 A former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, gets seven years in prison for the 2012 rival of businessman Femi Ute Dela. An analysis of the case is coming up this morning. Also on the breakfast today Major General Farouk Yahya confirmed as the Chief of Army Staff. We'll be talking about the challenges before him and the Manjuran Army. And of course, somewhere in our top trend in this morning, we get to speak on the National Assembly Rehabilitation and the leaky roof situation that showed up yesterday. Good morning from the city of Lagos and thank you for joining us this morning here on the breakfast at Plos TV Africa. I am Usagi of Bahwa. I am Anata Felix. Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us. Good morning to you and good morning, Usagi. Wow, today really is a beautiful day. Wednesday, even though lots of tensions high due to one or two things in the country and in our personal lives. But we're glad to say it's a beautiful day. Anata is dealing with a situation of, you know, robbery and a pot of rice this morning. But, you know, let's get to talk about national issues. Hopefully my name wasn't all watching. Let's get to talk about national issues. It seems like it was going to rain this morning. So if you're going to be heading out across Lagos this morning, you may want to be prepared for some rainfall, just in case it still does. Let's get into it. Yes. We talked about an 18-year-old en-taz protester who had been in prison custody since last year, 2020. And she had been arrested on the grounds that she was an en-taz protester who had destroyed some property in Ondos state. Her name is Kemi-Sola Oguni. And the news broke and went viral because she reportedly gave birth in prison. You know, the news said she was two months pregnant when she was arrested. Lawyers were behind her, Nigerians were behind her saying it's unfair. It's against, you know, all the human right laws you could think of for a pregnant woman who has not even been charged for any crime to bring police custody for so long. So the good news, a top trending story, is that Kemi has finally been released on bail temporarily. The naming ceremony of her baby would hold today, Wednesday. And the police say she can come back after the naming ceremony to prison to perfect her bail condition. And she's been given bail to the tune of how much? That's a lot. 10 million nair, 10 million nair bail, which, you know, I feel was very, very unfair. So, you know, the points, you know, that I would throw out here. First of all, the time that she spent in custody without being charged to court and of course being sentenced, you know, to anything. And then if her story didn't make it to social media, then she probably would have still been there without anybody taking up a case and ensuring that she is granted bail. Eventually she has, of course, been granted a 10 million nair bail. And it really just tells that there's not very much that has changed with criminal justice system over time. The conversation concerning NSA has expanded beyond just ending the Special Anti-Rubbery Squad into also fixing the issues with police brutality and fixing, you know, the issues here and there with the criminal justice system. And it's important that, you know, not just the protesters back then, but also the Ministry of Justice, the NBA and everybody who was concerned, they've been on strike for a long time, you know, seeking higher salaries and, of course, you know, enforcing the judicial autonomy perspective. But I think they should go beyond all of that and, you know, and ensure that there is, you know, a reduction in the number of people who are in police custody for many, many months, you know, without being charged for anything, without being taken to court and, of course, being sentenced, you know, if found guilty. It's unfair, you know, like you said, you know, to keep a pregnant woman in custody and police custody for so long and even eventually even let her give birth in police custody. But it also doesn't excuse whatever crime that she may have committed. During the protest, it was, you know, deemed to be peaceful until the 20th of October when, you know, all hell seemed to break loose. There was destruction of property, not just in Lagos State, but in other states across the country. But the thing is how likely is it that she committed that crime? Yes. She was a pregnant woman, right? Exactly. She's 18 years old. And the story from her perspective is that she was going to collect money for her mom. You know, so I really, it doesn't really seem to add up to me, you know, why a pregnant woman would be involved in a protest and cause destruction. You know, but we saw the video of her carrying her baby. She seemed like a gentle, peaceful person. That's just the assessment I made just from looking at her. I don't know her personally, but really it has a lot to say about our own judicial system. And she's 18. Yeah. We've seen statistics about number of teenagers, children that are being locked up, that are in prison custody. It really doesn't speak well for us as a country. Makes absolutely no sense that I have no point in the last couple of months. You know, somebody, you know, in that police station didn't see her and say this, you know, makes absolutely no sense. And we probably should do something about it, you know, to either just let her go or hasten, you know, the process. So she gets to court and, you know, she's charged for whatever it is. Why would you keep a woman who's pregnant, two months pregnant when she was arrested? You watch the pregnancy grow. You watch it all the way till she eventually gave birth, you know, without even trying to, you know, send her to court. Yes, I know the courts have been on strike for a long time, but still no excuse, you know, because 48 hours is what, you know, the law says. And the courts just didn't go on strike in October 2020. So there has been enough time for all of this to have been sorted or to have been, you know, solved. I am not, you know, going to say that, oh, she maybe is completely innocent. It doesn't make any sense. And, you know, like you've mentioned, it's not very, very likely that a two month old, you know, pregnant woman will be, you know, participating in the destruction of government property and all of that. But there's also that possibility that she was part of the loot in that two place. There's a possibility of so many things. But it's not for us to determine. That's why they need to investigate. Yes, you know, and, you know, find, you know, Not practice an accusatory system, you know. If it's found guilty, then yes, she should be sentenced. If there was no actual evidence, if she's just one of those people who was picked up by security agencies while trying to solve the security crisis back then, then I don't know. It just doesn't make any sense. And also granting a poor pregnant woman a 10 million Naira bail. Does she have 10 million Naira? She obviously doesn't. You know, also, you know, I see that very, very unfair. And they say bail is free. It's plastered all over police stations in the country. Bail is free. But a poor woman who probably lives, you know, below the poverty line or is just struggling to get by a 10 million Naira bail. And then the worst is... It depends on what she's being charged. You know, the release is chambering. She's going to have to return to prison after her naming ceremony, which is going to hold today. So it means there's a lot of advocacy that still needs to be done to make sure justice is truly served in her case. And for the, you know, probably hundreds of people who are languishing in police custody for doing nothing. For just simply walking by at the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes. And we saw that, you know, when I covered one of the protests at the tour gates, we saw, you know, a couple of those incidents where people were just simply just picked and thrown into a police vehicle for walking by when there was supposed to be a protest. And of course, you know, Nigerians have continued to say that these things aren't fair. You know, that's not the way policing should be done. Like you've said, like, you're a curatorial, you know, method of policing is entirely wrong. And we should be able to do better with our police system, with our criminal justice system. We're doing it to do better. Because we've heard eyewitness accounts about how what the police do, you know, they just pick you up, arrest you, and they ask you to, you know, get money from your parents, from your family members. Exactly what a kidnapper would do. The same modus operandi, they pick you up, take you to the police station, ask you to call your family to come bail you out. If they don't have the money to bail you out, they're going to leave you there for as long as possible. Yeah, and there's nobody in the whole police station, including the commissioner of police, including the DPO, including the IPO. There's nobody in this space that looks at these cases and says to himself, oh, maybe, you know, this person, you know, should be let go. If they really haven't, whoever it is that brought them in that place has not, you know, doesn't have a strong case against them, didn't actually catch them doing anything wrong, didn't, you know, feel, you know, that, you know, whatever it is that they, you know, have been arrested for. They're not expecting, yeah, police to, you know, have, you know, their own mercy for kidnappers or for murderers or for thieves and say, oh, you know, he's such a fine boy, let's let him go. I'm not expecting that, but we need to do better, generally. All right, moving on, let's move into the National Assembly now where tens of billions of Nairas spent on the National Assembly over the last few years still, you know, doesn't seem to have changed much as it still has a leaky roof, not just a tiny hole, but leaks big enough to disrupt sit-ins at the Senate. Cleaners at the National Assembly were kept busy yesterday as water poured through the roof as it rained heavily outside. Some senators had to go through the House of Representatives in order to get into the Senate chambers. Thirty-seven billion Nairas, if you remember, was approved in 2019 alone for the renovation of the National Assembly complex. And yes, another embarrassing day, you know, in Nigeria. See, take a look at the books when it comes to, you know, budgets and things like this, especially for the National Assembly, your jaws would definitely drop. I mean, look at that. Thirty-seven billion Naira approved for renovation. And just take a look at, you know, all these earnings of the National Assembly allocations just to the teams of billions. So if the money is really not allocated to doing what they say it would do, then definitely means the money is going somewhere. It's been diverted to the pocket of someone or some people. Because how would you have a thirty-seven billion Naira renovation fund? And then, oh my God. Well, so, you know, my own angles to this, you know, first of all, not every amount of money that is approved or that you see in the papers is actually released. You know, a lot of times they approve, you know, budget for health, budget for security, budget for, you know, computers, budget for spoons and plates and whatever it is. But not every penny, you know, eventually gets released. You know, so, you know, it's now left for us to figure out how much has actually been released since 2019 out of that thirty-seven billion. There's a Freedom of Information Act, you know, that should be able to get those figures out. There's also expected to be, you know, some level of auditing for every single penny. Unfortunately, we don't get to see a lot of auditing concerning finances in Nigeria. In every sector, across the country, MDAs across the country, the National Assembly, the State Houses of Assembly and all of that, we don't get to see a lot of auditing to show, you know, where money has been misappropriated or money has been stolen or maybe forms have been used, you know, wrongly. So there is that. But also, it's not, I don't think it's the first time rains have fallen in Abuja in 2021. So my questions really are, is this the first time that this has happened or was yesterday's incident just a one-off? Maybe something went wrong in the roof of the National Assembly yesterday and that's where all this happened. And then it overlooked the roof during renovations. Say that again? And they have the overlooked the roof during renovations. Yeah, you know, but if this, if it's been raining, you know, for the last few months of 2021 and so if the roof has been leaking all this while, then it should have, you know, been in a situation. I guess everything has a breaking point, you know? I can't explain it. It should have happened in the past. It should have happened two weeks ago when it rained. Should have happened a month ago when it rained, not just yesterday. So has this always been happening or is there something that happened yesterday? Was there a structural defect yesterday that led to all of this? It's really, really embarrassing. And, you know, as of course in Nigeria, you'd expect that another one billion would be, you know, budgeted for, you know, just fixing of the roof. So remember when in 2020, conversations about the 2021 budget came up, and the president actually went ahead to a budget of 128 billion Naira for the National Assembly. There was, you know, an outcry saying this is too much. Why are lawmakers earning so much, getting so much for just a, you know, a National Assembly complex? But it's just unfortunate to see that despite all these allocations, we still have things like these sessions disrupted by rats and mosquitoes and flies. And, you know, they say they can't hold, they can't sit for the next two months. You know, I really don't know what to say. I'm not forward regarding this particular issue. Many see it as embarrassing. And definitely you cannot take away the fact that there's definitely a hint of corruption in there because where exactly is the money going to? Who was the contract allocated to? So these things really are conversations that we need to talk about regarding this particular issue of the National Assembly complex. But let's see just how long is it take for them to fix this? In the news, it would announce exactly how much budget you would definitely be shocked. Well, I don't, you know, and I cannot, you know, authoritatively say that there has been billions released yet. Even if yes, then someone was approved. I cannot also authoritatively say that there has actually been a renovation carried out on the National Assembly in the last long while. But, you know, this might be one of the reasons why the Senate President might say, oh, yes, you know, this is why we're asking for 37 billion last year. You guys are complaining. You know, now we need a 37 billion. You guys should, you know, release it so that we can fix our leaking roof and start embarrassing ourselves. Well, anyway, we need to, you know, take a short break. When we come back, we're moving into off the press where we get to look through some of the major stories making headlines across Nigeria today. Stay with us.