 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and it's time now to lift off the price, some of the headlines that are making the rounds and we will be looking at those headlines and we have a guest that will be joining us shortly to talk about those headlines. But first let me just give you some of the headlines starting with the headlines on the nature news. Nature news has a lot of things to say but chief among them is Nigeria's 20-25 open defecation free target, shaky. The riders there are 48 million citizens still practice open defecation, 3.9 million toilets needed annually according to UNICEF and state governments not committed to ODF campaign. Okay so and then the only other headline I would like to take from that newspaper is that Amoso wins Tokom Diamond League. She's doing us proud wherever she goes. Okay we'll move from nature news to business day. Business day leads with the story how Nigerian leaders failed to rein in governance costs. How Nigerian leaders failed to rein in governance costs or governance costs. Global raise for talent heightens Jakba wave. Okay that's what they're giving us the reason for the heightened Jakba wave where everybody's running away. We'll move to the Guardian now that's the third newspaper for today. The Guardian newspaper leads with the story Tinobu at the most cold war wassons as a Fabio Abbas appoints principal officers. We also have smaller headlines there. Tinobu Shetima open defense today you know BLP's petition imperative of separating AGF from justice minister and then we also have over 400 Kujie escapees yet to be captured one year after prison break. Scary and a Kano anti-graft panel probes Gandujie dollar clip and one billion Naira fraud. Okay we move from Guardian to the last paper for the day which is the punch newspaper. The punch newspaper leads with the story. APC protests selection national assembly members back at Fabio and Abbas. The writers there is selecting Bami Dele and Dume Umahi as national assembly leaders a rumor that's Adamu. Adamu the chairman of APC national chairman says that senators, reps, support senate president speaker say NWC is aware of the selection. Okay now results, results falsification, jump sanctions, more candidates. Okay we have that also on the punch and I think those are the headlines that we will take from the punch this morning. There are so many others in the course of our discussion if we can touch on them we will do that but we are being joined by Mr. Tunde Kolauli who is a legal practitioner here in Lagos state. Good morning and welcome to the program Mr. Kolauli. Good morning my brother thanks for having me. Yeah okay we'll be as brief as possible because there are a lot of things to cover. Let's start with nature news. Let's start with nature as it is. There is the talk about open defecation which has a target of 2025 and they say that it is shaky. 2025 open defecation free target is shaky and 48 million citizens still practice open defecation and 3.9 million toilets needed annually according to UNICEF. We'd just like to hear your comments on that open defecation. When I go to places like Oshiti and I see fishes in the motor park and by the roadside I feel embarrassed when I'm also committed from one point to the other and I see people on the bridges defecating to the Atlantic Ocean and feel thoroughly embarrassed and then you're also going to some of these neighborhoods especially the inner recesses of Lagos and most of the Uva towns, southwest towns that I'm very familiar with you still see people engaging in open defecation and you know what I have always said this and this is my humble opinion when people begin to defecate the way we do it it means that they are not different from the ordinary animals the dogs the goats and all that that just defecate wherever they find themselves so it means you are here at the very primitive level of the animal when we are unable to manage our waste and it's not just the defecation alone you go to most of these places even though the government has provided those bins and waste bags for people to put their waste our people will not use those things when the rain is falling they gather their waste and throw into the drainage gutters and water view at the end of the day that ends up clogging the drainage and leads to all sorts of problems in the communities and all that we need to tackle this open defecation and now so that we can have a more congenial environment and also improve on our because most of the diseases that we have around the tropical area in Nigeria in Africa in particular has to do with malaria has to do with some of these other diseases that come with water that come with open defecation that comes with an unhygienic environment so why is the local government why the state government in the different parts of the country are not paying attention to this but what's mean when we were young as individuals there were people we call Wole Wole sanitary inspectors who go around the places and make sure that people are compliant with all the rules and the regulations that have to do with hygiene we also have people from the local government who will go to fumigate all the open drainage and gutters and water to make sure whatever bacteria whatever other insects and water that can cause harm to people don't get to go in those places so it is an embarrassment and it is also something that we should confront as long as we have to be able to meet the United Nations a deadline for eradication of open defecation in Nigeria in Africa in the black water it's unfortunate that the United Nations will have to be the ones to tell us what to do and prevent ourselves from being sick and all that but do you think this is a product of failure in a product of a culture of failure in governance because you talked about the is it a lulule you call them the sanitary inspectors I grew up also knowing them but over time they have disappeared what do you think that can be done to get this message down to the people to change the psyche of the people regarding their personal hygiene what I wouldn't say it's a quote I think it's a page of a development even when you look at the Caucasian race and know that the the Chinese and then the Japanese are not at one time on the other they also have done open dedications in their respective societies and what have you put up society develop people will find better and more identity ways of disposing their waste and all that incidentally that is the odd way as a race the black people who are Nigerians in particular have not been able to cross and we are unable to cross simply because our politicians the headlights are not paying attention to those things and even look at the kind of most of the things that would pay attention to is all about politics and about how to make money we think we have not been considering some of these things are very important in our lives and all that the local government that is directly tied with those responsibilities by the Nigerian constitution another extent lots of people the local governments are dead all over the country the governors have killed them the local government does merely salary paying oil cost center all over the country and all that so we need to revise the local government strategy them with the responsibility that the autos will carry and also empower them to discharge those responsibilities things like a waste disposal things like a signage things like a street light things like market things like motor park and all that they are directly under the local government and all that but which local government as they wear with our resources to perform those functions today so it's not about culture it's about lack of paying attention to some of those things because to the average Nigerian enemies and politicians they are immaterial it's not a place to contaminate or make a bill of another one you are worth contact and what have you so they are not concerned since they are well off in themselves they have water closers and non-manus of a jacuzzi which is a disposal money they are with okay well let's move to the guardian newspaper there's a headline in the guardian newspaper tinobu adamo's cold war wassons as a pubio a bus a point principal officers cold war they called it i'm sure it's from the time of the primaries remember that the chairman of apc anointed the candidate and said that was the chosen candidate who eventually did not win and that was the then senate president amit lawan and now they are describing this as cold war between adamo and tinobu so there's obviously is a crack in the apc and um i don't know how you feel about what is going on in apc the people have chosen that it's going to be us and they why is she saying no we should have seen it coming it should be i mean it is expected if you are a good leader of what is happening the political terrain but let me take our minds back to to the second republic when we have the unity party of nigeria the nrc and some of those things are not those times it is the party that decides who occupy what's the offices especially the national assembly and they will get appointed as a as minister in fact immediately win elections the party leaders will consult with all the people who won the elections and sit down and then follow whatever guidelines whatever zoning formula that they are put in place to be able to get some of these the position of fields as soon as they set to that i know if one of the zone the party chairman to one zone they never soon the speaker or the senate president to that zone again and not but you see since we arrived at this uh is it all for the republic uh in 1999 that has never been the case with our politics you find out that the man who is governor want to dominate and ensure it is only his yes men who occupy all the other strategic positions within the party iraqi and let's talk talk if it is a national level the president will also want to dictate and enforce and impose wherever it's going to occupy some of these strategic positions whether at the national assembly whether as ministers whether as a party structure is a way by which they control the party structures and not at the machinery of the state and you will remember if you cast your mind back there has been a strong of me there has been a war as regards who occupy the the position of party chairman and some of the senate president speakers there are some of these other very vital positions that before we were told all we had in those days that and at times of show money was the candidate of what people are met in ubu as a party chairman and then somehow he got removed and some of these other parties and and uh who he said to be the chairman of a president i mean the candidate of president is occupying the post so if he is going to be able to capture the party structure and dominate the party and impose himself or insist to be the party leader and what i know what we are seeing in the apc now should be expected the president want to dominate or capture that area too by removing a damo and the fact that most of the principal officers of the national assembly as we have been told from the grave by or and picked by the president uh chances are that those people who have been picked and who have said to have now won the elections are not will not have the respect for the party chairman and also the national wc that is the working committee of the apc and also uh whatever structure that they are in there so it's a course that has always been there maybe it's now want to become a very hot war but the truth of the matter is that from my experience is 1999 whoever is president will want the party chairman on all the very strategic positions within the structure of the party and also want to dominate the national assembly a little bit at state level they also want to dominate the state assembly and then uh appoint all the commissioners and what that and the same thing is also happening at the local government level i hope they'll be able to manage it so that it doesn't uh become a blowout and begin to distract the new government and then begin to distract the president especially with his capacity to be able to deliver on the different of democracy there is very very serious problem in the land with regards to all the employment with regard to this removal of petroleum subsidies with regards to high inflation with regards to the dilapidated infrastructure with regards to low construction look at the legacy but next this week we have been on that for almost 20 years now and we are unable to finish a 100 kilometers of roads with i mean within the space of the 20 years when a country like china a country like japan and all that are now building roads under the ocean and they complete it well i don't know how this fight is going to to end they are for us we call it i'm going to end because if you look at the national assembly the number of people who now wear the signature heart of the president is quite much which means he has a lot of boys and girls in the national assembly if you see this the the cap that he wears with the eight uh inscribed on it a lot of them now wear it to show that they are uh tinibus boys i don't know how adamu wants to win this we in this case i don't know but let me let me move to another thing you are a lawyer and some people are advocating uh separating the uh the office of agf from justice minister what is your take when that is non-negotiable if we are going to have a stable justice sector a responsible justice sector a justice sector that is not uh susceptible to political influences and domination and what about the office of the agf and that of the justice more is separating you and i do know that is the president that will appoint the justice minister who also acts as the president of the federation the person who happens will automatically be dictating and calling the shots and dictating the truth and what i think and that is the challenge that we have done that president muhammad upwari in which the agf conducts the site i'm not going to prosecute this thing for corruption this party for corruption simply because the member of our political party are government people will get judgment against the government and then the government of the federation will refuse to pay because it sees as an embarrassment uh on the government in which he is uh is a minister and what have you and you also see that those who combine these two offices and others have over the years been abusing uh those offices in favour of their political parties and in favour of those who appointed them and that has not allowed for specific dispossession of justice and also for a critical justice system and also for a fair and holistic approach to justice and dissolution in the country i'll give you one example a lot of Nigeria have been clamoring that we should kind of um bundle our court system in Nigeria let's the local government have their own court let the state have their own courts much less court of appeal customary courts and also supreme court and then the federal government also have their own supreme court and also their own court of appeal and then the high court in the respective places and all that so things on the exclusive legislative list can be handled by courts that belong to the federal government and things on the non-exclusive legislative can be handled by the state courts and and what have you and then things that are common to the two of them can be handled by either of the parties and then sometimes who are now litigating to select in which court they want to be tried it is a fear that uh a court may be used against them or they might be part of the one court or that one party or that they have in place in one court and what have you for example in matters that have to do with life imprisonment matters that have to do with their services and all that or long imprisonment and what have you this began so the finance should be able to decide i want to be trying the federal court so i have to have a fair trial or i want to be tried in the uh the state court so that we could have a fair trial without this without having without separating the office of the mesons just a lot of us in Nigeria do not be able to do this on bonding of the court because a lot of our people would rather prefer to sit on the dead wall than write on month on the gallery of most of the attendee and meso justice see them they're sitting on these two offices another as the trapping of the office as a showoff as a something that would diminish their powers if the two offices are separated and it's for that reason that uh we require to prevail in food pressure on for example i'm asking you to do this uh dissolve this separation of the office of our president from that of the minister of justice so that our will of justice cannot smoothly fastly expeditiously and uh holistically without heading to a mission okay that just reminds me of what happened in 2015 or so when the ministers were being the least was being sent to the national assembly for uh scrutiny and the ministers were facing the panel the the national assembly panel and one of this uh ministers to be was i think festus kiamo and they were interviewing him as someone who is a lawyer by profession he talked about unbundling of this justice system and all that he was talking like a lawyer about lo and behold he was given something else and that's why we've always called on on this program on this station that next time they're doing they're sending lists to the national assembly they should send lists according to the likely portfolio the people will handle so that if i'm interviewing a lawyer for a prospective position as a minister of justice i should know the questions to ask him and see how his mind works not when i talk to a lawyer see how the lawyer's mind works i go and give him a minister for agriculture where some of them after handing over will now say they had no idea like the minister of education said he had no idea at all about how to administer in that office in that office or in that capacity they should send this list people who should be ministers for xyz should be people that uh have some knowledge in xyz so that when people are talking to them Nigerians will begin to know and see how they can help them as well and see where they can suggest the areas of growth and all that and see how their mind works from the get go and i don't know but this i think should be one of the things that should be done let the national assembly meet with these people according to the kind of portfolio they're likely to have whether you're going to be the minister or minister of state for whatever you're going to be let the national assembly also know that's that's what let me interject over there what you have said is a very desirable thing it's a very desirable thing it has its own advantage but i must also say that it has its own disadvantages which is when you look around the world it is not just in Nigeria in London people who have no experience in one area are made to kind of a man uh an area in which they have a new expertise you go to britain you go to america and norah people are sometimes acting with the responsibility of a portfolio that they've known it to for nothing at all there are some merits or advantages in that they can bring the experience they have in some other places and um infuse it or inject it or use it to tackle whatever problem they have they may have in the new office that they have been posted also remember that when kiba ula was made the minister of finance under the governor's position he was a lawyer he was he was practically as a lawyer he wasn't a finance person at all even though he had he had the battle of performance before he went to read a law and i also remember that when the kuiwa of uh this in guapo and norah wanted to revolutionize his country he brought people from different places he was took a business matukua and had the supreme court uh because he said most of the judges and lawyers in the country and people have no value for time for money and uh swedish you know and the money put in the supreme court was able to restore that later in the justice system they can't remove them uh the way to remove in that country the truth of the matter is that why you and government uh all i've been in ministry they are all menace of s parties in there within which you can um you can manage uh those uh ministers and norah but our experience our experience with the minister of education our experience with the minister of education uh was not really palatable enough because uh after his turn i said he had no idea the part where were the experts at that time he was a journalist well okay so i i get your point i get your point um another scary thing uh that i've seen is uh 400 kujie eskps yet to be captured one year after prison break these people went to prison there was a prison break they were at large and they have not been able to capture 400 of them and we've always known that these people a lot of times when they recapture them they are capturing them while committing another crime so what does that speak to you does it not scare you well it's a rather unfortunate why do i say it's unfortunate the difficulties in capturing them has to do with lack of a proper uh documentation in some countries of the world once you have been convicted like that your fingerprints will be taken the color of your eyes the color of your of your ear are no manners of uh documentation right from the time of your arrest and to the time of conviction and then we also get to prison a lot of documentation who also be done in there so if you are unable to capture these people first and foremost it has to do with the documentation again it uh the challenge india is that of uh of a security in most of the prisons all over the country a lot of diversity here and there lack of equipment you can imagine in some of these places where the jailbreak was said to have taken place there was no even CCTV camera to monitor what is happening inside the prison and outside the prison environment so we need to plug in all those areas uh let me remind you that Nigeria is not the only place that prison jail breaks take place if you read some of these stories from some other countries of the world you will remember the identity that prisoners deployed when they want to engage in jailbreak i mean jailbreak i have written some places in which the outside is full the prisoners are allowed to use to eat their food they use it to dig the wall to break the to to cut a hole in the wall over a period of time on the floor of the prison and to those floors the the the escape or even go to the rooms of uh or to the cell of another inmates and go in there to to to kill them uh that is one degree secondly the horrendous sovereign that prisoners uh have got in our prisons in terms of keeping in terms of uh closing in terms of we are in a panel in terms of people sleeping at me in terms of medications and all that will make another jail a prisoner so the test place to escape from some of those places if you go on a daily basis thousands of there are a budgeted for killing of the prisoners where you get in there the means that they get is only off to 100 or 200 per place and then you begin to ask yourself there's all this prison i mean this morning going to also look at the congestion in our prison the interior ministers have just left the place and know that address alarm not before you in left the office that the prisoners are too congested and that we need to build them up with them and that the federal government should not be feeding most of the prisoners in the prison because they are prisoners there are people who have been sent to the prison by the state uh uh government and also the local government and other and i thought that the same government should start building their own prison in conjunction with the local government so that we could have a more uh congenial or more conducive environment within the prison so there's not a problem in there and they were not addressing those problems when nobody was there so when he came back from prison he said he had seen the condition of the prison and i was going to look into all those challenges but all the SDRs are dispensing power he never addressed any of the problems that were up in the prison and not at all the prison is supposed to be a correctional center it is not meant to be a place to destroy or kill or maim any of the people that have been sent in there but our prison is not only for military it's a kind of a butch hour and a patrol for the slum most of the people that are sent in there i tell you um prisons conditions are not good if if you go there for ministration of any kind to to do fellowship or exactly you will find out they are nothing to write home about i know that somebody who goes to prison is supposed to pay for a crime but the unfortunate thing is that more than 50 percent of these people in prison may even just be a waiting trial and that means it's tied to the justice system and all that what just walk us through the process what makes it so difficult for these are waiting trial inmates to get the judgment that they deserve to either go to prison or be freed just tell us what the process is like that makes us so cumbersome there are very simple very simple there's a complaint to the police by citizens sometimes the police are by the roadside and they do a stop and charge and find that people have committed a crime and let people take it to the charge room from the charge room the police do their investigations and leave the field the fact is persons have the question to answer but there is a need to prosecute such persons another they go and arrest them either in the magistrate court or in the high courts or in the federal high court or state high court all over the country and all that and then they are put to trial and then either complicate those details and all that the process of trial i mean the problem starts right from the police station and all that most times some of the cases that they go to the police station what really should have been resolved at the level of the police station without taking the person to court i give you an example i have seen the situation in which a lady was taken to court for allegedly stealing a three thousand naira and said and the person who accused this person of stealing a three thousand naira, he took this lady home, slept with her, instead of paying the presbytery that the lady said she wanted he didn't pay the fees and all that and so when the lady was leaving the morning took the man's handset and went away with this and because they made the security man was able to track the lady and then fished out the lady and then took the lady to the magistrate court where the lady was prosecuted to get the lady out of the prison and get out of the charge and naira took about almost two years and naira so if you ask me this is the kind of thing that should have been resolved at the level of the police station so you find most of these cases go to court for trial in the magistrate court and naira court that doesn't really shouldn't be there that one that is one of the reasons that is responsible for the conviction in the prison until their trials are over until the court dispenses their charge and all that the people will remain in prison. Again too the compassion bill procedure in our different court is also responsible for the awaited trial challenging that we have in there in some countries of the world bill procedures are even used as a weapon of the means of making money by the government they have the the defendant to post a bond of some sort of amount of money and that is you escape or if you don't return to prison or trial and all that you will pay this is also a month for coming sometimes if you don't want to go to prison you want to be enjoy your freedom before your trial is concluded you are going to pay this amount of money and all that we don't have that procedure in there the third area is that most times the requirement for bail in Nigeria is very cumbersome and they say we bring lander's property it's very luxury they say somebody is a collector or a high civil servant in some of these places and norah and it may take time before you get somebody who has a sea of property in certain particular locations to come and process your pay or somebody is a director in the ministry to come and process we are bravely supposed to be as liberal as possible because anybody standing trial if he remains a mere suspect and there is a presumption of innocent for those persons so we don't require to begin to put obstacles on their way to be able to process their bail and then begin to come from their respective home to face their trial or do their defense lastly our costs are congested the costs are not enough i will just give the legal state as an example we are told that the population of legal is about 25 million people and when you have the population of 29 million people i'm not to show that we have up to 1000 costs in legal state both the customer record the magical and the high court so if 35 million people are to access the the court processes are norah you will realize going to be bailed out in those places as of today people who come from the court will be to do their case at home but at the time cases that are put in victoria island and in leki we are going to expect to do those cases are norah that is the cost that is the combatant very very strange of the world so we need to have more costs upon more judges more masses more cost presidents all over the places and that's all i have to do with the unbundling of the cost processes that we are talking about okay this legal for example is going to create more high cost it has to go to the agency in abuja to take permission all right to be able to create a high cost even when there is a demand for it and most of you they put in an application to create a more high cost somebody in diga wants a balance because ah which one must create more high cost because lebanese is going to be coming from the federal government to sustain the high cost they see that they cannot opportunity to attract a lebanese rather than based on the needs the exigences of what is happening in the respective state of the federation and other okay of course not enough money is also been put into the judiciary so if a person is also very deplorable judges have to sit on about 30 30 cases in a day and then they process life will be taken away there will be no power all right to light the court and provide a fee the simple material okay like paper okay i see i see how i see what the problem is now but i do hope that something will be done because i've had that experience going to minister in a prison and the state of things that i saw was terrible how the feed how they're taken care of it was terrible and that story is replicated everywhere that we are talking about prisons or correctional centers in nigeria we do hope that something will be done so that people who are innocent stay innocent some people who are guilty then stay inside as the prisoners i'd like to thank you mr kola woley for coming on the show this morning and for your thoughts on the headlines thanks for having me yeah we've been talking with mr we should love you too we've been talking with mr tunde kola woley a legal practitioner here in lego street the state is still a breakfast on plus tv africa and it's a midweek frenzy and we'll take this short break when we return we'll be looking at our first hot topic stay with us