 Leaders of the all-progressive Congress in the South West pledged to keep Nigeria united. The leaders also opposed the sessionist calls in the region and other parts of the country. The fuel deregulation debate continues. State governors want a deregulation of petrol price, organised labour, opposite and some experts advocate a total deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry. Stay tuned to find out what's best for you. Nigerians express disappointment and in some cases, disgust at the absence of President Muhammad Buhari and his deputy at the funeral of the late Chief of Army staff and other officers who died on Friday. Welcome once again to a new week on the breakfast on Plos CV Africa. I am Annette Felix. I am Musaugi Ogban. It was a pretty interesting weekend across the country, interesting for some, sad for others. But of course the show must go on as we always say. So we'll say good morning and welcome. Thank you for joining us on a brand new week, brand new Monday morning as we wrap up the month of May. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I am hungry as always. So our top trending issue this morning is the absence of President Muhammad Buhari and Vice President Yemi Oshimbajo at the burial of the Chief of Army staff, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Atahiu. Atahiu and 10 other officers died in a plane crash on Friday and were laid to rest on Saturday. The absence of Nigeria's two top citizens has drawn criticism from many people, including some of the President's supporters. Now an example is this tweet from Jeff Phillips I saying, if you want Buhari to attend events of national importance or visit sites of national tragedies, tell him there's a campaign for his reelection going on there and stay glued to your television. Wow. So many other chats, conversations from people talking about this particular issue. We saw one from one of President Muhammad Buhari's adding critics, Renal Mockery, saying that it's a propaganda because we know that the APC did respond to this, saying that there is a security protocol that must be carried out that no matter what the event is, especially a burial, that there needs to be a minimum of 48 hours time to prepare security detail for that event. And that this burial took place almost immediately and there was no time for the President to prepare his security detail. Seeing an event like a funeral as this one would make him politically exposed to any attack or any risk. So Renal Mockery here saying this is a propaganda from the Buhari Media Center and that the President did not attend General Ibrahim at Tahiru's funeral because the President he needs 48 hours to prepare and that when his son was involved in an accident it was there in less than 30 minutes and all of that. So I listened to the radio on my way to work this morning. I could feel the anger from lots of Nigerians. People are not happy that the President may show up. We also saw that the APC cited the case in the year 2010 on May 6th when a former President, a good lucky village elephant, did not attend the funeral of a former President, because he was sworn in that day and the APC also quoted this 48 hour protocol. But people have been saying the APC government came in on the platform of change so if you're saying Junatan did this, that's not an excuse for you to say we're going to do this. You guys should change and attend because this is the life of the Chief of Amir Staff. This is a former personality in the Nigerian military and someone who was championing the cause of anti-terrorism. So lots of backlash from the Nigerian populace for the President, for his vice for failing to attend the burial ceremony at the mosque and at the church on Saturday. Two governors were there. I think the governor of the state and one of the governors were there. They didn't need 48 hours of preparation to be there. I'm even sad that we even refer to the APC handle tweet. It's disgusting to see the level of other type of excuses that would always spring up. They would dig deep in the gutters for any excuse that they can find. The lowest borehole or sewage pit you can find, they can look for any excuse from there and bring it up and use that as an excuse. I'm sure that whoever it is that typed out that response or that excuse knows what the truth is. I feel like we should also move away from always referring to past examples and from our presidents because we all know what is right. We all know what the good thing to do is. We all know deep inside our hearts we know what the right thing is. Everyone, even before his death, after the death of the Trifamistap, there was already people who were saying that they would be completely shocked if the president does attend the burial. Their expectations came as they had stated. That is all into what the last six years has been like with the current administration. Even with the latest announcement of a public holiday for armed forces, members of the armed forces, it still didn't come from the president's mouth. It came from a spokesperson saying the president has approved this and that. When's the last time you saw your president speak on national issues? When's the last time the president addressed Nigerians on the most shocking and the most damning things that are happening in Nigeria? I've said it over and over and over that not even death is big enough. We actually remember the last time because it was very short. Death is not even big enough for the president to speak to Nigerians about. So what exactly would be that thing that we'll be able to bring Mr. President out of the Azerog Villa to speak to Nigerians? People even clowned and said if the bearer was taking place in the UK, he would have been there. If that bearer was going to be taking place in the UK, they would find reasons to fuel that jet and take him to the UK and he would be there. But because it is a 13-minute or 15-minute drive from Azerog Villa to the cemetery, he suddenly couldn't make it, including the vice president. And sadly also on that same day when the bearer was happening, Malami's son was getting married and governors were all at that wedding enjoying themselves drinking and laughing about drinking but having a good time while the chief of army staff was getting buried. So there's no excuse that would make sense whatsoever. No matter what sewage pits you bring, what I excuse from, it wouldn't make sense in any way. And it really is sad because of what this tells to members of the Nigerian Armed Forces and security agencies that when you die fighting for your country, your president wouldn't show up at your burial. The president and his team would find an excuse why they shouldn't be there at your burial. They don't owe you that last respect. They don't feel you deserve that last respect. Even when you rise to the rank of a chief of army staff, even if you're a general, even if you're a lieutenant, whatever it is, the president has told you that he doesn't owe you that last respect. The best that he can do is wait till sometime around 11pm and announce that flags are going to be flown at half-mast and also declare a public holiday for members of the Armed Forces, which we're going to get into next to see what sense that really makes. In a country that is currently at war with insurgents and bandits and the likes. So there's not much and this is not the way that I wish that I would start my Monday morning to explain to Nigerian citizens what they already know and to Nigerian people what is already glaring that your president doesn't think that he owes the chief of army staff who died in a very, very sad and trucking way, doesn't owe him that last respect of showing up at his burial. Not even the first lady was there to console the wife of the chief of army staff or the wives of all the army officers and generals who died in that plane crash. The president's wife was not even there. I think it was yesterday that she showed up and visited the wife of Lady Brahim Atahiru and then of course a couple of hours later they announced the public holiday. There's really, I don't think there's any other way to describe this or to paint this, but it is, I wouldn't, let me read what Adam Ugaba says. Adam Ugaba normally is a strong supporter of the current administration, but this is what he tweeted. He says, in a war situation with laws for generals, majors and leftists, he had neither the president nor his vice, Senate president nor deputy speaker, nor his deputy deemed it fit to grace the burial. Even the wife of the chief of army staff was never accompanied by the first lady or second lady. Only to governors, Zulu Mambooni with few ministers might have attended, while Governor Wike was having a political party, other governors were attending a wedding in Kano. He also goes on to say, yet most of these leaders may say they have a very important reason why they didn't attend. Coincidentally, all of them and none of them were sacrificed 30 minutes for the life of soldiers who died trying to protect us, the highest level officers of our land. How can that be? He ends by saying for them, Twitter is enough condolences, but they can go on campaigning over the country during elections. I saw someone tweet, what if Twitter was never invented? How would the president communicate to us? Gone are the days when we used to see national live addresses, now it's just 140 characters on Twitter and that's it. I mean, when you compare this to what happened to other parts of the country, remember in June 2020, Joe Biden attended Judge Floyd's winner. This is not a politician, this is not an army chief, this is just an ordinary American. He flew all the way to Houston, travelled, met the family days before the barrel to honour them because of what a police person or police officer did to them. If the president cannot attend the funeral of a chief of army staff, do you think they would ever attend the funeral of an ordinary Nigerian? Not president, not vice, not senate president, not speaker, nobody. This brings me to one thing that I've always spoken about on this platform that is once again, for the one billionth time, what is the value of the Nigerian life? Really, regardless of how high ranking you are, what is the true value of the Nigerian life and we look at the attitude with which the Nigerian government treats death and treats the value of the Nigerian life. That's exactly what it tells you, that's a picture it paints that the value of the Nigerian life really doesn't mean so much to the Nigerian government. If they didn't think it was important enough that Mr. President leaves Aso Rock or leaves Aso Villa to attend the barrel of his own chief of army staff that he brought into power just in January here, he didn't think it was important enough, neither the vice president. Really talking about this just prompts us to our next up trending. We know that in response to this, the presidency has said there's going to be a day off for all army officers and making a call to the chief of army staff's wife as well and saying that flags will be raised or reduced to half mass. So this is basically what you get. This is the press table we've seen signed yesterday May 23rd by Boss Mustafa, Secretary to the Government of the Federation. It reads that his Excellency Mohamed Abu-Hari, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has authorised that the national flag should be flown at half mass in all public buildings, facilities, in all official residences with effects from Monday 24th to Wednesday 26th, May 2021. He says this is to honour the memory and services of the late chief of army staff Lieutenant General Ibrahim Atahuru and 10 senior military and service members who lost their lives in the plane crash on Friday, May 21st. Also, we know that they have given a day off, like I mentioned, Bashir Ahmed President Mohamed Abu-Hari's aid, you know, announced this on Twitter saying Abu-Hari has approved a work-free day for members of the Armed Forces on Monday, May 24th, you know, just to honour him. So people, you know, the reaction we've been seeing here is that when somebody of such a calibre passes on in Nigeria, the message or the motivation to others is a day off rather than, I mean, rather than your presence, rather than actual empathy, rather than strange, genuine, you know, concern. How does a day off really do anything? Well, you know, that's the most that it can do, you know, and once again, you know, I've said it earlier that it would also, you know, you can also see that, you know, the President himself very likely didn't even make these statements. These are from Twitter handlers, these are from the Presidents, he has an institution, you know, deciding what to do, but not President Mohamed Abu-Hari himself, who, you know, Insana Climes would be on NTA, you know, which is our national television, speaking to the country and sending his own condolence messages, and that is after attending the barrel, after speaking with the family of the late generals and the army officers, he will be, you know, speaking with the country, but you can't, you don't even see him, you know, anywhere doing all these things or making these statements by himself. Taking a day off, you know, so what happens to security, you know, for that day? Exactly. What happens to the fighter gangs, you know, are we also, you know, going to expect that the bandits would also realize, okay, well, today's day of no more fighting, there's also rest today, we'll continue tomorrow. That, of course, is not going to happen, and so what happens to security? Do we expect that maybe the police will step in here, the NSCDC will step in here? What exactly is the plan for soldiers fighting in the war in, you know, Northern Nigeria and other parts of the country? Are they meant to just relax on this day and not go to work? Are they meant to not, you know, attend to tactical information that is sent to them? Are they meant to hear that there's going to be an attack in a certain village and decide, oh, today's our day off, you guys are on your own? In what way does this help, you know, our situation? In what way does this, in any way, respect? And if we're talking about, you know, reducing or lowering the flag to half-mast, what really is the value of the Nigerian flag? And I ask this because, when you refer back to the NSAS protests and how people were reportedly being shot at while holding the Nigerian flag, so what really is the significance? Do we have a sense of significance as to what the Nigerian flag represents? So lowering the Nigerian flag, do we have an idea of what the import is? Do you understand what I'm coming from? For every Nigerian, what exactly does the Nigerian flag represent? If I could hold that flag that represents peace and unity and I can still get shot at? Well, you know, the Nigerian flag is not bulletproof. So holding the flag and expecting to not be shot, I think that was just, you know, someone just decided to tweet that at that time and people were actually bought into it. No, we're not talking about being, we're talking about the fact that the Nigerian army should understand what the significance of the Nigerian flag is. An enemy would not be holding a flag of an enemy. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? So the incident of October 20th, let's not get into that. That incident, of course, I hope that there's somehow, somewhere justice someday. But it's normal protocol, you know, that on a day of national mourning that the flags would be flown out half-mast. The relevance, the significance, the emotions that attach to the Nigerian flag may not be as strong as they were in the 60s or in the 70s or even prior to that. You know, in the year 2021, I don't think anybody, or a lot of Nigerians, don't have that much, you know, as much as they used to be. For all the moments, you know, for example, you know, Kelechi and Acha held the flag, you know, at the day that Lester, I'm not sure what game that was, you know, but just people used to love that. It's normal protocol that that is done, you know, and I wouldn't take that away from, you know, all of this. It's fine that they fly the flags at half-mast, you know, but the body language of the presidency, the body language of President Mahmoud Bari himself is what we are lacking here. Anybody, you know, can, you know, lower our flag at half-mast in their home. But the president himself being able to step up at times like this to encourage those who are still fighting. Any soldier right now, you know, who has seen the events of this weekend doesn't in any way have any reason to put his life on the line for Nigeria anymore because if he dies, it obviously has shown that Nigeria may not respect or care about you. You're going to have half-mast on the day of first colleagues. Yeah, obviously. So, and that is what has been lacking for the last couple of years and still hasn't changed, but they still look into the deepest gutters and sewage pits to bring out one excuse and give, you know, as a reason. The 48 hours, you know, was not, you know, available to plan for it. Does that mean that President Mahmoud Bari himself cannot move around Abuja, the federal capital, freely, without, you know, military or, you know, security surveillance first? We'll take a short break when we come back off the press. We get to go through the major stories making headlines across Nigeria today. Stay with us.