 Thanks for joining us on Off The Press on the breakfast. Let's take a look at the Ponshnie's paper. The headline still remains on the VAT collection row. It says, no going back on bill, Lagos insists. Adamoa backs Wiki. No points stain action. Court has dismissed FIRS stay of execution. That's according to Lagos. Adamoa Hale's Reavers Cut Judgment says it'll improve state's revenue. Above that headline on the Ponshnie's paper, Nigeria's bilateral loans rise by 145% in five years. States submit PIA proposed amendments at next Federal Account Allocation Committee meeting. Inge Gea says the federal government is not owing doctors and other health workers' salaries. Citizens, foreigners, scared of investing in Nigeria. That's according to the NESG. Ten banks rake in 266 billion Naira from account maintenance and e-banking fees. Ten banks rake in 266 billion Naira from account maintenance and e-banking fees. Keep Southwest safe, Oyotola tells Amotecum. Buhari warns service chiefs as Katsina Kuduna bandits abduct 26. Fier groups Ogun community as 25 die of cholera. Oil, gas, GDP contribution drops by 3.25 trillion Naira in two years. 64-year-old Ogun estate agents allegedly defy us two-year-old. OAU dismisses lecturer over sexual harassment of students and National Assembly berates INIC as commission insists on electronic results. All right, let's move to the Daily Independent Newspapers. Should be on your screen next. Yes, it says on insecurity. Again, Buhari gives service chiefs marching orders. Worried bandits attacks becoming more persistent. Six super-articano aircraft on test flight says Magashi. Also, why Nigeria can't achieve competitive private sector-led economy and that's by the NESG. WK asks UN to tell Buhari to conduct free and fair elections in 2023. Also on the Daily Independent, Sunday Bohor court extends restraining order against AGF and DSS. Namdekano demands five billion Naira damages. Apology from Malami and the DSS. Still on the Daily Independent, no plan by NCC to shut down telecom sites in Katsina. Federal government fingered frustrating trade facilitation at ports. And also, we don't need additional laws for e-transmission of results, says INEC. Says it doesn't need NCC to not transmit results electronically. And finally, Dr. Strike Lingers, as in Gigi Alleges' campaign of Calumni against federal government, insists no medical staff is owed salaries. Let's look at the next newspaper now, the leadership. The headline reads, 2023 permutation changes as North Central Lobby's APC PDP for tickets. Okay. Says region should produce next president for fairness, equity and justice. This owns politicians from North Central seeking party national championship positions. Again, PMB orders security chiefs to end abductions and killings, as bandits abduct 18 in Kaduna state. Sultan tells Northern Governors to domesticate Child Rights Act now. National Assembly can't legislate on Grayson, that's according to senior advocates of Nigeria. FG urged to sell $900 billion dead assets. Nigeria Assembly condemns 300,000 Waik and Neco fees. Ned Uoku tackles governors over $418 million Paris Club refund. All right. And I'm moving on to the Guardian newspapers. NSA absent as service chiefs get fresh order to end killings. Nigeria takes delivery of another batch of Super Tucano jets next week. Terrorists in Zamfara being clothed as bandits, says Akira Dulu. Lagos fiber project to Gop 82 billion Myra made ROW change or charges concerns. INEC insists on e-transmission of results without recourse to NCC. Also on the Guardian, gunmen abduct 26 in Kaduna and Katsina. Fifteen fear dead as cholera outbreak hits Ugun. Lockdown, anxiety as Buhari visits Imo tomorrow. Those are the big ones on the Guardian, the newspapers. And just before we have our guest joiner, I think we can quickly just chip in on the service chiefs being given more orders. And probably hearing this for the 90 second time in the last few years, it makes the headlines every now and then that they've been given fresh orders or fresh charges and all of that, which I personally don't understand if they have to, if the president needs to renew these charges every three weeks or, you know, I don't know, you know, because I know that when they were sworn in, they were given orders. They knew what their responsibilities were. They knew the reason that they were sworn in as the new service chiefs who had these security agencies. So it's like ordering a cook to go ahead and cook. Yeah, exactly. You know, why do you why does the president need to give fresh orders every other week to remind them of what they should do? They know if they aren't doing it, if they are not working, then maybe, you know, other things or different approaches to be taken, or maybe they should be fired. You know, I remember, you know, before these new service chiefs came in, Andrews clamored over and over and over and over and over, you know, for, I did the second of the service chiefs or something a totally different tactic. But instead, you know, what the Nigerian president continued to do is the same thing, you know, give fresh orders, give fresh charges, you know, every other, you know, a period which doesn't seem to be working. Your fresh charges aren't working. Your fresh orders aren't working because, like we've read in the news, gunmen have adopted another 26 in Kaduna and Katzina. What needs to change? What needs to be done? What are the different questions that need to be asked? I mean, what ways do we need to do better? And you know, I think we've had these security conversations for so long without bringing in, you know, our borders. I don't hear in anywhere where the government is speaking or giving fresh orders to immigration or to whoever is responsible to ensure that none of Nigeria's borders are porous. We have hundreds of porous borders across the country and certain parts of the country that people simply just walk between one country to the next like, you know, you're walking across the street. And that's, you know, has been a challenge security-wise. I don't hear a lot of voice from the presidency concerning closing those borders. Where do these weapons come from? These terrorists, and I've said this so many times, these aren't locally made weapons. The proliferation of arms in Nigeria is one of the biggest challenges through God's security. Why aren't there any fresh orders to ensure that we completely put this to an end? Who is funding these terrorists? Where are they making money from? Who is backing them? Who, you know, exactly is responsible for all the deaths that have happened in Nigeria in the last few years. There has to be funding from somewhere. There has to be money that is being made from either the levies that, you know, the small taxes that the tax villagers in certain parts of the country, or the money that they get from, you know, ransom payments or some of all of that. But there is funding coming from somewhere that the federal government needs to speak on. And I don't hear that either. I remember the UAE, I believe, had pointed out, you know, that they had, you know, discovered some people who were financing terrorism in Nigeria. The United States also offered to help Nigeria find other people who were responsible for terrorism financing in Nigeria. There's still no fresh orders concerning that. And so it looks or it sounds very much like a, you know, a, you know, every four market days go put out a new fresh order, you know, tell the newspapers that we've given a fresh order to these... And beyond the fresh order, we need to point out that kidnapping and insecurity are still on the rise. I mean, on the Guardian, it says that government have blocked a 26 in Kaduna and Katina. We saw the story as well on the Daily Independent about, you know, insecurity. We saw it as well on the leadership newspaper Bandits of Doc 18 in Kaduna. It's also on the punch newspaper here. You know, so what really happened into the orders? Are they just empty words? Because I keep saying that political will seems to be the challenge. So you could come ahead and release a million press releases and nothing changes. Is what are the actions being put in place? What are the results of these committees that have been set up on insecurity? President Mahbubu Hariri had a security meeting yesterday. So I'm sure that's where he gave those orders. So what really is the outcome? Let's see, like, what are the practicable outcome that we can see on ground beyond all the big words and the big grammar? Yeah. And at the end of all of this, there's still the foundational reason why terrorism and banditry and murders and some of all of this was able to grow so fast in Nigeria. There are still those reasons that don't seem to be addressed in any way, in these different states. Bear in mind that the NCC and the government had put out a statement that it was going to be shutting down telecom networks in different regions. Exactly. But it still doesn't seem to have answered the questions concerning insecurity. And how do people also put out distress calls without having good telecom services? So there is many, many of these conversations. I don't even want to enter the conversation about, you know, my response to the recent issue where, you know, NCC was directed to go ahead and shuttle telecommunications networks in Danfara state and neighboring state because of insecurity. I don't understand how that works. Maybe I need a security expert to clear that for me, but you basically shut down communication in a whole state, simply because you want to get terrorist. What happens to our names, our BVNs and all these digital footprints that we have for you to be able to track when kidnappers, you know, kidnap people and they make calls for ransom payments. What stops us from going ahead to track those phone numbers that leads us, you know, on the trail of these kidnappers? Do you have to now shut down the whole state? Do you know how much will be lost by the telecommunications companies, people who can communicate, who need those communications for business and just social interaction? It's just like killing a fly with a sledgehammer in my opinion. Well, the fly is not dead, obviously. You know, and this sledgehammer has been swung left and right. It still hasn't killed a fly. But once again, there's so many questions that need to be answered with regards to insecurity and why the tactics don't seem to be working. And until we're being honest and until we find a political will to actually answer those questions, we'll continue to beat around the bush. All right. So we know the whole conversation regarding electronic transmission of resort. This was a really debated issue in our politics in the past few weeks and months. And on the Pontchini's paper, we see the story surfacing here again. And it's about it's on the front page of the Pontchini's paper. It says National Assembly berates INEC as commission insist on electronic transmission of results. And we talked about this earlier asking what exactly is the challenge with electronic transmission of results? And people say, oh, so it, you know, it just limits the ability to still vote and all of that because they are, you know, digital trails that links and connects everything. But I believe that if it's an independent national electoral commission, they should be allowed to take independent decisions as to, you know, how the election should be run. And if they say electronic transmission of results is the way to go, I don't know why there should be such opposition to it by the lawmakers. So what then is independent about them? I mean, it's basically taking their powers from being the constitutionally recognized agents, your commission and the government or in the country to be able to, you know, go ahead and conduct elections independence of any influence. So all this influence is seen left, right and center. It really is, you know, just picking on the mandates of INEC. And then, you know, it's also seems to threaten our electoral process. We know the challenge with the manual election coalition and all of that, ballot box snatching. You have challenges where people say, oh, there are river and areas you can't go there to receive the vote. You know, we can't distribute electoral materials. So I believe it's 2021. It's the digital age. INEC is talking about, you know, a new IVET and all of that. So why don't we just migrate everything online and make everything easy and seamless for everyone? But that really is what it is. The National Assembly is just against it. I think it had already been established, you know, in the initial time when this conversation started. That, you know, it should be an extra responsibility, not the NCC and not the National Assembly, you know, to make that decision. You know, and of course, the laws are also clearly staked at. Since the 2019 elections, or prior to 2019 elections, there was conversations about electoral act being passed, you know, and all of that. And the eagerness of the current administration to ensure that we have an amendment. Amendment, yeah. The eagerness of the current administration to ensure that we have free and fair elections. I remember then, you know, the president had said that it was too soon or too close to the elections and, you know, that bill couldn't be signed at that time. But we've had two years passed since that election, you know, we're heading towards the next elections. In what ways is the current administration going to ensure that they are free and fair elections in 2023? And how much interest does the current Nigerian political elites and those in government want? Or how much interest do they have, really, in free and fair elections? That's really what the bone of contention is here. The electoral process, the process through which Nigerians place people in positions of power, has been skewed for a very, very long time. There's always been that challenge with that process. Which government is going to own up to those failures? I remember, you know, there's a quote by former president, Moussair Aguah, who said that the process that brought him into power was, you know, faulty, I believe. There's been enough time for us to make amendments so that process has been enough time for us to fix what needs to be fixed. But it's obvious that there is really not much interest in correcting those errors to ensure that when people stand in line to vote next time, it would be free and fair. Okay, so I had to dig up the quotes for you regarding the situation. So basically, the NCC, the Nigerian Communications Commission, is basically saying that, you know, Nigeria does not have the capacity to electronically transmit results. And the National Assembly is asking INEC to go ahead and seek approval of the NCC, work with them to see how they can electronically transmit results. So INEC chairman Professor Mamuja Kubu is saying that they have put systems in place. He, you know, began to point out the newly introduced bimodal voter accreditation system. He said this will replace the SmartCad reader, it will replace the Z-pad, and it will take care of challenges of overvoting and double voting. And, you know, he went on to say that it's unconstitutional. You know, let me read his quote here. He said, this is absolutely unconstitutional. You cannot ask INEC to seek the approval of another agency of government to transmit results electronically when INEC actually has the powers to impose duties on NCC to achieve that result. Do you understand? INEC, according to Professor Mamuja Kubu, he has the power to actually go ahead and impose duties on the NCC so that electronic results, election results can be transmitted electronically. Not, you know, the National Assembly asking INEC to go and seek approval from the NCC to conduct elections. So it really seems like a power play here who has the most, who can show the most force. The NCC, National Assembly, INEC, and then they are also asking INEC to go and seek more interpretation of the Constitution. But I really don't know if the courtness is stepping here. It's a question of asked are political angles on the show, but does INEC need to seek, you know, a legal redress? Does INEC need to seek the judicial interpretation of the law regarding INEC's mandate to independently conduct elections in the country? Because it now seems like everything needs to end up in the courts these days and, you know, things that seem to be black and white. INEC should be able to independently conduct elections now seem to be something of controversy. Just a reminder that whatever decision that Nigeria makes in 2023 is going to last one other four years and four years is not four hours, neither is it four days. It's four whole years of that political decision. And if we're not able to fix our leadership election process, then we very likely would find ourselves as a country in either, you know, a very, very bad situation for four years, very likely eight years of a president's life. And I want every Nigerian, those who don't seem to be concerned, those who don't want to get their voters card, those who think that, oh, you know, it's best to, you know, ban elections in certain regions, those who think that, oh, the electoral process doesn't fit in so they will not vote. I want everyone to be reminded that it's eight years of your life, which, you know, you probably should calculate how old you would be in the next eight years or in the next 10 years, so you can imagine what you would have to deal with if you make a bad political decision. And the Nigerian leadership also needs to be very, very aware that these are 200 million lives are going to be affected by whatever decision is made in 2023. They should find a way to make it less of their personal political interest and more of the lives of the citizens, millions of people that will be affected by that decision in 2023. Okay, so I want to quickly talk about this story. It seems to be a story about the failure of healthcare in Nigeria where Juhesu, Nard, you know, medical unions in Nigeria are going on strike, saying that they're not being paid salaries, their welfare is not being, you know, valued in the country. But on the front page of the Ponsheny's paper, there's a story there that says that Ngige said that the federal government is not owing doctors and other health workers' salaries. So what happened here is there was an open session of the meeting of the presidential committee on salaries with leadership of the joint health sector unions in Abuja on Tuesday. Now, at this meeting, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, insisted that the federal government is not owing any worker salary, is not owing any doctor or healthcare worker salaries in the country. Now, he said that the only workers who were not paid were doctors who were illegally recruited. So he said, if you have not been paid salaries as a doctor, so the people who have been interviewing who say that they have not been paid salaries, he says that they are illegally recruited doctors. And that they are illegally recruited because they were not captured by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and that their payments were not provided for by the Budget Office. This is what he's basically saying, that all doctors who were legally recruited have been paid because they were captured by the Budget Office. So he says, NAD goes about telling Nigerians that the government owes them salaries and that the government is not taking problems in the healthcare sector serious, but that that is incorrect. He says, quote, no doctor, no nurse, no pharmacist, or any other healthcare worker, including the driver is owed monthly salary, government pays as at when due. So maybe we need to get NAD and other health bodies back on the conversation table to see exactly where we're missing it. Yes, and while this bickering is going on, Nigerians are being affected. Nigerian lives, of course, will be lost in this period. We're talking about a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people who are still dealing with COVID-19. There's a lot of health emergencies that need to be addressed in hospitals while all this bickering is going on. What is the Nigerian government's core interest with regards to health care? How long are we going to play politics with some of all of this? And you can see pretty much the same reaction from, so maybe Ngeke would also tell us that if you are complaining, maybe some of you have not been properly recruited. But funny enough, that's it. He's saying that they're not on IPPIS, they're not on the national system, but the investors say they have their own. So no, I mean it's the same thing because it's saying that they are not recognized or captured in their own system of payment. Yeah, so the payment system is different from being illegally recruited entirely. So maybe that's what he should also say to Asup. Those lectures. And to Asup. And the other person is going to go on strike and tell them that we have been paying people. Anybody who's complaining was not legally recruited. And what next after the legal recruitment? Is it going to also then ensure that the government goes after those who are carrying out the legal recruitment of doctors and lecturers and whoever else and putting them on the government's payroll or not? So after all this bickering, I'm sure I hope that the Niger government understands that its duty is to the Nigerian people and to ensure that Nigerian lives and property are protected. And so when there is failure because of its inconsistency, because of its politics, because of some of these lackluster behavior that we're seeing, the Niger government should understand that it should be able to own up to that failure to protect lives and property. And that regards insecurity and healthcare and failure of basic infrastructure and some of all of that. I hope that they get to settle some of these issues as quickly as possible and we can get our doctors back in the hospital. Amen. Let's take a break here and take us back in time. I'm going back to the year 1986 when Oprah went national. I was telling you about an event in Tehran that basically changed history in that country in 1978. Stay with us.