 Thank you for staying with us. It's time to see what the national dailies are saying this morning and taking all the stories making headlines Joining us to review this is Ezekiel Nya Etok. He's a public affairs analyst and is joining us from Akuaibom State. Good morning, sir Thank you for joining us Thanks for having me. Incidentally, I'm from Abuja. Oh, you're from Abuja today. Oh fantastic. How is the seat of power? We hope for the best Okay, okay. Anyways, I want to first say congratulations to you I mean all Nigerians are celebrating right now because Super Eagles won their match against the Bafana Bafana of South Africa. They won the boys, the boys, the boys It's a story we can never tell enough because long ago South Africa loved us and their Grammys and their It was 2-0 with football We would have a lot of bragging rights to South Africa in Africa And let me tell you what deliberate we would have just given the 7-0 You know when the penalty kicks that time they wanted to show that they were good at it We needed to bring it to that point to it to rub it in that we're not only going to beat them that will beat them a penalty Well, I mean, that is that is amazing. I'm glad we're here at this moment Yeah, we cannot wait to see what the finals will be like on Sunday. But yes, I mean The finals is going to be a little emotional in the sense that We know we are going to beat them but you know, because they are the worst, there will be a lot of crying So we are going to see how we are going to manage the situation There's a little bit of you know, human kind, milk of human kindness We may just beat them But allow them to lift the cup and give it to us You're killing me Okay, let's go to our papers this morning Well, the first one what you're looking at is daily trust and it's amazing to know that the picture on this one is Um, the super in goes and there is the rider here or a small headline that says Nigeria beats South Africa It's a set up afcon final with Cody one. I think that's just what we just spoke about now But let's move over to another matter and there's a small headline on top that says forex crisis Nothing for Nigeria as our crude oil sold in advance And this is by the NGF. So our crude oil has been sold in advance. So nothing for us at the moment So even if we're selling right now It's possible that so we're not getting any revenue in what was your thoughts on this one You know, um, I've said this before and I say it again Our understanding of government and governance is so warped that unless we change those things fundamentally We will not make progress Nigerians need to occupy the Office of the citizen and ask questions We must be given very decisive and very definite answers because the the Pensity that that surrounds or shrouds our governance system is not okay We do not know how many barrels of oil that we produce per day We do not know the contracts the forward contracts that we have entered on our crude Where people have already forward sold our crude and collected money Those things and how they deploy such funds. We have no knowledge of so right now We are thinking in terms of um that we are going to can you are you hearing me? Yes. Yes Okay, good. Good. You know, we are thinking in terms of you know Let us ramp up our production or we are trying to multiply our production by the you know the rate of themselves And not knowing that the production in the effective figure Is what remains After you have deducted what you had already forward sold. Let me use that expression And then we don't know how much so at the end of the day one economic indices and analysis our data Are just blind data because they are not based on the realities on ground I think the time has come when This government must sit up and do things right and they may not be able to do it Government runs on what they call lines of least resistance What that means is that you know, I was surprised when I was a vice chairman for the national housing policy review and what was written in that review was the cries of the people woke up government That that that that phrase was there woke up government Which means without the cries of the people they wouldn't have done anything they would have continued So the time has come when we Occupying the office of the citizen must make certain demands. It is our right to know These guys are elected by us to get into the office and hold in trust on our behalf We are the stakeholders and we cannot be the people that don't have privileged information What you call security information is not what we are talking about now. No, no, no There's nothing security about the fact that Nigerians ought to know that as of today We are producing maybe 1.8 million barrels per day Incidentally, we had already seeded 1 million barrels based on certain contracts and obligations we have So we have effectively 800 000 barrels per day Please that figure is speculative. I'm saying for instance, you know, so that nobody quotes that No, we are now going to ask ourselves How can we ramp up from 800 because whatever the figure you have is minus 1 million minus 1 million Nigerians ought to know that then we will not be able to ask a people collectively Know that we are in emergency will even help to guide and track You know those who are selling the ceiling the crude to the end that we get something better So I think that that the situation it comes first from our knowing exactly what the true situation is Knowing the emergency on ground knowing what to have as expectations on the base of that We'll also know what we should also do as citizens because it's going to be a two-part game the government and the citizens Go ahead Okay Well, I have a problem with the fact that you know, we don't even know what we're producing I have a problem with the fact that nmpcl well the world bank has said that nmpcl is not even transparent With the funds that come in the revenue or whatever they get I think it's at this point that we expect a lot more from our government I think is at this point that we expect some form of transparency Because you cannot expect them to trust you when you're not transparent And so I would say that I agree with you on a lot of fronts But anyways, let's move over to something else which is security matters and The major headline on the daily trust this morning says bandits threaten to marry bride Sell to itself 62 wedding guests and they demand a hundred million Naira ransom So we're talking about security a lot of times here and we're seeing this grow Almost on a daily basis where people are getting kidnapped People are being killed and I just want to know what your take On this is because I'm sure it's a song that has been Song for so long You know two things If you see a child boldly challenging you Look well The father is somewhere Right If you see a child boldly challenging you You don't need to look for the father is somewhere And there's a child that ordinarily I mean I mean what would give him the audacity the mendacity the animal boldness the f1 tree To even talk to you like come now come now It's because Look well just look well. You see the father then you turn and say, okay. Don't worry next time The question we must ask ourselves is Exactly what? emboldens these terrorists Against a national like nigeria We are not with all due respect child or nijia or we are called the giant of africa We're called the father of the black world Globally We are told that one in every four black man in the whole world is a nigerian What will give the terrorists that f1 tree that audacity To challenge us as a nation Who is their father And where is he see Our president You know add made up my mind like I said to give a hundred percent That I can't to to defend this country to support the president, but you see my support is not psychophantic You have a child the bible says spare the rod and spoil the child If you have a child that you know my mother used to say something and you know initially I was like what's she saying? In greek what it says is I'll say it in greek and then he says A door in edinie again bad. Is he woman came up? That's great But then translated The child that has nothing to fear never amounts to anything That means is that we need to let mr. President know that even we that are his supporters They are lines. We will not cross Why am I saying this? The president if today The president says if I perish I perish To hell with 2027 Who knows if I will even leave till that let me have today And for the sake of my generations unborn put my name on the sons of time And make history as that man that was willing to lay down his life to rescue this country one two three policies Can bring us back to life number one Very simple I said this before and I repeat it today I wanted to be a governor of aqua bomb said as peaceful as we are aqua bomb has 200 329 words or 368 depending on which one you want to use I mapped aqua bomb into 500 concentric circles Each of them to be covered by five drones If you have 500 times five it gives you 2,500 Okay, uh, it gives you 25,000 Now what is 25,000? That I cannot manage Very effectively Nigeria has 774 Local government Why don't I map each of this local government into 20 drone centers? And if you multiply that it gives you about maybe about 70,000 And make it a hundred thousand engage our young people And there's nothing that happens in any part of Nigeria That I do not see real time in less than five minutes Instead of the police saying oh, they called us we're running here Then we discovered it was at the wrong place We now run there we discovered it was the wrong place that excuse can be eliminated completely By mapping Nigeria into drone centers where you have a young people You train them you have situational rooms and when there's a phone call all you need is to activate that drone center And then they give you with it Just the knowledge of what I've just said that is going to be done The the the terrorists will have a meeting and say bros You be like say this game is over But instead you're talking of challenging terror no problem. Let it be whatever terrain. They will just give you a call and say my guy Check your phone. No check your phone and they see you they carry people they go Do you understand me the tracking where you are going the police is not following you They are just tracking by drones Where you are going and how many drones are you going to shoot down unless of course you give out the intel because you Don't know where these people are. It's something that is so simple and yet so effective and yet so much within the cost This is not going to all these things. I'm saying we'll buy it We'll have less than cost of one of those You know, um, Tocano jets that we're going to buy, but you know why they may not be Nigerians like big contracts people in government and this is security is big business for some people Please I want a Nigerian to come on here and challenge that what I've just said is not practical or does it make sense Oh, well, um, I When criminals become criminals, they should be called criminals EFCC came up the other day and said it's a religious sect that has been siphoning money and and Giving to terrorists and all that they shouldn't just call them religious sect Because I'm not sure there's a religious sect sect that Uh, teaches their people to be criminals. So if they are criminals, just call them criminals and Leave out the sentiments and all that and they will come and tell us that they have so many names If they if they cough this Nigeria will burn and all that let them start telling us what these names are Well, you just tell us Yes, they say they have a list and they are not telling us this list. Anyway five months Let's let's move on Which part of our constitution? Gives immunity to religious sects You know, I'm an architect. Maybe I don't know this Call them what you may But please tell me why you have not prosecuted those people Tell me why your hands are tight Tell me why you're coming on national television To tell me how helpless you are. You've just said it before They tell me they have the list of these people And yet they do nothing about it You know, these protests that are starting all over it's an evil wind that will blow no man no good And the earlier we stop it. Let me tell you something about protest Protest starts from people who are who mean well Who are really unhappy who are very upset who want to make their voices heard But then there is a group of Nigerians Who every day they pass by this shop And come to ask how much for a tin of milk They realize that the thing is not within their their their reach anymore And they are dying of hunger. They are working hard. They are not lazy youths. They are giving their very best Their best cannot give them a square mile a day And then there is a protest Naturally human instinct is about self-preservation So without meaning any ill so to speak They say well, when we use this chance college is milk a drinker So what happens it now becomes we Shots of honest Nigerians are getting looted What do you do you stop it from happening? How do you stop it? Mr. President has to have an emergency meeting with wise men Look for wise men who give you wise counsel And within hours so to speak make a national broadcast and say one two three things You know, I think it was Winston Churchill that says that hope is the anchor that stabilizes the soul If Nigerians can see the light at the end of the tunnel if they can see hope in what you're trying to bring Nigerians are the most patient people on earth incidentally today Mr. President is starting a new project, you know of delivering houses to Nigerians And I'm privileged to be in that system and the commissioning is today Now we have to sit down and ask ourselves some more for general reasons our chairman We have to ask ourselves are we in for another writing report Or are we in for another? After Shagari housing they will now say Chinooko housing where Nigerians can see houses being delivered If we take that on housing then healthcare professionals also get together and give a package on healthcare Security consultants also get together give a package on security and these things are unleashed as of today This is my program on housing and this is what we're going to do Immediately I'll come later and give you what we're doing Central, you know imprints that we are doing because enough is enough. We've got to fix Nigeria together That hope alone and emitted by what they can see and sincerity or purpose can be the beginning of turning Nigeria around for good Okay. Well, let's move to the Guardian newspaper court orders federal government to fix prizes inflation as agitation heightens That is on page six of the guardian newspaper What's your take follow note took the federal government to court and Mentioned some items that need their prizes fixed and he quoted the relevant sections in the price control board Or act and all that so this is where we are Federal government needed to be taken to court to realize they need to fix some prizes so that people can survive You see I'll tell you something If you make a hundred thousand error I do not disclose that amount to your wife depending on the woman And depending on how you have been over the past years As you mean you've been stingy you've been greedy you'll be very very inconsiderate and then you now Change and say I want to be a good husband So you made a hundred thousand you came back to the house and gave your wife twenty thousand Without her knowing the details This one says For this man to give me twenty thousand He must have nothing less than five million And as a result she does not appreciate it and she's like why why not this but if you have been transparent and honest with her And she knows that a hundred thousand has come and you give her twenty She will now likely tell you that you know the school fees. You know there's this so this housekeeping Let me take ten. Let's see how we can manage it that comes because she is informed on your finances As are today Nigeria has A need of a hundred thousand error But the resources available to Nigeria is only twenty thousand error The need level is a hundred thousand But the funds available is ten twenty thousand So the needs of Nigeria cannot be met But because government has been very opaque government has not been transparent We are expecting teachers one salary increase Understandably workers one salary increase Understandably we want petroleum. Uh, whatever restored, you know subsidy restored We say NEPA bill is too high. Uh, phcn bill is too high. We have to subsidize If you bring all these subsidies together and increases it will come to Two hundred thousand whereas we have Twenty thousand. So what am I trying to say? this That our brother our god fallon has gone to Make make the price control Justice is good, but the question is From where I'll give you two illustrations or maybe just one. I'm an architect. I have an estate I went to the bank money by pleading You know My right arm and a part of my brain to get that money and I build the houses the prices are going up cement started from Less than 300 when I started the estate and now it's a seven thousand Now the people that I initially sold even though that god gave me the wisdom initially sold the houses to Imagine somebody that I sold the house to for seven million And today the delivery cost of that particular house is 20 million I'd already collected 50 percent. I had signed a contract with the person So it's also paying me the balance of 3.5 million It cannot be that house They have a contract with the man So the question is you now want to come and control how much I should sell the rest of the houses for Will you also come and take up the loan? That I took from the bank and say I take the loan I take the asset I control and I give my people you can't do that because that's another property subsidy You don't have the money So the issue is the intention is right, but the resources are just not available So it's not going to be just sheable. It's not going to work It's going to be an exercise in futility great exercise But the question is how do we come to appreciate this fundamentals and attract or attack the issue from first principles Why is our economy the way it is? Why do we have foreign exchange problem? What can we do? One of the things that we can do is to just go local How can we go local when a national assembly is buying Prado? And yet there's heroism How can we go local when all our government people are going abroad for treatment? And yet we are dying here at home How can we go local when all our schools at home? You can't you can't tell when your child get you can't even tell when your child gets into school because They have some food that had admission But because of strike it's been deferred and deferred And when they eventually enter the school You don't know when they'll be leaving the school So you patronize foreign schools How can we do this except let me end on this My pastor is um Pastor oba equipment and the father was the former vice president of Nigeria When the man the father was made a vice president Who was an extremely Comfortable Nigeria I mean everybody as an architect we knew about equipment associates. I mean he was doing well You know what he did? He said I cannot be a vice president and my children are schooling abroad He recalled their children his children to come back to Nigeria and the children were like I don't believe this What sort of man is this? Okay, just tell me who you government money which you have pay upfront and let me say no And I need to lead by example. So he brought the children back to Nigeria and the school here in Nigeria That pastor equipment as my pastor He was in Nigeria school here in Nigeria and it's his first son Is food here in Nigeria with the father as the vice president of the federal republic of Nigeria The reverse is the case today even local government chairman Their families abroad Not to talk about Thank you families abroad So why can't why can't we have to start to Have the equanimous back to Nigeria and to know my my my president Can show example Can show example Last time I said here move from region to region Be the Nigeria president And show us that you are passionate about Nigeria. You love Nigeria. You care about Nigeria And your whole blood is Nigeria by so doing You would have started to sow the seed of patriotism in nationalism Not through legislation but by example and role modeling. Yeah, well, please somebody This is not possible. I don't know how that example will come. He just came back from a private trip two weeks to France with Air force one of Nigeria with Nigeria's funds and all that so I don't know how that example will come But it's unfortunate. We cannot continue from this point We would like to draw the curtain here on this segment. We always wish we had more time to talk on the Headlines on our papers, but we'd like to thank you architect for coming on the show this morning. Thank you Thanks so much. So if you are looking for some this morning, then thank you. Thank you. Nigeria won. So why wouldn't we look awesome? Thank you so much All right, you've been speaking to Ezekiel Iyer et al and he's a public affairs analyst But he was joining us from Abuja. We'll go on a short break and when we return we'll be looking at our hot topics So please say with us