 CBN Saks, Boards of Union, Titan, Keystone, and Collarist Banks. That is our hot topic for today. Well, we'll also be having off the press. We'll be looking at what the national dailies are saying this morning. A very good morning to you. You're welcome to the breakfast on Cloth City, Africa. My name is Rimeh Paulson. Good morning to you. My name is Nyam Gul Aghaji. I just had to be silent a little bit. It's a payback time. I was home alone yesterday, so I just needed to be that silent. Wow, you had to do that. Yeah, yeah, I had to do that. I can't do it. Well, you cope. You always cope, even when I'm not here. Yeah, I know I cope, but I miss my baby. Oh, that's sweet. You miss your bed there, and you're going, you know... Yes, no, I miss... Yeah, necessary. Okay, I wonder how that day is going to be anyway. I'm hoping that you're going to bring cake and trumpets and... Stop saying that. This is trying to say it, but we don't agree for anybody. You have to bring cake for us. I wonder how that slogan just became the theme for 2024. I don't even know how it originated. Somebody said it was from a young girl. Girl, I saw the video. I haven't seen the video, but you know, it doesn't seem okay. No grief for anybody. For anybody this year. They pack a jeep, you pack your keke, or you do a barrel, you know, whatever they do. But don't take it too far negatively. Yes. Take it very far positively, because if anybody can do anything for themselves, you too can do it. That means achievement or success is not... Nobody has the monopoly to it. Exactly. No grief for anybody should stop at the positive ones, not when you want to use it for the negative ones. That's not what we mean by that. Yeah. Just make sure that you're holding the reins of your life. Don't agree for anyone who wants to put you down, who wants to bully you. Nobody should intimidate you. Nobody should intimidate you. So just be yourself, achieve all your goals and dreams, and yes. So that's the meaning, or that's our meaning of no grief for anybody, and we want that to be yours as well. Anyways, let's take the quote of the day. There are no secrets to success. It is the result of hard work, preparation, and learning from failure. That is from Colin Powell. Well, technically, those are the secrets. You need to prepare. Because even if God wants to bless you, you need to be at a particular place for Him to bless you. My people say you don't crown a chief that is absent. You don't put a crown on someone who is absent. You have to be present. So walk to your destiny. Work to wherever you need to. Oh, I like that. Work to your destiny. Yes. Pritch. I'm feeling like a seed right now. But that's the truth about it. You need to prepare because what you call lock could be just preparation meets opportunity. That's what they say. So you don't just wait and say, okay, let me pray my way to success. And that's why a lot of times, let me digress. A lot of times, I just look at people, pastors, especially, putting programs. I was just about to say the same thing. When the person should be at work. We are praying for people to get jobs, for instance, on a Monday or a Tuesday. Shouldn't that person be at work or something? And I don't know why they do that, but the thing is, today, as we've been told by Colin Powell, prepare so that when the opportunity comes, you don't, you're not allowed to. Yeah, you're not lacking. I have a friend back in the village who works so hard for a political party and for a particular candidate. And that candidate became a governor. And they just called him, please come. You're going to be the commissioner. Amazing. So bring your papers. That's all. And she was prepared over the years before then. They had no papers. Oh no. So he missed out on the commissionership. He did everything that would have given him that opportunity because he worked so hard. They didn't even need to ask anybody, consult anybody. They just called him, come be the commissioner. And he had no papers. That is sad. They had to go back to school at that point. And before he could finish the four years, the tenure of the governor. I see. So you need to prepare. Yeah, you need to prepare. I agree. So I was listening to a message because when I tried, when I'm driving in the morning, well, why in the morning? Well, it's about 5.30 there about. I was listening to a message and the person on the radio was talking about your gift and how your gift is what God would actually use to bless you. So you cannot expect God to bless you on an empty tank. You have to fill yourself up. You have to prepare. You have to get the skills. Talent is not enough. I try to tell people that even for me as a person over the years, I've realized that I had the talent, you know, even here that I am now being a broadcaster, a journalist, whatever you're going to call it. I have the talent, but I did not have the skill to match the talent. And so what you have to do is train. That's why training is important. So you train to ensure that you can match your talent with the right skill set that is required to take you to that place of your destiny. In fact, if you ever read the scripture, the Bible, you would find a very interesting story about talent. Yes. You know, you have talent. You have to explore. You have to, you have to invest in that talent so that it grows more. Right. Otherwise that little talent that you have might be taken away from you because once you don't use something, you lose it. True. It's said. So talent, like you said, it's not enough. Just push yourself. No grief for anybody. Anybody can do it. You too can do it, but do the positive ones. That's right. All right. Let's go to our top trending stories this morning. And this is one that has been making rounds everywhere and everyone has been talking about it is the EFCC seizing Edu Omar Farooq's passports. Now the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has seized the travel documents of the suspended minister, Betta Edu, and a predecessor, Sadia Omar Farooq, who have been probed for various alleged financial malefins and during their separate stewardship of the humanitarian affairs ministry. The EFCC had said it recovered about $39.8 billion out of the $44.8 billion allegedly embezzled from the government account by Shehu. On Tuesday, Betta was grilled by the anti-graft investigators for over 10 hours at the EFCC headquarters in Jaby, Abuja, over alleged 585 million Naira disbossments fraud. After the Marathon interrogation, the embattled 37-year-old minister was released on bail late Tuesday, but asked to report daily to the EFCC's office over the matter. The predicament of the 37-year-old Edu was worsened when the account general of the federation, Oluwatoi Mandin, confirmed that although her office received a request from the humanitarian ministry to make a certain payment, her office did not act on it. She was suspended on Monday by the president with immediate effect, making his party's ex-national woman leader the first to be removed from its 48-man cabinet inaugurated last August. The president also ordered EFCC chairman, Ola Oluqoyede, to conduct a thorough investigation into all aspects of the financial transactions involving the ministry and one or more agencies. Edu, the youngest in the president's cabinet before her suspension, was a fast-rising operator in the political space, having occupied state and national offices at a young age. Before her ministerial appointment last August, she was the cross-reverse state commissioner for health and national women leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC. Meanwhile, the EFCC father quizzed edu's predecessor, Umar Faruq on Tuesday, the second straight day. It has been revealed that the EFCC sees the passport of former national coordinator of the National Social Investment Program, NSIPA Halima Shiu, who is also being probed for the alleged investment of 44.8 billion Naira. The ex-minister has been probed over an alleged laundering of 37.1 billion during a tenure as minister. So this is all about women, as we've seen, women, humanitarian affairs, the ex-minister, the current one. It is still allegedly, because we don't know everything, but we said this on the show, we even said it on Tuesday. These are women who have cried for so long about inclusiveness, about equality, about bringing women into the forefront, especially for our nation, and that's the way we can drive it into the place that we actually want it to be. And now we're seeing women do all of these things, which is quite appalling, because if you've cried that you've been marginalized for so long, when they give you the opportunity to come and do better, why are you going for the worse? Why are you choosing to do something else? And I saw a joke that said, better did not do better with our education. On one of our programs on Plus TV, the title of that segment that we're discussing was is corruption female, that's from Waze, what are you saying, of the show. But the thing is, whoever is corrupt, corruption has no gender. Right. Corruption has no gender. This thing about if you give a woman, she will multiply and all that, there are men who are better in that more than even the women. And there are women who are worse than the men. I've seen mothers where everybody says the love of a mother. I've seen mothers killing their children. True. I've seen mothers taking rentage for their grandkids in their own houses that they're not supposed to rent. That's ridiculous. I've seen a lot of things that you just ask yourself, is this a woman, the kind of woman that I've been hearing about. But women are good, they're good women, they're good men, they're bad women and they're bad men. They're good people. But for now, we've seen cases, it's unfortunate that in the case of Farouk, some monies have been recovered, which means they never left the government coffers to the rightful people. In the case of Beta, we've not seen recovered money. So her case, we're still giving her the benefit of doubt. And by the way, she's been suspended. She has not been replaced. So who knows what is going to happen. They might move her to another ministry. Or even after a thorough investigation. Until she actually sucks, and we've seen evidences that she had the intention to embezzle or she actually embezzled. Let's give her the benefit of doubt. But this is not to say that women have shown that women cannot be in positions of authority. They can still be given. We have the likes of Dora Akunili. Dora Akunili, we have the likes of Obieze Quessili. You know, we're seeing Oconju. When she was made World Trade Organization chief, we saw the trend of everybody trying to tie the headscarf. Yes, and the glasses as well. It was fun. It was fun. You're seeing women like Chimamanda Aditya. You're actually seeing Nigerian women doing great things. And I think that is what people should emulate. Like, don't go and start. In fact, my question now is, what is the root cause of corruption, of stealing? I mean, when you look at the budgets for these people, their money is, it's a lot. It's a bad system. It's a bad system. Sometimes the system just gives you the opportunity to steal without even knowing it. Because for instance, I hear that there was money voted for air transportation to a state that has no airports. That had no airports. Yeah. So if you check all the ministries, I'm sure they do this all the time. They just manufacture things. Yeah, they do this all the time. And it's because the system gives you that kind of opportunity. So you're traveling to Abuja. If the air ticket is 200,000. And then you are putting 2 million to travel to Abuja. That you're not even spending a night in a hotel or something. You're spending that kind of money. And the system allows it. So you tell someone on the one hand that you are corrupt. And on the other hand, you know that it's something that it is legal, so to speak, to do. It's not, it's not. And I hear that. Even if you don't want to be corrupt, sometimes when you get there, people will start to tell you, no, this is how we do it. So this is how we do it. And before you know it, you know how the Bible would say evil company corrupts good manners. Yes. Before you know it, you start to soil your hands. And guess what? If you don't soil your hands, nobody even has anything against you. So if we're seeing all of these things, because there's been rumors that, oh, maybe she's being targeted or something. But if your hands are not soiled, well, I know this is so allegedly. But I'm just saying, if your hands are not soiled, then nobody has something to hold you for. So I think when you're going to office, you have, there's trust me, the budget that they have is a lot. You have a lot of money. You talk about the allowances, their salaries. Well, there's always a trap because if you go there as an upright person and you want to do the right thing, sometimes they will set traps for you. It's just like above allow, giving you a portion and telling you the things that he knows one day you will fail. So that he gets to get his pound of flesh back. There are people, career civil servants are very crafty when we blame them. Because to you, to them, you already come in to block the way to get money. When you blame politicians, talk about the career civil servants because nothing gets done without them. And then we leave them and we quarrel with the politicians all the time. Sometimes they tell you outrightly, if you don't do this, you're going to fail. Because first of all, you can't just sack them. Yes. So that's what the law says. And they will do a lot of things. And frustrate your administration. Play the devil for you because the devil may tell you the truth but not all the truth and just lets you fall into the pit. But that's what happens. So it should be a holistic investigation. It shouldn't be humanitarian affairs only. We've seen what happened in the aviation ministry. We've seen the health ministry. We've seen so many other ministries. So if this investigation is being done, let it be done for all the ministries. And let's see how we can sanitize the politics. Yeah, I agree. And I'm quite impressed at how things are moving quickly. The president suspended her immediately. Like, suspension. Let's find out what's going on. I don't want to hear it. I think she even tried to go see the president as well. And you know, obviously she couldn't. So I like the fact that we're getting there. We're getting to the point where we're calling out these things. And if you are corrupt, we would name and shame you and you are out of the window. And so anybody that's coming there next time, you don't want that type of embarrassment. I'd like to see that in the NNTC as well. Yes, definitely. That's where the money is. But like I was telling someone yesterday, it would be difficult because you want to cut the string. The string is tied to another string. And before you know what is happening, it's like taking a thread out of your garment because it smooths and everything that you become naked. So it's going to be... All right, let's take another one. This is ICPC, EFCC, to deepen collaboration in fight against corruption. The independent corrupt practices and other related offenses commission ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC have pledged to deepen collaboration in the fight against corruption in the country. The two anti-grabbed agencies made the pledge on Tuesday in Abuja at a high level meeting initiated by the chairman of ICPC, Dr. Musa Aliou. The meeting which had in attendance the chairman and management staff of the two anti-grabbed agencies was aimed at strengthening efforts for a greater impact in Nigeria's anti-corruption drive. The ICPC chairman said that the meeting was also to discuss other areas of collaboration and deepen existing relationship between two agencies, the two agencies. He expressed the readiness of the ICPC to provide the needed support and cooperation in eradicating corruption in Nigeria. Aliou said that the ICPC under his leadership was steadfast in its resolve to fight corruption through enhanced interagency collaboration. On his part, the chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ola Ulukoyide, agreed with the position of the ICPC boss on collaboration, saying the meeting had also presented an opportunity for the review of the existing MOU between the two agencies. The EFCC boss also said that the political will of the president, Bola Hamed Tinibu to fight corruption, as demonstrated in recent events were enough boost for the anti-corruption agencies to give their best. Just because of time, maybe we will not dwell on these and even the next one where also the court has remanded a former minister in prison because of corruption and all that. That's what we are plodding the government now that they're taking a practical step. But it's a shame for EFCC, ICPC, for to be talking now about collaboration. That's what they should do naturally. You have the army, you have civil defense, you have every of these, our security agencies coming together, whatever intelligence they have, they share with each other. But we've seen situations where one person goes and arrests someone and the other person releases them and then they go and arrest the person they gave. Like there's a competition between everyone. Why are you competing? You're supposed to be doing it for the benefit of the country. So if you have intelligence, why not share it? What's the reason for memorandum of understanding between two security apparatus of the country that need naturally to share intelligence? So it means maybe these people do not even know what duties they are called to do. So if the two of them have conflicting duties, then remove one of them. Exactly. What's the point for ICPC and EFCC existing side by side if they don't even know their roles or if their roles are conflicted? Intertwine. So remove one of them and let's stop spending money. If it is EFCC that is going to be doing this, let them be. If it is ICPC, let them be. But if they have different roles, let there be some level of sharing of intelligence. Intelligence, yeah. Naturally, not to have any. I agree. I think their roles should be defined. Everyone should know where they play right. And then even if something is happening here, you should be willing to share intelligence. There is no need for you to hoard information. I mean, we had out there. There should be a better bank for the security of people. So you go here. Okay, but I'm looking for a suspect. I'm the police. I should be able to go to where EFCC and ICPC can access this as well. When you find situations where EFCC knows this and ICPC doesn't know the same thing and they are doing the same corruption fight. How does that even work? I mean, we shouldn't hoard information because intelligence is processed information, like we say. So if you have information about something, you should be able to share it. EFCC, ICPC, every government agency that we have, you should be able to share intelligence. And that way you can keep doing your job well. I have intelligence now. The intelligence is that Nigeria will work. No matter what the criminals and everybody will be thinking about Nigeria will work in our time. I hope that I live to see that time where it really begins to kick off well. But in fact, right now I have some confidence, some level of confidence. Yeah, things are looking up. Yeah, looking up. We are suffering, but things are looking up. And the next intelligence I have is that we're going to take a break now. Which I will be reviewing the papers. Yeah, we'll just look at the weather and have the court of the day. And we'll be back. Stay with us. Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Now it's time for off the press. We'll be reviewing the papers this morning just to know what the national dailies are saying. Today we have Nia Etok who's going to review the papers with us. Good morning, sir. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. And thanks for having me. Always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much. Good morning, sir. Welcome, prophet. Because his name is Ezekiel. Yes, once I just see he's the one. Okay, it's a prophet coming. It's good to have you, sir. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. All right, today we're going to be starting with the Guardian and the major headline here says Anxiety, which is, you know, even the hot topic. It says, Anxiety as CBN starts boards of union, Keystone, and Polaris banks. Please, what are your thoughts on this? All that is going on. We have about three banks here and we don't even know how many more. It might be sacked. But what is your take on all of this? The fact that the CBN has sacked the boards of Union, Keystone, and Polaris banks. Okay. The very first thing is that I've been really concerned about our banks, about the state of our economy, about the dynamics, and the fundamentals. It's one thing to have a visionless, you know, system. It's another thing to have the federating unit or the component of the system frustrating everything that is going on. We said that the problem with Nigeria today is the problem of corruption. They can never be successful corruption without the active connivance colluding and collaboration of the banks. Now, corruption comes in two ways, either the private system or the public system. Within the public system, you can be successful with corruption without the civil servants working with you. But you see, within this tripartite, the bank is at the apex. At the bottom, you have the civil society and on that hand, you have the civil servants. Now, none of them can successfully prosecute corruption or undertake corruption without the active connivance collaboration of the banks. And you see, even during COVID, when things were very, very difficult, you keep seeing the banks declare humongous and unbelievable profits. So the question is, to what extent is the bank the problem of Nigeria? I think that the banks are one of the biggest problems of Nigeria. Now, you can't have a system that thrives without the MSMEs, the micro, small and medium scale enterprises. These enterprises work based on the fundings of their ideas, and the fundings can only go through the banking institution. But I want to tell you that at my level, having what it takes to run a system successfully, I can't assess a loan from a bank. Extremely difficult. I mean to real estate. I mean to a partnership with the federal government. Even with everything they can see to get a loan from the bank is almost impossible. Now, if that happens to me, what is the fate? Try to find out how many Nigerians have been able to get facilities from the banks to do their businesses. If you go abroad, banks fund your idea. But in Nigeria, banks don't even fund your investment or whatever it is you take to them. For you to go through the process of getting a loan from a bank, it's like going through the eye of the needle. But leave that alone. They will say, oh, they are protecting the depositors' money. But find out this forex stuff. Ask yourself very simple questions. Do you know that for you to get the POS working, they must have an understanding with somebody in the bank? Whereas that you cannot find money in the ATMs. Try to interview the POS guys. They will tell you that they go to the banks and that their guy is there. They sell money. Do you understand me? They frustrate the system. The money that should go into ATMs are being used by cashiers and bankers to give to sell to these people, to sell back to us. If I can sit down here, I mean, I have some of the biggest talk of any of the banks, the friends, you know, either the MD or the chief executive or the chairman is my personal friend. I can tell you any of the top banks. But you see, we're talking of Nigeria now, not friendship. So what the government is doing is I'm starting to look at President Tinnubu a little differently. Because between you and I, let's say confession on national television, I didn't really think that President Tinnubu would be able to look at corruption. I don't know, honestly, sincerely I didn't. But there are certain things that are being done now that I'm saying you never judge a book by the cover. I'm starting to see certain things is doing and I want to call on all Nigerians to look beyond party, leave party aside and see how they can lend weight to the system and the president to succeed. Now, this is not like, you know, hero worshiping. There are certain things is doing that is wrong and I'll come here and call it out. This is wrong. This is unacceptable. This is not okay. Okay. I will do that. But when he takes a right decision, something that you and I probably never expected, let us also apply the stick and carrot approach. And for what he's done of recent, there is no way that the CBN governor would have gone ahead to suspend these people if he did not get the authorization of Mr. President. I believe that because I mean, he could have done that because of the system, the way it works. And then the ministers that have been suspended, you know, I think it's won so far that the second one seems to be on the line. And then, you know, this could not be if the president did not say go for it. And I tend to see a president who is out to surprise us. I pray that I am right this time around. But Mr. President, I beg your no vex, as I clap for you now, tomorrow, when I see the world, we know they're good. For instance, I like the idea of cutting costs of governance by the flights, tickets, and then the entourage. But your excellency, you know that that is not where the problem is. The whole budget for that is about 20 billion and taking 60% out is about taking maybe about 10, 11, no, I think it's 18 billion. It comes about 9, 10 billion. That's not where our problem is. You know where our problem is and where to cut costs. I saw your convoy and it was obscene. You need to understand emotional intelligence and know that some of these things are absolutely unnecessary. So Mr. President, you've taken a very good first step, but I beg of you, I beseech you by the message of God. Do the one. We're my own brother, the Senate president. Brothers, do you know this national television? As Mr. President has done, please also do. I know you will do. You are my brother. I trust you, Mr. Senate president. Also cut. Make something remain so that poor man go breathe. All right. So since we're still talking about corruption, there's a little one I want to take here, which says federal government is bus 10 billion to 165 private accounts in 2022. So we know the scandal that is on better edge right now about the 585 million narrative was sent to an individual account, a private account. But we're even seeing that there's been antecedents to all of this. The federal government has been dispersing monies to private accounts. Even at the whole of 2022, there was about 10 billion. Sends to private accounts. If that's not corruption, what are we saying? Because I want to believe that if you need to do a transaction from the federal government to anybody at all, there should be proof that this is a company that you're sending the money to. And so obviously the money is being used for a project or something whatsoever. But how are you sending monies to a private account? And here we're seeing about 10 billion being sent to 165 private accounts in 2022. Do you understand a loan in 2022 alone? We're not talking about 2023 and now. How do we stop all of this? If we're commenting the precedent, I don't want a situation whereby we're only looking at the humanitarian affairs ministry. Are we going to look at every one of them, every single ministry, and try to curtail the fact that there should be no reason whatsoever in ministry or even any government agency at all should be sending monies to a private account? What do you think about that? I'll tell you two things. One, the banks, I talked about, two, the ministries. If you know, if you have the faintest idea of how our civil service runs, you can carry a gun and shoot somebody. If you have, let me tell you, sometimes the Bible says all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. Wisdom is profitable to direct. They are sending things I wish I could say on air, but these are things you and I know. Towards the end of the year, the way civil servants retire money that does not be used is common knowledge. Do you understand me? They run the biggest racket. This comes as no news to you and I. We know it, but somehow we've been turning a blind eye and let me tell you something. Better ado at the end of the day, I will go to her, even if she's sent to prison, even if, even if, please not because she's innocent as are today. I will one day go to her and say, God bless you because she is going to become a door that is opened to things that must be addressed decisively. God says the son of man will need be crucified, but woe to him through which it comes. So somehow Nigeria will need to be rescued, but bless is that woman that is used. Do you understand me? Maybe one word or the other, because you see, better ado had come to create a setting image for herself. We have people who loved her for what she was doing. We have people who envied her for the way she looks and the way she's getting results. We have people who were getting kind of apprehensive because of what could come as a result. When the issue concerned her, there was an instant public outrage. The outrage were in two ways, one in support. And you see, those people that are against you are always more vicious. Those who love you and care about you, they never talk. There was a time that Mr. Donal Duke told me. He said, Ezekiel, my concern about running for presidency is because out of every 10 Nigerians, seven love me. They care about me. They want me to be president. Out of the other three, two are just well, well, but one, hate me with a passion cannot stand me and you guess what? The seven that love me are quiet. The two that are here and there are just watching. But that one that hates me will make so much noise that this seven will run away. He said, Ezekiel, we end up probably losing because the good people are quiet and complacent and docile while the bad people are vicious. Nigeria is not as bad as people think. It's just that the bad people are extremely bad while the good people are very docile. They are very complacent. They don't, you know, I don't want one. You know, I contested the election. The number of people that came to me, you know you are the best governor. You know you are the best. They will not say it openly. I challenged one of them. I said, why don't you write this thing on Facebook? He showed me a long list of the things I've done for him in this country and blah, blah, blah. And I said, why don't you post? He said, yo, he's in my languages. No. And I'm like, why? What are you afraid of? So what am I trying to say? Because it was better ado, there has been this reaction and this reaction is the beginning of many things to come. When you talk of 10 billion paid into this number of accounts, that is just like one ministry. That is absolutely nothing. But if it can be used as a point to make a statement that going forward, I was addressing my staff I think two days back and one of them in particular, I told him, you know what, this is 2024. Everything that's happening in the past, I'm going to draw a line. I'm not going to look back. But I beg you, as from today, no more. If we want to look back in Nigeria, we will not make progress because too much, one word, the other, it will come around to you. So my own approach is let us make haste, what doesn't make haste slowly. Yes, let's apply wisdom and let us draw certain lines while still, you know, let me end on this because it's very important that I animate this and we know. I said this before and I bring it again. This should be what every leader should apply. In a car, you have a windscreen that goes from one end to the other top to bottom. The whole front is windscreen, okay? But there is a small mirror put at the top here called the rear view mirror and two of them by the side. Small, small, small, right? Anybody that drives a car with the rear view mirror is sure to crash. But you cannot drive that car without that rear view mirror and the side mirrors, they help you to navigate. So we're going to keep constantly looking back and saying things, but let us not drive Nigeria with the rear view and side view mirrors. Let us keep driving with the front mirror, but we need those past to bring sitting people back to give account while we now use them to set the templates going forward. That's my prescription for a new Nigeria that works for all. Okay, while we move to the next newspaper, let me do a carry forward, you know, carry over. So in the Guardian, we have exit of multinationals, death knell or death knell for local industries. We have that. We also have NGX records that is on the punch now. NGX records 638 billion Naira lost first in New Year and then Naira plunges to 100 or 1,082 Naira per dollar after CBN, two billion dollar repayment. Okay, so all of these are concerned. All the economy is what is tied to all of these three. That's the common denominator for all the stories that I have given you. Now, what do you think the economy of Nigeria in 2024 is going to be knowing these things are happening? Multinationals are leaving, Naira is crashing every day and then NGX is losing as early as this in the year. What do you think will be of the economy? I'll tell you this. My mother was a woman of wisdom and she used to tell me something that has remained with me. She says, if money comes to your house and does not see his brother, it will not stay. That is one of the big steps I've learned about savings. If money comes to your house and does not see his brother, that money will not stay. In which case, if you don't have a savings culture, no matter how it is, you get the point, you will never prosper. Now, what's the correlation of that with what you've just said? Multinationals have been in this country all of a sudden they are leaving. Tell me how an investor will want to come when the one that is there is leaving. The first question is, why is that guy leaving? You can now say that they used to be corrupt and because of the way we've set up a template to make sure that we kill corruption, they can no longer thrive because they will rent sickers and this and that as a result they have left. You can now say, good riddance to bad rubbish. But when they tell you that the operational dynamics in the state can no longer support honest investment, when they tell you that the power sector is putting so much pressure on them that they can no longer have their bottom line meeting, when they tell you that the level of insecurity is such that they cannot operate without, in fact, their market is shrinking because of this or that, and when they tell you that the legal system they've been trying to get justice, they cannot get it, the way things are, we cannot play the Nigerian way, we better just shut down and leave because we are international agencies that operate by international standards. Now, if these are facts, then why would you, if you are an honest investor coming? I repeat what I said before. I said this on a certain forum and one guy was very unhappy. I said, shut down Nigeria. Shut down Nigeria. All this going about looking for, make your fundamentals right. One year will not kill anybody. I don't want any investors. Look, you that are in here, 28 in three months, no, it's not okay. And not just 28. These are globally rated multinationals that people know who they are. What are we doing wrong? What should we do? We are the challenges. We now look at our monetary policies and everything, our operational environment. We look at the justice system. Do you understand? We look at the central bank policies. We look at the security dynamics. Why should the Southeast still have seat at home today? If I were Mr. President of his advisor house, forget traveling abroad. We look at the Southeast one week. Living in Southeast one week. That, do you know that within two weeks we can break that, have functions on Mondays that are seat at home. Deliberately fix things, break that genes. What is this issue with Namdi Kanu? Come to me. Let's talk. Let's face this issue once and for all. What remains is every diner die. Let's face this issue once for all. Southeast must open up. You address that. It doesn't take you one month. Even if it takes you one month to address Southeast issues. Decisively call all the leaders, call all the governors, call Namdi Kanu and have a talk. And immediately let people see the first things that those who are afraid have functions on Mondays. Do distribution of things, palliatives, whatever are Mondays in the market. Put things that we make and then flood. Let's see anybody. Fly drones. Bring drones. I will tell you what to fly drones. Let's see that man that will try to attack one person. You can solve South East problem. To go to the Niger Delta. What are the issues? Bunkering and all that. Why is that so? Can I have a deal with the oil producing companies, you know the exploring companies, such that I give you a percentage to take care of it and you pay me this. Do you understand so that the responsibility of securing this is on your head and what is the dynamics? We now go to the north. I will tell you what to do in the north. How to get the young people engaged and vibrant. I will tell you how to track the system. You cannot have a situation where you say some places are on govern spaces. I will tell you how to track this. What I developed called the national eye. Why am I saying all these things? Because we've got to all come together. Mr. Tinwu is not a one man that knows everything. No, no leader knows everything. I wanted to be a governor. I don't know anything, everything. But you are the sort of thing that when ideas come, the leadership in you shows you how you can distill these ideas if you mean well. And right now I'm starting to feel that the president means well from some of the actions he's taken. But we have to come in. I was listening to Mr. Pad to tell me about two days back and he was frustrated. He was he was he was incensed as I speak. Because we that call ourselves the elite, we are keeping quiet and letting this with all due respect. Exchalantans who don't have anything between their brains, most of them run the system when you talk they say, oh, you are being elitist. Oh, you are being idealistic. Oh, you are being a theorist. Can you run a system without being elitist, idealistic and a theorist? Is there any system in the world that is not run based on cerebral competence and capacity? And you are telling me that if you have brain, you cannot be a politician and we are setting it. That's why I'm in this politics. I don't care whether I win, I lose. I always win because I've decided I'll give my best to it. I cannot be sitting down and I don't even know the word to use a running system. You go for political meetings and all they do is sharing money. No, political parties should be ideas party. Every party should be government either in action or in waiting. That's a political system. And you know that Nyaito is going to be a lone voice unless people like you come in and say that makes sense. How can you run a company without parameters, dynamics? What is the Nigeria ideology today in governance? What is the mindset of the average civil servant? Are you aware of the importance of the civil servant that no government works without civil servant? The question is what is the thinking? What is the mindset? What is the ideology? What is the mentality? Well, you know the disposition of the average civil servant. If it is negative, how then will you not have a government that has become the poverty capital of the world with endowed people? So I listen to you who make analysis. Intelligent, articulate, informed. And yet we have a country. Go and look at your local government chairman. You be ashamed of yourself. Go and look at your councilors. And those are the bloody grassroots. Some local government chairman in an enlightening environment like south-south Nigeria cannot read and write properly, cannot read and address. And yet they both are there. They are the politicians. Well, where do we go from here is the question. Because right now, like in the ministry of the humanitarian affairs ministry, the minister has been suspended and the permanent secretary is taking over. And if this is the bedrock of where the corruption comes, the civil service, what do we do? Because it's like you're now sending a homosexual to prison for doing what he's doing. So if I'm gay, and then you're sending me to where the... Those people that you're sending me. I'm going to meet my parents. Yes, I'm going to meet my parents. My parents. Where is this? I'll tell you this. You can never, no matter how close you are to a governor, you cannot raise a memo on any issue, except you are either a civil servant or an appointee at a 16 level. You can't raise a memo. That's the thing. What that means is that you actually cannot succeed in doing anything in the ministries without the civil servant. So the question is, this better educate to what extent is the parents said that is taking over now? Innocent. That's the thing. That's the thing. So now you're suspending one person and then putting it into the hands of another person you're not even sure is not the root cause of everything that is happening. Yeah, because the system seems already infiltrated. Because everybody who is a politician is advised by the people who are in the system who are the civil servants. So I don't even know. We'll just keep faith alive and that is it. And now talking about the system that is worrisome, we also have, yes, someone was indicted once for sex for max, as they say. The suspended unical don still in prison after 250 million Naira bail. I mean, why does this keep happening? Sometimes you go into the prisons and you're looking at the people. A lot of them are just there awaiting trial and nothing is being done. Some of them spent up to 10 years. I can tell you for a fact because I've had that experience with people who I met while I was doing some things with the prisons at one time in my life. So now someone has been given bail, he has met the bail conditions, but he's still in prison. After 250 million Naira bail, and I don't know why the system is the way it is. You see, the word impun... I don't know, this is a two-legged question. On one hand is the word impunity. We need to come to respect rule of law as mandatory, as obligatory, as incumbent. We must come to respect rule of law. It's very important. If you say a man is granted bail, you give the conditions, and the person meets the bail conditions, let the person go. If you don't want the person to go, find a way in court of letting them know that they should please and besides, what happens in our system reminds me of the joke about the Yoruba man and the worry boy. Do you understand me? The Yoruba man, you know, you should see the body, and we kill you, I will finish you. He removes his dress, he gesticulates and everything. He's going to blah, blah, blah. It all sounds and furious, he's defying nothing. First forward to the worry guy, he looks at you. He gives you one part, I said, guys, I'll go sound you. After he has already finished. Now, the Nigerian police, they carry you into prison, then they do investigation, like the worry guy. But the proper thing is that even if it takes two years, they should investigate you, even without you knowing. When they have gotten everything that is needed for you, when they arrest you, by the next day they can charge you, because they have everything. So I want to appeal to our enforcement agencies, our beg. Don't do worry style. You slap somebody, finish. You say, I'll go sound you. You bring somebody to prison before you look for what they do wrong. What do we do? No, no, leave this one. And as a result, you are keeping the guy there to do something you could have been doing outside. And guess what? Every day that man is there, he is costing Nigeria 750 Naira. I hope we remember that. And that's my news. Is it? No, no, no. Compared to 12,000. 12,000 the same. I'm telling you that, apart from messing with the man's liberty, you are costing the nation on top. The city was 12,000. I'm only saying they said it was 12,000 Naira everything. That they used to kill every prisoner in Nigeria. And then there was the face of the leader of the shake movement that they said they were using 2 million or so to feed him every day. And we're just talking about one person. So if you do the numbers, so a lot of people might be there. 12,000 every day, even though I know it's not even up to 500. The second leg is innocent. Yeah, the second leg is innocent. You be sure the number of people that are innocent. Exactly. That's what we're saying. Recently, one of the young people that was in my media team was arrested and I went to see him. And I spent that time to talk to some of those boys there. You can tell that some of them have no idea where they are there. And some of them have been there for over four months. So maybe there will be a lot of time people will go around prisons. We all can't do anything. My strong area is that of scholarships and education. But please, if you can afford to spend some time to go to the prisons and some of them is bail, some bail like 5000 Naira. And then the IG has to really, really tell us, should we pay for bail or should we not pay for bail? I don't understand. There's something about this. You know, come and bail yourself. I don't understand. And how does it work? Because that's one area we really need to look to. Because sometimes it's like the police will just go, it's like it has also. But sometimes they even say bail is free. Yeah, they will go and collect 20 people. Put you there. What you do, you don't know. They say call your puto, come and bail you. And they'll just come. Those 20, if they collect 50, 50,000 bros, it's enough for them to operate. You know? And it just makes a joke of our whole systems in terms of security and everything. We really need to really sit down and look at this thing. Tomorrow the IG will say that the security, those roadblocks are no longer there. The next day, it will seem like they went to tell him, oh God, did you wake up well? You want us to leave the road? What was that? And they'll go back there. And finally, I've said this before and I say it again. Why don't we make money? Government can make money by security. Just like Jason, what do you do? We draw all these private policemen. We draw them. Then license private security agencies. By so doing, you make money from licensing them. You make money from training them. And they now give people like Nyaituk and the rest who want, they now become the private security and not police. Nigerian police should no longer do this VIP thing. But they will not listen to me. But one day they will listen to me because they are making so much money dealing with big men. So they don't want to carry that job and give other private people and they don't make that kind of money. As a result, they deprive us of hundreds of thousands of policemen that should be guarding us because of executive. And these people can afford to deal with informed private agencies that government can make money by licensing them and by training them and creating a nexus between them and the police or the civil defense or the vigilante. I think that we really need to come and start running a governance system that is more people-oriented, result-oriented, other than these rent seekers that are just there and they've destroyed the system, they've destroyed the police, they've destroyed the civil service, they've destroyed everybody because service is no longer the essence for seeking public office. Make a don't talk enough, make a keep quiet. All right, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time. I mean, you've given us some really bright and brilliant ideas on how to even run Nigeria and get to the next level that we want to get to. But yes, we want to say thank you for joining our program and thank you for coming to review the papers with us this morning. It's a privilege and I don't take it lightly. Thank you. Have a wonderful day, sir. Thank you. All right, we've been speaking to Ezekiel Ehtok and he's a public affairs analyst who's joining us from the Kwaibom State. We'll go on a short break and when we return, we'll be looking at our hot topics. Please stay with us.