 And it's time for the press where we'll take a look at some headlines of some newspapers in the country and we'll begin with the punch newspaper and the punch newspaper this morning leads with SALA. Current Pains Necessary Says to Noble Governments Preachers Unity. SALA, Current Pains Necessary Says to Noble Governors Preachers Unity and the writers their president assures Nigerians of better days PDP lambist APC and governors demand peaceful coexistence as Muslims celebrate SALA. So there you have the picture of President Ahmed Tnubu and some other people there, top dignitaries Nuhuru Badoo, former governor of Lagos State, Fashola and some others at the praying ground. You have others pictures of other Muslim faithful celebrating the SALA at different places. So those are the pictures on the front pages, the front page of the punch newspaper. You have Going Down, Drama at Semic X-Books Man and a Delicate Supporters Clash at Idil Ground. You have Drama there, a Senate X-Books Man and a Delicate Supporters Clash at Id Ground that happened yesterday and above the masthead of the punch newspaper you have Marketers Project 700 Naira Alita for Petrol 700 Naira Alita for Petrol that's Marketers Projection and then a 120 billion Naira USSD debt won't be cancelled, telcos tell banks. Nigeria's digital infrastructure inadequate for cashless economy, that's World Bank there. Page 20 is where you have details of that. Business day from the punch newspaper and business day is leading with 4.4 trillion Naira cash bonizer for federal government others as FAC gets boosted. 4.4 trillion Naira cash bonizer for FG others as FAC gets boosted. Nigerians suspended travel plans to US, Europe as fares soar. Summer travelers shift to Egypt, Rwanda, South Africa, well those are the two major headlines on business day and from business day we move to the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian newspaper leads with Sala, Presidency, PDP trade blames over a bleak low-key celebrations. The 6 is where that is leading to the end of the day and that is the end of the day. The 6 is where that story is written, Presidency, PDP trade blames over a bleak low-key celebrations. And that's talking about Sala, there you still have pictures of President Tanubu and some dignitaries praying yesterday at the Eid ground and then a smaller picture of Nigerians there. You know Muslims who are also praying at different sections of the Eid ground. Above the masthead you have flooding FCTH evacuated residents of Trademore estates. We saw horrible videos and pictures from Abuja last week, very horrible so FCTH evacuated residents of Trademore estates. Pictures of that is on page 8 of the Guardian newspaper, Land Use Act between powerful governors and oppressed citizenry, Land Use Act between powerful governors and oppressed citizenry. Page 4 is where you have details of that, lobbyists stranded as Tanubu relocates from Babylon to a White House. Page 6 is where you have details of that, FG to stop funding professional bodies councils from 2026, that's a hot topic today, we'll be taking a look at this in depth and details of that is on page 5 of this newspaper, Adeleke Senator Clash over reserved space at Oshun Purin ground, details of that is on page 7 and stock market gains 5 trillion dollars in 6 months and that's the much you'll be taking from the Guardian newspaper, from the Guardian newspaper we'll move to leadership and leadership is leading with sort and to political leaders shared your extravagant lifestyle for Nigeria's sake, shared your extravagant lifestyle for Nigeria's sake. Page 4 is where you have details of that, and the mass trip there, despite shrinking income Muslim celebrate Salah in style, above the mass said you have a bus loyalist crample for 15 juicy committees, 40 Nigerians regain freedom from Libyan detention, that's on page 8, as we find details of that what happened to these Nigerians, why were they imprisoned in Libya and how did they regain their freedom and here you still have that headline, edgy to stop funding professional bodies councils in 2024, page 6 of the leadership is where the details of that is, so you have pictures of people celebrating Salah, praying and came around, this is you know the biggest belief that Muslim faith will celebrate in the year, it's a very big one and there are divergent views on how Nigerians celebrated that Muslim faith was celebrated at this time around, so I'm saying it's too low key and attributing it to the economic realities on ground today, not many people having enough to celebrate with, well that's the much I'll be taking from the leadership newspaper. Can you stand for our guests to join us to take a look at some of the headlines we just read out from the front pages of some national dailies, Mr Ezekiel Ehtok, public affairs analyst is joining us now from Aqaibam, good morning to you Mr Ezekiel. Good morning and happy Salah celebrations to everybody in the studio and all Nigerians. Indeed, indeed, well let's start with the headlines on the punch newspaper, Salah, current pains necessary says to Nubu and then governors preach for unity, you listened to his speech yesterday didn't you, what do you make of his speech, the president saying that current pains are necessary, Nigerians should make more sacrifice. Yeah I think that there's a major disconnect that we really need to not just talk about but interrogate and fix as fast as possible. You know, when I've been privileged over the years to have a direct relationship from the presidency to several state governors and everybody, I've been that privileged and one thing stands out, people get to the president or to the governors and shield them from the realities on ground and it takes a few people who understand this, who should understand this, who saw this when they were outside and now they are inside for them to say no I need to be in touch with current realities and let me say this, one of the people that did that that impressed me and something I needed to copy was Mr. Peter Obi when he was you know the governor of Anambra state, he gave phones to student leaders, secondary school, head boys and said this is the line you can reach me directly, send me messages, let me get in touch with you and I know he did that to other sections, every leader, every president should have a dedicated line that nobody holds for him, he holds it and you don't need to call that line if you are calling your way, send messages. Now at night he will just sit down, it seems that my network is, I don't know if you can, okay good, then at night he would sit down or maybe in flight or something and just randomly go through things, why am I saying this? The first thing is that I don't know to what extent Mr. President is aware of the hardship and the pains of the people for real, that's number one. Number two, I don't know to what extent he understands the psychology of human mind, human being of leadership and emotional intelligence. Number three, I don't know to what extent he appreciates body language as opposed to spoken words as being the better and higher communication to the generality of the people. Why am I saying all this? Number one is that there is massive suffering, unprecedented level of suffering in the land and number two as a leader the first thing he wants to show is body language, not just speeches, no. He wants to see himself as very simple, he wants to see himself as target driven, he wants to show the people that look, times are hard and we've all got to make sacrifices. How on earth do you explain how the convoy, no matter the explanation of a Nigerian president having close to 100 SUVs, the video made the rounds and I don't know if his media minders were careful to go through the mindset of the people, the different comments, I belong to over 250 water groups and I can tell you that from every section of Nigeria, when I have time to go through some of those things because most of the things you just delete, delete, delete because you can't read them. If you do that, it means you're not going to do your work. But you just stumble off things which is just what I said earlier. You know, some things will jump at you no matter how it is and the mood of the nation is very depressive, is very demoralizing, it's very much not in tune with this government that should, that came on the back of people saying no, it shouldn't have been, it didn't win, it didn't win. So what he needed to do was that quick thing, it's not about signing students' loans, you know, it went up, but is it sustained, last thing to interrogate, then, you know, obtain the retirement age of judges and then, you know, they are just setting things that are populist but deep down, do they show somebody that really has this empathy for the people and really wants to get down to work. I think that Mr. Tinibu is a good man. I think that he means well, but that has always been the story of our leaders. I want to appeal to the people, his close friends, for them to help him, help your governor, you know, and I'm just concerned. So him telling him that hard times are coming, it's like excuse me, can you just show me with your appointments, with your lifestyle, with the things that you do, that you understand that and you are willing to be the leader, lead from the front and make the first sacrifice and say Nigerians, do as I do. Yeah, well, if you go to leadership newspaper, you find where the Sultan is advising politicians to shed their extravagant lifestyle for Nigeria's sake. I couldn't agree more with the Sultan and that is exactly what I'm talking about and I'm happy that somebody at the level of the Sultan can read between the lines, can see what is going on and is advising our leaders, please shed that extravagant lifestyle. I don't know if I'm still being heard, it's as if I'm frozen, you know, please, okay, great, yeah, great. Please shed that and it's a very important message, absolutely important because the Sultan is in touch with the people, he understands the pains of the people and he sees the contradictions in the system and he knows that somewhere along the line, if push comes to quack, then something, you know, the consequences might be dire, so the best thing is to nib in the butt and that is exactly what I'm talking about today. It's not about the governors, yes, and the president, but about the people around him, about the friends around him, go find a way, you know, there was something I wrote and I wanted to send to my governor, then I sent it to one from a governor who is a very, very close friend of mine and he called me, he said, Ezekiel, don't send it. I'm like, why? He said, okay, if you more send it, modify here, here, here. The moment that you start to advise government, what they see is not advice, but criticism. No matter how nice my language is ever extremely diplomatic because I believe that you do not demystify leadership. But you see, they read behind your good intention and that is why a lot of people are afraid to tell truth to power and advise their leaders, but I ignored, not that I ignored, I took part of the advice, but I still modified it somewhat and still sent the message and somehow in this case I was lucky because I had a one-on-one talk with the governor and let me tell you what happens. While I was talking with the governor, usually if there's a third person, I kind of mellow down because I need to be very careful, but if it's one-on-one, no form for eyes meeting, I'm able to tell them the things diplomatically, you know, but calling it as close to what it is as possible. Okay. While I was talking, the SSG came in and he sat next to me. After some time, I looked at the governor and said, Your Excellency, please tell your SSG to move to the other seat. He has been pinching my leg and he's starting to hurt. The governor started laughing. I said, because the meeting was supposed to be about 15, 20 minutes. It lasted for one and a half hours because I was very honest with him. I was very polite. I acknowledged him as a governor. I talked to him and deferred to him and gave him all the respect, but I pointed out certain things to him and he was very appreciative. The meeting lasted for about one and a half hours. You know, this statement you made about this SSG who was pinching you takes me back to the initial statement you made about those who, the aides to the president, whether they are not, you know, shielding him from the realities on ground. And then when I hear such statements, Ezekiel, I begin to say to myself, why put the blame on the aides? It is the president or the governor that sought for the office. They should be. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. I've been extremely close to several governors. When I say close, I mean one-on-one relationship. Do you understand? It's a privilege that God has given me. And that seat is a lonely seat. It's absolutely lonely. Everybody that comes is coming to get, to take, to, you know, to manipulate. They are coming with all sorts of things. Some are diabolical. We have no idea what our leaders so far. When the Bible says we should pray for those in government, God understands the seat of power is so lonely that leaders are looking for affirmation. You know, so in not knowing how to draw lines, they now fall into psychophancy that just take them captive. It is when they leave office that the reality downs on them. Do you understand me? There was another governor that I told him. I said, Your Excellency, have you wondered why each time I come here, I talk about your predecessor, you know, the person you took over from, and I talk in glowing terms about them. He said, Yes, I've been wondering, why do you do that? I said, because I want you to watch. You see, that seat is not about you. Whoever comes to you to destroy the former person, that is how, not that person, because once you leave, that is how that same person will go to the next person to destroy you, because it's not about you. It's about the stuck-in trait of the person. So if I talk good of the former person, it means that when you leave this office and I come to the next person, because I will always have access, it means I'll talk good of you. So the important thing is that not all those that come to destroy your predecessors, not them, because they are the people that are going to destroy you. Now, these are some fundamentals that our leaders really don't know. And they went through hell. Our electionary process is such that you spend so much that when you get into that office, you are really not yourself from the beginning. You are not like sent by the people. You are hardly ever sent by people. I think the first person that has come close to being sent by the people, first is President Buhari, because he always had these followers. I don't know to what extent he rewarded them. The next person, which is the real example is Mr. Pitahubi. What happened was organic, you know? But you see, a man like Mr. Tinubu to the best of my knowledge, I may be wrong, had to fight his way, push and pull. And there was an expression he said, someday, someday I'll run with him to get to that seat. So when he gets to that seat, he does not see the people are, oh, this would have put me here. I don't know. There has to be a way of reordering the emotional connect because we exploited him. We exploited him. We took every advantage we could of him to give him that. And then once he gets to the seat, we now want him to become an angel and God to now start thinking of us. We need to watch the world. We need to interrogate our leadership recruitment processes to ensure that whoever gets to the office feels a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility, a sense of gratitude, a sense of honor to give back to the people that gave to them. That is an instructive word. Give back to the people what they gave to you. What did you give to your leader when he was going there? Was it exploitation? Then you should expect exploitation from him. Did you give him love and concern and support? Then you should expect what you sowed to be what you reap. It's a whole new discussion and paradigm that we need to start exploring because we keep blaming leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership. I wanted to be governor. We're still on it. I don't want to tell you what my family has gone through. I don't want to tell you what I've suffered. And then God makes me a governor. And then you just come, all of you, the insult I got even from my classmates, even the poor people you want to help, my guy, if you're not ready for this thing, leave it. This thing is not for poor people. If you don't have enough money, go and look for, maybe go for Senate. People just say things that hit you so hard and so bad. And then maybe for you to pander to their own wins and caprices or expectations, you go and borrow money at very hard terms, giving out probably half of your soul. And then you become a governor. And the same people, they switch 180 degrees and turn around and expect you to be loyal to them, to serve them. We really need to pray for God to help our leaders, to forgive, to forget, and to know that the essence of seeking that office was a public good and not vengeance. That is why it is the number one seat. Leadership, leadership positions in anywhere is not an easy thing. It's not something for just anyone. And so those who aspire for leadership positions, especially political leadership offices, should have known, should have understood, should have investigated, should have prepared their minds for where they are going. If you do not know and understand the psychology of the place you're going to or of your environment, probably not ready for that office because we're talking about a country as diverse and complex as Nigeria. So anyone who's going or who has vied to become the president of this country should have been sensitive enough to know what he was getting into. So I still maintain that the box stops at the desk of the president. It is your call. Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. That is why one of the things I am proposing in our electoral process is that by the time that you buy a form to become a governor or a president, any of the elected offices, one of the things in the timelines must be that the INEC has a program for each party where they will for one week before a campaign starts, if possible before you buy the form. Once you give expression of interest, they should have one week of intensive training of the people that want to occupy the office. Do you know that I vied for the office of the governor? Up till this time, all that I have is what I think. What if my mindset is wrong? That's all I have. Nobody has said me in spite of the monies you pay and everything INEC collects, you know, parties sell forms at 100 million for presidency, 50 million, and they don't call you and give you one week of what manifesto is all about, what the party manifesto is all about, what the office is all about, because for every office, they are setting expectations. The fact that, you know, you know what they do in Nigeria, they call you, how much do you have? You say, I have up to 500 million, they say, no, go for senate, if you are from Akwaibom, you know, because you can't tell them you have one billion, you want to vote go for governor, she is like, what is that? Please go for senate. You now say, I have 50 million, that's okay, go for House of Assembly, you know, if I say I have 20 billion ahead, that people of governor's form, come and collect governor's form, do you understand me? So you are judged by how much you have and you know that the office of the governor, a lecturer could be better suited for that office than a business mogul, that mogul that has 50 billion to spare, you understand? Some people have suited for national assembly, senate or House of Rebs, you have to know the difference between senate and House of Rebs and how both chambers are pre-denial, they are law making, but they are not exactly the same thing, you know? So who gives us, what is INEC saying about enlightenment of these people? It is at that time that you know that guy, when you become president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, you are no longer yourself or no, no, no, you are now public property. So it's not about what you think, this is who I am, no, nobody wants who you are. There are protocols of the office, there are expectations of the office, the man, no, they talk. No, you need a communicator, you need somebody, you know, one of the highest levels of, you know, requirements of leadership is that word, charm, apart from empathy, charm, charm helps you to connect with your people and helps you to push across your message. So that is why we have a democracy, right? That is why we have a democracy and the belief that the electoral empire is independent enough to operate effectively. And that is why towards the build-up to these elections, debates are called for and you expect that these people, vying, will come and give us their manifesto, defend whatever it is they're promising to do, that will give or that gives the citizens the opportunity to drill them, you know, and find out just how rich is this person in his mind, how compassionate, how enlightened, how educated, how brilliant and intelligent is this person vying. And so they begin to, begin to choose from those debates who they should choose to lead them. So it all borders on the whole process being what it should be. And that is why we are glad that we have the court to help us also perfect things because we have seen that there are some rough edges that need to be dealt with. And so very soon we'll find out what really happened, right? If the judiciary leaves up to expectation. You know, it's unfortunate that I just want to be careful not to use the same brush and paint everybody because within the judiciary, there are, I've seen people that are of impeccable character. But it is unfortunate that this is the exception and not the rule. The judiciary, you know, I told you my case was dismissed and I'm on my way to the appeal court, but I've already filed my appeal. And I mean, it's just, you go back home, you really can't understand how a human being thinks. No matter the level of inducement, if that is the case, at least you style some level of finesse. You have some level of intelligence that you can apply in what you do. Don't be too brazen and say if you don't like it, go to court, if you don't like it, go to appeal. Anyway, that put aside. But you see, there are, when we're, when we're having this process of governorship, we had debates. And I think that INEC should make debate mandatory obligatory to make it compulsory. There are certain things that INEC owes us. If you look at the last election, you'll notice that INEC was given over 365 billion. That is like a billion per day in a year to conduct this election. INEC owes us certain duties, obligations by setting out certain parameters. How would you want to be a president? I say you cannot debate. Because from what you just said, the debate helps people to form their decisions and decide who to come. It does. It does. It's very important. And those who do the debate, they should have it in one, two, three sections. Maybe if you want to be a president, we now have in three senatorial districts or three level of debates, the first person is your person, your antecedents, what prepares you, what you understand by the office. Forget about the economy. Forget about, no, no, no, your person. Because I say this because I had, I took part in several debates and one that really, really caught me was one that was done by an individual online. And it was like the first question was, what do you understand to be the office of the governor, the roles of the governor? And what is it about your life that, you know, prepares you to take on that role? Number one, what is the role? What do you understand by the role? Number two, what prepares you to be able to play that role? That was about the most important question because all these ones about economy, you can have consultants that help you put all these things together. But you've got to understand what leadership is, what the role is, what the expectations are and you should tell us right from cradle, the things, your life and people will be able to the next day say, no brother, I was your classmate, it's not true. Or I was this, okay. Yeah, exactly. You understand me. So let's move forward to the leadership newspaper has a headline there, FG to stop funding professional bodies councils in 2024. You know, you know, there was a time that the federal government was funding political parties. Time was when they were funding political parties. And every almost everyone had a political party without the secretariat. Yes, they build the secretariat apart from building the secretariat. There was a time they were actually giving money, you know, to the political parties. But professional bodies, I happen to belong to a few of them, the chief of which is, you know, Architect Registration Council of Nigeria, ACON being a registered architect myself. And every professional that is registered pays his dues. I pay mine and I'm up to date. And luckily for us, as is such that you can even pay 10 years and just forget yourself for some time. But that one also has a problem because when it finally elapses, no 10 years is not as long as you think, you know, you know, it's elapsed and you are already forgotten about it. But what I'm trying to say is that let them know, let them look at professionals. Professionals are people who are trained and should be doing something, engage one word the other. So they should be able to pay fees. And those fees should be able to run their professional bodies. People will have reasons why it should be, you know, like that of political parties. I mean, people are just forming political parties and doing next to nothing with it and just collecting the money and doing nothing. But that are professional bodies. I don't know what justification they will have for them to be in the budget. Let them become professional. Take the amount of staff they can afford. Get the sort of people only that when government keeps having a hand in the appointment of these people, then he who pays the pipe has to dictate the tune because why am I sending my professional money to you and somebody comes in who is not competent enough, but because he's sending by government appointed by. So they have to not just say we will not fund you anymore. They will also say we will allow you to handle the process of selecting your leadership, you know, for your professional bodies. So it should be a holistic thing. Don't tell me I'll choose for you, but you've got to pay what I choose for you. It doesn't work that way. It's not okay. You know, worst case scenario, tell the professional bodies to send you a list of maybe five and that yours will be to screen as you wish and then accept. And if none meet certain criteria that you would have set, you send it back to them until they meet, send you the people, then the professional bodies will now become professionally administered by their people who take responsibility for their appointment. The same things you go to, you know, something like this INEC, a lot of the bodies that are being appointed by the Mr. President, there should be a kind of deviation from how those people get selected so that we don't go into too much of political patronage because professional bodies are supposed to be a political. And then how am I sure that you're not going to give me somebody who is sympathetic to your party for whatever reason, one way or the other? So I think that if they are going to do that, they should do it holistically. So, Pahavius, some sort of house cleaning. Apart from the fact that the government is trying to cut off wasteages, President Nubu is projected a 6% GDP, annual growth. And these are some of the measures to show up revenue, isn't it? Conserved revenue, I would say. And I agree with him. I keep making reference. I think one of the best things I did, apart from the costs, is horrible. It's horrific. It's horrendous. I think one of the best things I did was getting involved in politics and wanting to be a governor. It made me to sit down and interrogate and see several things. You know, it's easy for you to sit down here and talk and criticize until you get into the battlefield and you are confronted with your vision and details. How will you do it? Bringing back to what we're talking about, you see, number one is you cut waste, wasteages. You do as much as you want to cut. But the question is, where are the wasteages? You go to buy something. I went to buy something. I had about them 20 items and three items. 10% of three items covered the rest of them. So, I told the man that was selling, I said, forget about those. I don't want discount on the other one. These three give me, I baguined and upped. I used the word out of 20. Just three where I want. Things like that. But the discount I got on the three covered 100% of the cost of the other 17 or something. What am I trying to say? When you want to cut wasteages, forget about this general. There are certain things you close your eye to, especially the benefits that small people are enjoying. Leave it for them. There are some areas that you just cut that man. You have killed a lion with just one strip. So, I want the president to come and profile those wasteages and then put them in boxes in ABC. A are those that are real major, mega. Even if you don't go to P or to C, catch that A and then deal with it very well. In one of such things, I want to advise Mr. President, let EFCC be like the American seal. They don't come out except on major, mega issues. And when they come out, they strike, they strike with the pressure of a seal. Let EFCC, now you have problem with your wife. You go to EFCC. You have your, and no one is owning you 2 million. You go to EFCC. Let the police handle those ones. I see PC, all those little, but when they are Nigerians who are sucking us dry, they are Nigerians that are operating in billions in dollars, billions in dollars. So, let them go after such people and catch them. And they will get enough resources to do what we've got to do. So, if provisional bodies, if you put all of them together, what's your annual subversion to them? Does it amount to much? So, spreading yourself thin is not what I want. I want a kind of strategic analysis of these are the aerated people that were wasting money on or that are draining us. It's like petroleum subsidy. Do you know that petroleum subsidy alone, alone, if you tackle that corruption in it, you can come back and give us petrol at less than pump price before. You can do it. You can do it. I'm telling you this, because number one, you would have removed all the wasteages and number two, you will see that somebody just told me that the consumption rate has come down from almost 75 million liters per day to probably around 30 or there about. And I said it myself that that would be about the range of our consumption. So, imagine how much we have lost. Those are the sort of things that we should look at apart from petroleum. There are one, two, three others that once you catch them, you can even give us electricity subsidized, meter everybody. What does it take to meter Nigeria? We just talk about it because come to my house, because I have a meter, I know when to say, oh boy, turn off this AC. But when it is estimated billing, I will tell them, leave all the ACs on. After all, whether I use, I don't use, they will give me all the, leave my room to be cold, leave everywhere to be cold. But when you have meter, nobody will tell you, make you turn off the light. Nobody person will tell you. You get a point. So, I think that they are saying things we should take and at the end of the day, we'll have a better country, a more sane country. But let our president know that he should surround himself with people who are not seeking favors, people who are passionate and there are people like that in this country. Madame Eze Quesely, the things that she has done shows that she's passionate about Nigeria. It's not about appointment. Senator Uda Udama, who turned down ministerial appointments, not once, not twice, not three times. He came back and said, Ezequiel, I enter as a minister. I come poorer than I was. Let me face my business. Why? Because he did not go there to benefit himself. He went there to work. So, when the next president came and said, please come, he said, Agarbeg Novics, I don't go to work again. Let me also face my business so that I don't go bankrupt. People like that exist. They are not one. They are not two. They are many. Let the president look for them. Then his cronies, let him reward them with contracts, find a way to make them get money, things like that in their pocket. Politics is a game of interest and the winners must be given the latitude to solve their victory. But let your aging room be such that when you leave, you become a point of reference. We still talk about George Washington. We talk about those American presidents. Out of almost 50 or there about, just a few stick out, you can be that president that Nigeria will talk about for generations. Okay. Let's move on to this headline on the Guardian newspaper. Land use act between powerful governors and oppressed citizenry. Land use charge. Yes. You know I'm an architect. Yes. And we've been on land use act for a long time. I once went to the World Bank with Madame Okonjo Iwela, who was the CME that time. And we're trying to talk of housing. That's one area that I've devoted so much of my life to for over 20 years advocacy for housing. If I was just talking about this some days back with a friend, I said that's the first time in my life I spent about a thousand dollars in a hotel. I didn't sleep well because I had to put on everything. I was like, why how? We went to World Bank, you know, please I paid my face and I paid my hotel accommodation, everything. And when we're discussing and the issue of, this is what I want to bring out, the issue of the land use act came out. You know what they said? They said, sir, we studied your country like a book. The land use act is the power of the governors and they will die rather than let go of the power. So what do we do? Let's walk around it. That expression has not left my mind. And this was several, you can imagine how long ago this was. Let's walk around it. The truth is that the land use act is probably the most important weapon that governors carry and they put it under their own armpits and hold it themselves. They don't give it to their PA to hold because they can deal with an opponent anytime, any day, but they fail to realize that one of the greatest motivations of the society, of the system of your state is production and production will never happen except you have access to land. You've got to put your industry, your factory, wherever you go to get things, they're going to find out where you're going to be. And then you realize that if you don't belong to their party, because forget it, forget about bringing investor, forget about trying to do anything because you are never going to be given COO to that land. As a matter of fact, if you are on opposition and you are doing very well, they will come and demolish that stuff to put on something of public interest. It's become a tool to oppress instead of a tool to enhance the system. Land use act is about everything. If you go to a bank, they're going to ask for your COO for what you're going to do. If you don't have the COO for the land, the feasibility that you are doing, nobody's going to listen to you. It's that important that we need to start to have governors that have confidence in themselves, governors that think of the largest good of because land use act is not precedent now, it's governors, if you understand how it operates. Even from the federal government, I was the national chairman of national social housing scheme and I went about around about 16 different states and got land for the federal government. What am I trying to say? Federal government had to go to the state governors and get land and beg, including the one I'm working with in Akwaibom today. So the land use act is actually power in the hands of the governors. And because a constitutional matter, before you can change it, you are going to, no matter what the national assembly does, they will bring it back to the state of assembly for concurrence. And those state governors are under the governors themselves. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And another thing about land use act is that some landlords are also pushing it down to their tenants. It's become something that tenants and their landlords are beginning to battle over. Some landlords understand and do it themselves. They pay for it without pushing it to their tenants, but some do not. And so some tenants will say, no, I am the tenant. You are the landlord. You deal with it. Well, let's leave it here. Is it going to talk? Thank you so much. That will go a little bit off the land use act, because the land use act tenants, you have no business. It's because it's between the owner of the land and government. Those are the two. You don't even have, where are you starting to talk? You don't even get mouth. You know, that is not that table, you know, even there there. You understand me? It's exclusively between the man who owns the land and the man who has power over the land. So it's something that we need to educate. If you are able to educate governors before they get into office on the imperative for success, one of the things they will get to realize is that you need to open up and be more accommodating so that there will be more investment and the more investment that comes, the better your government will be. It doesn't matter whether the pay is in your party or it's not in your party. When he thrives, then you as a governor, if you are smart, let the business thrive of the opposition go under tax. Tax the guy and collect your money. You get the point. You get your money. But when you say, I don't want my position, it means you are your little minded. It tells about the pertinence of the people who occupy public office. You are insecure. It's a manifestation of insecurity and a lot of our people, if you look at the background, that's why they don't want to tell you where they came from. They want to appear like they've always been like this. No, guy. Your father we know. Your mother we know. Cool down. You've known poverty. So try to relate with the people that are poor. That's why I like the man like M.K. O.A. Biola as rich as he was. He will tell you the first time he wore shoes. He will tell you. He will tell you the first time he ate egg. He will tell you. He will tell you where he's coming from. He will tell you man he's back out there so I can relate. You know, a lot of times there was a time that my wife, you know, she, we've been married for a long time and we went out together for a long time. This year will be 35 years married. Congratulations. Thank you. Why are you always these poor people you want to greet today? She's an amazing woman. One day I almost broke down. I told her that there was a day that somebody, one of my relations, answered my greetings and I didn't sleep well that night. I was so excited that George answered my greetings. George was like this privileged family and he actually looked at me and said, hi, how are you? He waved at me. I was so happy that a rich boy, you know, told me how are you and greeted me. So because people see me as somebody who is successful by the grace of God, you have no idea what joy it brings to a poor boy. When you go to him, shake his head and say, how are you doing? I like your hair. I like your shirt. You would have changed that person's life forever. You want to be our judge. Yeah, I like that. Let's wrap it here. Thank you so much for your time. Ezekia Anya Atuk, always a pleasure to have you on Off The Press. Thanks so much and barricade the salad one more time. Thank you. Well that's been Off The Press with Ezekia Anya Atuk. Analysts who joined us from our quiet bomb state is breakfast and plus TV Africa. We'll be back shortly with a hot topic. Stay with us.