 Crisis in the People's Democratic Party has seven members of the National Working Committee resign. PDP governors call emergency meeting to discuss the issues. Lawyer Femmi Fallinar's sixth clarification over the non-trial of 400 suspected members of Boko Ran three months after the arrest. And also a review of today's papers and much more coming your way this morning on The Breakfast. And with that we say good morning and welcome to the mid-week edition of The Breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. Beautiful Wednesday morning. I hope that you've gotten enough rest and you're ready for all the tasks and challenges for today. I am Osaugi Ogboa. Good morning to you. Thank you for joining us. I am Annette Felix and good morning Osaugi. Good morning to you. Wow, quite an interesting start to a Wednesday morning. First of all our top trending story we're beginning with a picture that seems to have gone viral. It's of a Nigerian soldier that is sleeping on a mattress that is hinged on tree branches. And another soldier there seeming to be attending to him. The picture didn't come with a caption to explain what exactly is happening. So we don't have an idea if that's a blood transfusion from one soldier to the other. If it's whatever it is we have no idea what that picture is saying and what exactly is being done in terms of treatment for the soldier. But I think the focus here is on the environment, right? The state of welfare of Nigerian soldiers. This is something we've talked about for a while. We've had soldiers sneak out videos of themselves talking about the challenges they're facing on the war front. How many of their colleagues are dying. Releasing videos saying these terrorists are coming with arms and ammunition that are so sophisticated. And they don't have anything to match that up. And the colleagues of theirs die on the field. Colleagues of theirs face so many health challenges but help doesn't seem to be coming in from anywhere. They get very little food and they have to ration. So it makes you wonder if this is a soldier that has been sent to the war front to battle terrorists who are funded by multi-billionaires. According to one of the topics we'll be talking about later today. What chance do we have to fight terrorism in the country? Well we've, you know, multiple times we've spoken about the issues with funding for, you know, our security agencies. And, you know, I've always mentioned, you know, that there is obviously a challenge with auditing, you know, where these billions go to. The billions are the budgeted every year. You know, if it is simply just to pay the salaries of these soldiers, which of course are still not enough, you know, or, you know, to buy equipment. And if it is to buy equipment, you know, how come they're not getting enough, you know, for not just, you know, ammunition now, but also for medical equipment, you know, clothing, you know, stuff that they might use in the battlefield and all of that. There's still no major questions being asked as to what really happens to all the billions that is budgeted every year for the Nigerian military and for the Nigerian police, who still will tell you that they don't have money for petrol before they, you know, attend to your security challenges, who would still ask you to buy airtime in their phones, who would still of course collect bribe from you, you know, to carry out airtime. There was someone who said he had the 270,000-air case, you know, that someone had was owing him. He called the police, you know, he had approached the police and reported and they asked him for 300,000 to be able to, you know, pursue that case. But that's for the police. For the army, it's pretty much the same thing, you know, and every now and then you mentioned there's one video or the other complaining about poor funding and, you know, lack of resources to be able to actually carry out the war against insurgency and to be somehow, some way, you know, have all the things that they need in the battlefront. But, you know, for the picture that we just showed, you know, I've seen that, you know, and it seems like, you know, there's an intravenous connector to the soldier who was lying down. Doesn't look like a blood transfusion because it seems there's something hanging on the tree, wherever that is. You know, and I would simply also say that I think, you know, in the battlefront, not everything. There's not going to be world-class hospitals waiting for you there. And so it is also part of the training that soldiers have to be able to treat themselves at emergency situations before help comes. In other climes, maybe there will be a helicopter to move the soldier to a proper hospital, to a military hospital. There would be, you know, you know, a military hospital somewhere close by where soldiers like this can be moved to when they fall ill or when they are hit by bullets or whatnot. But for me, I am seeing this as, you know, a soldier, you know, making do with what he has in the battlefront where there isn't necessarily the very best medical care. It's part of their training. It's part of the things that they will have to deal with in order to survive. They have some of the, you know, best survival tactics, and that's part of their training. You know, if you are going to be a soldier, if you fall ill in the battlefront, you know, no one is expecting that you would immediately be moved to Luth or to any hospital, you know, close by. You would have to be, you know, in the battlefield and get stronger right there until there's better medical care provided for you. But, you know, the question is, will there be better medical care provided for these soldiers or not? And so we can't really judge 100% from what this picture is saying. I would simply just say that, you know, there will be, you know, questions, you know, that we will continue to ask concerning funding and auditing of the funds that have been provided for the military and for security agencies every year in the national budget. And also, commending this, you know, brave soldier who, of course, has been able to work under the toughest conditions, you know, while bullets are flying left and right, still is able to set up an IV fluid and also treat his fellow soldier. Yes, indeed. The fact that we lack clarity as to what's happening in that picture, you know, is something that really bothers me because we need the facts to really tell the story. But we also don't know because we know that usually medical troops should accompany them. People trained to be able to treat people and give them immediately, you know, first aid. So why the challenge, why there's a challenge with that, the fact that there was no captions? Because we don't know if that soldier that we see treating that man or the other soldier lying on the bed is part of, you know, those medical troops. But the fact remains that, you know, it's glaring and almost, you know, saddening to see that as a Nigerian, someone who's on the front line trying to make sure that we all are safe is, you know, received that kind of treatment, poor and just inadequate. Anyway, I'm still talking about terrorism. We know that in the first week of May, the federal government announced that they had arrested about 400 suspected terrorism financiers and that these were primarily owners of the broader change and that they were going to immediately begin prosecution. Three months later, we're here to see anything about that. We're here to get updates, even though they had said that, you know, there was a Jusson strike, Judiciary Staff Union, and that after the strike, they were going to begin prosecution. The strike is long over. We're not hearing anything from them yet. Then there was a report by Sahara Reporters. We can't independently verify, you know, the claims made in that report, but it went into points accusing fingers at Attorney General of the Federation, Abu Bakr Malami, saying that Malami had basically tried to stop the raid of those terrorism financiers. I had collected money from them and had freed them, you know, saying that he just didn't want the names of those terrorism financiers to be revealed. Again, these are unconfirmed reports by Sahara Reporters. But the big story is that yesterday, August 2nd, August 2nd on Tuesday, senior advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falano, sent an FOI request, the Freedom of Information request, to Malami asking him to immediately, you know, provide details about these terrorists that were arrested and why prosecution is stalling, has given them seven days, you know, according to FOI rules, to make sure that we know exactly where we stand regarding these people. Because it's something the government keeps saying, we know who the terrorists are, we know who the sponsors are, we're going to publish names, and then months and months later, it seems that story is dead. Yeah, so for the third time, we can't verify the allegations made by Sahara Reporters. There is no actual proof of anything, you know, so far, you know. So those are really just, that's really just historians and our reporters that has, you know, no actual verification yet. So starting with that, I would also say that, you know, we've, you know, I personally have always believed that if we were sincere with our fight against insurgency, there, you know, two things that were very important, you know, that we should have done, you know, and one of them was being able to find out and arrest people who, three things, arrest people who, you know, wear the source of the funding for these terrorists. They don't, you know, have any other way of making money except through either kidnapping or financial support from whoever it is that is behind them. It doesn't matter who they are, it could be people from outside the country even, but, you know, there is a, follow the money basically, it's a money trail that you can follow, and you will be able to find out who is sponsoring these terrorism. When you cut off the funding, it's one of the ways, one of the ways to weaken these insurgents in every single way. Another thing was, of course, you know, being able to show prosecution for arrested terrorists, you know, for both their financiers and, you know, those who have been arrested or caught in the act of terrorism, they should be charged a court and they should be, you know, sentenced, you know, if found guilty. For the last 10 years, we've not been able to see any actual Boko Haram or Bandit or insurgent or UGM on gun noon men or whatever they are called who have been charged a court and sentenced for these crimes. In 10 years, the final one would be, you know, how much work we've done with regards to our borders. Where do these weapons coming from? They are not manufactured here in Nigeria and so they have to be coming in through somewhere and it means that there's somebody who's letting them into the country somehow, somewhere. There's definitely a person who turns his, you know, turns his face the other way when these weapons are being brought into Nigeria. So those are the three things that I've always mentioned, but of course it has to do a lot with political will and it's great that we had a conversation yesterday with Gesso, that we interviewed yesterday who said a lot, you know, with regards to fighting against insurgency and banditry. With regards to their financing, there's no way, there's absolutely no way that the Nigerian government would say that in 10 years if not being able to follow 1,000 Naira and find out the source of the 1,000 Naira that went to a bandit or went to a terrorist, there's absolutely no way. You can't tell that to a three-year-old and he or she would believe you. There's no way that the Nigerian government would boast and say that in 10 years, we've started this fight since 2009 or 2010, in 10 years we've not been able to follow two dirty 500 Naira notes that went to a bandit or Boko Haram or Abiswab. But that's what they said in May, that they know who's fighting the money. The challenge is, let us know exactly, because they've been saying that they were going to prosecute and name and shame the city. So that's why I put those three things together. Until we get to that place where they actually show these names, then I'm going to assume that we don't know and the Nigerian government is claiming that they still don't know if they've supposedly arrested 400 people and they've not been able to tell the Nigerian people who these people are, they've not been able to prosecute or send them to court and go through the whole process. Then I'm going to continue to assume that we don't know. In 10 years, the Nigerian government cannot in any way say that they are not aware of, they've not been able to arrest five people, one person, 10 people that were responsible and show proof. Look at what the Hosh-Pope case has shown. They followed the money, they investigated their traces, phone calls, WhatsApp messages, so much evidence that shows that these persons are guilty of the crimes that they have been accused of. Nothing like that in 10 years of fighting insurgency. So I don't think we're serious as a country. I think we're joking around with the lives of Nigerian people and until we begin to get serious, we'll continue to see these debts and kidnappings every other day. Our final top trending story is about sympathy strike. We know that when one union or body is striking, protesting over something and another union goes on to protest or strike in support of that. That seems to be what the River State government says is happening in the estate. We know that not the Association of Resident Doctors had embarked on a strike April 1st. We called that off and went on a strike again August 2nd, Monday, saying that the government had been paying resident doctors irregularly. Just went on to give a whole list of challenges, especially with the failure of the government to fulfill the memorandum of action that they had signed and made them call off that strike. So in River State, the governor, this is a statement we have here released yesterday by Tammy Danagogo. He's a secretary to the state government, SSG. He said that the resident doctors of River State are paid regularly by the state and that they have no right to go on a sympathy strike with other doctors. They went on to say that this strike action should be only applicable to doctors, resident doctors who are under the payroll of the federal government. They're saying, this doesn't affect you because we pay your salaries as and when due. So the question then becomes what then is the legality of a sympathy strike? And actually, does the River State government pay resident doctors like they say? But if indeed they pay resident doctors, it still goes back to the first question, do they really have to show solidarity for the other members of the union? It still is a lot because when I spoke to the ARD president in Luthi yesterday, he mentioned that members of NAAD are going on a compliance and monitoring visit around all hospitals and that doctors who do not comply with the strike doctors who sit that out would be penalized, they would be fined and then they would be blacklisted as saboteurs. So it really seems to be a dice situation. Do you protest or do you strike in solidarity with your colleagues? Or do you risk losing your job? The River State government seems to have a point with the fact that they claim to be paying salaries regularly and so why do you want to punish indigines of the state by going on strike along with those who are not being paid salaries. But I think they also need to understand that we here rather need to understand that it's pretty much same as saying that if anyone dies in Bainway of a terrorist attack, then people in those states shouldn't bother complaining because well, nobody's dying here, so why should you complain? There is a fault with that and I believe that the doctors have a union and if they feel like there's a couple of states that they mentioned, I just can remember them now that have been owing for nine months or 12 months or six months and haven't paid resident doctors. And so I feel it's a thing that every resident doctor needs to you know, has decided rather that they are going to campaign against, they're going to strike against. Every single doctor across the country needs to be paid regularly, needs to have an increased hazard allowance, needs to have better COVID well, financing and payment and so they cannot single out justice states where they are not being paid properly. Government doctors would not work and the state government workers will go back to work. I don't think it works like that. I understand where Governor Wickey is coming from and I would maybe also well, I understand basically but I don't think it works like that. You can't pretty much same with ASU and then when they were having issues with lecturers and some lecturers went ahead to sign with the IPPIS and others said no, they're going to stay with Utah and then they're going to strike. They also had challenges then saying that it seemed like some lecturers were backstabbing them. It's also sometimes when you hear that ASU is going to strike and then some universities will say we're not going to be part of this ASU strike we don't care about whatever it is you're complaining about this university is going to keep on running it feels like backstabbing the union and so I hope that if they all go on strike it gets the federal government and the state governments or convinces them to have those conversations with the federal government have those conversations with whoever it is that is necessary to ensure that their finances are done better and they get what they feel like they deserve I personally don't like threatening striking workers with with SAC because we simply address the concerns that they've put out it's not greed here they have simple concerns that need to be addressed and they're doctors come on I saw a co-member who said it that how do you pay doctors $5000 has that allowance when House of Assembly members are receiving has that allowance in millions make it make sense that national assembly members will be receiving has that allowance in millions of nair what has that are they really dealing with in the national assembly can anybody share with me one national assembly member that as a result of doing his duty of going to work every day you know collapsed or something you know in what way is the national assembly member at risk doing his job they have security details they have drivers they have policemen who are attached to them what exactly is that hazard that you that you know you will make you pay you know a national assembly member millions of nair as has other allowance and then compare it to a doctor who has to go face to face with patients every single day who risks getting infected with various diseases every day you know because of their duty who has to work tireless hours to ensure that patients get the medical services and you know response that they that is needed we're still very very you know far behind with regard to our healthcare system and so they I believe you know that they have good reasons for wanting to go on strike and they should be listened to and it's unfair you know that you signed a memorandum of action a hundred days passes you don't implement any of these you know agreement and you know you act like you don't know why they're going on strike I think it's unfair but we can need to also understand that part that you a can't go on strike and B says oh I don't care because I'm receiving salary I don't care about a not receiving salary all right big stories on the newspapers today we'll be taking a look at them after the break