 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. It's time to take global stories making headlines in our national dailies and joining me to review the papers is Dr. Law Mifor as a social and forensic scientist. Good morning, sir. Thank you for joining. Okay, so we're going to go straight into the papers and this morning we'll be starting with the business NG. Now, it's not the major headline, but it's a headline that I'm sure you might relate with because you're living in Nigeria and we know what food prices can be. You are in Abuja, but we're in Lagos and it's great to say that Lagos has unveiled the 25% discounted food markets. So on the business NG, it takes its arts. Lagos government unveils 25% discounted food markets. On Nature News, it takes it as Samo Lou kicks off $57 on JECO food markets and then on the punch is also there but then this time around it says consumers lament POS machine shortage at Lagos discounted food markets. So my first question is what do you think about this initiative? Do you think it's great? Of course, it's nice to know that the government is thinking for the citizens, but is it even enough? Because you know that the prices of goods and services, especially food, and food is one of the basic necessities for leaving. Food is very expensive in Nigeria at the moment. Do you think this 25% off or discounted markets that has been unveiled by Lagos state government would even have an impact for everyone and everyone can benefit from it? Yeah, well, firstly, I must recommend the government to take in such an active measure to come in the gap, intervening on the half of the Nigerian suffering the masses living in Lagos. It's something to be commended for, to be honest. Whether or not to be able to deal with the food crisis we are facing at the moment is a different matter altogether. I think Governor Sanweru is proactive and how I wish all the other governors around the country are taking similar measures, including the FCT minister. And yes, there are problems of our very natural, we are running a capitalist economy. And when you are discounting for goods and services at one point, the capitalists who sell in the same items will be going to buy off from such markets and taking to where they sell at the anomalous exhibit and prices. In capitalism, there is no morality. That is where the danger is. So the real solution will be in supply. You just have to have enough discounting 25% in one or two markets. Well, it may solve the problem to some extent, but it will certainly not deal with the entire problem. I believe that what the government ought to do is to allow food imports in the interim, even for six months, flow the markets with goods and that will fall down the prices everywhere across the country. I have about it again, even when government is doing that, they need to also look out there for orders, people who still want to buy and store and sell tomorrow at higher prices. That's the problem you have in capitalism. And yes, it promotes the production. But even in our own experience, you can see that the kind of capitalism we practice, does not even promote production. You know, manufacturing and firms are folding up and leading the country. There was a staggering and very embarrassing statistic, a few weeks ago, pointing out that as many as 767 firms closed their shops, their lives closed, they simply closed shops in Nigeria and the most of them are manufacturing companies. So you discover that while what someone who has done is commendable, it's more or less evaluated. It doesn't really deal with the issue. For me, in the long run, what we must tackle is flooding the markets across the country with foods. And the only way you can do that is to import. Yes, I understand the government, the sentiment that they do not want to encourage you to put the importation in the country, but we are faced with crisis. When you are faced with the crisis, you don't have many options. There are very unpalatable measures you will have to take that may hurt your policies in the interim, but you need those measures and food import is what it may not be all foods, but we can pick on a few staple foods like rice, beans and such and let them come in then, of course, the flaws, which you know is the base for the manufacturing of so many things including bread that has gone up to as high as one thousand five hundred nine and many places now. We just have to deal with that because the masses are dying. The income is not growing and the capacity to purchase is withering and you have more, you have also have you also have what you call a money illusion. You appear to have more money, but you don't have the goods to purchase with even a few months ago, the price of bread was five hundred nine and nine. It is one thousand five. It means that the cost for purchasing bread as triple that in itself is a big problem. So and your income is not it's not a growing in such a geometric proportion. So it is not growing and inflation is wiping off the little you have. Then you have real crisis. So again, of course, they need to target, like I said, targeted imports. It doesn't have to mean opening the nation's borders and asking people to import whatever they can or whatever they want. No, we need to pick on specific things that will address the food crisis in the country. And of course, they really do something about facing facing a return to production in the country. We are no longer producing. I talked about seven hundred and sixty seven and a confidence that a full day and full day the shops left the country or within the country, but no longer producing. The question is why it is the cost of doing business. The electricity is not there. Nigeria is big as we are. We are condemned to share in a about three thousand megahertz. But the South Africa that is about it's not even up to one quarter of an ideal population. South Africa is about four forty million people, but they generate up to five thousand five from fifty thousand megahertz of electricity. You can imagine that Ghana, Ghana is about 30 million people. And they generate to five thousand megahertz of electricity. Ghana here, you know, so you can see that until you deal with the issue of power, you can't really deal with the issue of production. And again, particularly because you talked about food crisis. Don't forget about the reason why the farmers are no longer going to farms. You know, it's because of insecurity. The killer headsmen have taken over over our forests and the farmers can no longer go to go to farms. In many places, they have to pay terrorist bandits to access their farms. When they till the soil and plant, they pay them again to be able to harvest. You know, that is going on in the country is no longer a secret. It's not speculation. It's all over the place that the bandits, the killer headsmen, the terrorists have driven them to walk the farmers out of the farms. So you deal with these two issues. You deal with the electricity. You deal with the security. And Nigeria has a problem with the more than more than is solved by more than half of the way, because these are the two issues that have kept the country backward, creating the crisis we are facing. You can't find food in the markets because the farmers are not producing anymore. That's the truth. And the government is saying we don't want to import. It won't have the quality to do that. Okay. Let me, let me butt in here a little bit. Let me butt in here a little bit. There is another headline that talks about Kogi rivers and quara record highest food prices in Nigeria. And that's the NBS report. So we're seeing this all over Nigeria. There's obviously, we cannot deny that there's a food crisis, but looking at your recommendation, talking about importing, is that not going to even weaken the Naira a little bit more? Because at the end of the day, if we have to import, we would have to use probably the dollar or exchange our Naira for whatever currency we need to buy from. I understand you're saying some staple foods and all of that. But I'm just thinking about the economic effects on this. So wouldn't that, you know, weaken the Naira as it could be? And what we're trying to do is make sure that we're growing more produce and even exporting to other countries so that we're growing the Naira. So what will happen in a situation like that? That is what I said in the interim. You do that in the interim. It doesn't have to be a long term solution. You can create a six months window to enable food coming to the country because you don't have. You know, within that window, you declare a full emergency in the area of insecurity to enable you clear the forest and the farms so that the farmers can go back. No matter what you plant, you need at least three months. Even for ordinary maize, you need like three months to be able to harvest. In that, within that three months, how do you survive? That is the question here. It is sometimes when my wife returns from market and gives a account of what she has done, you know, almost breaking down in the other stuff. You know, I wonder how the truly poor Nigerians survive. You understand that? You know, I, any income my wife does and we find it so tough. So what happens to families that don't earn enough? And they are a majority. So you need to think about those people. That is what I said. Bring in rice, bring in maize, bring in beans, bring in floors to enable the people that produce the spaghetti and so on and so forth to still be in market. You can't even find a spaghetti anywhere anymore. You want to find the surprise that the spaghetti you bought seventy-five Niger a few months ago is not going for five hundred, seven hundred Niger. You know, think about the students, the survival spike on Indomie, that's what the survival Indomie and bright. So you can't find those anymore. So how do they survive? That's my concern. So even if the mayor of the dollar, we take a beating, you know, the beat, if you regulate the process and decide how to deploy the little dollar you have, it's just what it. I tell you, it's really what it, you know, and part of the problem we have in the dollar to Naira crisis is simply because the economic policies of government as far as Naira flotation is concerned are very wrong. You cannot float your currency. You don't do that. I'm not aware of any country. The water flows, leaves it's a currency to divide grays of the market forces, demand and supply and order. Who does that? So that is the policy by the team. I'm not an economist, but I don't really need to be an economist to understand that if you are not exporting much, you can't float because Naira, we have to stand on a base. The base the Naira should stand on, they are two, not perhaps three. One is a standard reserve. What is that? What do you have as a standard reserve? Part A, five billion dollars. What is that? A country like China has a standard reserve of about one trillion dollars. And you leave me or Naira to go and fight with the Chinese. You are how I don't get some of these crazy policies. Because if you say you want to leave your your your currency to buy this or market forces, what you as indirectly say if I directly say is that you want the Naira to find his level with the pound, with the euro, with the yuan, with all of them. And he has nothing. You have no export base. You're not exporting anything beyond the crude oil. When I was looking at 30 figures from the Bureau of National Bureau of Statistics and I was sure to find that the Nigerian export is still up to 75 percent crude oil. It means that the balance of 25 percent is all you can all you can export. And then what is that? Even if the agro-based export is wiped out completely. So you have no reason whatsoever to subject your Naira to the values of market forces. But that is what this government has done. So you discover that we are in this because the policies, theoretically, on paper may appear good, but the implementation, the realities are not there. You can't float when they're not exported. That's what I'm saying, because it is when you are exporting that you're any more foreign currency, more dollar, because the international market is more or less denominated in a dollar. You are not exporting. So you are not any more dollars beyond what you aim from the crude oil. And the market is so volatile. So why in the whole world? Why do we allow Naira flotation? Government must defend the Naira at all costs. That's the point I'm making. You don't float the Naira. You have to defend Naira. And I also believe that the foreign exchange market will have to be regulated seriously so that we know who is utilizing what. And nobody is regulating that as such. The dollar you are looking for is used as a store of value by the big people. So you find the dollar in their houses instead of in the banks. That is the truth. You know, when we were doing economics in secondary school, decades ago, one of the things we learned about money is that money has number one function, which is store of value, apart from being a medium of exchange. Naira has lost that right, that power to serve as store of value. So Nigerians, rather than keep the Naira, use the Naira to mope open, to mope open foreign currencies, dollar pound, all that they keep in their houses. OK. That's what has brought us to where we are. So if government can go moving that direction, try to use moral persuasion, use the law, use the blackmail, whatever government can do to compare people to bring up the dollar and leave it in the banks. It will be better for us. Then you come with the regulation that the banks shouldn't keep foreign currencies in excess of a specific amount. The rest of it will have to be done inside in the central bank. That way government has firm control over the late term we have. And then are located judiciously through the impulse that really means something. All right. Speaking about using things judiciously, the PDP has urged the President of Bolatino to review 2024 budget. And this is still on the business end. There's a small headline at the top that says PDP urged its President of Bolatino to review 2024 budget. Now, if you know about this story, the initial budget was 25 trillion Naira, according to Senator Ninghi. And then we get to see it being moved up to 28.7 trillion Naira. And so there's an allegation of budget padding. However, the PDP has urged President Tudubu now to review the budget. What do you think about the whole saga? And are we even spending our monies judiciously because I'm using your words right now? You know, what Ninghi did is a classic example of saying the right and the wrong way. Tudubu's budget I came to National Assembly was 2.7, not 2.5. 2.7 trillion and the National Assembly passed 2.8 trillion. What that means you have an increase cost by National Assembly to the tune of 1.7 trillion. Certainly not 3.7 trillion. Statistically, Ninghi is off the mark completely. There is no way he can prove that 2.28.7 trillion will now produce the difference of 3.7 trillion when you subtract 27.7 trillion statistically. But what he was saying was generally right. We don't have any serious budgeting system in Nigeria. And what members of the National Assembly do, which Ninghi himself is part of, is they go to the MDAs, ministries, departments and agencies, and get them to put certain projects into the budget for them, even before the budget is brought to National Assembly. So even Ninghi had them taking this route now, he would have made better sense. So what I'm saying is the budget party didn't even happen in National Assembly. Where it happened was in the MDAs before they brought the budget to National Assembly. And when they did, the National Assembly still added something to it. Whether or not the National Assembly has the right to increase, reduce the budget, it has been a subject of... Well, there's an allegation that some senators went home with about 500 million Naira each. So could that even account for the budget padding? Now, let me strengthen it. I'm not a sportsman of the National Assembly, but I've been in the Senate for about 10 years. So I know what goes on there. So when the senator went home with 500 million, the impression being created is that it's cash that is given to the senator. No, it's not. It goes back to the same issue of what you call constituency projects. All the members of National Assembly, they have an envelope of the projects they have to nominate for their constituencies to be added in the budget. That is what they are saying that the senators went home with 500 million. No, they didn't go home with 500 million Naira cash. If they did, I'm not aware of that. I don't think that is the issue. It is the envelope each senator gets to nominate projects that will be sorted in the budget for his or her constituencies. He didn't start with that, but he's been there right for the days of Obasanjo. Obasanjo fought it, he failed. And the Naira do have fought it, he failed. Google or Jonathan did, he failed. Bukhari did, he didn't try. And Tinupu is continuing with the policy. The policy of the National Assembly members nominating projects into the budget, that is that envelope, that 500 million you get. And I think what caused the crisis is that it's not every senator that got the opportunity that opportunity to nominate such projects. If you remember when the senator of Miami was speaking on the matter, he alluded to it. And there are senators who got more, there are senators who got less. All this is all to have been decided before you even implement the policy in the first place. What that means is that the ABO leadership of the Senate did not promote the the tradition of allowing the senators to nominate, to nominate. The process that I am aware of when I was there, it's a flat rate. Every senator gets that envelope. Of course, the president, the deputy, the other principal officers of the Senate, they get more. They get a lot more. Where Senator Getsay gets a 500 million budget allocation, the Senate president, they get up to two billion. So this is the kind of thing to find. But it seems that a party or not decided to allow senators to take more. And what I did at this, they caused the crisis. It's needless as far as I am concerned. And because the National Assembly does not have any serious media, they have remained the whipping boys since 1999. As we speak, I don't even know who is the director of information of the National Assembly, the chief press secretary of the Senate president, the chief press secretary of the speaker. These are the people that should be all over the place explaining to Nigerians what the whole issue is about. So at the end of the day, they allow the Nengi to sell a dummy and what Nengi has put out there is complete fallacy. Not possible. Not. So if you understand what that happens from this perspective, you will see why the Senate is angry with Nengi because he also got the opportunity to nominate a project into the budget. And he did not reject it. If he rejected it, he should have told Nigerians he didn't. That means he was part of what he was talking about. He did not nominate a project. He did. He never said he did not nominate a project. So if he nominate a project. Let's move over to some security matters. So on the punch, the major headline here says, soldiers killing. Tinnable Senate, other manhunt for killers. Troops comb warring communities. And the writers here says, President condemns attack, says DHQ has full authority to bring anybody responsible to justice. And Senate retired general's other fume demand tough actions against killers, condole with military. So I'm sure you've heard of what happened in Delta State about 16 soldiers were killed. Some of them, their bodies, about two of them, their bodies were floating in the water. Others, they were found on land. The stomachs were out. They were beheaded. And they said, well, some people decided to just go on a spree and kill these soldiers. Now, in retaliation and allegedly, some people have said that these soldiers have gone back to this community and they've raised it down, you know, out of anger. But what do you think about all of this? Because initially, I would have expected that because you're in the military, you even have some form of security for yourself. But now you're seeing civilians, you know, take matters into their own hands. I don't even care what would have transpired because there's no reason for you to take a person's life. So I don't know what would have happened for these people to decide to kill these soldiers. So now you're seeing even soldiers, even the military personnel, are being killed. What does that tell us about our security system in Nigeria? I want to get your thoughts on this. You know, I was joking with a friend the other day that days are coming when Nigerians will have to defend the police. You know, we may not have to be the ones to defend the Nigerian police force and not the other way around. The police is supposed to be defending all of us. But you can see that the nation's security architecture, especially the Nigerian police force, is not functioning. That is why I started with the police. You know, you have a warring community or communities, you know, it's, you know, an evidence of a failed intelligence, gathering failed police system. Obviously so. Because therefore a community to go on such rampage to the point of confronting the army, the soldiers that came for peacekeeping obviously not prepared for war, otherwise they would have been taken out in that manner. You know, but they were, their peaceful battle was returned with such a level of ingenious wickedness. You remember something like this happened on the other side of the road, you know, the government, they, you know, about three soldiers were killed by their youths. And they, the army gave automatic, asked them to produce the youth that carried out the or pay for it. They thought it was a job. The next, the army stormed the Uji and over 2,000 people were killed. And the community literally raised to the ground. This is the kind of thing that provokes that kind of response for the military because, you know, it's an up front. It's an up front. And whoever knows the leaders of those communities should tell them to produce the people that were responsible. They should know their and their groups. They should know them. They should name them and they release them to the military. They should do so. Otherwise, whatever they see, they take. That is it. For me, whatever the military does there, would be part of those analyzing the massacres and all those things. You killed, do you see the level of soldiers, do you know what it takes to train and produce a colonel, a major, and all the soldiers, the kids just like that. They are not only soldiers, they are also citizens of Nigeria. They are fathers. They are fathers. They are husbands. The earlier, the better. They must produce the leaders of their and their groups. Anything that is at war with another community and the group that is wedging the war on their behalf. They should know those who are leading the armed groups in those communities and name them and release their names to the military. And the earlier they do this, the better for them. And I will advise the military, you know, to continue to show maturity constraints, you know, restraints and all that. But again, I would also want to advise the military to allow itself to be ravaged. Of course not. The civilians will be running on them. Look, when we were growing up, seeing a soldier, you know who a soldier is, you understand that? A soldier, when we were growing up, you know, it was rare, very rare to see a soldier. And when you see one, you see a symbol of Nigeria. Yeah, a soldier is respected. Yes, they are awesome. They are all people whenever they appear. You understand that? And it is very rare. You don't just see them. Whenever you see them, you know there is problem, there is crisis, and they will deal with it. Right. Today in Nigeria, it has three states, keeping internal security operations, where the problem is on the military, out of 36 states. So it has made them ubiquitous, it has commonized them, it has made them appear even as ordinary as the constables that carry Libertad around. So you see a soldier, he means nothing to you All right, we hope that justice is served for the soldiers that have been killed. And obviously, we don't want the military to be rubbish, like you've said. So we hope that this doesn't even happen again, because it's quite unfortunate. And our house goes out to the families of these people, because of course, their fathers, their husbands, and their friends, their brothers, you know, they will be missed. Yes. So anyways, I want to take this final one quickly, because we're a little bit out of time, and this is on the Guardian. It says, cutting governance costs beyond our own side report. I want to get your recommendations, if we were supposed to, you know, just cut out some certain costs, because we're seeing our budget of 28.7 trillion Naira at the moment. So if we're supposed to cut out some little little things, you know, just to save up money for Nigeria, especially with what our economy is like at the moment, what would be your recommendations, and how we can just start to chip, you know, just do some little chip chop off the budget. Well, you see, I am not one of those who are persuaded that Tenenbo is serious about cutting down the governance. The Office of the Accounting General is holding a workshop in London, as you speak, and it's an attendee. Go in there, we'll go with the staff coach, stay in the hotel, eat the meals, and all that. They're not just for it, not just advising. Even if you want some foreign experts to come teach whatever, you can fly them into the country, but they didn't do that. They instead decided to move the workshop to UK. You know, I just mentioned one instance for you to understand that this government is not into any cutting measures. They look at the size of a Tenenbo cabinet. It's the biggest in Nigeria history. It's the biggest. It's not an approach. It's not an attitude of somebody who really wants to cut down on budget. It's not cutting down on cost. It's not at all. If he wants to cut down on cost, he has to look at the cabinet and bring it down by at least half. It is true that the constitution says that every state will have to nominate somebody to the cabinet. If you know that reducing the number of feminists below 36 will be an upfront on the constitution, I wouldn't encourage the president to recommend that he or she violates the constitution. But even at that issue, it shows commitment by proposing an amendment to the national assembly to do something about that cross that side. But also, the report is very important. It's one way to reduce cost. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. But is that even possible? Because if you're going to merge two agencies, of course, that's like a duplication of roles. So is that even possible? All right. We're having a little glitch on your network, but yes, we just want to say thank you for coming. It was lovely reviewing the papers with you. Thank you so much. All right. We've been speaking with Dr. Law Mefor. He is a social and forensic scientist and we've just been taking stories making headlines in our national dailies. We'll go on a short break and when we return, we'll be looking at our hot topic. We talked about the saga in the Senate at the moment, from Ningen's suspension to Serap calling Acpabio to reinstate him. Let's just go on a short break. See you soon.