 And we're back with the breakfast in plus TV Africa. It's time for us to look at the papers. We call it here, off the price on the breakfast. And we'll be having Nika Ghoule join us this morning. Nika, it's good to have you on the line. Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. Good morning to our viewers. All right, then let's take a look at the punch. That's what we have, and we'll be looking at all the papers as the vendor pleases. Banks battle new Naira shortage ahead of deadline. It's quite interesting. We've had several excuses, the CBN saying, hey, the banks have refused to come pick up the Naira notes and now we're hearing reports of shortage of the new notes. Really. PSCs, that's also another one, asks federal government to stop 10,000 constable salaries. And that's quite interesting. Petroma hit 800 Naira per litre on subsidy removal. Marketers hint. Interest rate hike likely as MPC meets today. Don't forget the MFLE saga. And finally, there's going to be an MPC meeting, which MFLE would be. Let's see how all of that pans out, be right here, bringing you all of the necessary information. And just before we move away, underneath the board caption, I think I forgot to take that, Lagos, federal capital territory, states, ATM dispends all notes as January 31st deadline years. I mean, almost all the ATMs I use. Really, I've never seen any ATM. I'm talking from my experience that has dispensed the new note. The central bank of Nigeria begins currency swap for rural and unbanked Nigerians. And stakeholders for sea extension. Customers want CBN to shift grounds. It's very confusing. Passing the stranded in forests as worry. Takpe train drills. Nigerian politicians seek relevance in foreign land. Talking about the whole Chatham house, it's more like a pilgrimage of very interesting. Biola's wife, Sue's IG, demands 100 billion. These are the headlines you find this morning on The Punch. Let's quickly take some key headlines from Daily Trust. The big one there, high costs in the consumers' access to electricity meters. We have flight delays, theft, top list, as aviation ranks third in FCCPC 2022 complaints. That's a former consumer complaints commission. So those will probably be what people have had a complaint about. Really sad indeed. Now, we've talked about the worry, Takpe, rail, train derailing. And the final one, diphtheria death toll hits 34, counter-records 100 infections. All right, let's quickly take a look at the leadership newspaper there, the leadership says. 2023 presidency, fake news won't stop. Tunable APC, Yahya Bello declares. All right, denies withdrawing support for a Siwa Jew, rivalry with Falakeh. I hope I got that correctly. PMB leads APC presidential campaign to Bauchi today. I mean, I saw that, the Chicler news of Yahya Bello's withdrawal. One will begin to ask what exactly is going on with the news. Serap drags Buhari to court over electricity tariff hike. And some people say, if you're talking about the removal of electricity tariff, I mean, subsidy, removing subsidy for electricity, what do you hope to expect? And others will say, have we been subsidized in electricity? Adore records 10 new cases of Lasser fever and eight debts. 2023, Kwankwa so will not step down for anyone. NNPP is insisting. Despite renewed peace commitment, political parties continue much swindling. And passengers stranded at the worry-bound train as it derails in Kogi. Please confirm killing of four persons in Bauchi community. That's it this morning on the leadership. Let's quickly bring in Nika Guli. Nika, once again, good morning to you. For me, I think I would like us to start by looking at the issue of Lasser fever. I'm tired of hearing about Lasser fever. It seems to be like the rainy season and dry season. It has a season of coming, a wash on the front pages of the papers. This time, the leadership is telling us that 10 new cases have been recorded in Adore State and eight deaths. So what's going on, in your opinion? What do you think of this? Thank you very much. And what I think of this is not surprising that, once again, Nigeria is taking her eyes off the ball of what we should be arresting. This health care in Nigeria, generally, is not being given the attention that it deserves. As we're in the world, the government don't allow two critical sectors of the economy completely into the hands of the private sector. And that is one, education, and two, health care. Because governments around the world recognize that these two critical sectors are the ones that are most needed by humanity. And so they are never led to the highest bidder. They are never led to whoever has money to pay for them. The governments actually provide these two key services in most countries, including the developed ones, free of charge so that all citizens can have access to it. But in Nigeria, these are the two sectors that will give the lowest attention to. If you look at the budgetary provision for education and health care in Nigeria, both of them attract less than the equivalent of $1 billion each. And for 200 million people, they then become very clear that the government is not paying due attention to matters of health care in Nigeria. And this last few years has become a recurring story that year in, year out, we hear that it comes, it strikes dead citizens, and then we wait for the next strike. There is nothing that government is doing that you can see that it's a carefully planned strategy to deal with a matter like this public health care issue of NASA fever. What is government doing to prevent it? And what is government doing that in case it afflicts citizens, this is the approach that is going to be taken to save the citizens and alleviate their suffering and all of that? So my views is that this is just the regular thing in Nigeria that those who have been elected to lead us at various levels are not giving due attention to the work that they should be doing. Because constitutionally, what those who have been elected are to give us is one, welfare and two, security. And health care falls directly under welfare. And you can see that it is being treated with liberty. So I'm not also surprised, but this is a correct decision. Let's move away from the health concern and look at the punch newspaper. Just eight days to the deadline for the withdrawal of the former legal tender, we still have the ATMs, not just in Lagos, but other parts of the countries dispensing the old notes. What do you make of the entire situation? What I make of this entire situation is that it is only in Nigeria that you have a central bank led by a man who appears not to know his left from his right. And he has been left in office for years. Because a central bank, like in this case, has come through, has not been prepared for this currency swap, this currency change. Because if they were prepared, then with January 31, which is like you rarely say eight days away from now, you should expect a single ATM or a bank to dispense the old notes. Everything that would have been happening with a week or so left to the end of the legal tender status of the old notes would have been to mop up every single old note that is circulating in the economy. But to think that, as I speak now, people are still withdrawing the old notes from ATMs is to show you the lack of preparedness by the central bank. And we have a central bank that the governor has been accused of all sorts of things. A governor who has jumped into politics, a governor whose monetary policy expertise is called to question over and over again, a governor who decided on this currency change in color without even consulting critical stakeholders like the Minister of Finance or even the National Assembly. It's a time bomb. And we can only wait to see what is going to happen on January the 35th. But my view is that we are not prepared to end the legal tender status of the old notes because the central bank is not prepared. All right, let's stay with the punch. We have the petrol marketers. I mean, it's a confusing situation. And as no analysts, I'm sure including yourself, who can really tell exactly what the problem is with fuel supplying exactly to the letter. Because it's all shrouded in confusion and secrecy and lack of transparency. And I don't know why that is. But the marketers are saying that petrol may hit 800 naira per litre on subsidy removal. It's what the marketers are saying. It's captured on the front page of the punch. Nika Gule. I can tell exactly what is wrong with the fuel supply in Nigeria because I worked in the oil industry for over 20 years. And I worked for three of the top four global oil companies, both in Nigeria and abroad. So I can tell the those who are in leadership for free that the only thing that is wrong with the fuel sector in Nigeria is that we have allowed our four refineries to be dead. Our four refineries that have a combined refining capacity of 445,000 barrels of food oil per day have been allowed to rot. And that is exactly the problem. Once we get these refineries to work, even if it is just one refinery that will get to work, that means we can domestically here in Nigeria refine crude, not just crude oil for petrol, which is the PMS, premium motor spirit. We can also get all the other products that come from crude oil, which includes diesel or the AGO, which includes the aviation fuel, which includes kerosene, and many of the other products. Nika Gule, I totally agree with you, Nika Gule. And I understand where you're coming from. But what I was referring to in that intro was the current situation, the current scarcity. Of course, the general issues are known. But we have conflicting accounts, conflicting reports, conflicting reasons, conflicting promises, conflicting statements from within government and outside government stakeholders in the sector as well. And everything is just so confusing. I mean, we can go right from the time of the dirty fuel to now. Nobody has been able to come up to tell us really exactly what government, what did what happened to hope people are accountable and all that. There's a lot of lack of transparency and clarity, accountability in this sector. But what the marketers are saying is that our scarcity has captured in the punch, just with a few lines for you so you understand better. As the scarcity of premium motor spirit paper says continued on Sunday, it says, all marketers have stated that the cost of the commodity will cross the 800 Naira per liter mark once subsidy on PMS is removed. I think, yes, in the papers, NDPC was saying they were going to take out subsidy to the increase, sorry, the cost of PMS. So that's what they're saying. If it's taken away, Nigerians will pay 800 Naira per liter. In your opinion, is this correct? Yeah, it's most likely. I mean, if you look at the fact that we're importing 100% of our petroleum products needs, it means that at 800 Naira that is being speculated, that is about a dollar. If you look at how much the dollar is attracting in the primary market. And yes, it's very possible that a liter of petrol can cost a dollar. And then by the time you add the other import costs like shipping and insurance and all of that. Is it, I mean, I think if we really take off subsidy and we have to allow Nigerians to pay for the cost price. Nika, are you there? Can you hear us please? At the market price of the imported petrol, the 800 Naira, but the issue here is that if you ask me that, where is the problem? The problem lies squarely with the NDPC because the NDPC is the only company that is importing petrol into Nigeria today. And the NDPC is the one that is unable to import and supply petrol to Nigerians. And I also know the problem of the NDPC. Once the problems of the NDPC is the war in Ukraine, I have said this thing publicly, that the war in Ukraine is distorting the global supply of crude oil, global supply of petroleum products. Because let's not forget, Russia is the big supplier of crude oil around the world. And there are many countries in the world that have laid embargo on Russian crude oil as a result of the invasion in Ukraine. And refineries around the world are therefore not getting the kind of supplies that they usually get. And that is affecting nations like Nigeria that are wholly dependent on imported petrol from other nations. So that is just where you want to point your finger. The finger is pointed squarely at the NDPC. They are the cause of this whole thing. The marketers, I believe, if they see petrol, they will sell it because that's what they are in business for. And so what we are experiencing is a supply problem and that supply problem is resulting from global affairs, the global scarcity of petroleum products as a result of the war in Ukraine. And the NDPC, who should have repaired at least one of the four refineries within the last few years, has done nothing and has thrown Nigeria under the bus. And if the, like I said in one interview, if we come to the point where global shipping will be shut down in the same way aviation was shut down in the wake of COVID, if global shipping is shut down today and we can no longer import petroleum products into Nigeria, Nigeria is going to shut down. That is the danger we face that we are unable to even refine a single barrel of crude oil for ourselves rather depending squarely on what is coming from abroad. And if what is coming from abroad stops, our nation is going to stop. So for those who are going to take the reins of power in 2023, they should just see the danger in what I'm talking about. And the first thing they should do, very first thing is to fix our refineries. And the way they can fix the refineries is either by fixing it themselves or by leasing them out to reputable refiners around the world or just by selling these refineries outright so that these investors will bring in their money, their expertise and their technology. Nika Gule, we're about to, you know, move away from off the press now, but just quickly let's show your thoughts on the electricity concerns raised by Syrup. Syrup is suing the president for the hike and Nigerians are quite not excited, especially with Syrup saying, hey, Syrup is just a toothless dog. They keep backing, but nothing happens. What are your thoughts? As of January, consumer had expressed concern and he shared the increase. As that, you know, January 2022, 4,000 naira for 88.6 units. And for January 2023, you're buying 10,000 naira for 95.8 units. You know, it feels like you seem to be spending more for less. Slowly, absolutely. I have dual residency. So I pay bills in Nigeria and I pay bills in the UK, where I also reside. And I can tell Nigerians for free that the current cost of electricity in Nigeria is more than what we pay in the UK for 24-7 parts of life. It is the truth. And it will be a shortcut to Nigeria, but that is the truth. We are paying way more than people in the UK who have higher income levels, who have more jobs because unemployment in the UK is 5% or less. Less than what we are paying in Nigeria for electricity. And it is a shame. It's a shame because, again, this is one of the things that we suffer in Nigeria unnecessarily. Nigeria, as we speak today, is one of the largest producers of gas all over the world. And the only thing that the incoming government should do because we're tired of advising the current government is to stop the flares of gas in the Niger Delta and pipe that gas into turbines and generate electricity in plenty full to Nigerians so that by the time the supply of electricity is increased from the 3,000, miserly 3,000 megawatts we have today to about 10,000, pointy thousand, 30,000, then the cost of electricity is going to collapse because in simple economies, they move all the supply of the product, they less the price. So what Nigerians are suffering is simply because all 200 million of us are scrambling for only 3,000 megawatts of electricity. But global standards, we should be supplying 200,000 megawatts. So even if we get to 50,000 megawatts, this price thing we're talking about now, we will totally be... So in other words, I mean, we should just, you know, survive the remaining months before the handover. I mean, we should just continue the price hike and we can't say anything about, you know, suing. I mean, will suing solve the problem? Because he addressed the situation, just, you know, in less than a minute. We have been talking about this to the president who had been in the government for the past eight years and nothing has changed. So to be honest, my advice to Nigerians would be that let's just be dusting our Gotash card so that on 25th of February, which is just next month, we are going to elect a government that is going to do this for us. All right then. We have to go. Nika Gule. Nika, thank you so much for your time. I wish we had time to look at one few good story. I'll just take your thoughts on that very quickly. President Buhari is expected in Lagos to commission some projects among which are, A is rather the Lakey Deep Sea port. We had the largest vessel as breathed there recently. The NPA said that, which is good news. What are the thoughts on that? It's not all gloom and doom in Nigeria today, is it? It's good news. It's good news because one thing that this happened, not only is it going to ease the congestion at the port in Napa Pa is going to create humongous jobs. And so it's the better for our economy. And you would discover there that there is strong private sector participation to bring it to life. And that is what the next government should focus on. That is we should hand over this economy to the private sector. Whatever we hand over to the private sector, like telephones, you see how it's going. We have more telephones now that we have electricity. So it's good news for Nigeria and I'll congratulate the government for that. All right, Lik, thank you so much for your time. Thank you and have a nice day. All right, then that's the size of our conversation on off the press. We will take a break and run real return. We'll be looking at our first conversation. We ask that you stay with us. Good morning.