 Today, on the breakfast, many passengers feared injured while several others kidnapped as a train-conveined passengers from Abu-Jet to Kaduna was attacked by gunmen suspected to be bandits in Kaduna state. Vice-President Jamio Shiba Joe and former President Delusio Robson Joe hopped on the need to strengthen democracy in Nigeria and Africa just what are the roles of the citizenry ahead of the 2023 elections. And as always, we're delving to the front pages of our national dailies with an analyst. Good morning. Many thanks for joining us on the breakfast and plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. And I am Mesia Boko. Beautiful morning to you and thanks for joining us. Yes, it is a beautiful morning but yesterday late in the evening Nigerians were greeted with a gruesome attack along the Kaduna Abu-Jet rail track. We understand mercy that a band that attacked the train on the route of Abu-Jet and that many have been feared and kidnapped and it is really a sad situation, Mesia. Yeah, well it's very sad and that's because just yesterday we also talked about the fact that an airport was attacked in Kaduna. It's in Kaduna state. So it feels like Kaduna is, you know, in the news and a lot is actually going. But you know how the body language of the government, the state and at the federal level has not really shown any concern as regards tackling this. You could see some of the pictures, you know, from that sad incident that happened that would probably be from, you know, bullets or forceful entry to it. As we hear, this is not the first time this has happened where you have this explosive on the train track and then of course it derails the train and then they have the opportunity, you know, to go ahead and cost this to him. Very, very sad. It calls for a lot of concern and worry. And I remember the time where, you know, there was some sort of inspection in League of South last year and I happened to be around, you know, for that inspection. And I did mention, you know, to those questions that were being popped up, which, you know, I'm sure that no one paid attention to because of the imminent threats that we witness, not everybody witness. It was just a minute threat, right? It was just insignificant. I'm not sure that, you know, anyone considered that. But, you know, that's where my question came up. When we had time, you know, to interact with the authorities. I put out this question and I asked, what are the measures to, what measures have been put to ensure that, you know, the train, you know, the trainway or the railway entirely, the entire system is protected, right? Because if you find out, these trains are not, the train tracks are not in commercial areas, they're in isolated places, right? And so you don't expect, even if that might be the case, well, you can't even have it, it's not even possible. So it has to be in isolation. But the question that was put out was that, yes, as always, we would always have a question to answer, which really didn't make any sense because at the time, when we were moving, I mean, the train was moving from Lagos, you know, trying to navigate it, but even though we didn't eventually get it, but you saw young lads, children across, throwing stones at the train, throwing stones and they were throwing stones. I think what actually, it's not like you stopped them. To me, that was a threat and I'm like, why would this be happening? And so the question came, but of course, there would always be a ready and made answer for any question and not paying attention to it. So it's really sad, very sad, very unfortunate, but it just shows that we have not really taken seriously the issue of security, these bandits. Just as on the 26th, you had the attack in Keduna and now you're having this. This is not the first time this is happening. And what would have thought of putting proactive measures ever since the first time? So because if you applied through, I mean, if you've used the train, you find that that is a lonely, so we should we be expecting some patrol? Like you have patrol of security men, you know, you have the police patrolling that area and what have you, especially at the time where you have these group of persons creating mayhem, you know, these group of persons being extra with the activities. But I really don't know. It leaves me very speechless. It leaves me really sad. It leaves me. There's a lot of mixed feeling regarding this because I feel like we do not. We're not interested in this because as long as you have a wheel, there will be a way. There is no wheel here. I've not seen any wheel. There's no wheel. There's no wheel from the federal government. There's no wheel from the state government. There's no wheel. So we're all fingers across. And this is really sad because security is top on the list of every government. It is your responsibility to ensure that lives and properties are protected. People pay their taxes. Taxpayers are paying taxes. And what do they get in turn? We need to understand the origin of government. Government did not come through as all people wanted government. It's as a result of a social contract. And some people said, we will hand over our rights to you. And in turn, you will do XYZ for us. So we will obey the laws. We will pay taxes. And in turn, we expect you to do XYZ. And that's how government came through. But you see, the contract has been broken. So people are paying their taxes. But government is not keeping to the other side of the bargain. And we don't care. Of course, we're closer to the election year. What are we concerned about? Getting the political parties, I mean, trying to sort out who becomes the next governor, who becomes the next president. And these are issues that are top on the list, the issue of governance. And we're not paying attention to it. Yeah, indeed. The Cardinal State Government was also quoted as saying that they were able to put the situation, check the situation as it were. And then there was some military intervention. But my question right now will be, that was more reactionary than being proactive. In as much as the military came out to do what they could have done, I feel that is not really enough. Cardinal has been like a hotbed for lots of issues in recent times. Like you rightly said, mercy, two days, three days ago, over the weekend, the airport was attacked. One would have thought that security would have been put on high alert. The airport was attacked, now the railroad track. So what kind of signals are these bandits actually sending out there? They're trying to tell governments that your airport is not safe, your railroad tracks are not safe, your roads have never been safe over time. And they're trying to say that they are in charge. We need the Cardinal State Government to come out and give some sort of explanation to the cities. They need to really know if they can actually trust government to protect their lives and property, because this is just one attack too many. Cardinal, a railroad track has been attacked even before now. What measures were put in place to ensure that, to forestall a recurrence? So how come we are having a similar attack and not too long after? These are the questions that government need to be answering also. But let's just move away from them. But just before we move away, I mean really sorry to bring us back here. It's at the point where you have the Minister for Culture, I mean the Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohamed saying that Niger is safer now than ever. It's just an irony, just as you make that statement and you have these persons putting it up. We have not prioritized, it's very saddening. You know why it's saddening? Because it has not happened to you, you have not been in that situation. You know those who have lost their life in the course of all of this, those who have lost their lives, not because they would have died, but because they're living in society, they live in a country where it's not about this business. We're thinking about political parties are having their conventions and then they are selecting who becomes the next governor and president. Nobody cares about that. Nobody is saying it's not about this business. And you had talked about being proactive, but we're never proactive, we're reactive. We wait for things to happen before we send the army there. But this is not the first time this is happening. We have seen that these guys are increasing in their tactics and one would think that we would double our effort as a people, but we haven't shown all of that strength. And it's sad, very sad. And what a time to be a Nigerian. Well, I just hope that this time around we'll begin to do the right things because Nigerians have died, Nigerians have been kidnapped. We cannot continue to believe in refugees in our own land. Well, I haven't said that. I don't want to get too emotional this morning. Also making the rounds all through yesterday, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett and Chris Rock were in the news. If you just search Google, Twitter, I'm sure one of the top searches you would see will be Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, Alopecia, Hellos, Bordeness, and the Oscars and all of that. A lot of people have come out to speak for and against Will Smith over what happened at the Oscars. Some have come out to say that it is good for a man to stand up for the family, to stand up for his woman. A lot of people have said that fighting as much as he is speaking for or standing for his family, he should have kept it together somehow, should have been able to just hold it all back without having to heat and Chris Rock, who looked all short. Some people have even asked if the host of what staged. Chris Rock looked like an excellent dramatist in all of that. We thought about it and Will Smith was seeing there, seeing some expletives and how Chris Rock should have kept his wife out of the host of, as you can see, he was all tiered up when he was given his acceptance speech for the award that he won for King Richard. So, I mean, it's gotten a lot of people talking, not necessarily just Nigerians, the entire, everyone seemed to have an opinion about this particular situation. And a lot of persons have expected that you would have, Will Smith should have acted differently, but you can't actually control how people would react most times, especially when the emotions are involved at this point. It was a little bit overboard and one would expect that he should have taken it and just swallow it and probably just go behind the scenes. But until you're faced with that situation, you never can tell how much you react. On the other hand, he's apologized. I mean, he met an apology while he was accepting the speech but he's apologized again on Twitter and he's apologized to Chris for his behavior, his condemn the fact that the ultimate role is to love kindness and there's no violence. Violence is not accepted anywhere because that was a violent act and it's very condemnable, really. But you also want to look at it on the other hand, the issue of provocation. And I remember the part of Bible Word, Nigerian parents always quote that, parents, you have to be your children, you have to be your parents and all of that so you may live long, but I also forget the other part that parents don't provoke your children to hang in and all of that. That was it. Well, it can be very emotional, especially the fact that you have talked about the hashtag, alopecia and in 2018, Jedd Smith actually talked about, she came out to talk about the condition that she's faced where there's a condition that makes you begin to lose your hair and that's the reason why she took off her hair, really. Now, if you want to, you know, because it took me a couple of, I mean, it took me some time to understand the joke initially. If you listen to the joke by Chris Rock, now, so the G.I. Jane joke was really a joke about a movie action. So it was a movie that happened in 1997. The lead character Jordan O'Neill was the first woman to go through a Navy SEAL training, but in order for her to complete the training, I mean, you know how this military training can be very, very tough and all of that. So in order for her to go through that training, she needs to shave her hair and that when she shaved her hair, that's why she got that title G.I. Jane. And so for Chris to actually, in 2018, so if Jedd Smith had talked about, opened up and talked about her struggle, she looks very pretty with her hair. She talked about the fact that she's going through a situation, the other piece here, and this is the reason why she hasn't gone through it. It can be very painful. Some people who want to connect it to, so it's very sensitive. It's a sensitive thing. One would expect that Chris Rock should understand that. Just how far, knowing where to draw the line, just how far, what limit should you go? So one would know that this is where to draw the line. So I see a lot of reactions from Nigerians. You saw Ubi Franklin calling out, what was his name again? Was it Baskham out? I don't remember. He called one of these comedians saying, oh, you made jokes about my family and all of that, but people need to understand where a joke is a joke. And when somebody says he's looking off, stop. You know, sometimes you could be joking. I could be joking when you say, hey, stop. But you don't know where to draw the line. But however you say it from both ends, I mean, no one is really right. But the most important thing is the fact that Smith has actually accepted that he's done wrong. What he did was really bad. He is embarrassed himself, but he couldn't really control his emotions, especially when his wife was being shamed about a certain illness. That's just talked about in 2018. That's a long time, the 2022. So the moral of the story for me would be that let's be very sensitive. Let's be careful. Be very sensitive. People are going through a lot. The most that we can do is let's be kind with our words and with our actions. Yes, so at least try to understand people better. You know, it might be a joke to you, but some people, these struggles are really something very deep for them, something personal. If for her to have come out to say that she has issue with him, hell, it makes her a very strong woman. Not everybody want to come out and admit to that. Some people would just hide with hair and makeup and all of that, but she actually advocated that it's something that she has had to deal with. So people who also have similar stuff can actually know how to go about it. But then again, we don't promote violence anywhere, anytime. So indeed, Will Smith has owned up and he has apologized. I think people should just let him be. And you know, there's something that really happened. There was some advice that was given to him by Dento just before, you know, somehow by how the devil attacks her. The highest point. A lot of things have actually came out of that. He's just human. I mean, it's just natural to have all of that. I think the most you forgive him. Yeah, the most important thing is, you know, both parties have... And Chris didn't take it up at all. No, he didn't take it up. I mean, because he came to him as a shock. You know, that's the thing where he should never expect it. Because he doesn't mention it just on stage, you know, empty the whole time. He's actually now behind the car. Suddenly, he just came out from nowhere and dragged out your wig. It's like someone walking here and slapped me, you know, because you never saw the coming. So you'd be like, oh my God, what's going on? What did I miss? In a few seconds, you'll have to have a reboot and all of that. Hey, see, the most important thing. You know, my brain said it's not, you know. I mean, people were also alluding it to the whole Bianca thing. Yeah, Nigerians are very funny. You know how we like to still stop over everything and just make phone calls of every situation. But that's it, don't. Yeah, lastly, social media was also trending. Ruga, you know, sexual assault as it is, is also still trending in various fora and people are still talking about it. The social media is a buzz about what happened during his performance. And a lot of people have blamed him that it was the way. The fact is that men also get harassed. That's one thing people should know. And for he to mention, there's a whole lot to talk about this thing. But the fact is that most people like why so much talk is just a man, you know. So why should he make so much, why should people be making so much buzz about it? But the fact is that everyone has his right and everyone, you know, should be treated equally. Be you a man or be a woman. Social media is just so funny sometimes. We just go about things. But was it his fault? Why did the woman come onto him? How do you react most really? Well, so just like you have mentioned the issue and that's why the conversation about feminism would always, when people talk about feminism and all of that, people will always say that, oh, you know, it's one sided thing. It's a gender issue. And if we talk about gender, it's not about, it's specific gender. So it cuts across, but now what happened to Ruga is what happens to a lot of men out there. And like you have mentioned, first of all, we live in a society where the culture of silence is predominant. And so whether or not you're a woman or a man, silence is always it. Because usually people don't, people are ashamed to talk about their struggles and whatever it is that they have encountered. Victims don't want to talk to them. Sometimes they feel like, oh, how would people react to that? They even shamed for it. Okay, so I feel like that video that happened, a couple of persons have constantly pointed and highlighted that that was sexual assault and harassment. But most interesting is the fact that Ruga himself hasn't really buttressed the fact that he was assaulted. He isn't saying it as an assault and harassment for whatever reason. I don't know what's going into his mind. I can't really say, but this is the point. People go through stuff, whether women or men. And mostly it might be men. And maybe because, you know, culture, I don't know where we got all of that from. And even generally with people, so you want to talk about some sort of, yeah, why you're weak, you're crying, why you're crying. People should be allowed to cry. If you want to cry, go ahead and cry. As a matter of what it is that you do cry. Talk about the struggles, talk about the pain. Because we're humans at the end of the day. So I don't know where that comes from. As long as you have blood flowing in your vein, you're a human being. And so you are subjected to all of these issues. You live in a society where you have Pevots, whether they're men or they're women. And we can't take that. But the interesting fact for me is the fact that Ruga didn't highlight the issue. But you also had another issue where he was on top of the issue. So your own issues that you're not talking about it, one would have expected that he should say it. Say that you were touched inappropriately and you didn't like it. And I mean, of course it's wrong. Someone touches you without your permission. And that is harassment. And that's all we talked about. So for the fact that he didn't talk about it is what I don't understand. Maybe he just went like, oh, it's okay to be a gentle man. Even if he necessarily doesn't mean anything to him, or he could let that slide. It would just be also a way to let people know that people need to respect people's privacy. True, I agree. I couldn't agree more. Okay, so that's a... You know, this is my prediction. I just whispered things into my voice. But I'll just let that out. No, and you saw, so there's been a lot of, we are the same. There's been a lot of comparison if you were, or the after. If it were brother or brother. If it were brother or brother. If it were brother or brother. If you have anything to say in the street, well, it would deck you. You will receive a blow from the stage. But of course that would be violence. That would be you acting differently. And but we need to say this to everyone who attends events. You also, people need to respect people's space. People know, you need to know where to draw the line. No, there's something like draw the line. You need to respect space. You can dance with your celebrity or someone, but just know that they have their previous and you should respect them. But so because we live in a society where people don't do that, have you gone to the market? I hate to go to the market. I hate to go to Lagos, you know, market, Lagos. I guess you ought to. No, when you go there, they drag you at every cost. People are dragging your hand. People are harassing you. And they don't have the right to do such things. Let's just leave it at that, Jerry. That's as much as we can take on top trending. So I mean, you know, of all the stories that's a read up and then make decision for yourself and leave better lives and know when to draw the line and know how to respect people's privacy. People have the right to their privacy. Let them believe and let's leave. That's where I'll just leave all of that. It's still the breakfast. We'll take a quick break and we'll go off the press and review the front pages of major delis in a moment to join us again.