 Okay, we're glad to know you're still there. We're being joined by our guest, architect Ezekiel Nyai, to public affairs analyst joining us from Acquirebom. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Good morning and thanks for having me again today. Okay, this is a break of the press, of the press on the break first. And we're starting with daily, daily trust. Daily trust is what we're beginning with and the daily trust leads with the headline Judgment Day for Tinobu Atiku Ob, a supreme court rules today. And then the writers on that story, I will win according to the president. I've made my case according to the vice president. We're confident of our candidates' victory that is according to LP and security beefed off as supreme court complex or at the supreme court complex. Okay, so this is the biggest headline this morning as so far, Judgment Day for Tinobu Atiku Ob, a supreme court rules today. Let's get your comments there before we move to others. I think that I will appeal to Nigerians. Appeal to Nigerians to know that it could go any way. And that this is a very, very, very finalist of the final bus stops and that whatever it is, we have three options on the table. Number one is that the current administration is retained saying that Mr. Tinobu has won. The second is that an alternate person is declared winner, which could be a PDP or Labor Party. And the third is that they are asked to go back and do a rerun. Now, as it is, Nigerians, is to know this is an action in futility. I hope you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you now. We can hear you now. We lost your audio for a moment there, but we can hear you loud and clear. Okay. If we look at the three options, I want to appeal to Nigerians that whichever is the option that comes, this is the final of the finals. So whatever you react or you say is inconsequential. So let's not make a bad situation worse by reacting in any way. If they say that Mr. Tinobu has won and is the final answer, then so be it. If they say that Labor Party, Mr. Peter Obi or Mr. Ticco of PDP then so be it. If they say go back for a rerun, then so be it. Let Nigerians just know that whatever comes out, we take it. And if it serves any lesson, it is that one, two, three things must of necessity be done. Our attention will turn to the National Assembly, who must of necessity look into setting gray areas that were left. You know that in this battle, I had gone right up to the Supreme Court and I can tell you that there are very many gray areas, not withstanding whatever is the judgment today would realize that at the end of the day, we must take our destiny in our hands and that's not by fighting physical wars, destroying things, the young people going on rampage and possibly losing a life or two. It is for all the elites, the enlightened people to start the process of making sure that we face the consequences and address the situations to ensure that our next set of elections are better than what we have. And in that process, I believe I'll be a very major player because I have so much to unpack. There are many things that we call judgment that fall short of justice, but I've also come to realize that on many occasions, you cannot blame the judges in as much as there are judges that are just incorruptible. There are also judges that are just not worth the name. And these are the details that INED will have to sit and look at. Above all, we have to look at that institution called INED and I have a lot to say concerning electoral processes. You can't collect money from Nigeria, taxpayers' money, train people, and you tell me that the people that you train with our money, most of which, virtually all of which come from either the youth service or they come from tertiary institutions, that means at least universities today do not know how to take picture and send. It's not possible. So it means that there are no consequences for bad behavior. I say this while I was in court that I was out to jail a minimum of 500 people and the chairman of the tribunal laughed and I thought it wasn't a joking thing. I think he would have said, you've made a very, very important statement and you're an enlightened person. Can you please substantiate how you intend to do that? Somewhere along the line, they even made a joke of it, before we jailed 1,000 people and I felt really bad because I'm talking to a lawyer or a judge who knows I'm an informed person and making such a statement and you're not bothered. You should interrogate that statement and ask me and I will tell you why because if there were nine votes in a place and that nine becomes zero, it's not just enough. If there were 72 votes in another place and the 72 votes became zero and the evidence is right there in front of you, there must be consequence for whom so ever was responsible. So I think it's a whole conversation that we'll not be able to take on the newspaper review but on a different platform. But this, whatever is gonna happen today, I want to appeal to all Nigerians. You know, so be it, let's move on and face the challenge of making sure that our next processes are interrogated and made better. There are two things that concern me. If it goes wherever, whatever way it's going to go, this is a precedent for future things to happen. That's concern number one. So I'm sure the judges are very conscious about that because whether you're saying that it is the law that states these or that, you will know also that the future may be bright or bleak depending on what you say today, what you pronounce today. Secondly, I think it's also not only INX fault but can't this, wouldn't this be an indictment on possibly the DSS or does the law not provide that any candidate that is going to contest, especially a position as big as the president of the country should be investigated. And all these things we are seeing now, if the DSS had passed every candidate, we should have been sure that whatever they said is true and no record can come from anywhere else to indict any of these people. So for me, don't you think the DSS also needs to sit up just not only INEC or don't they have those powers? About the DSS doing their prior interrogations and making sure that whatever is on the list is above court. Would have been saved all this embarrassment because if we can trust the DSS. Let me tell you something, let me tell you something. And this is a very serious conversation we must have. Our institutions are made for the administrations. And I say this with very minimal exceptions. Our institutions are made for the administrations. One of the most important things that happened to me was this very last elections I took part in. And we're gonna have a conversation where we sit down and we are living in denial. We are playing the ostrich. We are expecting a goat or a dog to meow and a cat to bark. There are many assumptions that we are making and those assumptions are just not tenable. We are becoming oblivious of the three C's I talk about all the time. The chances that come your way, the choices that you make and the consequences of your choices. The chances that come like leadership recruitment, the choices that you make on election day and the consequence I want. Let me tell you something. I want, this will shock many people. I wanted first the last president, Buahari to win. And I'll tell you the reason. If today, by the end of the administration of President Buahari, former President Buahari, Naira was a hundred Naira to a dollar and Fwell was sold at 50 Naira to a liter at the pump price. Guess what Nigerians will say? Good luck, Jonathan, just wasted our time. If there were just three Chibok children remaining to be released and Liesha Ribu had been released, Nigerians will say if Buahari had come, if they had allowed Buahari or Naira would have been one to one. Fwell would have been made a 10 Naira per liter. It made all the Chibok girls, they would have been released, every one of them. If we had allowed Buahari, if we had allowed Buahari, none Buahari came and we saw what happened. And immediately our senses switched at the election again and election came. And we were not asking the right questions. We went back to religion, went back to tribalistic considerations, we went back to the ethnic sentiments and we are here again. And then we now want to start to let the system remain, let things get too hard to a point where we wake up until we get to that point that we wake up as a nation, a time has to come when you feel it. I see poverty, I feel poverty, but the poor have not felt it, have not understood why they are poor. They don't understand what government is. They don't understand the consequences of their actions at the pole. We're still talking of selling votes. We're still talking of the enlightened ones staying back because politics is a dirty game. It's a conversation that we're going to have to sit down and talk. So it's not just the DSS. Why should the DSS work for administrations? And I stand to be challenged because lots of things are going wrong and a country as blessed as Nigeria cannot afford the luxury of being where it is today. So there's a lot of conversation we must have. There's a lot of things that are going wrong. There's a lot of things that we need to really sit down and call ourselves meeting. My friend tells me that from time to time he calls himself meeting. He will lock the room and close the door. No, close the door, lock the room and bring a chair. Keep it and say, my guy, sit down. It's you and me. That my guy is himself. He calls himself meeting to face setting decisions in his life that he must interrogate himself first. So I think that that time hasn't yet come, ready to come. And I hope it comes sooner so that we Nigerians can sit down and have a conversation. Who should be our president? Who should not even think? Think as much as think of being a national assembly member or a governor or a president. There are certain people that should not even as much as think. But today, all you need to be a president is have these watches that is insurmountable. You go and they're like, you know who this is a goat. You know it. You know your conscience tells you this is a goat. And then you, Mr. Wiseman, you carry your yam and give to the goat to keep for you. And when you come back, you start to complain, why did this goat eat the yam? Is the problem with the goat or the problem is with you? Don't we know who we elect as our governors, as our senators, as our president, as our assembly men? Don't we know them? Could we be bothered? And when the inevitable come come it comes what has become displayed, we start to wonder how come that the goat ate the yam? I mean, for goodness sake, we should wake up. Okay. Well, there's this other story about the Senate moving to bar CBN governors from partisan politics. Remember that the erstwhile CBN governor, Gaudwin M. Fili, had tried to contest and said that the farmers all over Nigeria contributed money to buy the farm for him, a farm of about 100 million Naira. He wanted to contest and all that. So the Senate now moves to bar CBN governors from partisan politics. I remember that when that was moved on the floor of the house, I think that was the second reading or so. The former NLC chairman and former Edo state governor, former chairman of APC, Adam Soshimole, kicked against it. He had a contrary opinion and said that the case of M. Fili was an off situation that cannot be said to be the normal thing. And he gave some kind of argument, but this is the crux of the matter. The Senate is now trying to say that the CBN governors must never be involved in partisan politics. I thought there was a law to that effect anyway. You see, it's about, it tells you the mindset that we have in this country. We really don't define offices for what they ought to be. By clear thinking, the man that is at the helm of affairs at the central bank should not even think, should not even contemplate, running for the office of the president. Not while he is still in office. I want to even take it a notch higher. I want to even say that when you are in office, you should not participate in the elections cycle while you are in office. You should be out of office for at least one election cycle. Why do I say this? The reason is that while you are in office and you want to partake in that election, you do two things more often than not. One is that you give favors to those that you will need, like a central bank governor, will now do these farmers program. And send so much of our monies to people creating for himself a network for political gains. So either you create that empire for yourself because they will favor you when you come out or and you amaze as much wealth as possible to use in running elections. But when you give yourself one election cycle, you would, no matter how much you are, you would have lost some level of official influence and start to work on personal influence which should be the basis of you being elected into office. So for me, not only that, we should even go ahead and say deputy governors cannot partake in an election except he is brought back as a deputy. But while you are a deputy governor, you cannot partake in the current election. You must come out of the office, allow one cycle to go and then would have solved this problem of governors making their deputies pay tires, giving them no responsibilities, believing that they will amass influence and want to take over from them. And then deputy governors who are supposed to be supporters of their principal starting to nurse in addition, becoming this lawyer, doing things that are unethical just for them to gain favor to get. So they are setting fundamental steps and decisions that we must take if we are going to have electoral processes that are credible. So it's not just a central bank governor. It should be a policy decision. Once you are in office, it's not enough to say resign one month to your primaries. No, that's not enough. That's not enough. When you know that in this coming election cycle, I cannot take part in it. You face your business and face your work and do it and you'll be neutral. But for as long as you know that you can get in a month before I resign, what's that supposed to mean? That means nothing, absolutely nothing. So it should be a policy that encompasses a certain kind of people in the office, in government. Okay, finally, after 133 days, DSS releases ex-EFCC chairman that is bar 133 days in incarceration. And it has just been released now. I think it was released yesterday. And I don't know how you feel about that. 133 days is quite some time. It's quite some time. It's actually, like I said, our institutional approach to things. You know, the government should have layers. You understand me? The investigator should also be investigated. The heads of agencies one must have file on the other. DSS should have file on the IGP. The police should have file on the DJ or chairman of EFCC. The EFCC should have a file on the ICPC leadership. It should be like that. And investigations should go on at different levels and layers. And we're the president who get all this information. The office of the NIA, the NSA. Even the NSA should also have a file by the DSS, you know? So that each of these organizations seeing that something has gone wrong. Anybody, by the time that you arrest that person you have done your investigation. You don't arrest and then search for. You search for, establish, arrest. After arrest, persecution. After persecution, it's either the person is released or the person is jailed. We need to come to a point where we run this country based on corporate best practices. Government is the highest level. When I hear who say government has no business in business I laugh at them. Government is more serious than think of the biggest business in the world. None comes close to what government is. Government is the boss that runs the life of all corporate institutions. As of today, government can say I always give this ridiculous or seemingly ridiculous analogy. As of today, government, and when it's a government National Assembly is a name of government. It's not only the presidency that, the National Assembly, my brother and my friend at Pabio is a president. One of the three presidents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Do you understand me? And the National Assembly can today being government say as from now we want to go indigenous. No banker should wear suits. All bankers should tie wrapper to show or if you are from the north, you wear babariga or something, we want to go indigenous. If that law is passed today, I want to tell you that all the suits of the bankers will become inconsequential. They will be now used to go to the church. No matter what you think it's a law, it will catch you. What do we now mean by that? It is that we must bring the best brains that will lay the best tracks for the corporate institutions to run on. The tracks are never laid by the corporate institutions. They are laid by government. Government runs our life. We must understand the imperatives, the consequences of the governance system that we run and make sure that we recruit the very best into government. And government must become more effective and more efficient than the best of the corporate institutions. Okay. We move now to the punch newspaper. And on the punch newspaper, we have diesel, jet fuel, rising prices, threatened industries, airlines. I saw a story yesterday where it was said that to travel from Isit Kano to Abuja or something like that, one of the northern states Kano or Kaduna to Abuja, the flight ticket is now like 200,000 Naira. And I didn't even know what to think. And I was telling somebody that the flight from Calabar, for instance, to Lagos two years ago, was 25,000 or even less than that by December. And December 2021 or so, or 2021, it was like 25,000 Naira. And just two years into these two years now, it has become something that you cannot even think about. Even the bus from Lagos to Calabar is more than the 25,000 Naira. That was airfare two years ago. It gives me worry. Now, airlines, I don't even know. I hear that they're even adding more seats to airlines. They are now becoming like our Danfo buses, where you have provisions for maybe two rows of seats and then you are having four so that they can cramp people inside there and make optimal profit from the small space that they have on their buses. I don't really know where we're going. I don't know how you feel about that because I, like someone said on X, that Nigeria is finished. That's what he said. I don't think we are finished anyway, but that's what someone said. 200,000 to travel within Nigeria, even if you're leaving from the creeks of Bakasi to Sokoto State, 200,000 Naira is quite a sum. You know, there was a time that there was a promo on K&Aways. I had something doing with Shelter Freak and I used to go to Nairobi a lot. And there was a time that you could go to Dubai with about 100 and how much was it? With less than 100,000 Naira, you could go to Dubai. You know, and I went quite often because I had to like be in Nairobi, like almost twice a month or things like that. You know, so, and there was a special promo where to go to Dubai, you know, they gave a very, very highly discounted rate. So I used to book Dubai while having stopped over in Nairobi because that's allowed. So I ended up going to Dubai for free and to Nairobi cheaper than I would have paid because the fare to Nairobi was cheaper than the fare to Dubai. Whereas you go to Nairobi because it was a K&Aways and have a stopover. So I ended up going to Dubai for free. So many times I'm paying less to go to Nairobi. What I'm saying is that that less than 100,000 was what I was paying as ticket, you know. And now you are telling me that for me to move within Nigeria, I need about 200,000. Before now. Okay, God has at my level, I'm about 60 next week. So I'm about retiring and having worked for all this length of time. I'm entitled to some level of luxury by the grace of God. So traveling business class or first class shouldn't be anything of consideration. It should be expected at this level. So Ibum Air has been 130,000, you know, going to Lagos from Uyo. And with this new fare, I don't know. You see, when you do business, you divide your costs by the elements involved. For instance, if I want to build and I buy a piece of land for 50 million, if I'm able to get 10 apartments, I will share the costs. So the unit cost of an apartment is going to be like 5 million. But if I make only two apartments, the unit cost is going to be 25 million. And if I can make 50 apartments, the unit cost is going to be 1 million. So the operational cost of an aircraft from one point to the other is relatively, relatively I use the word because with more weight, the engine needs a little more capacity, but relatively the same. Okay? So the crew is the same. Whether they carry one person, you know, or they carry maybe 50 people, the crew is going to be the same. The pilot has to be there. The co-pilot has to be there. So the operational cost divided by the number of persons reduces the unit cost. I think it is within that context that they are saying we can either increase the unit cost by taking the ticket cost higher or we make more people to come in. And by so doing, we spread the unit cost that differential by the extra people that we brought on board. And whichever is the reason, we must make sure that I don't care if there's, you know, in South Africa, there's an airline like Kuala Lumpur dot com, you know, some of those things where they don't serve you anything. You want to get anything you buy. You pay for it. You understand me? So I don't mind if one hour flight, if you have to stand, but let it be such that the aviation industry has established that there is no risk factor. For instance, you cannot stand in an aircraft because where is that a pocket and it falls, you know, you are expected to not just sit down but even belt up yourself. But if the elbow room or the arm room is such that you have to become more tight, but you are still safe and then the carrying capacity is not compromised, I think that there may be, it might be easier for me to say, add more seats. But even when we are here, adding more seats, it's really, really scary. That means there's some people who will never fly anymore because Kanu, yeah, I got the story now. Kanu to Abuja, 200,000 and Oweri to Abuja, 170,000. It's crazy. And the etiquettes were shown on the social media for people to see how can that be within the same country, 170,000 Naira from Oweri to Abuja and from Kanu to Abuja, 200,000. It's, I don't know. You see, like I said, it's, it's, it's, it's, they are saying things you really don't argue. It's about operational cost, operational dynamics. If that is what it costs them to operate, it either is going to be subsidized or it's going to be shared amongst the people. That's the thing, I don't even blame the airlines. The thing is there's a reason for that. Jet fuel, that's the story, jet fuel and other things. Have made it so difficult for airlines. They're complaining. And so they're resorting to doing all these things. It is not their fault. But who addresses the problem that brings these problems to the people? That's the thing. My God, let me tell you something. We need to wake up to face the realities of life. I've said this and I say it again. Number two, where I am very uncomfortable with this current administration is that they are setting fundamentals that they have not addressed. And it bothers me. One of such fundamentals is that government ought to be transparent and accountable. That mindset until we have people that understand this as an imperative. Why am I saying this? This cost of fuel, whether it is petrol or aviation fuel or diesel, the level of capacity that is there is unacceptable because we can't really tell exactly what the true position of things. And the question is, when will we come to terms with being honest and transparent with the people? And it bothers me because if Nigerians know things for a fact what they are and they understand that government does not have everything in terms of resources, we will now know what trips are important that we must undertake, what discussions we must make, what is possible and what is not possible. And for as long as we fail to address these fundamentals, we cannot make progress as a nation. There's too much speculation in Nigeria. Even when government has 10,000 Naira, we don't believe they have 10,000 Naira. And their body language does not show that as well. Let me, permit me to address an issue that has been really, really bothering me. And that is this issue I was listening to the Senate Committee Chairman on something, something talking yesterday on one of the stations and he was justifying. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Services, that will be our hot topic even, we'll be discussing with somebody else about that. It's really disturbing and all that. But yeah, let's wrap it up now. Yeah. That thing paid me. I wish I was the person you be discussing that thing with Ben, it's okay. I'm sure that people will do justice to it. Yeah. Let me tell you my brother, three things. Okay. Okay, you said time is up. Yes, time actually is up. But yes, it's really disturbing and like I said, we're going to be discussing that right after this and would like to at this moment thank you for being a part of the program. As usual, we were very happy to have you. Thanks so much. It's always a pleasure. God bless you sir. You too. We've been talking with architect Ezekiel Nyaitouk, a public affairs commentator. He was talking to us from Aquabomb State, who you're in Aquabomb State. And we'll just take a short break now. We'll be joined by two guests that will be looking at what the National Assembly is justifying, just like architect said that it pinned him to hear what he was saying. So the chairman of the Senate Committee on Services will be hearing, will be talking about his statement and what is going on in the National Assembly concerning buying of cars. The justification for that and every other thing will be looking at that this morning on the show. Just stay with us.