 Very good morning to you and thanks for joining us on the run-up. My name is Nyamgul Aggaji. I also have BioLua K here with me. Bio, good morning and welcome to the program. This time around if you hear someone's voice, it is very, very gladdening because you know that the person has woken up, there's poverty in the land as it were. There is hardship in the land because of a lot of factors and I think it's time to just be checking our loved ones to know how they are faring even though you may not be able to do anything from afar. I don't know how the situation of the scarcity of narrow nodes is in the area you are bio. It's a nationwide problem. I mean it's a nationwide problem and people are complaining everywhere. I think there's probably a disconnect between the central bank and the commercial banks because the CBN apparently issued a directive requesting commercial banks to start paying out the new narrow nodes across the counter but you would find queues. The queues are still long. In many cases on moving, there are stationary queues. They have the move which signposts or rather gives an impression that not much is happening by way of the money being dispensed and so the queues are static and people are frustrated. Frankly, I cannot put a finger on exactly what's going on. The major issue is even if we're doing a cashless policy, you find out that even when you try to do transfers it's very very difficult. Sometimes it doesn't go through, sometimes you'll be debited but it doesn't get to the destination and the reversal it's taking a long time. Sometimes you go to the ATM and for every 1000 narrow nodes you're being charged and then you're paid only 3000 narrow and you're expected to go into the market to buy things in an economy whose inflation has gone more than 20% and it's a very very dangerous thing because like they say, a hungry man is an angry man. Now there was this case that just happened. Was it today or yesterday where army men went to uni-ben and they were beating up everybody and that was because the first day or the previous day they had gone to the ATM according to the stories while everybody was on cue to withdraw the little money that they could withdraw the men in uniform went and intimidated everyone drove everyone away went and withdrew the money that was available and they went back the next day and the students also said okay if this is what you're going to be doing we cannot be hungry while you be collecting the money and the fight started now the soldiers have gone back there as a reprisal and all that. So the point I'm trying to make here is that for as long as people are hungry a lot of caution is thrown to the win and it becomes more and more dangerous why I asked you in the first time what it was like in your area is that in some places POS are charging an amount that you think they are just short of just holding guns because it's so outrageous and they are giving you all sorts of explanations and all that in some other places they are still having a human face at least so that's why I was asking whether it is so terrible in your area or it's the same as in some other areas that are a little bit fine. Well I mean the situation is basically the same I think that for the very slow I mean I experienced that myself yesterday I bought I bought something the transaction didn't go through I ended up having to pay cash and I wasn't I didn't want to pay cash because I have very small amount of the of the new loads and I didn't want to spend I didn't want to spend them where if I have the option of being a transfer and also because if you spend them you'll get old notes back as as change and you're trying to get rid of the old one so it's a catch to any two situations you know but I think the the transaction process is extremely slow on the on the POS is because they there's so there's so many people on the system you know everybody is on the system trying to make trying to make things work for them so it slows down this is what I suspect right now for the and then they have to do something about this I mean the other day we were talking about the bandwidth you know the internet bandwidth yeah when everybody started working from home because of COVID in the first few weeks when the whole world switched to online we had problems the system was very slow because it was not configured for having so many people at the same time but in a matter of weeks you know if it was resolved you could go and zoom you could go on sky you could go on anything and it was normal speed even if there were so many people so my expectation was that perhaps a similar approach ought to have been taken when the CBN knew that this process was going to be launched to have involved all the companies provided access access you know visa whatever it is with the banks basically used to ensure that there's an increase in the bank apparently that is not happening with regard to the soldiers who went to university of the name in my personal opinion this I don't see any reason for soldiers to have come there first of all I believe that most of the military bags have ATMs there are banks there are ATMs so for soldiers to go out of the bags and go into a university campus although this is what we saw online but I want to believe there's an element of truth to it I don't think it was fabricated but of course it should be investigated and therefore for them to have engaged in no matter the level of provocation they had no right to have engaged in the act you know that they have been alleged you know to have been engaged in and it speaks also to the level of discipline from the barracks from where they came the commanding officer of that barracks from where those soldiers came has to explain why he so just left the barracks and whether they were authorized to go out of the barracks at that time you know because discipline has to be taken seriously because what has happened now is that they are giving the army a very bad image okay by their conduct or by their alleged conduct they are giving the military a very bad name so the commanding officer of that barracks ought to take measures he has to find out why those soldiers left that barracks at that time and for the students of the University of Benin who are alleged they have a right to complain to the police and they have a right to complain to the proposed mashup of the Nigerian army they probably knew where those soldiers came from so and what usually happens is that people don't take action and people just complain but the people know the right quarters and take the necessary action I am sure this will not repeat itself so the authorities of the students have a right to complain to the commanding officer of that barracks and to the proposed mashup of the Nigerian army yeah well but like I said a hungry man is an angry man um the soldiers should never have cost to be hungry because there are no uh naira notes to use and the students also should not have any cost to be hungry uh hungry because they don't have money to spend I've seen people who have been stranded in places I've seen people who are otherwise rich men uh becoming almost like beggars I've seen stories some of them online you may not believe them but the ones I have seen I've seen people really really suffering whatever has to be done by the by the central bank of Nigeria should be done and should be done very fast because the more it stays the more it lingers the angrier people get is this is not about election or anything but it's just about the welfare of the people we didn't know yes we didn't we didn't plan for this we didn't envisage this but on the other hand I know that the policy is good in fact it's not a new policy this this should have been happening every five years or ten years as as the case may be but now it has happened after so many years so we are trying to adjust but whatever has to be done should be done now and before now bio I was talking with a security expert um about another grievance another anger that the people may be feeling now because they are online stories like you said that we cannot believe all of them uh about uh bandits supposed bandits and less bandits brandishing new neurones and claiming that they have up to 10 million and the security expert just laughed and said these people are people who want to incite the citizens against the government and they like to do what they call war propaganda so nobody should ever take them seriously because I mean how do they get this money so I I tend to tilt to his side as well and to also talk to Nigerians that the fact that you're seeing it online does not mean it is true it's if if a fight begins within the community it is not these supposed bandits that are trying to soil the name of the government that will suffer it is you and I that will suffer so let's appeal to the relevant authorities to do the needful rather than believing what bandits that already have shown themselves as people who want to divide this nation are showing online so I'm just borrowing the words of the security expert to also talk to Nigerians maybe you have a word as well to say I mean you said it all you see we need to be extremely careful in this day of social media we need to be extremely careful because social media gives you immediacy which means you can put anything else as it is happening you can even put it live and as long as you know there are no facts checks made you don't have the date you don't have the location you don't have all of those kinds of information on whatever is published most times it is very difficult to ascertain or to verify you know what has been published and so we need to be extremely careful it is not just about what what we find but there are also people who don't even check the information they are sharing people just see something and they just forward it and this this cuts across ages and seeing people who are in their 60s who are in their 50s doing the same thing you don't forward everything it's not everything you get that you must forward there are people who bombard other people with so much information just forwarding and forwarding without even knowing whether what you're forwarding is true or false and then you generate unnecessary discussion in some cases you generate unnecessary tension you know and that's where we were discussing the universe case I said what the soldiers were alleged to have done because unless all these things are verified and confirmed it is usually difficult to speak comparatively on that so we have to be extremely careful. Okay well I'd like to just inform our viewers right now that the second half of this program we will be talking with a legal practitioner Ken Abbasu and we our concern will be what INEC predicted about fuel scarcity maybe affecting the that it might affect the elections on the 25th of February and maybe beyond and all that but right now we're just looking at some topical issues that are worrisome in our society right now people like we have said throughout this show we've talked about people have called in to say there are now three queues there's a queue for the fuel there's a queue for new narrow nodes in fact for money not just new narrow nodes and then there's also a queue for PVC everybody needs to queue for all these ones because one of at least two of them will affect you whether you have a car or not the fuel scarcity will affect you whether you have an account in the bank or not the new narrow nodes or the money will affect you their unavailability of the money will affect you and also everything else that we are queuing for but we have to take the right decisions we have to be patient a little bit more and all that well let's just look at another security issue that may not be related to what is happening right now it's an old issue about the the former minister of petroleum that disney allison madioke that was there was a request put forward that the uk government should let her come and face the music in nigeria and the uk government blatantly said no whatever reasons that might be and the the um interpol chief in nigeria said that for whatever or whoever is supposed to answer to any crime in their country they made sure they sent those people there for whoever was supposed to come back to nigeria they made sure those people come came back to nigeria for for the case of allison madioke they were not able to get this permission this uh this from the from the uk government now i don't know you have interaction with the international community what can make a country not to release someone who is supposed to answer for crimes in her in her country for that country to go and prosecute what are some of these issues that we're looking at that we may not know at first site i think the standard thing i mean this even any student of international relations you know probably know that as well the standard thing is that oftentimes there has to be an extradition agreement between the countries involved so in this case like you mentioned the interpolic example you gave and the reasons they get so nigeria and the uk i know they have an extradition treaty and so because otherwise the the gentleman who was speaking would not have said there have been instances when they have sent people to the uk on the request of the uk as well as vice versa so why would missis desiani alison madrigan not be extradited i wouldn't know if he had said all the terms of the extradition agreement have been fulfilled uh because then then we will know that they've actually followed that and then we also need to know if this is bilateral request for extradition in other words in in in which case it's a direct request on the nigerian government the british government or it's a request being processed through interpol in which case interpol will be working with this nigerian interpol the working with the british interpol counterpart because it's a crime it has been committed in one country and then this person has crossed and and there's therefore an international arrest warrant if i'm correct which has been processed through interpol so i don't know exactly the the the procedure you know that this extradition request was made whether it's bilateral government to government or whether it's processing an arrest warrant through interpol or since it was the interpol officer uh who was talking another nigerian ministry of foreign affairs i want to assume that this request was processed but i may be wrong uh this request was processed through interpol still we don't know the the reasons for which it was not granted have not been disclosed and so we we we are only left to you know debate what was said discuss what was said without actually knowing the details of the request okay my quarrel all has always been that whatever it is nigeria should build itself to such an an extent that every time they're talking with another country they will have a bargaining chip that is very very glaring anyway we are moving on to other issues well um the probe the the second part of our program we're going to be dealing with uh so many other issues there will be a time we'll talk about what comment that the minister for minister goff reo nema goff reo nema yeah that's that's the name i was i was forgetting he said that um we we should not complain about the travels of uh mr president that he should do even more about that but we'll not discuss that now what we are going to discuss after the break will be that the extension of the collection of permanent voters cards pvcs nationwide to 5th of february 2023 uh is finishing in a matter of days but ionic national commissioner has said that no timetable of ionic will be scuttled by any any complaints that people are complaining everything will still go the way it should go the extension of pvc collection ends on sunday 5th of february 2023 and there are still complaints on the process of the collection with many nigerians calling on ionic to allow nigerians with temporary voters cards to exercise their rights however the independent national electoral commission like i said have said that they are not contemplating shifting or adjustment of timetable for the forthcoming polls the electoral body insisted that on no account would it allow anti-democratic forces that's how they called it and 5th columnist confused the nigerian people on the plans and intention of the commission the clarification became imperative following a report by a national daily that the electoral body was contemplating postponing postponing the presidential election by two weeks due to recent attacks suffered by the commission especially in the southeast now there is a report on the pvc collection process and challenges faced by nigerians in leaguers and other parts of the country but after that report when we return we'll meet our guest stay with us