 While he noted that fuel subsidy removal and its harsh condition was impacting and taking the toll on Nigerians, Bakery urged President Balaq to go to kill corruption and not Nigerians. Bakery also took a swipe at the continued detention of the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefile, and the chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Abdullah He described it as a clampdown on perceived political adversaries. Joining us to discuss this live is Ziko Nyaito. He is a former governorship candidate of the ABC in Akwaibong State, and also joining us is Mr. Sheru Gaba. He is the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party. It's so good to have you join us, gentlemen. Good evening. Good evening and thanks for having us. Thank you. Great pleasure. Great. Let me start with you, Mr. Gaba. It's interesting that Mr. Bakery, I mean, this is not the first time that we've seen Trindia Bakery speak on issues, national issues. He was the running mate of former President Muhammad Al-Buhari. He re-declared him very vocal under the Bahari administration without fear or favor. We're seeing him now in the early days of the Singapore administration, making his thoughts and his comments known. Let's start with, you know, the punchline that every newspaper headline has been, kill corruption, do not kill Nigerians. Why do you think he decided to take this position? Well, let me thank you for inviting me to add value to this conversation. Part and foremost, I think he's quite right, based on the current situation that is going on in the country. We all supported the subsidy removal. The subsidy removal doesn't mean that you leave the market forces to determine the cost of oil that is likely to affect every sector of the economy from beginning to top. What happened was that the government removed the subsidy. But failed to take a decisive decision in controlling the market price of the product. And in that regard, virtually everything have to top. As I'm talking to yesterday, I bought a bag of maize at 65,000 Naira. That is incredible in the history of Nigeria, 65,000 Naira. You can price that. Actually, all the poultry industries have gone down because they cannot afford to buy maize to feed their small-scale industries that is keeping them alive. So the poverty level is beyond definition, is beyond explanation. Crime level is going extremely very high at the community level. You know, it's migrating to local government, to states, and then to the national level. Because the common denominator of an average ordinary person is to have cheap food that he can eat and take care of his family. It is unavoidable right now. You cannot afford it. You cannot deal with it. And therefore poverty is killing. So in that respect, he is absolutely right. The government have not created an incentive or palliative to cushion the effect. For instance, we disagree totally with the palliative and we talked about it. We told the government is the wrong step and the president retracted. We also offer advice that you need to buy or produce thousands of buses to reduce the cost of transportation. That is likely to reduce the high-scale poverty level that is ravaging the country. As I'm talking to you in some police stations in Abuja, they have locked up the station because of speculation that oil is likely to go up again. So in that respect, you cannot say he is wrong and you cannot say that he has no right to offer advice to the government. He has ever right as a citizen, as a stakeholder that has contested to run for president of Nigeria. He has been a running mate to a presidential candidate. He is an investor in the Nigerian system. So he is right to make those solid observations. And I believe the government should not start from a very hostile position from those who issue a very constructive advice for them to quickly adjust. They shouldn't have a very tough crisis from taking off. It is correct. It is right. The system is going down. The corruption is eating very badly. The insecurity is rising. They have to do something very urgently. And I hope they will not allow this oil increase to come up again because only God knows what is going to happen, based on what is going on right now. Let me continue saying that. I would like to quote Basel Tunde factory directly. He said that Singapore needs to mount a genuine fight against corruption, rise above Vendetta, foster reconciliation and give every Nigerian a reason to believe that we are in a united country. What could possibly be the reason why he would be talking about Vendetta here, again, every person who decided to run for president, in fact, I am talking about all across the board, every presidential candidate mostly talked about uniting the country. We saw what happened just before the elections. How the elections seemed to be more of an original election as opposed to somebody who wants to be president of Nigeria as opposed to president of regions. What do you think would make a battery talk about Vendetta? I mean, of course, you mentioned the issue of Abdul Rashid Bauer, the CBN governor, but that's just two instances. Is that enough to call the president out on the issue of Vendetta? Mr. Yes, are you there? Oh, dear. I think that we have lost that connection with Mr. I'm going to try again. Oh, I can hear you. Go ahead. Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. I think that we're having a problem with you. When we, I think it's okay. All right, go ahead. Oh, Mr. Davam, I think you just lost in there while we tried to get him back on. Well, for me, I think partly if you analyze the situation critically, you'll find a fault in the process. The chairman of EFCC was removed unceremoniously based on allegations of corruption. Some of the people he accused of corruption gung up and make their case, and eventually he was removed. And some of them that were accused were brought into the cabinet. Number two, for the central bank governor, of course, you are aware the report was just released in seven years, just before yesterday, which is a breach of the law, because the law of CBN said that every year, CBN must release the financial report. Now, it is very, very contradictory. It is, it is quite unbelievable that you run a country for eight years without releasing the financial report of central bank of Nigeria. So it's very complicated based on what happened in the past. And I believe a total investigation should be done because it's tantamount economic sabotage to a large scale. I believe that that committee that was set up to investigate the CBN should do their job thoroughly. But for the EFCC man, a lot of investigation needs to be done. And the government needs to be very transparent while they are keeping him in detention without explaining to Nigeria the crime he has committed. It is wrong. Like I said, the government was listening to constructive advice, was listening to a very strong constructive advice. Otherwise, it's going to be very complicated for the government because a lot of people are really tilting towards what in the back area have said. There was no justification to keep on detaining people without detailed explanation of what happened today. We run a very transparent system and the president only owns it as a duty to citizens of Nigeria to brief them about what is going on. You can't detain people like in the past without any explanation or why you keep on detaining them. They are entitled to, Nigeria are entitled to information to know what really happened, what led to the kind of scandal that we are going to at this elicit of the administration. Interesting. I think Mr. Yeshik is back. Mr. Yeshik, let me push you further from where Mr. Gavin stopped. Yes, Nigerians do have a right to this information. But then I remember vividly when the president was just the presidential candidate and he said that he would pick up from where his predecessor stopped. In other words, continue from where he stopped. Now going back to owing it to the people to let us know what's happening or not detaining people without any form of accountability, we have seen the Shiite leader and his wife have continued to be in detention. We've seen the case of Nandi Kano continued detention and several others who are still in detention. And here we are at the beginning of the Tiniwara administration, we're seeing a similar hand. Why are we surprised? Because again, there are people who expectedly had said that this was the first line of action that Mr. President was going to take and he didn't disappoint. Should we be worried? Okay, thanks for having me. I'm sorry that calls kept interrupting our network. And you know, when we have discussions like this, we either attack the fundamentals, or we just do all these analyses, intellectual analyses, and achieve absolutely nothing at the end of the day. I want to go back if you permit me to the beginning of your very first question, which has to do with corruption and subsidy. Incidentally, I made, I think it was a seven minute video and it was a direct address to Mr. President about a week ago. And I concluded by saying, if you are not willing to attack the fundamental, the basic, the foundational of this fuel corruption or this fuel crisis, which is one word, just one word corruption, because if you look at this issue of, you know, the subsidy, the very first thing that Mr. President would have done was to set up a high powered investigative panel, not announced strictly in house, the most thorough thing and give him a report. That report would tell him exactly what the problem is. It's on the basis of that analysis of the report that you would have made a statement. And that didn't need to take him, he didn't need to have that statement in his first address to the nation, because he did not have facts and data and statistics. And that is the proper way to run a government. He needed to give himself two weeks was enough for him to get as a president the information. And you ask one, two, three questions. Number one, is it rocket science for you to make sure that you're to you to know the real consumption? Because at the end of the day, I've always said from the beginning that our consumption is between 30 and 40 million liters per day. Maximum, I've always said that. In fact, more like 30, 35. But sometimes you get up to 75. Now, if you remove the excess 35, 40 million liters, will you have a problem with subsidy? That is number one. What is the real consumption? Now, where are the leakages? Is it difficult? My cars are tracked. As I'm sitting down here, I can tell you my cars where they are, the speed they are going. I mean, tracking is common knowledge. What is so difficult in tracking all our tankers to ensure that none of them goes across the border? I don't think that's difficult to do. Number two, as are today, what is our daily production of crude? What comes out of every oil well? Is that rocket science? I know what to do. And Mr. President knows what to do. So I don't need to tell him. When we address number one, the volume that we have, number two, the volume that we consume, the volume of crude that comes out, and then the volume of, let's say, petrol, for instance, that we consume, you discover that we will have more than enough. So I was one of those who said, remove subsidy. But that would have been for a period not exceeding three months. Within these three months, you will be able to know what the problems are, where the leakages are, where the corruption is. You block them, and then based on the real production quota and real consumption, you will discover that you can even bring down the value of petrol, because petrol is like the engine that runs our country, especially the poor. So for me, that issue is Mr. President is not willing to tackle corruption. He should just have his four years or even eight years and leave. I'm not interested in any other thing. The second thing that we look at, which you have brought up is the issue of rule of law. It's another fundamental. The issue is, to what extent is Mr. President willing to commit himself to obeying the rule of law? That is what will make him- Should we be asking that question now? It's not too late in the day to ask this question, because the moment you take that oath of office, I'm presuming, even if I were to say, I want to be the vice chancellor of a university, whatever it is that is in that oath that I take as an oath of office, I am bound by it. Should it be halfway into my tenure, then people ask me, are you going to help to build this school? Is that not my mandate? And that's why I'm asking the question. To be really asking that question now. Fantastic question. But let me tell you something that I've decided to take up. And I started this not too long ago, but I've decided to give it full force now. And that is office of the citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. For too long, we have let whoever we give a mandate to rule us to become our boss. The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is my boy. Let me use that word in a way that could be offensive. He is my employee. I employ him. And the earlier we get to know that the office of the citizen is the highest office of the land, higher than the office of the president or the office of the governor, we have a right at any given point in time. Even if we made a mistake at the beginning, we must occupy that office and call him back to account and say, look, we're not going to take this. So I think that rather than appear helpless, we should tell ourselves that there is something we can do and must do to make sure that the rule of law is not jettisoned by whoever we put in office. Fantastic. Mr. Gabor, I'm coming back to you. Over the weekend, young people celebrated International Youth Day and for Nigeria. I think it's the wall bank, if I'm not mistaken, that put out a report that Nigerian young people might take over the world in two years. We might be the largest number of young people across the world. And we have a huge problem, which is unemployment. And we know what that is. And I don't mind the devil's workshop. But then those same groups of people are the ones that we are hoping would be able to hold our leaders to account. But when you have conversations with these people, there's a mentality of giving up. Many people are saying, well, there's nothing we can do. Let's just watch him do his dinner. How do we change that mindset? Because accountability is one thing. Making sure that people's feet are held to the fire is another, are we capable of doing that today? Well, globally, nonchalant attitudes are very dangerous to any society. Number two, let me a little bit, you know, reemphasize what my brother has said about the subsidy. First, some of us don't believe subsidy exists. It's a cattle of people, you know, that contain that subsidy because it was probed by the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Wella, and it was found out that there was nothing that subsidy. And the former president, Buhari, have mentioned himself when he was campaigning with the president of Nigeria that there was nothing like subsidy. It was a fraud. He continued with that fraud up to the time he left office. And up till now there was no any publication of payment that had been made to the marketers in terms of subsidy. And in any case, it is the NNPC that is importing for us, you know, into the country and distribute it around. And therefore, my brother should know that every information, every detail that is needed have been tabulated before the president. I don't think the president is ignorant of this fact. The only thing is that there is lack of will to act on them and bring them to stop because the cattle, less than one person or one person, are the ones holding Nigeria to ramps. Number two, you mentioned the issue of the youth, you know, and what are we personally, I feel very sad because we look at currently in some strategic position. Some of those that are privileged to be there are very young people. In terms of age, in terms of efficacy, they are very young. But they have compromised the system. They have shown that they have that zeal, they have that sense of globalization, that sense of infrastructure, that sense of building an educational base, that sense of building a health sector base, you know, they are like, they are like, they're going into the cattle that are in government and doing nothing differently. They are not even speaking against the system that is doing something that is wrong. Meanwhile, I'm so sorry to talk over you, but do you not think that this is a, for the want of a better word, a mind rape that has continued to hold sway over the years that has doctored the mind of these people to say, well, this is the easy way out. No matter what you do, if you don't belong, then you cannot really make a change, even though when they get in there, of course, their hands are tied. I don't think so. You know, when you look at our peculiarities as a nation, the younger generations have everything it takes to change the status quo. If you look at the INEC records, you know, about 70 to 75 percent of registered voters are young people. So the young people can determine the fact of everybody in Nigeria, everybody in terms of votes, they need to commit themselves to a process that allowed them to change the government that they are not satisfied with. They need to disabuse themselves from being part of, you know, by vote buying, weaponization of poverty, and then purchasing their mindset for four years. Because if you look at the campaign sectors of the different presidential candidates, the drivers are the young people. Those who participate in engaging or promoting bad elections at the polling units are also young people. Now, you get worried, when can we get it right? If the bulk of those who decide the fate of Nigeria are young people by record, by statistics, and this same category of people are the ones suffering graduates from the university that have no job doing, even those that have not gone to school. In the civilized society where creativity is a priority, you can create almost 40 to 50 million jobs through four sectors. One, if you decide to train two to three or five million plumbers in Nigeria that are needed daily in households and buy the basic equipment they need to operate, you know, you can't even meet up the supply of over 200 million people. If you decide to train electricians of that level and buy the equipment that they need, it's the same thing. Financial sector is the same thing. Capital sector is the same thing. Partial industry is the same thing. So if there is a collaboration between the federal government and the state, believe me honestly, majority of them will be taken out of the street. And if you go into the agricultural sector, there's a partnership. You bring subsidy into the fertilizer. A backup fertilizer is 30,000 Naira. I have purchased it. I'm farming. I have a rice farm. I know what I'm telling you directly what it is. It's 30,000 Naira. Who can afford it and farm with 30,000 Naira per batch? It is not true. It is not reliable. It is not possible. We are running into anarchy, into hunger in a country where we are suffering from massive insecurity that have borne a lot of farms, a lot of food and we are trying to recover from it. It's incredible because Mr Naira, I'm coming to you, because when we go for campaigns, we hear politicians, including Mr Davam and you, because you're both politicians, obviously. You want it's very Liverpool. It's not that, again, you don't know what to do. But then why is it that when people occupy that city, it becomes a tad bit, if not a bigger problem of making these things happen. Just as Mr Davam said, Mr President has this information. It's on this table. Why is it very difficult for it to be done? Again, finally, because I have just three minutes. How do we make sure that we hold the president accountable? How do we make sure? Because we keep talking about it. Mr Davam, just in a few words, so that we can have these things. Very simple. Nigerians should learn to vote career people in politics. There's a difference between contractors who join politics and career people who have developed their career in politics and have the wish to take position. They are our decisive utilization of power during our career regime. Now you have contractors in government, contractors in the military regime. They have the career potential. Okay, let me say I took a graph up because we're almost out of time. I'll tell you the contradiction that we have and one that we must address easily. Nigeria, look at the bad images, the good images. The young people have given Nigeria the good image that we have. Go into music when they win the Grammys. The whole world hails us. They are young people. Go into sports. They are Muslim. What is just done? Go into soccer. Look at what our girls have just done. The last match against England. Go into fashion. Go into whatsoever is given even in the tech. Whatever is given Nigeria, the good image today is the young people. And these are the same people that are not supported. None of these people is supported by state is their personal effort. If Mr. President, yesterday I was with some part of his back room and I told him for whatever is worth, please pay attention to the young people. They are now like they need a direction. Let us come and use office of the citizen to override the president in a sense. Oh, Mr. Yatuk, I'm so sorry, I think that... But what we want him to do, and we can do that, if we do that, we start to have the young people that are giving direction and wings to fly. Well, right on time. I want to say thank you. Is it going to be a former government candidate for the ABC in Aquitaine State? Shame of Gavin is the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party here in the country. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Hopefully we can have another part of this conversation soon. Great pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having us. All right, we'll take a quick break and return a group of democracy network Nigeria. They are advocating for continuous voter registration in the country. The first of what INIC is doing. Stay with us. They'll be here to talk with us.