 We're glad to know you're still there. It's time now to go to the press and see what the headlines are saying. We have Mr. Tunde Kolawole, a legal practitioner, joining us right now from Lagos State. Good morning and welcome to the program, Mr. Kolawole. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure having you on the show. We're beginning today with the Guardian newspaper and we're beginning with a very tiny headline because I want you as a legal mind to give me information about it. Excuse me. Now, the small headline here at the bottom of that page is Ogun Assembly Impeaches Oluomo for Alleged Fraud. That is the speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly. He has been impeached for Alleged Fraud. In other reports, we hear that he had high-handedness and sometimes when we hear high-handedness, it is because he's not open-handed and giving enough money to the people making them go around. In fact, in another report we saw that the speaker was not giving us money. That's what the title did and that's the reason why they impeached him. My question now is everywhere else impeachment means to accuse somebody of wrongdoing. I will believe that there should be a process until that person is found guilty of those accusations and then removed and then he can be replaced. But in this case, in Nigeria, once you hear impeachment, the next thing is that he has been replaced. What is the legal way to define impeachment and is it correct to just impeach somebody and then replace him by law? When we look at the constitution, the crime took conditions for the removal of many of these persons that the speaker becomes skeptical of are well-specified in those places. Now we also know that if we return to the democracy in 1999, so many impeachments have been carried out. Some of those impeachments were called and they were reviled. That means we are precedents and that that road or that path has become a bit such that there should be no ambiguity whatsoever as regards the condition that must be met before anyone is removed. Well, the first is that the person who has most of them committed to infractions that can be described as a gross misconduct, things like APM, investment of public funds, certificate for jury and other malfeasances, which the law does not condone. And then the person we are impeaching, he must have only formal notice of the infarction that he has committed and then he will be given opportunity of a certain day or two at about to reply to those allegations. And then if you are not satisfied with the allegations, we take you to the floor of the alleged allegations and they reply with respect to these of the speaker. We take you to the floor of the house and then depict it with the members of the assembly and they are not satisfied and they are able to make a two-term majority of the members of that assembly when they can go ahead to impeach the speaker. The emphasis here is that the will of law or the strictly followed in impeaching those of the speaker but only one that any of these bodies will want to impeach. But too many times the complaints that we get or the excuses that we get is all about lying. It is not about somebody breaking the law. It is not about any gross misconduct. Most times speakers, especially members of the assembly, are impeached because the members think he is not the best slave for them. They only share the national cake from the top of the arm of government of that state. What? The desire of any member of the party does their so-called impeachment. I am also aware that this speaker is the will of law with the conditions described by the cause of not being met. It can be challenging, it can be suffocating, it can be terrible. Remember what happened at this assembly in which minority emptied the majority? Look at what is happening in the other states now. Which minority took over the assembly? Appointing a new speaker as against the majority. Some of these things, when foreigners are by them, they begin to laugh at us and they begin to wonder what kind of people are we. Because there is no discussion of some of these things. The books are there, the constitution is there. The electoral act is there. Like I said, we have no precedent when we come together to do impeachment, yet to continue to do things without following the will of law. Yeah, because sometimes when you want to tell people about how they should behave as citizens, you tell them you should know your right. And by knowing your right, you know the law. But sometimes the law is so confusing to people who are not learned people like us. We are not learned gentlemen like you are. When you hear impeachment, for instance in the United States, a sitting president was impeached. That means he was accused. Elsewhere impeachment means accusation, a may accusation, even if someone murdered someone and you are accusing him. It means that there is a process you need to follow and find that person guilty or not guilty and then if he's guilty, you remove him. But here it is just from impeachment and impeachment is removal. You get accused and after that there's a replacement for you. So I don't know how the legislature, whether they have those powers to be the accusers and the judges themselves in these cases that we hear every day. The truth of the matter is that nobody is above the law. If the House of Assembly, which makes laws for the state, has to obey the respected or poor as only law, then they could be challenged in the court of competent jurisdiction. And then they could overturn this impeachment. But the reason why we continue to see this kind of abitement or procedure is that they know it takes time. Before you go to court, you don't see it in court. They also know going to court of challenge or to mitigate is a very expensive they can be done with. But not many people may have the resources to pursue. And time is never our friend when we are mitigating. So they take advantage of some of these challenges of securing one's rights, of setting things straight and getting things done properly. But that should not discourage anybody or the speaker that has been removed. It is stronger field that the rule of law has been abolished with respect to the matter. Okay, well, we have the story also on the Guardian newspaper, which is saying that Blinken meets Tinobu. Blinken-Tinobu holds bilateral talks on security, economic cooperation. And another newspaper said that Blinken or America pledges $45 million for security for Nigeria and all that. And some people get to ask the question, whoever funds you will want to know what is happening in that sector. So is it good enough for us to hand over our security into the hands of America? I hope you understand what I mean. So when you get them too close, that means you will have to give them some information because they are paying the piper. So they dictate the tune sometimes. What do you feel about this bilateral talks? Yes, we hear that the president was asking him to support Nigeria to join the G20 or something and so many other things. But what do you think about security and begging other countries to support us security-wise with money? When you look around the world today, security has become a very serious challenge to different countries, different people, different nations. With regards to that, if countries collaborate to share information, to share intelligence and to help each other with regards to equipment, I don't think we should bother ourselves too much about it. But just like he said, the truth of the matter is that the American government that we are asking them to help us or who are proposing to help us also has their own security challenges. Look at the rate at which people in America will just take gun, walk to shopping malls and begin to mausoleum, shoot people and begin to kill people. Almost on a daily basis. That happens a lot. And then here in Nigeria too, we have seen how banditry in the rural areas especially and also in the urban area have grown on a daily basis. This is to tell us that most times in different places all this is security challenges, our own goal. And if we are going to be finding solutions to them, we have better approach it from the perspective of our own environment, rather than seeking outside us to help us secure our environment and then to protect us from our attacks. This is not to say that a country like America that has satellites in space with which they monitor what is happening around the world will not be useful to us and located to us in happiness and giving us advance warning that troubles might be visiting us. Or be that as it may, we will be responsible for solving our own problems. Those of us America will be the one to address his own own grown insecurity and challenges. But like I said, the truth of the matter is that we should not close our doors to international cooperation between Nigeria and America and this is not a country for that matter that wants to give us a happiness. You will remember that there was a time the Chinese people decided to insure physical disability in Abuja and then I think they provided about $400 million and Nigeria has been provided about $70 million. And the CCTV was installed and then it was turned from some time. But because there was a span, a life span, and with the Chinese people running it for us, after they have fulfilled their own obligation and running for the time they supposed to run, they handed it over to the Nigerian people. But lo and behold, the Abuja Municipal Authority or armed people here couldn't run it. Most of those CCTV cameras have been vandalized and they are no more functioning. What this tells us is that some of these sophisticated gadgets, no matter how beautiful and useful they may be, if they are not prepared and we don't have the equipment, the manpower and also the mindset to be able to manage and run them so as to get full benefit from them. We may just as well waste our time. So let's talk about calling the president to seek help and get help from wherever he may get it as to the challenges of insecurity all over the country. Before the entire mission is engulfed, the scenario around us today is fighting. It's never been like this before. All hands therefore require to be on deck for us to be on top of all the security challenges. Whether it be rural or upon or in combination of both. Okay. Let's move to Daily Trust newspaper and see a small headline there. Despite receiving 1.88 trillion Naira in two years, nine oil producing states dead skyrocket. I don't know what your take on this will be. They're oil producing states and they receive a humongous amount of money every month from the federal government yet their debt profile is rising by the day. That's the state of the different states are they? Yes. You're talking about the states? States oil producing states on the Daily Trust newspaper, small headline. Despite receiving 1.88 trillion Naira in two years, nine oil producing states dead skyrocket. Yes. The truth of the matter is that the kind of money that we talk about, if it is food only managed, all those oil producing states by now would have been like Dubai and some of these Arab countries are useful and cheap to them and put their play. The point of using their oil works to create the next investment hope that we'll be able to generate revenue for the running of their different countries. Because they do know that sooner than later oil will either become obsolete or they will not be found again in commercial country. And if you have not diversified your economy, then you will be in shock. With regards to us, what we've been doing is leading an essential slide and then embarking on grandiose projects, signature projects that we're not likely or that do not have too much value to our country, to our state. There are also projects that are not self-sustaining that will not be able to generate revenue, not just to repay the costs of consulting those signature projects, but also to be able to that kind of generate revenue required by the society or the country or the state to run itself. Not long ago, remember what happened? When Govnawike declared that they were giving certain money as well as producing state and that if they won't give it to the state, that they've been using it to consult supply overs, that they've been using to do roads in their own state. Whereas all the other states, who got similar money, didn't disclose to their people and never used it to develop their state. In fact, as has been reported in some media, most of those money ended up being used to finance a political campaign of the different politicians in some of these states. My take is that most of these states, with what they care for the federal government, opt not to be borrowing money from anywhere to run their state or build their projects. And that in fact, most of these oil producing states take into account the landmarks, the sizes of those states and their population. Cops to have been transformed by now into the kind of Dubai who are noises of work in Nigeria. But we are now seeing this, the money is simply not being couldn't be unmanaged. That's why the fact that we do know that this oil will not consist of repair forever. And I think we need to repair. New technology will have overtaken it. Just like it has overtaken coal. Such that oil will become a thing that nobody will want to do anything with. But it will become a more obsolete energy that is no longer useful for anybody or for any profile. So the society must have a benchmark which we to measure and insist that these different governments and these different states work for the economy. So that the society will not fall flat when the oilworks are disappeared. All right. Let's move to the punch newspaper. Federal government to sell five power plants for one billion dollars is the headline here at the top left corner of the punch newspaper. Honestly speaking, I really don't understand why the federal government continues in a very aggressive manner to private types. Most of these are power plants. These power plants are plants and with the taxpayer's money has been used to build or to consult. And after we have consulted them, using billions of dollars, we sell them very cheaply to the people in the private sector who have proven over the years not to be able to manage these power plants very, very prudently. Look at the state of power supply. It's been more than 10 years that we have told these power plants that the PSCN has been privatized. But that the migrant people getting value for their money, the answer is no. Also look at most of the government institutions that have been privatized. Whether they are larger, whether they are Calcutta, whether they are the Nicon insurance, whether they are some of these big hotels that have been sold off. Which one of them in the country today can you point out that is doing very well? The answer is no. Whereas we are talking about privatization and talking about commercialization and talking about pursuing the market economy, which is capitalism, we see what the Chinese people have been doing. People who rule the command or the central economy, the socialist economy. Look at the giant strides that they are making the area of agriculture, in the sciences, in the vehicle industry, in agriculture and water here. The Chinese are taking over today the electric market, the electric car market company. Today the Chinese are dominating the arms industry. Today AI and most of the Chinese scientific tools and scientific finding and invention are coming from China. This tells us that capitalism is not necessarily superior to socialism. It all depends on how this is our money. But in fact socialism will centralize the economy. It guarantees a life more abundant and the kind of even distribution of wealth when compared to capitalism. So selling these power plants, how it will benefit the Nigerian people? I really don't know. If they are commercializing and privatizing all the commandeers of the economy, why didn't they also hand over the government? Why don't they commercialize government? So that certain persons will gain the cause of problems with running government. And then they will be independent to the Nigerian people. Honestly speaking, these privatization programs, we are neither here nor there. It's not a solution to the challenges that we are facing in the power sector. Okay. Through security matters, back to security matters, Kanu or kidnapping epidemic, Kanu, nine orders, mall, debt sentence and life jail. The riders are Kanu, Benway and a number of others committed to debt sentence for convicts. That's according to officials. And IG orders intelligence gathering on a doctor's kidnappers landlord's risk 20 year jail. So what's your take? Debt sentence, landlord's risk 20 year jail. The state of kidnapping the country to save the lives is a very, very frightening. In the past, all we used to see is that the kidnappers will go and stand by the roads and then they will lay people and kidnap them. But what we are seeing of reason is that they are going to people's homes, they are going to people's offices and then they go there and kidnap them and then take them into custody and then begin to ask for ransom. That is to say that the kidnappers on a daily basis have become more and more very audacious. And I'm sorry that if these things are not living the cost, the consequences will be very serious. And when you see people being kidnapped by this way and it is all over the media, it's funny that you don't want to come into Nigeria to invest because they think that their lives and property will not be secured. But with that as it may, I want to say that sentence and life imprisonment has never been moved to be educations to, I mean, as a punishment or as a deterrent to some of these icons that have been committed in this place. Remember in the past that we have death sentence for things like mother, we have death sentence for Amrubli and some of these others in the sky. But in what way have these stopped the people engaging in those criminalities? In what way have these stopped them from engaging in those criminalities? It hasn't started to know deterrence and war at all. More importantly, when you look at what is happening around the world today and the campaigns of the United Nations or some of these other human rights invasions all over the world, the campaign is so abandoned or is to stop the death sentence because they think that they have done research and find out that it has never served a very deterrent to the commission or some of these aggregated kinds and not too long ago, and I think a country like Uganda and I also think a country like South Africa have transitioned the death sentence from their started books. And when you also look at own kidnapping, you want to ask yourself what is responsible for the kidnapping? Why don't we find solutions? The root cause, the things that are making people to engage in kidnapping. Why don't we find solutions to it? It will appear to me that unemployment is one of it. It will appear to me that the high cost of living is one of it. It will also appear to me that the sensations lies, that the politicians are living, that some musicians are living, that some of these businessmen are living are the things that kind of encouraging or misleading the young people in the country to engage in kidnapping, armed robbery, pipeline vitalization, and no manners of egregious crimes. So if we are going to be having an illicit solution to that problem, I think we should be addressing the root cause. If this unemployment cuts down inflation, gives food security to the people, and then also cuts down the social life, that the politicians, that some sportsmen, that some musicians, that some businessmen are living. On a daily basis, you open the social media, and certain policies are advertising. The road choice, the job once, are no manners of expensive vehicles, private jets that they have bought. And they know how it is, they put it on the social media. They mention that they are built in Lekih, that they are built in Ajah, and that they are built in Ikui. So when people live this kind of social living, or social life, and majority of people are wallowing up their property, the consequences could be the kidnapping, the armed robbery, the drug trafficking that has not become rampant in our country. That sometimes, life imprisonment will probably not be the solution. It will not be education, just as it has never served as deterrent in the past. Well, but I don't know what other solutions we are going to have, apart from the ones that mentioned about maybe providing some things that are lacking. But we saw two things that gave us a semblance of hope in regard to fighting this kidnapping and all that. So when we were talking about the NIN, and they said that everybody should link their number to the NIN, it was a see-ok. Everybody was afraid that now you are known by the government and because of that, let me pipe down on these activities. Kidnapping was not as bad as it is now. Then there was another time that Nigerians actually suffered, but we saw that kidnapping went down. That was when we had the cash crunch where we were talking about cashless economy. Kidnappings were almost at zero level at that point. So these are things that we could have explored. Unfortunately we are the ones, the Nigerians themselves, that cried that this cash crunch is so much because anyway some things were not addressed like the infrastructure to aid e-banking, like the charges that were too much from the banks and other service providers and all that. But we cried that this thing should stop and it stopped. Kidnappings returned, ransom collecting now is getting bolder and we also have found the person who was in charge of this NIN in the person of a pandemic also now being in the fray trying to gather money to pay ransom. We saw a case a few days ago or a few weeks ago when he was saying well a friend has decided to pay 50 million in ransom or so which means he was part of the people trying to gather money to pay ransom for kidnappers and all that. So where do we go from here? Things that showed us that if things are done in that regard maybe the kidnappings will go down. We just jettisoned them and we're not looking at them. Cash crunch would it gave us a problem in Nigeria no doubt but if we saw that it brought something good couldn't have we explored that opportunity and seen how we could address the problems that came from the cashless economy and address them and make sure that we gain more in the area of security. So what do we do? The truth of the matter is that why technology has advantages and all that? It also has advantages. The part is in the sense that those who employ all new technology for Nepalese activities also study these technologies and begin to find ways that means to kind of approach or overcome whatever obstacles those technologies might be pushing to whatever crimes that they may want to come in. Remember that in the past the kidnappers will use their own force to call the teams to call the family of the victims of people they have kidnapped to bring ransom to certain places or drop ransom in certain places but when they discover that their phone can be tracked and know that they stopped doing that and then they began to use the phones of their victims to reach the families of the victims as to where the ransom is going to be brought and when they also find that they are also posing a problem for them they've been using some other means like the social media Instagram and all of you and all these other social media to communicate and what of you and they also use most informants to communicate to get some of these ransom to collect that it was reported that some informants for kidnappers were arrested in a boot camp not too long ago you'll find out the NIN and the BZN and then the cashless thing has been used and it's telling the tide of kidnapping the country the kidnappers are also finding ways and means to relay and show that those things don't work that they get what they want now we found that we have all these cutting edge technologies all over the place so that is the truth and our children are geniuses they have ways and means by which they kind of approach the efficacy of these technologies and what are they and then when the minister will not be the chief fundraiser for kidnappers what that tells us is that people no longer have confidence in the ability of the security agency to be able to provide them security and also to be able to rein in the kidnapper that we have in the different parts of the country and that way you also look at the brutal manner in which two of the children of the lawyer whose families were kidnapped and brutally killed not many people would have the patience to begin to wait for the for the security people to be able to rescue people that have been kidnapped because where those things take their time they take a lot of planning and they also carry a lot of risk in the sense that when security people go to rescue people that have been kidnapped both the kidnapped and the kidnapper could at the end of the day become casual things and so when families begin to fear for this thing they would prefer to solve their problems quietly and then like the other media who want to say leave the rest in the hands of court so who repeat our security people especially the police and I think the idea of police are something that is very useful and noble this week some specialized arms for units that have been set up within the Nigerian police I think FIS or what is it or what is it called them now for this kidnapping squarely not just in the federal capital but also all over the country and war has been I also had the senator in charge of making a force to resuscitate the CDC cameras and the Chinese people donated to us and it saw all over Abuja which have been vandalized which are no longer working the senator for Abuja is working and they are trying to see how the CDC operations can be resumed so don't let us we cannot be too hard on our security men too a country a country like America that has all the gadgets but in the case where the police in the case where the police will now be talking about landlords who are housing kidnappers I see they carry these kidnapped victims to the houses where they are staying landlords will be charged to court and they will take about 20 years jail and then if you are housing also a Yahoo boy according to them you will also face jail time in a time when remote work is the order of the day some people making millions of Naira just working from the comfort of their rooms how would you know who is a Yahoo boy and who is not a Yahoo boy do your investigations arrest these people if the landlord is culpable go ahead and arrest him don't say just because I give a house to someone who doesn't go to work so I don't know let's not be hearing that army is coming but let's move to another newspaper the point is that you don't punish a man for an offence or a factory has not committed and then you cannot be asking your tenant I wonder who and who they are bringing I will just be going into my tenant's room every day and finding out whether he is a Yahoo boy or not yes only on nature news we have this story we are trying to wrap up on time now on nature news we have this story which has been trending anyway as far as I'm concerned take away that is a plastic band in Lagos Bruce controversy stakeholders hail so I don't know who the stakeholders are LPX goober candidate fumes and we speak as association caution we have even heard that one eatery is asking people that if you want to take out whatever you want to buy you have to bring your plate from home to do this so I don't know how this is going to affect us but controversy is following the ban on styrofoam especially from our public space what is your opinion about this ban honestly the needs of plastic containers is becoming very very serious issue not just in Lagos but all over Nigeria and not just in Nigeria when you look at what is happening different parts of the world it's becoming a very very serious challenge the oceans are said to be getting polluted and the fishes are getting killed in their millions because of this means of plastic at the end of the year and there the cost of cleaning up the plastic liters in the environment is also very very on mongo as the government alone cannot assure that the solutions some countries are adopting for this challenge is that they are asking some of the people who use this plastic container to begin to use the gradable paper container so that when those ones are used when you dispose them of the kind of decay degenerate and then go back to the soil without polluting the environment in some countries of the world too there are so many and each are asking people to bring their own place from home if they would like to decide in some other places too organizations that use some of this plastic container are asked to provide a program of recovering those plastic utensils after they are being used that is to say if you are running a restaurant and suddenly people with plastics you must design a program in which you will be able to get back those plastic containers and dispose them identically and properly so that it doesn't constitute a nonsense to the environment so we have places that have been have even been placed on some of these plastic containers so I would want to say that what the governor of Lakers has done is a welcome development if it is something that should have happened there is no time to go and if they haven't done it the consequence of an environment is going to be very very great but I would prefer that we have a more effective approach to it like it has been done in some other countries of the world that people make use of this plastic thing to be encouraged to use degradable materials like a paper to serve people people like the those who manufacture beverages that we drink and know that should also be encouraged to have a program of recycling this plastic container so that those who sell drinks in plastic should make it composite for them to retrieve back or to get back those plastic containers from the dealers and those who drink some of these beverages of course in our defense home too which is encouraged to have 2-3 baskets in which we will separate the plastic containers the metallic containers and then the degradable containers such that when the waste disorder people come they know where to find the metal containers and take it to the appropriate place they know where to find the degradable containers okay well this is how much we can take from this morning we've been talking to Tunde Kolaule on the headlines on our national newspapers unfortunately we have to leave abruptly well we'll take a short break and when we return we'll be looking at our hot topics stay with us