 And we're back with Off The Price on PLOS TV Africa. G.D. Johnson joins us this morning. He's a senior lecturer of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism. G.D. it's good to have you join us. Can I say happy election eve? I'd like to say I wish you're happy something. Well I'm not sure G.D. can hear us but hopefully we're able to connect to him. I set up with the leadership news people now. We have several papers to go through and that's courtesy of our paper vendor. Now the leadership says 14 state and dramatic governorship contests and that's what it is. It's five to finish in Lagos. Bauchi, Kaduna, Gombe, Delta, Adamawa, Reavers, Kano, Eboi, Enugu, Ogung, Oyaan, Sokoto, Nassarawa. That's it. Eleven governors in race for second term. Ainek, Ami, Wern, Personnel and please restrict movement for 18 hours. That has always been the case. But Kofi, you know that that's also a point of dispute and conversation. When we have elections, what's with the whole shutting down the entire economy? Can't we have elections and have people you know go on with go about their businesses? Well I can't wait to share the thoughts of G.D. on this one. President Mohamed Abouhari to success or sustain my anti-corruption fight and I saw some tweet somebody say bye bye you know do anything. Presidential poll I will win in court says OB and just before we move away from the leadership competency will be my basis for appointment. That's what the president elected Kota to say. And then again you find aviation workers secure federal government or sue federal government over proposed concession of airports. This conversation has been going on for a very long time. I owe you no apology go to court. Look man dares or more share it or me sure. I hope I got that correctly. That's about the crisis in the APC. Narrow and fuel scarcity inflation push 24 million Nigerians into hunger. It's not something you want to think about. That's it this morning on the leadership. Important questions that you ask mercy. Let's go over to the punch this morning with these headlines. Nigeria needs competence not national unity government as the president like Bola Mettinbo and still struggling trying and striving to improve its legitimacy because that's always going to be difficult even if he measures at the end of the day. More from the punch leadership not by force. Good luck Jonathan. It's a very funny one. Leadership not by force. So like we say Nigerian pigeon leadership not be by force. Poles legos cannot reverse governorship candidates face tough battles. Yes so Miki governor of Lake River State made a live broadcast yesterday and he got people talking threats ahead of Saturday Poles worrisome Abdul Salami. States insist on contempt charge against Malami. We have IPOB rejects 10th deadly as terror group ranking. Okay. Three feared killed as party supporters clash in Lagos Ogun or your and unions protest airport concession. Sue minister fan and we see a picture story there readiness of officers of the Nigerian security and civil defense corps. Remember when they were asking Nigerians to allow them use guns and you can see they are brandishing their weapons ahead of the state governorship and House of Assembly elections in Abuja on Thursday and they have their own I think their own local elections in Abuja as well. But remains to be seen what what are these two translating to any any actual security and protection on the ground. Those are the headlines on the front page of a punch. What we take our attention from the punch and let's quickly look at the daily trust newspaper. It talks about the elections tomorrow. Security operatives on red alert in state and peace committee worried over violence and intimidation and threats. Now and again there's also another video of MCO Luoma threatening a sect of people to be very precise. I mean let's say the way this he goes if you don't you don't go to vote for the APC stay at home. Now these also generating too many you know controversies and questions and people are saying what exactly is going on. Is this not a crime. What does the electoral act says about this. Now apart from the electoral act if you look at the constitution is there any provision. Is this not a crime. How come the police is not involved. How can we even you know have party members of political parties projecting this kind of narrative. I mean this is this would actually pass for voter threat and intimidation. If you look at the number of persons who actually register for voting election and then you look at the number of turnout over time we always say voter apathy and that's because people are not interested. That's the cliche but I think that we need to begin to expand but like again GD Johnson will be here to share his thoughts on all of this one. I pop ranked war that's thinned deadliest group. Very interesting. How I will form my cabinet that's what the president like to squatter to say 17 dying canoe auto crash and just before move away national assembly leadership while we're delaying zoning till after governorship polls. Adamou is quoted to say finance minister urges up incoming administration to increase that to 10% that of what you want to ask. Girl six mistakes petrol for kerosene and born self while learning to cook wow. Well that's it this morning on the daily trust newspaper. All right we'll take a final one. We have an interesting addition to the other press family. It's an environmental newspaper called Nature News lead story there Echo Bank IITA partner to support 16,000 youth through agric that is the the the world-renowned IITA is very important organization tropical agriculture the Institute of International of Tropical Agriculture sorry. Nigeria produced 1.3 million barrels per day accrued in February. Missed target by 500,000 barrels per day OPEC SPDC lifts force measure on Bonnie exports that's some good news. Rivers pipeline explosion shell fail to protect facilities CAP that's corporate accountability and public affairs organization all right. More from Nature News Nigeria 54 others suffer shortage of health workers. I think that reminds us of what the Minister of Labor Dr. Chris Inge said about the health workers in the country have more than enough. IMF approves first batch of climate resilience loans. We're going to probably go back for these loans and death toll rises Cyclone Freddie ravages Africa some really really worrying news there. Jede Johnson good morning once again. Let's start with your thoughts on the picture stories of the front page of the punch newspaper and indeed daily trust but I hope our guys can show us the punch newspaper. I mean we see the weapons weapons you can see this is not even we're not talking about army we're talking about civil defense here and if this can be what the civil defense will be using on election day then imagine what the Nigerian army and police will be using I mean this looks like some sort sort team from an American movie but Jede Johnson we saw a show of force before the presidential election convoys of Nigerian soldiers some of them even filming their own personal videos warning those who were coming out to to rig elections and to cause trouble with us to be to be aware that they were on ground but what did we see on election day these guys were nowhere to be found in most cases not all cases what are your thoughts on this Jede Johnson need these people in coalition centers the world coalition centers that's where you want these people to be but what you have just seen is just a PR for these security agencies to just fight their budget at the end of the day we send your reporter to go around during the election I'm not to show you are going to see this this and these security agencies in the polling unit I've always released this question where do we need to secure elections are not rigged at the polling unit even though it starts at those process we have seen that elections are rigged at the coalition center but what do we have at the coalition center if you have the coalition center you use the local government sectarian as the coalition center so you have given a head start an advantage to the party that controls the state and the local government structure so as far as I'm concerned this is just them these security agencies to justify to justify their their their budget that they are spending they are spending money to preserve and protect democracy as as far as I'm concerned I I'm just saying that they are just playing to the gallery and in any case what the security just able to prevent some places in in imposing curfew without having the authority to impose curfew on the rights of the citizen to move left at the center curfew you are them you are the messy I wonder how you people go to the office this morning because where you are I guess is one of the areas in which the traditional impose curfew on people getting going about their normal business too as far as the security pictures you see even the pictures if you know you know if you even if you understand what I mean if you engage all those pictures are paid for they are just pure they are not newsworthy they are not newsworthy picture they are paid for to justify the budget that these agencies are spending on security protecting democracy who audited the money that was spent for the presidential election I've got the election what happened we saw what happened in the coalition center we saw what happened because the end I'm bread of Nigeria so as far as I'm concerned I'm not impressed and I'm not better well I also like you to share your thoughts on the leadership I mean the headline that you know you have for 10 states which are really in a dramatic contest for the governorship elections and Lagos is you know one of it about Chikaduna, Gomber, Delta, Damawa, Rivers, Kano, Eboni, Enugu, Ogun or your Sokoto, Nassarawa among others now do you really agree with this caption is there really going to be any sort of drama? Yeah if you understand if you see that now this is when people say politics is local you see a lot of things we play up concerning gubernatorial election in actually it's not out of place for a party to have won the presidential election outrightly to win the state outrightly and therefore the party to lose out in the gubernatorial election because there are so many local dynamics to the election so like I've been pointed out based on the intelligence that I've encountered by the reporter of the leadership Nishpipa, Ogun state, Nassarawa state, Lagos is a dead eat, Kano is a battleground, Bauchi you know the gladiators contesting in Bauchi so all of these states that have been rivers for example rivers there's a lot of people that are grieved that are grieved one allegedly based on the on the manipulation of the February 25th general elections in the river state and there are people that have put their foot on the ground that they'll set the record straight so there's no doubt that this dynamics will clear out and don't forget that some of the governors are ending their tenure so as a result of the end of their tenure new governors are coming into there are a lot of things that come to play I agree with I agree with I agree with that report in totality because if you look at Ogun you look at you look at or you're for example or you're that what's a clear country for PDP anyone has told you uh I've spoken about this in in four months time four months ago six months ago three months ago but you saw what played out with presidential election result and then the national assembly election where APC almost cleared all all of the state so it went voting those that won the election and those that lost they will be leaking their votes so I agree with with that particular with that particular report it's going to be interesting but what we want to happen is for us to secure the critical infrastructure of democracy which is the votes let whoever emerge emerge to the ballot system that he emerge to the votes leaders are elected from the polling units not from not from the coalition center not by the electoral body the moment we start voting by the by the end of voting if you do everything under normal circumstances by the end of voting you know we love you much you know we have much because what the beauty of it is of this representative democracy is that when I'm going to vote I don't know the outcome but as I'm voting all of us are voting and whoever emerges to that voting process automatically becomes becomes elected representative of people and when people emerge to fear free and fair democratic process then you have a fear and irresponsible public governance but when people emerge through crooked means that's why you have crooked cookie cookie them delivery of of of delivery boosts of democracy because they are not accountable they knew that they did not get the mandate of the people they got through office through crooked means so they will be accountable to those that got them into power and I hope and I hope the security just we understand that they are critical to securing democracy and how do we secure democracy whoever the the people that we assume responsibility of leadership of state apparatus must emerge through a free and fair electoral process all right very interesting GD Johnson I'm just in journal analysis here it's like eating some nice delicacy PMB to successor this on the front page of the leadership Friday he's saying to his successor sustain my anti-corruption fight is this to you from what you see playing out going to be possible and is it feasible and does the president have a tangible anti-corruption fight to hand over to any successor in your opinion the president is living in self-delusion I've said it is in the public domain you see on the anti-corruption drive of this administration from inception I've done I can tell you for a fact I've done nothing less than 20 programs talking about the anti-corruption drive of this administration and I've said that they are just into the gallery that they were only fighting corruption on the pages of this paper what what successive prosecution do you have what institution did this we knew when Obasanjo came a team loving there were institutions that were established EFCC ICPC agency were established and we knew ministers under Obasanjo's that were prosecuted we knew inspector general of police that was Mr. Obasanjo we knew not that some we say that is witch hunting well that's that's that's it that's another perspective we saw all of that under Obasanjo administration now what kind of anti-corruption drive did you see that this administration this present administration that came into in 2000 of it what kind of a corruption drive we did all we see is that money were recovered yet we are borrowing money the money that were recovered from who are those that those money were recovered from who are those that have been prosecuted over corruption cases in Nigeria but what we see is that those stories were slammed on the pages of newspaper and the media were watched there there are spaces with those stories without any corresponding investigation to attest to whether in natural sense and those money that were recovered or those that have been accused of corruption were actually tried and prosecuted we have a situation under this administration where somebody was was was was was convicted was almost convicted and because of technical issues the person his case his case was thrown out and then the person later emerged as the chief whip as the as the chief whip of the of the of the of the night assembly he's even predicting himself to be the senate president so what type of corruption and someone said you know what you recall when people said that if you want your corrupt if the national chairman of APC then who are supposed to be a senator-elect and the former governor of those states said as long as you come to APC your sins will be forgiven if you have corrupt cases i'm saying what what is there in the public domain so what is the president saying it's then to the gallery the reality we're done on him because now we discovered that nobody's coming to asorok again the attention has shifted to the president-elect it's everybody will be going to the defense house and the president will live under the delusion that he has subjected himself to in the last eight years we respect to fight the corruption those those corruption were just fighting on the page of this you know the campaign on that and you have to justify why they got the mandate of the people for the last eight years well um i'd like you to also share your thoughts on this is on the leadership newspaper it talks about the fact that aviation workers in Nigeria have sued the federal government who are suing the federal government over airports concessioning and the fact that 150 billion our areas have not been paid uh gd how does this really make you feel then do you think that there's any hope in all of the suing is it even necessary in the force instance well government has a responsibility to pay the arrears of the workhouse that's the allowability issued but if you ask me these i'll tell you that there is a need for us there are a lot of things that we need to privatize in terms of government has no business in in the vision sector allow the public just regulate and allow the public um to operate and manage this sector you all you need to do if you traveled through the length and breadth of this country and then if you traveled outside of Nigeria and you see the way we run we run our vision sector you just wonder whether something is actually wrong with us as a people as far as i'm concerned if you see what happened in telcos in in the telcos and then if you see what happened in other sectors that we allow the private to participate in we see that they are better service delivery and reduce a lot of wastages that you have and a lot of redundancy that you have in in government managing situation so i want us to privatize if they said the privatize nmpc not that we have not seen what has been done to that effect so let's really privatize the vision the vision sector but whatever allowability the government is going to work as the workers we're not going to privatize because they are feeding fat from from from from the redundancy from the mismanagement and from the unprofessionalism that characterize the management of this of this of these various institutions that are involved in the vision sector so as far as i'm concerned i want us to privatize but government must also fulfill his own part of the bargain pay the areas and don't give them the reason for them to go to court if there is an appeal they have a right to go to court in it they have a right to approach the court for the court to adjudicate on the matter and the court should look at the merit of the case and adjudicate as proper however is he a government that respect the decision of of the court system which is therefore it's an open debate everybody knows whichever side he belongs to there's a particular story which in one of the pages of the news we provide the the state governor insisting that the attorney general of the federation and the central bank governor should be tried for concept of court and i agree with them in totality when the chief law officer of the state is himself the person that is not actually putting in place instrument to ensure the enforcement of decision of the court what do you have when the chief law maker the chief law enforcer is the chief law breaker then you have you have chaos in the in the society so i agree let's privatize okay um a lot to look at um let's talk about concession of airports so you know try to you know reduce that talk on the parties uh today but the airport's concession is a big one that some are looking forward to with some sort of expectation so that it may be a way of having these airports that government has us you know invested money in through huge loans have them work but the airport workers the vision workers are not uh in support of this and they have proceeded to sue the federal government over the east proposed concession of airports um are you i do you think that uh the the workers have a point here that you know they may become the victims if this concession goes ahead they have a right they have a right to go to approach the court and the country also has a right to allow the private sector to participate like i've said they in nigeria own one of the largest airports in great between i can recall his name now so we look if you look at if you look at mm2 which was um which was considered to buy cotney you compare mm2 to mm1 if you have traveled to the local wing and you look at what is available in terms of facility in terms of operation and in terms of management um you you understand what we are saying there's a need for us to consider if those ones want to go to court they have a right to go to court and let the court look at the merit of the case government should pay the areas but there's a need for government to take his hands off a lot of things like i've said earlier if you look at the telcos industry where is nitel today nitel moved to mtel where is mtel today compared to the likes of other other other dozen players in the telcos industry so i don't want to mention that because it didn't pay your organization for at but thank you thank you for that well just quickly as we course this conversation down again there's several interesting headlines that we need to look at another one talks about the issue of niren fuel scarcity inflation that's been pushed as 24 million nigerians uh are going to be moved into hunger do you think that this is actually real or that's just uh you know a pepper statement 24 million nigerians getting into hunger there's an environmental news there's an environmental newspaper which is a fresh which is a fresh bridge to what we are doing which you read where ecobank and iit partners to support 16 000 using of the culture messy kufi you and i will go to the market with new what has happened to the price of goods and services we name it's clear and and and then so it's it's it's it's very clever for us to understand that when you have scarcity of of goods and too much funds are running after those goods you have you have you have you have you have inflation every of the actions of the government in the past has contributed for us to have hyperinflation we are even having to double digit inflation so a lot of people have been pushed down into into into into poverty line so it's clear it's clear for everybody to see except you don't go shopping except you don't go to the market if you look the price price index of commodity products it's clear for anybody to see that there is there is there is in the last in the last eight years we have we have we have moved further down the the the poverty the poverty line and it will not get better it will not get better next year you see it with let's talk about the currency exchange you know the value of money that people have lost i i use we use money to buy money doing that doing that until the this until the judgment of the supreme court and the compliance with it this week a week after by the by by by by the actors and players in the banking industry everybody use money to buy money you need five thousand you use use one thousand one thousand five hundred to buy the money so over time people are i think i what whether it was your program where one of the public commentator said he got a hundred thousand for he got a hundred thousand for whether 125,000 i have to pay 25,000 so where is that 25,000 coming from all of this money we are going to come from and even look at this policy i've said it over time look the money they are collecting on trying to for us to be cashless it is putting for that body is hitting deep into your money because you're not paying attention you pay six you pay six nine seven to cover for telco charges and i tell you if you do if you do let's say if you do a 100 billion transaction in a day that's six naira 70 cover times 100 million transaction in the day plus the 29 or 25 naira that's the banks will collect as their charges if you put that over so who is paying for who so we have a system that has that has been put in place to take money from from the mass and put it in the hands of the elec elec so the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer so there are a lot of things a lot of conversation we are going to have as soon as we are through with the electoral as soon as we are through with the election and the government comes into place because when people begin to look at some of these policies of government they have different forms of indirect taxes upon they have different terms of indirect taxes that have been imposed on you and i that is taking our money but because you cannot pay attention because those money and you need six naira 70 cover it makes no difference over 20 naira but if you take 20 naira from 100 million nigerians you know what it amounts to in every of the transactions they make and if you are getting quality service in return for some of these three revenue the government is making if you are getting quality service in return there's no doubt about that you pay for what you have in other clients you pay 40 45 percent of their income as taxes but they get that in return in terms of good services in terms of good infrastructure in terms of good health care in terms of other things that they can enjoy in the society but what do we have to show for all of the money that they are collecting from our hands is for us to have people threatening you is for non-state actors to have more power over the cities in than even state actors it's for a ballot but but you know johnson you you would also johnson you'd also want to agree with me that the tax our tax collection regime is very weak i mean i'm not sure we're collecting you know the taxes that we should collect i'm not talking about the extra but uh if you look at the one the one we are collecting i agree with you the one we are collecting what are we doing with the one we are collecting i'm asking you the one the revenue that have been generated what are we doing with the revenues that have been generated it's the question i'm asking if it's okay our tax regime is poor is this is that okay no doubt about that but the little one you are collecting justify why you are collecting it so that people will know that you are spending this money judiciously and you prosecute whoever is not paying the taxes the interesting thing is that it is people that are not paying the taxes that are also in charge of leadership you know that uh you're telling me i recall the i recall the president elect said in one of his colloquium that we need to we need to expand the the the the tax the tax dragnet to capture a lot of people and he mentioned his name that even i but that you know if i'm not paying i should be captured so that i should pay so is there is there in the public domain it's not uh whether you are for this or you're for what we are saying is that let there be a justification for i'll give you an example what's the justification for the collection of the toll that have been collected until like it took it for many many years for many many years it's it's an axis you go to messy you live in natcha so it's an axis you are you working via so it's an axis you go to you've gone through many many many many many years once you leave the toky tell me tell me in fact you even go to ashi in going through the payment is it an idea that the cost of collecting the taxes is even much more than the taxes that are collected all right all right didi john so we'll just take a a final one before uh we say goodbye to you and of course um look forward to having you uh back on the program they now feel scarcity uh an inflation is pushing 24 million Nigerians into hunger according to the f a of the food and agriculture organization so the front page of uh leadership friday uh while we have our eyes on the election this is a very important aspect of our national life that some people may go to bed hungry uh tonight and even if you know the elections are concluded and the best candidate wins at the end of the day we'll still have to grapple with uh with hunger um jillie johnson 24 million um Nigerians what hope do these people have um i mean the the hope is definitely not coming from the government is it in narav scarcity and fioske see uh driving factors including inflation to push these people into hunger jillie what what hope you see they are just the conservative which we got it's not going to be a mother to the four million Nigerians and it's really interesting thing you could feel if i have been able to convince at least uh nine million of those people you know have been the president elect today if i've been able to convince nine million out of that 24 million um and that's why you see that the incidence of food buy is very very hard and that's why it's a key component part of our democratic experience because one of the things that we have since is 1999 to date is not an exception to to the apc comments what we have since 1999 to date across the state across the 36th of the federation including the federal capital territory one of the nine german is trying to call the federal capital territory one of the states in one of the first congress in the state that at seven states i didn't know where where he got that from is to perpetuate poverty and once you perpetuate poverty an hungry man cannot think straight it's clear an hungry man cannot think straight it's so we have a situation we are by people justify collection of revenue people justify that they are investing in projects and you see a lot of people working on the street living in hunger living in abject poverty but you know jidya jasin when we talk about poverty i mean because this is you know another dimension to this jidya if you can hear us it's the fact that if we look at this has been several policies of government asked to uh i mean this policy is a targeted tackling the issue of poverty remember you know several statement and policy statement has been put out you also have different programs social intervention programs by this government eight years you know almost eight years already because few moments before the handover and all of these programs are you know were made and formulated to take care of the issue of poverty and so why then do we still talk about you know 24 million persons getting into poverty is this new 24 persons or what exactly is it and then you know it feels like the government has not been thinking because that's how you're sounding i think that there's been several policies that the government has put in place and you know there's been statement that's been put out also to tackle the issue of poverty for the past eight years let's call it eight years already uh jidya can you hear me i can hear you messy um there's no poverty that there's no poverty that has been tackled by any atmosphere but but you agree with me that there's been policies of government i mean there's so you know them for instance a social intervention program they succeeded in doing is to what they've succeeded in doing is to perpetuate poverty and as a result of that we have seen a lot of Nigerians in public under this present democratic dispensation which are called civilian administration and not a democratic governance because what we have seen is a transition from military government to people in civilian races they still have been the detentions of all the military they still have all the tendencies they still have it all right jidya we have to go at this point in time we do appreciate you uh for being part of our show this morning the breakfast and off the press to be precise we look forward to sharing your thoughts on more national critical issues as you know we'll proceed in 2023 thank you so much once again all right still ahead on the breakfast we have uh conversations concerning the elections a governorship and state houses of assembly elections especially in nigeria's commercial nav center of lager so look at what lies ahead expectations and of course um what are some of the fears that voters may have ahead of the lager's governorship polls and also look at what's happening in other states around the country please stay with us