 You're welcome back. It's time now to lift some headlines off the press, and we're glad to be joined by Mr. Tunde Colauwale, a legal practitioner here in Lagos. Good morning and welcome to the program, Tunde. Okay. Before he joins us to talk to us, let's just look at some of the headlines that are on the newspapers. Let's begin with the nation newspaper, and as soon as Tunde joins us, we'll welcome him. The nation newspaper is the first, and it leads with this story, Tinobu orders release of grains to 50 million farmers and orders. The writer there is that President directs review of 8,000 Naira cash transfer to poor households. That is the biggest headline there. Market forces driving price of petrol says Kiari. That's another one. And just below the NNPCL price of petrol will group, will go up and down as prevailing situations dictates, which means there's a possibility it can get to 1,000 or 1,005. Now, market forces the Cosa. UK agency Naira for trade financing. That's a smaller headline up there. And Senate House, Senate and House to probe NNPCL NDDC orders. Many allegations in focus. We also have CBN axis 2,698 BDCs. Heatwave threatens lives in U.S. Europe. NPA targets 500 billion Naira revenue. Okay, so we'll move from the nation newspaper to yet another paper, and this time it's the punch, the punch newspaper. Punch newspaper leads with NLCTUC lambast Tinobu as fuel heats 630 Naira per litre, shun negotiations. The riders are. Label kicks against 8,000 Naira per litre says Tinobu deviated from making Nigeria better. NNPCL defends new pump price filling stations shot, queues resurface in Abuja and Lagos. Smaller headlines are saying Tinobu back tracks, reviews proposed 8,000 Naira cash per litre. Sustained air attacks on terrorist commander tells troops and not central, southwest ex-governors may replace Adamu or Mishore. Okay, still on the punch. Military threatening to demolish 5,000 houses, Ogun communities tell assembly and troops kill two. Okay, we'll leave that out. Now we'll go to the next newspaper and the last one for today and that is Nature News. Nature News newspaper leads with Aquabomb government forms climate partnership with Atmosphere AG on Veil's fuel efficient cook stove. Okay, then the smaller headlines there have it that Afan that is AFAN to feed 200 million Nigerians in 2023 wet season farming. Environmental sustainability, solution oriented journalism is important in climate change reportage that is according to Akoshile. And there is something on sports there as well. That is that Kanu affirms Finidi as a Yimba coach amidst Ramos. You know, we heard that Kanu was going to be the chairman and Finidi was going to be the coach. It was rumored for a long time and then Kanu was confirmed to be the chairman. Now he has confirmed that Finidi judge is going to be the coach. Well, those are the headlines and like I said earlier, we've been joined by Tunde Kolaulay, a legal practitioner here in Lagos. I do hope that Tunde is standing by right now. Tunde, good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning, welcome. You have a great night. Yes, I did have a great night and a tracking morning. Okay, so to the next one. Yeah, well, we thank God for life. Let's start with the nation newspaper. Let me begin with what is not actually the biggest headline on the nation, but for me is very big. The Senate House to Probe NNPCL NDDC orders and they say that many allegations in focus. We remember what happened when there was this probe of the NNDC NDDC when the Senate president, the current Senate president was being asked a lot of questions. We remember the famous of your Mike Fing and all that. Now, Acquabio is the Senate president. Yeah, Acquabio is down the Senate president and they're talking about probing NNPCL and NDDC and orders and that they say many allegations are in focus. Let me hear your comments about the success or otherwise of these kind of probe that they are telling us. Well, let me quickly say that part of the responsibility of the Senate, the answer of it, and the different houses of assembly is to make laws, perform oversight functions and all represent their different consistencies. The hope of any branch of the best kind of government is part of the over eight and the over five functions. So if the Senate has found issues that decides to report, it could be said without mentioning what it is within the limits of their powers. Well, like you have a right to say, we have a series of probes in the past and the classical one was the NNPC probe, which led to a very embarrassing situation, not just for the Senate, for the entire, but for the entire New Zealand people. We desire to such a level that the Senate that called for the probe had to start switching off the microphone so as to shut up the Nigerian people from behind what the response of the person they were grooming was saying. So if we have had theories of probes, not just the NDDC, but NNPC and so many other bodies in the past and we haven't gotten any useful results from those probes, we begin to wonder what is different. The new probe that is being proposed by the Senate will bring to the entire Nigerian people. I suspect this proposed probe will just go the way of the other probes that we have had in the past. Waste of nations resources, waste of nations time and then an exercise in fertility. The question is, why is it that whatever probes we have in this country has never yielded the necessary results? The answer is very, very simple. Those who are probing themselves, usually who have their hands in the cookie jar, in the cookie jar. So if you have dipped your hand into the cookie jar, into the cookie jar, it is very difficult what you are doing. It is exposing yourself, or playing the game of the ostrich, burying your hands in the sun, forgetting that the rest of your body is totally exposed to your advanced way. Sooner than later, it will be dedicated to a managed probe, for a probe designed to end in the way all the other probes have ended in the past. Senator Gotswila Pabio was there and it didn't yield anything when he was even on the hot seat. Now he is going to be the one probing who, because even when he was contesting for the Senate presidency, he said he shouldn't be judged according to his performance in NDDC. He should be judged according to his performance in other things like being a governor of a quiet bomb state. So that tells us, even till now, that his time in NDDC was really, really not a good time. And now they're talking about probing NDDC. Are they probing the new board or are they probing boards before now? The people who were at the hem of affairs before now or how will that probe even be? Who will be probing who? I'm just concerned. It's as if it's some kind of palliative as well, but who am I to say? Okay. Like I said, the group will most likely not yield any positive results. Most I don't forget that these people are politicians and they're also sensitive to what is happening on the street. Sometimes when they feel that the Nigerian people are not happy with them, they will raise a storm in the tea cup and pretend that we find a solution to the storm that they have themselves intentionally raised. It is a revolutionary tactic that is never going to take over the air. We remember, like I said, theories of truth are taking place in the board. And we didn't get anything and we go, I mean. And again, don't forget the character that is called a patio. I'm not to show. We have come in the mood of is that the fallen already can be found anyway. It's better. We devote our attention to something that is more useful. Well, let's just cross our fingers. We know where there's a way Nigerians think it is going to end. Let's see if they're going to prove us wrong as Nigerians and say, hey, we've come to do better in everything. Well, there's another one, market forces driving price of petrol, says Kiari. You remember that yesterday there was an outcry in Abuja and in so many other places, the fuel was sold at 617. In fact, I got reports from crossover state that some places they were selling for 700 Naira per litre. And the only response to that by Mila Kiari was that market forces are driving this process. So which means market forces will drive this process and we can get to a situation where we might buy fuel for 1000 Naira and there's nobody to blame but market forces. Let me hear your own. I was from most of yesterday. I was on the street and I moved around on public transportation. I heard what the people came in, the general bosses were saying. I also heard what the people were driving, the scooters, the motorcycles, the okada were saying. I also saw kills in different parts of later yesterday while I was committing a land. The truth of the matter is that apart Kiari and me, Kiari is right. We'll say there is a market forces that is at play. Even if there is no manganese, if there are no manganese, people will likely be selling the market, I mean the petroleum products at the rate of based on the rate in which they bought it, based on the cost of importation, shipping and based on the cost of storage and then based on the cost of transporting the products from different parts of the country to the other. So if you factor in all those issues, you will agree with Kiari that the market forces is at play. But you now ask yourself, is it right to protect our people with the market forces without the other challenges that we are already facing? In the area of food, in the area of housing, in the area of education, in the area of transportation infrastructure, these are the roles, the air and then the hospital. Can you also ask, is there even any evil in providing for this? I mean in subsidizing the petroleum products, will there ever be the first nation in the world to subsidize the petroleum products? The answer is no. So we are in, for all manners of things, with regards to the subsidizing remover. Why do I say that? So long as the products are left to the, are left to the backers of the market forces, chances are that the price of petroleum products will never come down. And our experience also teaches us better. Anytime the price goes up in Nigeria, it has never come down. Because the production, the distribution, the importation, the most of these I can, are outside the control of not just the Nigerian government, but the Nigerian people as a whole. So it's not impossible that before December, petroleum products might be selling at a price as high as 1,000 per liter, in places like Sokoto, in places like Meduguri, in places like Potako, and then the Bible state. This program of subsidizing remover has not been well thought out. Yes, I agree that the new president has met a very empty threshold and that he required to raise money from whatever sources or the other is who gets it. But in trying to raise money, he ought to have sat down, contemplate all the challenges that go to some of these sources of raising money, critically, before embarking on some of the decisions that he has embarked on. And I would want to say the friction of the refinery and then supporting the different businesses that are building new refineries to ensure a speedy complexion would have been a better way to go than just removing the subsidy before working out the kushmi effect that they have not been going to do. God save Nigeria. Really, God save Nigeria. My question is what they are calling market forces, really market forces, in a situation where very few people, out of 200 million people in Nigeria, very few, as of now we have Dangote and five other unnamed people that have had licenses to import fuel into the country. And it is six people or even 10 people are there enough to call market forces. We know what happened in the aviation industry, for instance, where prices were set by the aviation companies. And they said, if you have to travel from Lagos to Abuja, for instance, this is a fixed price. And people were complaining. You don't do that. Everybody is at liberty to set the prices, the transport fare from one point to the other as they will. But these people have an association. They can talk to each other and they just set a price. Will you call that really market forces? Because the people playing in that, in that sector are so few that they can always talk to themselves. Is that really market forces? Because no matter what they do, if they just want to up the price, they can do that because there's no competition as it were. It's just a few of them. Do you really call that a fair market forces? Well, first and foremost, like I said, naturally, when we are doing this, that it is wrong for the government to be given licenses to anybody for that matter, talk less of the five people you have mentioned, to import petrol or fuel into the country. If you say you want the market forces to be determined by this and all that, then you should be a free entry and free exit. Whoever has the resources or the money to bring the petrol or fuel into the country helps to be allowed to do so without giving license to anybody. That is when market forces and millions begin to walk the way it should walk. What they have simply done is to return to a life-saving regime which has been in place before the subsidy was removed. And that is totally wrong. And then with regard to the question you have again, why can't the five people who have been given licenses to be bringing in these products decide among themselves to crash the prices or to cut the prices so that the products can be sold at a very cheap rate to the negligible. Unfortunately, capitalism doesn't work the way it should. Capitalism drives on the profit. During what profit? These such men are not a pastor or a man who thinks about morality, who thinks about ethics, who thinks about what should be compatible for the negligible to do. Unfortunately too, the government cannot force them to sell at any price because if they have given them the license, the license they are not giving is most sacred. Now if they give it free of charge, they will prepare some money to obtain those prices. There will be also some things they have to comply with before they combine the wages with the products. So if there are all these challenges and not that they have to face and for them more and more, if that means they will be buying the products at an international market price always to where they are buying them. The people who will be selling to them abroad will not say because these five people are Nigerians and the Nigerian people are suffering and the Nigerian people need to buy at one price or the other. Let's share to these Nigerian buyers that the cheap power is low and nobody will do that for them. If it is the rate at which a man who comes from China, who comes from Hong Kong, who comes from Malaysia, goes to the international petrol and produce market to buy, that the five not Nigerians will also buy. If that is the case, the five people cannot catch the price, they cannot determine the price, at which for example the government and the Nigerian people will have to buy that they sell the two drugs. They are businessmen who are out to make profit, they are also businessmen who are buying from an international market. And when you are buying from an international market, you are not talking about money, you are not talking about assets, you are talking about the company and money and also making profit. Very happy profit for that matter. So it is a wishful thinking for anybody to think that these five people can just see that together and determine the price. If the Nigerians do that, what they are going to be having is never going to be comfortable, but they will not pull the price. The price that can even be higher than what you presently have in the country today. In a country where we see that everything has a cabal, people who are selling, who are doing everything, there is a cabal here, there is a cabal there, cabal upon cabal, cabal upon cabal. Okay. Well, there are still some other headlines. NLC, TUC, Lombast, Tinobu, as fuel heats, 630 Naira per litre, shun negotiations. And what we have there is the kick against the 8,000 Naira per litre, say, Tinobu deviated from making Nigeria better. And NNPCL, which we have talked about anyway, defends new pump price, filling stations are short queues resurface in Abuja and Lagos. So now NNPC, and TUC are crying that he did not make Nigeria better as he promised. Now fuel is 630 Naira per litre, and they have shunned negotiations. Do you see another crisis brewing? There is already a crisis in our land. The prayer that we should be having now is that the crisis will not degenerate to the level in which it has better than degenerated in a place like Kenya. The Kenyan people are on the streets now protesting the high cost of living, protesting high prices of goods and services in the country. And they are being led by Presencia, not even the local leaders in those places. They are being led by Mr. Udinga of India, who contested with RUTO, the last presidential president in Kenya. And we are going to manage the crisis in our land, this world we should be looking at. And I think, Presencia, who has come out with what they think will be a solution to the crisis we are in our land, one of which is the 8,000 Naira to reach an independent household, and more so too, that it has ordered the release of grain to some farmers, out of farmers all over the country. And of course, they've told us that they will be coming out with some other palliative measures. But would that not be like putting the cup before the hall? One would have thought that the regime of palliative should have been put on ground first before you remove the sorcery. If you have not removed the sorcery, if after you have removed the sorcery, you are not talking about the palliative, what are the suffering that the Naira people have gone through since May 29, hoping now that the regime of palliative has not been put on ground you won't want to agree with me that that is what I am putting the cup before the hall. And to the NUC and TUC, it would appear to me that those people have become totally irrelevant. And it became irrelevant the very day that they began to participate openly in politics, that they began to campaign for some political parties and for some candidates in the last election. All over the world, most regional bodies don't come out openly to start campaigning for politicians or to start supporting one candidate against the other. What they will give you a lead to is to lend some sort of support to a particular political party or to a particular individual by adopting the programs of such political parties of such individuals that can start an election. But in a place like Britain, for example, you have the Liberal Party, which is now of the Liberal people in Britain. But Nigeria is different from Britain in the sense that whatever support the Liberal people have in this country gives to any political party or to any individual, can be seen as a kind of support for the enemies of the other political parties or for the enemies of the other politicians. And for that matter, NUC and TUC will most likely make themselves amenable for blackmail. Tendencies and identity can be of color, with regard to whatever state they might be taking on these sort of subsisting issues. Well, the time may come for the Nigerian people to take the booze at their home and fight for themselves with regard to these sort of subsisting issues. Well, this subsisting, this palliative, this palliative, palliative is supposed to be a temporary measure, something to hold brief for a permanent solution. So far, I haven't really seen a permanent solution that would make the Nigerian populace to have a better life, because everything in Nigeria is tied to this fuel and also tied to dollars. These are the two things that drive whatever kind of life we live in Nigeria, fuel availability and then dollar how much it is or how low it is selling in the market. Now, they talked about palliative and said 8,000 to 12 million Nigerians out of 200 million Nigerians, that's funny, but 8,000 Naira. Now the president is saying he needs to review the palliative and the review of this palliative or this 8,000 Naira maybe upwards will mean that there will be more money voted to do what they are going to do and at the end of the day you will find out that we may even hit a time where or reach a time where the money for palliative would have been good enough or just enough just right to even subsidize this fuel they are running away from. So why just take money from one place, call it another name and say it is palliative that will not get to everybody. Shouldn't even we shouldn't we be talking about revisiting the need or otherwise of removing this fuel subsidy knowing fully well what what Nigerians are facing because of this. Well, like we have said before, when was the subsidy removed? But is that really the case now? Yes, they may have been taking the money, but when the people not enjoying from 195 please now it is 617 and they say just a few people were benefiting. What were Nigerians doing if they were not benefiting as well? Why couldn't they have looked at why this money was overshooting? There was more money voted for the thing where we could have used less. Now that they know that we could have used less, why not just continue and shed the other part which made the money too humongous? Well, if your introduction is sort of my thought screen, like I was saying my understanding of the situation is this and I have the question why was the subsidy removed? It was removed because it was said to be benefiting for individuals and I said there was no doubt about that. The subsidy was also removed because the government thinks the two frees of resources are to be able to attract other developmental issues. That may be true, but is it only a subsidy that the resources are being wasted? The answer is no. I have ties it up and that mentioned issues such as the cost of governance in this country which is on the high side and we have begun to see that even with this new regime we have told that even in the National Assembly we will get some big billion dollars of money to sort of earn a budget to be able to do their work or which they are expected to do. Furthermore, the way you remember that I have always said that the cost of contact in Nigeria is one of the highest, is not the highest in the world. So, if we are able to reduce the cost of government, reduce the cost of efficacy of contact in this country and we scale down the two more sides of governance in this country we might be able to free resources for developmental issues and be able to return the subsidy for people of poor jobs. And we will return the subsidy to some other areas. Because when I present my money to the government, the rest of the money we are giving to the money and the numbers of money we are giving to people are that are negated the sufferings or the poverty that that money was meant to address. The answer is no. In fact, Senators Sayu Sanin came out with a tactic to not too long ago that those who got my money, who got his money became poor after they got the money, the palliative, and their money to the Nigerian people to reject the $8,000 that the meaningful government is coming to give to the Nigerian people in the Nigerian society. So, if that is the issue or what Senators Sayu Sanin is telling us is that this money that the government is planning to give to the poor people in society is either here or there and will not solve the problem. We will rather slow that 500 billion into rehabilitating the refinery and then developing infrastructure and another empowering program that will make it possible for the Nigerian people to live a comfortable life and then free resources for government. Look at the program that they have planned for the farmer who gives this money to the farmer from the silos of what they've been keeping for emergencies. Whenever you give to the farmers today, for all the farmers in Nigeria, do the farmers have access to their farm? The answer is no. In the north, the bandits will not allow the farmer to go to the respective farms. The southern Nigerians, kidnapped, have shot out the farmers from their different farms. So, if you make fertilizer available, you make seedings available. If you also give some money to the different farmers all over the country, chances are they will just use that money and whatever you give them, solve their immediate problem in terms of feeding, in terms of transportation, in terms of when they achieve their complete. They will take the fertilizer to the market, they will take the seedings to the market and sell them and use it to address their immediate problem. The tragedy is that these programs of soil subsidy removal have not been well thought out. These programs of quality have not been well thought out. The government will require to go to the drawing boards and come out with the title program with regards to the subsidy and then the alleviation of the subsidy of the Nigerian people. We are in very, very deep crisis. I pray that this does not lead to an upheaval all over the country. This is what I saw yesterday when I was committed under the leadership. Well, we do hope that it will not degenerate into something, into real chaos in Nigeria because it's only so much that people can take. And you made a very valid point. Why not use the 500 billion to find a lasting solution in the refineries, make the refineries work so that everybody can gain? Because there are people who were born until their death. Yes. There are people who were born until they died. People who were born until they died, they were enjoying the fuel subsidy in Nigeria. And now that you have removed fuel subsidy and then you are giving palliative for it for six weeks or for six months, sorry. And then you are expecting that person for a lifetime to go without it. I always give an example that people who are commuting, let's say from Ojodubega, that's the axis I come from to the island every morning. And somebody will ask me, why not live on the island? Just come and try it. Then they used to pay regular vehicles will take 300 Naira to get to a co-hotel roundabout for instance. Now it is 1,000 Naira. The salary has not changed. And then you will say, okay, move from there, come and live on the island. On the island, you are going to look for just a self-contained, as we call it in Nigeria, self-con in Nigeria. And they are asking you to bring 1.2 million Naira from that same salary that you are running away from spending so much because at the end of the month, maybe you are going home with 5,000 Naira or less. So what really are they thinking about? Someone said, and I don't know, it's an anonymous quote. And they said, knowledge isn't free, you have to pay attention. Is it that our leaders do not pay attention that they are not getting the knowledge to rule us well and find lasting solutions or they just chose to ignore? No, they are not eligible. Okay, for example, Mr. President, he is a graduate in both economics and accounting. He has worked abroad with the top consultancy companies. And then even with the petroleum companies here in Nigeria, he has also been a business man. You cannot say that that kind of a testing doesn't have the knowledge. So is it that the party who is the next president, he is a lawyer, he has been a governor, he has been a senator, he has been a minister. You cannot say that kind of a testing because they have knowledge. One of the people that we have in the government today are highly educated people and knowledge. I think the challenge we have always had is this a capitalism that we are practicing. And the subscription to IMF and World Bank's description was a kind of liberal economics, which knows about problems. Furthermore, the people in government are not ready to make sacrifices, like they are calling us very Nigerian people to make a few people, I think one of them is my friend too. And a material and something else of other people have now put a 70 billion, a loan for themselves, for their own comfort. And they are asking the Nigerian people to take $86,000 for six months for the problems or for suffering that will go on as they need some, that will continue as we find solutions to produce a better loan in Nigeria. So they are adhering to World Bank prescription, IMF prescription, capitalism and lack of readiness to tighten their own debt and less sacrifice is at the bottom of the problem that the Nigerian government or the immigrant government have and which those developing countries and Africa in particular are found themselves. They are not ready to seize the bull or take the bull by the horn, because they think they might be helping or they might be stepping on the toes of the Western world and they will not readily want to do that. Well, we pray for Nigeria, we pray for ourselves, we pray we all survive this and we cannot even, we may not even be able to survive another ensass, let alone a civil war in Nigeria. Leaders should think of the people and know that it's only so much that people can take. The suffering is real, no matter how anybody sees it, even the people who are supporting the government of the day are looking somehow, a lot of them are silent and all that. So if these people are educated enough, they should also have the wisdom enough to do what the needful is. If people are suffering, suffer with them, but if you cannot suffer because you know a way out for yourself, also look for a way out for the other people because we live on this earth together. But this is how much we can go, Mr. Kolaole on the program today. Thank you so much for being a part of the press this morning. Thanks for having me. So welcome. I wish you a lovely day. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you very much, thank you. We need all the good wishes that we can have. We'll take a short break now, look at the weather a little bit and when we return we take our first hot topic straight up.