 We're glad to know you're still there and watching the breakfast on PLOS TV Africa. Right now we're going to leave from off-the-press headlines that made it to the national dailies and to do that with us and help us make sense with some of the headlines. We have a public affairs analyst talking to us from Aqqaibom in the person of architect Ezekiel Nyaitouk. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Good morning and thanks for having me as always. God bless you. You too. Okay, we're beginning this morning with a daily independence. Today we have just three papers that we're going to cover and let's just take some of the headlines here before we begin to dissect them one after the other. In daily independence, the boldest headline is further Naira devaluation scene now exchanges for 917 Naira per dollar and the writer on that story is federal government may be forced to review FX liberalization policy and that's according to analysts. We also have on top of that front page Nijekou, NGE calls for strategic engagement and diplomacy. Then we have a health issue breastfeeding lowest risk of breast ovarian cancers then other smaller headlines have supreme islamic council opposes sanctions military actions in Niger. Nigeria loses 3.46 trillion Naira to poor infrastructure others at ports and revs threaten to invoke powers against IPPIS AMKON budget office. MFLA asks court to stop DSS from further prosecuting him and subsidy removal, a kitty case, 5,000 Naira monthly to 10,000 poor households and food distribution. Okay, those are the headlines on the front pages or the front page rather of the daily independent and Mr architect let's begin with Naira devaluation. Naira devaluation now there's liberalization of the currency and we're seeing the dollar exchanging for about 917 Naira even though in in Lagos is still about 800 and something but in other places maybe Kaduna and other centers is exchanging in the black market for 917 and beyond so who this liberalization is it hurting us or not because they told us that it is a good policy and it will make things better in the shortest possible time but now it's 917 Naira what are your thoughts? Yeah the very first thing is that I like going foundational what makes the currency of a country to go up in value or to go down when you are able to establish the dynamics that make it to either appreciate or depreciate then you are able to address those fundamentals that address it and then you'll be able to get the desired results any policy that is not based on data statistics and foundational you know we talk about first principles all such policies cannot go far why is the Naira depreciating currency depreciates when the demand for it is more than the supply for it how do we get about demands demands come from the test of the people where even toothpick is imported demand comes from industrialists who want to get certain components to be able to run their factories or their industries where those components are probably available in raw material form in their country but they export such materials in the raw form and go ahead to import them back as finished products with the added added added cost and losing all the derivatives that will come there from demand you know exceeds supply where the people do not produce then on the other hand the currency appreciates when the supply is more than the demand and where do the supplies come from number one people appreciate and they you know patronize locally made goods so they don't need any foreign exchange to buy foreign goods so the demand on the calling dollar this time is not so high number two people are producing so much and are exporting they are exporting on account of which on the basis of the exports they are gaining more and more and more currency so the currencies they bring in is more than the demands here as a result that price hides number three government is training their people in house and not sending them a broad paying ester code paying flight and buying the flight ticket in dollars number four or five the foreign airlines are not the predominant carriers as a result they have to no have capital repatriation their money has to go back to them but the local airlines are strong enough the national carriers to carry the people so you buy your ticket in naira and not in dollars now what is the basis of policy intervention along this very simple economics i'm an architect so if i know this one plus one to be two then the mathematicians should know the exponent and the extrapolation of figures to get better results so for me you know coming to just address matters in the media you know superficially oh government did you know doing the analysis they don't make sense why can't mr president do one two three things number one just as you did not submit list of ministers at the same time you can also sway in meet ministers in batches get your minister of finance sway the person in inside your office there's no ceremony to eat all you need is to take the oath of office and there's nothing that defines me it must be taken get us a minister of finance get us a minister of defense get us a minister of health get us a minister of foreign petroleum yes and labor this critical problem and of course the attorney general and minister of justice these five people swear them in let them go in and start to do their work today everything is being coordinated from the office of the of the uh what was the name by Jamia Miller is the office chief of staff chief of staff nothing but secretary to government of the federation there's something fundamentally wrong and this is not the tinubu that i've known before today there's something something curiously wrong so the naira will continue to to just i was very sure i could have sworn you know with my little finger that by today the naira will be hovering around five hundred dollars i was very sure of that because i believe that as soon as president tinubu came in or president well i've always believed that it to be either a pc or it to be labor party any of the two people you know peter will be for his let's move from consumption to production then tinubu for his capacity to bring in a team of technocrats to handle the system these two are the way the two people that i felt any of them coming in you know the economy will start to breathe life and i foresaw a situation where the dollar actually went to exchange for about 300 naira eventually but what's happening right now uh defies logic as far as my mind is concerned okay well uh let's hope for the best because uh at that time when uh the cbn had a different rate from the um open market as it is or the black market um some people could breathe there was a possibility that if you don't get it from the black market you can get it from the official rate but now that has been abolished and they say that things will get better and is still the way it is now it is uh almost a thousand naira and i'm sure in some on some occasions it will get to a thousand naira uh per dollar and that is really really not good for us okay there are two headlines here that are similar and um nijeku nge calls for strategic engagement and diplomacy and also supreme islamic council opposes sanctions military action in nijek well pronouncements have already been made that an ultimatum has been was given and the day has passed now president tinu is saying that whatever he said was not his the presidency is saying whatever it had said about uh military might and all that was not theirs it was a coerce thing and now they're coming back to talk about dialogue and all that is that just trying to save face or how let me just say how can we save face uh now that it has gotten to this point now nijek is daring us mali is daring us pokina faso is daring us and the world powers that are supporting them are daring us from the background and we need to stay strong and we need to stay united what other approaches can be used to save face and then restore the kind of uh normalcy that we want to see in nijek in your opinion please yeah you know there's a saying a latin saying if you don't understand don't bother i will interpret a latin that says that says for oh your method that's latin that's latin right if you don't understand okay for oh your method as method oh yeah what that simply means that when you are here you want to go there when you are there you want to come back home you see when you are the chairman of a body it's like you're being the president of an organization you know they say the box stops on your table if you are hasty in taking a decision now we could have maybe been a little more understanding with mr president that probably he was compelled to take a certain decision with it without thinking through if at home we could see him as a man who thinks through every decision before he takes he is strategic he is analytic he is firm so we can say because he was a chairman of ecoverse and they were all cohorts of state maybe that is why they kind of prevailed upon him to pronounce something that he did not believe in but the question is in Nigeria do we really see a president as one who thinks through all the issues before he takes a decision will we say that he thought through the issue of you know swell subsidy put things in place and took a decision would we say that the monetary policy about floating the naira he thought through it before taking a decision on account of which we can say look at his track record that's the sort of person he is so for him to have announced this a military option or military threat you know he must have been forced by others we can understand so for him to say that now is um is difficult for me to really buy that story but bottom line we are here we are here what's the way forward americans cut your losses as far as i'm concerned it's become clear that military option is not an option at all on the table as far as nigeria is concerned if you look at the details of the dynamics of the country niger where our past president says even when he leaves you go and meet his cousins those people niger and nigeria and nothing nigeria there's no line or that closing of border i don't understand how they close border because if you close border it means that the the airlines cannot go there even the road transportation cannot go there even people cannot pass and i kept asking so how did emya of um the car no former emya san usi mayoga how did he go there did he did he how how did he he disappeared and reappeared there so so those things and if you know how that border is closing it is an intellectual exercise because i mean how do you close what is there as far as is you know you can walk across you can i don't even know what to say but for now i think that what mr president needs to do is have around him strategic thinkers who thinks three steps ahead you know there's something about government and governance that we do not have in nigeria and we so desperately need to have and that is a back room you know cabinet that is not known faceless nobody knows that but the job of these people is to take every issue and go three steps ahead take every issue do you know that the phone that you have that comes out today was ready almost 10 years ago some five years ago they kept doing testing and refining and testing and refining as we sit today you know i happen to have a son that is into you know this field of of of of the i city where they like forecast he tells me what will happen in the next 10 years i'm like wow do you understand me you need to know five years ahead of you several steps ahead before it happens before there's a coup you ask yourself assuming there's a coup in mali assuming there's a coup in niger whatever assuming there's a coup in this what are the dynamics what we play out if it plays out like this what should be step one what should be is assuming nobody's thinking of coup at all assuming there's this in this they think through situations they are strategic thinkers there are people who are versed with options and possibilities they are world beaters they that you must whatever it costs you to have such people have them so that you keep smelling like a rose and people are like wow this guy is always on point he is not always on point he has back door back room you know you know dressing where they get things ready for him way ahead of time if that happened number one we would have had an option assuming there was a coup in my in niger option two you see a coup in niger is not the same thing as a coup in kemeron is not the same thing as a coup in gana is not the dynamics are different because within the borders there are certain relationships and you know there's this francophone anglophone kind of you know rivalry so to speak and we are surrounded by the francophone the one anglophone that the one francophone that we seem to have a good relationship with is niger niger leads us to my library uh library what is happening in library has so much you know niger as a buffer before it comes to us in nigeria this is a very strategic country that's where we need to be very careful and not to start what we cannot finish the best thing is for mr president i think if i'm right the the the the the the strategic interventions might be a strategic thinking do you understand me to give him a kind of fall back you know in that oh because the clergy because the professionals because this because that because of the overwhelming and i'm the president of nigeria as much as this is done since i hold in trust the mandate of nigerians and nigerians have overwhelmingly come to me to ask me to think about this gentleman i understand that this was a collective um issue but you see i'm first before uh being the chairman of echo was i am first the president of nigeria and if they remove that mandate i cannot even be here so my people say we should do it this way let him present it that nigerians have overwhelmingly directed him directed him not suggested to him the office of the citizen is one thing that i've been i've been i'm now starting to take on as a national discourse and a national assignment and engagement we need to understand the concept of the office of the citizen mr president is our employee he's not he's not a monarchy he's not a boss he's not a king he is elected by us which means we have sent him so he reports to us we are the owners of the mandate he is not the owner he didn't buy us we sent him when we realize that then you discover that he must have necessity without any room for man over report to the people and do what the building of the people is okay let's move to another item as a fuel subsidy we we hear that akiti state has approved uh five thousand naira monthly to ten thousand power households and food distribution as well remember that akiti state has a population of over three million three hundred five three million five hundred thousand something and above and ten thousand households are earmarks to be given five thousand naira monthly with food and that's the same thing playing out at the national level where we have over two hundred million people and eight thousand is promised to citizens of 12 million households so a household will get eight eight thousand naira per month that vulnerable household might have seven people inside that household or it might have eight people or ten people the poorer the more in population anyway we have seen from experience that we have here because the poor have only themselves they don't have critical meetings to attend anywhere they don't have things that will occupy them in the in the office and all that they have themselves so they tend to have more children and more relations staying in the same place so 12 12 million households to get eight thousand naira each for six months just six months after that you're on your own and akiti state is talking about um five thousand to uh households ten thousand households for every month and i'm just asking myself where is this leading us fuel subsidy was supposed to save money for us and now everybody's talking palliatives and it seems to be just another hydra-headed monster with a different name or what do you think you know you know yeah i belong to the labor civil society group at the highest level and um yesterday we had a meeting of probably about um maybe less than 20 of us and when you have a meeting where you have the likes of the president of nlc is there the likes of mr patun told me is there and i don't need to go calling the rest of the names it's an extremely high-powered you know meeting and i'm privileged to be part of that body and we we we we just crack our heads as to where we are going as a nation our our mindset you know i i am i'm i'm i'm i'm bothered that we seem to run what i call here and now crazy it's about here and now it's about here and now we don't think about tomorrow and nations are built on foundations of you know forecasting the future long-term planning strategic long-term planning in equity states that you just said i'll tell you what happens every month 50 million error goes down to where i don't know because in a population of three million what is ten thousand you bring out ten thousand people out of three million people you feed them for a couple of months and it seizes after the three months five months six months the question is what have you achieved i'll tell you two things that you've achieved number one you have ten million fifty million fifty million every month if you extrapolate fifty million for five months you're talking of two hundred and fifty million six months you're talking of three hundred million gone down and you creating dependency syndrome in ten thousand people where their case is washed up please don't put sugar on my mouth and remove it allow me to be eating my salt using salt to drink my curry the moment you introduce sugar for me to drink my curry and i get used to that and then you remove you stop giving me that sugar what do you think you have done to me you've made my situation worse it's like a man that used to go on keke everybody's knows him he goes on his keke you go and give that man a car and the environment knows him now as a car owner six months after you remove the car from the man i'll say my guy help her wear your moto wear your moto wear your moto so he's now faced with that social stigma of a used to be you know but if he was going with his keke you know maybe he would have now started maybe using code from time to time because he has been able to improve himself what am i saying the federal government is by giving eight million naira to about sorry eight eight thousand naira to about 12 million people in six months would have committed about 30 35 billion into voicemail and creating like what i've just said dependency syndrome social stigma and unsustainable lifestyle but if the federal government like i made a proposal to them a billion i will give you what i call an enterprise estate enterprise estate is you know look how it has 200 housing units one bedroom it has an enterprise center of operator it teaches 200 young people setting skills and it is there 200 houses will be built by probably 200 people who will have engagement and opportunity of making some money maybe five million over a period of time of the construction at the end of that six months what do you have you have in the very very very minimum i'm talking about weighted to one state i'm talking about quibble for instance that's what will come to a quibble that's why i did an open letter to mr prerian said please that 35 billion that should come to a quibble state do not give the first list who don't know bring it let us establish enterprise estate in at the very minimum 10 of the federal constituencies in a quibble so that at the end of one year we would have an estate that has been built and all the money has gone to the power of the people we have 200 young people that are trained on a regular basis we have something to see to hold on to we have people who go back and become employers of labor we have something that continues to kind of expand it's like a ripple the water it drop keeps expanding after this period now compare a and b option a that 37 billion has gone voicemail is over do you understand me option b we now have this estate in 10 federal constituencies where young people are being trained where they are cultivating food where they are getting productivity where things are being so there's a difference between consumption of a thousand and production of enterprise estate i mean it's no brainer for you to know what makes sense but we have this here and now crazy where we must do what the people see working here and it doesn't make sense but even the enterprise thing you're talking about people will see it and that is a collective enjoyment as it is because if you give if you give to 12 million people that kind of that kind of money at least more than half of these people will not be known as you have called them faceless people that's the reality on ground and the people that will even be known maybe they'll be getting six thousand instead of eight thousand it happens in our Nigeria and nobody checks them but you know coming to to enjoying life as it is with the eight thousand or five thousand as the case may be now you are on common governor former governor uh who you like anyway uh quabiu who is now the senate president said that some money had been sent to the senators i'm reading from the the daily trust right now and he said that they are going to enjoy life the clock of the house had sent that money to them for them to go and enjoy their holidays and he came under fire and he had to apologize and then after apologizing he all the so said that the money that uh Nigerians are mischievously that's the word he used mischievously saying that they are just sending to the senate for them to eat or to enjoy themselves is because they need a lot of things for instance they need cars because they cannot do oversight functions with keke those were the words he used and he also said that they have no working tools they went into the tent assembly and they didn't meet computers with which to work i don't know how does government really work because it surprises me that the government will leave or legislators will leave and another set will come in and start buying everything including computers i'm surprised that legislators will have that kind of money at their disposal being paid to them by the way and then they still vote out some other money for them to buy cars the latest model of of jeeps to buy them 2023 model of whatever car they're going to buy that will cost the country 40 billion naira what really happens in governance what is the thing that makes public officers behave this way or makes us treat them the way we are treating them you know like demigods and all that is that how it should be or what do we need to do to change the narrative it's it's one of the things that we spent so much time last night you know deliberating upon we have come to have a very wrong perspective of what government and governance is and the most important element and factor in all this equation is missing if you go to the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria it starts with that quote we the people if you go to democracy you hear it is government of the people by the people for the people and within the concept of the people is what you have as office of the citizen as at today it does not exist it's a terrible vacuum where the elected officers they are not we just go to you know election time and go through the the motions and then give them the mandate so to speak or exchange mandate because we really don't give them what an exchange and boom we sit down and wait for another four years and during these four years we are winding we are completing and we are saying no there is need to come back and have the ownership structure put in place when you are a tenant in somebody's house and you do not know that in your agreement the landlord can come and inspect the facility every six months you can treat the house as you wish but when you know that the landlord is there he's passing he's watching and he cannot wait for six months to come and see you will find more compulsion to keep that house in a good state so we are now saying let the civil society come alive again in those days it used to be labor it used to be the student organizations it used to be civil society you know that those three legs to start with at a state farmers were a force to reckon with but all these people constituted the office of the of the citizen which is what you call the civil society now we need to reestablish that so that we can hold our public officers to account nobody's holding them to account so they are running riots because i do not see how they are local companies you know we you know where we started from value of the naira please convert 40 billion equivalent to dollars to go and buy cars meanwhile there's innocent next door and i'm not hearing them talk about it as a state policy that we cannot patronize any external organization where there is a nigerian option it's a simple you know policy we cannot patronize foreign goods where there is a nigerian option if that option is not good enough let us manage it and when we know that we are going to wear the suits from this tailor now we will go help the tailor to become better because we want to look good but when we know that if the suit is not good enough i'll buy the one that is important we just get this in and leave this the labor leaves this tailor but for reason of self-preservation if we know that important suits are not there we start to look for teller we live all see we teller say a guy look now how about no be you look at this lapel how in the look let it be square now let it be good we will help the take a lot to get better so my brother it's it's a system where we the citizens must wake up and take responsibility on end of this that's saying that you know the problem of nigeria is leadership is a lie is a fallacy is a lie absolute lie the problem because in democracy the leadership is chosen is not the private the organized private sector where nobody knows how i make my money in in in in democracy mr president is chosen by us we chose him so if it is a bad president because we gave ourselves a bad president let us come back and know that the problem of nigeria as of today is failure of taking responsibility by the office of the citizen the moment we the citizens think right people will even be afraid to even contest for certain offices because they know that they won't go anywhere because we the citizens would have done a due diligence and at the ballot they say hey they know go allow who know go allow who are those across problems in this last election please tell me the soldier that came and lined up and say you cannot go you cannot go we got it freely hey they induced us are you be moomoo and they induce you not even mind to say if they are told you i'm sorry to say this on national television but let me say because it's important if you have a girl that you want to marry next week and somebody comes to you and say i beg but guy things are hard with you give me this your bed making come give me one for tonight i'll give you a hundred thousand you look at that man and say god please please respect yourself are you okay my own my own currency i ask a question are things no longer hard but somebody will give you two thousand naira he said things are hard you know you go and give out your mandate it's because you don't understand the power of the mandate you've given out and that you're going to be complaining for the next four years does it make sense so we need to start to occupy that office of the citizen enlighten our people take the right position elect the right leaders and have our country working the way it should be that that opens a really really new chapter when you talk about the office of the citizen some people seem to know some people seem to choose not to know and all that who will lead these fight who will be at the fore when we're trying to capture back i will be at the fore for 20 years i took on social housing there was not a mention there was not a word today social housing is a full chapter in the approved national housing policy and nigerians honor me with the title of mr social housing office of the citizen is another thing i decided to take off i will take it off i will put my money i spend millions in hundreds of my personal money to advance social housing and that is what i'm going to do with social governance and office of the citizen i will do it and you know the good news i'm not alone there are so many people across Nigeria that feel the way that i do look at the answers they are my people look at the obedient movement the obedient movement is not about a man computer we know it's an ideology of people that say enough is enough but you know we make a mistake of thinking that the obedient movement is about a man no it's not about a man he just fitted the cap and drove do you understand me a time comes when it's going to exit and the ideology moves on so they are there so for me it's a right time and i will by the grace of god as god gives me the strength and capacity i will move it until my last breath is there okay we are behind you so whatever you need to do we are behind you okay we need to take Nigeria to that Eldorado we dream about just to wrap it up let's go to something that is worrisome when when fuel went up okay that i'm talking about petrol now where pms when it went up people began to look for alternatives the alternatives have always been there but people did not take them seriously but now that it was on our neck that we couldn't buy petrol anymore people went to the alternatives one of these alternatives is using gas and luckily when fuel or petrol went up gas was coming down now we just found this story on the point that cooking gas prices will rise next week that's what the marketers are saying so i don't know what your comments are on that that that feels like a threat to me you cannot cook you cannot power your generator because now people are powering their generators people are powering their cars with gas and we were applauding the government and the fact that or on the fact that gas was not going up instead it was coming down how does this look to you gas we've been told by marketers will go up next week you know we we we run a country where people take advantage of every and any situation there may be reasons for for there is reason for increasing the cost of anything there is reason you know because if nothing else i'm an improved buyer of labor and my staff are studying says sir please the transportation the money and it is true you pay minimum wage of 30 000 naira and that guy that used to use maybe 5000 to work is now using 15 000 naira to come to work so instead of 20 000 25 000 being left for him he now has less than 15 000 to feed and everything so you have to increase his salary so they should have known by today that gas will go up so i would have expected that and before now and because like that back room has told mr president that as we are converting to gas how do we keep gas down and i want two three things they would have done you know to make sure that the price of gas is left and let me even tell you that i am one of those that converted you know the big generator we cannot keep them aside there are these little generators that can take three ac's i've said this before one for your bedroom one for the power upstairs and one for any other place that can be taken i actually got one of my staff who told me sir the amount of money you are spending on petrol is not too much oh i said what else he said gas you know that medium size as in 25 kg whatever feels for about 8 000 naira meanwhile i was spending over close to 20 000 i don't know about 15 000 naira almost on a daily basis on on petrol and there was no light throughout in my estate you know where i stay in real shells are free you know so he actually got me the converter which he says there are three types there's this one for 25 there's one for 75 the German or the Dutch product anyway bottom line he actually converted it and then to one of the gasoline that puts it and my generator started and boy i ran my generator throughout and at 8 000 naira gas lasted me for about two days as opposed to the 10 000 daily you get the point so it was like half the price so i did convert to gas you know another thing that we've done in the rural areas is there's there's this save 80 atmosphere cooking you know pot you know it uses 20 percent of what you would have used before like in the rural areas firewood or the petrol the kerosene you would have used this thing cooks very well and uses only 20 percent that's why they call it save 80 and it is globally rated as one of those you know climate change approved them you know things especially for rural areas so that they can stop using firewood number one and number two they can also have the health benefit of not inhaling you know the smokes and everything so different things are coming up you know that converter is coming up to go to gas this atmosphere save 80 is coming up to save the lives of the people and they save 80 percent of your cooking you know cost so many things are coming up and then let the federal government look for a way of intervening in all these areas like this same 80 stuff how can they make sure that the factories in Nigeria there's one in Kano there's one coming up in kefi there's one proposed in Uyo how they can can they come up to you know kind of encourage these different alternatives so that before we reach there we already have you know something that is safe 80 internationally rated and approved by the global climate change bodies such are the things that the federal government and the state government should be getting into i'm happy to say that in a quiet moment the state government is looking into it and though we are still in the tribunal but we are we are working together to make sure that the people are the better for it okay well we'd like to thank you for your time this morning it's been wonderful having you as usual architect coming on the show to share your thoughts thank you so much for your time thank you and god bless you sir okay we've been talking with architect Ezekiel Nyaito a public affairs analyst that spoke with us from Uyo Akwaibom state we'll take a break when we return we'll be talking to another guest on our first hot topic stay with us