 We're glad to know that you're still there and watching us. This is the breakfast on PLOS TV Africa and we are being joined by architect Ezekiel Nyaito, a public affairs analyst. He's talking to us from Akwaibom. Good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning. It's always my pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me. At this point, I should always be greeting you messiere. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. All right. Well, we're starting with the nation newspaper. The nation newspaper, we're starting with it because we have stories that came from yesterday and we're going to just seek your opinion or your thoughts on these stories and then we move on to fresher headlines on the punch and all that. So we'll begin with the nation and an interesting story that we were looking at and we still would like to get your opinion is the fact that the Senate has barred new members from top positions. Okay. Unless you have stayed in the Senate for at least one tenure, you cannot vie for a principal position like the Senate president or the deputy president. What are your thoughts on that? On the surface, it makes sense. I would like to say because when you get into the Senate, you don't have to start learning certain things. You would have been there at setting positions like the president of the Senate or the leadership, the top three, four positions. You don't want to go there and it's like, oh my God, they don't do it that way. For you to be a leader, you need to be on top of your game. Now, look at what is happening in ministry works. You can see that that minister has an understanding of whatever is being done, being a current registered civil engineer and a fellow at that. It means he is on top of the game and there's nothing that people can come and bamboozle him with. So the same thing if you are getting into the leadership of the Senate, you need to have enough knowledge to understand the processes, the procedures to lead the people. So while it is seemingly very convenient for now because of the exigencies of the moment I would say, but I think that it's something that is very important. It's actually what ought to be long before today. I know that the current Senate president was minority leader in his first entry into the house and he could say that the minority leader is not the same thing as the Senate president and that having come from the background of the governor, he could manage the system having related with the legislature at the lower level. But when you come to that of the Senate president or the deputy Senate president, I think that they are not things you should learn on the road. They are things that you should have a very deep seated knowledge of. I think it's a good development, convenient, but it's good. Okay. Well, like I said, those headlines from the nation newspaper were from yesterday. We had agreement with organized labor to cause federal government to trillionaire and all that. But we've treated that yesterday. We're going to the punch now, which has fresher stories and we're beginning with the headline states borrow 46 billionaire from banks to pay salaries and this really worries me. They write us on that story. That story is that access, fidelity, Senate, lend state, 46 billion in six months as governor's battle, poor IGR, fiscal responsibility, commission issues, guidelines to banks on lending to states. The real headline there is economic crisis. That is what it is called before we are told that states have borrowed this much. To pay salaries. At a time when workers are still even talking about salary rise, minimum wage rise and every other thing. And we're talking about states borrowing 46 billion. Federal government said no more borrowing at all. Now the states are borrowing 46 billion. Let me get your comments on this, please. You see, the reason why we have become the poverty capital of the world, the reason why we resort to borrowing as what should be is because we really have people in offices that have no understanding of what it means to be a governor or what it means to be a president. If I had my way, the process of becoming a president or a governor should start about two years to election. It should be a process where at least a year to election, the people that ought to be there already know themselves, the environment knows them and due diligence is done on them. It's a process where you must of necessity have a debate in each of the six geopolitical zones and in the state as a governor in each of the three senatorial districts. People get into government, maybe you can imagine a governor wants to get his crony in or just accidental civil servants or accidental public servants and as a result this will come in there without having a clear understanding of the dynamics of the essence of their issue. The school of, you know, this school set up about Madam OBA, S.P.P.G., School of Politics, Policies and Governance, everybody that wants to be a governor or a president must undertake a three weeks intensive course. You can do two weeks online, but you must do one week on site where you are taught what governance is all about, the essence of governance, what their budget is all about, the budgeting processes, what they are the exigencies. You must understand these things very well so that when you get into the office, you know what you are doing. Why am I going all this long route? It is because governors get into office without, with very wrong mentality. I've had the privilege of relating with so many governors over the years, from the days of Mr. Mimiko, where I was a personal friend to the days of Mr. Donald Duke, to the days of Mr. Uduahan, to the days of Obamata, to the days of Victor Ata, my brother Acpabio. I could name at least 20 governors that I've had one-on-one relationship with, and have an understanding of what governance is, and a lot of times you get to realize that people get in there and they are like, wow, I didn't think this was like, they get overwhelmed and they have this mentality that there is money in government. In fact, they go in with the preconception of there is money in government. You must understand first and foremost that there is no money and that you are there to go and create money and not to go and take money and distribute money. You must have the mindset that you have been sent to go and create money. Once you have that mindset, borrowing is no longer your first option. You're asking yourself, how am I going to get about my IGR? You're asking yourself, what is my employment portfolio like? What are the three things that you must do where governance is concerned? What is the, you know, in your budgetary, what is your current, what is your capital? In your recurrent, what is running of government, what is salaries and wages? In your salaries and wages, what are the areas where I necessarily have to rejig so that I get maximum benefit from what I put in? When you have that mindset and that mentality, you don't take borrowing as your first option. But unfortunately, we don't do this, you know, rigorous pre-qualification profiling. As a result, governments go into the mentality of bring the money, bring the money, bring the money, get the money. And I think that is why we are where we are today. You look at labor and you look at government, you look at their negotiation and you can see any act of honesty or sincerity of purpose between them. And this is our lives, this is our destiny, this is the vehicle we are all in. So the question is, what's the way forward? Okay, now we have this question of the ministerial nominee who fainted while he was being grilled. It was time for him to talk about himself. When he fainted, the minister from Kaduna State, and he was still passed as it were, he was still given the nod even when he couldn't say anything he fainted and they were trying to revive him. Also, a journalist died in the National Assembly shuttle and all that. So I would like you to comment on the three ministerial nominees that were sent that will be confirmed. In fact, they are confirmed. So let's just get your comment on that. You know, you had asked me this question some time back, what might take, okay, no, no, no, I think it was on a sister station. I see some extremely bright lights in this administration, you know. I believe that I was listening to the minister of our interior, you know, give a scorecard about three weeks ago or a month ago he had come on air to say that there's a backlog of over 200,000, you know, international passports, and that he was going to clay it within two weeks. And he came on board again yesterday to give a scorecard and apologize to Nigerians that he could not make the two weeks deadline, but that it had to be extended to three weeks, but that he came to tell Nigerians that every single backlog has been printed. I asked a question. So it was possible to print these passports within two weeks or three weeks. So why were we made to suffer the way we did? And if that be the case, how many other sectors are we suffering because of corruption, deliberate suffering? Because if this could, for years on end, to get your passport, I mean it was like hell to renew one. You need to know the man that knows the man that knows the man that is the man. And here we are today. Somebody comes up and said, in two weeks, I'll get it done. And in three weeks, he gets it done over 200,000. That is number one. So that gives me some hope that there are people who are like, look, they sound by to a good and listen to the minister of works. I'm very impressed. Absolutely so. Mr. Wike, everybody knows him. I mean, he's doing well. The minister of housing is hitting the ground running. Look at it today. One of the companies has decided to have effectively the price of cement. OK. And what people don't know is that this man had a big hand in it. You get the point, the current minister of housing. You know, a lot of background work was being done. I remember him calling me. We had about two hours' meeting. Each of the strategic stakeholders in the industry, he's bringing them together because he knows them already. He was a former MG of Federal Mortgage Bank. So he knows all of us that are the strategic stakeholders and he's bringing everybody what can we do, how do we do this. And he's already setting up committees and things are happening already. You know, there are other ministers like that. So I'm happy with that. But there are some others that I just don't understand where they are coming from and where they are going. But we're not doing analysis of all these people. It's something strikes me as I watch these people being screened. They read a lot from the script. So the question is, where these questions and give them to them before time for them to... You know what I'm saying? Okay, you and I are doing off the press, okay? And imagine a situation where you say, what do you think of this? And I start to read something. Did I prepare that question before I came there? I can understand if I'm looking at the piece of paper and picking things because, I mean, I'm expecting that... I don't even know when you don't have portfolio. Where do you start to prepare? What are you preparing for? So when you start to read out script, the question is, what's going on? So that guy's fainting are two things. Number one is, it's natural. It can happen to anybody anytime, any day, okay? Something can... I remember once as I was in Africa with my governor, Obangat at that time. And I just got out of the lift. I was to walk towards the car. We were to drive out to check some companies. And I blanked. I blanked. I mean, I just blanked. I didn't know where I was, what was happening. You know, and it was for a few seconds. And luckily for me, before the governor knew what happened, I had come back. So what am I saying? Anybody can blank. Any of those things can happen. That's number one. Number two is that it could have been a ploy. When you look at the thing and you know, say, oh boy, you know, I watched him reading. He wasn't articulate at all. That could also have been that internally certain things had started happening to him or something. And he was trying to break it all. He said, bro, say, be like, this is not hard pass as I think, as a result. And then I just, you know, remember the fainting stuff of NDDC chairman. So these guys, you know, so I'm being careful because it could have been A or B. But at the end of the day, I think that rather than passing, if we even, if we really is screening to be a process of verifying, if that is the essence, but if it is like going through the motions, then they don't really need to bother us with it. They should just go ahead. Yeah, because it's now seems like it's, it's a way of just putting the face to a name that they don't know. Come on, introduce yourself and go. Two things from there. First of all, the young lady who was a bio, I think that was also a nominee, 37 years, it's laudable. But the Senate president said that because the president, you know, who wants to include the youths and all that, they, the young woman should not be grilled, should not be asked too many questions because she is representing the face of the new government, the renewed hope and all that. Oh, she is not. Now I was asking myself, you know, is she the only young person that if she fails the grilling or the screening, we cannot get another young person to replace her, even if this is what the intention is. And then the person who fainted, I was also asking myself, should health not be part of the screening? Because federal executive council meeting might take hours upon hours. How many hours did he stay before he got that kind of exhaustion? He didn't travel like you traveled to South Africa. He was here in Nigeria. I'm sure he was in Abuja before the day that he was being screened. So what kind of exhaustion? Does he have a health problem that will also impact on the office that he was going to get? So shouldn't health and sundry other things be part of the screening of whoever is going to superintendent over any ministry in Nigeria? Because you have to be on your toes. Like you mentioned, Wike, Wike can be on his toes for as long as you can think. You mentioned Devumai, who is the minister of works, and you know that he can be on his toes for a very long time. And all the people you mentioned are people who are like, you know, horses that can work long hours. So shouldn't we be thinking about very small details that can impact the office that somebody is going to occupy? I was worried that he was passed without a concern about his health, whether it's going to be a problem or not. And that the other person, because she was young, she should just be given the nod to go. I don't know how you feel about that. You see, there are two things. In Nigeria, I'm called the National Youth Headmaster. I work with the youth, I relate with the youth because probably I started extremely early. You know, I waited at 25. At 30, I had had my three children. At 45, two of my sons were graduates from Covenant University, okay? So I've bonded with them. And let me tell you, the quality of youth that we have in Nigeria, I can't find it anywhere in the world. And I have traveled around the world. At this risk of sounding immodest among my seventh international passport, literally filled. What am I saying? I've related with youth around the world. I can hardly find a country that I've found the youth as resilient, as resourceful, as enterprising with the kind of spirit that Nigerians have. So you can't tell me that somebody else 37. In fact, that one on the cross. I'm talking of 25, 35. I can give you a minimum of 10 from every state that you put them up on national television and drill them on national issues and your mouth will drop at the resourcefulness of these young people. I'm telling you this for free. Look at, I don't even want to go into details because even in my own house, my son drills me. Well, he's a big boy, might be my son because he's already 35 years old, you know? When this guy drills me, sometimes I have to tell him to take it easy, I'm the father. He is aware. There are so many of them, his contemporaries. And then you are telling me that he should not drill somewhere that is about 37 years. At 37 years was when I became the first Nigerian and got sheltered for any state government in this country and built the sheltered estate in Uyo here, which is still the model estate. At 35, you're not a child. At 37, you should be drilled. You see this mentality of thinking that, oh, you know our children, our carrying a 25-year-old boy as a child. I want to marry as a 25. They call me and say, in zero, waiting at home. Is there a problem? You know, this small boy, you don't even know your level, right? At 35, I'm already a graduate. Are you understanding me? At 30, I'm a father of three children, master's degree. And they are saying, ah, this small boy, we must understand that this concept of youth being children is past and gone. These guys are sharper, they are more intelligent, they are more articulate, they are more forward, they are more in tune than we think they are. So I took exception to that of telling me that a 30-year, a 30-30, something a year-old adult cannot be drilled on national issues to be vested with a national assignment and responsibility when we have a plethora of them. Nigerians littered with, let me use the word littered with talent, with brains, with capacity, with competence. But politics makes us to look, in fact, in politics, if you're intelligent, you are a threat. If you're intelligent, you know, you have to grammar, grammar. They call you grammar, grammar. What they want is to work in structure. Borrow the money wherever you can. Just make us happy. Let us eat and be merry for tomorrow we die. Okay, well, yeah, that was my worry. So I just needed to say that, I don't know. Why would you say? Just because the president wants the youths, you cannot drill a particular person. Just because a name has been brought, he feigns. We don't know whether tomorrow he will start a project and then he is no longer with us, God forbid. But you don't want to just be in the bad books, maybe, of the president. And you just pass the person. Why not give him a chance? Recover, come back and tell us what you are going to do or what you can do. Otherwise, let's look for another person. Your favorite would have been Nassir El Rufai. But the replacement of your Nassir El Rufai is the one who fainted while being grimmed. Imagine, imagine. It's the, it's, it's, it's, it's, I love El Rufai. He is like bitter sweet. I don't mean, I don't want, let me not use the word I hate him on some areas. But in certain areas I just love. Imagine El Rufai as minister of power. El Rufai no sin, he couldn't care less. His own is, he's going to step one. It's just like what Wike is doing. Imagine having Wike, El Rufai, Dangiwa and the, and the, Umahi. The guy, the president will be smelling like a rose. I'm telling you, they should use back door and bring El Rufai. I'm telling you. Your company, your company is strong this morning. Okay, well. He's very strong, he's very strong because I love Nigeria and I want people who say, if I perish, I perish. Those are the Buddha. Look at, listen to Umahi. He had never known him. He was never my guy. If I, when he wanted to run for presidency, I was one of those I said, Nusina Mayemi, waiting to do this one, making y'all relax. But right now, I'm starting to give him thumbs up very seriously. And he, he tells you, look, listen. If you want anything you want to do to me, do to me. That's it. For me, oh, this is where I am. Those are the bull. You know, no wonder God says, if you want to save your life, you will lose it. But if you are ready to lay down your life for me, I will make sure that you don't only have your life, but you have more added to it. Anybody that is willing to lay down her or his life for Nigeria, the God of Nigeria, we keep that person alive, protect that person and make sure that the other person is able to do what she or he wants to do. But all these bulls are getting politically expedient and will not do the hard thing just to protect themselves. God will find a way of directly or indirectly taking them out. So that the prayers of Nigerians will be answered. The poor are suffering. I don't want to enter this topic because when I do, it gets me. If you have the least idea of what is going on in Nigeria, how people are suffering, you know, people just come in and say, people are suffering, people are suffering. Some of them are just repeating, I sat down and went and heard village by village in Akwaibong state. I'll just give you two. This is important, very briefly. Number one is an old man said, please find jobs for the youth because they are becoming a problem. This guy will carry torchlight, climb palm fruit in the village, harvest the palm fruits. I don't know how many of us know what palm fruit is. That big thing with spikes. Carry it on his head and come down. Why? Because if it drops, people will hear and wake up. Do you know what it means for somebody to climb a palm tree, harvest the palm tree, the palm fruit, carry it on his head and come down. Can you imagine how, what a terrible situation that person is in. The second one was a woman. She came and said that, she doesn't have to send her child to school because she had an HMD, but she's in the village, you know, at the beach removing periwinkle, you know, and selling. So when he now told the daughter to go to, she said, mommy, what is the youth going to school to come back and between periwinkle? That is your size. So let me job between this periwinkle so that you don't waste your money. And she said, how do I tell my child that her lot will not be like my own? I've had my certificates, I've gone around, I cannot work, I don't want to prostitute. So this is the only thing I can come back to do. Imagine such a state that we are in. Such a country that we are in. And these are just too practical, the people involved talking to me one on one because I wanted to be governor. I wanted to see things where they are. I think that our leaders have no idea what people are going through. That is why they are coming with all these, you know, programs and projects that I just sit down and I can't sleep well at night. So because of the prayers of those people, let me tell you something. My name is Ezekiel. Watch me, I'm a prophet. There are some ministers if they are not careful they will sleep, they will not wake up. No, that is the death that you cannot even attribute to anybody. You can't hold anybody. Do you understand me? Because they need to be removed so that they can be replaced. And when it happens to three, four people, those remaining will learn a lesson. So my own advice to every minister today, every governor today is use that opportunity to work for your people so that God will keep your life. If not, so God will delete you, He will remove you because the poor must breathe. You're being prophetic today. You're being, you're being, you're being, yeah, but it's fine. Let's move to the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian newspaper leads with the story Crisis Looms in Varsities over mass exodus of lecturers. That is the leading story on the Guardian newspaper. So maybe you will take your comments on that before we go to other headlines because there are so many there that you might want to comment on. Yeah, you know, my eldest sister, who just turned, who just celebrated her birthday, he's a professor. And she tells me what you have just heard, what you've just read is so true. And we have a lot of problems waiting for us, you know? First, it was in the medical field and a lot of these people, you know, this, there's this, I don't know if you're aware of these recruitments came for Kertke give us, especially in the UK, where you pay as much as, you know, 10,000 pounds to get recruited. They are actually accredited agencies because the UK is thinking in terms of how they can get, you know, the homes for the elderly and support and take care of them. And they are people who may not want to do it, but Nigerians, when they hear that you're going to pay this amount of money and they convert it, a lecturer does not mind going to be a caregiver because he's asking himself, what is the use of a big title when I cannot feed my family? Let me go there. Nobody will know me, nobody will see me. I take care of the old people and then they take care of me. As a result, bank cars are living in droves. Just yesterday, somebody called me, sir, please you want to buy a car, any amount, just a give away, blah, blah, this guy wants to take off. Why does he want to take off? He has seen one of those schemes and he needs to raise 13 million, which is a thousand pounds. Do you get the point? And this is somebody that should be relatively comfortable. And I tried to find out why and the answer was as simple as possible. What am I earning today? What am I doing? Why don't you go out there, give myself two, three years while I'm still relatively strong, do you understand me? And work with an agenda knowing that I don't want to cancel it for too long. And people say five years and the project that in five years they'll be able to save a minimum of, then, not even now, they'll be able to save a minimum of 10 million per year. Five years they have 50 million, okay? They come back and look for what to do. Others project they'll be able to make over 100 million now that the diorama has become something else but I know it to the back. No, the projection is even so lucrative that they would rather leave the bank go there, get maybe 200 million, come back and set up themselves where they started, while still keeping in touch somewhat. And let me say that this so-called jackpot thing has two sides to it. There's a good and there's a bad because I try to look for the good in everything. And let me tell you, a lot of people are starting to be able to repatriate funds and save their family here because they traveled. So if government is proactive, they will try to create a window where all these people that are living, you create a nexus and a relationship with them such that you make it so they can easily think in terms of being able to come back. So while they are going away, they are finding ways of sending money back, then also make the money that they send back so that it can go through the system by giving them a special window of sending funds back. The central bank governor has to learn to think outside the box. So by so doing, we'll be able to have a lot more inflow of the foreign exchange as our people are living. And on the basis of that, easy to see to what extent you can show up the value of the Naira. When the value of the Naira is much better and much stronger, then they realize that it's no longer as lucrative for them to be there. They cannot come back and invest it, have a recycling kind of scheme and don't let things just, people feel so happy that they've left and they don't think of coming back because everything is going south. Let the story that comes from Nigeria start to bring out these flashpoints that are our shining stars and lights and see hope so that the people that live will think of coming back. At the same time, let us see the health sector primarily and the academic sector and see there was a time that we used to send our people out to other African countries. But how do you bring people to Nigeria when the capital repatriation sending the money back is a problem number one. And number two, we are even having our own people that we need to give jobs to because unemployment is so heavy. So how do we create a system that in the universities, the exit of the lecturers does not make us to start to bring out people that are neither here nor there and they are not unemployable. So it's something that we need to have a national discourse on this. We call this japa, japa, japa. We'll just talk about it, but it's a major problem. Like the days of Andrew checking out that we need to have a national discourse to mitigate all the adverse effects of them living and all the holes that are left behind. How we plug these holes is something we need to have a major national discourse on. Or we'll be bringing them back like Umar O'deco. No go wrong. Okay, okay. Well, something happened and the CJN saw in about more than 20 new judges and some people are saying that it may help the judicial system to be better if we have more judges in the system. So, but he told them on the punch, the headline was that judgment based on constitution, not public opinion. That's what the headline on the punch says. And on the Guardian, it says beware of landmines. CJN Ariwala wants new federal high court judges. Okay, so these new high court judges have been sworn in, more than 20 of them. What does it say to you about the level of confidence in the judiciary now? Is it going to help or not? We just want to get your comments on that. He has warned them to beware of landmines, to make sure that the constitution is followed and all other things. We just like your comment on this. Yeah, you know some days back I probably wouldn't have been on this program because I probably would have been in jail by now. I was in the Supreme Court and I'm still putting things together. I was in the Supreme Court for my case and I was almost fainting because at a stage it needed angels to come and tie my hands. I wanted to lift my hands and just ask a question. But you know, I'm supposed to be there seen but not heard. But I think I needed to be heard. I needed, you know, that's the apex, that's the final buster. And the decisions were, you know, I have a case that has 60 days. Because of death, you keep my case for 40 days without a hearing. I'm able to do everything pray and God helps me to move that case to another level where it's finally heard. We rush everything and three days to the 60 days we finally finish everything. And then again, you keep the judgment till after the three days and you give the judgment and he said you have won and I'm running back to come and continue my case. Somebody goes to Supreme Court and said it was given after the 60 days. And then you actually annul my victory because judgment came after 60 days. Please, ways of justice. You kept my case for 40 days. I find one time I did everything on time and it worked for me. And then I come to appeal. I do everything on time. We finish on time, three days to go. You don't give judgment until after the third day when it has exceeded the 60 days. And then you punish me. All amount of money and everything I've put in goes because the judgment was not delivered within 60 days. And I should have compelled the judge to pass the judgment within the, who should you hold responsible at this point? Sorry, the Lord, it is what it is. That's what I get. Sorry, guy, it is what it is. So everything I've done comes to naught because you kept my case for 40 days and then judgment time, you keep it for another extra three days to exceed the day. So I think we need to start to look at judgment and justice and where the citizen should be punished for what he has absolutely no control over. I can understand if you file out of time or you didn't do this or you didn't do that. The way you've done everything, but they were okay like in this case, somebody died and they couldn't reconstitute the panel because blah, blah, blah. How should I then be held liable? I move on and we're able to finish it three days to the 60 days and you keep the judgment. And you say I should have compelled, or my lawyer should have compelled the judge to give the judgment. How? Is that even possible? Okay, well, I don't know. We do hope that there will be more time on the hands of the judges because there are now more to carry out the duties that they should carry out. But this is where we're supposed to, we're going to wrap up this morning. Please, just one second. One second, if it is. So that would be good. Very unfair of me not to say that during these processes, I saw judges that were Godly, God-fearing and gave their very best. So let me not, let me commend those people as well because it's very important they are there. Thank you so much, architect Nyaitok, for coming on the show this morning. Thanks for having God bless you. Yeah. Okay, we've been talking with architect Nyaitok, Zikir Nyaitok, and he was talking on the headlines this morning. We'd like to, at this point, say a prayer for the repose of the journalists who died in the National Assembly. And we hope that every other thing will fall in place. And the ministerial nominee who collabs, we pray that he gets speedy recovery and stands on his feet to do his work for the good of Nigeria and Nigerians. We'll take a short break when we return. We're going to be taking our first hot topic. Stay with us.