 Today, on the breakfast as the World Health Organization celebrates its 75th anniversary, Nigeria is grappling with the inaccessibility of quality health care, corruption, poor health infrastructure, insufficient financial investment, and lack of sufficient health personnel. What is the way forward? We'll be having conversations around this. Also on the breakfast, the super egos drop five places to become the 40th in the world and 16 Africa in the latest FIFA ranking. While in the World Cup group stage, Super Falcons will be up against Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We'll have Monday Thalmas join the conversation as we proceed. Don't forget, we'll also be looking through today's newspapers analyzing the biggest stories of the day. Welcome to the breakfast and plus TV Africa, happy holiday and happy Good Friday right here. We're having a great time, so it means that you're probably just at home and enjoying yourself. That's okay, but some of us never get there at a privileged age. It's more like a luxury. It's fine, as always, we start a conversation, what's making the rounds in different quarters, what are Nigerians talking about, what are in different states, and this morning we'll start off with what happened in Delta State. My name is Messia Bopu. Very unfortunate incident which is very common and very popular in Nigeria is the fact that pedophiles would always be with us. They're always with us. It's not just Nigeria, but it cuts across the entire world, so you always have pedophiles. A man has bagged 15 years in prison meant for defiling his neighbor's 10-year-old daughter in Delta State and that's what a lot of people have been talking about in different social media spaces and even offline. Now, in a high court sitting in a furon, Delta State, has sentenced Gospa, who is 38-year-old, to 15 years in prison meant for defiling his neighbor's daughter, who's 10 years old, like I mentioned. The court was presided by Justice Maika Nduka-Ubi, who handed him the sentence after finding him guilty of the charges that was levied against him. However, the defendant was arraigned before the court on the charge of having unlawful canal knowledge of a child. A child is a child according to the constitution until he or she becomes 10s 18, but that also does not take out the fact that when you don't have consent before any sexual intercourse, that is also a crime. This also unlawful canal knowledge happened on the 30th of March, that was in 2020. This is an offence that is punishable under section 218 of the criminal code law in Delta State, that of 2006. However, the Chief State Counsel in the Ministry of Justice in Delta State called three witnesses. The witness is actually or the witness informed the court that the defendant was enabled to the child's parent at the time of the incident and formed the habit of sleeping with her while her parents were not around. Now, God's power, according to the witness report and what was presented in court, would give the victim, that's the little child, 15, between 50 and 100 after every act and threatened to kill her and her parents if she ever reported them, you know, reported the incident. So I'll kill you. You can't tell anybody if you try to tell your mom, you try to tell your dad, tell anybody, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill your dad, your mommy. Do you want that? And I promise you the child will say no. However, the vigilant neighbor who noticed, you know, the act reported that to the victim's parent who in turn reported to the local vigilante and a trap was set for him. And he was eventually caught in the act and was handed over to the police for investigation. We can't even put out that, you know, video, even if we had it, it's not something you want to look at, you know, during interrogation of the police station. He made confessional statements saying that, oh, you know, which was, I mean, charged before the court that he played a no guilty according to him. He had also told the court that the girl's parent had issues with him and they were framing him for the offense. So he didn't commit it. He was being framed even after he was caught in the act. I mean, how evil can you be then? So the court stated that at the end of the day, this is summary of it because it's quite lengthy, is that the court with all of the findings and everything that went on said that he, such a person should not be, should be kept out of circulation. It sounds like, you know, the note as to read the streets of pedophiles and sentence would serve as a deterrence to order pedophiles, which is very apt. You know, so this sentence 15 years in prison, you know, will serve as a deterrence to order pedophiles that we have in our society. And the fact that he will be off the streets because he's a threat. And still working freely, this is according to the judgment of the court on the streets of Delta State would not, you know, do anybody any good. So yes, that's why, you know, the judgment was given because it was found guilty. But let's even get to the crux of this matter. It's unfortunate that pedophiles are everywhere. When I mean everywhere, they're not just in Nigeria. In Africa, in Nigeria, in all the parts of the world, you have pedophiles everywhere. And our children needs to be protected from this set of peasants or people. Now, in most cases, they're not strangers. You need to understand the pedophiles. Sometimes they're not people that are far from you. They are very close. There could be your neighbor. There could be family. There could also be spiritual leaders. There could be anybody. Yes, in all cases, we don't even want to have this. I think it's a conversation you're not even sure of having. It's not just limited to the girl child. So like I said, these people, this set of people who like to have sexual intercourse with children are everywhere and they're not far from us. So you have to, we need to pay attention, very close attention, you know, to our children. If we think that they are future of tomorrow, they are the future of tomorrow, they are the leaders of tomorrow, we have to protect them. Now, you cannot imagine the psychological trauma that this 10-year-old would be faced with. You can't even imagine the drama that she probably would, you know, would be facing for the remaining part of her life. You can't take that away. And as much as we say that it's commendable of the Delta State government for having laws that, you know, it's laws that sexual offenders can be punished. In this particular case, you have a child there. Again, you would also want to agree with me that, you know, the laws are very feeble. The laws against sexual offenders are feeble. In most cases, even if they have been, you know, invoked or domesticated, at the end of the day, what is the level of implementation? Then you also need the police on board because they're also part of the entire process. But honestly, it breaks my heart. Like I would say, I'm not sure that we're ready for this conversation. But again, we need to pay attention, very close one, you know, to our children. We need to protect them. Just recently, I mean, it's just of recent that we have in 2022 that 34 states, so we're having 34 states out of 36 states that have domesticated, the Child Rights Act, an offshoot of the United Nations Convention on the right of, you know, a child. This act simply prohibits child marriage, which seeks better welfare for children and supports compulsory education for every child among other progressive provision. So I mean, there's a lot of ham that's done to our children on a daily basis in our country, that's Nigeria. So you find out that in some quarters, in some parts, some people hide under the guise of religion. So you have underage marriages where kids are married off, you know, and Africa, Nigeria seem to be the center hosting all of that. It is really saddening. So yes, if we have, I mean, as of 2022, that's the report. The government has said 34 out of 36 states, so then you still have 32 states. But prior to this time, in 2019, it was just about 12 states that were still yet to say a yes to it. And even if you have the state who have said, we have demos domesticated this, we have said, oh, this law has been, you know, activated, that will be the word. What's the level of implementation? So it's another thing to say, hey, the laws have been, you know, activated. What's the level of implementation at the end of the day? It is very unfortunate. It is very saddening. I'm not sure you want to even begin to picture that. Imagine you're 10-year-old or 15-year-old being taken advantage of. The people who ought to protect these children are the ones taking advantage of them. And how far can we fare? Recently, Kenya did something very fantastic. And if you juxtapose, you know, the policy that's been put out for Kenya, especially which reflects the interests of the children and sexual abuse, especially for the girl child, not to say that the boy child is also not being abused, whatever. But if you look at this sexual offense, it's a lot of progress compared to what we're experiencing in Nigeria. And so, yes, the fight against these pedophiles, it's encompassing. We can't just allow that to the government alone. All hands must be on deck. We need to constantly report. In cases, there are so many cases. I mean, we've been in cases where the parents also are baiting this act. They are part of the entire process. They are covering up for whatever reason, maybe because their husbands are involved in other cases. Family member is involved. And then we can't afford the scandal. But then, you know, a child's life and right is being threatened. Children were supposed to protect. They can't take decisions on their own. What to protect them until they get to the age where they can take decision. Even at that point, when you forcefully, you know, you have intercourse with a person that's above, even if they get to 18 and then you say, OK, they are not adults, then does that make it right? Because whatever has to happen has to be, you know, an agreement, sort of. So, yes, we commend the Delta State government. This has happened because the laws have been activated. The laws in place, you know, to punish this offender, someone who's coming to describe it. Imagine that there was no law. Imagine that, you know, the laws were not there. What probably would have happened? No, justice would have been meted. On the other hand, it's also commanded that the police was also involved because you can also talk about this without the police involvement. And so, yes, it's a plus for the Delta State government. But we're saying that we want to see this replicated across the Delta State, including the Air City. We have a duty to protect these children because they're children. And even if, you know, the ghetto point where they're not children, rape is not acceptable, you know, in our laws. We'll move away from that. Another also very unfortunate and sadding incident is that the NSCDC has arrested three individuals over millions, over two million fake currency. Now, I'd like to let you know that before this time, because we had the election, elections weren't the biggest thing that happened in 2023, especially in the first quarter. There were several reports as to the government and, you know, political parties. I mean, okay, not to say dominant, but there are political parties. These were, you know, the conversations that were only on in different social media spaces. Political parties involved in printing fake Naira notes, especially when we had the issue of the cash crunch and, you know, the Naira redesign. The Zanfer command of the Nigerian security and civil defense court has arrested three persons in connection with fake currency worth two million Naira that were paraded while parading the suspects because you're also going to be proven guilty by a court of competence jurisdiction. So you're still innocent until you're proven guilty, even if you were caught re-handed. And that's how it works. So while parading the suspect, the command's public relations officer said that the suspects were arrested for being involved in printing and minting and circulating fake Naira notes and the United States dollar notes to the public, which he said that they were arrested in Goussa on April the 3rd, just recently, trying to pay for a transport fare with a fake 1,000 Naira note. But I like us also to think about this, that some time ago, there were reports, we had several reports that, a total of 67,265 pieces of counterfeit notes with a nominational value of 5.6.83 million was recorded in 2020. Now, this was 20.80% in volume and 12.18% value. However, then 84,934 pieces and 64.71 million in 201 tricycle operators were said to have been identified. We can't continue, because if you look at the fact that people are going ahead to, so let's look at it logically now. So you have a group of persons or individuals who are printing fake notes. You also have the fact that these notes are in circulation. You have the Apex Bank, you have the very living government authorities or authority saying, we have had several figures outside. We also remember three months ago when we were faced with the redesign policy, the fact that the NIR was not available. Let's just say shortly after that notes, counterfeits were available. So I think that we need to do better. What we need to do is better. It's not rocket science, it's the fact we need to pay attention to it. The fact that people can sit down, individual group of persons sit down to print the notes is that we have a weak security feature. It's easy for you to mentor the note. So let's even take a look at what has happened in the United Kingdom, because just recently the United Kingdom replaced all paper notes with polymer, which is plastic notes. And they say that last long is had to produce, I mean, it's had to produce a fake one and costs huge costs for printing money regularly. So it's just important that if people, if it's easy for anyone, myself, any other person to just go ahead and print a note, then it definitely means that our security features and what have you, the entire process is so easy that people can break it. So we need to up the game as a people, as a government. That's what we need to do. And on the other hand as well, I know that we have the Ministry of Information and Orientation across different parts. So there's a Ministry of Orientation information in the 36th State of the Federation. I want to be corrected even wrong. And so when, if you look at the Nomenclature, Information Orientation, what's going on? Do we even have these, you know, level of orientations? What exactly is going on? Because I know that this budgetary allocation to this agency, people are earning salaries, but they're doing their job. We need to, how do you identify? Because it has to be easy for you to identify a fake. Imagine that you have 200 millionaire or two millionaire fake currency. Do you know how much would have gone into the entire system? Do you know how much has been going? We're still waiting for all of this report, however. But just imagine how much is going on. So imagine that the Ministry of Information and Orientation is doing their job. People know what to look out for. It's easy for you to identify a fake note from a regional, then a lot will be done. So it's just a two-way thing that we'll definitely just have a way of preventing all of these occurrences. So again, I think that it's time for us to get back to the drawing board as a government, as a people, the CBN, that's the Apex Bank, the agencies of government to do their own bidding as Nigerians as well. This also would douse down all of these activities. But then you won't think about all of the allegations that were put out prior to this time that we're in, we're in April, and all of the complaints as to political parties, persons who are in these parties, who are printing fake notes, what are in Nair or dollars just to vote by, that should have been investigated and those who are involved should have been brought to vote because that's exactly what government exists for. And we can only hope that we get it better and better every other time. I will just quickly delve to the next one is the fact that, so there's a report that Thawkes invaded Labour Party headquarters in the AFCT. And according to this report, Lamy Day, a Papa, Deputy National Chairman of the Labour Party in the South says, he's taken charge of the affairs of the party due to this particular current. The declaration came after Julio Saaburo, National Chairman of the party alleged that Thawkes aided by the police officers, invaded the party's headquarters in the federal capital territory and cost damage to the property. And however, blame Aburo that the Thawkes or the alleged Thawkes invasion is of the progressive Congress. It's unfortunate that the kind of politics that we practice in our polity. I think we do have, you know, a tape to roll on this particular one. Let's quickly look at that when we return. We'll talk some more. Please stay with us. Till now, the Labour Party office is under attack. All the doors of the national headquarters have been broken and they have entered the office, perpetually trying to hold a meeting in the office. That meeting is not authorized by me. It's not authorized by the National Working Committee. The Labour Party is under serious attack. Personally and individually, because of the case we have against the APC courts, all of this Black Bay, all of this attack is tailored towards destroying the mandate that has been freely given to us by Nigerians. Nigerians must rise to the location, defend their country, defend democracy and defend the Labour Party. Thank you. Till now... Well, it's still very unfortunate that even after the elections, all of this attack will continue. But it's over to the security agencies, a very relevant one, that it's the sole responsibility of the men of the Nigerian police force to ensure that lives and properties are protected and maintaining peace and order in a democratic dispensation. Then we expect that the police will swing into action, that the government of the day will ensure that people are protected, their lives are protected. We would do the needful and this would never happen. But you'll also take out the fact that interests, so every other time you have a political party, you see that our political parties, people seem to swing from one point to the other, people would decamp when their interests are not represented at the end of the day, because at the end of the day, people, there's no ideology. Some of our political parties lack, if not all, ideologies and it's easy for all of the swindling and all of the undemocratic behavior in our polity. And what do you expect? If at the party level, people are behaving one democratically, then do you expect a better thing? Do you expect a better projection? Do you expect that when a free, fair ground is not affordable to the people at the party level, what do you expect at the center? It's just a trickle down of what's going on in the party and then that would also happen at the national level. But that's the size of it. We take a quick breather when we return. We look at the pages of the national dailies at this point. Julie Johnson will be joining us. Please stay with us. Good morning.