 Despite suspicion to the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria's IPEX back has said it followed the law in its plan to redesign the Naira. We'll look at the developments since the announcement of the plan and the Chief Justice of Nigeria has told politicians in the country to allow the judiciary to do its job as constitutionally expected as a 2023 elections approach. On the breakfast today we'll analyse and unpack more of what he has had to say recently. And in off the press we bring you in depth analysis of some of the headlines on today's newspapers or news about front pages that we have a guest joining us ahead on the programme. We're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa. It's a beautiful Tuesday morning. My name is Kofi Bartels. And of course we bring you the breakfast interesting conversations throughout the programme from now till it's 9am or just about dynamic. So please encourage you to sit back relax and enjoy yourself. Of course you can do that with a cup of tea or coffee. Whatever it is that you drink and just enjoy the programme while it goes. My name is Kofi Bartels once again. As usual we start off with a look at what's been trending in the conversations on the social space which we usually bring on air. This morning we have three for you. The first one happens to be a situation on the roads of Nigeria's commercial nerve centre. The biggest city in Nigeria and what is also known as the biggest largest city in West Africa, most popular city certainly in West Africa. The commercial city of Lagos where commercial or let's say public transportation has been ground to a near halt following the strike. A seven day strike declared by or embarked on by commercial bus drivers in Lagos. These are buses popularly called Danfo by Lagosians. You can see the yellow buses there. Some of them are white, not exactly yellow. These buses are not on the streets as we speak because of a seven day strike declared by the drivers. We are not declaring this strike in response to or in complaints at some sort of agitation or sorry victimisation by certain persons. On scrupulous individuals, public or agbeiro, these are touts who stand by the roadside at motor parks, at bus stops and places where these buses load passengers to collect or for illegal levies from them and charges from them. They are saying they are tired, they are tired, they will not do it again. And they announced standing back on a seven day strike. Due to this strike, it could be seen that some passengers were stranded in parts of Lagos. I noticed some buses were moving but most places didn't have commercial buses. I saw people standing at different bus stops, reporters who also went to town. So people stranded at different bus stops. You can see some user generated content. Right there, one of the bus stops in Lagos state. Those who were able, lucky enough to find a bus to convey them to their destination especially work, had to pay more than the normal fare to do so. I wonder if, even without the strike, if they would have paid less than that. But there was partial compliance. What this was observed, that was partial compliance. I personally saw some buses on the road. I saw people taking in commercial transportation. But those partial complies that some drivers reported shunned the protest by this joint drivers welfare association. But what they did was they had to increase their fares, forcing many passengers to be stranded. So I think it was a Christmas is coming early for those who drivers refused to join the strike. Making a killing at this time. Some of the passengers spoke to the press. We'll take some reports. Let's take one from the Tribune online who quoted a certain Mrs. Abiyah as saying, quote, we don't know if they are on strike or they are increasing their fares. Before now she said Toge to Oshodi. That's a route in Lagos. It used to be 500 nair. But today they are calling 800 nair. That was just 300 nair. It's now 500 nair. What kind of strike is that? So only these persons will be able to tell whether the strike is... It's a strike where it's just an increase in fare. But I mean, for me, one from what I've seen in our reports and the videos and what we've seen online and even without the strike the fares will go up because the pump price of petrol has gone up to almost 200 nair as we speak because of the so-called fuel scarcity. I mean, petrol stations are selling but not all of them are selling and they're saying there's a certain scarcity of petrol and they're selling above the pump price. We have to drag the department, the former department of Petroleum Resources which is now called the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Agency. We need to call them to come in the program to tell us what is going on. Nigerians paying more at the pump. So transportation fares have increased from the commercial bus transportation services. These ones are on strike. Even without the strike, they would have increased their fares. You look at the taxis, they've increased their fares as well. And even the ride-hailing apps have also increased their fares as well. For those who drive, they're also paying more because of the increase in the pump price. So even without the strike, people would have to pay more. So the government is really practically saying nothing to Nigerians about the petrol situation. Practically saying nothing new. Nigerians are wondering what's going on. The government has promised them over the past few months at all. In December and November, all that end-of-month schedule will not be there. We have enough products to go around, blah blah blah. All has turned out to be plain and simple lies. And now we're seeing that there's no petrol. So last time we had an official from the Petroleum Marketers Association saying it's the debt owners who have increased their prices. So what exactly is going on? And the government needs to come clean on what is going on. One thing we're sure is that whatever they tell the people who most certainly not be the truth, there will be more to it behind the scene. Nigerians have not yet recovered from, some Nigerians have not yet recovered from the debt-to-petrol saga that destroyed their cars, their motorcycles, their generating sets, and they have to grapple with this now. So let's see now. The question on my mind as regards this bus driver strike is what will it lead to? Will there be sort of a spin-over effect of this? Will it lead to some sort of social unrest? Maybe a social upheaval as has happened in other parts of the world? Will it lead the government to say, okay, we ought to clamp down on these Agberos who collect all sorts of monies from people on the road? But I think that we must give some kudos to these bus drivers who in the past it seems have operated in fear of these touts and these what we call Agberos in Lagos state. They were operating in some sort of fear and it seemed nobody was bold enough to speak up or do something about it and they've taken the law into their hands to say we're going to do something about it. Maybe they got the inspiration from their colleagues at the Alaba market. It's a popular market in a part of Lagos state known as Ojo Local Government Area where the traders there also went on a protest march through the markets saying they're tired of paying us all sorts of illegal fees and levies to these touts called Agberos. They had a clash and I think a life was lost in that clash. I don't know if the Agberos have gone back to their caves and their shells or they're still collecting the money. But they may have, these drivers may have gotten some inspiration from that to say okay we're also tired as well of paying all sorts of money ranging from 500 Naira, 700 Naira, 1,000 Naira, 5,000 Naira, some pay 7,000 Naira and you wonder how on earth do these drivers, these commercial drivers, these taxi drivers make it and then if these Agberos are collecting the money I mean which amounts to millions if not billions of Naira, hundreds of millions if not billions of Naira every month who is accountable or accounting for this. And that's what has led some people to say well, Kofi Parthels who are you looking at this morning as filmously said that in Lagos state there are four tiers of government. You have the federal government, the state government, the local government and the fourth tier of government is Agberos government. What is the government of Lagos state saying? In times past they've been seen to perceive to be a hand in glove with these Agberos because they use them for elections to try and rig elections. That's the public perception. So it remains to be seen what the government will say. The drivers also are not in support of the setting of what you call the Lagos Parks and Garages Committee saying that committee is illegal. So we'll look at how this unfolds in a matter of days and months. But the drivers are showing the people where the power lies. They are showing the people where the power lies. And the power they see belongs to the people. Let's move on to our next trending segment. Nigerian journalist whom we had on this program some time ago, David O'Day is generated 4,450 retweets, 2,992 quoted tweets and 13,400 likes. I don't know if the likes count in this case. But let's just keep that 4,450 retweets over his idea. He put up a statement saying that he thinks it's time to scrap the national service for young people. It's called the national youth service core scheme. He says, quote, I think, to fix Nigerian education or to fix Nigerian education, the first thing that needs to be done is to scrap the NYSE scheme. That scheme has functioned as a technical subsidy for decades, allowing states to avoid investing in qualified educational staff instead of using corpus as cheap substitutes. Of course, most of these corpus are posted to schools. In fact, at some time there was a moratorium on deploying the corpus elsewhere outside the teaching, which some frowned on. So mostly they are sent to schools to go teach from the university. Anyway, he's saying that this has affected the education system in Nigeria because for some state governments, instead of training teachers, they would just simply sit down and wait for the youth corpus to be sent to the state and then they're posted to different schools. We've had conversations on different fora, different people on whether the NYSE scheme should be scrapped or not. It was an age-old conversation. But people had to look at this aspect of states training teachers rather than waiting for the NYSE to send teachers their way. So that's what the man is saying. It's quite an interesting take. And some other people have been also throwing their thoughts in on this particular idea shared by the gentleman David Hunie, an investigative journalist. Another young person, a junior, put up a reply. He said, don't scrap the NYSE. Reorient the NYSE. I don't know how that means because the NYSE is an institution. But reorient the NYSE. It's the largest database of graduates fresh out of the university that is a pool that the thinking head can put to good use, really find the objective of the commission from service to absorption into these schools at least make it an option. Interesting conversation there and some replies coming. I mean, you can check out David's page and use here the thought shared by persons out there who want to say something about this. But lots of other aspects to the NYSE conversation that we can look at and we won't finish a conversation this morning. So let's go to the next one that may affect me if it is true. You know, I looked at it, you know, twice when I saw it because I happened to be verified on Twitter for some years now. I have a blue tick maybe five years or so. And people would ask me, does Twitter pay you if you have a verification and blue tick? It should be a big deal now. I don't know if it's a big deal. But I've been verified for maybe five years if not more. Elon Musk concluded his purchase of Twitter last week and majestically walked into Twitter HQ and fired the CEO and fired some persons there. He walked in with a sink. The news today because Elon Musk has now become the chief tweet that's the unofficial name of the owner of Twitter. The news is that he is reportedly considering making verification of Twitter the blue feature that's a blue tick. Something you pay for, pay or subscription service. And the rumor there is that the man is considering charging a monthly fee of $20 for those who are users of Twitter to keep their blue tick verification back. I mean, it's a status symbol on Twitter that sets you apart. It means that you are on Twitter Street, you are rolling with the big boys. But that's all you get from that. You don't get any payment. We also think that you're paid for that. No, it simply allows people, you know, it's meant to distinguish you from other users so that no one confuses you, especially if a public figure, especially if you do something of note to the public and that, you know, people would like to look for you. It doesn't mean that you have so many followers, you know, some people may have a few, but they are public figures. And what they do is important to the public. Twitter doesn't want them to be confused with other people so they'll verify them, you know. So you don't get paid. It's just become a status thing on Twitter. For us to hear that Elon Musk, in I think the first official step he may take, you know, on Twitter, a publicly known step to charge, to charge those who have a verification, a tick, $20 a month. I wish him well. I mean, who told him to go pay $3 billion for Twitter? I mean, some would say maybe that was, maybe that was too much. I don't know what you think about this, but $20,000 for Twitter is a lot, sorry, $3 billion for Twitter is a lot of money. Lots of analysis coming our way regarding this particular move. Elon Musk's era Twitter kicked off last week. You know, like I said, he fired some top persons at Twitter. And of course, it led to a spike in slurs, indicating significant changes coming for the company. You know, when this is a speculation, I must point out it has not been officially announced. And my suspicion may be that this will just be, they want to test and see the public reaction. But you can see Musk's reply right there to a tweet on this, saying the whole verification process is being revamped right now. I wonder what he is going to do. Personally, I feel that when, you know, Twitter has been run like a sort of open platform, a sort of public square, public space where, you know, the public is taken into account when decisions are made. In fact, the public almost has a say, almost has a say in decisions being made. It's run as sort of an open source platform, almost like an open source platform where people can engage and give ideas. It's been run as a sort of a democratic space where, you know, global norms and global standards are upheld. I think that, you know, when a billionaire who is used to giving orders, buys such a body, a business, an entity, you know, first of all, he's thinking of the bottom line. He invested $3 billion. He has to make his money back. He's going to make decisions with the business bottom line in view, which was not always the case in the Truda of the past. In fact, Truda for a long time did not operate making a lot of money. No, they didn't make so much money. And unlike Facebook and their Google cousins, they were not in a hurry to monetize, you know. They were not in a hurry to monetize. They've taken their time. A billionaire number one has invested a lot of money. That's $3 billion. Number two, he is the CEO and owner of several companies. He's used to having his way. He's used to hiring and firing. He's used to taking in lateral decisions, not listening so much to people where he's taking his decisions. And he cannot move slowly, you know, when you want to listen to several people in taking your decisions, you want to democratize. You might move slowly and slow. And some ideas, you know, fit into what you're thinking. So this is what we're going to see with Elon Musk. He's going to want to move fast. He's going to want to look at situations. And as a very intelligent person, as a genius, he's going to want to take decisions quickly as possible. He has his ideas. He's coming in with those ideas. He's a smart guy. I'm sure he's done his research and his calculations and he knows what he needs to do to get the organization moving. But will this, you know, make Twitter keep it, you know, as it was or will this mean begin the decline of Twitter? You know, he's going to be moving like a train and anybody who stands in his way will be swept aside. You can see the lady who took the decision, you know, to ban Donald Trump has been fired already. If Elon Musk wakes up tomorrow, like Roman Abramovich and feels that he just needs to start charging everyone, no one can stop him. He owns Twitter. Let's see how it goes. And let's see if this will lead to the demise of Twitter or to lead to Twitter becoming, continuing to be the open space for all that it has been and for free speech as it has been. All right, but I certainly will not be paying $20 for that boutique. And if Twitter wants to, you know, charge $20 per boutique, they can suddenly have their boutique back. Yeah. All right, we have to go. Thank you very much for your time. That's much we can take on the top trending segment. When we come back, we'll dive straight into the National Daily. Today's news reprises are packed with a lot of interesting headlines. So please, stay with us.