 You're welcome back. It's time now for off the press. What are we lifting off the press this morning? We're looking at the headlines for or from some of our national dailies. And this morning we're going to begin with the Guardian. That's before we join our analysts that will be talking with us. The Guardian begins. Guardian newspaper is the first newspaper that we're going to take. Okay. The Guardian leads with the story. Nigeria flares $3.5 billion gas in four years amid pollution, revenue leakage concerns. You'll find that on page six of the Guardian. Then we also have PDP governors meet as internal crisis heightens. Why Nigeria remains a country of concern in obnoxious wildlife trade. Okay. That's also part of the headlines. And we have case against pension payment to former governors. Okay. Those are headlines from the Guardian. And we will leave the Guardian now to go to the Punch newspaper. The Punch newspaper is next. And it leads with fuel smuggling persisting borders despite subsidy removal. That's according to customs boss. The writers there on the story is customs CG rejects border patrol orders crackdown on fuel smuggling cartels. NNPCL intercepts Cameroon bound vessel laden with 800,000 liters of stolen crude. Okay. Smaller headlines there are Lagos airport runway light stolen. Seven suspected is very funny piece of news there. The runway light stolen in Lagos airport runway. PDP's threatening fire and brimstone on fire. They said fire she will pay for working against a tickle and the PDP as according to the next member. And NLC meets governors over fuel subsidy palliatives. Then there's this troubling story from Lauren that the Ishe she festival was stopped by the Emir. So there's a story about a Le Bouibon child's Emir for stopping Ishe she festival. And then PDP demands transparency as a care to lose extensive leave. That'll be all from the punch. Though there are so many other headlines that we can read up on when we go to the punch. We'll move now to the nation newspaper. Nation newspaper leads with 800,000 liters vessel with stolen crude intercepted destroyed. Okay. Let's say the vessel has been destroyed. NNPCL security raises bar in crude theft battle 64 illegal crude joints found 77 illegal refineries destroyed. Well, I don't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Abbas and George Lash's lawmakers for fixing their own pay. And the Tinobu targets 30 trillion Naira revenue in three years. And finally from the punch, court orders INEC to suspend Adamawa wreck prosecution. Okay. So we'll move from the nation to the final newspaper for today. That's the daily independent. Daily independent leads with $3.2 billion customs project seen plunging Nigeria into debt trap. APC targets hauling 24 states with off season guba poles. Okay. And then we also have smaller headlines here. Ailing governor Kerdalu extends medical leave indefinitely. That's on page seven. Orhanese south east political leaders to meet Tinobu over insecurity. Then police service commission appoints new police commissioners for Bayelsa and Borno states. Okay. Those are from the daily independent newspaper this morning. We still have the story of Abbas and George criticizing national assembly over blue tech salary packages. I thought there was a body that should do that, not the national assembly themselves. Court restraints INEC from prosecuting suspended Adamawa wreck. We've already taken that. So, but those are the headlines we can take this morning. But we have someone to help us make sense. In all days, we have Mr. Chris kind day one do member of the Institute of arbitrators in the UK chartered member of the chartered Institute of arbitrators in the UK. He's talking to us from Lagos, Nigeria. Good morning and welcome to the program, Chris. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Okay. Let's start with the headlines from the Guardian newspaper, gas flaring. In fact, that was on almost all the papers gas flaring in four years has cost Nigeria $3.9 billion, not Naira. Another newspaper said $3.2 billion, but above $3 billion in five years. I'd like your comment on that. That's a very good development. In law, they're my school days. We had a course called oil and gas. The new course in law, that was a state to be able to give upcoming and trained lawyers an idea of what is happening in the oil and gas industry. So there's a course specifically for that industry and it was a native course. And we have the PI, we have the PI in the books. That is a fine for flaring of gas because that gas can be converted into other uses domestic use and the rest of them. But what would come to find out is that the oil companies rather find it cheaper for them to flare the gas and pay the fine, the fine is so low that anybody can just pay it. And that in itself comes with a lot of challenges. If you are, if you are, if you take a flight from Lagos and you're heading to the south side, I don't worry, but I called, or even by yes, or even to the largest and your own state, of course, if you come to see that smoke, that large smoke that comes out comes up. And it is not just the smoke, the effect on human beings. You come to realize that the, apart from the air being polluted, people's people inheriting those smokes, some of them get to have cancer and several long diseases. And in several countries of the world, advanced country, the gas flaring has been stopped. I still don't know why we cannot stop this. I still don't know why our government cannot put their feet down to make sure that we stop, make sure that this part of the contract we have with this oil producing company is that there would be no flaring of gas. That is being done in several parts of the world. But yeah, we allowed that. And you can see what is costing, what's costing. So if that, those gas can be converted, it can be converted to look at gas, domestic gas, and that can be used. You can see how expensive gas is there. We can even have as much as possible to even transport, but that is what the situation is. And then we don't seem to have the police school which we've been able to do the need for. And that is why you're having a lot of environmental degradation in most parts of this state of the South side. And by a station is because when is it worth it for prison to be there? It is just in the South side, it moves to all that part of the country and the world. And we are talking of the issue of global warming and the effects of global warming. This is part of the problem we have. So I think the government should look at the PIA as it was passed and post-traged measures and also find on oil companies to stop the flaring of gas. That we should bring it down to at past 5% to 10%. By what we have now, close to 90% flaring of gas by most of our oil companies. When I think about this gas flaring, because I think it's something that should bring a lot of revenue, but I'm not the expert in that field. But if gas, gas is what it is, it should be a source of energy in some way. And the fact that they are not converting this and they are just flaring it. And now we are being told that over 3 billion dollars in 4 years have been lost. In a country that is grappling with deaths, a country that is so, so at the brink of economic collapse, we are flaring gas that could have given us 3. something billion dollars in 4 years. I just cannot wrap my head around it. But well, now there's another story. This one is from the Punch newspaper. They say fuel smuggling persists amid subsidy removal. So was subsidy removal supposed to also curb that? It is still continuing. What are your thoughts on it? I've always said that those are the lines that have been told just to be able to raise the price of this petroleum product. Oh, yeah, about 50% of our petroleum products are smuggled out of the country. It's cheaper in those countries. That is why we are having the health volume up. The better we remove the subsidy, it will reduce the lie. Lordy lie QED. Why? Because we have one of the most poorest borders in the world. Other countries have a way of managing and managing their borders. We have over 500, if not up to 1,000 more than that, boarding points into Nigeria, out of Nigeria. So how many are you going to man? Because the major ones are just about four or five. Maybe the one in Meduki, the one in Ota, the one at Madagree. Which other ones? The one in Cameroon, probably around Bacchus and the rest of them. Those are the ones that you know, the major ones. And that is where the customs, you see the customs and immigration officers. There are thousands and thousands of border boarding points where most of these borders are taken. So if you say you're removing subsidy, it does not deter them from exporting because it may just be cheaper despite whatever you're able to do. So the most important part is for us to be able to look at where we are mapping our borders and making sure that we'll find a way of managing our borders to be able to make it less porous for this kind of thing. And it's not just fiscal presents. Most countries of the world have taken to technology. And with technology they can do a map of the various policy points in their countries. And by so do you, you can be able to leave some of these things. But it's not that there's no country with total border protection. Look at what is happening in the United States. I remember the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, during his campaign said that he wanted to create a buffer zone between the United States and Mexico. Whether he was able to do that for 24 years, it has to be the same. But you can cope that to a minimum. So whether we increase our fuel to 1,000 per liter or 2,000 per liter, it will not deter those that are going to export some of these things. So that is what his controller general of communication at CG, I didn't have just said. And it's not in you because then second one is the corruption within the system. It's still the same people that are within the NFPC and the rest of them that get these things will go down. Remember what the former CG of custom says, where he doubted the so-called 60 to 65 million liters of fuel that he would base subsidy for every day in Nigeria. He said that Nigeria couldn't have been consuming that. Nigeria couldn't have been consuming that. And he went to war with the NFP that he should provide the necessary statistic to buy that NFPC will not be able to do that. Sometime ago, some mixed by last week or so, we heard that we have breached the number of liters of fuel domestic consumption has dropped by about 5%. All well and good. But saying that we can be able to stop the exports of petroleum products to other countries, that in itself is going to be a problem for me. I have said it a month and again, the way we can be able to reduce this high cost of petroleum products is by making sure that we revive our old refineries and new new ones so that we stop the importation. When we do this, the price will crash and that would be it. But the way we are going and nobody is talking about reviving the refineries, nobody is talking about new ones or we are talking about importing, importing them. Even the dangling that we also have started the production has given a lesson to also import petroleum products. Is that not an irony? Okay, well, but do the people who are at the helm of affairs really want the price to crash? Because it seems as if there are stakeholders in these price hike and everything, they seem to be gaining, they seem to be shareholders in whatever company it is that is making these prices to go up. And so as high as they go, they are to make their profits. That's what a lot of people will be thinking about because these are things that you should know. They are the basic things, ABCs that you need to do, but they are not doing it. Over the years, not just this administration or the last administration, over the years you wonder why Nigerian leaders are not doing this. And today you just mentioned something about the corruption in the system. I don't know whether this is the same thing playing out in this story in the nation newspaper that 800,000 liters vessel with stolen crude has been intercepted and destroyed. My problem is with the destroyed. How do you get that and then you destroy it? Where did the crude go after the destruction? Did you just destroy it with 800,000 liters inside or who took it out? I don't know. Let me get your comments on that. Today's work, today's Tuesday, I think, okay, nearly one week ago as Wednesday, I was one of the few top media personalities that had the privilege of being invited by the Nigerian to have a one-on-one with the Nietzsche family to generalize. And all of you are asking what are the strategies to be able to curb insecurity in Nigeria and especially within the Nigerian data. And they said this priority area is good. The manning of collaboration with other service agencies like Nigeria, to be able to bring to the minimum various minimum stolen crude in the Nigerian data which is affecting the economy of Nigeria. And you provide that with what we are talking about. Of course, we know that crude have been stolen on the basis and it's not new. Don't forget that in order to curb that problem, the Federal Government has to secure the services of the Secretary of Defense, Tom Poulou, to be able to handle that. And some of us also do that, the shotling and shouting and waking up as I said before that has been doing in the past few weeks not being between where he stays. And it's also to get a chunk of that contract from the Federal Government so that it can also have a piece of the pie. But the fact remains that our oil has to be stolen and then react yourself. Oil have not stolen by rookies like you and I. I don't even know what it takes. It's stolen by big time people put on quote big men and they vote in government and the private sector who works in collaboration with officials of NNPC and other railways agencies. If you got a vessel carrying a thousand days of crude, you can imagine how many days it is going to take to load that crude. And the way it is done, that part of it didn't come down to date. And that's what happened. And this happened for days and weeks. Are you saying that in the period of doing all that, nobody in the Nigerian Navy couldn't have seen that big tanker or a tanker and the rest of them. That is one leg of the issue. Second leg is this issue of destroying, destroying, destroying. And I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I stand on the issue of destroying, destroying, destroying. And that asks me, you have to evacuate with this thing. Make sure that the people are charged to cut. Make sure that we have steep penalties to deal with issues like that. Somebody said one time that, oh, it's because they first find their way out, and some people in government place on France, so let us destroy that. By destroying that vessel, if that school is damaged also, we are grating the environment because those products are going to be, we pour into the waters, and that in this way cause a lot of it. If your pony is also destroyed, destroy also includes pony diversions. That in this term will have pollution effect. So I think that we should be more intelligent and not look for more creative way of handling issues like this than just every single time I get a question, the next we just set it on fire and it doesn't make any sense. It just gives me an idea like an accountant setting fire on the vault and then saying all the monies in the vault have been burnt because of that fire. No, let me tell you this. Let me tell you this. In law, we work with what is called evidence. Once you destroy an evidence, then it is very, very difficult for you to prosecute that case. So I will say that when you destroy the vessel, when the case is still in court, what are you going to have as an evidence to be caught? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? It doesn't make any sense. So if it's only the court, it's only the court that can make a pronouncement that go and destroy that vessel. You, as a security agent, either in the military or whatever, have no right to destroy those vessels because what is seen is to the largest thing become the property of Nigeria. You understand? It has led to whatever Camerina or whatever, whoever has it. That's this thing. Remember, we believe there was one that was carrying over one million barrel of kudoi that sailed out and got to the Kuturiagini, where it was stopped and was now Nigeria authorities now went to Kuturiagini to bring that vessel back. I've not had anything about that vessel in Guinea. Whether they destroyed it, whether the case is still in court, whether it has been profited and that is how it goes. Can we give you the assurance that in the next three, four, five days this news will pass away and you never hinted about this vessel and those that were arrested, if any, and how they were prosecuted? That is how we work in Nigeria. The crude oil must have evaporated. We're still continuing on fuel, this time around the fuel subsidy. The NLC is supposed to meet with governors over fuel subsidy palliative. I don't know, palliative. When you hear the word palliative, COVID-19 palliatives come to mind and what the governors and all the people that were supposed to be custodians of these things did with the palliative. I don't know how comfortable you are by the government promising palliative and if it is going to work according to how it will be beneficial to Nigerians. What are your comments? For me, the NLC should forget the palliative. They dropped the board. Nigerians were moved on. We have been paying for the fuel. I will not pay for the subsidy. We are buying fuel at 520. I want to be buying, I want to be surviving. So what palliative are they talking about? They dropped the board. When they had initiatives to be able to get the best out of government in terms of negotiation, they dropped the board. The federal government went to the federal court to get an injunction. The federal industrial court to get an injunction. But the NLC also had a limit to be able to tighten the nose around the government to get some level of commitment before postponing and calling off the strike. Then they left that and said, no, okay, we are going to meet with the government, it's in law enforcement, which kind of palliative are we talking about? For me, they are just wasting their time. That is why Nigerians don't believe these agencies or trade unions and resources. They are sell out. They sell out. It is our personal selfish interest that interests them. What are you telling us about working at a palliative? What palliative is government going to keep? What palliative is the government going to keep? Because the state government itself, well, they don't. Do they market well? They don't. So I think that is just a waste of our precious time. Nigerians have moved on and are looking at the next level as it were. But the NLC should be very, very careful. They are supposed to be more of the eyes and ears and the negotiating team for the generality of Nigerians. And come to think of it, when you talk of palliatives, how many people does this palliative get? You've spoken about the one that happened in the Kuwait. The women had to wear food and were deceived by the minister of monetary affairs. Who told them that she was leading our children through the Kuwait? Even when our children were just at home. They had to spend trillions and trillions of money on physical children and the rest of them. They went further to say they were dashing out to 5,000, 9,000, 10,000, 9,000 to vulnerable within the society. This vice president there, Oshibajo, headed that and was moved from one market to the other, which saw us more like a good buy in any way. And what happened to that? How many people got it? The National Assembly raised the issue and said that the list, what they have, the log they have of names of people that are receiving this and most of them are fictitious. What did you do about it? So for me personally, I don't know, for other Nigerians, the issue of negotiating for palliatives and the rest of them is just a small thing for just to deceive Nigerians and then just focus on what they are doing. Yeah, it's like seeing the road to the community is used by thieves. You cut off the road and then begin to give little money to the village managers to say, okay, because it's a terrible thing. Now, the president is targeting 30 trillion naira in three years in revenue. Three years, 30 trillion naira. So how he's going to go about this, I do not know. And some people are seeing that not as something to jubilate, but as something to be scared about, because it seems for every little thing, we're just left to be taxed for the air that we are breathing in Nigeria. Is that the way to go about it? 30 trillion naira in three years. Is that achievable? And in a situation where the people will still breathe, will he have that 30 trillion or we are going to be the ones to pay for the 30 trillion? Well, he has his work on that. He doesn't even give you this presentation. He's ability to manage the subsets that we forward to the leaders and with how he's engineering people to move leaders from what he used to be to the next level. But that's also going to be a position, just as Riley said. But good enough, he has set up a committee headed by an individual to look at the tax regime in Nigeria and see what can be done. But he has also started making money because removal subsidy, we had that. How many days now? Within two weeks, the equivalent saved about 400 billion naira. So those are some of the things I think it's putting in place. The problem is not what it makes or what it's going to make. My problem is what I'm going to put it into use because most often they're not. You collect taxes from Nigeria. It makes you much money from oil revenue and there's nothing on ground to show for it. Nigerians continue to suffer on a daily basis. There's no basic infrastructure. Rules are bad. The hospitals cannot dispense drugs. Schools, high comatose, universities continue to go on strikes. Doctors continue to go on strikes. And so many. So those are the issues for me. If when you look at it, you also look at the power sector. I personally think that, yes, our basic aim is one, to look at alternative means of making revenue, not just depending on 80% to 90% on oil, that for me. We should be looking at agriculture. We should be looking at information technology. We should be looking at mineral resources like gold, diamonds, or some of those others. Nigeria is worried. There's no state in this country that doesn't have a particular mineral that it can. We can look at our books. There is a decentralization of power. Now the state have been allowed to engage in power, in generation and destruction. You can find, but we should also look at other ways. There you are talking of taxation. Well, I mean, of our people are captured in the tax, in the tax frame. But the question is, you also asked yourself, how many Nigerians are employed? We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. So, except you create jobs, I make people to be able to get jobs. You will not be able to pay taxes. That is the one hand. And the same is the other hand. Okay, Chris, Chris, just a moment. Our time is really up, but I needed you to answer this. So I'm just going to ask you, and I hope that you're going to be very brief about it. The court orders INEC to suspend prosecuting Adamawa Reg. We find this kind of things so much. Why is that? Why does that even exist? The former governor of Kano State, Ganduje, also ran to the court so that they will not prosecute him. And now the Adamawa Reg has gone to the courts, and courts are giving these injunctions as it were. Why does this even happen? If you're innocent, why not just face the music, get your judgment, and get out? Why do these people keep running to the courts, and the courts grant them these kind of injunctions? The issue is with the courts, not with the people that run to the courts. If the judiciary is doing the right thing, then who will be getting this? If they come at us, start their trade, and make sure that whoever responds to this thing, don't forget that these people are still seen as being innocent on his foot. But I don't see any reason why any court. But is this that today? We forgot what happened to former reverse state governor. What's his name? Peter Deli. He went to the court, I think up to so where the government will stop from proving him perpetually. He will stop. The court will stop the federal government from prosecuting him or looking at him. Then his wife was a member of the court. So it's not today's events. I don't blame those going to the courts. I blame the judiciary. And this is where the enders, we feel that enders, should be able to come in and prove that it's on some of these judges that give these figures injunctions. That is not in the best interest of Nigerians. And it is very annoying and so unbelievable that somebody that's a great church act is being stopped from prosecution. That is not good enough. Okay. Well, that's the much we can take today. Thank you so much, Chris, as usual, for coming on the show. And we're very grateful to you. Thank you very much. I have a wonderful day ahead. Okay. That's Chris Wando, who has been talking to us, a member of the Institute of Chattat Institute of Abu Tirtas in the UK. He spoke to us from Lagos here. We'll take a break now. When we return, we'll take our first half-time week. Stay with us.