them together, if, for instance, your total budget is like five Naira, and the two of them come to like 3.5 Naira, then you're now going to the last bit and bring things that will come to that 1.2 Naira, so that 1.5 Naira, so that it makes a total of the five Naira. What that means is that the day you are finishing, you are going to finish strong, because you have done due diligence, you've done what you call financial engineering, you've done everything. Then you now bring your team. That's why I like one of those places, you have the man, fire me, says, if you are interested in 2023, please leave my office between now and 18th of December, because he wants to put in place what he calls a finishing team. This is what my president should be doing now, and not when you have this variant that is coming out and is likely to be more deadly, he's carrying 10 ministers, and we know how Nigerians operate, lawless, with all due respect, with no regards. If at home they have no regards for guidelines, before you know, ministers are not the ones importing the new variant into the country, because we really know, we know it was discovered in South Africa, we don't really don't know where the source is. So I think that it is absolutely difficult, let me know it is a very hard word, for me to understand and for Nigerians to understand why Mr. President thinks that this is the very best time to jet out for expo with 10 ministers. That's the first thing. At the same time, you come back home and say, oh, if you're not vaccinated as federal workers, you're going to be back from office, and they are like, what's really going on? But on the whole, one other report somewhere along the line says that Africa accounts for about 4.3%. What that tells me, is that there's the hand of divinity that has a major pushback. Because the way we operate, especially like in Nigeria, if there wasn't this hand of divinity that gives this pushback, I think that it would be a very sorry state or sorry story. That might take on the fascination and our God President. Alright, let's slide over to the Daily Independent. Their lead headline this morning is death of our skewed manpower made the lay deployment of 5G technology. You see, the 5G technology was also one that came with a lot of conspiracy theories and everything. There's something that one of my in-laws used to say. In those days, there was a drink called oval tin. So when they say the day is something, you don't drink the oval tea, they must say I never drink tea. They ask better, don't drink oval tea. So we are talking of 5G technology. The 4G that we have already, to what extent have we fully utilized it? I know of all the benefits of the 5G and all that, speed, capacity, capabilities and all that, the sciences and the technologies that come with it, innovations. But I think that we are still in certain places working on 2Gs. Remember when we took out this electoral act and the transmission, you know what the problem was? That in some places we have 2Gs. We don't even have 3Gs, not to talk about 4Gs. Now we are saying 5Gs. So I don't know how that should make a bold headline. I'm not a media person in that sense. But I don't think that is my headed right now. The 4G is able to do some of the things that we need to do. And when there was a bidding, you can have such monopoly. So I think that the other companies is not because they could not bid for it. I doubt that there is any of those other companies, the other big 2 or 3 that could not bid for it. I think they have just looked at the market, looked at the investment, looked at the infrastructure requirements, looked at the market, I say again, and discovered that that may not be a very, very sound investment. And they are not national. They are business. So the only is to look at the bottom line, the profit margin. And so long as they are not convinced, they are not going to put their money there, especially when the federal government puts a lot of tariff or a lot of bidding process. It doesn't come cheap. So I think that that is the least of our problems so we can move on. Alright, let's check out the daily trust you sweep with us this morning. On the daily trust, there are concerns from the soul tent that ignorance, emotion, threatening national unity. It's not ignorance. It's not emotions. It is politicians. When you come and sit down and look at the root of our problems, you will discover that it all goes back to politics. Nigerians don't really care about religion. They don't really care about tribes. That's the truth. Nigerians really couldn't care less where you come from and your religion. We don't. But politicians need a divide and a rule approach for them to achieve what they want to achieve. Everything runs down to politics in Nigeria and the day that we wake up and interrogate a recruitment process and have a different understanding, you know, for a while now, I've taken up that fight one man battle on good governance in this country. I've gone around schools. I've gone around churches. Just last this weekend, the redeem in a private section of it got all their youth and everything and I spent hours with them just enlightening them on politics. And I think we need to bring this conversation to a national level. We are sitting down here doing analysis of politics that has become commercialized. So governance is now a contract between willing buyers and willing sellers to entertainers, so to speak, or business people who come in, exchange the vote money on election day and the electionary processes for four years of them recovering their investment, making profit and making more money to keep and give you another money during election period. That's what we have. In terms of governance, we've lost it completely. And I told people, government is your life. Put in an envelope and hand it over to a man. And I gave a sitting illustration. This would have come and they tell you a source of stories. This man doesn't like you. What are you looking for? The responsibility is asked to do that due diligence because you carry a goat. You put glasses on the goat. You put face mask on the goat. You put a cap on the goat. You put a tie on the goat and a big jacket on it. And then you give it your raw yam to keep for you. A sane man does not eat raw yam. And you come back and the yam has been completely eating and you're angry. Why? Because you didn't know that it wasn't a man. It was a goat that you gave your raw yam to eat, to keep. At the end of the day, the problem is not with the goat that ate your yam. It is with you that refuse to find out who you were giving your yam to keep. So the responsibility of doing due diligence is on Nigerians on our leadership recruitment because they own our lives, so to speak. So it is our responsibility, our duty to go and pull the glasses, remove the mask, remove the cap and see whether we are dealing with a man or we are dealing with a goat. For too long, they have brought people into office without doing due diligence on them. Who you are is who you will be when you get into office. Ten years back, what were you? Twenty years back, what your character was, your capacity was, your competence, see government as your life in an envelope. When we look at things that way, we will now refocus our leadership recruitment process and knowing that there's something at stake on the line. I think that when we put all these things together, we will be able to know what our national concerns are, whether it is ignorance. Yes, to a great extent. Or it is emotion. Emotion is inspired by something which could be ignorance. So between ignorance and emotion, I think that ignorance is one that they are using in emotion to fuel our ignorance. So the time has come for us to wake up. I tend to agree with this all time that that ignorance is one of our biggest problems because emotion comes from you're not knowing that. Look, that guy is just trying to upset you so that he can leave and so he can take the whole thing. When you know that, if he tries to upset you, it's time for you to maintain your cool because you don't want to get upset and leave and then they take a decision behind you. So ignorance is falling a lot of things. All right, stay in with the Daily Independent. There's a story there. Customs police hurt trade facilitation at ports and bothers your reaction, Mr. Nyayutub. Yeah, customs police hurt trade facilitation at ports because trade facilitation is not why they are there for. They are there to see how they can make money. Extortion. Making life difficult. Making the processes to be so cumbersome. Making sure that things don't flow and out of frustration you call them and say, oh God, how do I do this? You understand me? There must be a basis for negotiation. You can beg a man to help you. Everything is moving seamlessly at our ports, our customs, our police. Why are they there? What is their primary motive? What's their primary incentive? What do they want to achieve? It is not trade facilitation. It is rather exploitation. And this will come to an end when the man at the top thinks about the country, thinks about the essence of the office. When a man understands what the office is all about, a man who wants to get an office, get into an office today, a politician. You and I know their prime mentality. We know it. We know it. And we play the fool and the fools end up playing us. I've contested twice for the governorship of my state. Why would I beg you to serve you? I'm not God. I come to you and I tell you this is what I want to do. And they say, oh God, this is not grammar. This is politics. You are speaking too much grammar. Look, governance is something that runs on informed knowledge. This one is politics. Another man comes and says, oh boy, leave me. I took his grammar. It's too much. Come here. I'll give you money. They say, you are a leader. You are a leader. You are a leader. You are a leader. They sing for him. They're happy with him. And he gives them peanuts. He gets their mandate. He gets to the seat. He's clueless on what the seat is all about. He has no understanding of the essence of governance. If you ask him what is chapter 2, section 14, subsection 2b of the constitution, which is the guiding principle, which is what sets you out. Do you understand me? He has no clue. And he said, the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. And he just looks at you and like, let's leave that thing. Did you understand that when you collected my money? Did you understand that when I have debt to pay? Did you understand that when you asked me to land? Did you ask for transport? Do you understand all those things? I beg you. Without saying it from his eyes, you can read that he's just leaving. He should get out, let him make his money and leave. I think that the time has gone where you and I really need to sit down and discover that the most blessed nation on earth. And I say that with every sense of responsibility has become the poverty capital of the world. And the Bible says an era that princes are on foot and servants are on horseback. All right. Let's also check out the punch new sweep of this morning and the fact that according to the CBN governor, God Winemephili, we might probably just have to battle to save the Naira. Now he says external reserve lost $610 million in November, that's according to the CBN. And of course, there's a need to save the Naira. You see, I'm not an economist. I do not pretend to be one. I'm an architect and I think within that sphere I understand what I'm doing very well. But even as an architect, I do understand as somebody who wanted to be or wants to be governor and still wants to be in government or be a governor. I do understand that there is what they call division of labor. I believe that there is reason why you have a central bank. There's a reason why the central bank is expected to be autonomous. There's a reason why you have ministry of finance as different from the central bank. There's a reason why ministry of finance is under the presidency, whereas the central bank is an independent autonomous body. Right now I cannot draw a line between monetary policies and our fiscal policies. I can't. I do not know who is handling what. If the central bank gets into trade, they get into agriculture, but they seem to be a mini-government on their own. And as a result, when you go into areas that are not really your prime responsibility, what you start to have is a lot of conflicting policies. And unfortunately, foreign investments depend primarily on two things. One, the peace of the land and second, the policies of the land. Your policies are so inconsistent. Today you are saying that the Naira should be short. We don't even know how you determine the value of the Naira. We don't even know the differential between that of the government and then the power market, which is almost a 150 Naira. I don't see... They've not been able to give me the rationale behind that. And when you talk in terms of foreign reserves, it has to do with the amount of money you are using to show up the Naira because you have given the Naira an artificial and not market-driven... No country in the world allows some things to be taken care of by the market forces alone. There's always strategic interventions. But let us see that your strategic intervention is consistent, is informal. The American government recently released their petrol reserve. But you can see before it came, you can see where they are going, you can see why they are doing what they are doing. You can understand, you can project for how long it's going to be and you can say, okay, for this period of time, maybe I'll play cool here because sooner or later it's going to stabilize and I can move on. In Nigeria, you can't. I'm a businessman, I can't plan. I don't understand what's going on. A lot of people, there's so much dollars in the houses of people because these were constantly mopping up the dollars because the organized private sector does not really know how to assess dollars and there are some people that if you put a thousand Naira today, they will buy it and they are buying it and they are hoarding it and they are putting in their houses. What is the policy of the central bank to look into the concerns of these people, address those concerns, give them the confidence that they don't really need to store these dollars. So this is the constant mop-up of the dollars by people to store them and for as long as the demand exceeds supply, the price will also always rise and that will put a lot of pressure on you to be able to bring the dollars for the people that need it. So the policies need to be a lot more consistent and a lot more realistic and a lot more honest. I think that central bank is not helping us as a private citizen. Alright, staying with the punch on the newspaper, another story there is Stop Irresponsible Publicity Stunts. Reveal your sponsors. Presidency tells Serap. Presidency should sit down and listen to Serap. When Serap says something, let them say, Serap, you're wrong. Serap is one body that the presidency should not even try to fight them at all because they've become the one voice for the whole nation. Serap, they have this eagle eye on your budget. They say, sir, please explain this to me. You say you are being sponsored. I mean, it's cheap, man. The presidency has lost legitimacy and it's fast losing. Let me not be too hard. And non-state actors are becoming better believed than our own states, so to speak. One of my friends told me something. His father told him, never allow a man who is always trusted to lie against you. They say, flip side, never make a man who is never trusted to be your spokesperson. Because even when he tells the truth, he says, here he goes again, and I like, you understand me? So I think that the federal government should not fight Serap. Instead, they should look for strategic thinkers to engage them in a way that the public would say, oh, you're not going to fight Serap. In a way that the public would say, okay, that makes sense. Instead of telling, reveal those who are again, that's cheap, that's lack of being cerebral. It just bothers me. Sometimes I wish that I could just, I had enough time to go and say, God, let me consult for you to be small. When matters come, get five people into a room. Let them tell you how to respond to matters. You can easily gain the confidence. Nigerians are the most trusting people in the whole world. And when you think all these bully methods are them, you can't see that, who is that? I mean, that is just cheap politics. It's not governance. Governance is for the cerebral. Governance is for people who are strategic thinkers. Governance is for people who are informed and have wisdom to know how to navigate the minds. Because the minds are always there. But you have this whole thing that politics is everything. Go and sit down, you're sponsored. Oh boy, who they sponsor you? That's garbage. That's talk. And it's sad that government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that both of the most intelligent people in the whole world, cannot assemble one, two, three, four people that helps them to respond to issues in a way that even their enemies say, I don't want to try. A guy that may make sense. I don't like him, but that makes sense. So, they should leave Syrup alone. Nigerians are clapping. Syrup, please, that's my clap for you. Alright, let's also quickly share your thoughts on another issue on the Punch News paper. He says, Senate panel falls aviation ministry over the Nigerian ego operating license. That's the NG ego. Is it not a Nigeria? Well, I don't know. I don't know much about it. Let me not just talk about the Turkish state. I don't know what's going on there. Alright, 6.9 billion Naira fraud. Fire shares are deposited 209 million Naira cash for property that's according to a witness. The case is still ongoing in court. Yeah, a lot of properties are being paid cash. Because of, you know, more reasons than one. So, I think that it must have been a case of maybe something gone wrong before they are exposed. And I don't know. I don't know all those private things. If something goes wrong, let the law take its course. But for me, they say, how is the money for Bush? There are more serious national issues in my opinion. So, whatever is the issue, they should go and sort it out. Okay, but let's also quickly share your thoughts. Probably might not just be on the dailies, but the white paper that's been released by the Lagos state government. What are your thoughts on it and all of the reactions that's trailing that white paper? Thank you. I could speak a whole day on that. That makes sense to me. Now, Gov Nors Songhu is, you know, I said it before, last week or some two weeks back. Ambode was my schoolmate, Federal Government College Worry. And I think it was a year ahead of me or something like that. And when Songhu came and removed Ambode, naturally I wasn't too happy. But I want to say that this young man, so to speak, has impressed me in a lot of ways. In the white paper, I felt his pain. He's an APC member. APC government had come up and through the Minister of Information, you know, tried to make nonsense of the panel. And then, not long after, Festos Kiamu also came and said it was illegal panel. He said all sorts of things that whatever comes out of it was trash, was rubbish, was nonsense. And all those adjectives he used on them. And him coming to take a decision, he needed to navigate the minds. And I could feel his pain. And he tried, I would say, in first, admitting that the panel did work. Second, looking at some recommendations. Are they far-reaching? No, they are not. Do they address all the issues? No, they don't. And then even wanting to take a walk of freedom, declare a freedom square and things like that. I think that the case goes far beyond him. He's tried to navigate the minds. Because don't forget, this is something that the Minister of Information, the spokesperson of the government of the party that he belongs, had said that this was around nonsense and bothered actually. So I think that the lesson that we should learn from there is that as leaders, we must ask ourselves where our royalties lie. To our parties or to the people who with, with, swore to an oath to defend. The issue is not going to go away with the wave of their hand. And what I would say is that there has to be ease of the work that he wants to have. He should call these people again to a second round. There was a white paper. There was a report. This is my side. This is your side. Can we come and have another set of, you know, discussions, so to speak? There may not be a panel this time, you know? But can we have, you know, like the people he called to come and take a walk with him. Can we come and sit down again and look at the recommendations, look at the observations. The panel can say, okay, or the people on behalf of the panel can say, okay, this actually makes sense. Then the government will say, yeah, I didn't also look at that because they can come and say, no, this one you said is not so. I think that there still needs to be that second engagement. You know, I think what the governor should have done instead of thinking that we just take a walk and when we take a walk, it ends there. He would have said, this was done. This is what we have noticed. But we want you to digest it and then let's have another round of engagement and then we'll be able to get something that's a lot more, you know, final. I think if you are taking that approach and not assuming that what he has done is just okay, but I think that I commend him for making the effort. He made the effort and if you have an idea of the inside story, you would see that he had to withstand a lot of pressure and be himself and be his man to be able to do what he did. We knocked him, yes. But we're talking about the fact that, you know, life's been lost, whether or not, you know, some parties would want to agree to that. There are a lot of evidence out there and you have a lot of persons who have lost their loved ones. You know, the pain up until this moment is that as much as that report has been commended, you still cannot, you still will find gray areas. For instance, where the bodies, where can we find these bodies? There's also a report saying that, yes, there was a time where you had the military and the police trying to clean up all of the evidences and the blood quite early. It is really, really, I don't know how much conversation and engagement would actually, you know, mean justice, would bring justice. Of course, we know that this life can never be restart, but how much of the talks and conversation can we continue to have so that the people would actually feel like some persons are not being covered? Those who have been, you know, pointed, those who have been mentioned in that report, how come they have not been, you know, some kind of questioning and what is really going on? But hopefully we just hope and we're hoping that maybe sometime, maybe not now, there will be justice. I'll tell you this. Every issue has always been resolved on the round table. It's a global phenomenon. So you do not foreclose discussions. The first issue is that there was a white paper. No, there was a panel. Good. Second is that there was a white paper. Good. The third is that there has, since the white paper did not address it in a way that everybody is happy, there must be another line of engagement because at the end of the day, the government has to be exposed to the pains of the people and how to find justice to those that were hurt and that were killed. Lives can never be brought back but they are stating things. Sometimes it may not even be compensation. It could just be a sentence and an apology. You know? Because I mean... And no punishment? There's no... Yes, yes, yes, yes. No, I'm saying and no punishment. Because... No, no, no. That's part of it. There has to be punishment. There has to be, there necessarily has to be punishment. But you see, when you look at tribunals, you look at... No. As much as I didn't like what Festos Kiyamos said, there are certain things that are law and you just can't jettison it. He said you cannot as a state summon or bring up any punitive measures on a federal controlled, you know, state or persons or institutions. So I think it's the place for a tripartite dialogue now. Let the attorney general of the Federation be brought in. Let the state government facilitate it. Let the civil society be part of it. Let there be that tripartite arrangement where we look at apology, compensation and punishment. So I'm agreeing with you. Some people need to be punished as deterrent because there are some overzealous, you know, law enforcement officers. They please need to know that if somebody sends you to do what is wrong, when the die is cast, when push comes to shove, you are on your own. So they need to know what they should do, what they should not do, what they are mandated to do by the Constitution and what they must never do on account of political pressure. So I agree with you. There must be apology. There must be compensation and there must be punishment. That's my thinking on that. All right, thank you Mr. Izik on your air talk. That's as much as we can take on this segment of the show. We also do appreciate your time and all that you have said so far today. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. Have a nice day. All right. It is to the breakfast and plus TV Africa. Or take a quick break. We'll be having a security expert join us as we look at lawmakers asking police to dismantle illegal checkpoints in Nigeria. In a moment, don't go away.