 Welcome back to the breakfast. You are still watching our breakfast on plus TV Africa, and it's time for our first hot topic. We shall be taking a look at Senate's approval of President Mohammed Buhari's 22.7 trillion-dollar ways and means extra budgetary spending. And we have been joined by Mr. Biardo Xiaomi, a political affairs analyst here in Lagos. Good morning, Mr. Xiaomi. Good morning. All right. Well, not a few Nigerians are outraged by this last minute spending, and it has raised lots of questions. And one of them is the competence of Nigeria's Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning talking about Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, especially when compared with her predecessors like Ms. Kemi Adoshio and Dr. Ongozi Okyonjo Iwela. How would you describe Mrs. Zainab? Would you say she knows her job, or is she just being her master's servant at the detriment of Nigerians? Hello. Mr. Xiaomi, looks like we've lost a bit of connection there. Hello. Okay. Well, we'll try and reconnect with him so that we can have this discussion in earnest. He's back, I think. Yeah. Hello, Mr. Xiaomi. Unmute yourself. We still, we can't hear you. I don't know, maybe. I can't hear you. Okay. I can't hear you loud enough. We can't hear you now. All right. So, did you get to hear my questions before we had that disruption? Yes. All right. So, please go ahead and answer. So, it's on the Senate approval of a credit line to the regime through its supplementary budget. It's quite very embarrassing to say the least, that even at this three light hour, we can still go on credit spray. Do not forget one thing. This is not even money that the country has. We are borrowing, and that is all we're doing. Currently, we're talking about a figure of a combined state and federal debt of about 77 trillion Naira, which we handed over to the incumbent administration. Out of it, about 48 trillion Naira is the fairer ratio of internal and external debt. So, what will be the basis of going on this kind of credit spray? It's not spending spray, credit spray, you know, at this time. And again, very embarrassing is also the role of this Senate, the National Assembly. You know, it's quite shocking that many of the senators who choose to approve that supplementary budget request being made less than a month to the terminal date of this administration. For me, there is no other way to explain this other than we are behaving in a very reckless way, not minding what happens in the future, not minding what happens to the next administration and how they will manage the economy. We're already in trouble. Do we need to keep digging? When you're in a hole, you don't keep digging, keep thinking of how to get out of here. So, look, I have to be careful with the choice of words, but I would say very embarrassing. Well, yes, the Senate has no doubt been described as rubber stump, almost all Nigerians having that narrative about the Ninth Assembly. But we are talking about the minister of finance, budget and national planning, allowing this kind of, giving this kind of advice to the president at this point in time, 26 days, 25 days to go, and some of the other things that we have seen play out in the course of the eight years of this administration. So, can you just tell us, having looked at the works of this finance minister, how would you rate her in terms of delivery and decisions? Well, I was first state, clearly, that the funding is expected to come from the credit line to me, which originally was designed for a credit line of one trillionaire, now which is already over 23 trillionaire. Now, in relation to the finance minister, in my view, she is probably responsible for the state of things we found ourselves in, because she is responsible not only for the fiscal policies, she is also responsible for planning the national budgets and presenting it not only to the executive council, to the federal executive council, but also to the National Assembly. So, when you find a minister who has embarked on a reckless borrowing to fund the economy, to the extent that we have an unprecedented debt in the history of our country, there is nothing else to say complementary to that minister, other than to say that it's quite unfortunate that we have such a person as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, placed in charge of half-riders. A lot of things went wrong with the Boali's administration. There were a lot of things that were also right, but a lot of things went wrong and particularly the economy has gone haywire. So also, including the leadership of the economy, both at the central bank and the minister of finance, they've gone haywire and there is nothing complementary that can be said. It might be about their performance given the impact on every Nigerian and on our country in general. Well, as we're sharing the blame cake, how would you describe the actions of the National Assembly? Because they recently approved money that we've heard of. They said this was money that had been spent already without the National Assembly giving it any legal backing. So the presidency collected this money, spent arbitrarily and then came back to the National Assembly for approval after it has been spent and they did approve it. So what would you describe the National Assembly as? Well, the approval is due to what? Like I tried to point out earlier, the money was pulled from central bank through the ways and means. Yeah, okay, just before, just to add to that, as you're answering, the ways and means, the percentage for the ways and means was supposed to be about five percent, I think. Now, from expert's analysis, they have gone more than 2000 percent taking from the ways and means and the National Assembly keeps approving and then complaining later that the borrowing is too much. So in your answer, add that today to the fray. The ways and means were supposed to borrow one trillion naira, two ways and means. Now, we've gone over to 20 something trillion, over 20 trillion, almost 20 trillion naira, two ways and means. And then we now came back for the proactive approval. Do you spend a money not approved in a budget? If a budget hasn't been approved, you cannot spend it. But they have spent the money, they came back, asked for the approval and the Senate in its wisdom decided to approve it. Well, I'm inclined to agree with some people who felt that the current Senate is more or less a robot stand of the executive. We cannot have a balanced democracy if this is what would happen. These are people who are supposed to pull, you know, ask questions, you know, pull the president up to say, look, you cannot do this. Even if we're going to have to approve it, we still have to censure it. There's nothing of sort. Rather, they got that and then they approve it. I am also just in any underhand tactics used to secure that. But the fact is when you look at the record of this Senate under Amrila, one right from day one, is that of a very pliant Senate which has been doing the bidding of the executives without bothering about their own functions of legislative oversight over the activities and functions of the executives. All right. Well, that brings us to questions about how the 10th assembly should be formed. I mean, in terms of leadership. And if this 9th assembly have displayed this kind of in quote, impunity, approving what should have not been approved, what might we expect of the 10th assembly? What kind of leadership are you hoping to see play out come formed in the upcoming 10th assembly? To see to it that these kind of approvals that should not have been given is not made a standard in our economy. To be honest with you, I doubt whether we're capable of producing a Senate of its own pliant like this one. When you look at the composition of the next Senate, it's going to be totally different. You have more parties represented. We have Labor Party, YPP, Young People's Party, ADC, PDP, APC. So you have so many opposition parties represented in that Senate. So I doubt whether we will be able to produce the same pliant Senate like this one. What we're likely going to see is that even within the APC, there are people who will be interested in what the government is planning to do or what they are doing. The reason is this. Many top decisions will be taken and many controversial decisions will be taken by the next administration in order to rescue our country. So this will generate in terms of not only within the APC, it will excite the opposition. It will excite the populace because of the biting effects, the excruciating pains of the removal of 12 subsidies. So therefore, you're likely going to see a more vibrant, more persistent Senate rather than a pliant Senate in the next administration. It does not matter how the leadership will emerge this time. What would happen is the impact of those controversial, those essential policies that will be taking, the impact of it on the populace, on everybody will generate and excite so many debates in a way that the Senate will not be as pliant as the one we have currently. But the fear, the fear is that even now that the student leadership or the National Assembly leadership has not been formed as it is. There is this lobbying of the president-elect to anoint candidates for leadership positions in the National Assembly. Do you see those people, if eventually they get this position, as people who can talk for themselves? Well, we've even seen a particular candidate who's going to lobby the current president to assist him in that process, to endorse. It doesn't matter whatever they choose to do, whichever way they choose to achieve their goal. At the end of the day, the reality will dawn on everybody in the sense that many tough decisions will be taken and because of that, that will excite a lot. Look, we are looking at even a time when there will be organized labor, season of strikes and all that will come in. So the idea of people thinking we have a pliant Senate in the next administration, for me, it's not real. It's not likely going to happen. What we're likely going to happen is many important policies and decisions have been taken by the next administration would generate a lot of excitement, would generate a lot of debate about whether it is right or appropriate or the effects of it or what government needs to do to ameliorate the impact on the populace. So no matter who emerges the Senate president, it is most unlikely that we'll have a more pliant or an equally pliant Senate like the president. What we see now is that we need to send the right people to the National Assembly because our debates outside the National Assembly for a long time now have not really mattered that much. And when you find front runners in this Senate leadership or this National Assembly leadership campaigning with something like, I have four wives and 28 children, that means I'm going to do well. It gives you worry as a Nigerian. How can you say because you have four wives and 28 children you can be a good leader in the National Assembly? If you use that as something that shows how much of wisdom that you have, it will worry some of us. Does it mean people with one wife will not be able to do that and you because you're married four, that is a credential that we should be applauding? So it gives us worry. The constitution of the National Assembly in the first place and if they're going to take good decisions and if they don't take good decisions, these debates that you're talking about, if it's coming from the people, how much will it matter? Because it almost always ends on the floor of the house. What decision they take, whatever else everybody says does not matter. So does it not worry you? Yes, the quality of the people elected to the National Assembly at times and including currently the incoming vote is quite very worrying. So we have situations where people with questionable disposition to public good, people with questionable characters and getting elected into the Senate. Once they're elected, there's nothing you can do. We now have people interested in asking questions about their loyalty to their constituents. To start with, where will they be loyal to their constituents? There's a particular Nigerian who is a 15 member of our Supreme Court who also contested first criminal interrogation and also getting elected again. These are the kind of characters we have in the Senate. So when you have problems or issues with the criminal justice system, blame the executives for exploiting it to ensure that their beats are done by those elected, which at times some of the blame should be shared by the populace. Because that way, we are aware of the sum of those characters and then we end up electing them one way or the other and only to end up lamenting that they're not doing what they're elected to do. So if you have to look at the problem property, part of the problem is also, you know, we the populace, we the credible candidates at times and just to jump on the bandwagon of the bigger political parties. So this is part of the problem. Whatever happens at the end of the day, it's Nigerians that matters and all Nigerians are excited on any government policies. Whether the Senate likes it or not, you have to take appropriate and properly address it. Well, leadership involves political calculations and we have seen leaders come and go. And as you have said, the executive will jump into any opportunity it has. So let's compare for us if you can. Bukala-Saraki's leadership and Ahmed Lawan's leadership, just to give us some sort of excitement, if you will, over this matter. Compare these two leaders in their times. Yes, honestly speaking, there's no business for comparison. The last time we had a vibrant second, it was when Bukala-Saraki was the leader of the Senate. That doesn't make the Senate perfect. Manda is leadership. There were mistakes. There were some things that they could have done better. But there should be no business for comparison with Lawan. Ahmed Lawan is just completely, very client Senate. And in fact, to be honest with you, that leadership should also be believed like the executive for the current state of things, either on security issues or for the economic problem challenges that we are facing currently. So there should be no business at all. Bukala-Saraki provided a very good platform to carry out legislative oversight. And they did that excellently compared to the present Senate leadership who have chosen to abandon their own responsibility. Okay, Mr. Showami, that's the module we can take on the segment of the program. We'd like to say thank you to you for your thoughts and insights into these issues that we raised. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. Okay, we've been talking with Mr. Biodon Showami, political affairs analyst here in Lagos state. We'll take a short break. And when we return, we will be talking with someone else who will tell us about spa and health benefits for us, especially in Lagos. Stay with us.