 The ACF criticizes reintegration of Fama Voko Haram fighters back into society. It's one of the discussions that we have for you this morning on the breakfast. And also we will be discussing the new Petroleum Industry Bill and of course reactions to it. Also going through the papers this morning to see what major stories are making headlines across the country and across the world here on the breakfast this morning. We'll say good morning and welcome. Yes, good morning to you. I am Annette Phillips. I am Osamu Agbon. It's a very interesting Wednesday morning. It seems like it was going to rain in some parts of Ligas this morning. My way to work it was a little grizzled. So just keep that in mind as you step out this morning. Thank you for joining us here on the breakfast and applause to the Africa. Now, I'll talk to you on the stories today make a lot of people enraged. First of all, the protests that we saw in Uganda. So bus drivers acclaimed that one of their members, one of their colleagues had allegedly been killed by a member of the Lagos State Tax Force. So they went out on the streets to protest. They packed their cars and said let's leave profit making for a few days and let's call government attention to what's really happening. So they protested at Uganda, lots of passengers, commuters who were trying to get to work and other places were disappointed because they couldn't get transport. But on the main issue about this killing of bus drivers by tax force officials, it's not the new Nigeria and that's the sad part. This is something that I pursued last year regarding the story of a bus driver who was killed in Lagos. I visited their family. The mother was over 70 years old. She broke down in tears talking about how her son was never a fighter. He was an easygoing guy. She went to get his driver's license for him. Talked about just everything regarding the boy's story and how that day he went to the park, the bus park, where he was going to get passengers waiting his turn. He had ordered food and drinks for himself and other drivers. And while they were there, these tax force officials just started coming and the instinct is for people to stand up and flee and that the tax force officials accosted him, kicked him down, fought him, put him in the vehicle. It was a mess. It was such a big story back in 2020 regarding how the family could not even retrieve the body of this man from the hospital and from the hospital where he was taken to. He eventually died and it was just a whole lot. So we've seen stories like this many times about tax force officials taking laws into their own hands, going ahead to extort bus drivers, injuring them and in many times killing them. The question is how long are we going to continue seeing this? We have the Road Transport Union's Association of Nigeria but really, do they have a voice? Do they have a say? Do they have what really can they influence? Apart from coming out to protest like this on the street and then when the police see them protesting, they still calm down on them for protesting because one of their members were killed. So it's really like a vicious cycle in Nigeria. How things really play out? Well, good thing you pointed out the National Union of Nigeria and the National Union of Road Transport Workers. So I'll start with that. They are meant to be a body that represents Road Transport Workers and that includes bus drivers, I believe, and those who commit interstate. And at times like this, it should be their voice, it should be the loudest. You would expect that they would be poheartedly speaking for the rights of drivers across Nigeria but you may not get to hear that voice at a time like this sadly and why it's sad is because I saw a report a few weeks ago that showed how much money the NURTW allegedly makes from commuters and from road users and that is bus drivers, the KKM Marwa and bikes. And all those tickets that they keep paying. And those tickets that they sell. So they are making, allegedly, billions of Naira annually from these people but would never be there to fully represent them and representation doesn't necessarily mean going out to fight the police or to do anything like that. It's really just to always speak on behalf of drivers and ensure that the extortion, the bullying and whatever it is that is reported from the security agencies or from the task force stops. So that's a good place to start. And then for, I saw the story and there's also a response from the police saying that they didn't kill anybody, that they were allegedly chasing one of the bus drivers and he drove his car into another car where somebody was fixing something and the other vehicle that eventually was killed. But it brings us back to talking about the value of life in Nigeria and the complete lack with regards to our criminal justice system. You would expect that for every life that is lost there would be some investigation, there would be some questions that should be answered and who gets to answer for the death of that Nigerian? Does that Nigerian's life in any way matter? Does it have to be a politician or a wealthy person's child first before there is accountability? These task force officials are going to go back on the road again today and continue like nothing happened. They're going to continue living their lives like nothing happened whereas a family has lost a provider, children have lost a father, parents have lost a son and that's it, life goes on. It just really paints the picture of what the value of life is here in Nigeria and how much government and the Nigerian society is accountable for every single life in Nigeria. I mean every other day we hear about names or numbers rather. I think it was a guest yesterday who said it that when you hear about death in Nigeria today you only hear numbers. You don't get to hear names. You don't get to know who these people are. They really are just figures and so every day when we're in the news you hear about 30 people killed, you hear 15, you hear 12, you hear 60 just numbers, no names, no identities. These people almost are just figures and at the end of the year we're going to put together some statistics to show the number of people that have been killed in Nigeria in the last one year. Maybe 500, maybe 1,000, maybe 3,000 but all just numbers and that includes this person who's lost his life now. So whoever it is that is responsible for his death, whatever side of the story that is true if it is the driver that actually drove into a bus and killed somebody or it was a task force who manhandled or hit somebody and the person died somebody needs to answer these questions and somebody needs to at least be prosecuted for a loss of that life but we're in Nigeria and when these things happen like you would do, you would go you'd do a report cover the family, the family would mourn and everybody moves on, that's it. It's too many questions that need to be answered and a lot of people these days would say that the Nigerian news is almost a very toxic place to be. The things that you read are very, very toxic. They're not good for your mental health. It's best that you even stay away from reading Nigerian news entirely if you want to remain sane because the kind of things that you see just really, really break your heart. Boris, in peace to that driver. Talking about heartbreaks, the family of students at St Monica's College in Ghana are heartbroken right now and that's because there's a viral video that we've seen of an Anglican priest kissing. This is not an alleged case right now. We saw hardcore evidence. The video of this Anglican priest, his name is most reverend Dr. Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith kissing students in the school on the mouth. Now, what really intrigues me about this video really is the fact that the students seem to be jubilating. I don't know if maybe it's because of the God status that they've attributed to their priest to now think that, oh, my priest wanting to kiss me must be something so spiritually special. I have no idea because you can see the kids there and the students there jumping up, smiling, laughing, clapping and just being excited and I really want to find words to explain what was going through their minds while that was happening. And if you can see what's happening on your screen right now there's a particular girl who was putting on her face mask. She approached the priest with caution. You can see that she didn't want to kiss the priest. She didn't want that kiss. Apparently maybe some had been selected because they were on a queue, right? And she approached the priest cautiously. She refused to take down her face mask. He put his hand behind her back and asked her to put down her face mask. She does that reluctantly. She refused to put her face close to his but he went on bent in and gave her a kiss on the mouth. Now the school has put out a statement and it's actually the internal province of Ghana Anglican Communion. So it's the church body now who put out a statement yesterday, August 17th. The title is Anglican Ghanaian Anglican Priest Kisses Female Students of Monica's College of Education. They said that the attention of the hierarchy of the Anglican church, Ghana, under the leadership of most reverent Seru Kobina Bent Smith, has been drawn to a circulating video of a priest kissing some female students at the St Monica's College of Education within the Assante-Mampong Disciple Diases. He said that the church is saddened by the news and wishes to state expressly that thorough investigation has immediately been instituted into the matter and that the priest will be dealt with in accordance with the norms and values of the Anglican Communion and that morality is extremely revered in the church. Let's quickly go on, you know, let's skip the rest parts of the press release to highlight the last part I just read. They said morality is extremely revered in the church but we know that reality paints a different picture and opposite picture in fact where morality seems to be preached theoretically but in practice we see what priests, religious leaders, imams, go to young boys and girls who they should be custodians of. That video is appalling and it's just a shame just how much, I don't know what to call it, what really gave that man the effrontery to do that and if he could do that in public where he didn't mind people holding up phones to record him one can only lift the imagination what he might have been doing behind closed doors. Yeah, so with regards to this I'm just going to say that there's first of all, it's not every priest in the Catholic or Anglican Communion that is guilty of some of all these things. I would say that there's a few bad acts but it's also very important that the Anglican church and the Catholic church do better with reading their communities of these bad acts or getting read rather of these bad acts and that includes here in Africa and of course across the world when you hear about young boys being raped by Catholic priests in Rome or in Spain or wherever they need to do a whole lot better with getting read of some of these elements because they completely ruin the name of the church and what it stands for. And then second, I feel like there's a lot of perverted individuals that hide under the cloak of the church and not just the church other really highly ranked organizations to carry out their perverted acts they go under that cloak because they know that that would very likely protect them and find an excuse to do the things that they do. You've obviously just mentioned what would be happening behind closed doors if he's doing this in public then what exactly would he be doing behind closed doors. So there is a lot of those elements and it's not every person that you see that is wearing a cloak as a priest or an imam or as a senior advocate of Nigeria or whatnot that truly is able to live the life that is required when you wear that cloak. So there is perverts. There is very very sick individuals that are fully clothed and acting like sheep but they actually wolves and so that's really what we're seeing displaying here the fact that there is a very very dangerous pervert that is cloaking himself with the clothing of a priest to carry out his activities and I hope that he is completely not just punished and this is one thing that I feel like that's what I started by saying that the church needs to do better I feel like we need to do more than just suspend certain people. There should not be a different punishment for a priest than there is for a teacher for a lawyer, for a banker. A priest is still under the jurisdiction of the country and so he should be punished because I can see the video and these are teenagers these are kids these aren't in any way adults that you can say okay maybe we have given him consent to do what he did and even if they are adults there is still a problem here because you are a priest sir. So these are kids and so I feel that he should not just be I don't know how long they are going to take to investigate this or what more investigation they need to carry out but he should not just be suspended but he should be fully prosecuted and that goes to every single person that is found wanting in this regard the idea of suspending a person for six months or for one year or for two months without pay or some you know nonsense theory like that should not even exist a person like this should be fully prosecuted fired from the pope it should never in any way in any life show his face on the pope it again to address anybody because he has lost every single right to do that from his actions. True and indeed sexual offences is something that you know humans commit you know it's not about whether you're a priest or a pastor it's a human thing which is terrible but I think it's even worse when people in the church do that and it's terrible to see that over the years you know decades and decades on end over the centuries you've seen that the church is a major offender when it comes to sexual crimes and it's terrible how much of an epidemic that has become. I wouldn't call them a major offender they are a major offender so I would say this check the facts the church the Catholic church the Anglican church whatever church religious groups whatever it is the church it's the church is a major offender there is on the average you know 100,000 churches 100,000 Anglican and Catholic and Pentecostal churches you know across Nigeria there's millions of them across the world these stories that you hear about would creep up here and there you know with one person here two people here and stuff like that I don't think that regards them as a major offender or major offender I feel like there is no it doesn't I feel like this priest is a representative of the church so if priests do that they are offending God number one and these are criminal offenses that they should be punished and prosecuted for the cases that you hear about are terrible and that's maybe why they are blown in that proportion because you can never imagine that a priest would sexually assault a young boy or young girl that's a place that they should feel safe but I feel that it doesn't in any way represent every single priest the thousands and millions of them across the world so that's why that's why I would call them that's why I said every priest but the fact that priests do that so that's why I wouldn't call them I wouldn't call the church a major offender because when you say that it means that every single church that you walk into has a 90, 80, 100% likelihood that the priest is sexually assaulting somebody and that's not fair that's not the point the point is that the priest who sexually assaults a child, a boy, whoever it is whoever it is represents the church that's the point I'm trying to make here I'm not saying that 90% of church members he doesn't mean the church is a major offender the church is a major offender and I stand by that can we wrap this up? let us know your thoughts about this on our social media platforms on Facebook and Instagram as well as our YouTube channel let's take a break here and return with Off The Press