 The Social Economic Rights Accountability Project CERAP has sued President Bola Tinubu over his failure to probe allegations that $2.1 billion and $3.1 trillion public funds are missing and unaccounted for between 2016 and 2019. This morning we'll be taking a look at what CERAP is talking about and how they intend to achieve it on the breakfast. In order to solve the perennial problem of epileptic power supply in Nigeria, President Tinubu has signed into law the Electricity Act 2023, which enables the demonopolization of Nigeria's electricity generation transmission and distribution at the national level and empower states, companies and individuals to generate, transmit and distribute electricity. How will this impart on both the economy and the general well-being of the populace? We'll be taking a look at that on the show this morning. We'll also be taking a look at off the press as we look at the front pages of some national dailies with our analysts who will be joining us to make sense of some of them. Good morning and welcome to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. I am Maureen and I am Nyambuul. It's good to have you join us on the show today. Today we talk tech, but today we want you to remember that tech has come to stay and how it impacts your life. Well, that's another ballgame entirely. How it impacts your life is entirely up to you. Yes, it's up to you entirely. You either allow it to impact you positively or it ruins your life whatever way you find it. However, you want to use it. Well, it's left to you to decide. Are you going to make yourself a slave to tech? You know, these days more people play, use video games and all of that to recreate as against reading of novels and doing things. And even playing, real playing, physical playing. In those days, our parents will draw us by the ears to come back in. Now they draw them by the ear to go outside to get some fresh air because everybody's in the middle. Well put there. You find parents these days, we're all guilty of it. I don't want to, I don't know whether to say guilty or not, but we find out, you know, us chatting our children. Oh, you want to do this press room, press room, press room. Stay inside. You know, so yeah, tech has become a part of our lives, a big part of our lives, but we must realize that we are humans. We are superior to computers. We are superior to technology and we are in charge. Sometimes when you find the ease which tech gives you, you have to ask yourself, is it helping you health-wise or not? Is it helping you psychologically or not? Because sometimes all we really need is people, physical people around us, friends that we can relate to and talk to and reason with, argue with even sometimes. So that's what makes for a balanced life. Maureen will always say, let there be balance. So that's what makes for a balanced life. You argue with your friends, you quarrel, you make peace and you laugh together. These things are no longer there that much. The other day I saw where people from, is it Japan or China, somewhere in the Asian countries where they were taking classes on how to smile. I was like, how is that even the thing? Take classes on how to smile. Who teaches a baby? Should that thing not come naturally? That tells you about how important they take some things and how organized they are, to be honest with you. I also saw something on BBC the other day talking about loneliness, the epidemic of loneliness. So loneliness is something that is serious. Probably more serious than some of us understand. But you know we were talking about it some time ago. Was it not last week? They need to relate with people as against just social media friendship. You need to have one-on-one interactions with people because we are social beings. Yes, you socialize on social media but it's different from when you look at someone eyeball to eyeball and talk. It's different from when you look at someone's face smiling at you and looking at your eyeballs and knowing because their eyes are the window to the soul. So it connects us to one another in ways that social media can never be able to do. Never ever. And as you get older, you realize what we are saying is very important. No matter how many gadgets you have, they can never replace human beings. Maybe that's why there's so much depression nowadays because people no longer interact with themselves. You don't make friends. People can have like 5,000 Facebook friends and you have a problem of 100,000. You cannot solve it. You cannot have somebody to be there with you. You lose someone and they greet you on social media but it's not the same as being there with you when you're crying, being there to give you a shoulder, literally give you a shoulder to cry on. It's not the same thing. It's not. And also one of the things that I am saying that is very very sad and unfortunate is how people have thrown the whole of their lives out there because of social media. So you find some couples having problems and the social media becomes their caught. I don't know. Things are so reversed now. In those days people had diaries and they guarded it with their lives. They didn't want anybody to read it. Now it's a sieve. You're putting what should be in your diary, personal diary out there and you're asking people to read and like it. Absolutely strangers most times. It's strange. It's strange to people who grew up in those days where things were still different from now. Well, we had our own reality. The people of nowadays have their own reality but there are things that don't change. Now human beings, the cravings of human beings do not change. They have not changed from the time of Adam. Technology is advancing but we are basically the same primitive man that we came. We still have the same emotions. We still have the same needs. We still have the same wants and all that. At the end of the day, if you remove technology, remove the money, remove everything, what we are left with that really matters is the same as it always has been. So why not we explore the natural ways of interaction and doing things? You know, while we're talking about this, something that has come to mind is perhaps one of the reasons why people turn to feel more comfortable with tech is the fact that human beings have also lost values, right? In the sense that we betray one another so quickly these days unlike before. Before it was a lot easier to trust people. Before it was a lot easier to count on your neighbors, your friends, your family, to have your back. But today it's become a lot easier now for people to betray one another. It's become more difficult to trust people. Sometimes you help people bring them into your home and sacrifice your space, your resources and all of that. And at the end of the day, they cut you so bad. I think we cost it. We've been preaching the gospel of selfishness. You know, think about yourself and what can I do for my love of yourself and all that. That wasn't the gospel then. The gospel then was community. Now we've removed the communion from community and what we have is just space. That wasn't what was obtainable in those days. It's like someone going into a marriage and the first thing you're thinking about is I'm going to deal with my mother-in-law. You don't even know her. You are supposed to be her child or her daughter or her son. But the first thing you have in mind is that I'm going to deal with my mother-in-law. So when you get there, you get what, because of that mindset. That horrible mindset. You attract what you think. So that's what we have been doing to ourselves now. Everybody talks about self, self. Let's do for ourselves and all that. In those days, families, extended families, we meet together, friends, we meet together. They had each other's back. You want to build a house. The community comes together and they build it for you. So that's how we used to live. A child is trained by the community, not the person. Now everybody's talking about self and that's why things that are happening to us are happening to us because mindsets have changed. Values, like you said, have changed. So technology, well, people are also trying to get drugs to make people live forever. I don't know if you would like a drug like that. To make people live forever. A metosella or even beyond. Human beings are not meant to live on earth forever. When God wanted us to live on earth forever, we bungled it in the garden of Eden and he made a plan B for that. And so that plan B is good enough for me. Thank you. Why would I live forever and not go to heaven? What am I even doing on earth? The plan B is supposed to take us to heaven. So that is good enough for me. If heaven is the way it is said to be, why should I live on earth forever? If there is no heaven. Especially if you're going to grow old. Very old. Because once you get to 90 something, I'm not sure how exciting earth will be. I doubt it will be that exciting. I doubt. You won't invite death to come like my people used to say. Death should visit from behind, not in front. If it's coming in front, you will still run away. But when it comes behind, you take it peacefully. You won't invite it, but you won't run away from it that much when you are 90. And then you're asking to live, maybe you live like vampires that we watch in the movies, you never get old. But at what age will you be and remain stagnant at? Will you keep growing old and you're growing old forever or you'll get to a certain age and then you don't age anymore? No, you start getting younger. You start getting Benjamin Burton. Benjamin Burton, that very incredible story. Oh well. Man will just keep trying. I wouldn't want to live forever. What's our second top trending? Well, the question is just that is technology the solution to everything that we have? Would you live in the moon? Let me just ask that question. Would you live in the moon if you had the opportunity? No. Why wouldn't you? Why would I? Who are those in the moon? Beautiful. Exactly. I'm going to say they're alone. Exactly what I was thinking. So why would I want to be living such an isolation? But even if there were people. It would be an interesting adventure to travel there and see what it's like, you know. But to live there, that's a different story altogether. So that shows that no matter how many people live there, even if the entire earth transports themselves to the moon and lives there, home is where your loved ones are. Home. So if I find my loved ones on earth, why would I leave them and go to the moon just because I want to be on the moon? What would I eat there that I'm not eating on earth or I cannot get on earth to eat? So I just don't know. It's fantasy. Now it's interesting how science is evolving and technology is advancing. And so you have Elon Musk, you have him and his type of people making such giant strides. As I said, if one had the opportunity to explore, why not? But living there is a different ball game altogether. I wouldn't want to live on earth, in the moon. There is nothing that will entice me to go and live in the moon. I am comfortable with the earth yet. I don't know about tomorrow whether there is only a little tear more and then we can fry eggs with just the sun. I don't know that. But for now, it's still liveable for me. And when they get that bad, I'm sure people will evolve. Human beings will evolve. The animals will evolve rather. Not every life will be lost. Some people may go, but there will be evolution and we will adapt to it. Evolution? You believe in evolution? Yeah. But no, no, I'm talking about evolution where we have to change to adapt. Not that we are going to grow from monkeys. I didn't come from a monkey. I don't think that the earth will get as hot as that. All this climate change talks. Good plans to make sure that the earth is treated well because, I mean, we need it to survive. We need to preserve the earth, modern nature, as it's called. But I don't think that the earth will get so bad to the point that human beings can no longer live safely. I think the earth may get so bad that human beings will decide not to do the things they are doing now so that it goes. But maybe destroy all the technology, maybe. Like some people say, earth may have existed before our time and they had to destroy all the knowledge. Knowledge sometimes, like the king in the scripture says, too much learning has made you mad. Sometimes I just think that too much learning, too much innovation is making us mad and we are living the real essence of being humans and just concentrating on how smart our brains could be, how much technology we can have and all that. We are forgotten about living in the now and living as human beings. Human beings and all animals. Where is supposed to be a community? This one is not like that anymore. We just say, Alexa, do this. And that is playing music, is cooking for you. It's going on errands for you. All of that. Let's look at our top trending. Anyway, this is where we are. DSS, CZS, MFLA's passport plans, home office search. That is one of our top trendings, MFLA. How powerful, how power moves is just- Very transcendent, how the mighty fall in. But it is politics. It is what it is. We've seen it play out government after government. As you were saying yesterday, there was a time when we had Sanusi and he was suspended. He fought his fight. And then now it's MFLA's turn to be suspended and fight his fight. But what we want is a situation where the process is in accordance with the rule of law. We want our democracy to be deepened, protected as it should be. That's why in all of our dealings with the presidency, the governors, elections, everything, we want to process. So this going on, we want it done within the ambience of the law so that our democracy will leave legacies for the future leaders, those who are coming after us, to have something, a good template to work on. So, yes, let them do what they got to do, but let them do within the ambience of the law. The president did promise that this administration is going to ensure there is equity, there is fairness, there is justice, and they are going to work according to the rule of the law. It's unfortunate that yesterday when we had the legal luminary come into the program, he said that what they did was wrong. They shouldn't have done what they did. So maybe that is one interpretation. There could be other interpretations. Well, I've had other lawyers like Femi Fallena, for instance, a senior advocate of Nigeria, also asking for caution in there, saying that the DSS should drill him with regards to the allegations over the sponsorship of terrorists, but send him over to the EFCC over allegations that have to do with fraud because it's not their forte. You understand? So it's all part of making sure that this thing is done according to due process. Oh, well, let's see how it goes. Nigerians are watching, and the outcome will also tell us what it is. I thank the president for trying to be proactive, and I also thank the previous assembly, the Ninth Assembly, and President Muhammad al-Buhari. Basically all the things that the new president is signing into law came from the last administration. So they must have done very fantastic work, and showing that the government or government generally is a continuum. By this administration, I think it is also a laudable thing. Let things continue like this. If we have that mindset that everything doesn't end with the previous administration and we start from a new leaf, especially policies and programs that are good enough, then we can start to move ahead. We shouldn't think about doing things just to get the glory today and forget about what the future might be. Yeah, as if you've qualified it, the good things. Because when you go to the states, some things have been obtained. In Karno state, for instance. Because when you come in and discover that the previous administration has gone ahead to sell public lands and properties to their friends and cronies, you have no choice than to revoke them and get things back in order. So if it's something good, let it continue. If it's something bad, it has to be dealt with. Which is why Serap is taking our first hard topic today. Serap taking the president to court. It's failure to investigate some monies that are said to be missing. At least make a pronouncement that we are going to look into it. Nothing has been done. Subsidy has been stopped, but people are said to have been stealing the money and this money that was given and how it was used is not clear to Nigerians and nothing has been said about it. So let's see how that also goes. If the presidency or the government will look into it or respond positively so that Nigerians begin to build confidence. Confidence is everything for a government to succeed. Okay, the next thing is president Tinnubu signs loan bill into law. Interest free. Well interest free. Let's say the loan is for indigenous students. How do we even define who is indigenous in Nigeria? Everybody right now is almost the same. I know there are people who are living in abject poverty that may not even think about sending their children to school, but even the people who are attempting to send their children to school are seeing what we will say. It has no spelling for that. It has no name for that. They are seeing fire and brimstone because of what the economy is. Now if for instance I am working here in Plus TV, nobody would look at me and say that is an indigent person. He is a poor person. But after removing what I have to, I have to take care of my family and then I have to send my children to school, will I still be able to feed even at home? No matter how the salary is, how many people who are employers of labor can pay up to let's say a millionaire to the people that are working with them. And if you don't have a millionaire as we speak right now and you have to train maybe one or two children in school, live in a place that you will be comfortable let's say in Lagos state here, you are a poor man as far as I am concerned. I understand your concern really, but I imagine you know they are setting up, this loan is going to go through what they call the Education Bank and the modalities will clarify a lot of things. We are waiting for that to come out to see how these loans can be accessed by the students. What qualifies you to be an indigent and how do you go to access the loans? So the modalities are the things we are waiting to see to be able to fully analyze it. And another thing that must follow this is job opportunities so that when the students having gone to school using this loan will be able to pay back, you know they come out, they get jobs and they pay back. Very crucial because I like this bill, I like it. Yeah it will be effectively implemented. That's the thing. If it will not be hijacked by the political cronies in power because we've seen how some of these things have gone in the past. If this would be effectively implemented and if those big part of what I saw is that those who who kind of distorted or who aid fraud with this process will be persecuted. So if it is well implemented it's a good thing because as you rightly said there are many people who want to go to school but cannot. There are many who didn't go to school today because their parents couldn't send them to school. So this is a great relief if it is well implemented. In developed countries it obtains there even in the US although they had some issues that they're dealing with in regards to student loans over there but loans for students is a welcome development if it is well implemented. So when the modalities come out we have a clearer picture of how this is going to go. Maybe we'll prompt them a little bit but if the recovery process is good enough I'm not sure they should just say indigent students because everybody will want to take advantage. If I can send my children to school comfortably I wouldn't need to go for a loan because I will have to pay back. So it's still the same thing so if I can afford it why go for a loan. It would be only people that think that at that time they cannot afford it that will want to get the loan. Some people will be individuals they don't need to be trained by their parents. There are some students that train themselves in school and they want to access this loan and all that. So maybe they should leave it open and make the recovery of these loans very very effective and if they can do that everybody or anybody who feels that they need the loan can access it. You're saying they shouldn't define it with that indigent because Nigerians will want to go there they want to access it and some of them will be thinking that they will not pay back his government money. So if they do it in such a way that the recovery is effective enough then they wouldn't have to. From what I read the penalty for defaulting 500,000 or two years imprisonment or both. So let's see how it goes. Let's see the modalities. One thing is this. I like that he is taking this action. This is part of the palliatives I'm guessing for the removal of fuel subsidy. He has said that there's going to be massive investment in infrastructure education health and other utilities that make life easier for the people. So this is one of it and we're looking for clarification so that we can understand further how students can access how Nigerians can access this because as you have said many Nigerians need this loan. Yes we know what goes on in the scholarship board what people do and what people have to go through and all that. We know what happened during the money transfer and trader money that some people were supposed to pay back and all those things. That's what I said if it to be effectively implemented because we've seen such laudable in court programs that should have helped Nigerians go down the drain. They were hijacked at different levels. I mean I saw pictures videos of this when they did this school program thing apart from the obvious ones that we saw where they said it was implemented when children were in school during the COVID, children were at home during the COVID period. The period when it was in children were in session and it was on. I saw the stew I mean if it can be called stew then you saw the agage bread that was cut into how many pieces that was given to a child. I mean you wouldn't even want your child to eat something like that. So we want to see a situation where this will be effectively implemented that is just the key. If this government is going to show itself to be different and if Nigerians will indeed begin to have a rethink because you can't keep calling the government bad all the time, if you yourself you are bad in your own end because this school feeding program was messed up because from the very top people were taking their own cuts. They weren't cut. They weren't cut and then it got to the school. Of course the schools too were taking their own cut and cut and cut and cut before it got to the person who was contracted to cook the food. I don't know how much would have gotten to the cook. Some of them are being hotel now. Exactly. Some of them that the money has not reached them yet. They were just asked to believe and in faith they were cooking and so they will cook what their money could carry and all that. We've seen Angkor's borrower's program how much billions of Naira have been lost because the reclaiming of this money is not effective and it's not because it cannot be effective but because some people that should drive this process may be culpable as well. Maybe they are part of the people who will cut. You are due for a million Naira and you are given 300,000. Every other one is lost. You either take it or you leave it because it's Angkor's borrower's program and it will make you know that even if they're not telling you officially you don't have to return. So people who need it will not have it. People who have it do not even need it and so when we're talking food security we still mention the fact that farmers are impoverished and all that and all that. Some of them cannot get the farm imputes to make sure that their farms do well and all that. One of the presidents spoke to a person who spoke about this case. Delia Lakeha said those who corrupt the process and those who ate those who corrupt the process will be persecuted because I tell you if President Tanubu wants anything done if he wants to succeed he must deal with corruption thoroughly and must be seen to be dealing with it. Gone are the days of talk. We must see actions matching these words in the fight against corruption. It must not be selective. Let us see a holistic approach in dealing with corruption because that is the only way anything can work in the country. Corruption has become so endemic that nothing is going to work if you don't deal with corruption decisively. Also the education system must be worked on. The standard of education has fallen so badly so if people are getting these loans to go to these schools they should be able to get quality education so that it will be worth it all at the end of the day because part of the problems that have been said about you know graduates these days is that most of them are not employable so you want to make sure that as they're getting these loans to go to these schools that these schools are good enough for what they're going there for. And they should change the curriculum somewhat so that the education you get is what you can be self-reliant on. For a long time too long we've been thinking about government jobs. Government cannot give us jobs. It's you and I. It's the ordinary mind that has a business that's going to employ people. More people can work for the private sector than the government. How much can the government do? The curriculum has to change to give education of self-reliance and not just thinking about how someone else will employ you. And also the polytechnic should be concentrated on technical education like that should be concentrated on. And then there's this disparity between degree and hnd holder so everybody wants to be a degree holder so that you will earn more and be respected more even though the knowledge that you have might even be more if you attend a polytechnic because you have more hands-on you're more practical and all that. So something should be done about these small things that matter in the educational system so that we don't talk about government all the time. See a sector like like entertainment that doesn't really need government. See how it's flourishing. See the see musicians, see movie makers and all that. How much help have they had from government? Where government comes in is a policy. Policies? Fix the curriculum. Be jigged. Make it more competitive globally so that when our students go through this education system they come out fully equipped to be fully you know competitive. Even these technical things that we're talking about let them be well-certified okay and then in the universities let there be some practicality involved in the teachings. As you have said move away from the theories and let it be more practical so that as you finish school become starting so yourself without even looking for a job. I have had course to teach some graduates that have been under me. I've taught them and there's some basic questions you ask them and you find out that in their school some of them like some of them that read mass communication for instance in their schools they either don't have a functioning radio station or radio studio that they can do the practicals or if it's functioning the population is so great that some of them never get to see it until the graduate from school. So how do you expect that person to come out and be what you expect him to be when he has never had it had had the practical knowledge in school before coming out? So things like these like you said everything has to be effective enough so that we will know that the graduates we are we are churning out are employable not only in Nigeria but everywhere else. We had a guest the other day who is a proprietor of school if you remember and she said that she had to run three curricula the one of Nigeria and then the one of maybe America and Canada so that the students can be competitive. Why do you have to bring a curriculum from Canada or America it is because our own curriculum is not competitive enough. It's not competitive enough. So something needs to be done about it. All right so you're watching The Breakfast is Technophile edition of the show because today is Tuesday and that's how we that's how we roll on Tuesdays. Stay with us we'll be right back to continue with the program.