 Time to look at what the papers have to say. We're joined by public affairs analyst Ambrose Igbokei who is on the line from Inugu, Southeast Nigeria. Mr Igbokei, good morning. Thank you very much for your time. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I was having a chat with few of the air. Do we have fewer queues in your part of the country like we have in Lagos? Everywhere is queue and it's a terrible situation in Lagos. How is it in Inugu? Well, there are no queue here because usually in the Southeast, because of Lagos, you have private and public schools at the private and public schools at the pride where you sell in a budget Lagos and courts and courts. You're not timing up. What is the point when it was 165 in Lagos? You don't get it on 165 here. It's only if you fill in stations that sell 155. In metropolis like Inugu, maybe Alessia, Oka, Abakiliki and the rest. When you start leaving those capital, it's only in Italy. Like in Inugu, where it's not going to work on Oka and the rest. You're not paying them at 185. When it's even moved up, for the past three weeks, one month, we'll be buying three PMS pallets at over 200 Naira. So most of the stations that sell between 240 and 265 within the metropolis and as much as 280 to 290 outside the state capital. So first of all, they already have their margins, profits margin to a standard proportion that don't, they'll lose their fees. All right, all right. It's an interesting situation in the country today. Let's start with a look at the nation newspaper. It has the following headlines. A big one there, oil. Buhari warns against Niger Delta mistakes in the north. Of course, the president had inaugurated recently the oil business in Gongola Basin. This is what he's saying at the launch of that. For oil exploration, terrible hour recharge, recharge, they chad if elected. You won't know what that means. You have to read, you know, the nation newspaper to find out why Jonathan Cant back at Ticco by Wike. I think it's the latest project that he commissioned recently and where he had, I don't know who the latest Vista to Lagos state, river status. I think it was David Umahi and he made that statement there. He says the PDP candidates humiliated the ex-president in 2015. More from the nation. New Naira notes to go into circulation today. Interest rate now 16.5% that's calling yesterday's monetary policy committee meeting. APC to launch, crowd pulling app, raise funds, party rejects, campaign plan. Document on 2.2 billion Naira sovereign wealth fund missing. Ministry tells Senate. God have mercy upon us. No excuses for loss to Saudi Arabia, says Messi. That is a coming from the World Cup. We go quickly to leadership newspaper 2023, Christian leaders quiz at Ticco or be a day by your over plans for Nigeria. The writers to that. We won't endorse any presidential candidates as Christian Association of Nigeria. Okay, seems to be a U-turn. What happened? Give us a chance. We'll make Nigeria work again. PDP, Labour Party, flag bears, recharge, like child, even like the president. What does that mean? Please read the paper to find out. More from the leadership history as PMB commissions. 1 billion burial, coal money, crude oil drilling. Okay, congratulations to them. Court rejects request to order continuous voter registration. Talked about that in top trending segment. Buhari unveils redesign Naira notes today. CBN raises interest rate. We have Governor Suley presents 1.48 billion Naira 2023 budget to Nassir. Where am I reading that? Where am I reading that? All right, let's leave that. Okay, I think this is also interesting. Sao Olu won state's impute in electricity bill. The punch newspaper on Wednesday has the big story on its front page. 16.5% interest rate. Private sector protects factories shut down higher bad loans. So right, this means that they will not be able to pay back their loans on an increasing rate. CBN interest rate hike will increase manufacturers 5 trillion Naira debt. Monetary policy tightening will worsen inflation says Nassimha. Articul B meet can tackle APC on governance. It's late to resume voter registration. Court rules, fuel, queues, receipts in Lagos, marketers blame depots, new Naira notes for circulation before December 15. That's against a paper, I think it was the nation that said they'll be released putting circulation today. Punch demands to put 25.1 million Naira judgment debt from CBN. All right, what am I waiting for? Impeached akiti speaker heads to court. It seems it's not over there. Abuja Bouchie crushes Kale 44 FRSE plans. Mars burial. Very, very sad. There's a picture of the president inaugurating at a $3 billion oil exploration in northeast. Don't forget, they've not found the oil yet. They're looking for it. That is what he's inaugurating quickly from the daily trust. All in North. Co money drill attracts 1.33 trillion Naira investments. Buhari. We adopted core, why we adopted core regulation media owners. Race to the National Assembly. Baguro Alero in Titanic battle for KB central. I'll implement your demands. Attiquetel's current leaders and 66 travelers killed in Abuja Borno Kogi Plateau road incidents. Really sad situation there. Okay, let's start with the interest rate story. Do you agree with what the private sector is saying as per the punch in the newspaper? They're predicting that manufacturing, the industries in the country, the ones that are still operating will shut down and that there'll be more bad loans from the manufacturing private sector because of this 16.5 that Gordon Mifili and his MPC have increased interest rate too. Well, first of all, Nigeria business entity and sector has been strangulated by I would like to call it a devilish economic policies over the years. And that is why through the structural adjustment program brought in by the multiband model almost 40 years ago, we have started having decline in our manufacturing sector and other business sectors. And that is why we're applying what the grant rule institutions tell us. Our industries started dying. Our state plants shut down. Our textile industry shut down. Our sugar factories shut down. Our mobile factories, assembly plants shut down. Our agriculture shut down. All the production sector shut down. And then we can be consuming the show. And because of this incident, those who are importing goods to Nigeria in their own country, the production, the loan in their country, they get as low as some of them get 5% interest load. Some of them get it as low as 3%. Some of them even, you know, have intervention funds from their government. They have subsidies. They have subsidies in agriculture. They have subsidies in the factory. Sometimes the government even go to other countries to negotiate businesses for them. I remember not too long ago, the one that I was very, very, again, I make a question here to negotiate businesses for students or in Germany. And then because that is what other countries do. American government go to negotiate businesses for the big corporations like General Electric and others. And because they know that when they go over there, they'll bring tax back home. When they want to also borrow from the bank, they borrow it as single digits. And so any economy that cannot borrow is a, you know, our business sector or services sector. And it's 10, which is single digits. Then it means that they want to change the industry. So they are right to say that the business sector in Nigeria will suffer seriously. If we already complain, the interest rate is already too high. The interest rate is already too high. You cannot borrow, look at for agricultural properties. How many farmers can borrow, you know, the commercial regime is 32%. We'll go to the banks who want to borrow. It's 22% officially. How many businesses can survive like that? So what we are saying is that it is evil. It is evil to actually want to increase the interest rate. And maybe they should get creative on how to solve the problem of Nigeria. You understand? And they should get creative. He has the great all kinds of window dressing over the years. You understand? So from the president, he wants to go into policies, for he wants to redesign the Naira. He had the day slip up over the years. So he has no strategy on how to run this country, the economy of this country in terms of from the city and angle. And that's why we are getting cut out, cut out the approach to issues. We don't have any serious plan to recover the things. Okay, let's move on. Yes, let's move on to the other one. Still an economic issue. Let's stay with him as the new Naira nodes are set to be unveiled today. They are targeting December 15 as the deadline for circulating these new Naira nodes of 200, 500, or rather 1,500 Naira nodes. What are your thoughts on this? All of that you want, the Naira nodes are the, I mean, for instance, are the design from time to time. At this point in time, when our economy is, I mean, in very, very serious crisis, our first priority is not just the designer Naira nodes. We are not stretching the production sector. We are not, we have not done anything. We are countries, companies are shutting down, companies are migrating from Nigeria to Ghana and some other African countries. The economy, and then we are designing the Naira nodes. The Naira nodes is the value as follows. So what are we designing? The exclusives are due, that's for people who are losing their economy and holding Naira and new health. Those are infinite stress issues. What do we have there? Where do we have the EFCC? What do we have the DSS? What can we use in detail to split out those who are committing money laundering? Is it the common man on the street that is holding money, that wants to money to eat? Do you know how much it costs the N to reproduce this that the entire Naira nodes in the country. So for me, I think it's the wishful exercise coming just few months to the election. Why did you know, why did the government not allow the incoming government from May 29 to see what they can do with that? All right, let me say, okay. So I think this designing of the Naira nodes is all just for the voice. Okay. Okay, Mr. Bukit, let's move on to the nation news report. In fact, a lot of other papers have this story. With the new oil exploration initiative in the northern part of the country, this is in the Gongola Basin. The initiative by the National, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is called the Coal Money Integrated Development Project in Barambu. That's the Gongola Basin, the community between Bauchi and Gombe State. It's an oil exploration project. While talking to the NNPC or speaking, given his speech, he had a piece of advice on the NNPC. He says that the Niger Delta mistakes or the mistakes of the Niger Delta should not be repeated in the northern part of the country. What are your thoughts on the development and then the statement by the president? Well, this is good. It's coming from the presidency and from the ruling class that there have been terrible mistakes done in the Niger Delta. In terms of the oil spillage especially, where the oil has been exploited for has been most of those parts of the country have been turned to waste land because of oil spillage over the years. And all the efforts to even compensate. That is one. Two is that the oil giants, the International Oil Corporation, IOC, have not been held accountable since IOCs cannot do, even in our neighboring countries like Algeria and some other African countries that are producing petroleum, that they do, they cannot try over there. They say they cannot try in Saudi Arabia. They are doing it recklessly here and we are allowing them to go scot-free. So that mistake cannot be repeated. In fact, there should be a policy that holds that responsible. Now, most of them are selling off their assets after they are rushing to wreck the country. They are sold their assets and migrated to another country to maybe to continue the wreck somewhere else. And we allow this to happen from the drilling or first drilling of oil, when the oil was cited in February in 1959. We have been on this now. So it's so hard. You need to see the figures and pictures coming up from the Niger data. I grew up in Warren. I remember as a young chap going to Secondary School, our uniform was white, you know. And then we go to the one called Acid Ray. People in other parts of the country, we call it Acid Ray. Ray before. And then your uniform, the black spots all over. Because of oil effects, because of gas flaring. So all these things should not be allowed to repeat itself in the not-heast. And that is a great thing. I want to say that Nigerians should pull out of this climate change agreement thing that the world is, the West is imposing on all other parts of the world and call it green house emission or those things. Who heated up the green house? It is the West. It is you. Europe was using a code, was using fossil fuels and everything to develop the economy, to build all the giant industries I have. And then when Africa was trying to try to develop, you're telling us that green house emission and green house emission should not be allowed. African leaders should stop that crap and stop all this. So we should exploit our mineral resources. We should use what we are taking in that oil, water, and the Nigerian data. We do not want to ensure that we minimize the use of fossil fuels to develop our economy. The weightage of the past 60 years should not be allowed to consume. All right, Mr. Bokeh, I'm sure you're also agreeing with the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate Shihwa Jibola, who said it would over this issue of environmental sustainability, but protection that you can tell the church right not to eat the, so to say, or quote, poison communion, looking at that situation. Let's not go into that. Let's round off quickly with the look at what the leadership has for us. It's talking about the stance of the Christian Association of Nigeria, whom we all thought had taken sides as far as the 2023 presidential election is concerned. But they are saying, because they met with Obit, Peter Gregory Obit, the Liberal Party's presidential candidate, and Attico Bokeh, the People's Democratic Party presidential candidate, to quiz them over their plans for the country. And they are saying that we won't endorse any presidential candidate. That to me is an interesting one. It seems the language of the Christian Association of Nigeria has been changing over the past few weeks or months, if you want to say that. What are your thoughts on this, this quizzing of the two leading candidates? I don't think Shihwa Jibola was there. Maybe he's going to go on a later date. I don't know. It is not the place of Khan or any religious group on that matter to endorse any particular candidate. It is not their mandate. And doing that would be throwing themselves into partisan politics. The work of Khan is to guide the Christian body in Nigeria, to be able to know what to do and explore other news for articulating the issues that the issue of this Muslim-Muslim teacher is what the Christian body in Nigeria has seen as a plight and an insult to the entire body. So these are the issues that can articulate. But to comment hopefully, to say that they will support a particular candidate of a particular party, it cannot be done because even in Khan or in Christian parties, there are supporters of different political parties across the world in the Christian realm in Nigeria. So the umbrella body of Christians in Nigeria cannot come up to say that they support of any particular, that would be to cut a split and disseminate in the Christian body in Nigeria. So that cannot happen. But they have the right to, you know, like what you were talking about support, I don't think they have supported anybody in the past. They are just voicing opposition to issues like the issues of what the APC has done, for example, the Muslim-Muslim ticket, which is a swap on Christianity in Nigeria. And so they have voiced it against it over and over time. And maybe that's what you call support. But they have not openly support any, and they won't do that because it is very wrong for them to take that extreme partisan position. All right. Ambrose Bokeh, thank you so much for your time. I totally enjoyed your analysis. And of course, the reportage you did for us on the current situation of field supply in Inugu state, we appreciate your time. Thank you very much for having me this morning. And that's the size of the package and off the press. We'll take a break now, of course. And as you know what happened today in history, more will come back. We delve into a first major conversation. Please stay with us.