 It's now time for off the press on the breakfast. Let's begin with the punch needs paper. APC plants Bhuni or Yutola bellows removal from caretaker team. Eyes interim ex-co. Party fairs future implications of Supreme Court's judgment on Yobi government. APC member asked court to annul Congresses. Sack Bhuni led committee. No going back on Congresses, no apex court judgment bars us, that's according to the secretary. There's a picture here of a cow wreck on the front page of the punch needs paper, as well as a burning gates. And the headline reads, protestant footer students barricade highway blame gate men for colleagues death. Above the headline on the punch needs paper, November will test a papa truck call-op success, that's according to truckers. Carry appears before panel, mounts defense against hush poppy's allegations. U.S. vaccine lifeline, FG, state work out sharing formula, Lagos gets priority. Federal government direct NSIA to source Mambila $200 million judgment debt for Chinese firm. Nnamdi Kanu stable, needs advanced medical attention, that's according to his lawyer. Naptip, DSS, NSCDC rescue 13, Libya-bound Nigerians arrest suspected trafficker. Below the headlines on the punch, planned creation of 19 LCDAs follow as follows wide consultations, that's in Iqiti. Seventh third dead as Okada writers clash over Levy in Ugun state. Buhari, Lawan, Tunubu, others mourn a Biodon's father. An escaped 14-year-old boy hears saying that he saw a woman beheaded son where kidnappers kept him. Ogun berets a debut to over alleged diversion of 64 billion Naira local government allocation. And lastly on the punch newspaper, court hears Igbo Ho's five billion Naira suit against Malami DSS today. All right, and now moving on to the nation, newspapers. Big one that says Oshimbajo's team working on ways out of APC's legal ditch while last-minute attempt to postpone what Congress was stalled. Varsities to get 30 billion Naira next week, government and ASU meet. APC PDP reject Jagas call for third force. It's time for alternative. And also lawyer says Igbo Ho are waiting in action on asylum application. Macinday tips seven as commissioners. Also on the nation, resident doctor's strike takes toll on patients at hospitals. And stringent COVID-19 measures, likely. Also NNPC to safeguard investment with conditions for IOC's diversity. Jamb, NUC, Ubeck, others get acting CEO. And Kanu's firm, Kanu is firm and stable in custody. That's the last one on the nation newspapers this morning. All right, let's quickly turn to the Guardian. The headline reads, fresh battles rage for soul of PDP APC ahead of 2020. New UAE flies rule on bands, Nigerians, Indians, for others. INEC bags MBA CJN to intervene in Anambra guba cases. INEC begs MBA CJN to intervene in Anambra guba cases. Poor, not rich benefits from fuel subsidy. Economists counter FG. Records show how previous price hikes have worsened inflation and unemployment. Fuel subsidy removal and dangerous survival of million households. Also on the Guardian newspaper, Nigeria does not have enough COVID-19 isolation centers yet to learn, says resident doctors. Seattle takes case against FIFA ban to US federal court. And I believe those are the ones we're looking at on the Guardian. All right, that's what we can find on the Daily Trust, newspapers. Third wave, NYSC camps on Red Alert as 109 tests positive for COVID-19. Short camps to check spread, experts urge federal government. NCDC records 851 cases in two days, 11 deaths in one day. Government may roll out lockdown measures soon. And NYSC says we're safeguarding members. Heavy rainfall, Cano residents, lament as flawed destroyers property. Uncertainty as UAE lifts flights ban on Nigeria five months after. Also wife pours hot water on husband over forced marriage. Fresh crisis hits PDPS 7, NWC members resign. We can also find on the Daily Trust this morning, APC chifting acts courts to nullify Congress's disband boonie committee. And Buhari deploys nine permanent secretaries. We can also find Gastroentritus kills 23 in Sokoto state. Those are the big ones on the Daily Trust, newspapers. And just before we connect with our guest, I think we can also quickly just play around with some of these stories. Of course, the COVID-19 is since, you know, as the numbers increase, it doesn't seem like, you know, and this is from what I've seen, it doesn't seem like a lot of people as worried as they were in 2020. I remember when we first had, you know, the NCDC announced that we had a hundred cases in 2020 and everyone was scared, you know, like a hundred in Nigeria, you know, next thing we had up to 2,000 and more cases daily. Now we're seeing 851 recorded cases and 11 deaths. And if you look around, you know, just ask around, it doesn't seem like a lot of people, you know, are bothered. I'm not sure it's because of the vaccinated because we barely have up to, you know, five million people vaccinated already. So I really don't know why. What do you think? Well, just like in several other parts of Africa, I believe that people feel that the COVID-19 seems to be, you know, just really enough. Take a walk around the city and you find just a handful of people wearing face masks. And those who do are simply to get entrance into buildings and you can definitely take it off for your insight. So lots of questions to be asked, you know. I remember when there was a briefing here, the NPHCDA talking about the third wave of COVID-19, promises of COVID-19 vaccines to arrive Nigeria by the end of August. That seemed to have given Nigerians hope, you know, in some sort of ways that, you know, when we're talking about those vaccines, it's something that everyone should be able to take. I've been trying to convince neighbors of mine to go ahead and take the vaccines, but you still see that vaccine hesitancy. You know, but you wonder really, is the government doing enough in terms of sensitizing people, you know, about the COVID-19 vaccines and just how effective it can be. But still there are misconceptions. Other people feel that once you're taking the vaccine, you are immune, but the facts show otherwise. It doesn't make you immune. You can't still, at least that's what we've heard from WHO, that you can still contract the virus just that the effect will not be as, you know, as terrible as it would have if you had not been vaccinated. But about the story on Daily Trust, you know, that, you know, experts are urging the federal government to shut camps. I believe that that's the right move. If states like Lagos and, you know, organizations like, or institutions like Kinilag are going ahead to shut down, you know, the school just to safeguard people, I feel that nationally that's something we should be thinking of, you know, because if people get infected in the NYC camps, there's definitely a tendency that is case figures would rise. But I'm aware we have our guest now, Public Affairs Analyst, Ambrusi Bokeh. Good morning, thank you for joining us. Good morning. All right, so we're just speaking about the COVID-19 cases in Nigeria, but I want us to focus on the stories that we've seen in recent days that seem to have begun with the APC, what Congress is in some states, the violence there as well. And what's happening with all the caretaker committees. The headline on the punch reads, APC Plans Bonito Yotala Billage Removal from Caretaker Team. We're seeing also that it seems that the PDP has some internal squabbles as well with some PDP governors, I beg your pardon, PDP Eskos and national leaders resigning, saying Secundus is pushing them out. So what are your comments really regarding the APC PDP ruling and opposition party and what seems to be an internal crisis in both of them? Well, it is much new. We are used to internal crises or political parties, especially when it's near election time, you know, 2023 is a major election. We saw this happening in 2002, leading to 2003, dissenting to 2006, 2005, leading to 2007, and all those. So you say we are calling decimal in Nigerian politics. And it only goes to show that our politics is not yet matured in terms of the ideologies that drive why we seek public office in the first place. So this is the time because of occupations and the rest are more for pecuniary reasons, that is why we are having this implosion. But the APC audience is particularly very interested. This is the first time we are seeing this kind of scenario where it's sitting chief executive of the state. And I've become the national chairman of the party. I mean, it seems like somewhere from the dream land, you know, it's something of consumable, it's something that would even think that could happen. And how APC got itself into that, we don't know. But it was supposed to be a caretaker committee that was supposed to pilot the affairs of the party to meet wife's election of a new central working committee, national working committee for the APC. That has not happened for a very long time after the ouster of Mr. Adams and Shumole. So why they have not been able to do that is very, very perplexing. And I remember that their own party member who is a minister and a very, very prominent lawyer, Mr. First of Skyamu did raise a very serious alarm just last week before leaving to the Congress, saying that on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling about the election in all those states, that he strongly advised the party from a professional point of view that the party should not go ahead with those Congresses under the leadership of a caretaker committee who is sitting over now. But the party went ahead, disregarded that warning, went ahead and had the Congresses. Now the outcomes of that would be very, very grievous for the party because a lot of people are already going to court, a lot of misgivings are already taking place. And if APC is not careful, this will cause a very serious crack in their party. Well, all right, still talking APC and we're going to bring in the PDP now, from our next chairman, Atahiro Jagai, is in the news. He has been in the news in the last couple of days really because of his statements, asking Nigerians to reject both the APC and the PDP. On the nation this morning, it says APC PDP reject Jagai's call for third force. So let's talk about that briefly. Do you think there is still that possibility of the growth of a third force in Nigeria's political conversation? I don't know what they mean by third force because this is the second time they are talking about that the third force. This is actually the second time. We heard about the third force in 2017, it's related to the 2019 election, where a group of people came together and called themselves the third force. I don't know what they are forcing but I don't know what Jagai is talking about actually because the issue of the world, I don't know if it's possible with the world called fourth force in the democratic lexicon. So I think first of all, the nomenclature of whatever they are coming with, whether it's using third force as a metaphor or it's using third force as a name, I think in the democratic sector we should remove anything that has to do with fourths. Even the Nigerian police have removed fourths in their name and then some political people are coming to ask first whatever they are doing. So first of all, that is a put off calling something the fourth force. But in that point is that I also agree that we need, there's going to be political realignments. I don't think that Jagai is saying anything new. In the outcome of all these congresses, in the outcome of the quest to acquire political power in 2023, there are going to be political alignments and realignments. So if groups are going to emerge, what happened between 2013 and 2014 where there was a coalition of different groups that have seamlessly merged into what we now call the APC. Remember the CPC that time bringing the power bloc? Remember the ACN bringing the power bloc? Remember the people that called themselves the new PDP, Drake away from the PDP? Those are the strong forces that came together to form this APC we have today. So as we go closer to 2023, those kind of political realignments will always come to play. And that's what we are expecting. Do you also see... The question is, is this in the interest of Nigeria or is it in the interest of the political gladiators? All right, so now I want to speak about realignments. You know, that seems to be happening also in the PDP. There seems to be crisis. Seven members of the National Working Committee have resigned. It seems, it's coming off, you know, disagreements concerning the leadership, which is a condis. How do you see this playing out? It's unfortunate because we are thinking that the PDP could play a credible opposition in this present political dispensation. But the PDP has not been able to live up to a very, very strong opposition, just like what the APC did, you know, when they were in the opposition. There were, you know, there were a thorn in the flesh of the PDP when they were in the opposition. Now, the PDP was expected to play that role. But again, you can see what is happening A lot of intrigues, a lot of intra-political issues are happening in the PDP. So it is for the interests of Nigeria that PDP gets itself rights. Because if it doesn't, there's no opposition anymore. And if you don't have any opposition in a democratic setting, then the only party will be left to do whatever it likes and get away with it. Okay, I want us to quickly turn to Nnamdi Kanu and all the controversy regarding his arrest and detention with the DSS. The headline on the punch reads, Nnamdi Kanu's stable needs advanced medical attention. That's according to the lawyer. Remember what happened with the media trial, the coverage of, you know, the trial of Nnamdi Kanu, how the federal government wants to restrict that. And all the questions that have been asked about this particular matter. Now, his lawyer spoke yesterday saying that he need advanced medical attention for this. But with the way this is going, do you see an resemblance with Elzagzaki? I think the federal government in prosecuting how it can get cases like this should, it's causing more harm to itself, to its image than good when it says it wants to restrict. I saw the accreditation where they were profiling media houses that would cover the event, that are crediting them and the rest. This is not normal. I mean, if we have a case like the high-profile cases that allow the media to enter, control the, it doesn't mean that every person across the state, a journalist can have access. But at least we know the major deletes in the country. We know the major broadcasting houses. We know the major online. You can work with a journalist. You can work with other, like the Bob Ruckus organization of Nigeria. You can work with all these unions that have in the media space to ensure that they have credible members covering the event. Now, if you restrict media, what you're trying to, especially you're trying to create is that you have something to hide. So if that is what the federal government is trying to project, that means they are getting the response because if you have nothing to hide in a trial, you make it open and then you bring your case and then martial it in court. And the media will always report what transpires in the court and then do some background check and do some findings and report. So the persons advising the federal government to do this is not doing the federal government any good. I think that you don't open up what a trial. People should have access, the court is a public place. People should have access to the court, especially media people, and then they can report the world. If it's not even how journalists can enter, we have judiciary correspondents in every major media house, there's a judiciary correspondent. So the judiciary correspondents should take over this case. Allow them to. But when you start restricting media, there's the perception that some people may think, oh, it is people who are friendly with the government. The media houses that are friendly and that are allowed to cover the death of them and slice the reports to keep up the government. We don't want to hear those kind of ass-comments. All right, Mr. Ibuke, just in a few seconds before we wrap up, we see the story on The Daily Trust that the United Arab Emirates finally lifted the suspension of flights from Nigeria, Nepal, India, and some other countries. Good news for us? Well, I don't know. This is where every country is getting worried about the delta variants of the COVID-19. This country is opening up its borders. I think it's not something to be celebrated. It's something to be viewed with a pinch of salt. What is that happening? Are there, I assume, the level of head immunity? Are there vaccinated? Are there people? When you allow all countries to come and have a melting point and then come back, are you going to, what are the strategies put in place to prevent this virus from leaving this country and coming back to Nigeria or other places? And the way you say India, India's right now is back then very hard. I mean, the thing is, the pandemic is hitting them so hard. So for a country where you open the borders to India to fly it, and you also open the border for that, Nigeria should be circumspect about it and see how it can contain this virus they call its consumers. All right. Amraseeb, okay, thank you so much for your time this morning for joining us on Off the Press. Look forward to speaking with you again. Thank you. All right. Stay with us. We'll go on a short break and when we come back we're going to be going back in history and telling you things that happened on this day a couple of years ago. Yes. Stay with us.