 We're glad to know that you're still there and watching Breakfast on PLUS TV. Right now, it's time to look at the headlines on our national dailies. And we're glad to be joined by a legal practitioner that will be talking about these headlines in the person of Mr. Tunde Kolawale. Mr. Kolawale, good morning and welcome to the show. Hello, Tunde. Good morning. Good morning, my brother. It's always a pleasure. So there are a lot of headlines, so we'll just take them as they come. We'll begin with Punch, and if you're there, we'll take one headline at a time. So we'll begin with Punch Newspaper. And Punch Newspaper leads with the story, or has the story, 100 military generals may be retired. Let's begin from there. 100 military generals may be retired. The government votes 24 billion for national assembly members, accommodation, and Naira closets at $756 per dollar. So let's begin with the military officers or generals that may be retired now. What's your take? Well, that has always been the story of our life, Punch Newspaper. Every time a new government comes into power, they tend to appoint to their favorite to work most of these positions in the organization, and even most of the paratroopers in the ministry. And that has only led to the retirement of other persons who continue to the favorite that has been appointed to some of these positions. You are entitled to training the general of becoming the commissioner of police, or DIJO of police. It's not a joke. It takes a lot. So when you sacrifice the careers of these people, you spend a lot of money to train and to bring them. It is the nation that is going to pay for all that is at the moment. That is what I've always been doing. It is better to always appoint the most senior career paratrooper in some of these senior general things, for the starters of what I do to help the organization when another person is made to step down. And not necessarily we begin to continue to appoint our favorite to help some of these positions. So it doesn't always work. And the kind of undermined efforts to help that exist in some of these places. Okay. Well, some people are thinking that it is going to move or make the security apparatus in Nigeria to be better because according to the story of business day, there are high expectations as Tunibu assembled security team. So people are seeing this as something good, but you don't see it as anything good, or at least it's not as good as people are talking. What that has been, what has been happening, like I earlier said, but if what has been happening is done at the detriment of Nigeria, I'm not to show that it is too good. I have raised the issue of all the people that have been appointed for this position. And I can tell you they are more than qualified. But if you have to clarify the career of the only admin of the task of politics just to appoint your favorite, I'm not to show that you promote the politics and then calling the right confide as to that you can also do their career when in battle. Okay. Let's move to another issue. We may have to revisit that if there is time for us to talk about it. But on the point as well, we have federal government votes 24 billion Naira for national assemblies members accommodation. I was trying to just do a simple mathematics. In the House of...in the Senate, we have 109 senators, and then we have 360 reps members. That makes a total of 469. So on the average, everybody will be getting like 51.17 million Naira for accommodation. How does that strike you? It does. All Nigerians, all Nigerians have never eaten the abacus to the two abacus of money as it's been used to maintain the national assembly. The senators, the House of Remembrance and when you also take down to the state level you will know that it's going to be a total amount of money that will be used to run this democracy. That is the reason why you find that a lot of people are declining that we should reduce the number of people in the national assembly and also kind of cool down the House of Residents into a unique kind of legislation so that we can reduce the number. So 51 million is another money especially in this healthcare time which could be reduced or no due in some other countries. Furthermore, you will remember that it's been said that most of the healthcare that was built for the people in the national assembly were sold out to either the national assembly or the Mother Party so that the nation would no longer require to be funding the accommodation of politicians and especially people in the national assembly. So these data are becoming the part why are we going back on the policy that we have made to ensure that the cost of going to the national assembly or the cost of providing accommodation for the people in the national assembly is part directly to the legislature of themselves. In most parts of the world it is from the authority that the people in the national assembly would be providing accommodation for themselves and not for the state to be renting accommodation for these people. Whichever way we look at it this democracy is a very, very expensive thing and don't forget that accommodation is just one of the people who own it but maintain it in the national assembly. You see how to provide the people and so many organs that are needed to make them comfortable so to say. And some of these people are returning these people they live in Abuja already and all that and then they are voting this month this is not furniture allowance this is not what robot allowance this is not hardship allowance this is not newspaper allowance and all those allowances that they have so just for accommodation 51 million Naira this is serious this is really serious a population of 469 less than 500 people they have 24 billion Naira for accommodation that's nice. Naira a lot of things have also gone on in the financial sector where so many windows were collapsed into only the I and E window and Naira is now free for all as it were but the Naira is closing in the official window which is like the only window right now at a rate of 756 Naira to the dollar is this policy really going to help us better than the former one where it was regulated and there was an official rate and there was a black market rate is this policy better in any way? ordinarily it should be able to help us I suspect that the reason why the new regime as it is said that this policy is to make sure that the people in the central fund are not taking this money into the black market and selling it for the benefit of themselves that might be the reason why the new policy is needed but when you look all over the world or the most old world policy it is really difficult to chop down the black market completely why is it difficult? it is difficult because the government or the state or the CBM for most of this place will not be able to provide enough alcohol as they for both the individual and business to be able to transport these type of drugs so because of the capital people who have had currency for maybe whether they decide that they do have drugs or they call it the end of the drug whether they take it to the black market and then begin to pay to those who find it difficult to access the official channel and that has been the reason why these three parties have always been there so we probably would require to give the government a little more time as they cause for debate or find to this policy that they have lied little bit but if you ask me my opinion I doubt it whether it will ever work because I mean the value of your currency is depending on the number of parts what is the productive capacity the GDP of the country Nigeria is not producing much today the oil which we used to depend on is also not spending as much as should be spending in the black market we are also not pumping out as much as we need to fund out and of course the rest of the the spending of the oil it's also a factor so but don't let us begin to jump into confusion the policy is just a few weeks old let us pray and hope that it will work for the benefit of all of us because there is already too much hardship in the land inflation and the cost of food products services are going up on a daily basis so let's pray that the policy will work okay we'll be praying because if you say the policy is just a few weeks old and all that there are some people in these few weeks that have lost their jobs there are some people who have lost their lives there are some people who have lost so much there are some policies that are coming up and one of these policies also like we have on the nature news newspaper fuel subsidy that has been removed yes we knew that it was a long time coming that the fuel subsidy will be removed and people are quarrelling not with the removal but with the what was put in place or not put in place to ameliorate the sufferings of the people if eventually it comes to happen now fuel subsidy six companies have been given approval to import fuel or petrol into the country one of these companies is the dangute company and dangute refinery was commissioned on the 22nd I think of last month as you know having been completed or at least 95% complete now these six companies have been given licenses to import fuel people were saying the dangute refinery was going to kickstart maybe in 2024 and everybody was like the company has been commissioned already and we are going to expect production and sale maybe in July we are almost in July and now they are securing a license to import fuel so what do you think about that with regards to the dangute refinery here is the important thing that my own disposal is true that refinery may not be able to provide people with this fuel until the year 2025 what I have completed on what I have been told is that the fertilizer production plan of dangute refinery has been completed as some other because you know when you are doing refinery there are so many refinery that you can produce from the refinery the major thing which is production of petrol diesel is never likely to take off until the year 2025 so Nigeria is going to be able to import fuel as it has been doing over the year and even when there are not enough people to drink the petroleum produced so it is doubtful whether it is going to be cheaper in terms of the rate that we are going to be buying the cost the amount that we are buying includes low material and draw last at the international market rate and if you buy at the international market rate it is never likely that the Naira is doing at the local market just a moment let me understand why would it need to buy diesel until just a moment don't forget why would it need to buy raw materials if it begins to produce petroleum in Nigeria why would it need to buy the raw materials let's say the crude oil in dollars from Nigeria well the Nigerian government is never likely to sell for the Naira the international crude oil I should think that is what is done all over the world because if you sell to the Naira at the rate at which the people are going to go at the international market that means they are subsidizing Dan Bote if we are subsidizing the input that Dan Bote is able to give to produce the petroleum in Nigeria so that is the case why are you now removing fossil fuels and saying it's not right to continue to subsidize the petroleum product in the country so that is the reason and then they will not want to sell at the local at this rate which is being produced in Nigeria it gives us a feeling that we have been hoodwinked because some of the things that some of the conditions that were given as the reasons for removing fuel subsidy is that now we are going to have local production Dan Bote refineries coming and then other private firms will come up and begin to produce this thing now you remove fuel subsidy which is basically petrol subsidy and then you are producing fertilizer in a refinery that we thought would be producing petrol for the people's consumption now it is fertilizer and there was no lie the refinery some parts of it were completed but it was not what we expected in Nigeria so we have been hoodwinked as it were so let us move from there because our time is running out and touch one or two more things we have just heard from this day there is a headline there that the number of Nigerians moving to Canada hits nine year high like for the past nine years this is the time that people have moved more than any other time even when some people say that is on business day when people are saying that things are going to get better does it mean that people are still losing hope even more