 Welcome back, it's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa and time to look at what the papers have for us. Quite interesting stories on the front page of the National Daily so before we dive into them good morning to you Chris Kaney-Wando, happy new year. Happy new year Kofi, nice to see you. All right, fantastic. Always great to have you join us every Tuesday morning. Chris Kaney-Wando is I guess as I said today and he's of course a chattered mediator and conciliator and also the executive director of the African Governance and Leadership Initiative. Let's start with the first paper on our table. The nation has some interesting stories but always going with the 2023 for obvious reasons. Let's not go into that. The big one there, Why Nigerians Should Vote Tinibu Shatima by Buhari. Why Nigerians should vote Tinibu Shatima by Buhari, no surprises. More from the paper. Kid Napa's demand 600 and 20 million Naira for 31 victims of the Edo-Trin attack. Made in Nigeria helicopter for inauguration before May 29, silver seeks CBN special fund for modular refineries. Airtel announces acquisition of 5G spectrum, interesting. Leaders condemn attack on Brazilian government offices. 7,000 nurses begin strike in New York City. Maybe they are following their colleagues in London or the UK rather to sit at home. Poe's threatened I like warrants. Yakuubi hints of elections shift in volatile areas. Ex-Legas Borno governor's trust worthy. I think that's a rider to the first headline. Our withdrawal policy pushes up POS transaction charges as some of the headlines on the front page of the nation. Let's quickly go to the punch. The punch has the following headlines. Cash limits. Customers protest as banks begin enforcement. Customers say policy will affect cash-based businesses. Demand fresh review. Bank ATM suspends old notes despite CBN's directive. The unit scarcity persists. More from the punch. Scarcity FG orders NNPC to reduce petrol price. Government acquires stakes in dengote refinery. Three others. Government demands 620 million now around some of the abducted train passengers. Another paper taking a look at that. Dukbesi UK police deep in probe. Controversy surrounds airport incident. Yorba nation protestors converge 3 a.m. or converged 3 a.m. member scale. We see pictures of the chaos there at Ojota near the Ghani Fawimi Park. Protesting poly students. Blocky battle roads. Government intervenes. DSS director's wife orders carol governorship candidates arrest some of the stories on the front page of the punch. Interesting one. Very powerful woman. More. This time go to the Tribune. The Nigerian Tribune which has been in circulation since 1949. They say the big one there. Security threat to next election reel. INEC says commission leaving nothing to chance. Fuel importation to end by 2024. FG kind of reminds me of some of those 80s and 70s New Supra headlines that we sometimes see from time to time. The rider to that 60,000 barrels per day. Port Hacker refinery to commence Q1. FG claims 80% equity in modular refineries. I can see a picture of the man we call Mefi. The CBM governor. New narrow notes now in ATM as cash withdrawal limit takes off. Right. More from the Tribune. 13.1 billionaire bid for fortified equity property fails as EFCC opens sale of assets in Abuja. Why we queried ABRA, traditional rule of cookie government. One kid with this Yoruba nation agitators police clashing legals. Government kidnapped customary court president in Edo. Six trained victims rescued abductors of passengers demand 620 million error. Oh my God. This day has a following headlines. The big one there. Buhari in Yorla. Canvas support for Tinibu Binani other APC candidates. Tells a number of people. Tinibusha Timah can be trusted to deliver. Urges them to make history by electing FES female governor PDP. Mox ex legal governor. It's interesting headline from this day. If you know what I mean. If you know, you know, like they say, more from this day FG. Port Hacker refinery to commence partial operation before end of FES quarter silver. Why I will happily buy fuel for 300 Nara says carries in price deregulated beyond government purview. Alleged missing 89 trillion Nara CSOs apologize to mayfully over call for his visa ban. Six more abducted adult trained passengers rescued. Some of the headlines on the front page of this day. Let's quickly, you know, introduce at this point Chris. Can they want Chris? Before we came on there, I was just having a discussion with you over here about the development in or Jota axis of legal state with that your violation agitation. What are your thoughts on that? Because we just talked about it in a training segment. Some reports say I would this is saying two people died. We have two different scenarios. One scenario is that the police came and then clash with the people, the protesters who were being peaceful before they came and one or two people died. Another scenario is that the older people's Congress supporters or members clashed with the urban nation agitators before the police came. You know, so what are your thoughts on this? The incident that happened in modern times, I guess it was very opportunity to wish we shouldn't have happened. And if our security agencies that don't true due diligence, they did be able to do so much. But protests, local protests, a peaceful protest, is a fundamental human right that we're trying to manage and constitutionally and constitutionally of the very public. So every man has a right to protest and they cannot be stopped from protesting. They can only be legal when that protest turned violent as it did yesterday. And I felt that a better communication and the ability to deal with this situation without stopping from escalating the situation. Funny enough, I was around that area yesterday. But as I was putting up, the problem of life was lost. The agitators said that two were killed. Police said one was killed and it was a reconfortation with the police. And this, as I said, would have been properly handled. OPC have not come back to the police. I think that's why it first came from OPC saying that they were not involved. That it was just the police and the agitators clashed. So, but we shouldn't have happened. This would have been prevented and lost of life and the destruction of properties would have been avoided. That's it. This similar incident happened on July 3, 2021 at the same place. A sales girl by the name Jim O'Kell was killed when the police attempted to disperse the European agitators. A report, a coroner's inquest, indicted the police in her death. But till date, what we hear is that nobody was released by the police for prosecution. What are your thoughts, first of all, on the manner in which the police approaches protests in the country? And also, when people die, they seem not to be interested in releasing their men or women for prosecution. Yes, interestingly, I also covered that particular incident, that protest last year the leader in question was killed by a street bullet. She was at the police station at MRX, around the Jota post of when the street bullet pierced her and she died. And once I read about that story, that a conversation was to be given to the family of the cure. I don't know whether that was given or not, whether they received it or not. But as I said, we can work better with our family in situations like this. Going to violence, if the security agencies were able to do what they ought to have done, because we have to know that, as I said earlier on, that every individual has a right to protest. If these young people are just going out just to protest with them and march accordingly, and do what it was given that they're going to do that, then it is the duty of the police to protect them and make sure that that protest march, we will not protest, it includes some kind of, I don't know how to put it, that it is supposed to be a march. And the police are supposed to meet them too and make sure that they have a smooth passage, do whatever they want to do, and disperse, make sure that they disperse. But when the mass starts moving, the problem with this issue of march and protest is that those behind it may have the best of information, but they find it difficult to be able to mandate the crisis as it were. Because of that protest, although undesirable elements who have other reasons or have a serious motive try to use that to be able to hijack the protest, get involved with extortion, extortion of properties and that is why most of them are not, I'm always against this issue of protest and our protest is usually in a polite place like Lagos. But use your force is not supposed to be, in other climes, what the police use is what it's called robber bullets. Robber bullets don't have the fatality, it doesn't care, it can only injure. But how are they, you see how our police are releasing AK-47 and using rifle to shoot at protesters and that is what costs what that happened is and that I repeat, it is avoidable. I'm tired of asking this question, Chris, but what do we need to do as a nation to make sure that no police officer just takes a life of any citizen needlessly? I mean, we're still recovering from the killing of the Lagos lawyer in Leki. We're still recovering from that, like you said compensation has been paid to the family of Jim McKay was killed last, two years ago, almost two years ago, in the same scenario, but no one has been prosecuted as we speak for that killing. So what needs to be done, I'm tired of asking this question, but we need to ask these questions, what needs to be done to ensure that no police officer just carries a gun and say we're going to kill someone, just shoot. On to the words, to start doing the nature, making sure that all those involved, especially security officers, are going to go and make sure to face the group. They are going to behave the way in which they do. Once a police officer wears that black and black or blue and black as it were, or blue and blue, whichever one it is, they feel that they're both in law and they can just handle and keep people. They're talking about their agile incident of the female, where don't forget that they work on two different and that young man was also killed by that policeman from that police station. We've had that investigation done about the killing of the blue lawyer and that the policeman had suspended. When will the prosecution start? When will these people go to court? What's the investigation? How many days is it supposed to take to have the investigation? Kofi, and that is where I most of all, I throw that away as a journalist and the media has the laws to do. We have to continue to question and be able to put all these atrocities to the floor. Instead of after reporting and making a report of it, we do this, we go to Begham. There are so many instances where police have put a new model of Nigeria. I just know the hot lines of most mobile application, radio, police papers. After one week, two weeks, we go to Begham, forget it. I'm not interested about that. We don't investigate and measure that. We measure that that story is seen to the latter and we make sure that the police will continue to do that, where the police will continue to take the body to their hands and prove that having those is a nice sense to kill. And one of the other claims is that where policemen engage in search, as we've said, related to the address of them, they have been arrested, arraigned and persecuted and here in the CSU jail. That is, that will answer as the deterrent. But here, it is just a safe way, it just seems to me that they are just a vote in law and they just continue to do what they... And that also brings the question of the recruitment system of our policemen. What kind of recruitment are we having? What kind of recruitment are we recruiting to the police? What kind of training are we doing? What kind of psychological examination, what kind of psychological training do we give them? So that they know that they are important for the Nigerians and they also have families and they are a part of the uniform they are wearing. They are just like every other Nigeria. So that is the issue. On the way, our recruitment system changes and people start seeing the police as being a policeman as a last resort, not because they wanted to. Most of them in the police was being able to join the police because they don't have any of that in being and they can't find it. That is why it just is most of them. The majority of them, if they help or don't go to the police, and you see the level of constriction that goes into their role. And that is what some of them we give them. That is not even the fact that we are very, very fine in changing the police. I have some of them that are senior officers. And it doesn't behave the way some of these lower ranks policemen here. The chances are that if it's confirmed that two people died as opposed to one, two more families will be grieving and they won't want to hear that they are fine officers in the police force. They would just want to tell you they've lost their loved one. It's a really sad one, Chris. Let's go over to Edo State. We're still trying to recover from some of the attacks by terrorists in different parts of the country, especially on critical infrastructure, the rail network in the country. This time in Edo State, yesterday we discussed this, I asked our guests why in Edo State. We see in the northern terror, or the terror experience in northern part of the country come down south. Or is this something that we should see as the previous insecurity and kidnapping in the southern part of the country, of which Edo State has been a beneficiary, we want to call that. But we're hearing that six more trained kidnapped victims have been rescued and that the abductors have set a benchmark. They've given a number, a figure, 620 million What are your thoughts on this? First of all, most of the issue of rescue. I'm only a very skeptical when I read that story, the way we use it at the media since rescue. I was on the media yesterday where I posted that two children were rescued. The two children that they were talking about were not rescued. These are the children that were abandoned by their parents when they were abducted at the train station. So saying that they were rescued is not the right situation of all. And when you say rescued, when were they rescued, how were they rescued? Does it mean that they are not part of the community? My personal impression is that some of them probably escaped because of the large volume of the number of people that were picked up and abducted by these bandits and terrorists and they were able to find their way and escape. But if they say they are rescued, who am I to challenge the authorities, issuing that statement? But the issue is that we won't be being challenged on our hands. It's like we're striking twice on the spot. This happened last year along the Abudia Kalduna route. The difference is that why that way was derailed and the people adopted. These particular ones were passengers that were abducted at the train stations waiting to board the train. And the person should be asking what our security agencies are doing. Kofi, are you aware that we have a commission of police appointed to be in charge of railway? There's a criminal commission of police, specifically appointed by the IGP to be in the commission of police in charge of railway. That is appeal. The question is, what has she been doing? What level of security has she been giving all the train stations in Nigeria? As far as I'm concerned, it's most likely that we have particularly less to nothing in terms of security at that police station, that train station. That is one. Then secondly, is the fact that we are most of this, I've only said it with that number, that in terms of resources, we have limited number of policing. And that is why some of us have been appropriated for this committee and state police. Some of these critical infertures don't need to be secured by police. They can be secured through committee and state policing. Those that are recruited by the states. But some people are taking a kid club with some of this agitation by some of us that it is our time that we look at the critical state and committee policing. If we have that, then we can be able to decentralize the security system and make sure that some of these areas are manned by local vigilantes, manned by committee policing. I'll tell you a little bit. You ask, why can't we do? If you see, for example, what is happening in southwest, southwest seems to be getting it a bit right, a little bit better than other parts of the country with the amoteco policing, that in itself has solved so many problems in terms of committee policing. If other regions can cue into that, we have similar things in the southeast. But that of the southeast is quite different. It cannot be used as a good example of what committees and state policies are about. What the governments are doing in the southeast, especially the governor of the state, is using a bubago to intimidate and arrest the opponents. That is not what the security athletes are supposed to be. They're supposed to be committed to assist the police in making sure that most of these areas are secure. But I hope that this will not have this happening again. Now they are demanding 620 million, 20 million million on every kidnapped person. How are we going to do that? How are they going to pay? And you saw what happened with the Kaduna Apuja passengers and the horror and the traumatic horror that most of them went through on their final release. It's quite quite a traumatic experience, like you've rightly said, very very worrying. Let's go back to the punch. And this time, the papers given a priority with its lead front-page headline to the cash withdrawal policy. The bank of the paper is saying that the customers are still protesting at the banks as they begin enforcement, saying that the policy will affect cash-based businesses. I mean, indeed the CBN came up with a U-turn, or not a U-turn, but some improved and improved offer. Let's call it that, increasing the daily and weekly withdrawal limits for individuals and organizations. So what I thought on what the CBN is saying that as banks are on rolling out this policy, customers are still protesting at the banks. However, another paper I think this time is the Nigerian Tribune. I had a little headline on the front-page. It says a new Naira notes now an ATM. I don't know if you've seen the new Naira notes in the ATM. I certainly haven't seen anyone till as a yesterday. I didn't see anything. So what are your thoughts on what the punch is saying with the protests coming from consumers or customers? Yes, let me start with the last question on the new Naira notes on the ATM machine. Kofi, a particular bank two days ago issued a statement that they will start dispensing only Naira notes on their ATM from yesterday. And we were part of those that online club used that new site. And I went on yesterday to investigate myself and Kofi would and behold. And I went to one of the branches of the bank at Adene Jones in Ikeja. And I slot in my card. And I got 20,000 Naira cash, new Naira notes, all new Naira notes. Yes, from that ATM. So that means that they started some of them. I don't want to mention the Naira plan. I don't want to be there. But of course, before you start charging me. Okay. Did you get, what nomination were you given? 1000 Naira. 1000. 1000 Naira. But the policy says that. The policy said 200 Naira. Yeah. But it was just, I've not said, I've seen the fact 1000 notes. I've seen the fact 100. I've never seen what 200 notes looks like. And that is the show. Then the withdrawal policy. And also the set up bank came out with a statement at the weekend that cross withdrawal of cash across the canta of new notes we store. And they've given a directive to back that. Anybody that wants to withdraw should go to the ATM. And I will just ask myself, if I want to withdraw 300,000 Naira from my account, to me, I should go and stand at 80 Naira and be slotting my card. I do that. Do you know the structure of those, that this bank has so, I don't know, they are so profit making that they put your limit at 10,000 Naira. That means I'm going to steal them back for 30 times before I can withdraw 300,000 Naira. And after 10 seconds or the second withdrawal, you know that you start charging you. So this policy is not totally worked out. And I believe that the set up bank has to do something about it. This Naira note is not circulated. If you cannot get it in Lakers, then what you cannot imagine what will happen in villages in my state of human state and other remote villages in Nigeria. And then we have just, to the extent right, we have to draw more days to the end of withdrawal of the old Naira note and the commencement of the new use of that. In the future, the old Naira note will last from being used. So what is going to happen? And I also have already, and for the later question, with me yesterday, I was asking the CK, for those of us that are in this, they are told that we have Naira notes. We don't want to travel to Nigeria and come to Nigeria. We don't want to have some of these Naira notes so that we can use for them, for airport and the rest of them, movement and most of these Naira notes are still with us in abroad. How do we be able to achieve that? I don't think the set up bank has, even if I thought that in, because if you look at that, I'm sure that we have billions of Naira notes with some Nigerians in the diaspora. So that, this issue is not totally talked about. Well, they increase the unit to 500,000 for a single account, personal account and 5 million Naira for corporate accounts. But what I say in essence is that you might still withdraw that, but if you are going to withdraw more than that, then you're going to charge you for that. But for me, the set up bank doesn't seem to have gotten it right because most of the ATM to yesterday, I was at the airport yesterday, they are just dispensing good Naira notes. Chris, sorry, I'm joined by some investigative journalism here. You said you went to ATM, Automated Telemission yesterday and you were able to withdraw new Naira notes yesterday, January 9, 2023. Yes. And you tried out denominations of 1000 Naira, 1000 Naira is what you called 1000 Naira notes. 1000 Naira. Okay, not 200. That's the number one. No, not 200. How about? Not 500, it was 1000 Naira and CBN said it was 200 Naira. It was just 1000 Naira. Now, how much did you withdraw in total? 20,000. And I was there before me also. I know why I did it, I know why I did everything that I'm going to give you some. I know what you are. No, I told you, I told you, I told you you said, I told you you said 30,000. 2000? No, I told you I told you you said 30,000. No, I said 30,000, it's 20,000. So if you expect 10,000, what do you expect to get in 10,000, it's 20,000. I said I wait 90,000, 20,000 because it would have been very funny if you were able to withdraw more than 20,000. Maybe next time try and withdraw 20,500 to see if you get it because they're telling us we can't withdraw more than 20,000 Naira in a day, which is hilarious. Which is next, which is also what I'm saying because the central bank did a directive to set up the commercial banks, last week, that information came out on Friday, that they should not issue any new cash to any donate at all the counter that people should go to the ATM. So what I'm not saying is that if I want to withdraw 300,000 or 200,000 or 200,000 or 200,000, it may not should be to meet them to withdraw 200,000, which is not possible because by the policy you have already seen about 20,000 Naira, but I can't remember now. So you can see this, see the guidelines from the SOP, the guidelines, I don't think we know that. But the better, the better we should be asking ourselves where is the government of central bank. Nobody has seen it for over four months now. The lack of other things that it was approached, that it was not unified. We talked to the government, you don't get to see it. Yeah, you didn't buy it. I can see it. You are going to take off. I'll come and see it. I will see it after this program. It's almost as if I've won the lottery. A head of a production unit here, Noja, is giving me 500 Naira. It's the first time I'm seeing it with my Koro Koro eyes, Chris came out. I'm going to do it. Yeah, it looks strong there. Yeah, we are starting that. I think that is what I should say. So this is that the central bank should just push this back a bit. Don't forget the National Assembly has asked the Senate a lot of words. Have asked the central bank to reduce some of these policies. And I think it's not actually. Kofi, you will never be doing that. Sometime in December, the other thing is coming up which will pass loads and because, you know, after the death of the queen, then what they have to have the head of the king in the new power standard mode. And Kofi, do you know how they are going to, what is the way they are going to withdraw this one Kodale and start this new one? I think it's 2014 or 2016. That's about three or two years on there. About two years, I think 2015 or 2016, about three years. We all just continue to breathe for four years. Our central bank wants to do it again one month. Is it possible? That's an interesting question. Chris, yesterday we tried doing an experiment which is what I'd like to carry out today. You were saying that this Naira note is washing off. We'll have a discussion on this with an expert later, but you are an expert for now. The green is showing off on, I don't know if you can see, but it's green. It's washing off on the white. But they're saying it's normal. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt. But if you use, oh no, sorry, I'm doing this to your Naira on TBIO. TBIO will not arrest me, but you can see it's washing off. You can see the green. The central bank, especially this on Saturday or Friday, did mention about that and said that this is where that happens. He said that yes, if they have sort of white or white that's the possibility that it should be stained, that it's normal. What happens is that this first paint happens like that, that results in painting, that it would be solidified, they have more ink to add. All sorts of excuses. If you want to read us, call our mind this one. I've had no talk on that. Hey, you seem not to be happy. It's all right. We'll move on from this. We'll have a discussion on this later. But I just want to ask you one other question. It's a trick question, but not a trick question. It's a funny question. If the CBN is saying from what we heard over the weekend, that oh, we thought about it, we forgot to add in our policy, Secular, that the banks should not give Nigerians these new notes over the counter. Don't give them. And we just added to the list of the policy statements. And they are saying that the bank should give only 200 Naira from the ATMs. So what's going to happen to the 500 Naira in 1000? How are we going to get it? Are we going to? Is there a tree? Is there a tree somewhere to go pluck? Because I don't know. The only way you can get your hands on the note is from the bank from the ATM. If you go to the PUS, the only way the POS operator can get the Naira is from the bank. And if they're saying bank, so oh, don't give Nigerians new notes. So give them the old ones. And we have to withdraw only 200 Naira from the ATM. Where are we going to get the 500 and 1000 Naira from? I don't know. Let me sing something here. So please help me out. Yes, you know, Professor, you wrote that song. If you ask me now who I go ask, that's on my back. I've already written that song. If you ask me now who I go ask. So that is the issue. And I've been saying it is that the central bank through the governor of the central bank is just seeking from both sides of his man is a total confusion everywhere in the central bank. And I just personally feel that the right time the central bank of Naira resigns. Since the man there tried to rein politics last year and wanted to be the president of Naira. He has no sense of responsibility in terms of monetary policies and how he's going about it. One more thing that the way that policy came out, the Minister of Finance came out to say that she is not aware, she was not aware, about the real policy. And quickly she was put in shutdown by Asura. We are established by the president. The president is aware. We shouldn't believe him and make him responsible for this. We should look at it as a part of the failed policies of President Obama, the Bari. Just like those are the policies in Eastland. There are 615 that none of them have come to pass. Most of them, there's none of them. So we add this one to it. We add it to the issue of setting up of fanaries. The issue of one gelatin to one Naira. The issue of cross subsidy. The issue of electricity from 5,000 to 40,000 MHz. And so many of the other premises that he met with Naira. But good enough, we have just done all of that 5 months for him to work this. I only believe whoever is going to take over from this government. And I've seen it all the time now. Until this government is, we will hold the level of the colossal damages that this government has done to the Nigerians and our economy and so many other things. But let us look at it. I think our focus now is trying to make sure that we get it right, come next month. The country, the election is less than 50 days. The presidential election is less than 50 days from now. Let us start conducting some ideas. I'm mobilizing ideas to go down, present their PBCs, to collect their PBCs. And make sure that they vote right. Come February next month. And also March for your directions. Chris Scander, thank you so much for your time. I'm going to keep this on the job. It's not coming to you. All right. This is a specimen. Move on, move on. Move on, move on. This specimen. Move on, move on. Right, change. Specimen. For your basic, give your purposes. All right. Thank you very much, Chris Scander, one of the Executive Director, African Governance and Leadership Initiative. Look forward to having you again. Thank you very much, Rami. Do have a wonderful day ahead. Same to you. Same to you. Up next, we have a discussion on the oil and gas industry. Seems that the oil and gas industry companies, the major companies, they have to look for funding from elsewhere. As the banks are thinking of funding clean energy, as opposed to fossil fuel energy, we'll be looking at that when we come back. Stay with us.