 You're still on the breakfast and plus TV Africa. Is it going to I took joints us all the way from Aquabomb state It's good to have you join us this morning Thank you always my pleasure nice to be with you again. All right then Let's start off with the leadership newspaper This morning fantastic headlines very interesting Muslim Muslim ticket you have nothing to fear APC ashore's christians That's the boat caption on the leadership underneath. It's an act of god. Adamu is quoted Ignore religion vote competence. I carry the loot tells Nigerians Tunibu's wife will be unofficial christian vice president says massary And away from that uza de maz 783 I take that again uza de maz 783 804 Million dollars wristwatch can build state of the art hospital and roads And price adjustment will end fuel scarcity What marketers are saying? I mean the fuel crisis United Kingdom Niger a barn can be bad knock among top six contenders for borris johnson's job and uh, you know, that's also that video that was viral yesterday where she was talking about Why she wants to become a prime minister and what's her inspiration? Which also some people said, you know, she drew shades on Nigeria IGP bands use of spy number plates nationwide Please arrest fleeing kudj prison skp in ogre article pdp governors for ocean mega rally today And the right is on or the caption this morning on the leadership But we turn our attention from the leadership. That's because we have the nation newspaper this morning governors Are saying muslim muslim ticket not against christians I carry the loot gandu j mazary dismisses fear as unfounded I demo nothing Worry about apparently Uh, there's a rider underneath that caption and I'll shoot 2022 or yetola a delicate order signed peace accord pita will be campaigners or campaigns for lasso in osho boo and islamic groups ex-students back Ogun be a uh, another one talks about 448 justling for 28 governorships sits And covered 19 cases shapely in july Buhari i'm leaving no inheritance for my children Again 165 narrow petrol pump price no longer realistic says marketers You fix lecturers wages on unilaterally government tells asu And uh, uh the caption you find this morning on the nation And let's look at the daily independent away from the nation 165 narrow petrol pump price Unsustainable marketers insist The marketers might just be dominating the papers this morning with your consent about the pump price Says there's need for gradual subsidiary reduction to anfield crisis. And how can these things be? Are you a tickle pdp governor's tom osho holds mega rally for a delicate today? And some people call him the dancing senator insecurity IGP bans use of spy number plates nationwide Buhari tax youths to educate themselves to overcome poverty Says he's not leaving any asset for his children And now the kujaprizin escapi arrested in ogun An mpc commences trial censors with buhari participating in daora appeal courts did not order sub licensing of channels to firm A multi-choice lawyer quoted on that AAC and npp yet to nominate candidates for the 2023 state elections This is according to inek 13 states signed peace accord ahead of the july 16 Oshoon guba poll And a lot of people have queried what significance is this piece accord because usually i mean It doesn't always translate to having these parties in peace Winston kills six in jagawa and flood claims seven in legos very very sad But i said this morning on the daily independent and we'll just quickly run through the punch Before we have a zikomi itik share his thoughts this morning on the big stories muslim muslim tikas decision on shatima finals as tunibus men Downplay aggrieved members defections Uh complied over muslim running mate ex-legos governor won't recede his decision to please critics says Adeye Those not please can vote for obi atiku odas Adeboye Adebayo Is quoted are you also find another? Inflation dates undat pushing nigeria others to brick iamf is quoted and banks bore 595 0.34 billion narrow from central bank of nigeria in two months Directors lobby ahead of screening for the agf job and terrorists killed 14 500 And 5.5 million displaced according to a cause And another one says Arekba shula's faction banks on court to suck oye tola Oye tola are delicate orders signed the peace pact ahead of the elections And we didn't pass charia law says legos assembly I'm not a co arrest 120 Dodges question on or massacre What is the some of the interesting headlines on the punch news people this morning federal government meets ip man and More men feel to costs more The headlines are still going on The punch newspaper is it going to join sas? Thank you so much for being part of the show this morning Thanks for having me as always So delight Well, let's head straight to eat under leadership and all the papers the muslim muslim tickets you have nothing to fear the apc assures christians Let's not forget that we have a lot of people who have been in the country for a long time Let's not forget that just shortly after you have the apc Nominating on veiling her running mate for the Presidential post of course a vice presidential Position that has cost a lot of You know reaction a lot of persons have expressed their consent different stick holders as regards to muslim muslim tickets But yeah, you have the apc assuring christians that there's really nothing to Be concerned about do you think that there's nothing to be concerned about? um I think that nigerians are They fail to understand what nationhood is and they also fail to To go back to history and put things in the proper perspective I want to tell you one two three things when you just suppose where we are today and at the time of mk Or biola where he had a muslim muslim ticket with a malahaji king gibe as at that time A few things parallels Can not be drawn first is the nation that we are in Today, nigeria has not been this polarized and divided If you look at the leadership of this country probably Out of the top 15 you can say that about about 13 All muslims And um, there's been a lot of cry about that that um our president has been very clannish and then people are talking of different agenda being um, you know being pushed And uh, that is on one hand On second hand if you look at the time where you talk about the muslim muslim ticket Please i need to be proved wrong if i am The senate president as at that time was a christian The speaker of the house of rebs was a christian So when we had a muslim muslim ticket, they were both Christians and there wasn't any dissension there wasn't any You know, they were just fair minded carrying on without any division whether you're muslim you're christian So when when mko now picked, um, you know, um king gibe The nation moved on because as at that time we're thinking in terms of competence capacity capability There was nationhood we're moving together in the same direction It's a completely different thing from what is going on today in our country So for you to now say that it doesn't matter is to be insensitive of Of of the x-factor in nationhood Ordinarily somebody like myself will tell you look give us the best, you know to to to lead us You know Because that is what i believe in that is what i understand that is what makes sense to me Because like like like leading a country is like driving a vehicle But the way you come from whether you're tall or black or short you are dark you are male female Which of those is is not as important as If you have the competencies to drive the vehicle So ordinarily that is where my position will be But like I said in governance, that's what you call the x-factor That x-factor is what you cannot exactly define But which will affect every single thing you do the decision and everything If we had been able to move the country in a direction where we think competence capacity, which is the ultimate direction But I couldn't care less if it was the president's Brother or even wife that was succeeding him Because we know that our focus is on getting the country to move in the right direction But we have abused that x-factor and negatively where religion tribe and all those Other sentiments have have overtaken the recruitment Profiling the criteria So to that extent, please don't tell me it doesn't matter because it matters You can see what is going on in the southeast about the ipod It's basically about I want to be part of this country I want to no matter how much people misunderstand what is going on the basic demand is I want to be an equal partner in this country So whatever it takes for you to animate that and give me the confidence that I'm an equal partner No matter how you do it Then you solve that problem But right now there's so much cry that Muslims are taking over everywhere the christians are like endangered species if you go into a constitution You don't see one word about church or christian God knows everything is replete all these things have Have moved the x-factor in the direction of this unity in the direction of lack of equity In the direction of not having excellence as a basis for leadership recruitment And so long as that x-factor is in that direction You've got to move it gradually back to the middle of neutrality of excellence And then you can take some of the decisions that you're trying to take now that is my understanding and my position on that Well, um, one of the things that have always stood out I mean, we're at a time where we say that where we are some people have attributed that to uh You know lack of competence and where you say you don't have a leaders that are you know have what it takes to call the shorts and You know pilots The affairs of the nation however you want to put it But one thing that has stood out this word has been you know, moving around every other time is the word competence And again, you also have ignore religion and vote competence This is what the likes of akiridulu is telling Nigerians um, so does it really mean that I'm asking that There are no Christians that are competent Um, you know within different geopolitical zones of the country I'll I'll tell you this The very first thing is that in literally every village Well, let me not exaggerate in every state definitely can find Extremely competent people even within the 35 45 80 bracket. I can tell you that for a fact I've been around this country. I've interacted with young people not to talk of if you open the vista to maybe say up to 60 Well, we're hoping that we have a zikko and yai to join the conversation Unfortunately that disconnection happened, but the question is whether do we have You know competent peasants because the issue here is hey the reason why we'll have a muslim muslim ticket is that You know We're looking at competence. And so you probably if you look at Religion then you probably might not have um Any person or candidate who's competent for that particular position? And some people say that this is very sensitive. It's actually a slap But on the other hand, you also have the apc saying this is nothing to worry about this really nothing for sure He really ignored because over time we constantly say that, you know, really join and tribe and Whatever should not actually be a factor in Choosing or voting who becomes A governor or a president and what have you the list is almost endless But we see that we can Ignore these things. This is our reality that every other time for every elections that you have This factor is responsible people would always You know tilt towards You know religion people would always tilt towards their geographical You know their tribe you want to see your zone different zones and all of that so why are we trying to Forget about our current reality and some persons have also would constantly make reference to the 1993 elections where You had a muslim muslim tickets and the question is what's different and what's different is that What happened in 1993 and what's happening right now the Niger of 1993 and now Two different almost two different countries because it feels like we're more divided that we should have been We'll just take a quick break and connect back with Ezekonia. I took please stay with us What would you want me to do? When I analyze some people knock up and say that I'm giving my opinion about issues I cannot For every time you talk, you know, they say oh, you're not supposed to give your thoughts It puts it puts you You know in that space. I don't want to be there I All marketer's price adjustments would end fuel scarcity This is messy Yes, okay, so we're going back. Thank you. Um Sakai, please. I'll mute your microphone Right. Am I correct? down Okay, he said something already Yep Sakai you we we wanted to be Sakai moves to your right a bit your perfect perfect, so we're just um Oh I sealed the breakfast and plus cv africa Ezekonia I took is still with us and we are still looking at the pages of an ashore dailies on the leadership this morning the oil Major oil market as association of Nigeria Uh, a calling for commencement of gradual deregulation of the downstream oil and gas sector To reflect current price of petroleum products. Ezeko Um, what do you make of this? I mean it might just such You know, some people say it's a difficult time for Nigerians. So we're talking about deregulation now subsidy removal, you know, everything is just happening at the same time We live in a country where setting egos data statistics seem to be mysteries And government is run on data and statistics You can't do planning never Without proper data and statistics And yet this becomes one thing that we find it difficult to relate with Let me give you a very simple illustration on this oil issue During President Jonathan's time when we had this issue coming up with subsidy no subsidy One of the best first was our fuel consumption as a nation They were talking about 35 million liters per day And a panel was set up And there was a very sharp discrepancy. We said, you know, we don't Um consume that much. We should be consuming something in the neighborhood of about 25 million liters Take the take the top figure Which was 35 million liters per day During the course of this administration We are running about sometimes 60 in fact, there was a particular month I believe that we had over a 100 million liters As against a disputed 35 million liters Just a few months a few years ago And I asked myself This is a time that Businesses are shutting down on account of which Industries factories are not operating at maximum capacity So apart from you said they use this but they have vehicles that they run It's just insensical that you are not if you're not running at top level A lot of things are going to have to be scaled down A lot of people are going to be retrenched. A lot people are going to lose their job Those who that are retrenched and losing their job Likelihood is that they will not be making the amount of queues that they were making on a regular on a daily basis They are now going to because of the money that they don't have Ration how they use the amount to buy food and the price going up and again Not going to work every day means that there are some days they may not be working How on earth are we consuming the amount of The petrol that let me just zero it down to petrol that we are consuming on a daily basis. It doesn't make sense now technology If I were in charge of look if every bank how many bank accounts do we have Compared to petrol pump petrol stations and the pumps You can buy technology monitor Every single fuel dispense in every station in this country It's because we have allowed this concept of corruption To become something that you know vested interests have held the country captive That is why i'm looking at presidential candidates that are willing to say if I perish I perish And Nigerians should forget this issue of a pcp. Forget them. I'm starting to get sitting sound bite. I'm please don't underestimate anybody Don't please anybody that can come up to the point of wanting to say I want to be the president of this country And it's not when they were doing primaries when there were so many in a party. We are talking of 18 people Before you can come to the point of having the flag of a registered party You must be somebody that has something, you know between your ears To that extent we should start to put these people on the line and ask them very hard questions That is why i'm very proud of the candidate of agc. Mr. Dubebe Kachiku He is taking a minimum of three to five interviews on a daily basis and i'm talking of hard core interviews And of recent we started this thing that is novel in Nigerian It's like set of national address which happens on two days back running live on stations Ladies who come out and answer hard questions talk to us about us. What do you understand by it? Why do we have the problem? At this point that we're in now because you have this market as was saying that petrol should cannot they can't sustain selling Petrol at 165 naira per liter and so there's need for You know deregulation gradually But this is not the first time the concept or the idea of deregulation has been mentioned in our polity And so we've been dwindling deregulation Now we're saying oh, we're subsidy and no subsidy and the government is saying that we can't sustain subsidy because that's what it's looking like And people have said, you know, it's it's so much that we're spending subsidizing petrol But all of this is happening at a time where you have You know the inflation rate at a double digits and that has been consecutive for almost eight years Is a time where you have you know so much instability and the other option is that businesses would crumble And what if businesses crumble then what becomes of the economy because we're trying to sustain the economy But this businesses are the life wire of the economy I don't understand You see a lot of times we pursue a narrative That is being given to us And those narratives are lots that lead to nowhere I have only Let me give a very simple hypothetical situation I can only afford 20 million to subsidize because of the amount of money I have when you do the analytics of your budget I can only afford 20 million but The subsidy is asking me to bring 50 million And I don't have 50 million. I only have 20 That is one argument what I have and what I can afford Honestly and sincerely put that on one basket Second basket. I am an importer or a marketer I buy this product And total cost to me without overhead is five naira I cannot sell it for four naira Except you are subsidizing me That is another fact that you cannot dispute in a different basket There is a third basket that we must interrogate as a nation. What is that third basket? The quantity that I should subsidize If we look at the honest quantity And multiplied by the subsidy coefficient Relative to the amount of money I have you may discover that I don't need 20 million that I already have and could budget But 12.5 million in which case I can either conveniently subsidize it Or I can even say well, I already have this 20 million So you can reduce the price for my people. Let me subsidize it some more So the elephant in the room is the quantity Which you will have to multiply by the differential To know whether it is what you can afford or what you cannot afford. The problem is in the quantity I can't tell marketers to buy something for five naira and sell it for four naira. It doesn't make sense On the other hand, I can't tell government to subsidize 15 million when they only have 20 million honestly and sincerely It doesn't make sense It is when you have looked at this third factor and discovered that Yes, we are actually consuming 100 million liters And we don't have that 50 million that you can come to have a conversation with Nigerians with an open template and say Nigerians This is the amount of money we have This is the amount of money you are consuming. Can you play down on the consumption pattern? Or can you pay a little bit more? Nigerians are not unreasonable. They will follow but today we are playing the ostrich Nigerians know that subsidy is a fraud which is where mr. President started from He said subsidy is a fraud before he get into government Why is he suddenly saying that it is no longer a fraud? Why is he saying that when 35 million was an inflated figure that 60 something million or even 100 million would be an accepted figure? Where are the dynamics coming from the datan statistics? Something is wrong Well, is it fundamentally so? Well, it's okay. I took uh, we we have to go now and at this point I mean, I was hoping that we could you know talk more Something is really wrong and we're hoping that it gets fixed because Nigerians will be the one bearing the brunt at the end of the day Quite unfortunate. We're also here that banks are borrowing so much from the central bank And the question is why are banks borrowing? I mean you have It it doesn't really add up. But that's it. Thank you so much. Ezekiah. I took for being part of the breakfast What the pleasure thank you Ezekiah. I took is a public affairs analyst. He's also vying for You know governorship position right in a quorum state Always a pleasure to listen to you. Thank you so much and have a great day And that's the size of it on off the press. We take a break. But just before that break, let's tell you what happened today in history Stay with us