 Welcome back to the Breakfast in Plastivia Africa. We'll take you through the pages of our national dailies as off the press, and that's what we call it. G.D. Johnson is on standby to join the conversation. It's good to have you G.D. Johnson. Good morning. Good morning, Mercy, and good morning to Kofi and good morning to all of you who has all over the world. It's a wonderful Friday. That's all right. Let's take a look at the daily independent and start off reading the board caption. Nobody should be allowed to raise army of thugs. Buhari is quoted and recounts his Kaduna near death experience in 2014, and that's right underneath the board caption. Away from the board caption. 2023, ex-governor, Senators, back, Ashiwaju Akmat Tanumbu's presidential bid. You also have reps probe 178,459 missing police firearms from Ammari. Interesting. Governor Tom Sainz amended anti-open grazing law. It's also another caption and daily independent and just before we move away. Neck yet to decide and fuel pump price and subsidy removal. APC North East lawmakers back North Central colleagues on Bello's presidential bid. May on right costs for 2023 presidency. And this is some of the headlines on the daily independent. We move on to the initial newspaper with these headlines. Neck, patrol subsidy can't continue beyond June. And that's talking about the National Economic Council putting of the decision to increase, consider a report to increase the pump price of petrol by June to 302 narrow. It also has these sub headlines decision on pump price belongs to NNPC. No going back on January 27 protest says NLC. Interesting times and we hope for the best. All of the punch of the nation is for Bello to Tinibu. You can take Ligas Feeds to Abuja. You can take Ligas Feeds to Abuja. Naja Governor backs APC forward. Ex-Governor visits IBB. Another one. Thanks for linking me to your success, Buhari tells El Rufai. Thanks for linking me to your success, Buhari tells El Rufai. Some missing arms that were said to belong to the Nigeria Police Force. Alright, let's check out the leadership news paper this morning. Governors move to Aved Plan protest of a fuel price hike. And to meet Labour, Neck takes position in June. NLC vows to go on with protests. Says it's Labour Communication too. Abdul Salami, Baba Ahmed, one of hardship and inflation. Away from that, you also have IBB's blessing to run. Bola Tinibu is quoted on that. It reminds us of yesterday's conversation where the headlines is ex-governors, I mean Senators, Generals, Determining the Presidency for 2023. Well, you also have this. El Rufai has transformed Kaduna with projects. That's what the President is quoted to say. Reps to probe 178,459 missing police arms. And like North Central, North East legislators, and thus Yahya Bello for President. This is some of the headlines on the leadership news paper this morning. Next up, we have the punch in this paper with the bold headline, Abdul Salami work as one FG as Neck decides subsidy removal June. It's still talking about the National Economic Council that by the Vice President including the 36 Governors. It also has the following kickers. Petrol price hike will push more Nigerians deeper into poverty in 2021's ex-head of state. Life already difficult for Nigerians. Don't increase fuel pump price. Sanu tells FG. And there is a six-month provision for fuel subsidy. We'll take a position after that. Council, that's the National Economic Council. At the top of the front page of the punch in this paper, this Friday for hacker refinery projects, 3.96 billion liters petrol annually, aviation fuel report. It's interesting. I hope that will leave the pages of a report to actuality. Reps order probe of allegedly missing 178,459 police firearms. Wow, that's a lot. Electoral act faces delay at National Assembly. Harmonization yet to start. Senator accuses Baja Bia Miller of hidden agenda speaker fumes. That's worth reading. It's on page eight of the punch newspaper. Other headlines. 51,392 workers change pension companies. Move 190.62 billion naira. Quite some money in that sector, you would say. Reps order probe of contract kickback. Sixth torsion by MDA officials. That's amazing. And it's one to watch. It's on page 21 of the punch newspaper. Buhari recalls Kaduna. Recalls Kaduna bombing experience. L5 demands 7 billion naira reimbursement. So no surprises that he invited the president to come commission. So he could tell him directly, give me my money. Okay. INC. Yoruba group seek to join CNG suit on Biafran agitation. LASMA provides a probes. Officers attack on commercial bus. Female passengers are injured. And U-transformed legers do same for Nigeria. Niger state governor tells Tinnable. All right. Let's have G.D. Johnson share his thoughts on the issue. It's good to have you join us once again. It's a pleasure to be with you, M.C. and Kofi and our viewers all over the world. Okay. So G.D. Johnson, let's start off with the big one. It's dominating all of the papers. And this is Reps probe 1,780, I beg your pardon. 478,459 missing please fire arms from the Amur. This is on the daily independent, but it's made the rounds on all of the papers this morning. It's business as usual. Don't get excited. It's business as usual. What has been the head product of Honorable Minister of the Mike? The probe of Honorable Minister of the Mike. At every cycle they start a drama, a distracting drama to distract us from the reality of what is going on. We just hear the beginning of the probe. We don't see the end of the probe. That's just my take on it. How will that happen? And then they will start the probe without inviting people to come and answer questions. With respect to missing fire arms. And then we talk about the security challenges which we have. It should raise the flag for everybody. It shouldn't even be timing in carrying out this investigation. But like typical proofs we have had in the past in this country. Coming from the National Assembly. Well, don't let me be too pessimistic, but as far as I'm concerned, we just hear about the beginning of the probe. We don't see anything out of it. There won't be any prosecution. There won't be anything. Nothing has happened to the NDDC probe. It's a National Spotlight. It created cliches and commonplace statements for people. And when people want to go to Honorable Minister of the Mike, we have not seen anything out of it. So this one, hopefully we'll see something positive out of it. Because the media is facing a country with the issue of security challenges. kidnapping, banditry, terrorism. And if fire arms that are meant to secrete lights of Nigeria are missing, how is it missing? Through which channel is it missing? In order to civilize clients, the inspector general of the police will have been gone. All of the people that are in charge will have been gone. At least they will have an excuse first, why the probe is going on. But they can't have the probe. People have not been asked to step aside, why the probe is going on, so that the process cannot be corrupted. And we are just seeing it on the bridge of these people. God will help Nigeria and God will help the rest of the members. Quite a very pessimistic position on this, Mr. Johnson. But I'm sure what's on the mind also of people out there watching this morning is that 178,000 arms, weapons, that's a lot. I mean, how does such an amount of weapons go missing from the Nigeria police force? For me, you are alarmed. Still when you are alarmed is when I'm alarmed. But the people involved are alarmed. At the beach, as shocked as you are. And I throw it back to you. Let's assume that you are given the power of the state to manage the state for 24 hours or 48 hours. And you make this discovery. What do you think will happen? How are you going to react? Now, see, when this report came out, see the way the report was released, there is no, people are not shocked or rattled in night places with respect to the disappearance of firearms. It's a criminal. In fact, those that are involved will be tried for sedition. Are they trying to plan to subvert elected authority? Are they planning to subvert government? What did they use the firearms for? So these are the issues that actually agitates the bans of an avid Niger. But these are the issues that should be of concern, not only to the prayer. In fact, there should have been a joint committee to look into this matter so that they can quickly disperse this issue and urge people to answer questions. But you see, what will happen with the proof? I don't want to lose my sanity because of proof that has no end. Okay, let's just stay with the daily independent news report. Please refer another interesting is the fact that NEC is yet to decide on fuel pump price and subsidy removal. Now, look, it's a matter of double-speak. NEC said NNPC has the right to fix the prices. And here, in that same news report, you see the rider. Now, at the same time, NEC is saying that they are yet to decide and that, you know what, this present fuel subsidy cannot sustain us beyond June 20. The question is, who is subsidizing? And where is the subsidy coming from? Because from my teenage years to my hard-earned home, all I've heard from government is subsidy removal until we go to the stage behind when this present administration assured us that they are going to leave the prices to market forces, that they are not going to be paying subsidy and the rest of it. And now they came back again to tell us that we have to remove the subsidy. And you actually said this question. Does it require rocket science for us to fix our refinery? Does it require rocket science? Now, it's only in Nigeria that you are fluctuating at every year or every other year that you are fluctuating prices for a petroleum product. It's only in Nigeria that we import products that God has naturally endowed us with. Now, it shows our crude thinking. What was crude oil? Now, because we can't think, we don't have the thinking for cutting to transform this crude oil into petroleum products. Diesel, kerosene and the rest of it. And we have to import that crude back to export the crude and import finished petroleum, since we are crude and those that are innovated in their thinking. So they would dictate the price. They dictate the price with which they buy our crude and they dictate the price in which they sell the refined products back to us. And you begin to wonder, what has it taken since the advent of democratic governance? Any child that is given back to will be 23 years old. Now, 20 years is the age of responsibility. Now, if after 23 years, leadership at the state level, at the federal level, across party divide, PDP, PCA, CNAD, APP, CNC and the rest of them have not been able to come out with a comprehensive policy to deal with the foreign exchange and the furniture and the major product that we use to sustain our economy that we have to depend on foreign competition of products that God has naturally endowed us with. He tells you something is wrong with our polity, something is wrong with our public administrator and something is wrong with those that are partying themselves to be a political leader of 2023. Okay, so but we still have an issue on the table and the issue of that the president has not directed, the president did not direct the removal of subsidy. So that's on the one hand, and on the other hand, you also have the discrepancy, the Minister for Culture saying, oh, they're going to probe all of that. So, you know, with all of this confusion, I really don't know what next ought to be deciding. Well, he said it's national economic council. If the president doesn't require presidential directive, does the president have the power to single-handedly call for removal of subsidy? Well, there are provisions in the 2022 budget by 2022 budget for payment of subsidy because no single payment can be made by anybody except it is approved by the National Assembly. So are there provisions for payment of subsidy in 2021 budget? Are there provisions for in 2020 budget? Are there provisions for it in 2019 budget? So these are questions that will be accessed. Now, if you are going to pay till June and the budget has been signed into law, and that means that if there are provisions for it for the payment to be made till June, why were there the provisions for it from June to December? So these are basic questions that we need to ask. However, the more you look, the less you see and the more confused you become. When you begin to look at how we manage our national assets and how we manage our economy, you can see we want to put out economy. And as a result of not managing that we want to put out economy because everything centers around them, around petroleum products, centers around crude oil. And since we don't know how to manage our put out economy, we manage the crude oil in a good way. So our economy is good. Inflation is left rather than center. The price of goods are skyrocketing. And people can't make ends meet. And even governments are not fulfilling in its obligation. People are carving the real deliverables of democracy. So I just don't know what to say because the more you look at this matter, the more you confuse what is really wrong in the sector, what is really wrong in the sector. Why can't we get it right? If small neighboring countries that don't have petroleum products can have refineries and they have a stable price for their petroleum products, why can't we have ours? Since we are not able to manage that, and that's why we have seen that Naira has engaged in the free fall. You see that the value of our currency, the value of our currency is so inconsistent that the inconsistent inconsistency that has characterized the exchange value of Naira is a reflection of our mismanagement of the natural resources that we build our economy on we have not been able to manage. Mr. Johnson, before we move on to the next headline, Labour is still insisting it will go ahead with its proposed strike on this fuel subsidy removal. Are they still in existence? The Treaty of Congress is considering whether to go ahead. During the last forum I said they would meet with Labour to try and iron things out. What do you think should happen going forward? Can we even afford another strike? Are they still in existence? You recall when Adas O'Shamale was the Labour leader at the infantile stage of this democracy, we went on strike in 2002, in 2003, removal of fuel subsidy in 2004. Now when it became the governor, it changed its position. As I'm concerned, it's not like National Labour Congress. I don't know. What's the level of involvement and engagement in issues that affect... Jilly Johnson, I hope you can hear us. Apologies for that network activity issue. But if you can hear me, Jilly Johnson. Can you hear me, Jilly Johnson, please? I can hear you loud and clear, Kofi. Let's go straight to the punch newspaper. There is a little... It's given us a little position on the front page, but it seems to be important. The House of Reps again embarking on another probe. This time, they've ordered a probe of contract kickbacks and extortion by ministries, departments, and agencies, officials, MDE officials. This should be some good and chairing news. What do you say? I can't hear you. Can you take it again? The House of Representatives has ordered a probe of contract kickbacks and extortion by officials of ministry, departments, and agencies. Is this something that should be chairing news to Nigerians? They're engaging in a wild goose chase. I did not involve this. You see, it's a termiting. We call it kickback in Nigeria. They call it N-Max in America. They call it N-Max in America. So part of what happens with state contract, the House of Reps, we had this law that, to be as you can see, it was called the Adam Tew process, where we have, I can't recall the art specifically, but there was this art that, okay, public procurement art that talks about the process that should be in place before contracts are what we stick to those principles. The House of Reps and the Senate passed it and I think of as an administration signing it to law and then I do administration, do we stick to that? Do we still use that in content, award and monitoring in Nigeria? So as far as I'm concerned, they are approving this because they want to call the attention of particular ministries or agencies of government they're interested in. I'm sorry, I sincerely apologize for having a pessimistic view concerning proof because if you have to document the number of proofs that we have heard in Nigeria and then you see the one that eventually have outcome, I'm not sure we get up to 5% of outcomes from the proofs we have ever heard in this country. Since I was young and now that I'm old, I have never seen the input of proof that we have in Nigeria. Gede Johnson, it's alright. Let's also check out the leadership news report on this one. You have Nas speaking to the Electoral Empire, INEC saying tackle operational challenges before 2023 elections. Now the National Assembly should provide the framework that will guide the INEC in doing this job with different types of bottlenecks until pressure was exerted on them by the Nigerian public for them to allow INEC to do its basic constitutional provision. Now, they should not be directing that to INEC. They should look within the frameworks of the existing law. What can we do to help you? Not giving directive to INEC. What they should do is to have a collaboration and have a joint understanding and look at okay INEC, these are the things that we have observed and what have you observed and let us come together and reason and how we can strengthen our democratic institution. Do we directly perceive their military regime or they have executive authority to do that? It's like they don't know what should be their role and they are misplacing what should be their responsibility and placing that on INEC. They should work together with INEC strengthening our electoral act in such a way that it would give INEC the power to conduct the election. For example, the power to control the police who came during election giving directive shouldn't come from the inspector or general police. That power should be given to the INEC chairman. That's my view. The power to control the security apparatus when it comes to the election, directives when it comes to mobilization and providing security for critical infrastructure of democratic society because the critical infrastructure of democratic society is the election. It's the election. Who controls the security apparatus? Who deploys them? Who gives them directives? That which you have... Excuse me. That which you have within the framework of our laws so that we take it away from the political class and we take it away from the political appointees and you give that power to INEC and then see whether we will not continue the regime and see whether we will not deal with the issue of violence that we have when it comes to electoral issues. What difference would you make if you have INEC calling the shots or controlling the security architecture during the election days or the period of election? You need to see the way security and details are withdrawn and mobilized to other areas. Didn't you see what the president said in card 9, one of the pages of newspaper that nobody should have to be allowed to have army of talks and is coming from the retired general of the Nigerian army and presently the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the president is saying that nobody should be allowed to have a army of talks. Now that statement coming from the president in Canada recalling how he almost lost his life in 2016 is instructive in this manner for you to know that there are forces. I was sharing this with my students yesterday and I asked them, the president said in one of the interviews he granted to a national TV station that if we need the successor the successor will be eliminated. I said, oh, does it mean that there are forces that are more powerful than institutions that we have in the States? So as far as this issue concerning election because it's the pathway to public governance the control of it should be with whoever is controlling that election which should suspend the authority of governors of president that time and give it to INEC and the appointment of INEC should be taken away from the executive and should be taken to the judiciary whereby if we be the judiciary that will be responsible for the appointment discipline of all electoral officials across the nation and not making INEC a certain executive body in the 1999 constitution as amended. Thank you very much Mr. Johnson. Permit me to take you back to the punch newspaper. I've tried to bring a little bit of chair to you but you seem not to be taking some of the things that are being said by the authorities especially the legislature and the executive but maybe this headline would chair you up a bit. You give us your thoughts on the perceived or expected removal of petrol subsidy and the confusion regarding that and you made a point to say, you know what why don't we have our refineries working that is the first thing that should be worked on. Well on the front page of the punch newspaper this headline, you know, it speaks to that Port Hackett refinery projects 3.96 billion liters of petrol annually aviation fuel and I just will read a few lines from that for you. It says the Port Hackett refining company currently under rehabilitation will supply 11 million liters Mr. Johnson, 11 million liters of premium motor spirit, what we know as petrol to the domestic market, the latest report put together by the firm has stated this means the company is expected to produce about 3.96 billion liters of petrol annually. That's not the end. The Punch also reports that it also stated in that report that the facility would produce enough aviation turbine kerosene also known as aviation fuel or Jet A1 a development that would make Nigeria a hub for the commodity in West Africa. Come on Mr. Johnson this should make you happier and more optimistic. When of us was the president, we have turned around to us, that was the term that was used for the Port Hackett refinery, the Cardinal refineries who are refineries. In my hard-earned life I have experienced different types of government with different types of policy. Over the first subsidy removal, I lost almost 18 months in Unilag as a young child protesting and when government comes of it's expected to, it's expected to when expectations are not met after made promises, your spirit is tamponed. Now, what we need to ask is that what is stopping river state for example the South-South states in coming together to have a refinery what's stopping the South-West states in coming together to have a refinery if a private individual could try to site one in a bed then how much does it cost? Then how many years? After almost 23 years a quarter of a century all you need to take away from 23 years 25 years is 3 years 23 years of democracy, a quarter of a century a quarter of a century with consistent democratic governance at the state level and federal level and we have not been able to do that. I don't have any hope in this present crop of political class it's a hopeless situation and they will just come to the pages of newspaper and try to deceive us and play on our intelligence because they want to remove the subsidy now after they remove the subsidy they will still go back to business as usual. But the question that would always come up is that why don't we have our refineries I mean the existing ones functional and producing at the capacity that they should because it is providing for some people in that sector people are making money out of this out of this existing arrangement people are making money out of this existing arrangement you have yourself and we call ourselves the giant of Africa we should be giant in everything we should be and this is the main trust of our economy it's a monoproduct economy it's a monoproduct economy and our crude oil is one of the best in the world now why can't we have refineries in Nigeria produce to meet local demands as well as export to other neighboring countries and hand money on it but it is easier for people to make money from this it's clear we don't need any rocket science we don't need any rocket science people are on long trips we don't need we seen many partners being set to be investigated by the 7th,the 8th,the 9th assembly nothing has come out of it as a young person I told you about removal of self wealth subsidy I lost 18 months in Uni I don't know how many years of my adult life life that have lost as a result of protest over fuel hike or not that we stay at home and still is we are still in a cycle you know what someone said for us to do the same thing the same way the same manner I expect to get a different result is the beginning of insanity you ask yourself this question after almost a quarter of a century of democratic governors not a single refinery is working not a new one has been established the existing one have not been refurbished and I've not been put in place Mr. Johnson it's a it's a quite a very very very serious and sensitive matter and you seem still not to be convinced about the prospects of having a refinery's work but the the rehabilitation and I know they did not they avoided the word turn around maintenance this time they went for the word rehabilitation it started just in 2021 maybe we should give them some time to see what comes out of it but we'll have you here again we'll have you here again you see you see in three less time yeah all right sir thank you very much thank you very much for a time Jerry Johnson has been a guest on off the press I look at the headlines from the pages of the National Daily Caesar chief lecturer at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism thank you Mr. Johnson for a time we have more head and I see on the breakfast this morning and of course we're going to be telling you what happened today in history shortly after that we head straight to our very first major conversation we'll be right back please stay tuned