 Nigeria's Ministry of Finance plans to close gap between official and black market Nigeria on Naira exchange rates. We'll be discussing the country's exchange rate crisis this morning. Young people across Nigeria mark the first anniversary of ENSA's protest with symposium talks for more protest. And also coming up is Off the Press where we review today's newspapers. Good morning and thanks for joining us on the breakfast. It's a very beautiful Tuesday morning. Of course, a happy Eid al-Malood, of course, public holidays across the country this morning, except for a wee journalist and essential workers. Thank you for joining us. I am Wasaugi Ogbawan. And I am Massey Boko. As usual, we'll set off with the top trending stories. And this morning, we're looking at two of them. One of it is the fact that some Nigerians who invested in some investment scheme have been scammed or defrauded, if you like to say, of 22 billion Naira by a couple who actually run this firm. And that's quite worrisome because this is not the very first time such is happening in Nigeria. But the question is, do we ever lend, will we ever lend from all of these experiences? Well, I think I'll start with saying that these are still allegations. I think what currently the situation is is the couple who allegedly run or who have been the forefront of the firm of the investment scheme, Bameshe and Elizabeth Ajay-Tumobi, have not been found in the last couple of days. No one can reach them. It's said that they might be out of the country already and some of all of that. So I'll still leave it as an allegation. Maybe they went to the village for some traditional rights. Why do I feel like you're trying to be very sarcastic here? Maybe, you know, they just decided to take a vacation, turn their phones off, you know, not be stressed because Nigeria is stressing them, you know, price of gases, you know, getting more expensive every day. Maybe they haven't had power in a couple of days and they just decided to, you know, go to a hotel. But anyway, that's why, you know, I would still say it's an allegation until they found, you know, until they show up and they found me. But how do you feel if you have, you know, some kind of investment, depending on the amount being there and then you can, because according to the reports, the phone numbers are all switched off. I mean, they're not reachable. I mean, you can't just be unreachable. You have to find the way that's a business. OK, so the offices, according to the story, is locked. You know, you can't find them anywhere because you're situated somewhere. So obviously, there's a bigger problem than I was describing. I was just making light of the situation. But yes, it is a crisis. I'm just trying to still leave it as an allegation until they found guilty of some of all these things. OK. And like you said, it's not the first time, you know, that we are seeing an investment scam or an investment scheme, you know, go under. Not very long ago, we spoke about the Gloria Sey and her husband, you know, which were also accused of pretty much a similar thing. You know, and there's been many of them back to back in country. There's people who have said that, oh, you know, some person, some even bank, some major institutions invested, you know, as much as 500 million nair and some of all of that. The claim is currently that they made a way with about 22 billion naira, which, of course, you know, one can actually verify. I also saw that, you know, one of the media organizations reached out to their lawyers and that, you know, the lawyer said, well, he has no access to them, has not been able to reach them either. And they can't necessarily comment on the investors money that might be missing. So it's it's yes, it's heart wrenching for a lot of people. And sadly, it also got to affect some investment platforms, some savings platforms that I wouldn't mention. I also saw that there's people who mentioned them and started to withdraw their money and started to, you know, create this controversy or whether the savings platform will also crash. I saw a couple of, you know, those things happen. But I personally wouldn't blame Nigerians for wanting to always, you know, put their money in these investments. The challenge that I have is that they they they always, you know, sadly fall for these scams. And it might have started off as something that maybe had a plan, you know, to, you know, run the long term. But mismanagement, putting the money or, you know, putting people's funds in, you know, in terrible investments and eventually some of all those things crash and then eventually you lose the whole of it. But I would actually say that no matter the investments came that we have out there, it's important that we understand financial education and as usual, because some persons are saying, let's blame the CAC for all of this. I mean, let's those who have been affected should sue the CAC for that, because I'm sure that that's a registered company and all of that. But the truth is, I think that before you, you know, throwing your monies into any investment or whatever business you're going to start, you should do your due diligence. And it requires, you know, a lot of investigation, doing a background checks and all of that to ensure that, OK, this is really genuine. But most of it, I think it falls down on the fact that there's this quick, you know, get rich, quick scheme. So everybody just wants to, because there are some things that are not realistic. I mean, you look at the profit margin. You look at how much you're getting. So you invest X, Y, Z. So you tell me if I invest 100,000 error and in the next two months, I'm going to be getting 500,000 error. That's so much. I understand the discussion on financial intelligence, but of course, you wouldn't expect that from everybody. Not everybody has financial intelligence or has the time to actually do all that research. You know, they would instead just rely on the fact that, you know, your company has stated certain things and has assured them that your funds are safe and, you know, you will get your returns. There's also a little bit of greed, like you mentioned, you know, and then the group of Nigerians who say, well, I feel like this might be a scam or this might not last one year. But if I get in early and I get paid, you know, you know, then I'm safe and any person who gets to invest later on, well, best of luck to you. And that there's also that part of, you know, mindset of Nigerians, you know, that you might see in a situation like this, I just feel, you know, like once again, you know, that there needs to be better ways that these things are, you know, protected against crashing. And, of course, you know, government agencies need to also be more careful, you know, and know which of these things are very, very likely to be fraudulent and, you know, be able to protect people. There should be certain things, you know, certain requirements, I believe, before you get to start an investment scheme that should be completely verified by the government before you're allowed to play with people's money. I'm also thinking that, yes, it's OK to say, yes, we need government agencies and bodies to be responsible to ensure that all of these schemes do not crash and investigation should be carried out. But on the other part, I would solely say the responsibility should be 80 percent on the people. People should understand that there's a way money works. You can't just wake up and feel that here you're going to. Because if you look at, I mean, you can't just wake up and feel that money is going to come in, you know, in split seconds. So some of this there are obviously things that are to go to be true, you know, so I agree with you on the fact that you should do a little bit of research and some of the certain things that are red flags immediately see them. This platform was offering 22 percent interest on loans received and 10 percent return to investors, which some people would say, oh, this is there's no bank that's going to give you this. There's no actual stable financial institution in the country that's going to give you any of these things. And so this might be actually too good to be true. But, you know, how much financial intelligence do you expect from 200 million people who have money to invest in, you know, these type of things that it's not very much. But sometimes I mean, looking at the fact that we're using the. To be honest, I don't even have that level of financial intelligence. It's not the matter of financial intelligence. Maybe that's just so much grammar right now, but it's called common sense. I mean, just look at it. So I put in 100,000 area. I mean, let's say somebody tells you, hey, if you give me 100,000 area now, you're going to have like 300,000 area in the next two weeks. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense how you will get 300. Obviously it doesn't make sense, but that's why some of these fraudulent schemes do all they can to assure you that it is possible. They tell you they're investing in agriculture and they're investing in oil, investing in forex, investing in so many other things. And then you can say, for people who don't want to, you know, actually dig deeper like you've mentioned, they will say, OK, you know, since you have these numerous places that you're investing, you know, then I trust that my money will be safe. It's just a really, really sad situation. I would because we need to move on. I would just say that I hope that these people show up. I hope that they have found and, you know, some of these people who have invested millions and millions of their hard-earned money will be able to get their money back. I hope so. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We'll recover the funds, actually. All right. Well, good luck. But once again, you know, it's another example and another reason, you know, for the maybe 10th time in the last few years that Nigerians need to be more careful with what they do with their money and have, you know, better checks with regards where they invest their millions of Naira into, even if it's 5,000 Naira. I'm not putting it anywhere that I don't trust, to be honest. All right. So let's check out. Let's also talk about another one. It's the hashtag and SAS protests. Tomorrow is going to be the 20th of October, and trust me, Nigerians are across the board, eager to continue the conversation. There's going to be a lot of activities. I actually saw all of that. And, you know, it just shows I am surprised, first of all, because it's going to be like some service, first of all, you already started. And so let's hope for what's going to happen tomorrow. So you have services, you're going to be having conversations and all of that. And hopefully maybe that might just also be some kind of gathering on the 20th at the Lucky Toe Gate. I really don't know. We're going to be having a conversation about that by 8 30 this morning with someone who's joining us via Zoom to talk about what the 20 days of activism, you know, has been like and what the goal really is to celebrate, of course, or to remember those who participated in the protests last year. It's going to be a come up at 8 30 this morning to look out for it. I hope it's going to be a very interesting conversation. And of course, you might get some clarity with regards what would be happening tomorrow online and maybe offline. Some other thing that has been trending as a video, I hope that we can quickly share that with you. A video man posted in your of and what was meant to be an amusement park that eventually has turned into an abandoned project. I remember yesterday we spoke about abandoned buildings and projects in Abuja, one thing that was in part of our conversation yesterday. If we can, I think that clip should be with you in a bit. It's very, very interesting, you know, seeing the amount of money that was wasted in this particular facility that has eventually amounted to nothing. The Aquarium State Government has been called out on social media multiple times, you know, to respond to what exactly happened to this very, very seemingly expensive investment in tourism that has absolutely gotten nowhere. You can see from the pictures, you know, there's it's covered with grass. Most of the places that should have what are dirty, you know, and of course, the the facilities in there don't seem to have been used even once. I'm not sure exactly how much money, but this looks like a billion Nair project or even more than, you know, a billion Nair project that is, you know, simply just wasting away. And in my own response to this, you know, it's not shocking in any way because of one of the things I was talking about yesterday, abandoned projects in Abuja and across the country. And also because of our culture in Nigeria, two things I would mention. Our culture in Nigeria of wasting money and abandoning projects. The Jakuta Steel Complex is one of them that, of course, everyone in Nigeria, you know, that's a government project. It's not necessarily an amusement park, but it's a government project that started decades ago that still has not been able to produce one drop of steel till tomorrow. There is that one. There's also the Tinapa project that really didn't get to achieve much in Cross River State. There's also the Abu Dhuqatu Ranch that a lot of people have also criticized. There could be a lot more, but has absolutely achieved nothing. And so there's many, many of these things that set the start off with billions of Naira invested in them that you would expect would be very, very beautiful. I've been used for tourism and for leisure and some of all of that, but I eventually get to be absolutely nothing. There's that. And then second is our failure as a country to take advantage of what we of what should be tourism in Nigeria. We have so much of this. If you think about travel outside Nigeria, when people say, oh, they're going to Kenya, they're going to Morocco, they are going to South Africa and the things that people get to actually live on and the lives that they get to live in those few days of being in those countries, it's not because it's impossible in Nigeria, it's because we've had zero interest in tourism in Nigeria. We've invested zero even though we mounted a lot. I mean, there's a lot of mounting about a huge interest in tourism and all of that. Yeah, that's all. But so it brings me back to the conversation or it brings me back to the path that it starts from, you know, policy formulation from, for instance, you ask yourself, government policies are supposed to solve problems. They're supposed to be a reflection of the interest of the people. So sometimes the policies that you have, because at the end of the day, if you eventually have like an amusement pack, the question is, do the people need an amusement pack? Is that what they need? Does you reflect the interest of the people? And so most times you find that some of this project at the end of the day fail because from the inception, from formulation, and then it gets to the point where you ask yourself, all right. So yes, there's, you know, this project right now, whether or not it reflects the interests of the people. And then there's a contractor. So you have several persons bidding for this contract. And in most cases, you find out that you have friends, families and, you know, what have you of this political elite bidding for this contract? And the contract is given. Now, if you give a proposal, it's expected that there should be some because in the policy cycle, there should be some form of monitoring. And so, yes, that's it. The project is ongoing. But who is monitoring to ensure that it is implemented up to? I mean, what do you have actually stated in the proposal? That's implementation, right? So if you say you're going to be using 50 chairs, let's see. I'm sure you're going to state the kind of chairs you're going to be using and all of that. So who is also ensuring that we're checking? We're ensuring that this person, this policies or this project are implemented to the latter. That's also another because that's where you begin to have all of this abandoned project. And this contract is, I mean, it's really, really, really sad if you ask me, because this is so much money that's gone. I agree with that, you know. And it's I think what you're referring to is, you know, the quality control with projects in Nigeria. And it's not just with, you know, tourism, even with schools, with hospitals, with some of the things that government, you know, doles out billions of nair. And they tell you that they use five billion to repair. So it's once a kilometer of road, you know, that in eight months it's already, you know, ruined again. So there's no quality control, like you mentioned. You know, when people say that they built a hospital, when they say they built a school, you know, on behalf of the government, or when the government says they've given out a contract to build a school, you go there and you see that, you know, a lot of times it's very, very poor quality materials. I agree with that. But whether one of the things that you mentioned is, you know, whether this is what really the people need at this time. I think that there is space for investment in everything. It's not necessarily a build schools first or build hospitals first. I think that there is enough space for us to have equal investments in every single, you know, regard. You can build hospitals and at the same time build an amusement park. You can build schools and at the same time build an amusement park. You can do all of that. It's the level of interest that we have in tourism that I've, you know, continue to have a challenge with. We do not, in any way, you know, take the conversation on tourism, you know, important enough. We do not invest in tourism and for a country that has continued to mouth our offer, you know, the fact that we need to diversify our economy and some of all of the tourism is one of the things that can very, very much be used to diversify. But how can tourism thrive when thrive when, you know, insecurity is a big issue? So that's also it's never going to work because anyone who gets into I mean, let's say you're going to go to a tourist destination or tourist that people should feel very safe and all of that. Absolutely. Then you look at infrastructure. So it's almost impossible. It feels like we're just saying what we don't even mean. I mean, we're just saying it, but we don't mean it in reality. We're pretty much saying the same thing. But if you're interested in tourism, then you will fix insecurity. It's that simple. It's the level of interest that doesn't exist. And if we don't even have that level of interest to protect the Nigerian life, then I don't think the government will be sincere if it's talking about, you know, about tourism, because, first of all, Nigerian lives have been taken in their hundreds and in their thousands in the last couple of years. And the government has not in any way shown that it is bitter, it is angry or it is sad about the level of of of killings and murder that's happened and kidnappings that has happened in the last couple of years. So, of course, that can be the same government that says it wants to invest in tourism. And, you know, we're not going to be honest with ourselves if we hear the minister tomorrow, Mr. Tourismans say, oh, you know, the government has spent so-and-so billions of Naira investment in tourism. That's really just false and not being, you know, sincere, you know, to itself and to the Nigerian people. But anyway, hopefully, you know, they acquire bombsite government gets to respond to some of all of that. The questions that have been raised with regards to that project and would shed more light on it with time. Stay with us. We'll take a short break when we come back. Mr. Chris Wanda joins us with Off the Press to share thoughts on some of the stories making headlines across Nigeria today.