 The May 29 presidential inauguration is sacrosanct, while those are the words of the Inspector General of Police Usman Baba as he wants those plotting to derail the process promising that the police in synergy with other security agencies will defend the nation's democracy at all costs. That's our first hot topic this morning on the breakfast. And of course the federal government is saying that although the $13 trillion was spent on Saturday payment in 16 years between 2005 and 2021, will the incoming administration do justice to Dr. Remoda's Saturday on petrol completely, will seek to find answers on the show this morning. We also take a look at some of the headlines on the national dailies, without the press where we get an analyst to join us to analyze some of the hot topics, some of the headlines. And it's the midweek frenzy edition of the breakfast this morning. I am Maureen. I hope you slept well. Good morning to you. And I am Justin. Many thanks for joining us. Indeed, we trust you had a restful night and you are braced up for the base task ahead. Maureen, I trust you slept well. Oh, I did. Did you sleep well? Yes, I slept well. Yesterday had lots of issues, but after some checks and all, I feel a bit better this morning. Thank God you're better. Yes, I am. This is the midweek frenzy and our theme for today is the cost of governance being too high for the governed and not the governors. But isn't that so? I mean, recently, we learned of the hardship allowance for the president, the vice president, and the governors. Well, really, I think about it. I wonder what hardship they go through. The figure that was about, is it 615 million or billion? What hardship, Maureen, what hardship do they go through? As many of our giants are wallowing in poverty and the high cost of inflation. I hear that 651.2 million hardship allowance was actually spent in this administration in the last 80 years. What hardship did they go through? Almost all the expenses are paid for there. That's a good question. So if they are enjoying 651.2 million Naira, what allowance was given to the average Nigerian in the past 80 years? They are grappling with inflation and they have to do just about a mega 30,000 Naira minimum wage. Inflation has gone up. Inflation has gone up to 2.22%. Yes, that's the latest figure the NPS released for April and it's the highest thing about 17 years in our nation's history. And there's no way if we can move forward, if we do not cut down on wastages. It is a major problem. The government, everything about our government in this country is overblotted at all levels. So you find one government official with how many aides attached to him and you wonder what are they doing? Just a necessity, just redundancy costs. What do you need, 7, 8, 10, 15, whatever aides attached to one office? Just one office. Have you even checked what they spent on feeding? I remember discussing that on our political show sometime in the last year. So I was trying to analyze what the president and his vice spent on feeding. And if you just look at the figures, it's really crazy. What do they get to eat? It's a good question. And the average Nigerian, most of the times they go to bed with their stomachs empty. I'm not sure what the next day will hold for them. I remember that one of the presidential candidates talked about when he was the governor, how on a daily basis, he realized on a daily basis that the chef would cook as if he was going to have a feast. On a daily basis, when he noticed that, he asked, why do you cook this much every day? Because we suspect you may have some guests, but have you ever seen me cook for me alone? Which day? And then you find the entourage. When a governor is on his way, or the deputy, or any government official, the entourage is unbelievable. And when they travel for official duties, even outside the country, you can imagine the hotel they pay for all of them, the per diem, the local, and of course the travel allowance that they get to enjoy. If you look at what they spend on each official trip, it is really alarming more. I interviewed an elder statesman last year. He told me that on one of his trips to, I think it was the UK, at the hotel he asked for the cheapest possible space he could get. And they looked at him for a while. Are you sure you're from Nigeria? You used to be in government in Nigeria because here they want the best. They take the most expensive suits and they take a lot of them at once. And here you are asking for the cheapest space. Are you sure you used to be in government in Nigeria? The thing is that they don't even feel to realize that of all of this, it is being paid by taxpayers, but we are the ones feeding them. We are the ones funding their lifestyle. And they don't really realize that the essence of governance in the first instance is to serve. I've seen wonderful figures here, wonderful in quota. Let me see if I can just reel out some of them. Please reel them out. Okay, President Mohamed Buahari and Vice President Yemi Oshibaju, that's Azat 2022. They plan to spend 3.57 billion naira on feeding and travel expenses. That's the details of the 2022 budget. The amount is the highest since Mr. Buahari assumed office. That's according to the reviews. 3.57 billion naira. That's why they're supposed to expand for feeding and travel allowance for one year, the President and his vice. Okay, the presidential travels are supposed to go up at 2.3 billion for travels, then 775.6 million for local trips and 1.5 billion for international journeys. You can imagine the President proposed 2.6 billion of the amount for his office while 778 million was set aside for the Vice President's office. Simply mind-blowing. We read these things and we talk about them and we lament. But it doesn't change. That is the problem. You listen to radio on a daily. You watch television stations. Nigerians are lamenting. And then it just doesn't change. It gets worse and begin to ask, do they even listen? They disconnect between the leaders and the led. That disconnect is so deep and so wide. And it keeps getting wider and wider and wider. And then you ask yourself, why do people get into office without the ambition to leave their footprints in the sense of time, without the ambition to have history, write them beautifully? I don't understand it. I do realize because they don't understand that the essence of leadership is service. Someone once said that we don't even have leaders in the country. What we have are just rulers who don't understand that they are the ones who are the servants. They should be servants. The Nigerians who voted them in in the first place. But they just want to get there. They don't care about, like you said, leaving their footprints on the sense of time. That's not their business. They just want to amass all the welfare that they can. So when they leave office, they would never suffer again. I think it was the former president, Erudua, that said he was going to be the servant leader. He was a lovely man, wasn't he? That's how it should be. That's the answer. He was a lovely man. How many of our elected officials would actually go on trains? Because these are the things you find in saner climbs in the western world. You see members of parliament have boarded trains and even walking on the street. But they're not in Nigeria here. You'd have to go with the paraphernalia of security attaches to you. Because you don't feel free. Because you feel that your ego should be massaged as it were. Causing public nuisance. You see how they go on the road. Almost as if every other person should disappear as they appear. Disappear, dis-move! You know when you see that. I wonder what is all this? How did it become like this? It's always been like that. Incidentally, this conversation was one I was having with the driver this morning coming to the office. And he was asking a question. Is there something really different in northern blacks? Is it in our DNA or is it a genetic issue that we ordinarily don't want to serve? We're just about wanting our egos to be massaged. While if you did that to the average guy in Europe or the white man in Europe, you're patronizing him. But Nigerians who just want to have the office, want to have the ego. And just reel out orders and people just dancing to their beck and call. Well, I used to think that way as such questions myself when you see some of the things. But then when you remember people like Nelson Mandela. Yeah, when you remember people like Desmond Tutu. Desmond Tutu, yeah. When you remember people like, you know, some people that... This man I told you I interviewed last year. He is Mr. Defui. I interviewed him last year. And he told me how when he traveled he looked for the cheapest hotel, the cheapest space in the hotel where he went to. So there are a few of people scattered here and there. Still a few good men scattered here and there. But the sad thing is how then do we throw up? How is it that we find ourselves every time, almost every time, having the worst of us leading us. The worst of us on the seat of leadership. The worst of us making policies for us. The worst of us deciding the fate of millions of the rest of us. Shouldn't we be the ones to blame here? Because at the end of the... Well, I wouldn't blame it on the electorate. Because at the end of the... Most of the time it is still arguable. Their votes counted, right? That's another question. Because ordinarily would you just... Or some people would because they'd be influenced or bought over with some little peanuts and that they would just sell or sabotage the future for the next four to eight years. But ordinarily when you know that this set of people that you are electing actually have the say over what happens, over what policies are made, you should think twice before you even vote people that you don't really trust, people you know that cannot deliver who have questionable characters. Yeah, well, it's been said that people deserve the leadership they get. It is quite sad reality for us here because I did ask the question during Balot 23. Those who manipulated the figures during the elections, as you rightly alluded to, they are from amongst us. Those who carried machetes and guns and whatever they carried to disperse people who came to vote to main people and to hurt people and to kill people during those elections, they are amongst us. The President himself, yeah, the President himself, as much as he's been accused of this and that, he was not on the streets carrying these things out. But many people went out there to carry these things out. We had the woman in... Is it Enubu Ote? Okay. Who stood out? Yes, the wreck. Yeah, she stood out. In Abia State. Yeah, Abia State. She stood out. Unfortunately, we only have just pockets of them in different... Just pockets. The majority of us just don't seem to give a hoot. We're more concerned about the little gains we get immediately. And ironically, Maureen, these are the same poor people who should ordinarily know better. We always blame the rich and those who are leading us. But then again, you find out that it's not the rich people that come to the streets with machetes and guns and... The hoodlums is the poor people who don't really have so much to... They don't even have savings. They don't even know where the next meal will come from. And at the end of the day, they shouldn't have even realized in the first place that if they did this, what would happen? No, it's not just the hoodlums. And you can't even blame the hoodlums because they don't know better. If they knew better, they wouldn't be hoodlums in the first place. There wouldn't be hoodlums in the first place if they knew better. But you had people in the academia who perpetrated some of these things. You had people in different sectors who were ad hoc staff during the elections who were agents who messed things up. And so it's just a sad reality. But that's why the box stops at the dust steps of the leader. If you have a good leader, he begins to direct the people in the right channel and things begin to change from there. So it all begins and ends with leadership at the end of the day. Aside from this hardship allowance that we talked about, just the other day we were talking about our excessive borrowings and the loans that we are getting from the West and all of that. We don't know that we are actually just sabotaging the future of not just our children, but our children's children because at the end of the day, all those loans and all those burdens will just be on them in the years to come. Because we don't prioritize revenue, we're just thinking about expenditure and most of the time, the reason why they borrow those loans are not really in sync with the expenditure that they should be made for in the first instance. Like in economics, they'll tell you to short-term funds for short-term infrastructure or usage. Then long-term for long-term capital expenditure. But that's not what we see. They borrow this money and the monies are diverted and the infrastructure needs of the people are never next. And even some of the so-called things, projects that he claimed, yesterday I interviewed the very honorable Masi, Sam, and some of the things he explained to us yesterday, quite alarming, monies borrowed for the train, for instance. Some of them are not working. And then you have to service the interest. You have to pay the interest. Yes. They're waiting for you. Yes. We've not even talked about the capital. It's the interest that you service yearly as the years go by. Because you find that 17 years ago, so we had some refunds for the country. And everyone was like, hey, the server, maybe thinking that it was Uhuru for the country. But years after that, down till now, look at our debt burden after we were begging for our... There seems to be this crave, this huge desire, this love for collecting loans. We know that governments... There's no government in the world that doesn't collect loans. But also there is... You could also partner with some of these countries. Like he was saying, he had suggested that Nigeria partnered with China to build these infrastructure, and then give them some years to recoup, after which they hand over to us. During that, we're not owning them anything, right? We're not going to owe them any money to refund. They collect their money after a period, and then they leave the infrastructure for us. At the end of the day, we get the service and we get the infrastructure completely. But no, some people would rather go collect the loans for reasons best known to them. So for projects they never intended to do in the first instance. They collect the loans and they say it's for repairs of some major federal roads. At the end of the day, for 10, 15 years, we're still talking about those roads. Oh well. Let's move on to the top trending. The Nigerian Army rewards 58 officers with brand new bicycles for hard work. I saw it. When I saw the rewards, I was excited. Then I saw bicycles, I said, okay. Okay, I'm trying to go with the whole climate change. Keep fit, so we don't burn unnecessary fuels so we don't pollute our environment. Yeah, there you have it. There you have the pictures of the bicycles. Wow. I wonder why bicycles in the first place, is it for exercising? Well, I wish we had an army officer who would explain better. I wouldn't want to speak too much on that because we do not understand the internal workings of the military to ask to know why they would prefer to reward them with bicycles. All right, so the second top trending is Shell could secretly move to Yaba Magistrate Court for arraignment. Well, we understand that the musicians are lawyers. We are not notified. And suggestions of an attempt to get back at the musician is rife in the air. The latest I heard was that he was taken to his home and the home was searched. And I'd also heard that he was not allowed to get food. I don't know the details of that, but those were some of the things in the news this morning. Well, I just, what can I really say about Shell, Kuti? I just hope the justice would be served and seem to have been served. But at the end of the day, I don't want to see or start hearing things like victimization or the police trying to prove or make some sort of point. He's been granted bail. Though the police said they would like to have him for 21 more days so that they can conclude their investigations. But the judge said no. The judge said no for the eight hours. You should be done with this. And that's it. So many things up there. I even heard that they said that the policeman was slapped because I think he was requested for, but the police had said that he was in coma as a result of the slap. Coma? So, yeah. Well, this is the case in court. We just want to see how all of this plays out. Shell should not have slapped a uniformed military man. What's about his body, of course? A policeman, a beggar part. Should not have slapped him. However, we want to see justice done because he is one of us. We've seen the police hurt Nigerians, too. But I must say that the police is also beginning to clean out his closet. Some of those who have been found... Yes, some of those officers who have been found wanting, in recent times, have been dealt with accordingly by the Nigerian police force. So I imagine they're also trying to say, we're doing our part, do your part as the people so that there will be a balance. It has to be, ordinarily, that the relationship between the police and the citizenry should be a symbolic one because they live amongst the people. They understand what the people go through. They understand the hardship. They go to the same market. So they should even know each side that knows where the shoes are pinched. So at the end of the day, there should be some sort of a relationship and some sort of a... What's the word right now? A rapport between both sides. At the end of the day, if you look at it, the police meets the people and the people also meet the police. Yeah, there are some good cops out there. Really, there are. I keep saying that. I've said it repeatedly. There are really some good cops out there. I've met lovely police people out there who have been of great help, great gentlemen they are. So there are the good ones. There are the bad ones. And I imagine that they're trying to make sure that the bad ones who have given them bad names would be removed from the system. So that, as you said, the confidence will be restored. Because as it stands today, most Nigerians do not consider them police managed friends. They don't even trust them. They don't even say... I don't know what that slogan in the first place, the police is your friend, but most Nigerians don't see it that way. Don't see it that way. Okay, while it's time for us to take the weather report, we'll come back to take a look at the headlines on some of the dailies. Do stay with us.