 Welcome once again to the breakfast here in Plastiv Africa. Now let's go back a little bit in history. I'm making a stop in 2016 and we're going to be talking about a coup d'etat that of course was almost successful in Turkey. It took place on this day and the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan was almost just almost kicked out of government but of course it failed. When I read the story I had to imagine what it would be like when you try to overthrow a government and you fail and what type of trouble or the level of a wahala. I agree he was almost kicked out of government. People didn't support that coup. Yeah that's the thing. There was an attempt and then of course the people who were loyal to the government stood up for him. There was a faction of the army then that attempted to kick him out of government but it failed and so they eventually of course were arrested. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in recent times been one of the most popular Turkish leaders and if you remember when Jamal Khashoggi was killed. He was one voice that was very very loud because it happened in Turkey and I was thinking at this point he probably would be able to do more with speaking the truth with regards to what happens around the world. But on this day a co-attempt was carried out in Turkey against state institutions including the government and the president. The attempt was carried out by a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces that organized themselves as the Peace at Home Council. The council cited an erosion of secularism, elimination of democratic rule, disregard for human rights and Turkey's loss of credibility in the international arena as reasons for the coup. The government said the coup leaders were linked to the Gulen government which was designated as a terrorist organization by the Republic of Turkey and led by Fertullah Gulen. Events around the coup attempt and purges in its aftermath reflect a complex power struggle between Islamist elites in Turkey. At the time of course about 300 people were killed and more than 2,100 were injured on this day in 2016. Many government buildings including the Turkish Parliament and presidential palace were bombed from the air and of course mass arrests followed with at least 40,000 detained including at least 10,000 soldiers who were also detained. There's also not very many clear reasons why judges, more than 2,000 judges were also detained after the coup attempt. I was asking myself then how do you arrest 10,000 people? Where do you keep them? Who even picks them up? Where are the facilities to keep 10,000 people on the custody? It must be Black Maria. It cannot be Black Maria. Can that just be Black Maria? But hey, that's what happened on this day. But the good thing that you pointed out is the fact that it was resisted by forces loyal to the government and the government forces. My God! If you remember also, I think there was something similar that happened in was it Egypt now? I don't remember where that was. Where there was meant to be a coup but they had of course stormed the media, organizations, TV stations and all of that but it was also resisted by the people now. And of course at the same time forces loyal to government. I've heard a similar story like that before. So if only, okay, because of the sensibilities of langerians, I won't make that reference to our home case here and they'd be offensive or I wouldn't go there, you know, for people to troll me in the comments. But my point is, when we look at what happened in 2016, I personally would describe this as almost a victory, almost like a victory for democracy because the army in Turkey, you know, have taken it upon themselves to be sort of like a protector of the democracy in Turkey. They've been about four coups since 1960. They always feel they need to chip in when they feel that the government is going astray. They always feel they need to chip in to say, oh, this government isn't doing right by the people and they were going to topple it. Now that's, there's so many angles to this. Look at this, that's a government that seems to be loyal to the states, not a government that is loyal to the president, that is under the whip, an army rather, that is loyal to the government, unlike what we see in other parts of, in other developing nations and it seems that the executive controls every other arm of government, but no. When they feel that the president is doing, you know, carrying out policy decisions that is not in favor of the people, they go ahead and, you know, they do their thing, they carry out a coup. In this particular situation in 2016 in Turkey, it's funny how, you know, young soldiers were involved in this. They had no idea that they were participating in a coup. You know, air bombardments, you know, they were attacking, you know, key infrastructures in the state. After everything was over, they now found out that they were actually part of a coup. They had told them that they were just going through a military drill, military exercises, combat training. They had no idea that they were being used. That's one. Also, at the end of the day, when everything was over, you saw that these soldiers, they had left their, they had left their ammo, they had left their tanks, they had just abandoned everything because it was over for them. Type Edelman was at a resort. He was having a great time when he heard news of this. He called on the supporters to immediately take action. At that dead of the night, Turkish, you know, residents came out wearing, you know, clothes with the description of flags of Turkey to resist that coup. They say, no, they're standing up for democracy. The army said they're protecting democracy. So the people say, no, we are standing up for democracy. I remember the army storming TV stations and people taking them back. Exactly. But the people resisted that even opposition groups, you know, like in Nigeria, we say the opposition parties would begin to support that coup. They condemned that. The international groups, you know, condemned that. But what's weird about the stories, we still don't know who exactly spearheaded the coup. You know, all fingers pointed to Gulen, but he even condemned the coup. So it was a very, you know, dicey situation. Nobody knew what exactly was the origin of this. People who were even part of the coup were misinformed or misled. But the great thing is that that coup failed in 2016 and his two presidents- If it was successful, probably someone would have, you know, been obviously, you know, you know, seen as a leader or, you know, the person would have- Yeah, that would definitely come up. But now that it has- There was no chance. Nobody wants to associate it with failure. Oh, my God. From 2016, well, let's go back to the year 1979. What happened in Eastern history, July 15, was about Jimmy Carter. He spoke about a national issue in the country, a crisis and confidence. And he basically, you know, took a look at the energy situation in America. He already had, you know, before then emitting at Camp David and Maryland with leaders and fields in business, in labor, education, politics and religion. He basically was talking about them about, you know, the energy crisis in the U.S., talking about the need for energy policies to change, you know, the energy consumption in the U.S., oil consumption as well. You know, he said that there was a threat to these particular issues and he had to begin to create policies that would change the way, you know, that was seen in the U.S. So at the end of everything, what Carter did was that he launched his energy policy plan. Now this included the implementation of mandatory conservation efforts for individuals and businesses in the nation, you know, and deep cuts in the U.S. dependent on foreign oil. Jimmy Carter also pledged a massive commitment of funds and resources to develop alternative fuel sources including coal, plant products, solar power. He outlined the creation of his solar bank that would eventually supply about 20% of the nation's energy. And to jumpstart this program, Carter then asked Congress to form an energy mobilization board modeled after the war production board of the World War II. He asked the legislature to enact a windfall profit tax immediately to fight inflation and unemployment. Well, Carter also ended up, you know, asking for imputes from I won't say Nigerians or Americans, from average citizens to help him devise an energy agenda for the 1980s. Carter was known to be a liberal president, you know, heading into the presidential campaign just as a tide of conservatism was rising. You know, he basically made sure that he tried his best to spare head the energy conversations around that time and to some extent that was successful. Yep. And these, you know, really for me are just you know, pictures of, you know, it really just paints a picture of a president who knows, you know, what he wants for his people and, you know, properly outlines where, you know, he wants to move the nation to, you know, people have always said that the United States has a lot of oil, you know, but you still see that they, you know, take oil from other people. They have theirs in storage and they have policies concerning, you know, concerning the energy that works for them in the bigger picture. You know, they plan for the next 15, 20, 25, 30 hundred years. We, on the other hand, plan for, you know, today and what we can do next week. You know, we're never thinking about what happens in the next five years. We've not started making those energy plans. We've not started making, you know, actual, you know, moves concerning where we want Nigeria. We've not started making those for climate change. You see, that's a consensus. Yeah, you know, but it's mostly because because if there's no environment in the next five years, you would not exist. Africa contributes about only about 3% to, you know, global climate challenges, you know, so it's not our biggest problem here in Africa. I've seen, I've seen. To be honest, that's a misconception because we all need to be aware of the dangers that are happening with our environment because it's not going to, when we begin to feel the effects, it's not just going to, okay, for example, the way we were talking about this yesterday and we talk about, you know, pollution in the air and gas flaring, it's not just going to be about, you know, a particular place in Potacot. With time, if these things are not checked, it begins to affect the whole of the country and spread to the whole of the world. So we need to have that mindset that this is our planet and not just that, oh, it's not affecting us. And I wasn't saying what our contributions as a continent are to the global climate crisis. Not, you know, what we're suffering is what our contributions are. You can't say I am not the part of the problem, so the problem will not affect me. Understand this point. Okay. So it sounds very, very beautiful to say, oh yeah, everybody needs to be aware of climate change. And Nigeria needs to stop gas flaring, which I have also said a lot of times, you know, we're wasting away gas. You know, with which, you know, we need to take the moves on gas flaring. First of all, we should be able to earn more from gas, you know, then just burn it away. That's one. And then second will be the climate, you know, change aspect. But if you look at what the major concerns are for developing nations across the world, including Nigeria, you would be able to realize that if you take away some of all these things, the major challenge is hunger, it's poverty, it's healthcare, it's infrastructure. We should start to, of course, assort us ourselves with countries that are making moves with regard to climate change and, you know, changing policies with regard to climate change, no doubt. But if we don't address the common issues that the Africans, the African man is facing, look at what's going on in South Africa. If we don't address those common issues, you would be deceiving yourself, telling, you know, mama in the village that she should stop using firewood. You would be deceiving yourself because she has no other option. She can't afford clean energy. And so, yes, we need to make those moves like you've said. It sounds so good. It's great to say that on the podium when campaigning. But it's not the reality of what we have on ground here. We have very, very, very major issues that affect the African continent and the African, well, you know, mostly, let's look at Nigeria and some of all these other very, very poor countries that if you don't address those things, you can't start telling people that they should switch off their light. We're going to continue this argument off camera because, you know, it's time for us to go now. But that's what happened today in history in 1979, June 15 President Jimmy Carter began a series of conversations and national policies about the energy crisis in the U.S. And you talked about the the failed coup in Turkey in 2016. We'll take a break here and we'll be right back for our first big conversation.