 Well, when you talk about ember months, you talk about traveling to the village, traveling to wherever your family is, traveling to where you haven't been for a very long time. That's the attitude of a Nigerian. You travel to your place of origin when it is time for Christmas and other festivities. Reason being that at that time almost everybody is traveling back. So you get to see your friends, you get to see your family members who maybe one thing or the other have taken out of that village. So people like to travel. In the east we have august meeting, we have all sorts of things happening in the south and all that. But now traveling seems to be a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford. Just two years ago what used to be airfare, transportation to go by air from Lagos to Abuja or from Lagos to Oweri for instance is now not even enough to take you by bus to your destination and it is very worrisome. So we're looking at transport fairs going up by almost three times in the last 12 months and that's being very modest, saying just three times in the last 12 months. Because just imagine from Lagos to Kalaba in two years ago used to be like 21,000 to 25,000 Naira. Now to go to Kalaba is from 30,000 upwards, especially at this time it's about 35,000. So you can just imagine by bus that's what I'm saying now, but the other one was by air. So we don't know what is going on in the country. Well Dr. Laume 4 maybe has some answers for us. Dr. Laume 4 is a political analyst and he's joining us this morning. Dr. Laume 4, good morning and welcome to the program. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for hosting me. I can hear your litany of lamentations and that is what the economy has become. Excuse me, you know the situation we have found ourselves in has been predictable. Since the unleashing of the two major headwinds on the economy, I call the headwinds because of the tsunami impact they have had on the economy. The Naira flotation and the unplanned and all-regulated removal of the first subsidy. That's just the truth. And what has impacted the most on the transportation cost is a further subsidy removal. Because if you recall, December 2022, we were buying a fuel at 197 Naira per litre. And now you can't get it anywhere for less than 620. You know, in Abu Dhabi here, at both 660 and consistently 640, so you can see. And here is Abu Dhabi, if you move to, if you move further north, it's even much more the same. And it's the cost of fuel. So the transporters cannot help it. They just have to adjust the price of the transport fare to enable them to be able to buy fuel at the prevailing price. And then they'll be able to have something to show for the journey. So that's where we are. And for me, essentially, we need to pay attention to what we advised the government much earlier. We told the government you cannot remove fuel subsidy without putting certain things in place. And some of the eight months down the line, nothing has been put on ground by government. A little they did, they called a palliative, gave some state governments some money to do this and do that. And that is not what will cushion the effect. You know, like you rightly pointed out, Nigerians would want to travel for Christmas. It has been a standing tourism, an internal tourism arrangement that Nigerians have made for themselves. You know, in the sense that whether we like it or not, the Nigerians say they want to travel. There are reasons everybody plans to travel. Most lands are Christians. It's not even a Christian celebration alone. You know, all that fits, trying it, because it offers a beautiful time to connect with the loved ones who have scattered all over. Some families, you know, a significant number of families have their members outside Nigeria. And they all walk towards the coming home to catch up again, review what they have done in the year gone by, and then take some important family decisions. Do what you may call cost stock taking, they take stock, see members of the family that needed to be supported, see setting up noted family issues that needed to be resolved. There are certain things you cannot resolve until people really come together. And December is just it. Everybody walks towards December. So, you know, you can see that there is no measure in place to really mitigate the impact. I had expected that even some state governments ought to have tried to use them, you know, do some kind of intervention to help the transporters that will be bringing people to their states, cut down on the cost. But for you to do that, you need to offset, you have to provide some money for these transporters. Because the charge they are bringing on, it is mostly a justice time. And even those, you know, some of them also hike is the trend. Actually, every Christmas, they top up. Look at it, look at the FA now. If you, you can go online to go to one hour travel, particularly from Lagos, from Abuja to the eastern part, they retort to get this about half a million now. You know, half a million, five hundred thousand retort to get if you want to move from Lagos to anywhere in the east, move to Lagos, move to Abuja from anywhere in the east, or move from Abuja to Lagos, advise us. The cost is as high as 250,000 one way. So if you double it, you know, you do demand. You see that we're talking about half a million. You know, for me, particularly the FA, I don't think it is justified, you know, the way they have hiked theirs beyond the, you know, should I say, three times over. It's more than three times over what it used to be. You know, initially, we were struggling between the 75,000 to 1,000 100,000 for a one hour flight. But now from that 100,000, we are not talking about the 250,000. I think it is too high. It's really too high. And I believe that the aviation sector also have actually, you know, we did it into this. I really don't know why, you know, people are allowed to profit here in the economy. I believe that should be a law that will be able to stay in the camp for the for the masses. You have what you call a consumer regulatory agency here. You know, what is their job? Can they really negotiate on behalf of Nigerians? I want to believe that that is why that agency is put in place by government. You know, prices should not be arbitrary. It's very wrong. It's not done anywhere. You know, and it's because government, it has not really played its role. Government has not been able to stand there for the masses. That is why you have government. You have government because there should be law and order. So why should people be allowed to profit here from the misery of Nigerians? Because that is what I call it. They are worse than the misery. And because they know most Nigerians are under pressure to travel, even those who do not want to travel, they have very serious reasons why they must travel. So the entire cities they have will go into transportation. When they get there, the celebration will not be as many as it ought to be. And then you also add this. There is also a bigger problem of, you know, beyond the government's not standing in the gap for the people. There is a bigger problem of a pollution we see here. In regards to when government agencies that ought to regulate, you know, their job is regulation and they fail to regulate, you will see pollution in the mix. You will see that they are actually, you know, colluding with the service providers. And leaving the masses, Nigeria and their citizens, worse off. So I blame the government here. Look at the highways. There is no palliative measure because when you say you can travel by air, then the alternative is to travel by road. The highways, you know, the highways, most of them are impossible. Most of them around the country. You know, so even security is not there. So people are condemned to travel by road. A journey that would take perhaps five hours would take 10, 12, 15 hours. That's the situation now because the roads are bad. And you are doing so. You are traveling by road. Also looking at the insecurity kidnappers and the orders that await the road users in Nigeria. So even from government intervening in the area of ensuring that there is fair pricing, you don't have that security on the highways. You don't have that. The roads are not maintained. You know, you don't need to reconstruct the roads at moments like this. But you can make them possible. You know, they fill the potholes. Just simply fill the potholes. You know, you don't need to reconstruct immediately. You will fill the potholes so that the roads will be fairly motorized. But it's not done. So what is Nigerian government actually offering Nigerians? I don't see anything because the reason why you have government? Two things. It's the security of their lives and their property. And of course, for the welfare of the people. So security is lacking. You know, welfare of the people is lacking. So what is the justification for government in Nigeria? That's the question that is begging for answer. And nobody is coming up to tell us whether we really have any reason to say that we have a government. Because they are not on top of their game. They are not living up to the expectations of Nigerians. And the Nigerians are not happy with the situation at all. I do not know whether some of these agencies need to be scrapped or something because if you have mentioned that there are agencies that are responsible and they're not working, what is the need, spending money on them? Even when we're talking about regulation in some other climes, in some other countries, even housing is being regulated, you know, rent. When you're renting a house, there are some laws that are put in place. But in Nigeria, the landlord can wake up tomorrow morning and tell you that he is up to the rent by 300% or more and tell you that if you don't want, you can get out. And it gives you maybe one month notice and that's the end of it. Nobody does anything about it. So we're just left here. That's my point, precisely my point. You know, you have government to regulate our lives. That is why you see, ordinarily there will be no government. Why you have government is to ensure law and order, is to ensure fairness, is to ensure security, is to ensure, you know, what we may call fair deal for the weakest segments of the society. There are people that can take care of themselves. There are billionaires and billionaires who don't care if you're like, when a world flight in Nigeria, let it be one billionaire, they will fly. If you go to the airport, they will be falling over themselves. But that is not the normal society. In a normal society, government will be there to ensure fairness and we have the statutory organizations, bodies, agencies. Nigeria doesn't lack laws. Nigeria doesn't lack agencies. What you lack is committed patrols, professionals that will run these agencies. Run around the agencies to regulate and ensure a better society. They appropriate the platforms for their personal gain. That's what you get. So when you find the service providers, the heavy anyhow they like, is because those who should regulate them are colluding with them. That is where this whole nonsense is coming from. If you go to, I talked about the consumer regulatory agency, the consumer regulatory agency is the one, particularly empowered by law, is a statutory agency that should stand in the gap for the people where it comes to pricing delivery of goods and services. It takes like standard organization of Nigeria, NAVDAC, and so on and so forth. Their job is not pricing. Their job is to ensure that what to be called integrity of the goods, of the services, and so on. But to ensure fair pricing is consumer protection agency. And they don't do this. You can't find any, in fact, you can't even tell who is their DJ. Somebody knows him or her, nobody knows whether he's a man or a woman, because they're practically not there. They're not doing anything. At moments like this, they ought to wade into what has happened in aviation. Organize private transporters. They ought to be negotiating with them to understand what should be fair pricing. Well, federal government has promised us palliative in the form of buses. They even said it at COP 28 that they are going to give, sometimes in the future, 100 buses to Nigeria to 220 million people to ply. 100 buses that are not even enough for Lagos state will be given to Nigeria. That's it. So you can say that it's all, government is simply not there. That's just a possibility. And this is not rocket science. It's not rocket science. And that is why I keep blaming NLC. In a situation like this, NLC ought not to have allowed the government to remove some city without putting certain things on the ground. But they allowed it. And you see, in a rebel land, we say that when you hold a strong ban down, is the time to collect the budget. It's not where he stands up. If he stands up, you lose all the advantage. Because he says he's a strong man and he's also armed. Government is like that. And you allow government to remove subsidy. And you're not coming to call for strike and all that. You can see how ineffective the Judah, Nigeria and NLC has become. It's because they did not insist on certain things when they should. And, you know, you cannot say that you are moving from subsidy when you have not done anything about the CNG-compliant buses. If you have CNG-compliant buses, you don't see a few of them in Nigeria. You don't even have the places to convert your vehicle to a CNG. A few of them you have. You may have to spend as much as $500,000 on that to do that. Where does that leave the Nigerian masses? You know, so the worry some of us have is that what ought to be the fair deal for Nigeria and their masses is to be guaranteed by government. And, you know, when you can get government to do that, because naturally, they want to run roughshodes over the people, trample on their rights. That is where you have organized labor come in. NLC. You don't have NLC. You don't have opposition political parties. You don't have even Nigeria and their students union. NAMS. NAMS has NAMS, the government power startup. So you don't have Nigerian buses as simply not organized in any way to be able to even raise their voice. There's no platform left anywhere. I remember when we were in the late 80s and early 90s, NAMS, National Association of Nigerian Students, was very, very vibrant. We stood up to the military. And today, NAMS is a government power startup. As we speak now, we have two presidents of NAMS. The other day I saw the other one driving a gym. A student driving SUV. You and I know he didn't purchase it. Who did? Whoever came in that gym will tell him what he should be doing as NAMS president. So the whole thing has collapsed. It's a total mess we have found ourselves in. And I don't even know what to recommend anymore. Because, like I said, you don't have opposition political parties that should be the ones even fighting and shouting. There is no BDP. There is no labor. There is no strong leaders. I think it's not one. Obvious, not one. So you don't have, you really don't, we don't really have democracy. The situation is so dire that Nigerians are really, Nigerians are not just, you know, on the short end of this take, they have, Nigerians are lost in the shuffles. They are forced to provide your house, your road, your school, your hospital. You are, you know, Nigerians are compared to construct roads. If you go to my town in Anambra State, all the roads in my town, if you have, if you have 30 third roads in my town in Anambra State, 27 of them were constructed by indigenous of the town. Where is government in all this? Well, we do hope that we will eventually have that government. But what you have mentioned about not having democracy, what you have mentioned about democracy should be a topic that we should still be look, we should start looking at very seriously to define what kind of democracy we have in Nigeria and what kind of democracy we need in Nigeria. But unfortunately, this is where we have to draw the curtain for today, doctor. Thank you so much for being a part of the program. Thank you. Like I said, let the agencies sit up. Particularly, the consumer regulatory agency must wait in and ensure fair pricing for Nigerians. That is why they are set up. They should do their job of its craft. Thank you. It's simple. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. We've been talking with Dr. Lome for political analyst, and we were looking at the fact that the prices of the transport phase have gone up at least 300 percent. And that is a very worrisome thing. If you travel to somewhere and you want to come back after the end of the year to meet your family, then you cannot do that anymore. Even when you're staying within Lagos and if you have, for instance, you're staying in Oba and you have a fiance who is in Badagri, that's a very distant relationship. And it might even end that relationship because of the situation that is happening right now. Moving from one point to the other has become a problem. Maybe that's why people are resorting to bicycles. If you come to the island here, you find a lot of people riding bicycles. At least Lagos state government has not banned motorcycles. But if they had not banned bicycles, if motorcycles were still something that people could use at this time, I'm sure the road would have been littered with motorcycles and everybody trying to at least get a motorbike that will consume less fuel and can take you from place to place. But now in Lagos state, no motorcycles are allowed, so people are resorting to bicycles. So that's the situation we are in. If you cannot trek, then you buy a bicycle. That's how we are right now because you have to work, you have to put food on your table and all that. Well, let's take a short break and when we return we'll be looking at another very turning issue in our polity. Stay with us.