 As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark World Labor Day, the breakfast this morning takes critical look at the state of the Nigerian labor market. And as we grapple with internally displaced persons within the country, occasioned by communal farmer-header clashes, we also are faced with having to ferry home our citizens from war-torn countries around the world, like Ukraine, Russia and Sudan. Today, we will look at a critical issue, the mental health consequences of fleeing conflict zones. We'll also be taking a look at the headlines of the newspapers, national newspapers today. And of the press, we'll have someone join us to analyze the headlines on the breakfast this morning. You're welcome to the breakfast on the Plus TV Africa. I am Maureen. My name is Nyam Gul. Welcome to Mindset Monday, as it is. We're hoping that you're going to have a very positive mindset this morning. And it is workers' day. Congratulations to all the workers. And we're hoping that your conditions of service will keep improving. Congratulations indeed. And yes, we hope that your conditions of service will improve. Of course, today, everyone is talking about the state of the Nigerian Walker. What is the state of the Nigerian Walker? And in analyzing that, you cannot take away the fact that people begin to assess how this outgoing president, administration of, headed by President Muhammad Al-Buhari, has treated workers. Well, what the federal government answers the people who are complaining, they will say it is unprecedented, the kind of welfare packages that this administration has given. And in fact, it is this administration that conceived a raise in their salaries, which will not be implemented anyway. But a lot of things will be said that is so good, you know, this administration has done well. Buhari himself said he employed 60,000 armymen in his eight years in office. Well, you have to give it to this government in some areas. I mean, when they came in, the minimum wage was 18,000 Naira. And then they moved it to 30,000 Naira, which has not been implemented in any way in some states. In some states, it's been implemented. There are a few states where it's not been implemented. And they set up a committee, a monitoring committee to monitor the level of compliance across the states. But as you said, some states have not complied up to today. Well, so what did the monitoring committee do, like Europe, if you will say? If you ask me, who are go ask? What do you mean by that? Who are go ask? Okay. Well, but like we said, we're hoping for the best all the time for the people who who states have not implemented the 30,000 Naira minimum wage, at least God is implementing a program that is making you survive as it were. Yes. Well, don't forget that just last week, the federal government implemented 40% raise for workers, federal workers, although we also had the protest. Implemented or approved. Approved, approved by the federal government last week. And then we did have some section of the federal workers protesting their exclusion, especially in the health sector, protesting the exclusion from that 40% that was given to federal workers. But then if you look at all of these that have been given to the 30% minimum wage, the 40% that was given to them last week, and vis-à-vis the fact that market to women and men are also looking out for whenever the Nigerian worker gets any kind of raise to increase the prices of food, you begin to wonder. Mention landlords as well anyway. Landlord, transportation, hype, everything. And also you would also consider the fact that the inflation rate increased from 2015, when it was in 2015, it was at 9.01%. The inflation in Nigeria. Now it's double digits. Yeah, now it's 22.04%. Which is terrible. Which is terrible. So the state of the Nigerian worker is one that is not to be envied, especially, you know, we're talking about the removal or not of the fuel subsidy. And so when you compare the life, the living standard of a Nigerian who is a member of OPEC. It's annoying. With that of our counterparts living in other OPEC nations. It's annoying. Sometimes when you talk about these things, you complain about these things. They tell you that even in other countries, they pay XYZ for tax, they pay XYZ for fuel, they pay XYZ for that. And then you ask them, in countries that you're comparing us to, what is their minimum wage? The minimum wage in some countries is more than the salary of a director here in Nigeria. And you're talking the kind of things that you're talking. And to talk about minimum wage, you know, you are approving it and all that. What is left for the next administration to do? Especially in a country that is neck deep in debt. Why not? I don't know if the incoming administration had any input into what should be implemented or should be approved. Why not consult with them to see if it is 20% that is feasible? So that when they come, because they are the ones that will implement it. If you can postpone sensors because you want the next administration to be the one to handle it, you postpone a fuel subsidy removal because you say the timing is bad. That is because you're leaving and so many other things. Why not postpone this one? You're just raising the hopes of people and when the next administration comes, we know that Nigeria, even though they say that government is a continuum, it doesn't always work that way. Yeah. Well, maybe in this case where it is the same party, the same ruling party, the APC, that is being handed over to perhaps that continuum, that continuity, perhaps we'll see that. And then when you're comparing what Nigerians are earning and what counterparts in other parts of the country, the world are earning, what brings to mind is the exchange rate. What is even the worth of what we're earning? What is the worth of a Naira? It's just terrible. Today, the official rate of the Naira stands at 460 Naira per dollar. In 2015, when it was just 18,000, it was 219. So the purchasing power of this salary has been increased. How many people can even access this official rate, this dollar at official rate? When you're talking dollar, you talk black market, whether we like it or not. Even though the federal government at one point shot down someone who was giving us details on the black market and all that, I don't want to mention his name. But they said that he is the reason the black market is flourishing and he's misleading a lot of people. But since he was shot down till now, nothing has changed. So what did you do? What improvement did you get by just shutting down someone who was making a living and also following people, because a lot of people were going there to find out what the market value for a dollar is every day? And they're shutting down. It's out there. It really is out there. There's no secrecy about it. You want to sell a dollar, you want to buy a dollar, you know where to go. We know where to go. We know where to go. Anyway, it's still Mindset Monday, that's how we call it. And it is the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. And we're hoping we're going to stay on. Like we said, we're going to be talking about mental scars of the conflict and wars that we experience all around the world. And what it means to the people who are being ferried out of these countries. Sudan is at war. Ukraine and Russia are at war. And so many other countries could be at war. And Nigerians must be in all these countries. Like they say, if you go to a country and you don't find a Nigerian, do not stay. It's not safe. It's not safe for you. You must find a Nigerian somewhere. So we'll be looking at all these ones. But I think we should just immediately go to the press. Yes, we should. About 7.30 will be joined by Opunabor in Quartaria, who will be looking at these headlines individually and give us insight to what he feels about the headlines. In the meantime, we'll go back to the trending issues as a follow-up of what we have just read from the newspapers. Yes. So to the trending issues now, I'd like to start with NAF departs to evacuate Nigerians from Egypt. That is the Nigerian Air Force plane has departed. Actually on Saturday night for the evacuation of Nigerians stranded in Sudan from Egypt. I was hoping that at this time all of them had reached Nigeria. And now that we're hearing that there are some who are even undocumented, like we talked about, that there may be some people who are undocumented. So did the federal government make plans for emergencies like this? Let me call them emergencies, because they're still our citizens. And I don't know what they're going to do about that. Well, that's a valid question. But what we don't know, what we know for sure, I do not have the answer to that because I do not work with Nima. But what we do know is that the first batch have arrived Egypt. They arrived on Friday. 137 of them have arrived. And the second batch, where they left on Saturday. The second batch left on Saturday. 29 buses left on Saturday to Egypt from Sudan. So that's the much we know. Would they arrive today? We don't know. We can only speculate and guess. But as you have said, we had expected that by today, we would have heard, or over the weekend, would have heard that the first batch, if not all of them, have come into the country. But the last we know is that the first batch have arrived Egypt, waiting to be lifted. And the second batch of buses have left Sudan for Egypt. Okay. Well, let's hope that they are going to arrive. Because if a hundred and something is the number we have that has reached Egypt out of 5,500 that we were expecting, it's really a very small number. And now that we're hearing that the undocumented ones, which I'm sure we're not part of the 5,500, are still there. They're the undocumented ones. I don't know. The federal government has to do something about it. The trauma of being in a world zone is enough already. And then having to think that maybe you are abandoned because that's what will come into the mind of the people who have not been evacuated as at this moment that we're talking about. Well, God help us. Yeah, the federal government also, that's from Nima. They've also advised Nigerians to stop knocking them with regards to the money, the $1.5 million that has been dollars earmarked for this exercise because this is a war situation according to them. And things, negotiations are difficult at this time. So the buses that you would have rented for a certain sum on a normal day would not cost you the same. It will cost you during a war situation. But that's why governments must at all times try to win the confidence of the people. People don't trust our government anymore. For instance, the time of COVID was a time of emergency and there were palliatives. Palliatives were hoarded by the same government. Hoarded and allowed to waste seats. Yeah, so how do you now explain to the people that, okay, in terms of emergency, there are problems that we are facing and all that and all that. When there were no problems, they couldn't do what should be done. How will the people trust them and stop knocking them from the past? We know how they have behaved with the things that they should have given us without any problem. So government should seek at all times to win the trust of the people so that whatever they do, people will get to believe them because if the people don't believe, no policy will work. No policy will work in a country where they don't believe because they're always suspecting you. If government is giving me this, what are they taking from me? Even I don't see it. And that is why this debate about removal of failed subsidy is so controversial and so divided. Because those who are saying remove it, they have the reasons. They see this lack of trust you're talking about. They are the ones that say it's an organized crime against the people because, I mean, NNPC, our four major refineries are just not working. NNPC accounts for just 8%, 8%. And that's according to an OPEC report. It accounts for 8% of the four used in the country. And so we import how many percent, 92%. And that's what give birth to this subsidy in the first place because government then has to make up for the cost of importing this quantity into the country. So those who are saying remove this subsidy are saying let us fix the refineries. Stop importing. Let us give ourselves this oil that we need. And those who are benefiting from this subsidy, we stop having the benefits of, because the controversy surrounding the quantity of oil that we import, the quantity of oil that we use on the daily, and everything, the secrecy surrounding that sector. So those who are saying it is an organized crime are saying let's stop this so that we can stop the leakages. We can stop the oil theft. And then those who are saying don't remove it, like labor. It's one of the questions we're going to ask our guests who's going to represent labor today. Labor does not want it removed. And you can understand that. Because imagine what will happen when they remove subsidy from fuel importation. The cost of leaving will just go up the roof. And Nigeria is ready for that. Look at how subsidy has been removed from, okay, when they talk about oil removing subsidy from oil, they're really talking about petrol. Okay, because diesel has no subsidy anymore. How much are we buying diesel today? It's almost a thousand. Almost a thousand. We're buying diesel. Now, government will say if we remove subsidy, there will be money left to do other things. But do we trust them to do those things? With the money. School feeding came. Who won this amount was spent? I didn't see where students were fed. I saw on social media one miserable-looking portion from Aga Gay Bread. And one miserable-looking portion of stew made with, you could just see palm oil floating on top of uncooked tomatoes with nothing inside of it. Given to a child in one of the schools in one of the eastern, western states, I worked for Nigeria when I saw that. It's a terrible thing. We don't trust government. Government should know this. We don't trust government. We the people, I'm talking like the people, don't trust government. That doesn't mean that government is not working, but government should do their best to make sure that people trust them so that when policies come, people can contribute. Dividends of democracy is not building roads. It's not building skyscrapers or anything. It's not doing what you normally should do because even the military administration do the same things. Dividends of democracy is representation. The ability for everybody to have a voice in that government to choose what they want and how they want to be governed. That is dividends of democracy. You can't build a bridge and tell me dividends of democracy. IBB built that mainland bridge. That was not a civilian government. So you don't tell me that what you should ordinarily do as a governor or as a head of state or as a president is dividends of democracy when I'm being gagged. When I don't have information to what you're doing. All right. So as we wrap up top trending, resident doctors is another top trending. They've given the federal governments the two or three weeks ultimatum for salary structure review. The issue of con mess has been going on for a long time. Courageous. Yeah. And I wonder why the health sector appears to be neglected. Of all sectors. Of all sectors. And I just saw what the minister of information said this morning that the Buhari administration's intervention in the health sector is unprecedented. So everything is unprecedented. Unprecedented. So if you are neglecting the doctors or nurses and all that, then who else are you putting in your review of the salary structure of workers? Well, I think we'll just take a short break and return with our guests that we'll be talking on the newspaper headlines. Stay with us.