 Welcome back to the breakfast on plus TV Africa. We apologize for that extended break. We now have our guest Mr. Nick Agouli. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Morning. Okay. How are you today? Fine. How are you doing? Very well. Thank you so much. So today on the breakfast we're discussing Nigeria's debt profile. I want us to begin first of all with statements from the president of the Senate Ahmed Lawan about Nigeria and her lack of resources and the fact that you know the country's poor. Let's get your thoughts on this. Is that a fact? Okay. So there are two things that we can analyze in the Senate president's speech. He says Nigeria is poor and he also says Nigeria does not have resources. The first statement is correct. Nigeria is indeed poor. Nigeria is like a father working in Lagos any 10,000 Naira per month and having a family of 10 to feed. There is no way that father can lift his family out of poverty no matter what he does. Even if that father has zero corruption in his system, that father commits all of the money he earns to look after his family and the father has all the good intentions for his family. There is nothing that this father can do to lift his family out of poverty because he does not have the money to do it. Nigeria's federal government budget is 35 billion dollars and when we say 35 billion dollars, the budget is usually not implemented fully. If you get 50 percent performance in terms of implementation or even 70 percent, we're talking about 20 billion dollars and the government of California which is a single state in the United States of America, their budget is almost 200 billion dollars for 40 billion people. One state, 200 billion and Nigeria's budget is 35 billion of which they're implementing about 20 billion and then you can say California is buying stuff in dollars but Nigeria, Nigeria is also spending in dollars. When we import petrol it's in dollars, when we buy vehicles it's in dollars, when we buy ammunition for our armed forces it's in dollars, we buy computers in dollars, we're importing everything. So Nigeria and California are buying from the same market. So you can imagine that the single state has 200 billion to spend for 40 million people and Nigeria has 35 billion for 200 million people. So on that count, the Senate president is right, Nigeria is very poor. So Mr. Oguli, Mr. Oguli, I need to ask you about debt servicing. A report by budget shows that Nigeria spent about 3.34 a trillion Naira on debt servicing in Nigeria. Where really is this coming from and how are the figures looking for 2021? Now allow me to land my earlier point. I would like to do that before I answer your next question. All right go ahead. Yes, I agree with the Senate president that Nigeria is a poor man. He can't look after his family. Let's be honest about that. But I totally disagree with the Senate president. When he says Nigeria is resource poor, that we have no resources, that is a policy. The issues that the Senate president is living in july are of the entire way that Nigeria has. This is a Senate president that does not even understand the country that he is supposed to turn it over. Nigeria is one of the best endowed countries in the world. In my line of work, working for international oil and gas companies around the world, I have traveled to nearly 40 countries in the world in my line of work and I have never seen a country that is as rich as Nigeria in terms of resources. You look at countries like Australia, go to Australia, majority of the land is desert. There's no single desert territory in Nigeria. Every single soil in Nigeria is cultivated. You can cultivate it and it will grow crops. It will grow tree crops and fruit crops. Nigeria is well endowed with a good climate. In the United Kingdom where I'm sitting now, there will come a time where we don't see the sun. In the whole day you won't see the sun. That is during winter. Nigeria has the sun almost 10 to 12 hours every day. That is what crops need to grow. Nigeria has got rivers. Nigeria has got mineral resources on the net. Nigeria has got a population. This population of 200 million we have that we think is a problem, other countries are looking for it. Go to the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom. They are looking for people. We have them. We can unlock value from this stage. But we have a government that is lazy. Instead of unlocking value, the government is just busy borrowing. So if I answer your question, Nigeria is borrowing herself to death. You quoted the figures and they are correct. Last year, 2020, Nigeria earned $3 trillion and we spent $3 trillion to pay debts, to service debts. So every other thing that was funded in the budget was borrowing. How can you be borrowing to pay debts? That is financial crisis. And Nigeria can get herself out of this situation by simply opening up the economy for production. I can give this government a few tips. Number one, one of the biggest expenditure item in this government is fuel subsidy. But this government is being in office for six years. The government has not touched the refineries. Nigeria has four refineries with a combined refining capacity of 450,000 parrots. If this government started work on getting those refineries fixed in their first year in office, maximum by their second or third year in office, Nigeria will be producing enough petrol for herself and even exporting. And so we will not need to spend money to go and be importing petrol and pay subsidies on it. This government is giving lip service to things like agriculture. For proper agriculture to take place, you need to mechanize. You need to look at clear land. If you leave Lagos all the way to Ibadon to Accurate, you should have seen all the land cleared and tractors working to unlock value. Is Nigeria's important food? So these are some of the things. Nigeria does not have electricity. How can you have a country of 200 million people requiring 200,000 megawatts of electricity and you are giving 4,000 megawatts of electricity to die economy? The economy can be unlocked. So these are the things the Senate President should be dealing with. Instead of saying we should go and borrow, we have everything going for us. Alright. Two things I want to ask. The first one is with regards our borrowing because there's the fear that we may never be able to pay back this debt if we continue with the way we're going. And at some point, you know, up to 95% of our our budget every year would be to pay back debt. But I want to ask about how we can better direct the funds that we borrow. Nigeria keeps claiming that it's borrowing for infrastructure. But what we see is one or two trains and a couple of roads here and there. Do you think there are better ways for some of the things that you've mentioned now with agriculture, we've been able to unlock the true potential that Nigeria has, mineral resources. Do you think we can better redirect our borrowing and where these funds are put into so that we can have like a five-year, 10-year plan with which we can now start to reap the benefits of that borrowing? And then also, I want you to speak on taxation. In your write-up, you mentioned taxation and how Nigeria may need to expand its tax bracket and be able to bring in more people into that tax bracket and hopefully raise more funds. So quickly share your thoughts on those to you. Very much. So ask me, Nigeria doesn't even need to be borrowing money to fund infrastructure. We have a market of 200 million people. In the world, when investors see 200 million people, they want to go there. So Nigerians, we just create an enabling environment for these people to come and invest their money. I love telecom so much and I will add LNNG to it as well. The telecom companies, MTN and Co, they have invested over $70 billion in Nigeria economy as of today and still counting. Nigeria didn't borrow to do that. It only gave way, commercialized the sector and then investors came in, brought in their money, developed the infrastructure. You and I know that there is a lot of inefficiency in government. So when government borrows money to build infrastructure, you know that that money is going to sink into some loophole somewhere. Because government is not a business man. The role of government should be regulatory. So if you ask me, I will say government should just simply give way. Now we're talking about race sector. Instead of the government borrowing to fund race, the government should simply just concession the entire country out to both local and international investors to bring their money, build the race, put the wagons on top, run those rail lines. With 200 million people paying money, they will recoup their money. They say what the MTNs are recouping their money today. This is what government needs to do. So when government strategy the economy to pretends over the economy is a player in the economy, you find out that, in fact, I'll give you an example. There's an article I wrote where I compared the NNPC and the NLNG. These two companies are operating in the same sector, in the oil and gas sector. In fact, the NNPC is a bigger operator because the NNPC is an integrated company, both oil and gas. Whereas NLNG is only gas. These two companies are also owned by the federal government of Nigeria. But the difference is that in the case of the NLNG, it is the private sector participant. The company is owned by the federal government and international oil and gas companies who are bringing in their management to run the company. And the company is delivering dividends to the Nigerian economy. $80 billion of dividends delivered to Nigeria. The other company, the NNPC, which is also owned by the federal government of Nigeria, that is being run by the government is perpetually making losses. That company between 2018 and 2019, by their own published financial statement, spent $325 billion on the four refineries to refine zero barriers of crude oil. $325 billion refined zero barriers of crude oil. That is what happens when government is managing business. So if you ask me, the companies should not even touch any loan to come and build any infrastructure. Just give way like they did in the NLNG, like they did in telecoms. Let businesses come in and do these things. Bring in their money. The money that MTN invested, MTN and Co invested $70 billion is standing on Nigeria's soil. They cannot come and carry that infrastructure away. And yet there is no cobalt of that on the balance sheet of government as that. Instead, the telecom sector is contributing more than 10% to the GDP of Nigeria and paying billions in taxes to Nigeria. Instead of Nigeria borrowing, spending, and we are not seeing the results. Mr Agule, can Nigeria ever stop borrowing? Is that a possibility for our economy? So let's look at it this way. Every government around the world borrows. I am an accountant, as a chartered accountant, as a finance person, we have what we call the guarantee theory. And that guarantee theory says that companies that have borrowed on their balance sheet, they do better than companies that don't have borrowed. Because borrowing actually helps you. And one of the reasons why Nigeria's economy is not growing is that the government has not provided the neighboring environment for the financial sector to give loans to businesses and to individuals. When people are anonymous, how can you give them a loan when they disappear to thin air? So in other places, government has social security numbers that they have given to everybody. That is what Nigeria is trying to do with me. But they have to be aggressive about that. So bottom line is that every company, every government borrows. But Nigeria's situation is different. Nigeria's situation is that we have not got at the point where our borrowing has become too much. Our borrowing is now unserviceable. We are spending all the money we earn in 2020 Nigeria earned three trillion. And we use the entire three trillion to service debt. If you are even a father or mother and your entire salary is going to get serviced in, you know you are in problem. You know you are in acute problem. You know you cannot simply borrow any longer. So that is the situation. Debt is good. But Nigeria has got to a point where we can no longer borrow any longer because all of our money is now going to debt service. So if I answer the second question that talks about taxation, around the world, governments are making money through taxation. And government makes money through taxation because government provide a enabling environment for bringing people into the tax bracket. As we're speaking today, if you import a private jet into Nigeria, you are paying zero duty, zero duty on that private jet. But if you import food, you pay duty, you import a car to drive, you pay duty, you know. So how can government not be taxing the rich? Instead taxing the poor. Now when we talk about fuel subsidy, you are taxing the poor to fund the rich. Because go to every big mass home. You see about 6, 10 cars outside. Those are the guys who are who are consuming petrol. You are subsidizing them. The poor people in Ajebu in Mushi, do they have cars? When they want to go, they go with money, money is using diesel. And you are not subsidizing diesel. So Nigeria is a country that is unique. We are there taxing the poor to fund the rich. Everywhere else in the developed world, they tax the rich heavily. To fund the poor. I worked here in the United Kingdom for an international oil and gas company for nearly 10 years. My transaction was 40 percent. 40 percent of my pay was going straight into government. And then government is using that money to fund education for everybody. Education is free all the way to high school. So you don't have to be a child of a rich person to go to quality schools. Government is using that money to fund healthcare. Everybody can go to any hospital for free. You know, as we have billionaires in Nigeria, who are not being taxed? The people who are being taxed are the market women. Go to the market, as I'm speaking to you now this morning, there are people who are busy taxing the market women, collecting money, issuing them all sorts of receipts. And billionaires are bringing a private jet. They are not paying duty on it. Billionaires are leading lifestyles that are clearly above the income that they are declaring to government. And government is not chasing after them. All right, Mr. Agouli. So we have a government that is lazy. Yeah. And now you've brought that up. That's why I want to go next. Because obviously, this conversation, you know, expands in so many directions. There's so many places where we're getting it wrong. But I want you to speak with regards the government's economic advisory team for a long time. We've heard of so many teams headed by the Vice President, headed by, you know, Chaosuludu here and there. They keep coming up with these plans and these committees, you know, to live 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and whatnot. So what's your assessment of the economic advisory team of the current administration? I'm sure that there's somebody on those teams who knows these things that you've said. I'm sure that there's somebody who understands what needs to be done in order to stop Nigeria from borrowing. They know there has to be somebody on that team who knows. So what do you think is going wrong with those teams? I thank you very much for that question. Indeed, Nigeria has a presidential economic advisory council. They met a few weeks ago, issued their report, which we also commented on on this program. And I also agree with you that Nigeria has smart people, very intelligent people. So these issues that we're discussing here are not unknown to them. They know these things. But what is required is political way, the political way to be able to take decisions. And you know, I always tell people that one of the key criteria for leadership recruitment should be people who have compassion. If you have compassion over the suffering of the people, you will not be sleeping until you see the people's life is changed. So I don't see so much compassion in the hearts of those who are governing Nigeria today. Because if there is so much compassion in their hearts, there is no way school kids as young as three years old will be kidnapped and be hate-hosted and government officials are sleeping and waking up and sleeping and waking up. And there is no sense of urgency, sense of emergency to try and get those kids back. So what is looking in Nigeria is the political way, the political way to be able to take these decisions. Yeah, but is it the lack of political will or at the stage we start to feel like these things are intentional? It can't continue to be lack of political will. We've spoken about this since 1999 and even earlier. So does it already start to seem like these are intentional? Because the Senate president knows that it's necessary to leave some of the items of the executive list and of course let public-private partnerships to exist. You've made mention of the telecom sector and how that has thrived since those decisions were taken. And so is it lack of political will or does this start to seem intentional to keep things this way? Honestly, I mean I think that way sometimes. I think that way sometimes too that these guys are basically just being intentional in terms of not being able to deliver good governance to us. Yeah, so because you look at things that are so simple. You know, simple things to do. Why are they not doing it? You know that kind of thing. Like you talk about electricity. We are flaring gas, flaring gas. When that gas is what is supposed to be harnessed and electricity generated. Because they have generators that are giving them electricity. Is that why they don't care? You know, it might bugle what is happening. So I will not disagree with you to even think that it could be intentional. But the question is that why would you intentionally want to visit suffering on your people? Why? Because in Nigeria I can give you examples. Let me give you something like domestic gas. In the UK where I am now, we don't buy gas in cylinders. Okay? Gas is piped to every individual home in the same way as electricity is connected, water is connected. Nigeria stops flaring gas. The gas that we're flaring in the Niger Delta, all over that place. If we stop flaring that gas, harnessed that gas, converted and begin the project of piping that gas in every home in Nigeria. Do you know the number of jobs that will be created to construct that? Start with places like Leki, go to Leki and run pipes to connect gas to every home. Do you know how many jobs, construction jobs that will be created? Do you know how many jobs will be created by the people who will be running the systems? To provide these gas, every single job will be put. Lawyers, accountants, administrators, engineers, everybody will be. By the time you run that gas system all over Nigeria, that is when you talk about lifting people out of poverty. That is job creation. Job creation is not giving 5,000 ira stipend that the vice president goes to go and be given. Job creation means giving people red jobs to do. If we have rail lines, if we start with every state capital in Nigeria connected on the rail, funding by private sector money. Do you know the number of young people that want to work up in the money? They are going to be train drivers, they are going to be train engineers, they are accountants, engineers, administrators in those places. Even cleaners, cleaners of the stations. We get jobs. You think about people who are the ticket sellers, customer service, all over the nation because Nigerians will be going by trains, paying their money. But the government is sitting on those things, but you rarely say 68 items on the exclusive list of the constitution. The federal government is sitting on them and the federal government cannot unlock value from these things because the federal government does not have the money to develop these things. So why can't the federal government just move away so that the private sector takes these things and pushes it forward? So when we say political way, people just lost power, central power, control. This kind of military thinking that we have to have a command and control center. That's not the economy of today. The economy of today is that the government is only checking that everything is done right through regulation. But the government is not an active player in the economy. The trades should be built and run by trade companies, by investors who are ready to carry 200 million people about and create the jobs. So this is the kind of thing I'm saying, it has to be political way. It could also be that it's just intentional, I want to suffer people, but the question would be why? Why do we want people to suffer? Interesting question there, Mr. Nique Agouli, Public Affairs Analyst, joining us live from the UK. We thank you very much for joining us on the breakfast this morning. Thank you so, so very much. We pray for Nigeria. My last message to Nigeria is that the INEC has opened the register for people who are not yet registered as voters, people who have registered and want to move their polling units and people who want to trace their voter card where it is. Please let us go there and get our voter card ready. The voter card remains the only legitimate legal constitutional and less risky, less bloody way to get the government of a choice. Analyzing these issues on social media and on TV and all of that is good, but the real thing is where all of us come out to vote. The government, I mean the politicians are afraid of our votes. That's why they are not trying to tinker with the electoral bill about electronic voting and all of that. They are afraid of our votes, our votes are our weapons. You don't throw away your weapon when your opponent is afraid of that weapon. So every Nigerian will step out and get our voter card. 15 million people voted last time. Let's get 60 million, 70, 80 million people voted 2023 and get the government of a choice. Thank you again Mr. Nika Gule. Thank you so much. I think I just thought it was important to throw that point out there, because we've had these conversations multiple times, different analysts, different guests, you know, and it's gone on for years, you know, even back on the radio we've had these same conversations. It cannot be that there's nobody on the president's team or on the vice president's team, internationalists who doesn't know these things. And so when they keep giving excuses, the senate president speaking like an analyst. How are you speaking like an analyst? You're not Nika Gule, you are the senate president of Nigeria. You know the things that you need to do if we need to move forward as a country. But anyway, that's where we wrap things up this morning. Thank you very much for joining us. If you missed out on any of our conversations, remember where to find them, at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And same with our YouTube channel at PLOS TV Africa and PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle. Yes, PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle will also on social media and on YouTube with that same handle. My name is Anesa Phoenix. Thank you for joining us this beautiful Monday morning. Have a great rest of the week.