 With reports showing agriculture contributing about 25% of Niger's GDP, we take a look at President Mohamed Abouhari's advice to Nigerians to go back to the farm, with the big question, is farming the answer? And also, as the people of Zamfara State mourn, the president advises Nigerians to be patient. How does a nation react to the reported killing of about 200 of its citizens? As always, we journey through the papers and review the big stories making the headlines. With that, we say good morning and thanks for joining us on the breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. Good to have you here. I am Osaouge Ogbouang. And I am Mercier Boupo. It's good to have you join us this beautiful Monday morning. Absolutely. Our two major conversations this morning are on agriculture and security. The president, of course, quoted in an interview sometime last week asking Nigerians to go back to farms. And on how important it is for Nigeria's economy to grow. And, of course, we're going to be looking at that and asking if that truly is what is lacking in Nigeria. There are certain figures that we would also be looking at. And what level of support the Nigerian government truly has given to agriculture? And aside that, we're going to be taking a look at security in Zamfara State. How does a nation really and truly react to the death of 200 people, maybe even more? Silence from the presidency, silence from the National Assembly and maybe also silence from its citizens. That makes also part of our discussions this morning. But before that, as always, we start with top trending stories starting with security. And now we're in Kepi State where about 30 students of the Benin Yari School have regained their freedom. They have been in captivity for 207 days. And if you remember sometime in October 2021, about 30 of them were also released. One of them was reported to have died in captivity. But, of course, another 30 and a teacher were released over the weekend. Of course, making it about 60 that have been released so far. It's an ongoing conversation. And, of course, the reports say that they have been taken to the state capital for medical examination and debriefing. Of course, I'm guessing that they will also meet with the governor of the state. Well, so as much as a lot of people would say it's actually a step in the right direction. There are several questions surrounding it. That's number one. After 207 days, you have these persons regaining freedom. I remember vividly where a lot of appreciation has been given to security agencies, men of the forces for the rescue effort that has been made. So the question here is where are the abductors? I mean, those who captured the student, were they also arrested? You know, that's the question. After how many days now, you know, yes, it's okay to say the pleas or whoever, maybe the Nigerian army or any of the force that was involved in the rescue. And we're saying kudos to them. But what happens to those persons who, you know, captured the student in the first place? Have they been arrested? Is it that these persons just regain freedom? Did we pay any money to, you know, allow these kids to actually go through? Because there's just some other questions we need to, you know, answer. And the question over time is, how come we constantly have these persons? I mean, these bandits, these kidnappers being emboldened on a daily basis, on a year to year basis, on a monthly basis. So some of this, yes, the whole effort is saying, oh, we commend the security agencies and everybody for ensuring the rescue of these kids. But how come we have not been able to arrest them? Why? Well, you know, and these are, these are, you know, good questions. Because, you know, I think we've repeatedly said it that over time, in the last 10 years, maybe, you know, a plus. We still haven't done, I think one of the guests said it last week, that we still haven't been able to point to any actual terrorist leader or bandit leader that has been arrested and is currently being prosecuted or has been, you know, is in jail. There's none. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense that a country that is dealing with this level of violence and killing and the likes has nobody, you know, that currently is, you know, standing trial. Nobody who currently we can point to as a bandit leader or a terrorist leader that is standing trial. Yes, the reports of them being killed here and there, but is that, you know, what Nigeria would be, you know, bold to boast of? That there's nobody that we currently have arrested and that includes those who have released students in the past because not the first time we're hearing that students have regained freedom or, you know, young Nigerians have regained freedom. But when they regain freedom, what next? You know, do they go back, you know? On what premise? They look for more to kidnap, you know, and some of all of that. So these are, you know, legit to make questions, but also remember that another thing that is stunning here is that Nigeria actually forgot these people. Let's be honest, these people were in captivity for 207 days. Nigeria forgot them. They've not been in the news in the last couple of weeks or months. Nobody spoke about them during Christmas. Nobody spoke about them at the end of last year. So we actually did forget that there were people in captivity. Justice we were forgotten about, yeah, Shahibu. Absolutely. You know, so it's just, first of all, I think that at some point you have the people being fatigued about some of the stories. So you have an incident happening and after a while we move away from it. Mostly sometimes it becomes a social talk. We just talk about it and talk about it and that's the end. We probably just have one or two buzz on, you know, the social media. And that's the end. There's no commitment. There's no action from the part of the people. And I'm from the government. I am curious and I'm asking with all of the fact that we constantly have people, you know, regaining their freedom. What premise are we looking at? Are we paying ransom? I know several times the government has, you know, the rumor that, you know, ransom's not being paid. Or is it that those who are affected are the ones being ransom for their kids and, you know, their loved ones to be released. And so you constantly ask yourself, with the fact that schools have been attacked, you know, for a long time now, we constantly see the attack on schools. You want to ask yourself what happened to the safe school initiative that, you know, what was put out in 2014 and all. And because with all of these programs and policies, it's not just hearsay, it's not just mere statement. Resources have been released. So what happened to it? The essence of having, you know, the school safe initiative, at the end of the day, was to ensure that there's some sort of protection. I mean, these schools have perimeter fencing and what have you. Because, you know, that some of these schools are in isolation, not necessarily that, you know, it doesn't stop the attacks and what have you. But I feel like we're just pay leap service. It's just about we saying, oh, we're fighting these people. We're combating it. And there's really no action. There's no honesty. There's no transparency in all that we see. The safe school initiative, for me, you know, it's pretty much the same thing with the school feeding program. You know, it has almost no effect in protecting the students or keeping the students in school. Because safe initiative is what, building high fences or putting one or two security personnel at the gates. It doesn't stop anything, you know, with regards to the... So even if it doesn't stop anything, are we even doing it? I mean, it's on paper, I guess. Once again, these people were forgotten. If there was no news and on record, there's 102 students that were kidnapped in this case. 30 were released sometime in October. This is another 30. So, you know, I'm guessing that there are still some of them that are still in captivity or maybe may never be found. And the Nigerian government doesn't seem to care. Because in the same society and in the same country, this would make the headlines every day. And I remember someone who was quoting something we're going to talk about later, and that is the Zamfra state incident. Someone who was quoting it and saying that when there was an incident in New Zealand or in the United States or in other societies, you would see their prime minister, the chief of police in that state, would constantly be on television every six hours max, explaining to people what's happening, giving citizens updates with regards to rescue efforts or what has happened with the perpetrators or whatever crime that it was, until that case is seemingly solved. We had 200 people killed according to reports last week. We barely even spoke about it. You and I, we barely even spoke about it, you know, in the news. And over the weekend, there's still no response from the Nigerian government to, you know, with regards to killing of those people. So how does that same Nigerian government really care about people who have been in captivity? I saw a report over the weekend also of some old elderly man somewhere in Northern Nigeria who had to take off the roofing sheets on his property because he was trying to raise money to pay ransom for his son. And that's, you know, a response to some of the questions you had with regards if you're paying ransom or not. The Nigerian government and the Nigerian people, you might call it fatigue because we've had so many of these stories, but, you know, a point here is that the Nigerian government and Nigerian people completely forgot that there have been persons in captivity for 207 days and counting. And so if these people were released now or didn't escape, I'm not sure which it is, we would have gone till March, April, June, September 2022 and nobody would remember that there are people in captivity except the parents of these children. So it's become very common in our society where you see that as long as it doesn't happen to you. I remember at time where, you know, I was on the street and then, of course, trying to get questioned, the Voxpop and all of that. And you hear people telling you, as long as it doesn't affect me and my family, it's not my business. So we have become very self-centered people as individuals and, of course, we constitute the entire society and at large in Nigeria. So you have pockets of people. You have people like this with this ideology who would say that it's not my business. As long as it does not affect me, it does not affect... I mean, I'm able to afford the basic things of life was my business. And that's why we... You know how we also think about it's not my business who becomes a president and who becomes a governor of a state, but you know whether or not we want to agree that government policy will always, would always affect us. And so some people would tell you, for the religion, they say we don't operate in this economy. You do, darling, operate in this economy. As long as you say, yes, it's true because when governments come with some kind of policies that would truncate your business, you would understand that you operate in this economy. What Paso said that? No, I mean, you have a lot of people who just begin to make proclamations. I do not live in this economy. I do not operate under this economy. You operate in this economy. Bear in mind, you know, this is working at the end. You know, that's not a lie. Something has happened in Brazil. Bear in mind that, you know, one to 100 people were reportedly killed in Zanfar over the weekend. President Muhammad Abari, who's the commandant chief, you know, said nothing. The only news from him is that, you know, he met with former president Good Lord Jonathan. The vice president was in Bail Chief for some occasion. I think he's currently in Ghana or something? Well, I'm just saying over the weekend, you know, you know, a couple of days after or a day after that, you know, happened, he was in some event in Bail Chief celebrating. I'm not sure what exactly what event that was or what celebration that was or what party that was. And that just tells you the mindset of the people who are in power. And of course, what Bristol was just out of being in. Those were the conversations, you know, across Nigeria while 200 people lost their lives in Zanfar. And up until this moment, we have the 19 governors, you know, of another state, no statement whatsoever, you know, from all of, you know, from these governors. It just shows you, like I constantly would say that, you know, we have lost humanity. We have lost it. Let's move away from Nigeria. We will be back to Brazil now, where a very shocking, you know, triggering video was put out over the weekend of a rock, a very large rock that collapsed on two boats, you know, people who were holidaying somewhere on the beaches in Brazil. I hope that we have that video clip to share with you. It's reported that it led to the loss of about seven lives, about 10 people were injured and currently about three are missing. Yes, that's it. Really shocking. Some people have blamed climate change. Others have said Mother Earth is angry. Maybe, you know, somebody whispered something to the rock and it wasn't really, really nice, or they threw a, you know, water bottle at the rock or something. I'm not sure what exactly happened there, but it has led to the loss of about seven lives and, you know, still reported, you know, some of them very likely hospitalized, trying to, hoping that they would recover, but very, very, very shocking video there. You know, I'm not even sure how anybody would have reacted in a situation like that if you need to, you know, stare at the boat sideways to avoid the impact, but this is really, really, really shocking. It just reminds me of an experience that, you know, I think way back I had a friend, a young friend, who, you know, experienced and escaped this because I think out of six of them, you know, four made it out and two actually died. Quite unfortunate and, you know, at this point you begin to ask yourself, who should we blame that on climate change? You know, some people would say it would be village people, you know, in our panacea would say it would be village people. But it's, I mean, it's really sad. Do we have, should the people have control? I mean, those who actually organized, you know, that outing, is there anything that they would have done? I don't think so. It's just an accident. Yeah, it's just an accident. It happens and that's why it's an accident. It's pretty much the same thing with driving and lightning strikes a vehicle. Who do you blame? You know, or, there's different... But for me, because for me, usually, I just have this wild, crazy thought. I would probably not want to go close to the rocks. I just want to stay, you know, very far off. And even if you want to stay far off, you could also have, you know, a crocodile come through or something come through. These aren't things that you can ever expect. True, it's an accident and it's very sad. Rocks don't just fall off, you know, from, you know, formation. It's a different thing if it's a landslide or if it's an avalanche or something like that. Those are different, you know. You can tell that there are certain triggers for an avalanche. But for a situation like this, you can't expect it. Nobody, you know, would expect that a rock would really just fall into the water. So it's just an unfortunate incident for those persons. And of course, we wish, you know, the very best to their families, the condolences to the families of those persons who lost their lives over there. Well, so we just move on to another issue again. Just a similar case with that of Sylvester Armani. I mean, we're still dealing with the issues surrounding his death, negligence, bullying, and what have you in the statement. Now, another sad incident happened somewhere in Anambara State. A young boy, he was just 11 years old, has died and according to this report, he's alleged that he had to do with negligence on the part of the school. So the young boy was reported to have been ill and the school insisted that he had to finish his exams before they could contact the parents. I mean, so that's the story that he couldn't actually, his parents were not contacted because they insisted that he had to finish. Now, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know if I'd say it's fortunately, the young lad actually had a brother or cousin in the school who found a way to put a call across to the parents to say, hey, this boy is actually ill. You need to come to his rescue on his aid. Of course, we also had reports saying that the young boy was actually punished for making that call because the school would say, you know, students are not allowed to put a call. It's just on the parts of the school to put on that call. But as always, you would also have the fact that people would always want to protect their interests. And so there's also another part of the story where they say the principal of the school has come out to deny all of that saying that was not the case. The boy was very fine, hail and hearty. He was about his business. And even though he took ill, he had malaria. He was treated by a proper nurse in the school and after all of that, then he took ill. You know, so the stories are usually not, you can't find a balance with it. But in this case, quite different from what Sylvester and Sylvester's case has not been buried. In this case, the young boy has been buried just as to student and I think he happens to be, you know, the only son of the family, very sad. So it still brings us back to whether or not that's the case or the principal is right or the principal is not right. And as it is now, it's not that the parents are actually pushing and advocating for justice. How do you even explain all of that? Because in cases like this, it is almost impossible for you to begin to have the evidence, you know, to put together, to press charges and ask for justice. But you can only imagine what, you know, parents will be going through the family, you know, the sadness in their heart. And it's just, you know, what really breaks my heart in all of this is the fact that we pay so much attention. So we make the laws and I ask myself, if you make these laws, laws were created, they were not created by spirit. Human beings make these laws. And so if you have a semester where a student has to write an exam and then the child actually takes ill, is it compulsory that the child has to write the exam that after that time there's no provision, you know, for the child to sit for that exam? Must the child take the exam? He hasn't finished the exam first before. I mean, haven't we, because we're evolving, we need to begin to, in our institutions, make consideration for all of this. So children who would probably fall ill and can't make it for the exam, they should also have provision for having special exams conducted. I mean, extra exams for them. Because health is world. I mean, it's only the living that can write exams. So that's why I always say that as much as it is you fall ill, it's important to pay attention to your health. Because if you are not alive, you can't be doing the job. You can't go to school. You can't write the exams. Now the young lad has written the exams. Let's even assume that that's something to go by because we're unable to put the facts in. But most importantly, the issue of negligence is very key in our institution. And we have to pay attention. Then I constantly ask myself what happened to PTA? You know, because I remember being in school way back, PTA was such a big deal where you have parents come through and put out the consent of the children. But that's not the case anymore. Is it that parents are not advocating for PTAs? Are they too busy to attend? Or the school is not even ensuring that you have PTA meetings anymore? So all of this, we can't constantly. And it brings us back to the fact that we don't pay attention to the lives of human beings. And I always say that we're just a reflection of who we are. And some people would argue differently. Now that you can't... I mean, the life of the little child or child under your care because you ought to protect and they are paying for all of this. And then you don't think it's important to pay attention rather than having the child write the exams? You know, so we've seen there are too many cases that haven't been reported. But I'm hoping that parents would be up and doing in 2022. And schools also and government would also ensure that we protect these children. Because we can't continue like this and expect a different result. In this case, like you stated, it's similar, but different from the Sylvester or Romani case. There hasn't been any particular foul play that has been stated here. It's an unfortunate situation. I understand that Nigeria has a very high rate with regards to deaths from malaria and typhoid and the likes. And this might just be one of those. But yes, it is important to know and ask the questions with regards to how much healthcare, medical assistants he was living while he was ill. If he was denied medical assistance, if he was denied any of that, does the school even have a proper healthcare center? And some of all of that. Those are questions that I believe that must be asked at a time like this. It's not like he was murdered or anything. There might be some bits of negligence here and there. And questions need to be asked properly with regards to the healthcare system that exists in the school on the school. There are those kids protected. And these are things that you would expect that the Ministry of Education in every state would be able to cross-check with every school the same way that they go around asking that there's fire extinguishers. There's certain things that just need to be in place before a parent or a citizen is able to entrust their lives of their child into a school. But we don't do enough of those checks. We don't verify some of all those things. And in situations like this, these are situations where a school like that should be highly sanctioned if it is found out that they don't have proper Medicare for students that they are meant to be taken care of. But that's not a society that we live in. We're only going to say it's unfortunate and everybody moves on. But those are the questions. And I feel like the Nigerian government needs to make an example of certain schools across Nigeria close them down temporarily, close them down for a session, shut them down for a term, so that by the time you lose the amount of school fees money for one year or two years, then they would sit up and ensure that they understand the value of every life that is put in their care. But once again, this one, we still need to get clarity on exactly what played out in the situation. And if there was any foul play or not, doesn't seem like there was. Might just be one on four pages where malaria or some of those common illnesses across Nigeria unfortunately took the life of this child. If there was foul play, if it was a result of negligence below par medical care in the school, then some of those questions needs to be asked. True, all of that. Like I rightly mentioned, we're able to understand what exactly the situation is. But there are several cases where you would want to agree that this has actually happened where we feel like it's period for examination and that the kid has to. I'm saying that schools would need to begin to understand that it's important that we only need to be alive. Health is very important. Maybe if there was a quick response because however... This is why I said that there needs to be questions asked with regards to the health care center on campus or in the school rather. There's nothing stopping a child from writing an exam while they are ill or after they recover. As long as they have proper medical care in school, you don't necessarily need to call the parents come and take your child. But in most cases that's what happens. This is not here safe. So it feels like some of the schools don't have proper medical care. They have proper medical care. You begin to ask yourself, do we even need to put a call across to the parents to come pick when they can be treated in school? So not to come pick, but the parents should be notified that your child is not feeling very well. If it's something that is an emergency on that level where they need the parents come take their child to a general hospital or to a better hospital, then yes, they will be told. But if it's a slight fever if it's something that is not so serious at the schools health care center can handle then they should handle it but the parents must be told. So these are where we need to question where the parents informed at all where they are, whether the kid was ill for a couple of days before he eventually got complicated and he passed or not. And if he wasn't then of course there's one part of this whole story that deserves one sanction or the other and those are the things that we're not very sure of. But rest in peace to that little boy. Nobody, no parent ever wants to bury their child at that age or at any age to be honest. Those are our top trending stories this morning we'll take a short break and of course come back with today, not today in history now off the press and share with you what major stories are making headlines across Nigeria today. We'll be back.