 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching the breakfast on plus TV Africa right now It's time to take global headlines and making stories in our national dailies and joining me to review the papers is professor Camille Sunny Fagge He's from the department of political science by Euro University canon. Good morning, sir. Thank you for joining Good morning, and thank you for having me. Yes always fantastic having you here okay, so we're gonna go straight into the papers and The first one I'm looking at here is the Guardian. It says the major headline here says estimators peg exchange rates at 1,400 Naira to the dollar as Naira finds fair value Do you think this is a fair value? We've seen the Naira Go as as much as 1,900 2,000 Naira to the dollar In recent weeks and right now. Well, it is at 1,400 But do you think that's a fair value if estimators are pegging our exchange rates at that? I don't think this is a fair value Six months or seven months ago It was exchanging around 460 something to What it is now so within a span of about let's say half less than half an a year It's almost a triple so now projecting that it is going to be about to one hundred one thousand four hundred To me, I don't think that is a fair value and secondly look at what they say This is not going to happen in the next few months. They are projecting that it's going to be for the In about to one year time Okay, so they are projecting and I think that to me is not fair Because we have to know Nigeria is a consumer Country, okay, so even if we fix it at 1,400 what it means Still inflation would be very high because we will be exploring important Our needs and then exporting raw materials at that rate So to me, I don't think that is fair value the government needs to look into it In order to ensure that They meet The needs of Nigerians not just the economic dimension So what do you think we can do to ensure that our Naira is at least a stronger We're not saying it has to be one Naira to one dollar. Although we've seen that in the past like in Years Many years ago. I heard that you know the dollar used to be In fact was even some time less sometimes less than the Naira I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I mean, it's not magic, right? But if we could at least maybe we'll come down to the 460 you were talking about What do you think we can do to ensure that our currency gets stronger? Yeah, you see my my past experience let me give you just a little bit mystery when I was to travel for my master's That was in 1980. I got a Naira. I mean a dollar at 75 poble So I don't think it is realistic that we hope we are going to that direction But actually what we're hoping is for the Naira to appreciate in such a way that It's you know, minimize this wide gap that we have and the way the government will do is We show up our industrial base most of the reason why we are having is because we import we import our basic needs so if we can now create a conducive environment for our industries to thrive as I think that will minimize our dependence on importation and that will now bring the Dollar down and raise the value of the Naira, but so long as we remain on that Direction, I think it will be very difficult for us to do and the other thing is actually the government has to look at This issue of borrowing You know borrowing borrowing is what? Put us into this condition because the more we borrow the more conditionalities are put on us And one of which is for us to devalue the Naira. So we have to look inwards to me We look at in inwards and try to make do with the things that we have and that is the way We can bring the Naira I mean we can raise the value of the Naira and bring the dollar down and the other way Which is very difficult, but I think that will have been the Most feasible solution that you see countries like Egypt have now moved to Briggs and they don't Deal with the dollar. So if we move to Briggs that that will solve our own problem Faster than what we have but the international politics is what Nigeria? Not without, you know have the strength to but if we can take the bull by the horn and look at that direction I think that will help us greatly Okay, so talking about Moving to Briggs the foreign minister said last week that Nigeria is to apply For Briggs membership in two years. So we're hoping that that would happen And maybe we would not have to look at the dollar But where we are now if we have to look at where we are now we're being honest with ourselves Our economy isn't thriving. It isn't doing great. And so you have to probably just you know Do a deep dive and say this is where I'm at. This is why I want to go and what can I do? What can that what vehicle would take me to the place where I want to go? So now my question is what are some if I if you can permit me to pick your brain a little bit What are some experts that you think if we look at ourselves now in Nigeria? These are some experts that we know we can do that is sustainable and that can bring revenue to our country You see if you take Petroleum Which is the gross domestic product, which is just about 6% also, but we rely heavily on it Getting about 80% foreign onion from petroleum the God has endowed Nigeria was abundant resources One of which is agriculture now if we could now invest heavily in agriculture I think that will help us bring down You know the naira the dollar one because most of the things that we do now is we import and we import Even our food needs but if you look at it the whole 36 states They have one kind of agricultural product that they have competitive advantage on so if the government will leverage on that I think we'll in the short time will now reduce the issue of our food security will may have the chance to You know even export Our food now one of the reasons why we are where we are in terms of food Scarcity is because the naira is cheap. So our neighbors come to buy food Which is cheaper for them to do that But had it been there is synergy between the federal government and the state government And they now look at this competitive advantage and show up security to ensure that We try to target not only rainy season farming but throughout the year farming, okay if we can do that I'm sure the issue of you know Valuation of the naira that even if we don't go to Briggs, I will be able to See some progress rapid progress Okay, so speaking on food crisis. I mean that's something you had mentioned There is a small headline at the bottom that says governor on bill Proactive steps to address food crisis. Do you think you're doing enough? Do you think we're seeing enough steps fine? They've there's been the palliative that they want to share to people We've not really seen that happen There's been a little bit of a delay in that but do you even think that's enough Do you think that can you know cut down on the whatever we're going through right now? Do you think it's it's enough to just help with the food crisis or food security that we need as a nation? Yeah, that that will go a long way But you see you don't put all your eggs in one basket when we say agriculture The government has to diversify We have to reduce our dependence on oil now we have agriculture that is once in there are other areas which God has and down Nigeria with we look at those areas we diversified but one of the shortest way again is we create an enabling environment for our industries to try making energy affordable Okay, the energy in terms of electricity and alternatives of sources of energies also we make it because by the time our industries are holding and by the times we don't have a conducive environment Even the foreign direct investment that we put up on energy track to attract you know it's not what's coming And the ones we have they are migrating they are leaving out the country So in such a situation we need a holistic approach take all this dimension That is when we can both on short run basis if we first agriculture first run short run basis and when we try to diversify we are now taking a longer major which will put us on some footing so that at least the giant of Africa as we are known will wake up from our slumber and will be able to feed ourselves and will be able to export for our needs then they will be able to stabilize our own currency Well I mean that's the hope of every Nigerian to be able to stabilize our currency so that I mean we can compete with other currencies you want to be able to buy things and they don't seem ridiculously expensive just because your Naira is weak and then obviously you need more for you know just a few dollars it's sad but I mean it's where we are we're just hoping that our currency will get better There's another headline here that says delays uncertainties in student loan scheme compound wars so food security is on one hand you know securing the lives and properties of Nigerians is on the other hand and we're still talking about loan scheme that the president had you know rolled out last year initiated he said you know there's going to be student loans but now you're still seeing delays and uncertainty in this and right now they're saying that it compounds the wars of Nigerians what do you think about this one? Really that is to be expected because you know one major problem with us is extreme bureaucratic bottleneck since that we can do within a short time but our bureaucracy has a tendency to all by delay the whole thing and now at the end of it what you are going to see is a blame game the executive the presidency will say they have done it it is not their fault and somebody in the bureaucracy will be sitting on it and then you know this loan I mean this student loan we have to be clear about it it is not that the government who is going to pay they are going to be like Ashwati so that banks will pay and you know investors are very conservative they almost always make sure that if they invest they have the means to recuperate what they invest so unless there is tight policy on it on the issue of loan and unless the government comes out with measures which will assure the banks to do it we are going to see this delay and the others in that will delay it is also corruption and taburatism we are going to see much about it so I think to me the government didn't do its homework well it takes it for granted that if you do it it will run like a clock but we have forgotten the Nigerian factor and this is why we are seeing the delay unless we address the Nigerian factor this thing will go like all other policies we have several policies we have made them and now they are history some are then you know they are there but nobody sees them and nobody feels that impact so unless we take measure this student loan is going to follow suit will be like the rest alright let's move over to some security matters there's a headline that says security agencies mom as search for abducted Corrigan school propels continues so we have no information the security agencies have been mom what you think about our security in Nigeria we are seeing week in week out you are hearing stories like this where people are being abducted people are being kidnapped bandits are invading communities and all of these things are happening don't you think the security agencies are supposed to be doing more especially giving more information on what's going on how they are investigating just so that people can be a little bit calm with the whole situation that is going because I'm sure there are people who are scared leaving in anxiety because of the stories so do you think there being mom is the way to go and what do you just think about our security system in Nigeria as a whole you see the security system leaves much to be desired ok so keeping mom is a way of you know trying to make sure that at least they are not under tagged by the public but you know this one now how many days but go back to history 2014 Chibok girls were abducted is now 10 years still some of them have not been recovered for 10 years and there are so many cases of abduction that have not been able to the security has not been able to resolve it so I think that this is just a way of keeping the heat out of themselves keeping quiet on the issue but to me that is a wrong way to do it because you need to reassure the public that you are doing something and you need to get the confidence of the public that they can trust the security agents that they will be able to handle it if you look at I think this is a guardian I mean not the guardian I think is a punch if you put it along with this one the only thing they come out is they say they are now fear that at least for 10 states schools in 14 states will be attacked so you see this is not the way we assure the people it means you are admitting that you are incapable of handling the situation when you come instead of reassuring the people that you are doing something and the people to see it on ground that you have done it now you are able to rescue the children about 256 I think now they are quiet on that and now another story comes out that in fact not only those 200 and something but 10 states and Abuja are under threat so I think this is a very dangerous thing and it shows the incapacity of the security agents to handle the situation I have one more story on the guardian which says federal government lawmakers fault budget padding claim budget padding claim or just probe what do you think about this the human writers of Nigerian association had come out to make this allegation and they are asking to probe this case what do you think about this whole budget padding you see this is something that the guardian and I think two other papers included the nation and so on I think some northern governors accuse the senate of padding the budget to a tune of about 3 trillion Naira and now instead of the government to look into that we are now seeing the usual seem blame game some are blaming this and people the government is saying no we don't have two budgets we are operating only one budget and that the padding is right and the senators are saying this one thing now what Nigerian expect is if we have such allegation very powerful allegation especially coming from the same senate now I think the government should be honest enough to look into the matter instead of dismissing it it should look at the issue or at least the senate itself should now initiate investigation into the allegation so that Nigerians will know the truth not only knowing the truth but Nigerians will be assured that the government is on their side trying to implement what has been decided but other than this I think this blame game will just water down everything and after maybe a week or two of blame here and there the whole matter will die and nobody will investigate it I would say that Nigerians deserve some form of transparency from the government we need to know what's going on if there's budget padding we need to know and you shouldn't even be padding the budgets I mean say this is what we need this is what we need you use that and you utilize the resources we can be spending for no reason in Nigeria especially with our given economy at the moment so some level of transparency would be appreciated if the federal government could give us that but I'm just going to move over to nature news now the major headline here talks about food crisis and it says millions face food crisis in Nigeria and that's the CH report but there's a small headline on the side that says Tinubu to launch food security agricultural mechanism agenda today and then there's another headline that says Nigeria can't fix current food inflation with monetary policy and that is being said by Addisino so this is the whole food crisis we're saying millions of Nigerians are facing food crisis there's food inflation food inflation is about 35. something percent at the moment with general inflation at 29.92 percent now the president is launching an agricultural mechanization agenda and food security to say to just tackle the crisis that we're in however I'm hearing that Nigeria can't fix the current food inflation with monetary policy what do you think about all of this and what are the ways that we can actually fix this a mess if I can call it that that we're currently in at the moment because it's quite alarming that people can barely feed people can barely afford anything you go to the market things are super expensive and food is one of the basic not one it is the basic necessity is what you need to leave really and so if you can't afford that and we have a food crisis what do you think we need to do and all of the steps that the federal government you know they're trying to put in place you see the whole the three stories are all correct that Nigerians are facing I mean they're all true other Nigerians are facing food crisis and this high cost of it and I think the real solution is what the former minister and now chairman of ADB has said monetary policies will not solve the problem because you keep on pumping you keep on pumping money saying that you are going to give pallet tips while you don't address the things if you want this is what I said earlier on that if we want and realistically want to do it we should now target all round season planning not just giving pallet tips and the government knows what to do we need a synergy like I said earlier on each state it has certain advantage in some crop that they produce this is where the government will go into a synergy with the state government and now see we address for example here in Kano we had over 23 ask them they are not being used had it been we use them I think Kano with these dams you know some of them have been since the first military time that was all about since then they have not been used so had it been we are serious on this this are the areas that we are going to look into and instead of saying that uncle Barua or you give these things you create a bureaucracy around it you just dash dish in money to people who are not even farmers and they chop the money and nothing is done we could go down to that and secondly we have to address the issue of insecurity because one of the reasons why we are seeing food scarcity now is because majority of the farmers have been scared they cannot go to their farms and farm ok and then we also have to take the issue of mechanization you know the government will have to look at how do we invest in agriculture so that we can be able to address this issue but the way you now keep on coming about politicizing it launch this spend the money nothing will be done and then another launching will come and you spend money this is not the way to do it so I think what the president of ADF said is the best solution that we cannot address the problem through monetary policies we have to go down the ground and take agriculture seriously so that we come out all season production ok let's move over to the business NG there's a headline that says IMF to FG the federal government implement cash transfer program before addressing fuel electricity subsidies I really want to get your thoughts on this because we know that the fuel subsidy being gone has had a ripple effect on Nigerians because I mean you need fuel for transportation you need fuel to run your business especially with the fact that we don't have constant power so you need positive power source you need fuel for almost everything and then the fact that they said there's some form of electricity subsidy that we cannot sustain the minister of power said that that we cannot sustain the electricity subsidies that we have and so we need to take that out although the senator said you know what or rather the house of reps yes and the senator said we can't afford to take that out right now but if the IMF is coming out and saying we need to implement cash transfer programs first before addressing all of this what does that even mean because all of these things the subsidy has had a ripple effect on us as I say and then if we're not addressing that isn't that not deciding not to help the Nigeria the Nigerians with their current situation in the whole economy that we have and we see right now that it's not thriving as we expect it to be is the cash transfer program does that supersede the electricity and fuel subsidy I want to give you a thought on that you see if we are to tell our separate troops there is no country that gets out of the deltrum by following the recommendation of IMF and Waldeban no problem we are in is a result of our taking advice of IMF and Waldeban so it's high time for the government and for our leaders to do away with that now by saying we need cash transfer I sure remember that just two days after IMF said talk about removing subsidy on energy electricity the minister come and talk about it they said it and two days later the government said they are going to destroy it now to me I think it's a diversionary tactics what they are trying to do is they know Nigerians are not resilient they know Nigerians have the tendency to forget anything they know that Nigerians when you dish out something like we said in a house like chips you know when you spray grains the kid will run to that direction so what they are telling the government is give this conditional transfer and do this the people's attention will be away from the measures and then the government will easily come and take out the subsidy on electricity and that will further kill our industries already statistics have shown that in the last how many years over 500 major industries have collapsed and many the foreigners are now migrating out and now we are making things un affordable so the whole thing is to make us dependent to break our own industries so to me I think the best thing is for the government to do away with and now face the problems Nigerians are in problem this solution to you know by I am I will not take us out in fact they will take us deeper and deeper into the trap they will take us deeper and deeper into problems and you know by the time the government tries to hit the cries and you know this in Nigeria it will be too late so I think this is high time we do it the legislature should stand against it and the government should listen to Nigerians IMF is not Nigeria the government should do for Nigerians not for IMF okay so I want to take there's a small headline at the top that says foreign investors still wary as Kadoso pitches for money inflows so the president has been moving around looking for foreign investors to come into Nigeria but then we don't really have a thriving economy that's sustainable for these people to come in some of them will some of them will not but I mean we always keep saying we need to put our house in order before we can ask other people to come visit and stay however they're still wary with Kadoso pitching for hot money inflows what do you think about this one this is true they will not come even if they come you see it will be peripheral industry that will come the major ones that will be of any significant impact they will not come and invest because like I said earlier on you know investors are very conservative conservative in the sense that if there is anything in the environment they tend to either withdraw or they refuse to come in and the whole thing is we should now tell ourselves like I said truth look by just putting emphasis on trying to attract foreign investors we are not we are making ourselves dependent more and more on outsiders why can't we look inwards and see we can develop our own industries look at even smaller countries in Africa who are able now without say emphasis on such foreign investment they are able to use the resources they have and they have better off so why do we have now the giant with all the abundant resources that we have we just keep on shipping you know hoping shuttling from one place to another trying to attract foreign investors while we don't do anything to make sure that we create the environment for our own industries to take off but it is reminiscent of this colonial economy where we are just importers of raw materials and you know exporters of raw material are imported of our basic needs that is what we are going to do unless we take the bull by the horn and try to industrialize on our own what we have we cannot be able to develop by attracting foreign investors they will come even if they will come they will invest and make sure that they get paid a deal and you know give us little and take all the resources and we still remain dependent on foreigners while you know nobody will do things better than Nigerians to our self so it is better we look in what and take a cue from other countries and see how they do it and they are now doing it okay let's just move over to the punch quickly there is a small headline at the top that says only foreign borrowing I mean we are talking about foreign investors but this says only foreign borrowing can save Naira, clear CBN debts and that is being said by some economist intelligence units what do you think about this because isn't that like you know how do you say we need to make more money get more revenue then on the other hand you are saying only foreign borrowing can save Naira and although they are charging the CBN they are charging to clear the CBN debts but what do you think about this one I think this is a contradiction you cannot borrow to clear what you have because when you borrow you borrow with interest okay so you will be in debt to go in deeper and deeper I think these are some of the problems we think we can borrow in order to get out of it or we sell our hard assets in order to finance this these are not measures that will put us on sound ground it is those temporaries when you borrow you are deceiving ourselves temporarily we borrow the money and now we solve quickly the current this but in the meantime the interest keep on mounting and other taxes keep on mounting we are literally mitigating the future of our children and grandchildren who are to come because these loans even if they are short term loans they are not going to be repaid in the next five years or something about 10 years something more than that you know that is when you start addressing by the time you solve those what you have quickly now getting cash and then solving these things you are now more getting the future and besides you are now pumping more money into the system and you know as you have more money into the system you raise inflation so I don't know why we keep on thinking that I will be getting different results by doing the same thing over and over I think it is to me that is a very very strong thing it is part of this neoliberal prescription which the LF and World Bank are pushing down our throat that we do this we do this and they get their supporters inside so they are advising the government so much so that we have forgotten even what is the purpose of government in Nigeria government is about people about their welfare about their security but here we are we hardly hear anything about the people you always talk about foreign investment borrowing these things as if that is what the government is all about government is not a financial enterprise it's a social enterprise it's a contract between the people and the leaders that they are going to serve the people not to serve foreign investors or foreign banks to come and give us lots okay let's take a final one from the punch this is at the bottom and it says oil earnings rise by 450 billion and Naira in two months and that is being said by the federal government I've heard that oil or crude oil they've been sold in advance but here we are seeing that oil earnings rise by 450 billion Naira in two months do you think this is good revenue coming in and that could at least help with the economy situation that we are going through in Nigeria given the situation I think that is a good news that at least we are getting something but on the surface of it is a very good news that we are getting some money more that hopefully it will be pumped into the system and we now address other things one problem is there is no integration you know backward integration between all these monies that we have and our effort to invest in them and now get out address social and economic problems in Nigeria that is one thing but if you look at it again from other side this is what we have been saying Nigeria trying to depend on one thing and not trying to diversify this as a source of our problem so by the time we get such measures we will be beating our chase that we have gotten this and we will forget the whole idea of trying to diversify and even with diversify we will see this money that is coming from oil is insignificant compared to other areas so it makes us to neglect all other areas and now it is a kind of anesthesia if we can use a temporary anesthesia that this thing is coming so it will take our attention and say okay after all we are getting this much money in two months so we will now forget other areas. Alright this is where we have to drop it here we want to say thank you for coming and it's always nice reviewing the papers with you thank you very much alright have a good day okay we've been speaking to Professor Kamili Sanifagi he's from the department of political science Bayeira University canoe and we've just been reviewing the papers and just taking the global stories making headlines in our national dailies. We'll go on a short break and when we return we'll be looking at our hot topic talking about the executive order issued on health workers living Nigeria please stay with us.