 You're welcome back. It's time now for Off the Press where we look at the headlines on the front pages of our national dailies. Today we'll be looking at basically two newspapers, The Punch and The Guardian. And if we're able to lay our hands on another one, we will continue to bring you the headlines. But for now, we're being joined by our usual guests on this day, architect Ezekiel Nyaito, a public affairs analyst. I hope he's talking to us from Aquivom this morning. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Hi, good morning. Nice to hear. You're talking to us from Aquivom, right? No. I need to follow that way. Okay. Alright, so you have missed the happy hour for this week. Alright. Now, let's begin with what's on the Punch newspaper. The leading headlines is Contributory Pension. NLC retirees lament as 26 states fail to join scheme. And the writers on that story are that Lagos, five others in full compliance, Contributory Pension scheme inevitable, says Pencom. And then withholding pension immoral, says NLC. Retirement now dead sentence, retirees kick. Let's hear your comments on this headline, please. Okay. The issue of pension, I don't think that our government really understands and appreciates the concept of pension. The concept of pension is not to give government money, but to know that after somebody has worked for a certain number of years, he stops working when it is agreed that he can no longer be effective and efficient at working for more reasons than what. What that means is that that person has to have a certain means of livelihood that can continue to have a reasonable life till the end of time. So the bottom line in pension scheme is the welfare and the well-being and the appreciation to a great extent of the effort that these people have put in over the past almost 30, 35 years. But what do we find? We find a situation where there is such a factory lack of transparency. There is no good conscience towards the management of the funds of the people in the larger interest of the workers. Rather, the workers have to so far to be able to get their pension and their gratuity. Now over the years, when there have been these deductions from the salaries of the workers, the government deducts the money that they do not transmit the deductions to the pool, which is what we have even in the area of national housing funds. You have people having their deductions made religiously that when you go back to ask for the money that you have so that you'll be able to do certain types of businesses or even if you don't want to do businesses, you'll be able to have that money-generating income for you and you'll feed on the proceeds for the rest of your life. Those things are not there. As a result, workers are starting to ask themselves some very technical questions, one of which is, what's the wisdom in my continuing to be a part of this business? And they want to opt out. I know what it took them of us to be able to be part of the realignment of the national housing fund so as to buy the buy-in of different states to come back to the scheme. And right now, there is that related transparency so so many states are starting to come on board that this contributory pension scheme, I think that the way forward is for the government to be able to let all the workers know why it is in their better interest for them to continue to contribute. Pension funds form a very, very, very large bulk of monies that can be deployed in ways that will guarantee return on the investment and the security of the funds, those two core functions. They are setting investments long-term infrastructural that it can do where such is guaranteed to be very, very transparent and accountable. So I think these are basically the concerns, the moments we start to see. Pension funds, what should be managed in the larger interest of the pensioners and not what you can use and get money from. And the workers have no great idea of how it's being run. I think those are just because I've interrogated very, very, very fast workers on this subject matter. And they just don't see the end from the beginning. The moment that is done is a scheme that is very necessary, absolutely necessary for every country. But it is a scheme that must be run based on confidence of the workers. Yeah, and I think it's not only the government that is to blame. Some private institutions as well, they deduct this money from their workers but they do not remit it to where they appropriate quarters so that these people can access their pension fund when they need this pension fund. But I'd also like you to remember that the government even borrows from pension money while the pensioners themselves do not have this money. It's weird. You see, this is the fundamental. Government should not primarily see pension as a source of funds for them. No, they should see it primarily as what you might need for a reward of a man that might not be able to work. Now, how does it think of you? How does it feel that a man gives safety of a woman, safety of 35 years of her or his life and at return it is blind. Does not have an idea of exactly what she has or what is possible. From time you must operate a very transparent system of communicating with the contributors. So, progressively they can see how their funds are building up also enlighten them on the possibilities of the utilization of those funds from their retirement so that they retire into comfort and, you know, the comfort is not in terms of, you know, uplift or luxury. There is that, you know, weight of little comfort. There is that assurance, there is that certainty that they can live the rest of their life with relative certainty on financials. So, and also any private sector that undertakes such the government must ensure that it is obligatory, mandatory, compulsory for them to create a platform of transparency where the workers that they deducted their salaries from see exactly what their entitlements are and put entitlements must be guaranteed by government policy. Well, talking about government, it brings us to the next headline here which is on the new boss of the anti-graft agency, EFCC. He says anti-graft war should start from the National Assembly. You remember he has just been given the nod, he has been passed by the National Assembly that he could be the chairman of EFCC. He has been confirmed as chairman of EFCC and the first statement he has made is that the fight against this corruption has to start from the National Assembly. We do hope that this will not put him in a bad light in such a way that he will be disgraced out of office as well because as one of the eggheads said, corruption has a way of fighting back because we've seen past EFCC chairs that have been disgraced out of office. Some of them we know that we were doing some investigations into matters that concerned very big names in our country and for instance, Bauer, who is the immediate past, he has resigned how the conditions for that resignation we do not know but he's still in jail as it were, more than 100 days after he was put there which is not supposed to be 24 hours but 24 hours has dragged into months upon months. So this is what he has said. I do not know what your comments are on that. National Assembly should be the place that anti-grab war should begin. Do I use the word commentary as a remark? If you know how some of these things work, the president has a higher and higher prerogative. The National Assembly can only confirm. For him to, and after confirming, there's nothing they can do again. Okay, effectively. Do you know there was a station where the National Assembly refused to confirm an EFCC boss and the president refused to change the person and the person was there for over four years. The only difference is you call the person acting chairman and acting chairman is long. People who know the interview call the acting chairman. They continue to call the chairman post-off, confirmed or not confirmed. So for that guy to make that statement at the time where the National Assembly had the power to deny him and he told them that, I'm going to start from here. I think he's very, very bold and audacious and he probably knows what we don't know. And at the end of the day, he was still concerned. So even when you had the knife and the yam, you could not cut. Now that both the knife and the yam have left and because the chairman is the yam and the president is the knife so the president gave you this knife to cut the yam. And now that you've confirmed it, you have handed the knife back to the president so the yam is intact. Well, you can go back as a rat and eat that yam. I said you can go back as a rat and eat that yam because officially they couldn't have done anything. No, you are right. All they need to do is do your very right because if you start to push it on them they will now go back as a rat by threatening the president with impeachment if he does not remove it. So there are many ways or threatening with the law of the budget or threatening so they can actually go back as a rat. The life you want to go back as a rat where you had the knife to cut the yam but there was really nothing to cut because the guys had done nothing to them but I think it was very bold of him, very audacious for him to say it in front of them there and then before the confirmation that this battle will start from here. And on a serious note I found that quite reassuring and people say talking too that the Bible says a man is ensnared by the words of his mouth say it. When I talk to people just say it. That's some thing, you know. Hello. Yeah, I can hear you, go ahead. I lost your audio for a moment. I effectively landed that. I thought you wanted to check another item or something. No, no, no. Okay, but we can go to another headline still on the National Assembly. Now we've seen some kind of brouhaha within the National Assembly but the Senate president has visited the president and said there is no conflict at all in the National Assembly. So this headline is saying Acquabio, that is the Senate president, meets Tinobu, dismisses crisis in the Senate. Remember that a few days ago one of the assembly members, not assembly, the Senate members staged a walkout because of what happened in the National Assembly and now he's saying... Being the one that overruled was not being overruled. So I don't know. Do you believe that what Acquabio is saying is really true? Don't you see a crack of some sort in the National Assembly? You see, sometimes we over essential and personalize certain issues. Politics is a game of interest and intrigue. There's a saying in our language that you know, this might not be understood by the young people because it's no longer a tradition. In those days, the tradition was for the father to marry a wife for the, especially the Akpan which is like the first son. That was the tradition then. So he did Akpan, he's a father who is not forthcoming. So he now devices a means of, you know, just the politics of trying to play with the father's favorite wife, you know? And if I will notice, unlike... Oh boy, look at this one. He started to look at my wife for a better married wife for him so that he will leave my wife alone. You understand me? So if the Akpan does not pretend to be looking at the father's favorite wife, the father may not marry a wife for him. So sometimes some of the intrigues that you find in the National Assembly is not an account of a crisis but to create a negotiation platform. And sometimes the negotiation that they have in mind has not even come to the fore yet. But you know, politicians are very, very... Let me use the word crafting. They are what I believe was described, I think it was the one that is described instead of as an evil genius. You know, if you know what politicians do, they are ingenuity. I hope they can bring such level of ingenuity into governance. Politians know how to win elections. They know what to do. I'll tell you this. One of my friends was telling me of a guy that was extremely popular and was sure of winning an election. So what they did was overnight before the election, they jumped his friend, you know, they sprinkled a plot of a goat, you know, near the fence. And testing in the morning, 6 a.m., they saw this out with police men that the man was carrying out rituals and they should go and see that blood somebody... So they went and actually saw the blood so they took the man for interrogation. The man was there for interrogation until the election was over. And at the end of the day, the results came back, the proposed results. Okay, sorry we have done a research on it and we discovered that it's not a human blood, but a blood of animal. So sorry, you can go. He was released to go to a guesswork, a lesson not finished. And the opponent had won. So you can see how ingenious that politicians can be and then the same applies in the National Assembly. So I wouldn't be one of those things that there are any cracks in the National Assembly. Rather, I would say that the gains of interest are playing out. I would like to commend the Senate president is a very huge stepping in managing the situation. Don't forget that this guy was by Governor for eight years. And within that period, if you go back to a quiet room today, he remains, apart from architecture, that is loved naturally for more reasons than what. Outside of that, there's a certain charisma and charm that Mr. Fabio brings to the table. And he does that, and he's also a man that reaches out. You'll be surprised that at night he goes to visit you. So he won, he had a woman himself to the heart of the people, that would not stop politicians from bringing things, don't go their way, and there's no way that things will go everybody's way. Okay, politics, talking about politics, we're going now to Ando Stitt as it is. Ando Assembly asked Ayode Tiwa to withdraw suits. The deputy governor of Ando Stitt has been on the fire, even though we don't know where the governor himself is, he's whereabouts we don't know, and lawyers have come out to say that the constitution gives him that power, or at least doesn't stop him from governing the state from anywhere. So he can be in the UK, he can be in America, he can be in China or Afghanistan, and govern the state. So that is what the constitution allows, according to some of the legal luminaries that we've had talking. But right now, because of the intervention of the APC National Executive Committee or the National Working Committee, the assembly members are not talking about impeachment anymore, but right now they are telling the deputy governor to withdraw all the suits that he instituted in the courts. Yeah, you see, the Bible says that all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. I find it very lame, the argument that you can govern from everywhere. Of course you can govern from everywhere. And then you should ask yourself is that the best in the interest of the generality of the people? Is government about you or about the people? You know, we have brought ourselves levels in this country where Nigeria is one man responsible and then your state is one man called your government and we live for 4 to 6 80 years on the wings and caprices of that one person. And it doesn't move either 200 million people as the president or depending on the population in your area, five women about a little over several million people. And that's wrong. That's not okay. Now we all human, we're all human and we know that anybody can be incapacitated health wise and we pray for people to get their health back for more reasons than one. Apart from dominance, the government needs to have to enjoy his life as a healthy person. But if for any reason in the interim there is this situation what should you really do with all good conscience? It's clear that if you do unto others as you would have others do unto you if you were on the other side of the case how would you feel if a man is incapacitated one way or the other? And then you insist on being there and I think the National Assembly should actually go back and look at this concept of joint speaking this concept of vice president or deputy governor and make sure that they make that office to be effective and functional. And if when you are a deputy governor you should also know that your primary objective is supported we know the administration of good love, Jonathan we don't remember who was there we talk of the administration of the immediate past president President Buhari we talk of the administration of OBJ so you as a deputy governor you must know that that is not your administration it's the administration of your principal so you must give your principal the highest level of loyalty even when he's not on the pitch you don't go and show on you ambition and then start to pass on this way out of this loyalty but is this really ambition? when you were held incapacitated will you be happy? I don't know is this really ambition if the governor is absent and there is a deputy governor it is believed that he should step into the shoes and do the needful but this seems or it keeps looking like there are people who know that if the deputy governor steps into those shoes maybe there are some things that he shouldn't know and they don't want the state to be governable for him they want the governor wherever he is to still be at the helm of affairs so that they can control whatever is happening because the governor cannot can't super intend over things when he is not present so there are people who are doing that for him and it's not the deputy governor should this even be if the deputy governor can be treated like this what's the point of having a deputy governor and not just have AIDS that you can send? let me tell you something one of the laws that we should have in my opinion is that if you have been a deputy governor you cannot participate in an election that comes immediately after your turn off when we do that we will start to have deputy governors that concentrate on the work because deputy governors rather than supporting their leaders as a springboard for them to launch their ambition so what I want to propose and I want National Assembly to consider is that if you have been a deputy governor you cannot participate but in running that office if your your principal goes for a second term and wants to continue with you no problem but know that when you complete your AIDS you cannot run for the office of the governor until a tenor has expired if they do that then deputy governors will concentrate on supporting their principals which is supposed to be their primary role and there will never be a time where you step into your shoes as a deputy governor even when your principal is incapacitated you step into his shoes except by way of death where you can now be the one not to go for resignation but so long as that man is still alive even in his feet the shoes are not yours the shoes are not in next shoes but can this thing happen in other climes where you are outside your state for so long because of illness and you still hold on to power that is incapacitation as far as I'm concerned you cannot see I understand and you're still there clinging on to power why are we like this let me tell you because we do not see governance as a platform of studies we see it as a platform of reward what am I talking about there are two set of people number one is the principal himself and number two is the people that were responsible for bringing him into office so even when the principal is incapacitated those who brought him to office who are having an understanding with him don't want another person to come in and that is why we need to interrogate our electoral processes cabal why must we allow people to kill themselves to become governments why can't we as individuals simplify this process but ok look at America I keep giving this example Donald Trump is a globally acknowledged felonier in dollars you and I know that the abstract Americans were constituting their 5 dollars their 10 dollars their accounts were being shown and on a weekly basis they were constituting money to run the elections as a result Donald Trump cannot say to you guys that I brought out my money the powerful group the lobby group is supposed to be a law that limits how much people contribute to elections but you know that is absolute I don't even know I don't want to use an offensive word why do we have laws that just don't make any difference they tell you that as a governor you cannot spend more than say 5 billion initially it was only 1 billion and you know that I have run government I know how much personal money I brought in you know that you are looking like boy scout what is that nobody is listening to what is 1 billion what is that you will send it over spending 2-3 billion in a private alright there is only one question from the Guardian newspaper we have seen politicians leverage electoral act loopholes to evade scrutiny that one is self-explanatory we have been talking about this all the time US vetoes UN resolution to ceasefire in the middle is allies snob Biden and China commits to refinancing competition of a but worries that Naira slums further to 1,100 Naira to a dollar in official market we have one minute to talk about this and go wrap up please let me tell you something sometimes I find something infuriated I find the thing to social very difficult because you have seen a car catching fire simple wisdom says bring fire extinguisher and turn off the fire they were sitting down and having conversations having discussions having all sorts of things to talk about the fire by the kind that we are through the houses or the car whatever is completely burnt down the issue of this Naira to show painful and safe forward question number one where is the problem where the demand the demand for dollar is the supply of dollar dollar exchange that we go up there is no other economy in the world I will tell you something different from what this simplistic architecture says what are we asking ourselves where do we get dollars from to be a number two how can we stop the demand for dollar simple where do we get dollars from and how do we stop the demand for dollar those two discussions let's take the second part how do we stop the demand for dollar why do we demand the demand for dollar let's be brief about it please and we will tell you number one speculation Nigerians are starting to exchange Naira for dollar to keep why are they doing that because they believe that the dollar is going to keep rising so that their Naira is going to become worthless and they are starting to justify that they are correct what will these Nairu God may do they will try to attack that mentality viciously by looking for ways to control and stop the further slide and then even give people the body language that is going to start coming down we may have to save this discussion that the dollar came down 900 to 700 we may have to save the discussion for another day architect because I think this discussion should take a whole lot of time than this but you have said the president we need to stop whatever we need to stop we need to make sure that the dollar doesn't you go another program time is too short but I'd like to thank you this morning for coming on the show we do hope to meet again next week on the show thank you so much thanks for the privilege we've been talking with architect Ezekiel Nyaito a public affairs analyst we were looking at the headlines our break will be very short when we return we'll be looking at the facts that 94% of elected offices are with tribunal and INX credibility has sunk to the lowest low stay with us