 Very good morning to you, and thanks for joining us on the run-up. My name is Nyamgul Agadji, and I'm glad to also have here with me Mr. Bayo Oluwake. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Good morning, Nyamgul, and good morning to us. Zizwa, it's nice to be here. It's a very good thing that NIDAVOS is traveling, and I hope that a lot of people with very urgent needs are not traveling on air today, because the news reaching us, I don't know if it has been resolved as we speak, is that the staff of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport have been going on strike, or are on strike, because activities that have been grounded. The staff of Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, PLC, NACO, began a strike action over salary increment today, January 23. The striking members had met with their management on Sunday, January 22, that's yesterday, while the deliberations yielded no tangible results, hence the proceeded with the strike this morning. And I'm just wondering, Bayo, whether problems in Nigeria always have to get to the point of strike, because I know a lot of people might have urgent things, and because you know that internal flight, the highest will be like one hour, you just schedule whatever you have somewhere else, maybe in Abuja, or maybe in Kano or somewhere, knowing that you can go today, only for you to get to the airport, and the staff are on strike, you cannot move, activities are grounded. Why do we always have to resort to strikes? That question is a recurring one, and I'm not too sure that I or any other person outside of those in government will have an answer. I think that strikes are a legitimate weapon to press home certain demands. The question is always, at what point do you initiate a strike? And I think this is where the debate usually lies, but I don't think anybody will disagree that strike is a legitimate weapon, with which to advance or to pursue the collective interest of a professional workforce. Having said that, those who initiate strikes, of course, want to do it at a time when it will have maximum impact, and that is what might explain what has happened today, where people who probably shall look to travel at certain times will find that they are unable to do so because of the impact of a strike. I would wish that the incoming administration would reflect deeply on this particular phenomenon, because we have suffered tremendously from it, especially in the last three years, and trying to create an atmosphere that will engender dialogue and rapprochement, rather than an atmosphere that will be dependent on action being taken only after strikes have been initiated. Yeah, like you said rightly, someone outside government may not be able to answer this question, and that includes you and I, but it just goes to say how people in government possibly think, because, for instance, today we're still hearing problems between ASU and the federal government, and it's not because there were no dialogues, but because there were dialogues, and they came to a conclusion. Since 2009, that's 14 years, 2009, so now, till now, these things have not been concluded, and so when you deliberate, and it gets to a point where you have resolutions from a deliberation, and then these resolutions are not kept, they are not implemented, then how can we even blame the people who are on strike? But this brings me to another issue. Just this morning, Konwa, which is a breakaway faction from ASU, is also demanding that they pay them some of the monies that they were supposed to pay them and they have not paid, and ASU, on the other hand, is also demanding that they be paid, even for the months that they supposedly did not work. So now, ASU is talking about the fact that they are being threatened by the federal government, that they might be scrapped, because there's a Konwa now with federal government registered to more or less fight ASU. But instead of Konwa being the solution, it's now like it's a duplicity of the problems for government. So does it give you any worry, any cost to worry as to how the reasoning of people in government is? Because you say one thing, you do another thing, you want to do divide and rule, you increase your problems and all that. Why do they think the way they think? I don't know if you've had a taste of government to know how the bug bites when you go into government. Well, I was briefly in government, but not at the federal level. You were not at the federal level. Now, what I would say is that, you see, when these things happen, in my humble opinion, we oftentimes don't get the whole picture of what is happening. We get the picture that each of the parties wants the public to get, and that's what goes into the media. And I also think, I mean, if I digress, for instance, sometimes you hear the sports association in Nigeria come out and say a particular embassy has denied our athletes or the visa to any of these are to enable them to participate at an international event. But they will not tell you whether they comply with the requirements of that particular embassy for the issuance of visa. In other words, the stipulated number of days within which you have to apply for your visa application process to become completed. So I just use that as an example, because I know that does happen from time to time to the question of a party that is negotiating with another party. It is sometimes what the parties want us to know that we know. And to that extent, to be quite honest and with great respect, it's sometimes very difficult to engage in proper analysis of what is happening. For me, what is not in doubt is that, and I don't want to revisit this, because I have said before the program, there are so many issues involving our education system. ASU is just one symptom. And when we are talking of ASU, we're talking of universities, and when we are talking of universities, we recognize that universities are owned by three different categories of proprietors. You have the federal government, you have the state government, and you have private institutions. And then you want to negotiate with one of those three to gain an agreement that will be binding on all the three. So for me, from a democratic standpoint, I find that quite interesting and intriguing, but I will not go for that because these are very emotive issues and very sentimental issues. The only ally to that would be the question of how you go and strike and almost entirely destroy the career of a generation of students. Regardless of how legitimate your things are, I believe that in the 21st century, and if we are intellectuals, we should be able to find other ways to drive over our funds. Now, this does not, in any way detract from your question, which says that even Konoa that has been established is already having some issues. And I think we will continue to have these issues unless, at the negotiating level, in my humble opinion, all the owners of universities are involved in the negotiation. Because if I own a university and you go and agree with another party and you expect me to comply and to pay what I probably will not be able to pay, we will keep having a protracted problem. You will be going around in circles. You have already some state governments threatening at the point that they are not going to be able to pay their own universities what the federal government was about to reach with us. So, there are so many issues. I'm not saying these are the main reasons and I'm not saying that's a reasonable point. I'm just saying that today all parties to any kind of dispute must come first of all in an open and transparent way and try to address these things in a holistic manner rather than this piecemeal approach, which will keep seeing us going around in circles. But I hope it won't be like France where the unions totally control everything. Well, the key statement is that transparency that you're talking about. Let's just get to that point where government will be transparent enough so that anybody who is lying against them or trying to blackmail the government or the information will be in public glare. All of us will know about what is going on. And now, when government tells you they have consulted widely, you begin to ask yourself who did they consult? Because we've seen a lot of things that the consultation led to pronouncements that they made and the real quarters that consultations should have been made will come out and deny. For instance, the presidency has said that the Mohammed Buhari, the president of Nigeria, did not give any sanction for the increment of PMS in our country. But it went ahead and it is being increased in very many quarters. They talked about removal of subsidy last year and the president said he knew nothing about that and so many other things. And you tell us that you've consulted and who did you consult? You didn't consult the authorities that should be consulted. You didn't consult the people that should be consulted. And then you're talking about consultation. I just hope that we'll get to that point where we don't have to use our flashlights to look for the information regarding anything that is happening in our policy. And also, I hope that we get to the point where we don't have to have a gridlock on our roads in Lagos anytime the president visits. I don't know how it is in your own axis, but this morning when I came to work very early, I think everybody had a travel advisory that yesterday, so they moved very early. So I said 5.30, 6.00 o'clock that the roads are usually a bit free. Today it was clocked. Was it the same thing in your axis? You know, I took the travel advice so seriously that I'm stuck where I am. I'm stuck where I am. But I mean, this also speaks to some of these things we keep talking about on the run-off, hoping that whoever comes in or the next set of elected leaders are keeping all of these things in mind and are going to be doing something about it. I think we need to begin to call the respective agencies of government to order. And I mean the media. If the presidency said it did not issue an increase, a directive or support the increase in the cost of PMS, premium motor spirit, which is known as petrol. That for me, as somebody who analyzes things, that for me will be correct. But did the Ministry of Petroleum issue that directive? So the Ministry of Petroleum is part of the government, is an arm of the government. So the presidency might say we didn't issue any directive, but it's silent on whether the Ministry of Information did. So we should ask the Ministry of Information, did you issue that directive? As the media, we need to ask the Ministry. Because if they said the government has not issued the directive, then that's serious. But it says the presidency did not issue the directive. This could be correct or it may not be. But did the Ministry of Petroleum resources issue the directive? So the spokesperson of the Ministry should tell us, the minister of state, Mr. Timmy Greer-Silver, should tell us. So we as the media, we really need to interrogate those things and we need to go beyond that. Okay, the presidency has made a statement fine. But we go beyond that. So who might have issued that directive? Because the petrol stations will not dare increase the pump price. We know that this is Nigeria. You don't increase the pump price. There has not been an official condition for you to do so. Because it's related to subsidy and subsidy is paid by the government. So you cannot unilaterally sell at the price and then demand that subsidy be given to you for that price. You get what I'm saying? Okay, well, I am glad at least that in all our cry on the run-up and other programs that we do, talking about the fact that we need to have pride in our own thing. And we talked about the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs that that should have been a Chatham House. And we talked extensively about that and said there was absolutely no need to go to Chatham House by anybody because it wasn't really to talk about a foreign policy which we are supposed to address today, part of it. And some people, I'm glad to hear, are beginning to recognize the fact that we have something really, really good in Nigeria and they want to go to the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and give us what they think is in their heart that they can use to make Nigeria better. So we're encouraging every other person anytime you have to talk to Nigerians, look for an Nigerian outlet that you can talk to us and we will be happy to listen to you. But today, our focus is not on the things that we've just talked about. We've talked about the fact that some people are on strike and they shouldn't always be that today. And a few days after, we will be focusing on foreign policy and the new government. Foreign policy, as we know, implicates how a country projects its cloud, influence, leverage, soft or hard, power at the global stage in a manner which meets its singular national interests or interests, or indeed the collective national interests of their light states. Nigeria undoubtedly occupies a central place in the economic community of West African states we know as Ekoas. Nigeria's capital houses both the headquarters and the parliament of Ekoas and this is understandable because over 50% of the Ekoas population live in Nigeria. Remember that we are the biggest black nation, the most populous country, black country in the world. Nigeria's GDP is larger than that of the combined GDP of all other Ekoas states put together. Today, like I said, we will be assessing Ekoas relevance to Nigeria in an era of dwindling national economy with a new government coming. We're hoping after February 25th we're going to have a new government that we'll be waiting to be sworn in on May 29th. But we'll take a quick break now when we return its foreign policy and the next government. Stay with us. You're welcome back. It's still the run-up. We said we're going to be talking about the foreign policy and especially as it relates to Ekoas and Nigeria relationship. The Nigerian federal government has paid 100,324,011.33 dollars to the economic community of West African states, that is, Ekoas, as a community levy for last year. Despite Nigeria's larger-than-life financial contributions to Ekoas, the country and its citizens have not benefited immensely, or at least that is how it seemed to be. How can the new government better Ekoas contribution to Nigeria? And already you know that I have here with me Mr. Adebayo Oluwake. Even though he's been on the program all the time, today he is here as the Principal Research Fellow African Resource Development Centre. Once again, I'd like to say welcome to you, Mr. Oluwake. Thank you, Ambul. So you're giving me two hearts. I'm wearing two hearts. Okay. Yeah. Let's begin with Ekoas. You know, Ekoas came to being economic community of West African states. We were hearing about that from when we were little. So let's begin to just find out why it was formed. Let's begin with that. Okay. Ekoas, the economic community of West African states, was established in 1974. The principal architects of the formation of Ekoas were General Yasinbe Ayadema of Tugu and General Yakubu Governor of Nigeria. Now, some analysts have suggested that the formation of Ekoas was a result of, was a culmination of the actualization of the experiences of Nigeria during her unfortunate civil war. And what do they mean by that? During the Nigerian civil war, France, that was then led by President Charles Tugol, wanted all Francophone countries to recognize the Republic of Diatra. And he would acknowledge that at that time, and maybe reasonably up till now, the metropolitan French power has significant influence over its former colonies. And so people expected that all those former French territories would immediately recognize Diatra. Strangely, it was only Kondroboa, under the late President Huffabwaini, who recognized Diatra. The rest of the Francophone countries totally refused, and rather supported the indivisibility of the Federation of Nigeria and its territorial integrity. That was a big lesson for the Nigerian political elite, and they never forgot that. And not a few people have suggested that had the Francophone countries gone ahead to recognize Diatra, the outcome of the Nigerian civil war might have been completely different. And so at the end of the war, the government of Nigeria took steps to consolidate relationship with our neighbors. And it is within that spirit that an economic integration plan, which is expressed in ecobas manifested. And President Yasinpe Ayadema was a very prime supporter of that movement. And then we saw the emergence of ecobas. Don't forget also that before ecobas was established, there had been a union of Francophone West African states, which had been existing, and which was largely also predicated on the common currency, the safer common currency of the Francophone countries, which was backed by France. So some people even suggested that, okay, despite the fact that the Francophone countries supported Nigeria, then nonetheless, ecobas had no future because the Francophone countries would pay more allegiance to the survival of their own union and the common currency that was tied to that. But today we know that it's a complete different scenario. So this was what led to the establishment of ecobas. And the idea was to bring proper to harness the commonalities between us as people of the same subregion. Incidentally, we have cultural and ethnic ties despite the artificial colonial boundaries. And I think those two have actually manifested more and have strengthened ecobas. I will just quickly add, you asked a question at the beginning as to whether Nigeria, despite paying over 100 million dollars, as its own community deals for last year, have actually benefited from ecobas. I would say that all ecobas countries have benefited significantly from ecobas. And we need to, I mean, we need to begin to look at what we mean by that. Ecobas is the first political union or union of states in recent time to introduce free movement of persons. Many people will not know that ecobas introduced free visa movement even before Schengen. Even before Schengen, ecobas already had its community citizens to travel to each other's countries and stay for three months without the visa. And that has simply been followed up with the ecobas passport. So this is not the focus of the discussion at this moment, but I can tell you that there are so many, many, many benefits that ecobas has provided for its community citizens. And ecobas today is recognized as the most integrated union of its type in the world. And ecobas is the first sub-region in the world to launch a pacific resolution of conflict by deploying its own peacekeeping force. And not only that, the peacekeeping force of ecobas became the very first peacekeeping force in the world to actually deploy peace enforcement operations. What the United Nations regards as chapter seven operations. At the time ecobas deployed changed from white helmets to green helmets in Liberia to drive the NPFL out of Mongolia, which was peace enforcement. Even the United Nations peacekeeping system had never, had never ever deployed a chapter seven mission. So the UN itself came to understudy the chapter seven deployment of ecobas forces when they converted from white helmet operations to green helmet operations and forced the national patriotic point of Liberia away from Mongolia to Banga. But even before then at the very deployment of what was called operation liberty, which was which saw Nigeria's NNS and Bay deploying to one extricate tract refugees in Liberia. The ecobas operation when that was deployed in 1990 was the first ever peace enforcement operation in the world. So it's going to be inaccurate to suggest that ecobas has done so well in many things, but there are also a lot of areas that people need to focus in. Okay, like you said, the focus of this discussion is to actually look at the gains of ecobas and what the next government should do and all that. But, you know, as we say in our, in our Anthem, the hero, the labor of our hero's past shall never go in vain. Now the thing is sometimes we lose sense of history. We don't know the struggles that were put into a particular thing, the formation of a particular thing to give us some kind of peace that we have right now. For instance, when Goan talked about the three ours that give birth to NYSC, some people may lose the sense of history, why that came to be for reconciliation, for rehabilitation, and every other thing. So until, yeah, until they hear what really happened. Now in the formative years of ecobas, there must have been, like you were talking about the Francophone countries, not recognizing Biafra and all that, but there may have been some, some rivalry between the Anglophone countries and the Francophone countries until they came to a consensus where we have the kind of ecobas that we have now. Okay, so can you throw more light on if there was any kind of rivalry between these countries that made us to arrive where we are now? We are absolutely spot on young group. There were rivalries and very acute rivalries of that. You know, the arrowhead of, if you like, the arrowhead of opposition to the formation of ecobas was called the Boa, under President Bufun Gwaini. Okay, and fortunately for those who were pushing for ecobas, they also had a very influential in Francophone West Africa, and that's the late President Ahmad Secuturi of Guinea. You see, President Secuturi of Guinea was very pragmatic, and this could be a function of the way Guinea itself became independent, because when Ghana became independent, Guinea also requested France to grant it independence, and then President Strasbourg was very annoyed, you know, that Guinea wanted independence. And I won't go too much into history, but chance to go was somebody who emasculated the parliament in France, because usually whenever he wanted something passionately done, being a war hero who was very well respected by the French people, he would say let's go and have a referendum, and he would always win the referendum, and he would make the French parliament irrelevant. So President Chance de Gaulle reported it to Secuturi and said let us have a referendum, and let's see if your people will even support you for independence. Strangely, Chance de Gaulle lost that referendum. President Secuturi won, and so Guinea became independent, and when Guinea became independent, France removed all the infrastructure it had put in Guinea, telephone poles, electrical lines, everything was occluded. But guess what? Ghana came to the rescue of Guinea. Ghana replaced all of those things, and so Guinea forged a very close relink with Anglophone West Africa, okay? And over the years, when you look at the foreign policy orientation of Guinea, especially on that present Atman Secuturi, it was always in the direction of Anglophone West Africa. So Secuturi successfully checked with Guinea, and consolidated the support of President Atman, who is also from French Togo, you know, to support the initiative that General Gohan was pushing. And so Iqours was able to overcome that initial, you know, acute rivalry, which could have scuttled this formation at infancy. So, I would say pragmatism prevailed, you know, rather than Anglophone or Francophone West Africa. But the reality was that the rival is there. Okay, we'll go into specifics about the journey so far of Iqours. But in your opinion, in which administration, let's go to administrations now, since the return of democracy at least, in which administration do you think Iqours has played the greatest role? Either Iqours playing the greatest role in Nigeria or Nigeria playing the greatest role in Iqours, as the case may be, because we need to begin to see our relationship with Iqours, what it can bring to Nigeria, so that when the next administration is coming in, they will do more or it will do more to make sure that this relationship continues and even taken a notch higher. Yes, I think that to be quite honest, I think all the leaders of Iqours countries, when they came to realize the potential of that so- that we call the regional economy community, right? When they came to see the potential of Iqours, okay, they all began to give their support. But the crystallization of that came during the Liberian Civil War. In 1990, the focus was on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The United Nations and everybody was focused on that. Yet we had this deadly civil war unfolding in Liberia, where citizens of West African states were being killed in huge numbers. And we had a refugee influx into Guinea, refugee influx into Ghana, and you remember very well, we had the Ohu refugee camp in states in Nigeria, which was also a huge influx of Liberian refugees into Nigeria. So the international community was not going to come to Liberia because they were fixated on what was happening between Iraq and Kuwait. And West African leaders stepped up their game. And all the things I told, I said earlier, in the inception of the program, about the achievements of Iqours, even despite the initial difficulties and shortcomings and weaknesses of Iqour, which is the Iqours monitoring group, it still went ahead to do some start-up events. Now, I think during the presidency of President Babas on job, and you and I discussed this last week on one of the editions of the program, the presidency of President Babas, President Tabun Baki of South Africa refined the African Union, so to speak. But we're talking about that today. But what I'm mentioning this is because within the spirit of the integration of the African continent, which is the very basis of Nepal, the new technology for Africa's development, we saw Iqours being directly initially, because it was during this period that the Iqours passport came out. It was during this period that the Iqours not of justice was established. It was during this period that the Iqours parliament was established. And it was also during this period that the Iqours central bank was established. So these achievements and successes came and Iqours, actually because it already had a track record, it already had a structure, was always able to implement faster than the other regional bodies, right, you know, faster than the Southern African Development Community, or the East African Community, or even the Central African Customs Union in Central Africa. So Iqours used its framework, its experience, its track record, and its core of skilled technocrats who have been drilled and trained over the years to be able to actualize all these things faster. Even the Iqours passport we are talking about, Iqours was the first subregion in Africa to have a community passport. So I think this happened between 1999 and 2007. The leadership of the subregion within that period all played a significant role. And let us not forget the role also of Captain Thomas Sankara, head of state of Bokina Faso, who also was able to mobilize because of his youthfulness, out of the box approach, was actually able to inspire a lot of youths in the West African community and had his own perspective and ideas about how Iqours could move faster. So I think this period could be regarded as the, there's a word I'm looking for now, you know, the real cool period, if you like, in the language of today's young people. I think this would be the real cool period of Iqours. You know, you had the traditionalist Iqours leaders and how they were doing things. I had the young Thomas Sankara, the Jerry Rollins, you know, approach to doing things. And when all of those were married together, we saw Iqours moving so rapidly. So I think this would be the golden years. Now that's the face I was looking for. This would be the golden years of the economic community of West African states. But do you think now that it seems as if feet have been dragged when it comes to relating with Iqours, it is hindering our progress here in Nigeria? Do you think, because some people will argue that there's a thin line between trying to work as a communion and then letting external influences come into your policies and everything that you're doing in your country? Do you think a divorce from Iqours or just a relationship that is not that strong with Iqours will lead to an underdevelopment of the component countries, especially like Nigeria? Absolutely, absolutely. I'm a firm believer in Iqours, not just Iqours, I'm a firm believer in integration approaches, not just in Africa but all over the world. And if you look, why are we talking of the European Union today? Because when you come together, you can actually bargain better. You can deploy your resources, you can deploy your advantages, and you can negotiate from a stronger position. But if you're negotiating in the international arena, you know, singularly, you are not as strong as if you would be able to do so, if you could do so multilaterally or even bilaterally or trilaterally. So if you come back to Iqours, you would find out that if you talk about social integration, don't forget that most of our Iqours citizens are the same. If you look, you have houses in Nigeria, you have houses in Benin Republic, you have houses in Ghana. If you look at Yoruba's, you have Yoruba's in Nigeria, you have Yoruba's in Benin, you have Yoruba's in Togo, you have cousins of Yoruba's up to Côte d'Ivoire, okay? If you look in the east, between Aqaibom and Cross River, they have relatives in Cameroon, in Central Africa, although Central or Cameroon is not an Aqours country. I'm just using this as an illustration. So we had all suffered from colonially imposed boundaries. Many Nigerians will not know that as early as 30 years ago, if you wanted to travel to Benin Republic by air, you might have had to, first of all, fly to Paris. But these are things that Iqours has abolished, the construction of the road through Seme and through Ota, Idiruku, into Benin. The Idiruku road had been there for a long time, but Seme, but that was the first modern highway, which caught the distance. Even if you are going all the way to Ghana, many Nigerians used that road. These are some of the benefits for our citizens to see their relatives. People in Badakri, they have relatives in Benin Republic, they have relatives maybe up to Tobu. So Iqours was able to ensure social integration at the cultural and ethnic level. If you look at economics, not many Nigerians would know that we have a lot of companies in Ota Axis, manufacturing pharmaceuticals. And these companies actually manufacture pharmaceuticals, not only for Nigeria, but for the entire Iqours region. If you buy their produce, and I will mention their names, if you buy the products of these drug manufacturing companies, you would see that the inscriptions on those packets are in English and French. It is because they produce, not just for Nigeria, but they produce for the entire Iqours region. And so that is one of the benefits here. We harness economy of scale. If you can do something better in one Iqours country, there's no need to replicate in others. Just produce there and yourself. And the Iqours protocol allows for that. And I think it was the abuse of that Iqours protocol that some few years ago led to Nigeria closing its borders in an attempt to enforce respect for that protocol. So there are a lot of benefits. Then if you talk of peace and security, Iqours was the first. What the South Africans, Southern Africans have not only been able to do in Mozambique to deploy a community military force into Mozambique. They were able to do because of the Iqours experience. Iqours deployed into Liberia, Iqoumog 1, deployed into Sierra Lone, Iqoumog 2, deployed into Côte d'Ivoire, Iqoumisi. And this is interesting because not only did Côte d'Ivoire want to, not only did she wanted to frustrate Iqoumog, she also wanted to frustrate Iqoumog. But guess what? Côte d'Ivoire itself, you may have the talks between President Alassane Watara and former President Laurent Baku, Côte d'Ivoire itself became the beneficiary of Iqoumog. Iqoumisi was established. That is Iqoumog's mission in Côte d'Ivoire to go and maintain peace in Côte d'Ivoire, which had in the years past of course Iqoumog and Iqoumog. And then you had Iqoumog in the Gambia, which is the most recent when President Yaya Jami, who had lost that election and conceded, changed his mind and decided he was not leaving. And then Iqoumog deployed Iqoumog, Iqoumog's mission in Gambia. These are all pacific instruments that no other subregion in the world has been able to deploy in its frequency and given the scope of its impact. So Iqoumog has had all these benefits to its own citizens. But like I said, there are many, many areas where Iqoumog should also be moving. For example, innovation, technology. Okay, Bayo, just a moment, Bayo. I'd like us to just take a short break. It is said that if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go with others. So that means standing alone is not beneficial at all because sometimes, all the time you need someone and some other people to be there with you. That possibly is the role that Iqoumog is playing in the subregion. But when we come back, we'll just look very closely at what the next administration needs to do specifically, how to grow that relationship with Iqoumog for the benefit of Nigeria. Because we're talking foreign policy and whatever will be beneficial to Nigeria is what we are looking at. And also what will be beneficial to Iqoumog because Nigeria is the giant of Africa and is like the perpetual leader of Iqoumog. So we should be looking out for our brothers as well that may not be as big as we are. But we'll take that very short break and when we return, we'll talk on that. You're welcome back. It's still the run-up and we're talking foreign policy today. We zeroed in on Iqoumog as a group. And we're looking at how we can tap into that and even exploit it, if I may use the word, for the benefit of Nigeria because foreign policy has to do with what you intend to get by relating with every other person, every other country, whether in Africa, whether in the world, what benefit will it have to us or for us. And we're looking at Iqoumog today and what the next government must do to oil that relationship and take even Iqoumog as a whole to the next level. I still have Mr. Adebayo Loa K, Principal Research Fellow, African Resource Development Center here with me, and we're talking just that. So, Bio, let me come back to you. The next government, God willing, May 29 will have the next government. I don't even want the election to go into a run-up or a, what do they call it, a tie that they will have to do. But I'm calling the run-up. Yeah. Let the run-up remain at the run-up level in plus TV Africa. But right now, what must the next government do? Because if we are saying, when I asked you the question of when you thought the golden age, that's the word you used, was, and you said Obasanjo's time. Obasanjo's time was so long ago. We've had administrations in between. So, the next government should make sure that we get back to the golden age and maybe surpass it to whatever age is more than the golden age, if that is possible. So, what are the issues, what are the things to be looked into as we go into the next political era, as it were, when we get to that point? Okay. I think first of all, and this is a very good question. Thank you. I think first of all, you need a layer of intelligence. You need a core of intelligence who can advise the government. Okay. We, we, it's strange, and this is very strange. We have the best under the military. I know many who don't want to hear that, but it is factual. The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, under the Murita Laoban Sundari administration, was the architect of the, what later came to be the dynamic foreign policy, which saw the, the, the liberation of several Southern African states. So, what that means is that you need an intellectual component of actually everything the government is going to do. And for foreign policy, there can be no exception. So, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, the various political science and international relations, the partners of the universities, they need to be encouraged, they need to be empowered, they need to be motivated. So, actually engage in research to come up with policy papers that will guide that government based on what the orientation of that government is foreign policy wise. That's the first thing the next president needs to be doing. The second thing is that we have seemingly, we have seemingly given much more to echo us than our community partners. Okay, some might argue and say, well, it is because you are the biggest, you have the biggest population, you are more endowed. True. But I believe that our community partners can also be needed to give more. Not the way President Trump tried to get native members to, to give, you know, but in some sort of a sort of democratic and win-win, you know, orientation to get them to do more for the South region. And then the next president needs to be looking at how can we in concrete terms better protect the interests of our community citizens within the echo us arrangement. And what am I saying this? We've had issues of Nigerian small scale business people, entrepreneurs being harassed in some countries in the echo us sub region, right? And especially with Ghana, and this is, this is a fact, as I think we can actually mention that there was a very big issue with Ghana and both governments were talking. But the truth is if you talk to many Nigerian small scale entrepreneurs, they would tell me that they do not feel protected by our political elites within the echo us when they are doing business in the echo us region. So the next president of Nigeria really needs to look at what exactly are those problems that often arise between our small scale enter entrepreneurs across echo us region and then find ways of resolving those problems so that they do not keep recurring, you know, and if we have to say to our community partners, look guys, we've done XYZ. If you keep doing this to our people, we are sorry, we are just not going to be, there are ways you send such messages in diplomatic terms. So I believe the next president really needs to be looking at those. And lastly, the capacity industrial capacity utilization of Nigeria, which has gone down so much, you know, our factories in Nigeria were producing for West Africa, you know, we have the largest concentration of factories. And when our factories go down, we lose the market we have built up in the echo us region. And if our factories are coming up, we may not be able to get that again. We have had businesses in Nigeria that reportedly relocated outside of Nigeria to other echo us countries. I would expect that since we have the largest market, the next president of Nigeria should ensure that he can create the environment for those businesses to return to Nigeria. And not despite that, still ensure that other echo us states can benefit from their products and services. Okay, thank you very much. We'll have to put a stop to it at this point so that we can bring the news. And after the news, if there's areas to clean up, we are going to clean up. Thank you very much bio for now. We're going to take this break and bring you the news at midday. And after that, we will round off the program. Stay with us.