 Welcome back. The minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, who was the former governor of River State, has promised to repair transportation in the FCT with the two billion Naira allocation that he has been given, or the two billion Naira allocation. Just let's leave it that way. We have also a public affairs analyst who will be helping us look into that statement. He is Mr. Nick Aghule. Good morning and welcome to the program, Mr. Aghule. Good morning. Good morning to you, Aghule. Okay. Yes, we know that Nyesom Wike is Mr. Project, as they used to call him. He did a lot of things in Port Harcourt in River State, and some people believe that he could really turn around the fortunes of the FCT. Now, he has said that with two billion Naira is going to revamp the transportation sector in the FCT. Let me hear your comments on that. Thank you very much for that question. A immediate response to this is, one, two billion Naira means Naira in terms of the transportation deficit that we see in the FCT. I mean, as we call it, it changes. Two billion Naira is about two million dollars. That's about two million dollars. And I'm asking myself, two million dollars deal. What can two million dollars do? So the government has to believe and understand that the budget side of the federal government, and even the state government, is too small that the government alone cannot just go ahead and provide infrastructure in Nigeria. So, Nigeria should quickly begin to look towards the financial sector to come in and support of not just infrastructure but also in all the other economic sectors in Nigeria. That's my first reaction. My second reaction is that, look at the trend of Governor Witte when he was building bridges in Potakot. I lived in Potakot for about five years, so I'm not Potakot very well. Potakot has only one road into Potakot now. And Governor Witte spent his 80 years building bridges on that one road hoping that he's going to stop Potakot's transportation problems. It will ease it, but it will never service because most of the populated people at Potakot or the LCT where he now is minister. It's great transportation. A single train can carry people who have been in 200 railcourses on the road. A single train will carry them. That you see in the Biza there, all the people coming from the Marlaba, Masakrasi and Agdu that come into the city in their cars or buses, shopping passes, resorts. And when you stop in time, in back, all of those vehicles can be taken by two trains, all of them, and the rest will be off the road. So Governor Witte should not have given this in the LCT as he was doing in Potakot. What Nigeria needs is great transportation. So these are my first initial comments on this story. Yes, but he has said that one of the major things he would do is to restore the rail line and rail transportation in Abuja. And it's not as if he's building everything from scratch. He's looking at projects that have been awarded, contracts that have been awarded, and maybe the payments were not complete. Maybe the contractor is dragging his feet. Maybe there's some corruption here and there and all that. So he's not building from scratch. So two billion, just for transportation, he must have done his feasibility studies and everything and known that two billion will take him. So how can you fault that? Yes, so you see, when you have a big problem, like the kind of infrastructure that people need. You approach it with big solutions. I mean, I saw in the news where he went to inspect the railway station in Abuja. That is where the whole controversy about his bulletproof car came from. Look, that is not his solution. Witte needs to do it. To sit down and assess the entire transportation needs of the city and then overnight a public private investment is to attract global investors, both with Nigeria and with Nigeria and he needs to allocate, if he wants, allocate licenses in a different sector. So you're looking at the Guagualada as a community, the Guagualada as a community, the Nyanyi Maraba as a community like that, and it's coming with bigger solutions. This thing is not going to stop because there's one way that the people of Abuja to the airport, that is not going to be the solution. That's what has been there for years and it never had the solution. So I respect Governor Witte to bring in most of the new solutions, most of the new solutions to the solution. And it's not just Governor Witte, if she wants to be all the other governors in Nigeria, as well as the federal government doing some, you know, we have to move into a structural deficit in many things I think about. There is deficit in electricity, deficit in housing, deficit in roads, deficit in water, deficit in healthcare, deficit in education. This is a quite a big solution. Well, what do you propose he does? Because if two billion will not solve the problem, what can he do? He has a lot of other things to do. He's bent on breaking houses and, you know, restoring the master plan of Abuja and so many other things. He must be stepping on a lot of those if he wants to get this kind of things that he is aspiring to get done. But what do you propose he does now, just for a purpose of emphasis, to make sure that the transportation system is restored? You've talked about trains, you've talked about a few other things, but what else does he need to do that we are not seeing? The thing here is that for me, I keep talking about telecoms. Keep talking about telecom because it's a great example of how the project sector can help governments of the mass. You know, here's a nightmare. It was government providing phones. And we never got the phones. If you have promised people for promises, government was always one minister after the other, maybe one minister threw himself up in the air and said, well, it's probably the first of the four, and all of those things were happening in the telecom sector. Immediately, the government invited the telecom sector in, and the FMS, and the FTS, and the NIMO guys came in. They brought them money, and looked at what they had done to telecom to achieve that. They were looking at their eyes and looking at telecoms, and believing that what is happening in telecoms can happen in transportation, can happen in water, can happen in electricity, can happen in all different sectors of local experiences, just to see. That's what we need. You know, don't have the range to send a hard money. We are not in a world where the government is in the private sector. You understand? You used to have Nigeria's budget. Nigeria's budget is about $1,000,000 now at about $800,000. I would think Nigeria's budget is around about like 20 billion dollars. The entire federal government budget is around about 20 billion dollars. But 20 billion dollars is the money that a company like Apple makes in a day. In a city in the day, they make that kind of money. So, you can see the sector. What the sector government and also the sector government need to do is to create an enabling environment with transparency and integrity due to the whole process. They abstract the first sector funding. If they don't do that, we are 63 years old this year. The government has not been able to do this for us. If the government could have done it for 63 years, we will not believe in it in the next four years. They can't do it except the game is changed. And for me, the game changer is to bring in the private sector into this whole process government to deliver on this infrastructure. So, how will the private sector recoup their money without making the citizens pay through their nose? Because some of these things, government does it and the excuse is that so that it will be subsidized for the benefit of the people. So, if private sector goes into critical infrastructure like road transportation and all that, what do you think the people will feel? That with the private sector, the people will be paid with their nose. Well, again, let's not go back to telecoms. Let it be a government phone. I, Nicaragua, showed my wife not my not phone. In a good land of America, why do you start to worry? Yeah, I was looking in the oil industry, you know I'm not my not. I make a bullet show my wife not my not phone in Abuja, where 150,000 are lost more than 20 years ago. How much is empty and cool? Tell me about it all today. Once government provided it, they will say, I think the game changer is working to private sector, not to make us pay through our noses. And that's competition. Please remember, when MTA has come in, MTA were telling their people that it was 50,000. So, they denied, they even told us that they cannot do personal viewing, as it was believed was impossible. It had to take the other operator to come in. And immediately, they started for second viewing, MTA included for second viewing. And then the price of phone kept going down to now, you can get a SIM card for free. So, they kept on getting a SIM card for free now. On what night time were selling to us at home? When were we paying to our noses? Of course, we were paying to our noses during the 98 times. Like you see on this Petro, we are paying 600 and something, you know. I bet you that if this Petro goes into the private sector, we are not going to buy Petro for more than 200 and ever. The industry are working. It can tell you that. So, it is a mirage to think that through the private sector, we will pay through our noses. Look, is the government that breaches inefficiency and makes us to convert money to no value? If this is the private sector, make sure there is competition and we are good to go. Okay, let's not restrict it to a weekend now. As we are wrapping up, I'd like to know, if you were to advise the Minister for Transportation, what would you tell him? Sorry, come back again with the question. If you were to advise the Minister of Transportation, how to improve the transportation system in Nigeria generally, not just Abuja now, what would you tell him? The advice I would give to the Minister of Transportation, which I believe is the question you ask, is the same thing that I'm saying, a $20 billion budget for the entire 45 minutes for the entire agencies of government, for the entire departments, it is so small, you don't go to deliver anything. The cost of their salaries and their running costs of vehicles and traveling and all of that alone is going to achieve that $20 billion to go away from the table. So this is what we see for ourselves. The federal government of Nigeria, including the states, don't have the money to develop its resources in Nigeria. The only solution in the private sector, let me tell you what I mean, I might not give you an example now. This is a real life example. One of the best roads in Nigeria, and I travel on that road, the fact I was on that road two weeks back, one of the best roads in Nigeria today, as we speak, is the Tessli Makuzi Road. This road was built with a Chinese name, but even though the Chinese giving the money to the prime minister of work, so that they will use it to travel and run their, okay, to the 22nd. I'm speaking grammar to you all. The Chinese give the road by themselves, with that road. It is the best road in Nigeria now. There are no other roads in Nigeria better than that road. And as we speak, the Chinese are building two gates on the road, so that when we now pay them their money back, let me tell you, I've prepared to pay $1,000 on that road, and travel on that green road, then you buy Sokazoba to ship it out on. Which is what was happening before. We travel on that road before, you either change your Sokazoba, your biary, your bushing, or a tire is gone, accidents, all sorts of things. This is what we need. If we need these things, give it to the private sector, let them be for us. Let us pay and let us enjoy. Otherwise, when we compete suffering like this, and promises of compromises, they will never be fulfilled with $20 billion. That's the fact. Okay, Nika Gule, thank you so much for giving us your thoughts this morning. It was a pleasure having you as always on the show. I thank you very much and good day to all of you. That was Nika Gule, public affairs analyst talking to us from Chicago in the U.S. Well, this is where we're wrapping up on the show, but before we go, let's just tell you or leave you with this quote for the day. Let yourself be drawn by the strange pool of what you love. It will not lead you astray. That's according to Rumi. This is how we draw the curtain on today's show. We hope to meet again tomorrow. On behalf of the entire team, I say, let's do it again tomorrow. My name is Nya Gule Hagaji.