 All right, we're back with a breakfast special. It's a Saturday. You don't usually see both of us here on weekends, but we're here because today is a special day. And it's October 1, 2022. October 1 happens to be a day celebrated as Independence Day in Nigeria. Hope you're having a lovely time at home with your family and friends. Mercy, good morning to you. Good morning. It's great to be back. I just love to be here. I'm so happy to back here this morning with you as we are set to thrill our listeners. The viewers rather this morning. So beautiful. What does October 1 mean to you? Well, it means a lot. I mean, it's a time where you would say, as a sovereign nation, we got out from the shackles of colonial masters. But the question has continued whether or not we're really, really free from colonialism. Are we a sovereign nation? Because it's encompassing. The conversation would be that whether we're able to take decisions without interference, whether we're economically independent. But we do have guests in the studio. But before we go, then, we have to introduce ourselves. My name is Kofi Bartels. And I am Messi Bopu. Yes, indeed. So we would start off this morning with analysis of the president's speech. You had him scoring himself high right there. Not nothing new. But we would like to introduce, I guess, this morning. We have two wonderful individuals who are here instead to do justice to the topics later on. But please permit me to introduce Adebayo Oloake. He is a director, a principal fellow at the Africa Resource Development Center. We also joined this morning by another guest who happens to be Joe Fermi-Dagon-Rohi. He is the founder of Lagos Forum Gentlemen. It's great to have you on preface this morning. You're welcome. And should I say happy first October or happy independence day, which do you prefer? Boom. I'll give you reasons why I'm asking that question maybe later. OK, let's start off. The analysis of the president's speech has already started online. Everybody's talking about it. But the first thing I can see and I can take from what he said is caught himself high. So Adebayo Oloake, let's start with you. What are your thoughts on that? The president said he's scoring himself high. This is his last independence day speech as president before he goes back to his farm in Daurah. Well, there are two dimensions to the assessment. The administration will assess itself. And then the citizenry will also assess the administration. The assessment that the administration gives, from its own perspective, there will be no dissension there. But the assessment the citizens will vary. And I think that usually the easiest way to try to look at how well the administration has performed would be to look at the agenda, the administration itself set. And I know a lot of people believe that this administration has essentially said it would focus on security, the economy, fighting corruption, and then perhaps infrastructure development. And I think that today, easily one would say there has been a lot of effort put into infrastructural development by this administration. There's another side to that, which is that, of course, to erect those infrastructure, we have had to borrow. And that, again, will generate quite a lot of debate as to whether we needed to, OK, yes, we can see infrastructure, but should we have borrowed that much? And what are the chances of us being able to pay off such huge exposure in our debt profile, given the fact that we are still largely a mono-culture economy, depending essentially on oil exports. In terms of security, at the moment, the situation in the country has become extremely worrisome. Even the administration has admitted that. And we know that a couple of weeks ago, the president gave what was said to be a carte blanche, so to speak, to the armed forces to go and crush the threats to the nation, which presupposes that previously they didn't really have that carte blanche to go out, but now it was given. So and I think that tells us something, which means even the administration admits that regarding security, there's still a lot to be done. And I think I would end by saying that I heard the president talking about the empowerment schemes of his administration, empowerment, money power, and so on. Now, these, for me, I think, were bold initiatives. There are concomitant effects to trying to get those bold initiatives to succeed, which is the database that is at the foundation of actually trying to execute such empowerment schemes. People wonder if we have our data correctly, how many people are targeted, what is the impact that has been made, and so on and so forth. But maybe what is not in doubt is that these are bold initiatives. All right, then let's pay attention to security. I'd have bio coming down, because we understand that this administration came really strong with security as one of its mantra in 2015. And so scoring the scorecard, because it feels like that's what the speech is about. And so the president said that earlier there's been a launch of an integrated national security and welfare protection infrastructure. That's a deep blue project, which is designed to secure the Nigerian waterways up to the Gulf of Guinea. He also talked about that over 8,000 Boko Haram terrorists have surrendered. And he said to support the surge approach in fighting banditry that Nigerian armed forces have recruited over 17,000 personnel across all ranks. And he also stated that the approach to the Nigerian Air Force, that's the Nigerian police force, I beg your pardon, has also recruited like 10,000 police officers annually over the last six years. And so the list is almost endless. He's also talked about the Air Force. But what do you make of the security situation when you're juxtaposing the thoughts of the president on this? Yeah, Mr. Femme Dougan. Oh, sorry. I think there was a mix up there then. Yes, actually, when you look at it, these problems, the security issue is not today. It's been a while now. It's been there for a while. And I used to tell people once you have the problem at the initial stage, if it is not curtail, you have to fight it for more than if not if case not taken, it might take a longer time. And it might even be up to 10 to 16 to 20 years, depending on how you have to deliver to the armed forces. The armed forces at the beginning, they were complaining that they don't have enough manpower, the wearables, the equipments. And now we begin to see new equipments coming in. So it seems at the beginning, they were not prepared. Not that they were not prepared with what they want to do, but they were not having the right equipment to go into the battle. So now we're beginning to see the changes that is happening because new equipments are coming in. And people are being trained to use this equipment and we are seeing the changes all over. So it is not going to be a day affair. It's going to take some time. And it's unfortunate that people's lives, we are losing people and we are losing materials, we are losing equipment, we are losing properties. It's just unfortunate. But it might take a bit while for this to happen. But now look at it. When you look at the maritime issue or the sea level, you begin to see that the Nigerian Navy, they've done tremendously well in between this period of time because before now you see the piracy, that the issue of piracy, and now it has reduced tremendously. You had to hear that. Now they are fighting the battle of this petroleum issue, people bunkering and all that's hoping on. So if we continue to increase the way we are doing it now to motivate them and to ensure that the equipment they need, the retro-equipments are being procured and are being done, I think that would be okay. Now when you look at the infrastructure that we're talking about, infrastructure has always been a problem. And we are managing these infrastructure problems right now. But it should take some time. It's unfortunate that when the people, the politicians are campaigning, they have what I always say, this is a campaign audacity because they use the campaign audacity to say how we do this, how we do that. And at the end of the day when they get there, they realize that it's not something they can do overnight. And they begin to say, give excuses. And the populace, the people don't want these excuses. I would have loved a kind of scorecard that would say, look, this is what we are doing, this is what we have done, and this is what we're still, we are living behind, a kind of legacy that we're living behind. But what I've heard so far is just to repeat, and I'm saying it because people will say, look, what are we hearing that is new? What is new in the whole thing? So the new thing that we want to hear is what the people are still missing. It's missing. For me, I'm not hearing what is new, but from being a citizen of Nigeria, what I can see, what I can feel is what I'm talking about, that listen, a lot has been done, but most still need to be done. And that is the issue. Listen, we spend so much money on railways and making things happen. But now you are beginning to see that Kaduna Abuja cannot even move. When is it going to become something that we can play the role? These are the things people want to hear. These are the kind of news people want to hear. All right, gentlemen, we will have, you know, ought to need to look at the different aspects of the national life in light of the president's speech. Now he's spoken along the way, but we have to put the plugs down. We'll be staying with you at Ibai Oluwake, but Mr. Femi Dagon will be back with us subsequently. Gentlemen, I want to thank you for this and I'll be back right after this break, right here on the Breakfast Special, right here Independence Day Special on Plus TV Africa. Stay with us.