 A very good morning to you. You're welcome to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. It's Thursday, the 18th of January, 2024. My name is Vermette Paulson. And my name is Nyam Gul Aghaji. Another very wonderful day, a new opportunity to begin a new, if there is something that you've had as a challenge. This is the time you've been given this opportunity to do better by humanity, do better by yourself, do better by the society that you find yourself. It is just a good day. Yes, a very good day. Bright and sunny and we're ready to give you everything that you need this morning. So we're going to be looking at what the national dailies are saying as well as two hot topics, but we're also going to look at some top trending stories this morning. And then we are going to also take something from the press on the press, that's from what our national dailies are saying. Did you say that already? Yeah, I already said that. Okay. Where is my head this morning? But we're going to quickly just look at the top trending issues right now. And then we take a break and go through the papers. All right. So our first top trending story this morning says reps reiterate commitment to pass and bill on state police. Well, that's one of our top trending. Our second top trending is court stops NBC from imposing fines on broadcast stations. That are hot topics. Those are hot topics. Okay. For the top trending issues, the first one is talking about, the first one is on INEC. It publishes final candidates list for February by election, the dependent national electoral commission has published the final list of candidates for the February 3, 2024 by election in Nigeria. In a statement on Wednesday, INEC national commissioner Sam or Lou Mekun said the by elections became necessary because of that all resignation of members of the national and state houses of assembly. These elections will be held across the nine states of the Federation covering two senatorial districts. That is a bonus out and you'll be East for federal constituencies that are shangha and gas key, yawry federal constituency of KB state. Surillery one federal constituency of Lagos state. Cocoa, not East. Cocoa, not West federal constituency of on those state and Jalingo Euro, Zing federal constituency of Tarawa state and three state constituency, Guma one state constituency of Benway state, Chibok state constituency of Burnu state and Chikun state constituency of Kaduna state. The commission has said the timetable and schedule of activities. The personal, personal particulars and final list of candidates have been published in INEC state offices and affected constituencies pursuant to the provision of section 29 sub three of the electoral act 2022 and the list of candidates is published on the INEC website and social media platforms. He appealed to Nigerians to scrutinize the personnel particulars that is from EC nine and academic credentials of the candidates. He asked that any aspirant who participated in his or her party primaries with reasonable grounds to believe that the information provided by the candidates is false can challenge denomination in a federal high court as provided in section 29 subsection five of the federal of the electoral act 2022. The rerun elections are conducted pursuant to the orders of the election petition appeal tried you know I think we've had enough information already the thing is we should never give room for that the case where you go to court later on and they say that was a pre-election matter this was these on grants of technicalities do the needful now before it gets to February so that we don't have in just court cases over and over and over again because it seems like with every election everyone is you know that phrase go to court that's the let's just try and you know just make sure that we do everything we need to do now have a free and fair election and you know the the people that everyone wants the citizen wants you know should just win and we're all good. Let's start by changing the way we select the selection process of the people that should pretend over hours after the election. All right to our next up training story we have federal government sets up committee to review laws on explosives the federal executive council on Wednesday said it has set up a committee to review the laws guiding the control of explosives in the country this is coming after the devastating explosion that rocks the Asian city of Ibadu the all-your-state capital on Tuesday night the committee would determine whether these were violated by the illegal miners identified in the preliminary preliminary like a pattern investigations by security agencies the minister of defense Muhammad Abu Bakr told state house correspondents after the federal executive council meeting on Wednesday the council presided over by President Bola and Netinuval at the Asarok Villa a budget expressed worries about the incident noting the need to avert future occurrences at least two persons were confirmed dead well now three and over 80 were injured in the explosion also which destroyed several buildings vehicles and other properties the all-your-state governor Shea Makhinde who visited the scene of the explosion confirmed the casualties adding that the explosion occurred at a day event you body jail however settlers say the blast was held was heard and felt kilometers away in many parts of the city Makhinde said preliminary investigations by security agencies revealed that the blast was triggered by illegal miners occupying one of the houses in Bodica Abu Bakr said despite the preliminary investigations linking the incident to explosive stored by the illegal miners the authorities are not really not a gas possible cause however federal agents are on the ground to sustain the approximate and remote causes of the incident fielding questions on the issue he said the first question has to do with the modern explosion where the governor said the preliminary investigations suggested that there are some explosives around the area where it happened and that they are owned by some illegal miners the ministers said the committee was to set up to review the laws guiding the control of explosives to see whether chain is broken and see how it can be fixed and gather more information if this is happening rampantly around the country earlier precedent bulletin of a code on relevant government agencies to fish out and punish those responsible for what he called a reckless behavior that triggered the blast express sadness over the incident which he described as worrisome and a statement signed by special advisor on media and publicity adjourned lately the precedent said it is worrisome that the cause of the blast is being attributed to activities of illegal minor i mean all of our condolences go to the families or the people who were involved with this very sad incident about on tuesday night i heard about the blast in fact on social media as well i saw videos of people's reactions when the blast was happening so you see you know young stars on tiktok they're doing their videos and then all of a sudden you're hearing this this huge blast and now as of this morning we we we heard that about three lives initially our report said too because of this morning we're seeing that about three lives were lost and our condolences our hearts um goes to the families of of these people and even the people that are injured as well it is quite it's quite sad and i mean this committee is quite important because you can't just have explosives you know lying around their people's lives you know at stake for this as well all right i i don't know whether there is we like forming committees all the time committee these committees that i don't know laws against explosives uh illegal they are using the word illegal whatever is illegal there's a law against that why not look into how this can be enforced even more you're you're setting up a committee to review the laws the laws are good enough these people were doing illegal uh mining and the people around there knew about it or i don't know maybe they thought they knew about it because sometimes you are called someone and they tell you that we have the relevant papers they show you a government official has actually given them some papers that will authorize them to do what they are doing so there are no checks enough checks for this uh enforcement of these laws so why not look into that you're setting up committees that will take a lot of money to sit and deliberate on things that we already know the laws are there make them be enforced that's what i now lives have been lost we don't even know if it's just three yeah as at this moment they're still looking at the rubble to see whether there are some people under there there's a possibility that there may be another person they may also be another person that was not in the rubble but has that of heart attack somewhere would will we know so not just the three people it has had a very very like you called it the ripple effect on a lot of people that may not even be accounted for so let the laws be enforced as simple as that well another one is as part of measures to tackle the many of insecurity in the nation's capital abuja we're talking about illegal settlements the federal capital territory administration fct a has begun the audit of illegal settlements and shanties across the territory with a view to pulling them down consequently the department of development control in the fct administration has directed its field officers across the entire territory to submit a list of shanties and informal settlements for a verification exercise the directive came as it emerged that the bandits again invaded garam a town in niger state which shares close boundaries with buhari in the federal capital territory fct according to residents they bandit's who attacked on tuesday killed one person and kidnapped nine others tuesday's attack was the fort in a series of raids carried out by bandits in the community in less than a month according to officials the goal is to profile shanties and informal settlements that may have become a haven for criminal elements director of the department of development control mukta galadima disclosed this on wednesday during the removal of shanties and shops in durumi one and according to him the move is part of administration's broader strategies to enhance security and orderly development within the federal capital territory meanwhile the secretary command and control fcta department of security service dr peter olumi g said durumi one is another notorious place uh famed for upheavals he said three people were arrested for being in possession of hard drugs and for obstructing the exercise okay so fct is being attacked only almost on daily basis by bandits the federal capital territory one of the reasons uh the federal capital was moved from lego's is oh for security reasons let it let it go to the center of the country and all that and in the center of the country we're finding this so eva buja is not safe where else is safe right i mean because this started from obna we started from bernie and you're hearing of you know all of these states that are being attacked but i'm sure most times we think things are so far fetched like you think it's no it's not going to me and my house would work covered by the blood of you know not my portion not my portion exactly that's it not my portion they would never see us but then you don't realize that it's closer than you think and so security is important i cannot you know overemphasize this the the government needs to find a way to tame all of this because if abuja where is the center of the entire country the capital of the country and most of these politicians are there that is where government the government is like asorok is that is where everything you know starts from before it now trickles down to the state government and local government so if that is not safe what does that tell us like is there a possibility this this they would start to come to other states well we're hoping that doesn't happen there's so many that we pray too much but there are so many lawmakers who live in abuja but don't live in their houses they have their houses yeah they have but they live in in very secure hotels there are people who have permanent rooms and permanent lodges in hotels and all that i i even if i i can say okay they have the money to to get that but what about the person who cannot go to that kind of a secure location now the next thing that is remaining is for them to kidnap people from asorok because even all the lawmakers have been touched in one way or the other some of them have encountered these people and just were saved by the bell as it is and all that but you know people who are living in places where they cannot get this kind of protection what happens to them when the new ig came into office he said he was feeling like a tiger like feeling like a lion you know he was there more taken in person and that he was going to withdraw all the orderlies that were attached to to vip so that the police force will have a lot of people he didn't do that every of them says that and they don't do it so when we are lacking in personnel and you're still letting people go and take care of the vip sometimes seven people sometimes ten people from the police force for one vip then what happens to the rest of us so when we're talking about security recruitment is not just everything build confidence in the people to be able to give you information and then the people that are there use them optimally not using people ten policemen for one vip ten for another vip so i mean it will be left on the street to to secure us so they are things that can be done low-hanging fruits but will they do it the answer is almost definitely no we're hoping as usual we're hoping that they do it but i agree like why do why do vip's have so many i mean they are private security firms that you can say okay let's train them let anybody who needs a a guard or something be go there and get their services maybe if you must give one give one but some of these people move with an entourage yes like a convoy they're moving with like two three vehicles maybe there's one in front there are two bands at the back or mobile police and when they come down one has to come and open the door for them one has to you know hold the bag of it madame you know why why are we doing this and at the end of the day i saw i saw the fact that you know we're not utilizing them i'm like how do their lives how do the police men and women how do their lives just how is their life just about that i just have to open the door follow somebody hold your bag someone who is someone who has been training you should be alert and you should be you know mindful of the fact that if anything comes maybe you need to draw your gun or something to protect your principle you're holding back so i saw a video some time ago where the the police man had to hold a plate while the madame madame takes food into the plate you know hold the plate a police man i mean what kind of thing is that so when we're thinking about security we should think about the orientation of the entire security architecture they need to know what their their jobs are and then remove them from the vips you've always promised every single id pida comes says that but he never never they never do that they never just you know follow through anyways um we let's take our quarter of the day we're supposed to think about earlier on but let's just take it now and you know just move this on a lighter note there's no shortage of remarkable ideas what's leasing is the will to execute them and that is by set gotten yeah beautiful it's so beautiful the the ideas are there the will to execute them it's just like we were talking that we have laws but the execution is the problem so it's not like you know you want to always go and find the ideas the ideas are there but how are we implementing these ideas and it's also as we started out this year we were talking about how to build your 2024 to make it count even more and procrastination is one of those things you have the ideas there but you don't want to do them you want to you know there is time for this there's time for that but then time is moving time is moving it's not waiting for you and if you're having a near-death experience the thing you regret is not the things that you have done you regret the things you left undone so if you if you don't want to have regrets at the end of your life do the things that you are set out to do the things that come to your mind at least try your best to do them because some of these ones that you regret about are the ones that you had the opportunity to do but you didn't do it's not all the crazy things you have done already but what you failed to do is what you regretful and you know the beautiful thing about ideas is um i i like to say this god doesn't just give you an idea most times you do you realize that maybe when you're thinking of something you someone else is not doing the thing you're already attracted to seeing like oh someone has someone is doing this exact same thing i'm thinking about so the idea is not just for you it's who runs with it first so you have to as long as an idea is deposited in you um you have to start to run with it so the ideas are not there's no shortage of it we're not lacking the ideas even in Nigeria we're so super smart and talented and we have amazing ideas but then how do we start to execute them and in executing those ideas is actually what makes you flourish is what makes you thrive is what makes you you know just become a better citizen for Nigeria for your family for your friends so it's important that you know we start to execute them get the will even even if you do even you're like let me profess the needs no that's where the will comes in the zeal to say these ideas i'm going to follow them through and you know nobody can ever kill an idea whose time has come that's one of one of unfortunately we're not using that as the quote of the day today but an idea is more powerful than than any more powerful than anything you can think in the physical once it's an idea or an ideology it becomes very very powerful so let's chew on that as we take this short break and when we return we'll be looking at the papers stay with us