 The Nigeria Data Protection Bureau has disclosed the signing into law of the Data Protection Bill by President Bola Tinobu and 500,000 jobs are projected to be birthed by this move. We shall be taking a look at this very new move by the president that would help create more jobs on the breakfast this morning. And of course we will be looking at what the Nigerian jailies are seeing on their headlines this morning as well on the segment we call Off the Press. Good morning and welcome to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. I am Maureen. And I am Nyam Gul. It's so good to have you this weekend. Thank God it's Friday. Thank God it's Friday. I do hope that you have a kind of job that will give you that time to rest on Saturday and Sunday. But if you don't have that one, I do hope that at least on Sunday you can rest. When time to rest, any time that your weekend comes, because some people their week ends in the middle of the week because that's when they have time to rest, maybe they're off days and all that, whenever that opportunity presents itself, rest because your body needs the rest. Indeed. Well, let's move straight to our very first hot topic, our top trend in the beggar burden. The first top trend in President Bola Tinobu considers the extension of old Nara Nodes deadline. You would remember that a court had ruled that when all the governors went to court last year, a court said that December 31st, 2023, is when these old ones should be faced out. But the president has now extended it. But that raises a question, doesn't it? Well, my question will be, what is such a need for extension? Because it's almost going to be one year in December. Because this thing started in February, the court case came up and then the extension was done and they took it to December. Why would we need the old Nodes by December if we have the way with all to print the new ones? Because the assessments must have been done and we knew that we could print the new ones. And then we know that electronic banking is the same thing right now. So why do we really need the old Nodes? Everybody will be asking the question, is it because some people have hoarded this kind of amount of money in old Nara Nodes and they wanted to extend it? And if they've hoarded this money, why can't they take it to the bank? Is it because it's illegal or what? Why do we really need the old Nodes? That's what I'm just wondering. Well, that's a valid question. But another question that that raises is, is this going to override the order given by the Supreme Court? Because it was the Supreme Court that gave that order, extending it to 31st of December. Although it's an advisory report released by President Bola Ometunobu, chaired by Senator Tokumbo Abiro, and they are saying that a December 20, 24 deadline is preferred. December 20, 2024. Between now and December 20, 2024, what do they intend to do? Will they, if we keep using the money, at what point will they remove it from the economy, from the market, from everywhere, before we can say December 20, 2024? If we can get the new ones, I don't see a reason why we're excited. If we can get the new ones, Nyamgo, this is June, all right? So we're looking at six months time, going by the old order given by the Supreme Court. Now, I don't know how much of the new notes you have seen, because I haven't seen much of it. I don't know why. We haven't seen much of it. We don't see much of it at all. If you go to the zero money, you probably see one note of the newly printed or re, whatever I want, among the old notes. So you ask yourself, what happened? But another thing is that. What was the quantity that was printed when this policy was kicked in? The funny thing is, I traveled recently when I went for my sister's burial, and in the village, the predominant notes were the new ones. In the village? Yes. Amazing. The predominant ones. And it was very exciting. In Lagos, I was trying to save new notes. It was just some fun I was having, trying to save new notes. And for like three months, I didn't even have up to 10,000 of the new notes. But I went to the village. And what you are seeing will happen when you go to get money, maybe out of 100,000 you're getting one new note, is they reverse that. In the village, yes. So they have more new notes than the old notes. And I don't know why that was. So maybe it's a Lagos thing. I don't know. Maybe it's a regional thing. I don't know. But that was the case there. But the thing is, shouldn't we be moving away from paper money? Because a lot of people do transactions. The problem people had during that cash crunch time, as we were putting it, is the fact that transfers were not going. A lot of e-transactions were not going because the infrastructure to cater to that kind of traffic is not there. So shouldn't there be looking at ways to make sure we have e-nira, we have so many other channels that we can do, and we need less cash? If you ask me, we need less cash in the economy. So if we have these old notes, what would we be doing with the old notes? We don't even need to print as much as we printed the old notes. You know, it's been a long time since we've started talking about this cashless policy. But one thing you must take into account is that we have a large number of unbanked Nigerians. There's one. We have a large number of people in the villages who cannot do e-transactions. You have to take them into account. That is a reality we have. Until literacy gets to the point where a large percentage of our populace can do e-transactions, we may not be able to face out cash as much as you think. We shouldn't face out cash, paper money. We shouldn't face that out. But in reality, how many of us really need up to 50,000 naira cash every day? I'm not sure a lot of people do. Because even the people in the village that we say, OK, they are unbanked and all that, they don't even really need this 50,000 naira to do what with it. They don't do transactions like that. What they do mostly is safe. However, they are going to save it. So in Lagos already, there is no place we would call a village, as in Lagos. And we have a population of 10% of the entire population of Nigeria. Don't forget those who do daily transactions in the villages in the markets. Those who bring from their farms, they go to the different markets where they sell to those who bring it to the city, it's cash. OK, let's say 20 million people are out of these people that do this kind of daily transactions, as if 20 million people are out. You go to a place like Cross River. I'm not sure they have up to 10 million people or 15 million people in that state. And half of those people are banked. They are not the unbanked people. Half of them are banked. You go to various states. At least half of them are banked. So if we need the cash, the people who really need this cash are those that are unbanked, which I wouldn't say are up to 50% of our population. Which means if we are printing the cash now and we decide to print 50% of what we used to print, we should be able to have enough in our economy because the rest will be transactions, e-transactions. So I think they should be looking at the situation where you make a transaction and you don't get billed that high because that's one of the problems where people want cash. I make a transaction and they're taking tax for this, taking tax for that, taking tax for that. Before you know what is happening, for every transaction you make no matter how small, you're spending so much money. Even when they send money to you, you're still spending money. So they should be looking at things like that so that people will be comfortable to do the e-transactions, to use alternative means to pay and do business. But they are not looking at that. They're just thinking about bringing back old money to come and do what? Well, that is a question for them to answer. So for two years, the money will be... Let's move to our second top trending. Second top trending, Nigeria regains position as Africa's number one crude oil producer. Well, this is coming as a result of the country's increase in output to 1.3 million barrels per day in May, from 1.1 million barrels per day recorded in the preceding month of April, 2023. This is goodness, isn't it? Just like having an uncle who is highly placed, you can name drop anytime I'm related to this person and somebody fears you. So we have regained our name, but apart from that, does this uncle really take care of you? Does he foot your bills? Does he do anything? Oh my God. How much of that will Nigerians see as an improvement to their lives that we have increased? Just that in Africa, they will now respect us that, yeah, we are back to that place. So let's name drop. Talking about those who don't just name drop, but enjoy the benefit of this, you know, uncle country like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait declined, unfortunately, they declined, but these are people who are making good use of their oil money. These are people who have been making good use of their oil money. Well, data sources reveal that this information came from OPEC and they got it from secondary sources. They got it from secondary sources. We have to state that correctly. And so according to the secondary sources that gave OPEC this information, Nigeria is leading in Africa. And we are leading Angola, Equatorial Guinea and some other countries. In fact, Angola and Equatorial Guinea are now the least with 56,000 barrels per day, according to OPEC. Nigeria, our output increased mainly, the output increased mainly in Nigeria, Iran and, yeah. Yes, Nigeria and Iran increased mainly. Who even sells its oil? I don't know, I don't have insight into that. Who even sells this oil to other countries? Is it an NPC? Oh, Nigeria, the government itself. They work through which medium and all that. Who sells it? Who gets the revenue? An NPC is no longer a government thing per se. It's a private entity right now. So who does this transaction? Where does the money go to? I don't even know. The only thing we'll probably know for sure is that an NPC still has the monopoly of important fuel, which is what independent marketers are seriously kicking against. And so a lot of dynamics playing out. Lots of clarity will probably be seen now in this oil and gas sector because before now, it's no secret that it's been shrouded in secrecy and the psyche of Nigerians are daily being traumatized by some of the news coming out with regards to all the dynamics in the oil and gas sector. Because as you have asked, who is actually doing the deal? Is it the N and PCL or is it the federal government? That is a major question. And then you begin to hear of oil thefts. You begin to hear of this 3 million Naira being taken or stolen by somebody or some huge billions of dollars being carried by somebody or you hear about. And so our psyche, I get traumatized sometimes because you hear of all these things. So we have all this money. So much money. I'm only here about when those who are in position are carrying it as it is hot. Then those of us, we just talk about it. We just hear about it. What I heard, I can't be quoted on this. What I heard is that three people or three entities have been given the license to import oil because that monopoly is no longer there for N and PC. But one of them is N and PC. The second one is Dangote. I don't know yet what the third one is, I didn't get the first one. So that's an update. So if that is true and N and PC is the one going to bring the oil, Dangote that everybody's talking about is going to be another person and a third person. I don't know how the improvement will be in the oil sector. I don't know why it's just three people or three entities that have been given these licenses to do what they need to do. But that shows, if it is true, that shows that Dangote meals or Dangote refinery may actually not function till 2024. I mean, why does it need to import oil when we are at the refinery? That's why I said this is an update. Because we're told that by July, August, they should be selling from that to the refinery. And then like other people said, it probably will come up in 2024. So if this is true, that means the people who talked about 2024 may be right. And what do we do? How do we fare between now and 2024? It's a big question that we need to answer. So now our oil has gone up. Yeah, we should be clapping and all that. But okay, let's move away from oil, please. It's traumatizing, like you said. It's rather flex. I was just thinking this morning that when I started working in plus TV, for instance, that's okay, that's the second place. This is the second place I'm working on the island that used to always be on the mainland. The transport fare from Ojodubega to the VI used to be 300 when I started here. That is late last year, 300 Naira. Today, you'll be begging for a thousand Naira. Some people are charging a thousand two from Ojodubega. You do the maths. You're coming to work and you're going back. The salary remains the same. And I'm not talking about plus TV now. I'm talking about generally people who are working. So from 300 Naira, it has moved to at least a thousand Naira. That is just to come to work. Or let's say you're lucky because sometimes when you're going back, it's worse. So you're lucky that you're paying a thousand Naira here, a thousand Naira back for something you used to pay 300 Naira here, 300 Naira back. That means from 600 Naira transportation you're not paying 2000 Naira. And your salary remains the same. And you can't even blame the people who are the employers of labor because they have to buy fuel. They are also facing the same problem. So the salary may not even rise. And then you think about, okay, why not move from Ojodubega to Leckie? Can you even rent a house in Leckie? And then you live in Leckie somewhere and maybe you don't have a car. From one estate to the other, before you get to the main road to get to the place of work, you need to take a drop. You spend the transport even more than someone is coming from the mainland. So things are getting complicated. Things are getting expensive. What is the way forward? Some jobs you cannot do remotely. You have to be there to do the job yourself. So what can we do? Government should look into this and let's just begin to see the gains of this democracy. Let's begin to see the gains of the sack here, sack there, suspend here, suspend there. Nanda, you've gone there. We need to see more sack and more suspensions, yes. Because as I said, we are being traumatized by all this daily news about theft and graft and all of that. And so if we're going to see people being brought to justice, being brought to book for all that they have done against our national psyche, it will help us find closure. And so we hope that some of these people or these people that have been called in and been questioned that it wouldn't just end like that, that we're going to see real action. And we want to see more names on the list of those suspended, the list of those arrested, and it shouldn't just stop at questioning. We want to see action because a lot has happened so much impunity in the past eight years. We can't go on like this. And as I've said, if this new president wants to be taken seriously, he must be seen to be dealing with corruption and dealing with it squarely. No selective justice. And then, yeah, you just hit it because some people are already beginning to say that there's some sort of vendetta in the sacking, the suspension, the probing that has been going on. How we should just wake up one day and see that the INEC chairman has been suspended. Has been suspended. It will never happen anyway. But if something is done and we know for a fact that this is a clean thing, this is because really this person deserves to go that way or to be suspended in that way, fine. But it takes more than just suspending somebody. It takes more to show the people that you're really doing it for their benefit because if people begin to suspect that you may be doing it because of personal reasons, personal vendetta and all that, it will still amount to now. Talk becomes cheap. And that's what we've seen. Talk is cheap. I mean, look at what's happening in the US. For my president, Donald Trump is in court. This is the second time. And then you go to Britain. What about Boris Johnson? What happened to him? And what was his crime really? So we need to make ourselves to be seen seriously, to be taken seriously. As I said, we have to please respect on the name Nigeria. Have to please respect on our green passport. And to do that is to clean our house. There's a lot of dirt and a lot of cleansing that needs to be done. Can President Tanubu be able to do that? Can he do that? Does he have the political will to do that? Does he have the moral standing to do that? These are some of the questions that have been asked in the polity. Can we see a change? So the renewed hope agenda must indeed be seen to be real. Yeah. Well, another concern we have under the top trending is the fact that the federal government is thinking about introducing tuition in our federal universities or in our tertiary institutions. Tuition that is not in existence at this point. So you introduce tuition and then you give student loans. And then I was reading through that Student Loans Act, the law that enables people to get loan. And I saw, that's a personal opinion, though. I saw the entire thing as just a scum, something that will not work for the people who need it. Because some of the provisions that I saw there were such that you just look at them and laugh. The people you need to bring as guarantors, the things that you have to, the check box that you have to take all the, for instance, if you have ever defaulted on a loan. So maybe these cash apps will give you a loan and you default in some way, you cannot get that. And even if you've never defaulted, if your father or your mother had defaulted, you cannot get it. So if I have an irresponsible father, for instance, that goes and takes a loan, I want to go to school. He didn't even use that loan for my benefit. But I want to go to school. I cannot access that loan because my father defaulted on that loan. So why can the cash apps that we are calling, what do they even call them? We are calling all sorts of names because of the way they get back their money. If they can give a loan without collateral, they can give a loan without knowing you. Just they know your beavers, they know your number and that's it, they give you a loan. The federal government cannot do it. So I will need my father to be a saint. My mother to be a saint and myself to be a saint. Before I can go to school, it doesn't work for me. And then you have to bring a lawyer that has had experience for 10 years after being called to bar, 10 years, or a judge or a civil servant of grade level 12. And if your mother or your father earns as much as 500,000 annually, not monthly, annually, that means your father or your mother should not be earning less than 50,000. Exactly, I mean it. Because 50,000 at 50,000, annually you should have 600,000. So you are disqualified. So if your father is earning 50,000, expect, OK, if your mother and father are earning 30,000 each and the collective salary gets to 600,000 annually, you still are disqualified. I do understand that the committee has been set up. And that committee will meet next week. Hopefully that would give room for Nigerians to bring their input to this discussion because this is not something you take unilaterally. Some have said, well, questioned the move and described it as hasty, hoping that the president had consulted with the academia, the universities, and even had some talks with students to get their pause on this. So this obviously needs to be tinkered with. But what we've seen, it just needs to be tinkered with. If it's going to achieve the purpose that he said to achieve, it has been signed. Now they're trying to explain, well, this is not exactly like these. But on paper signed into law, these are the provisions. So you can't hold anybody for doing the contrary because it was explained that it is going to be this way or that way. It is the way it is on the paper signed into law that is going to work, except they're going to say that a law that has been signed now, from now to September, that they say they will start the disbursement, from now to then, they will now change the law again. And if that happens. I need not be repealed. By who? The same person who signed it. And that would bring the question, why are you in such a haste to sign things into law, things that you may not have had the time to go through and really dotted all the i's and crossed the t's? So if you are signing them fast, fast, are you looking for validation or you're telling us that you really had insight to these laws that you're signing or these bills that you're signing into law? Because if you didn't have, you have no moral standing to sign them because there could be documents that will put you in trouble. But if you had, then why would you repeal it in such a short time? So, well. Let's see what the committee will be doing next week. Let's say, I don't know the mandate given to the committee, but I do know that there's a committee that's been set up and that they will be meeting next week. So we'll see. We need further clarification because what we've seen so far, it leaves a lot to be desired, to be honest. While you're watching the Friday Flex edition of the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa, we'll be taking a little break to give you the weather report and then come back with the headlines of the press.