 This is the breakfast in Placidia, Africa. We have a guest joining the conversation, Afalabi Akinro Gundey, his AG CEO, all on. A bit of a background to the conversation. Now, just two weeks given to resolve the issues between electricity workers and the federal government. Now, Agents are likely to experience a total blackout as electricity workers are considering a nationwide industrial action to press on their demands from government since privatization in 2013. This comes barely three weeks after electricity workers under the ages of the National University of Electricity Employees and Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies suspended their nationwide strike, like was rightly mentioned. The reason for the strike action is due to the alleged unwillingness of the government to resolve issues of unpaid entitlement to former workers of the defunct powerholding company of Niger. That's the PHCN. Afalabi is right here with us. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. What are your thoughts two weeks after Adirabad? The workers there are backing or threatening to embark on another strike just to ensure that government meets their demand since privatization in 2013. I think I'm suing the workforce to go on in years to where exactly this comes from, because we were informed when the privatization event occurred in 2013. Now, the bulk of the money that was paid by the by the entities that purchased the power set then were basically pay off the PHCN staff at that time. Was that payment changed? Was it based on some mouse phones or whatever? Because why are we still having this issue outstanding in the next nine years after those assets were set to be paid? What is really happening? I think that's something we need setting triifications for from the government. Is it that people were supposed to be paid X amount and only pay 50% of that or 80% of that? What is really happening? So I think there is also quite a lot of secrecy or non-tractor transparency shrouded in what is happening here. And then the second level then is also the bigger macro issue around the power sector as a whole. We have all of these issues happening at the same time at a point where the government is essentially poor, where the government doesn't have the resources to even pay the salaries of those who are in this current employee has to go to the capital and pay them using ways to meet these current obligations. So it's going to be why, how are they going to find where they're going to find the resources to be paid these obligations at this point in time? That's another thing. Then let me let you follow on that. I think those are my thoughts and it's ours for now. Let me think we're at this point again. I mean, it seemed all was going well with the federal government waiting in through the minister. You had the Nigerian the electricity transmission organization or company rather also appealing to the workers to hold on and would hold up, postpone the strike, suspend the strike and it worked. You had the federal government through the ministry also intervening and everyone felt that this was already solved. In fact, people started pointing to that to say, oh, see how you've turned it to the electricity workers strike. Why can't you do the same with ASU and the investment situation going on? So is it that the federal government has not been sincere in its words to the electricity workers to say, this is what we intend to do and that's what they've gone back or what? I think there's a lack of trust is clear. There is a lack of trust across board in the country. Lack of trust in the government, lack of trust in institutions in the country. And of course there is a lot of evidence to show why we are at where we are right now. You've heard them, agreements been signed by various entities, agreements which have not been being held up to. And of course, it doesn't also take away the fact that the labor entities also have their own share of the fault. Why have these issues not been raised? Why is there not a concerted effort at the labor end? We have other parts of the labor infrastructure, so to speak in Nigeria, which can partake in having this discussion, for example, pretty much in many other parts of the world. Even in Africa, power workers do not go on strike. You are basically seen as essential services. There are tens, even hundreds, even thousands of Nigerians who die every time that these kinds of strikes occur. So it is not something that should be trifled with. So I think that's also part of the reason why the government actually intervenes as quickly as possible when they are back on these strikes. But there should be a way by which the labor infrastructure in the country and the home takes upon how do we sort this out? Do you have somebody else go on strike on your behalf? Do you negotiate as a total labor entity? Do you find a way to also look at the macro issues occurring in the country as a whole? Because everybody has their own issues. And like I always tell everybody, if you are not the CEO of Nigeria Incorporated, if you are sitting down on your own power, your own asset sectors, and you only see your own issues, yes, that is the only issue that exists for you. But if you are the CEO of Nigeria Incorporated, you have all those issues and you know that only for example 10 Naira is coming in, as we do once maybe 2 Naira out of that 10 Naira, how I want 7 Naira out of it, how do you fund security, how do you fund education, how do you fund everything else? People understand these things, but the challenge remains lack of trust. Alright, maybe Sakhiro Gude, last, I mean the issues are well known. We spent some extensive time talking about it. Last time they started the strike, of course, on the day, the promotion exams were meant to hold. And then some of these, you know, stuff were, you know, relics or remnants, let me call it that from the NEPA days, they said no, we are not writing no promotion exam. But what about the issue of, the way they went about that last strike, albeit it lasted for some hours, the resultant effect was that there was a total shutdown of electricity supply across the country. And we saw the videos, they went to the control room in Abuja and they filmed themselves and said, we are going to shut down the grid, we are shutting it down now, off the key, off the key. And then they filmed themselves and they turned it off. He talked about essential services, electricity is essential all across the country. And from what I gather from experts in your sector, when the power is turned on, it takes not even one day, more than a day for the power to go through the system, to transmit it, yes, to be able to come back to me in my home. Is this humane? Because some people feel these workers should be sued, should be taken and sued because of the effect of shutting down electricity because they have grievances on the entirety of the nation. Is it hospitals? Is it schools? Is it workers? Families are suffering as a result of this. What do you say the method of this industrial action? I think going on strike, doing what they did was wrong. I also believe that they should also have been actions taken at the part of the government to also see what, how do we solve this, how do we resolve this, how do we ensure that things do not get this bad to get to this point. So I think everybody has a dream here. If Nigeria was on the parts of the world, those guys who shot, who shot those assets that would be in jail now, they'll probably be facing charges of some sorts. But of course, if you try that now, you will now be starting another problem again in this sector. But the key thing with me means that we really have to sit down at the country, sit down and talk and find a way to resolve all these issues amicably, and also to have a crisis sensing mechanism in place that also ensures that problems of this sort do not escalate to the point where things are actually shut down. So I think everybody has a dream. I don't want to approach on who has 80% or 20% or what have you. That should never have happened. If this was a civilized country, those guys would have been in jail. But of course, we also understand that when people sign agreements with the government, when the government promises people things and those things do not happen, who else do you have to trust? So it's pretty much, it's not easy to say, oh, is it that A or B or Z? There are all sorts of shades of gray in between here. Okay. So I'm just wondering where Nigerians will sit down. At this point now, we're talking about power and its supply. Maybe we would probably have to sit at the national grid and sit somewhere to ensure that the powers turn down and we're not in gross stateness. But however that is, let's also look at the issues right here. How effective is strike action, this industrial action over time? Is it really effective? Because we've seen Aso and back in the strike from donkey years, nothing has been done. Government is still trying to say 2019, 2009, we're not there, we're there or whatever we can actually honor the agreement that was met. And then we're talking about agreement from 2013. Really, I'd like to ask you, do you think that strike actions or industrial actions really an effective tool to drive home demands from different agencies of government? And that's it. And if that's not, yes, it's not effective, then what other means? Because prior to now, some people would say you have to engage, there should be negotiation and what have you. But usually it feels like these persons have exhausted all of this. And then the only option they're left with is with, you know, industrial action. Yes, industrial actions, I think are tools which are pretty much in the kitty of the various unions. However, we need to also sit down and, like I said, adopt a 360 degree option. And so what else is available for us to also use over time? Because if you've been adopting the same method and no too close to continues to give you four, if you do that 50 times, you continue to get four. As long as it's still mathematics that you're using. So I think it builds on all the parties in the ecosystem, both the unions and the government and every other person else to also sit down and say, what else can we have? For example, if you look at the idea question, are there other models of financing universities? Are there other models of financing tertiary education, education which are occurring in other countries which we cannot see? Afalabi, Afalabi, that's not the case now. We're not looking at other means. We're talking about when two parties come together, we're talking about a conflict situation, not necessarily a war situation. Two parties come together and there's an agreement. You enter an agreement with another party from 2009. You enter in 2013. We're talking about agreements that government enters, you know, in different times. Why are they not being respected? It's not talking about the other options that are weight source outside of the issues. You say you would do XYZ. I mean, it's as simple as it is. We're talking about agreement here over time. Well, at the end of the day, like I mentioned, there is a crisis of trust. It is clear in the government as a whole. If the government of Nigeria tells you this is what we would do and those things do not happen, who else do you have to go to? Do you have to go to God? Or do you have to continue to use the instrumentation of strike? Or do you, until your entire institutional combos, is that what you are prepared to do? Because if you don't go to the government, the government does reneges on its own promises. Are you happy to have the entire institutional combo? Because the way it is right now, using the example of the universities and what have you, right now, government is broke. Government basically made a trillion this year so far out of the budget of 11, 12, 13 trillion. There's nothing. Government is broke. We have a target of 2 million barrels a day, or 1.8 million barrels a day. We are barely doing a million barrels a day. Even if you had a government that was right, that had, that was zero, that really wanted to do what they needed to do, that government is broke. So we need to actually sit down and renegotiate and talk. But the challenge we have in Nigeria is that there is a crisis of trust. If you had an agreement in 2019, in 2009, if you had an agreement in 2013, and the government is reneging on that agreement, what gives you that confidence that if you do another agreement in 2022, that that agreement is going to be followed up on? But if we're talking about the fact that government is broke, because that's the an excuse that government is giving to us that they are broke, the dynamics, the economic situation, you know, the oil market and the situation prior to 2022 was not the same in 2013. So the situation, the economic reality or the realities are not the same as it were as it is in 2022. Though we're talking about different times and scenarios. Do you believe, Afalabi, that government is really broke or we're been very extravagant with our spending? If you look at, you know, the economy, you would see loopholes where we should cut the excesses. Is government really broke, or is the fact that we don't say a thing and we keep to our words? It's an issue of integrity. I mean, just recently we had, we made an unenlightened note, really. The head is, I'm sorry that I have to bring it in. But just to cite an example, you tell people that you're going to bring XYZ person and they don't show up. It's an issue of integrity. We don't have it. We say a thing and we don't keep to our words. Okay, so what we have happening right now, really at the end of the day, is a situation where you have a perfect storm. All of the things you were supposed to have done 10 years ago. Look at it, 2009 was what, 13 years ago. All of the things you were supposed to, the situation we have now is, let me just give you an example. It's an example of a gentleman, of a young boy, who when all of his friends were reading for work, he didn't read, he was playing football. He had, he has good brains, he didn't read for his own work. When the exam came, he didn't do what he was supposed to do. But the results are here now. His friends are going to school. Of course, let's assume that you need an open strike. His friends are going to school. But he is here at home. He can't get admission. He can't do anything. So where we are right now as a country, it has a result of the things we refuse to do 10, 15, 20 years ago. But the key things to do, really, if it was, if we have a crisis situation right now, is to decide how, yes, the past is the past. What do we need to do? What can the government do to show that it is serious? To get the people to trust him, to get the unions to trust it, and to take those hard decisions that need to be taken. Because I think if we think that things are difficult now, it's going to be much more difficult than the last six months or one month time. Imagine what's going to happen when subsidies go a year or nine months from now. So I think what the government needs to do is to show, and like you have said, is to take those steps, cut his own costs, do what he needs to do, show that it is bearing that pain like the other people in the country. And so engender that trust and see, guys, this is where we are. This is what I have. This is open book. This is my books. This is what is happening in the country. Yeah, very quickly. Yeah, very quickly. Yeah, very quickly. And then forward from here. Yeah, very quickly. Because of time, I would sort of, you know, put this to you, since you're in the acting sea of all on and you are, you know, playing the power sector. Nigerians have been experiencing improved power supply in recent weeks as buttressed by the data from the transmission company of Nigeria, the organization in question as far as these remnants of NEPA are concerned. The daily trucker of electricity generation in Nigeria shows supply peak that a record I, you know, over 5043 megawatts on the 1st of September. And that's an 8.1 percent increase compared to 4,064 megawatts a day before. So it seems it's getting better. But interestingly, the electricity supply has been on an upward trend since the labor union strike action earlier in August, you know, with this new way, national electricity employees and the senior staff association of electricity and allied companies, since the grounded operations of the TCM when they went and just turned it off. You know, what's what that's an irony, isn't it? That since that strike, you know, the power supply has been up. Is it that these guys are a bottleneck to the system, or that something is just happening and power supply is improving or what? Because this is a period where things should be slowing down since they're not happy. So what's going on? These guys are relics from the NEPA days. They're on strike because they don't want to write a promotion exam meant to see who is qualified to get to the next level and be promoted. They're saying they have NEPA training certificates, one and two, et cetera, and that should suffice and that these exams are alien to them. You know, some of them have been laid off because the company wants to get better. The new management of TCM has told, been told by the minister, you need to do, or the new board, so you need to do better and get things going. And since they're trying to get these guys out. So why is power supply improving in the midst of, I'm not trying to conjecture here and do it sounds like it, but I want you to tell me your honest assessment. I think you're trying to work to the answer here. It's not that straightforward, really. Yeah, it's not that straightforward. I think the power sector is a chain. You've got generation, you've got transmission, you've got distribution. What you get at the end of the day is really what these codes are able to actually work out after all the good work that has been done at the upper ends of the chain. So I think we've also been here before, you know, if you recall, about three years ago or there, but we hit that five gigawatts target and that was good also. So I think we've been here about twice also in the life of this, I'm worried administration. So I think, but the key thing really is, and there were no strikes then when we hit five gigawatts, there were no strike. So it's not really a matter of the strike. The key thing is going to be, are we going to be able to sustain this? All the key things that held us back because really at the end of the five gigawatts, the largest scheme of things is nothing considering how many people we have in this country. How many people are totally agreed? We have 90 million people that are not even connected to the grid at all in this country. Well, we have to go now. Okay, thank you. We really have to go out of time to be very honest. We joined the news room at nine o'clock for the news. Thank you so much for being part of the breakfast. Well, that's the size of our conversation. If you missed out on any part of it, it's okay to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel with Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa lifestyle. I am Messi Boko. Many thanks for watching. And my name is Kofi Bartels. We return tomorrow. Good morning, G.