 Very good morning and welcome to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. My name is Nyamgul Agadje. My name is Rimeh Paulsen. You're welcome to do this edition of the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and we're sure you're going to have a swell time with us because we have a lot of factories today. By the way, you are the chef so tell us what is on the menu today. Oh okay, so first we'll be looking at some topics first and we have NRC yet to recover from government's previous transport fair slash says MD and Rebandu tells AFCC to block funding of terrorism kidnapping and banditry so those are the two topics we'll be looking at but before that well we'll have some teasers as well as off the press look at what the national dailies are saying this morning and I'm sure you have yourself that this morning. Yeah well I just said something about you being a chef apart from the fact that we're going to have what you've just told us on the teasers and then we're going to have top trending issues. What is other menu also for Christmas? Oh definitely. Real from now. Definitely some chicken. I think Christmas is associated with chicken. How can you have Christmas and not have chicken? How can you have Christmas and not have rice? And that reminds me chicken this year in some places they're selling it for as high as 15,000 some for 18,000 even 20,000. Right. Wow that it's it's serious. Back at rice is about 100 or something right now. So we're going back to the days where we could only eat rice on Christmas day. Because when we were growing up rice was the thing that's why I think it just stopped to Christmas because that was the one time that we got to eat rice as we wanted it. Otherwise you have to be very rich a very rich family or very well-to-do family rice every Sunday. Not even every day. No you can't do that every Sunday you have rice and all that but it's like we're going back to that time and I don't know whether the government is doing anything really. Well they're doing something they they slash the boss prizes and give you free train rides. Please don't remind me of that. That is something the government is doing something. By the way today we're going to be discussing the fact that they have done something like this before and NRC which is the National Railway Corporation is yet to recover from from the losses let me put it that way of that time till now. So how are they running their establishment? I'm just wondering if they just want to make this the the railway corporation to die again as it died at some point I don't know but we'll find out. We actually asked this question and we're like you know where is the money coming from because at the end of the day we're saying you're taking out the boss fares or 50 percent of the boss fares and no money to be paid for the train rides. Obviously it is a business you should pay the business. Yeah even if it's run by you but you should still pay the business. So for instance the railway corporation should be paid you pay for the Nigerians that are going to go on that train ride and say oh you know what you don't have to pay but we will pay for you but not that you're telling them to do it for free they're running on whatever fuel that they need to use the staff needs to be paid and there's nothing for them so how are they supposed to recover? So I'm sure that's what must have happened the first time and that's the reason why it took a while for them to recover. And it happens in a lot of government establishments people politicians everybody just comes they just come and say okay do this for us and then they don't get to pay just because the government at some point gives them some subversions and all that but it shouldn't work that way. If you go to media houses for instance state run media houses most times press releases that come from all the ministries they get to be read for free nobody even thinks about it every once in a while maybe they just drop something they tell you we have retainer sheep and all that and it's not true money doesn't come in as it should come in and if the money from the government agencies and power status come to the media house I'm using media house now as it should come it can run even only soon without the money that comes from the government. It should be a profitable business you should be able to run the business without any other thing without you know funding from the government at least when the government comes and pays for the services when private enterprises come and pay for services you're running a good business it's just profitable. But here what they do is okay they come to you you run it for free they go to a private firm pay more than double of the money they should have paid you and then have it also add in the order of place oh. Do you know what I call that see finish see finishism. Oh she finishism. I like the word see finishism yeah okay well I thought I could go to all the places that that we have buzz terminals to find out what was really going on but I could not I'm sure I will try to go there today so that by Monday we should have a definite report of what is really happening so far all the people enjoying this all the people have called and tried to find out whether they enjoyed this bus ride because they traveled I've said no they didn't see anything like that but I'm not saying it's not happening so we needed to have known these transport companies that were contracted to do this because it can't be anywhere just everyone no information so they should tell us so that we know that okay if this XYZ is supposed to do this and they're not doing it we can shout and say okay they are not doing it so government do not pay them but now we don't know so anybody can just do what he wants and then take stumps of receipt to the minister of finance or humanitarian affairs I don't know are they will surprise you positively but they keep surprising me still yeah they keep surprising you negatively so you have to be definite and say I want them to surprise me positively well let's move over to some top trending stories this morning we have federal government reopens third million bridge after repairs the federal government is reopened the third million bridge one month after its closure for maintenance work says the leg the leg of state commissioner for transportation he commanded Nigerians for their patients during the temporary closure adding that the government understood the inconvenience the closure may have caused oh she and me maintain that the reopening affirms the government's commitment to infrastructure upkeep and public safety the move came over one month outside the federal government through the ministry of works announced that it will be closing two ramps of the third million bridge for repairs the november one move was announced by the federal controller of works in Lagos engineer mrs oikisha noted that the repairs works the repair works will begin with the ramps connecting or or shiki to adequately and Lagos island adini g adili to adequately simultaneously following the maintenance work motorists were advised to cooperate with the traffic management officials by obeying and observing all diversions and also using alternative routes the third million is that is africa's second longest bridge extending nearly 12 kilometers about 7.5 miles to link Lagos island the business heart of the city with the mainland where most people live it was built in 1990 in nigeria's economic engine one was built in 1990 by the babangida administration which is not civilian and it is not democracy uh well i'm just being mysterious this morning about second day is that uh when you see people trekking on the third main land bridge you just know that they are ready to go the 12 kilometers or 11. something kilometers just to get to where they can find food to eat or do the work that will put food on that table and it just worries me but i don't know if uh the repair works on the axis from yano woro to adini johad whatever the quality yeah if it was done in the midnight because i use that route every time and i've never seen people working on it i see them working on the sides they side going to a butaneta and the yeah the ramps yeah those places but the main i will call it the main bridge that comes from yano woro to the other i didn't see them work on them except the time when they filled the potholes on the yes however there's still there's still a lot of potholes there's still a lot of potholes because i applied that route last night there's still some potholes there so i think they just did a partial work they need to do the full thing yeah but at least it was a it is a lot better than it used to be oh yes definitely until the third main land bridge and you'll be afraid that your your tire might go bad or something on your car but if well let's just assume that it was those places that the ramps that needed to be worked on the main main bridge as i call it did not have the need for all those ones but could us do um the government because maintenance culture is a problem in Nigeria so if they can every once in a while think about what to do for a bridge like that and maybe any other thing maybe they should uh we should applaud them but let me use this time also to call on the um legal state government i don't know if that's their responsibility or it's a major federal road uh there's this pedestrian work way at um alakwery estate you know it there was an accident a few weeks ago and a truck these articulated trucks hit it and the thing broke so which means people can't cross the road through using that anymore it's only on one side that that thing is so they should they should yeah they should work on it so that people can get to cross the road it's dangerous crossing the road so if they are so used to crossing the road using the bridge and now there's been an accident they can't wait for the person who spoiled it who broke it because it might take him time to raise this money so they should do it and wait for the time that person can pay if that's what they're waiting for so uh legal state government please you've been doing well so just work on that pedestrian bridge because we even need more in lego so that people don't get to cross the road and uh face the uh the possible accidents that uh can occur if they cross the road okay well up to we're going to another story and i'm sure this one will gladden some people's hearts um protocol refinery begins operation yay finally let us see the fuel let's see the fuel come the federal government unfairly confirmed the commencement of operations at the protocol refinery and petrochemical company in rivers state it announced that the facility commenced operations on december 20 2023 as the first phase of work at the plant had been completed adding the refined petroleum products would start flowing from the refinery after the christmas break the government at earlier in the year repeated repeatedly stated that the potharkot refinery would begin operations before the end of 2023 the minister of state for petroleum resources senator heineken lupuburi who led members of the refinery steering committee to inspect the facility congratulated the nigerian national petroleum company limited and nigerians in general for the feat nigeria's refineries in potharkot kajuna and worry have been dormant for decades as the federal government has spent several billions of naira to revamp the facilities the group chief executive officer nmpcl malecari said the employers of the company worked day and night for over 9.6 million man hours to get the refinery back on stream on april 7 2021 um it has been reported that the nmpc officially signed a contract with tail moint spa for the 1.5 billion naira billion dollar actually rehabilitation program of the potharkot refining company i mean this is great news because we're hoping that fuel will be coming out and so the kind the amounts that we pay for fuel right now would you know just calm down i like the fact that you use the word hoping we are hoping i mean i bought fuel for 6 20 yesterday my body is biting me okay and i was in traffic for over five hours and i spent most of that fuel for 6 20 but it was three something at least it's still not as good as 100 and something naira but it's there's something of it i'm just wondering when one fuel moved from was it 89 naira to or 80 to 89 naira something but that was less than 100 good luck naira yes i mean everybody went and occupied occupy Nigeria now it's it's 600 700 in some places a thousand in some places in nigeria nobody's occupying even even the the the smallest road in nigeria we are so comfortable they deduced from is he strong is he strong because i remember occupying nigeria um i think i was still in uni then and i couldn't ever fly out of nigeria like the the airports were closed everywhere gas stations roads that was a ten naira race yes from what it was to whatever this they were saying they were going to do it and occupy nigeria those same people are in power now funny enough so um i used to produce plus politics which is later in the evening if you've never watched plus politics you can join um and one of the guests had said he was you know marching forward during occupying nigeria but that he did not know better than now he knows better now he knows a subsidy has to be gone so as at that time when there was just that you know fuel naira race he felt no we can't do this occupy nigeria make sure that this money comes you know back down to the amount of pain but look at us we're at 6 20 and you're saying you did not know better than so now it's okay for us in government now of course it's in government now we know better nigerians need to suffer that's that's the the light bulb moment that you that you heard they tell you you have to you have to suffer it's just like you know how in the bible they say seven years of farming and then seven years of plenty so right now we're going through the seven years of farming and i hope we will still see the seven years of plenty maybe it's not my generations come please it has to be in my time so that i can i can tell stories to my children and grandchildren that this is what it used to be and this is what it is now so keep hope alive but you know protaco refinery coming i wish they had definitely told us that because of these the price of fuel will come down they're hush hush about that with me there's possibility there will be a lot of fuel but the price might still be the same thing and if that is the case then there is no progress that we have made because we want that progress to be such that the nigerian people will start buying fuel for less than 500 naira at least because if it goes back to even 400 naira people will clap and say it has we have tried yes because what you used to take to the filling station to buy five liters of fuel just few months ago is just one liter now less than a so so what are we saying and i wish i wish they could have explored the technology that i'm just saying i say no v someone who doesn't know anything they could have explored the technology used by bow fire that's what they call it in the in protaco and all that i'm saying this because in rice production for instance there are rice meals that will will will meal the rice they will remove the husk from the rice and all that but it doesn't have the ability to remove the stones that's why sometimes you have this local rice having stones yes but there are also other machines whose only job is to destone remove all the stones so you can produce it from this small meal that can do it without removing the stones and just take it to the one that will clean it for you and remove all the stones so local rice now is safer than it used to be yes so if they could have explored the technology of bow fire and collecting this and cleaning it i'm just saying randomly and cleaning it in the protaco refinery i think it will be faster i think there will be more fuel and then it will be cheaper because the technology is yes a better process yeah so sometimes in my village we have the meal that was one at one point the biggest meal in rice meal in in africa now it's not the biggest i'm sure but it used to be the biggest meal in the 80s and early 90s now if you can mill your rice somewhere else you can take it there for cleaning you know it polishes it and removes the stones for you and you take it home if you go to a back leaky it also happens that they have a lot of meals this in fact a community of rice meals that can do this without cleaning it and then you take it to where it will clean yeah so if they could explore it's just a division of labor yes they could explore the technology which is cheap enough and then see how they can take it from there and say okay since this is this may not be as clean as it is which i don't know anyway because people have been using it and they're not complaining if it's not as clean as it should be pass it through this and then we'll clean it for you and all that yeah and if they're even bothered about you know it being illegal or something grant us people licenses quantum licenses to be able to operate even you do it if you if because that technology is cheaper it must be cheaper right for people to be able to do it in their home it must be cheaper so explore that and see how you can develop that there are people who have read courses that can do things like yes commission them let's them see how they can improve it so that we'll have these cottage meals let's say or cottage refineries that's how we'll call it a lot littered everywhere and we can get our own crude oil and refine so some of these people who do not even want to sell in Nigeria that want to smuggle it and all that they will have a legal business we buy crude from Nigeria we we refine it and our own is to refine and sell to other countries right it's legal business but you know i'm not saying like an expert politicians must be well if you are an expert please advise us i think that we should get someone to advise us on you know how to go about it will they advise us well the government advice the government on how to go about it and hopefully i mean fuel can just reduce in price small please it would help us okay let's move over to our last uptrending and this one gov now bearding laments rise in court is in cases the urban state governor duck ball a bearding has expressed concern over the surge in cultism and the attendance bloodletting in the states urging the department of state services dss to devise measures to fight the criminal act to a standstill a bearding highlighted that the prevalence of court activities which was never a major issue in the past is now becoming a huge source of concern and quite worrisome to the residents of the state the governor disclosed this on thursday at the southwest donald conference of state directors of security held at um somewhere in abel kota the state capital while addressing the audience of security operatives a bearding express worry that even school children and adolescents were also involved in courtism a bearding said that an urgent need for the man of the department to understand the motives behind such involvement the reasons for the escalating violence and killings among court members and the incentives that attract individuals to join the groups in the state the governor equally urged the dss to investigate the root causes behind worrying this worrying trend speaking at the program the director dss organ state command commander for lasha day adi kayoja assured the governor of a safe and more secure organ state adi kayoja assured that the department would continue to work in synergy with other security agencies to effectively combat insecurity in the state the dss's boss who expressed his pleasure at the at the southwest zone as we marked with kidnappings along highways pledged that the security agency will combat the menace with experience and expertise gathered from his relationship with other sister agencies um so i've i've heard of you know kids even joining court kids in in secondary school from secondary school they start they're joining they started with clicks they say oh you know we just we're just a click of friends and then they move over to universities and they join calls but now we're even seeing that the court is moving into secondary school and from this statement that we've read even attisans people in this state joining this court they're asking what the incentive is first of all a court is a gathering of people with like minds they have the same ideologies and all that it doesn't have to be a a bad thing even a church can be described as a cult in some way in a positive way because they're not gathering to kill people and all that the incentive um why cultism entered into nigeria in the first place is to fight inequalities that's why showing car brought it is the father of cultism in nigeria and i'm not sure what is happening now what's his intention yeah because they have to fight for good grades they have to fight for their rights in the school and all that so he came up with that that is understandable but right now if you're asking of the incentive i'm sure they know already what the incentives are um a lot of people in the political sphere are people who have been or are still members of course yes so there is no cult in nigeria that doesn't have a very highly placed politician right now in our country but you can quote me anywhere whether you think it's very local whether i think it's sophisticated or not they must have one person at least that is high up there so if you can find a governor because we've seen cases where some governors fly the colors that's what you're saying yes they fly the colors of some particular calls red blue and you see that the people that have been given appointments are in some way related to these cults and all that right then what other incentive are you looking for and if the dss does what they do and i'm sure they do i'm sure they have a lot of names of people who are highly placed that are already cultists just like the half the names of the people who are sponsoring Boko Haram and nobody has ever been arrested so let's just stop asking us what the incentives are so i think this is what it is right most of these people they'll tell you they're in a confrontanity oh you know what we're just we're just friends group of friends gathering together moving for um and the same ideologies right that's how they would they would say to you but guess what the little ones who are joining this court most times are being used as puppets they're being used to carry out to carry out their activities so the bad activities that these politicians would naturally not put their hands into they will send these other ones to go do it so that's the reason why they keep recruiting these people and those are the incentives why are you talking about incentives obviously if i have someone who's a you know highly placed politician backing me up even when i do something bad if i'm if i'm arrested this person will come and you know bill me out if i need money i can get money from this person um you know just that power that you know that is backing you obviously those are the incentives that these people would have to join this court i give you two two two short stories i was teaching in one school in akwaibon state in okuma back a christen secondary school that's how it is nigerian christen secondary school and in ss1 a lot of them were 14 15 the oldest was 16 guess what there was a very huge problem of cultism in that school and my students of 14 15 were part of it wow this is like uh how many years ago in a very early 90 i think 1999 19 oh well not not early 90 late 90s 99 2000 they were 14 years some of them were bearing gospel names in fact one of them was actually called gospel wow it was a big problem so the principal had to come out call all the children out some of them were just as three and they were already joining they were already in a cult in fact there were so many bad things such that at some point i was teaching them a something on literature and i asked them a question that they were supposed to ask me it is because of love they were supposed to answer that and they were telling me because someone was if you read you've read the lion and the jewel there was someone who was so so obsessed with the girl and even when the girl rejected him he didn't want to live and i asked what was the reason i was expecting them to say a lot and they were saying uh sir it maybe is kubu no mi you know what kubu no mi is no it's a love potion oh wow 14 years already for further the way they were telling me they were mentioning names you did it that time hey i know but you did it too i was just looking at them like i was sweating even when it was summer time but that's one by the way uh the second thing is that when i started out as a broadcaster early in crossing the state there was a community that was so plagued with this cultism and they knew the people that were doing this they were killing people so the community heard about 15 of them came together went to the police and they identified this people killing me wow anyway let me finish my story they identified these people got them arrested okay they gave they brought a list with the approval of the police they brought a list to us to announce because these people were wanted they were running away from the community and all that the police declared them wanted they brought the list to us