 On the breakfast this morning, Senior Advocate of Nigeria Ebu Adeburua joins us to look at the legality of the Tony General of the Federation Abu Bakar Malami's order to prosecute Twitter ban violators. Twenty-nine major generals to go on leave with their junior appointed Chief of Army Staff will have a retired general explain how this works. Wait for this. Price of bread likely to increase by 30% in Abu Ujar. Bakers blame the increase in price of ingredients and regulatory bottlenecks. Welcome to The Breakfast on Past TV Africa. I am Annette Felix. And I am Usaugi Ogbanwan. Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us on a Tuesday morning. Looking forward to the rest of the week. Good morning Annette. Good morning to you. Yes indeed, a beautiful day today but the news isn't so friendly. We know first of all the ban on the micro-blogging platform. I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to mention the name but you know the one I'm talking about, you know. Twitter. Okay, we can say it. So we know that Nigerians are still enraged over the suspension of Twitter. And they're trending a hashtag, keep it on, to say, you know, let Nigerians be able to get back on Twitter. Let Nigerians be able to interact with people, share ideas, you know, market their businesses. You know, let e-commerce thrive using that social media platform. And we know that major, or the founders of major churches in Nigeria have been speaking up about this as well. There was a message from Pastor Iyer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. The message here says, the Redeemed Christian Church of God is domiciled in more than 117 nations and territories. The tweets here are in accordance to Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also, Pastor William F. Kumuy of the Deeper Life Church says, in view of the Twitter ban in Nigeria, please note that the content shared on this handle is targeted at a global audience in more than five consonants and over 100 nations. And we share these content from any of these locations. Now these pastors are quick to begin to defend why they continue to tweet because the Attorney General of the Federation, Awawa Kamalami, has threatened to prosecute all Nigerians who are still active on Twitter. You know, he's saying that they're assembling them. And even though we've had lots of analysts, Rob Mines, in this issue to say, what laws in Nigeria, what part of the constitution really, what laws are we breaking by being on Twitter? And his response to that is saying, when you get around in court, you will find out what law you're breaking. So Nigerians are trending the hashtag, keep it on, to say the ban on Twitter should be lifted and Nigerians should be able to interact freely on social media. Yeah, and you know, I've also seen international media organizations and, you know, a few others make the jest of Nigeria. And then, you know, all of that. It's hilarious. Good thing we're going to be having an extended conversation about it today so we can understand clearly how and if, you know, in any way, any person can be prosecuted for continuing to use Twitter, regardless of the fact that there is no laws actually against it. And you can prosecute anyone in a place where law doesn't exist, you know, and all of that. So we'll have a conversation, we'll see, you know, where, which codes have been broken, you know, also with the NBC codes and, you know, the UN Charter, like you've also mentioned, you know, how much power does it have, you know, how much, you know, does that guarantee. And if the Nigerian government is really just trying to bully everyone, or, of course, Nigerian security agencies are really just, you know, trying to blow steam to see, you know, how we can threaten people to, you know, stay off. It's wild how a couple of these government agencies have also still remained on the app to put out their messages and to checkmate whoever it is, you know, needs to be checkmated as a guy I saw yesterday who was speaking on the, you know, in support of, you know, the ban, but he was, you know, apparently doing it on Twitter and all of that. But there is that. There's also the angles where, regarding to Paso Adeboye and Paso Kumui, the criticism that they've received is mostly because, yes, you know, you might claim that your church is domiciled in, you know, 530,000 countries across, you know, the globe and other planets. But how about the people that your members, how about the people who you, you know, preside over every Sunday? You have thousands and thousands, millions of worshipers and members of your church who are affected by the ban. And so you cannot just single yourself out and say, oh, you know, well, we're domiciled in, you know, 200,000 countries across the, you know, the globe and, you know, all the continent and other galaxies. And so, you know, we, you know, would work with the UN chat and the rights of the United Nations Guarantees. You should speak for your people. You should speak for the people that attend your churches every Sunday. You should speak for the millions of people who you currently, you know, are general overseer over. And that goes to redeem them. Of course, Paso Kumui, I think that's, I'm not sure what that is. So that's, that's where most of the criticism has come from with regards to their tweets. And it's basically people saying, you know, how embarrassing it is that them as powerful as they are and as influential as they are, have chickened out, you know, and have decided to, you know, be calling on the UN Charter when they can simply just say that this is, you know, outright, you know, bullying and it's absolutely unnecessary to be suspended with us simply because, you know, a tweet was deleted. And I've also seen a couple of people try and spin this. I saw one actor yesterday. I really don't know who he is. Some actor who was interviewed and, you know, said that the president was insulted. And, you know, by that, you know, Nigerians were insulted, you know, and there's really just a couple of people who have tried to make it look totally different and try to even bring in, you know, Donald Trump into the conversation. Forgetting, maybe intentionally actually doing that, you know, because they try to forget that the president's tweet wasn't deleted because Twitter felt like they didn't like the president's face. It was deleted because Nigerians reported that tweet. And I've said this a million times. Nigerians reported that tweet because they felt that it was threatening a particular region and, of course, referring to war times of 1967 to 1970. And that's why it was reported. And once again, for everyone who says, oh, you know, why don't they delete other provocative tweets, you know, from them they can and the likes, you simply have to report it. If Twitter doesn't flag it or doesn't notice it as provocative, then it has to be reported and brought to their notice and they will delete or they will take action. The president's handle was not deleted. Donald Trump's handle was, you know, suspended and eventually it was also on Facebook. And if you also, you know, should know that Facebook also did the same thing with, you know, the same message from President Obama. But nobody is talking about, oh, it's suspended in Facebook. So why is it Twitter? What exactly about Twitter is a problem for the Nigerian government. What are they angry about with regards to Twitter? So these are some of the things, you know, and I don't know why we are here. I don't know why we're having this conversation in 2021. I said this sort of thing two days ago that it makes me sick to my stomach, you know, hearing or being, you know, in this place, having these conversations when we should be having better conversations with regards where we are going as a country and how much we have developed, how much we, where we currently stand with regards to a developing country. It is sad and sickening. Professor Atahirujaga, I believe that it was, I saw this on Instagram, someone took a screenshot. He also was on Twitter yesterday and he said, oh, Nigeria has been affected by the misfortune of having characters in governance who are neither selfless nor visionary, who are greedy whether for power or for money, who are essentially clueless about matters of governance and reckless in the way they handle governmental affairs. Apparently it was posted on the 7th of June, also on Twitter. Professor Jaga also got criticized. Even yes, now he seems to be speaking against whatever it is that is going on in government, but it was criticized, you know, because he was the electoral umpire in 2015 when the current administration came into office. So we're once again in a very, very confusing and sad place as a country. And this is absolutely not where, you know, millions of Nigerians, home and abroad expected that we would be today having conversations about suspending a site simply because, you know, a tweet was deleted. And I think it was a day after this happened that I was saying that there has to be better PR team for the presidency. There has to be a better way of handling these things. You should simply just say, this is not what we meant. A government who truly cares about the emotions and the feelings of Nigerian people would simply say, this is, you know, not what we meant or this is not what the president meant. You know, for those who are misinterpreting the president's words, this is exactly what he was trying to say and this is what the message was directed to. But instead of doing that, you suspend the site. And, you know, that obviously is not the way, you know, a government should be run. Who is advising the Nigerian government? Who are the people who are speaking in their ears and saying this is what you should do? Why is the Nigerian ego so big yet we have nothing so much to be proud of? Why were our shoulders raised so high as a country with regard to some of these things when we simply do not have much developmental, you know, with regard to development to be proud of? Who exactly are we raising shoulders for? That we can ban the social media site. How much effort has been put into doing the things that should be done? How much effort has been put into, you know, reducing unemployment in Nigeria? Who has been arrested for the killings of thousands of Nigerians in the last few years? Who has been prosecuted? Who has been tracked, you know, to be a natural source of the funding for terrorism and, you know, banditry Nigerians in the last couple of years? How do we have this much energy because a tweet was deleted? And yet we still have not been able to tell the families of people in Benua, in Kebio, in Katsina, in Borno or anywhere in the country that the people who murdered their family members and who murdered, you know, burnt their houses and their businesses have been arrested and have been prosecuted and will be sent to jail. How do we have this much energy for, because a tweet was deleted, not because their account was suspended or because President was blocked or anything, because a tweet was deleted. The rest of the thread was still left there, but that particular tweet was deleted and we immediately have all this energy. Why is Nigeria the way it is? Doesn't it make everybody sick? Yeah, we've seen responses from other, you know, notable figures in Nigeria like Kola Sherinka describing this as dictatorial and basically saying, you know, oh, this isn't necessary. We saw figures say Governor Song Wu saying that he feels the government of Nigeria answered her. She signed an MOU or something. I don't really know why Nigeria should be so, I don't know, single doubt to have an MOU based on the opinions of the president. I reckon whether you were saying, you know, if the office was here in Nigeria, it would have been easier to settle these things. Or locked and... Well, anyway, so while we're still talking about tweets, you know, Katowarian and Ranch and all of that in Nigeria, in other parts of the world, we see Jeff Bezos, you know, the world's richest man, going to be flying to space. So he has his own rocket company and they call it Blue Origin. So Jeff Bezos will be flying into space July the 20th and he will be going with his brother. The rocket ship is called New Shepherd. So he put out this video on Instagram saying ever since he was a child he's always wanted to, you know, take a trip to space and it's going to be possible. I mean, that's the video you're seeing on your screen right there. You know, so he's just breaking barriers with space tourism. He will be flying to space on the first crewed flight off the New Shepherd. And this is just 15 days after he's set to resign as CEO of Amazon. And Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos's younger brother, Mac Bezos, will also join the flight. I saw him there hugging his brother. When he asked his brother to join him on the flight, he was really excited, you know, to be going on that flight with him. And Elon Musk launched Space X, you know, building rockets to enter orbit around the Earth. Elon Musk has announced plans to travel to space, you know, but Jeff Bezos seemed to be doing it first, you know. And I think this is great. But the long-term vision for Jeff Bezos and his rocket company Blue Origin is to eventually send paying customers on a brief joyride to the edge of space. But, you know, the company has not started selling tickets for that. It's not an out-of-price, but they say the end game is for people who have enough money, who can afford it, to, you know, get on a space ride and just enjoy the view from the top. Okay. We've locked it down. I think that's where we should be heading up and in Twitter. I don't want to go. These are technological developments, strides. This is rich people talk. This is basically just rich people talk. This is, you know, Jeff Bezos and, you know, now he suddenly remembers when he was a kid. He also wanted to go to space because you're rich, sir. Well, if you weren't wealthy, you probably wouldn't have remembered what you dreamt of when you were a little kid. Relax. And if the country obviously didn't have that space for this much innovation, that would never have been realized. There is that, you know, also. We've had six years to develop something. One thing. We've had six sets of promises of developing the agricultural sector, but at the same time, have had bandits run through farmers and herders and the likes in the last six years. We will eventually go through eight years of an administration and, you know, we won't be able to really boast of anything that we have achieved. We can't put a finger on anything and say, okay, this is what we have achieved. That has changed and improved the lives of Nigerians in a very, very massive way. There wouldn't be much. There wouldn't be, I mean, there might, you know, people might say, oh, there's few trains here. Oh, some roads have been built. But eight years, eight years, and that is, you know, really the thing with the decision you make when you vote a government into power. You might feel. Any other person might feel, oh, you know, it doesn't affect me so much, but it does affect you. And eight years is enough time in a person's life to either push you forward or to stall you or to, you know, you'll send you, you know, 50 years backward. Those eight years are very, very important when you decide who or four years. Well, eventually they get eight. But those four years are very, very important when you decide who you put into the position as delicate as the president of a nation. And so in those eight years, your life either moves forward or stalls or goes, you know, 50 years back. That's how important it is. So when you, you know, are making these decisions and you say, oh, well, no, my business. It actually is everyone's business. So it has Nigeria gotten into a place where we should start talking about space. No. Definitely. Shouldn't even dare bring up, you know, that type of conversation anyway. That would be a joke at this time. All right. We'll take a short break. When we come back, Mr. Chris Wanda will be joining us to share his thoughts and some of the major stories making headlines across Nigeria today. Stay with us.