 The federal government announced earlier last week that it has approved an adjustment allowance of 25,000 Naira per quarter to medical and dental doctors in hospitals, medical centers and clinics in the federal public service. However, NERD's president Emeka Oji said they will be rejecting the offer as it is a paltry sum and does not meet their demand. This is our first hot topic this morning on the breakfast. And still talking health in order to ease the pains in our bodies, especially the back and joints and the muscles. We may not always need to pop pills. We may just need the services of a chiropractor. Today we'll be looking at who a chiropractor is and what services they can give. We'll be taking a look at the stories that made it to the front pages of some national dealings this morning on Off the Press with an analyst joining us this morning. Hello, good morning and welcome to the breakfast. I am Maureen. And I am Yamgul. It's always a pleasure having you join us every weekday morning to enjoy the breakfast with us as it is. Even though we cannot give you the tea and bread and the eggs and all that, even if we wanted to. Oh, but what we're giving is like tea bread and bread. We dole out the food for the brain to think about and maybe improve your lives and all that. Today is mindset Monday. So we're hoping that your mindset this morning will be so positive that it will affect the people around you because it's positivity at the end of the day that we need. Positivity comes with the fact that you still have hope that there will be a better tomorrow. Yes, let's hope that they have hope. Let's hope that you still have hope. So let's go straight to our very first up training this morning. ECOWAS imposes no-fly zone on Niger Republic and other restrictions in a super response to military coup in Niger Republic. The economic community of West African states has enforced a no-fly zone over the country. The decision was announced on Sunday by ECOWAS at an urgent meeting following the increasing tensions stirred by the military actors who are attempting to take over in Niger. This significant move, which includes air and land border closure, is seen as a crucial reaction to the recent ascendancy of the junta, which has stirred significant unrest in the country and poses a threat to political stability within the region. The ECOWAS leadership believes that the imposition of a no-fly zone will help curb the junta's influence and hinder any potential allies from providing aerial support, even as leaders of the coup fear that the regional body could stage an imminent military intervention in the capital of the Sahel country. While other restrictions imposed by ECOWAS include closure of land and air borders between ECOWAS and Niger, institution of ECOWAS no-fly zone to all commercial flights to and from Niger, suspension of all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS, member states and Niger, a freeze of all service transactions, including energy transactions, a freeze of assets of Niger Republic in all ECOWAS central banks, a freeze of all Niger state and the state enterprise and parasitals in commercial banks, and then suspension of Niger from all financial assistance and transactions with all financial institutions. They also impose travel bans on the military officials and other families involved in the coup attempting, you know, attempt including anyone who accepts to take a position in the military government policies and all that has to do with the junta. Oh well, I just, when I see this report and when I see reports like this, I just ask myself, why does this keep happening in Africa? And sometimes my answer to myself seems to be the fact that because people are not held accountable or are not accountable to the people that elected them there, this kind of things will keep happening. You see, when military take over in any country, the first thing people do, place sanctions on them, ask them to return the person who has been ousted or something, and nobody seems to ever ask the question, why in the first place was he removed? Did he do well? And if he didn't do well, what is the mechanism for checking our leaders, not to have absolute power that they can suppress the people all the time? And all these sanctions, will they work? It's another question because they give sanctions or the place sanctions on Mali, on Burkina Faso and all those people. Now I don't think those sanctions are even working anymore. So is Niger going to wait it out or these sanctions will actually make them have a rethink of what they have just done now? People are on the streets rejoicing. People are on the streets rejoicing. Echo has given the military seven days ultimately to reinstate Buzum, but they are saying they are not yielding and they are warning against any kind of counter offensive, any kind of military attempt to disturb what they are doing in their country. They believe they are on the right path to protecting and preserving what they have as Nigerians. So military rule is not one to be desired by anyone or any country, but it's unfortunate that it just keeps happening on the continent and it's also unfortunate that leadership problems have continued. Poverty has continued to be an issue on the continent and as long as those who are democratically elected are not leaving up to expectations, they leave room for things like this to happen, which is so sad and so unfortunate. You will ask yourself, the best form of military government is worse than the worst form of democracy. What has democracy really brought to the table in Africa? Because it's about the people, democracy is about the people, government of the people, for the people, by the people, but is that what is really happening in the African democratic setting? Are the people carried along and in all the scheme of things? Okay, for instance, let's just use the Nigerian experience that okay, palliatives are going to have 500 billion and then 70 billion out of the 500 is taken out for 500 people or less. The National Assembly will enjoy that and the rest of the people over 200 million will have to share the remaining 430 billion Naira, which they also have acknowledged that they are going to be giving 8,000 to poor households. Who is not poor in Nigeria nowadays? It is not poor right now. So, and then who are you giving 8,000? What will 8,000 do in any household? And the people you're calling poor people, maybe because of the fact that the poor have just themselves and no other assets that will keep them busy, they have more children than the people who are elitists. So you're giving 8,000 to a family of maybe five for a month and for six months and after that you're on your own and then you ask yourself, what will this kind of thing stop happening? Because military rule, okay it is very bad, okay, and democracy is very good. But how close is democracy to the people more than the military? How close and how much is democracy being practiced in the essence of democracy? We've seen court orders being disregarded in democracies in Africa. We've seen the lack of accountability which you just alluded to and it's which has led to so much poverty. Look at what's happening in Zafara. What happened in Zafara, you know? Look at Adamawa for example. Yeah, Adamawa, they went there to break the... Private warehouses were broken. Even government warehouses was also broken into, which has led to a curfew there right now. And what were they taking? Food. Food. Just simple food. And they're crying that they're hungry and a lot of people in millions of people are hungry. And there is the huge concern that this may spread to other parts of the country. If this is not nipped in the bud with active response, active response of providing food for the people and measures that would cushion the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy. But if the fuel subsidy would bring us too much problems, more than the problems we had when the fuel subsidy is still there, will it be so wrong to have a rethink about this fuel subsidy? That was the only thing that didn't have... In Nyamgu, was there even a fuel subsidy in the first place? A lot of things have been unearthed. A lot of things have been unearthed. Whatever they were doing that was giving us fuel for 200. When it was described as an organized crime by Pitaovi, some of us and lots of people didn't quite understand to what dimension he was talking about. It wasn't just that people were siphoning it, but was it even in place at all? But whatever they were doing enabled us to buy fuel for less than 200 Naira. That's what I'm saying. So whatever organized crime they had made, now we know, life a little bit easier than it is now. Fuel is selling for 620. And there's a possibility it will go up, which means that was something that cut across all strata of our life in Nigeria, whether you were poor or rich, everybody was affected. Now it is removed. Now we know who the rich person is and who the poor person is, and people are hungry. So if it continues like this, my fear is when it happened somewhere in the Arab world, it started in one place and it was almost like every Arab country was affected by this uprising and all that. I do not pray for that kind of a thing to come here. It has started in Niger. In Nigeria, Adamawa is on curfew right now because of the kind of uproar that has come. What if it's pressed to other states and then it degenerates into something that we do not want to even imagine? They never should have removed the subsidy in the first place. What they should have done was to go after those who were criminalizing the whole process. Beautiful. Those who were stealing, who were lying about it, make them account for all the monies they have been given in the name of subsidy and all the oil theft that's taking place. That's what they should have done instead of removing subsidy because how do you not subsidize this sector of the economy? Is there any country that does not subsidize some things for their people? Education is gone. Fuel is gone. Everything, health, everything, subsidy and everything is just gone. And then you expect the people to just sit down and watch. Well, I don't know how that is going to play out. I hope that the peace will continue. But right now, President Bola Tinubu has said that the federal government is receiving support and commendation from global communities over the removal of fuel subsidy. Are they here to enjoy with us what this is? And the foreign exchange regime policies also that he's saying that they are yielding positive results. I don't know the yardstick that the measure results. Tinubu stated these are a gala award night on Saturday organized by the office of the head of civil service of the federation to recognize and honor outstanding civil servants to mark the 2023 civil service week. Represented by the secretary to the government of the federation, Senator George Akume, President Tinubu appreciated civil servants for their numerous contributions to the economic development of the country and all that. So he's receiving commendation from the outside world. Is he receiving commendation from the Nigerian people who this subsidy removal was supposed to help? And will that fear go away that this fuel subsidy removal will now put money into different pockets if not the same pockets because palliatives will be used. And palliatives, whenever we talk palliatives we remember COVID-19, we remember the palliatives that we've had in Nigeria and we don't trust the government enough to believe that these things are going to play out the way they're saying it. So I think government should be deliberate about policies that in the immediate will bring so close to the people. Otherwise, otherwise, let me put dot dot dot. I'm not talking about that. From what we can see, from what we are hearing, it's looking like the more we see, the less we understand. Or you know what I mean? Because as I said, a lot of things have been unearthed. All right? There are lots of questions begging for answers from the NNPC, from those who are, from some marketers of this oil, the crude, those who, from the politicians that have been in power over the years, from the leaders that have been in power over the years, lots of questions are begging for answers. It's not what it looks like. You know, it's not as simple as it looks. There's a lot that needs to be done to correct so many things that have gone wrong over the decades in this country. And until there is a political will to go to the bottom of some of the wrongs, look, we may also be treating symptoms when the real issues are there to be a waste of time and a vicious circle which will lead Nigeria to nowhere. And clamping down on people will not always be the solution. NLC said they were going on strike. Modern of all strikes will start on Wednesday and the federal government came out and said you are banned from strike because there's a court action and all that. You want to guard the people. Even if the court will give you that, the courts can give you that. Fine. But will it be the solution just going to the court to get a ban on industrial action? It doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make any sense. And they're still insisting. NLC is saying no matter what you're saying, the court doesn't ban us. We are going on strike. And if it happens, what happens to us? They're going on strike on Wednesday. Wednesday. They're going on strike on Wednesday. The doctors are already on strike. Right, doctors are already on strike. We don't know how far this is going to go. Nigerians are hungry. This is a very peculiar situation. The strike this time may be different from the previous strikes we've seen because there's so much anger. There's so much hunger too. And there's so much frustration. And so how is this going to go? Only God can tell right now. I can't see it being peaceful for more than two days because people will take advantage. Once people enter the streets, there are others that may not know the real reason why people are demonstrating and the reason that it's supposed to be peaceful demonstration. People might enter the street, take advantage. And hoodlums will abuse the whole process. Yeah. And people who didn't even intend to be hoodlums, who are hungry enough to do what is wrong, may enter the street as well. So a statement should be made. And the president being silent about this is not good to me. We've passed the stage of statement, Nyamgo. Actions. Nigerians are looking for actions that would change the situation. He starts with talk. Labour is saying we want the price of fuel to go back to what it used to be. As I said, a lot of things have been unearthed. So Labour is even beginning to shift ground from we want 200,000 minimum which to take this fuel price back to what it used to be. Oh God of mercy. Well, this is our country. We hope it continues to be peaceful but we do also really, really hope that the government will show the people some level of integrity, so much so that the trust level will go up. When there is trust, people can be patient enough. Can wait for you knowing that you will deliver. Right now, a lot of people do not have hope and that is where the danger lies. And everywhere you see people are saying, just like the former president of us and just said, we may be sitting on a keg of gunpowder. So something should be done about this. Whoever is listening to us or watching us right now who is a policymaker or who has the ear of a policymaker should say something in the next few days. His statement should be made and actions like Maureen said should start so that people will see and believe that the government has the people at heart. Well, we'll take a short break and return to face what we have on the papers. Stay with us.