 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching the breakfast on plus TV Africa and it's time for a hot topic This one talks about the federal government to begin distribution of grains and nation-wide and joining us have a conversation It's Shagun Shukwiton. He's a chairman accountability candle and transparency network. Good morning. Mr. Shukwiton. Thank you for joining us Okay, so we're talking about the distribution of grains You're suspecting the smile on your face. Are you expecting the greatness? I am. I hope it gets to me And I'm sure that we will just ask him if it has gotten to your duster by now I'm not going to give the answer. I'm going to give off air Anyways, so I think President Inoubad promised about 140 something thousand metric tons of grains And now they're saying there's going to be a distribution of these grains But we're wondering why we haven't seen it now. How many people are going to get there? So many questions to ask. So let's just get your thoughts on this first then we can move forward Well, what these types of promises tell me is that The president doesn't understand the gravity of the situation that is confronting him I don't think he gets it and I don't think the people around him gets it Otherwise, they wouldn't make these types of Rather, I want to choose my words carefully So I'll say rather unfortunate pronouncements I could use much stronger words Look, if we break this number down 42,000 metric tons of grains will be distributed That's the word And then another 58,000 metric tons of rice Would also be shared to the market for price stabilization So I would assume that down would be sold Now, if you take the 42,000 that would be distributed Which means that it would be given up for free I believe they claim they've done this You know about a month ago, I haven't seen it I didn't see any evidence of it so I don't know That's why I said the claim was Let's even assume that it happened 42,000 metric tons across 36 states and their city Yes, how much, how much I mean, that is 1,000 metric tons per state Our annual consumption of rice alone Rice alone, per annum 7 million metric tons So if you take that annual consumption of rice And divide that You have 189, let's say 200,000 metric tons per state And their city is what we consume Rice alone, not grains So we're not talking millet We're not talking wheat We're not talking maize And all the other strategic grains that we consume As a country, just rice 200,000 metric tons per state And then the government says Oh, there's hardship in the land So who wants to ameliorate the situation Who share those 2,000 metric tons Which is about 1,000 metric tons per state You are talking less than 2% of the consumption Maybe even more percent So clearly the politicians, the political class They are trifling with this matter They don't understand how oblivious This situation is You see, when people begin to take the law Into their own hands without caring And they won't report it They do report it to themselves And saying that they are taking this Because they are hungry That you realize that you are very, very close To the brink of civil disorder Or complete breakdown of it It's just a matter of when not following And the danger in this is Sadly, it would only be the government Assets that would be attacked and targeted You know, it would only be a matter of time Before the poor, they have not Who trade their eyes on the people they believe And members of their hearts And attack them and enter their houses Their pantries and their kitchens To take food for themselves It's just a matter of time It will happen Unless something drastic is done We cannot be shared for 2,000 metric tons of grains Across the entire country And say that we are intervening in the situation This is absolutely ridiculous So this government must do better The president must show more sensitivity More awareness He must show more There has to be a clear display of empathy For the people of the country That are suffering as a result of policies He has insisted on pursuing So for me, my preliminary commentary is This is tokenistic And I could almost say it's wicked It's like throwing grains to dogs Who are hungry It's a matter of time before they tear you down Well, a ton of rice is about 18 bags Because a ton is about 907 kilograms So it's about 18 bags That you will go into that So for 42,000, it will be 762,000 bags Of rice For 200 million Nigerians That it will be distributed I'm wondering where data will be used You said something about not being long Before they enter into looting other things We've already heard that not only Was the rice and grains looted They've also entered places where they sell Building materials and looted some of these things Maybe the cement, maybe the roofing sheets And all that These things are being looted But this is where we are right now The AFDB president, Deshino, has said The things they are doing now Will not bring down the prices of goods and services We're looking at inflation in the face And maybe we should go to Zimbabwe To make sure that we find out what they did Because the inflation there was terrible And now they're trying to manage it and all that We don't know what the solution is Now if the government is listening to you What would be your first line of advice to them What can be done Because it's a ticking bomb In this program we've been talking about it That we don't know what will happen tomorrow And we may not be able to manage it when it comes It might be more than NSARs So what do we begin to do Beyond distributing rice to people That may not be the ones that are in need at all Okay, so just to write on that last comment You made about this being more than NSARs Let's paint a picture of how born babies can become And I think it's important I know that people, you know Your station has a wide viewership And I know some people that are connected to the government Or that are in government will listen to this We've had two examples of where we're headed We had the NSAR situation And we had these then phobic attacks in South Africa situation And the reprisal that happened in Nigeria During NSARs and during those then phobic reprisal attacks In Nigeria, you know People that were poor Invaded private estates Yes And attacked private homes People that you live there for Took out their anger You will see that this was just anger And the family The assets, the vehicles I don't know if you guys remember that video That was a very popular video that trended Of, you know, of, you know Letty at West West Way And how some men, some guys took wood Huge, you know, stems of wood And were breaking the glass Of any SUV that was passing by And, you know, people scaled over fences Into lekkies this one at West West Way And were attacking estates in that area My own estate is over here And, you know, over By no means a high ground It's a middle income community We're not multimillionaires You know, and all of that here We're just middle income people Middle class getting by our lives We were attacked People jumped over our fences I personally had to play the game And tell them to bring back the end source period You know, that's how that now That was there Compare the anger And the emotions in the land today To what it was then You know, the hunger The hardship that we have today To what it was then Then you realize how bad things Have been out in the hearts of the people So that's to take the scenario For the government who are listening We have just once Once most part away from an explosion That will consume both of it That may consume everybody So what do we do? The first step, you see Suddenly, the government did not listen To good advice You remember on your show I repeatedly spoke against the I spoke A lot of people spoke You know, there are people in In the middle class elite Good things People who are economically aware Economic experts, financial experts Like myself, that's what I do You know, as my profession Who are sold On the idea of subsidy removal And that subsidy is a problem You have to float your currency They're sold on INF And all back ideologies Right? Now, you can see the outcome Because those ideologies will not work In a full country It will not work And I kept saying this Now, what do we do? We have unleashed Pandora's box The demos are flying around Consuming people We're trying to bring them back And close the can It's almost impossible So for me, the first thing That we need to do is to address it Address the things that we can address What can we address today in Nigeria? Government spending Government optics You see, people are hungry But more critically People are angry So you have Nigerians who are looking at themselves And seeing how poor they are How much hardship they are going through How hard it is for them to feed Their families on a daily basis And then those same Nigerians In this same Nigeria See the motorcade The convoy of the president of their country Who is responsible for their situation Driving a motorcade that has hundreds of cars Not just ordinary cars Flushing cars that cost hundreds of millions You can't do that You can't It doesn't matter I'm not talking about the cost of governance now I'm just saying that the government And especially the president Must show that he is also affected by the hardship Created by his own policies You cannot create policies That have thrown people into poverty Talking about existential poverty And you are just going about your life Normally, as we speak now, is in Qatar And he has gone with his two children And they were in part of the line-up You travel and then you are being received The official delegation is being received By the host country And then you line up the members of your delegation His sons were on that line-up Two of his sons And they don't have any roles playing government officials This is the kind of politics That is being pushed out by the president And then his handlers come out And the light was everyday The president must address the anger In the light Before you now come and talk about Addressing the hunger in the land You see, the hunger in the land It will take time We have unleashed it It's almost impossible You can't I mean, how do you want to dispose of subsidy? It will take tremendous amounts of new power For the president to come back now And say, oh, I made a mistake We're going back to subsidy It's not impossible We have the financial resources, by the way It's not like So I don't agree By any stretch of the imagination With anybody that says That the country was going to collapse If we did on the most subsidy Our fiscal structure was in balance But by its absolute nonsense I tell you that, of free This ideology and this idea Have been sold to us by a political class That had their own agenda Their agenda is not the development of Nigeria But that's a discussion for another day Right now, what needs to happen is that The president must address the anger in the land By simply fixing the optics He has to collapse his ministries He must He has to do a national address And tell Nigeria that I see The impact I did not realize it was going to be this bad I'm sorry As an immediate measure We are reducing the number of ministries We have from 48 to 32 Or to 25 You see, if the president doesn't do something As fundamental as this The anger is going to escalate And it may go out of control Already there are whispers And it's not only not whispers Even former DSS directors are talking About fools About the possibility of fools This thing is not a joke These are presidents and his advisers And the politicians that are running this country Today must understand that These are precarious sites The best way to destroy a country Is to leave its people In poverty and burglary They will ask for the demo To replace the people that they hold responsible For their poverty and burglary And that's where we are heading to So really, for me, the solution Tricks the optics Tricks is very important now Forget the economics Just fix the optics Let Nigeria know That they're not eroding the suffering But I'm afraid I'm afraid because The president, permit me to say Addresses us with some kind of arrogance Even from the time of electioneering The campaign still now And like you said He's not in tune with the sufferings of the people He said that the suffering we are seeing now Is baby steps I don't know what he meant It means that we are going to be Even mature in the suffering and all that And it doesn't speak well He went to Qatar, told the people That his government is so good That you report people that take bribe to him And all those things And people have faltered some statements And all that I don't know how this is going to happen That we will change He said that his ministries are so many Because if he doesn't do that The job may not be done And then on the other hand He's talking about implementing a report That is more than a decade long Or old There are some Yes, so I don't know how How you think this government is going to To be biting from the two corners of their mouths And still do what you're proposing That they are going to do Maybe I don't have to They have to They have to Who will make them They have to Look And I think that Who will make them The answer to that is you and I People need to begin to let them know How bad things are We are in touch with the people I have people working for me In my house and in my business I live in other states I relate with the security men You know I relate with my artisans My book and I is that You can sense the anger and frustration But what about you do Even as CSOs Even as labor or anything It is interpreted as politics Whatever you say Even this meeting and all that People want And they say it's politics Absolutely And that's unfortunate Listening to the president When he came to Lagos to launch The fantastic project that Lagos Take government does in the red line And the president has to spoil In my opinion The mood You know That was a good event Was a very very rare bright light In overwhelming darkness And then the question How to come there And teach you a threat And an ultimate onto labor You know Politicizing the protest That is unfortunate But the point is that Right now I think what Nigerians Need to be doing Civil society organizations like Mine Labor movement The media Influences on social media Public opinion Moulders We must speak with one voice And let the president understand That we are in an existential crisis It will consume everybody Including himself If he does not fix Especially the optics You see this optics sometimes It's You can You can be Shipping the head of a man And blowing wind on it And the man will be happy Will be content Even though you are doing it now You cannot be speaking with arrogance And bravado When you are also Conditioning and And putting into hardship People They will get angry They And a hungry man Is already an angry man Imagine a hungry man That also has reason Outside of his hunger To be angry That's explosive anger That's what you saw happen In Abu Dhabi yesterday And that is just the beginning If you like Put them below security guards The minister Of state What the culture came at And made extremely unfortunate statements Very unfortunate statements Clearing the sensitivity Of the situation Clearing these radio waters going on Calling those guys criminals They were not criminals They were ordinary Nigerians Expressing their anger And their anger Why support what they did? No But it was unacceptable So The president Must be made to see That we have a problem On our hands And I'm telling you I think it's high time We start letting them know That there are whispers in the light There are whispers About change of government By any means necessary There are whispers And the people that are pushing those whispers Are not you and I There are people that are connected In the security services They are coming out boldly In the press To say that Don't say that Who is not possible So look The president Must understand that He is raising specters He's driving Nigeria to the end To imagine Go forbid That we have a clue in this country Imagine what that would mean It means that 25 years Of whatever gains Might not as they may be Democratically that we have made Is gone We start all over Why are these people so I don't understand Look somebody needs to get across To the president And get them to understand That we have problems in this This is a serious situation That they have to take seriously And take immediate Remedial action There are lots of things That can also be done You know to fix the price Of goods and services Bring prices down To a certain degree You can never go back Unfortunately to where we were In June or in May 233 I don't think Can ever get that In terms of price of goods And services Because inflation Once it heats It rarely comes down The prices cannot come down That much But we can at least Tend the tide Revert it for going higher Let me bring it down a bit By some very smart policymaking It's time to do all of that But before all of that Depress their monstrosity To the price of Nigerians It has to stop this arrogant Posturing bravadocious Post-full statements That are obviously Very insensitive And sounds even almost wicked You know the time for Missing words I think for me That time is gone Where the stations Where even You know people like You and I On this show We're in danger So we should cry out And we should speak out Okay so talking about Remedial actions Two things you touched on Was collapsing the ministries And the fuel subsidy Now obviously there was The ORACIA reports That was said The president once Would like to be Implemented And other people Coming out to say Okay we need to Review this We've been implemented But on the other hand Femi Faleno came out yesterday It was in yesterday's news Talking about the review Of fuel subsidy So do you think If we combine both of them The collapsing of the ministries Because that kind of like Reduces the cost of governance And then even the review Of the fuel subsidy Might not be back to Where it used to be Because even as of right now There's still a quacy Subsidy whereby Look at the dollar You know keeps increasing Or rising And then we're still Paying the same amount So if we were supposed to Pay the same thing as the Dollar obviously Whatever we're paying for fuel Now would have been About a thousand Naira Something in that range So do you think Both of this Two things that I've touched on Would actually help With the prices of goods And services in the Country at the moment Well yeah absolutely The cost of governance issue For me is more of an optics issue It will fix the anger To a certain degree If Nigeria sees very sincere Spirited effort To cut the cost of governance Their anger will You know a level Will come down a bit That they would You know they will Who look at us We say in the street palace If that You know may not really fix The problem The fundamental problems Of Nigeria I don't know how much How many ministries Do you want to remove How many But a thousand agencies Do you want to How many jobs will you Eliminate And how much will that result Into in terms of The Naira power that is saved How many billions Trillions can you save I'm not sure that This government Even its body language Has the will To actually tackle That issue they're done If you really really Want to make impact In terms of possibilities In that direction It has to be A very extreme Surgical operation I know they won't do it So for me You're talking about Our SIE report The reducing ministries It's really about Fixing the emotions In the country Showing that you are also Making sacrifices And making changes The other part of it What everybody said Is very instructive I don't do the quick calculation If we were to pay The current Plat rate for PMS On the international market At our current exchange rates In Nigeria Petrol itself for 2,112 Nair At the pump Has paid on today's exchange rate To sell at 2,912 Nair We know Without a doubt That we're importing petrol We know it Because now Obviously look at That was the refinery That started Oh, we celebrated Pump and Pregentry The political Media Propaganda Machinery Who rolled out In January And said Can't go to the refinery And received So that's a million Barriers of food They're about to start Well, this is March Oh, we still haven't started But to talk about the refinery Oh, the Turn-around maintenance Has been completed I think they called it Engineering Something They used the technical time That had been completed Production will start soon This is March That was in December This is March Nothing So we know That we import petrol Till today If we're importing petrol It means that we're importing petrol At 1 dollar Sorry 1 dollar 32 cents That's the current international price It moves, it varies But rarely by more than a few cents So around 1 dollar 32 cents Convert that at 1,600 Or let's say 1,500 Because official rates Is about 1,550 As of yesterday Convert that You get 2,000 Straight So clearly Since we know We're importing this thing A subsidy is being paid Somehow Somewhere By some A subsidy is being paid So what we're calling What we're saying is Admit it You know Come out and tell Nigerians We are still paying subsidies So that again What that will do Is that it will boost The confidence of the people You know In the government It will boost the faith Of the people People will know That these people Are not aligned towards You know It's very bad for you To be beating somebody And they're aligned Okay So we're paying subsidies Let them In fact This can be something That they can use As a political You know They're looking Always looking for Political points To make it To say Look Yes We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said We said New liberal Economic ideology Is just simply to pander To the wall Back at the IMF Imagine The CBN Municipaly coming out To say that they are Working with the IMF On places That would help stabiling The Nairobi So interpersonal The central bank Of a country How can you be Working with the IMF To say that Yet Its a multilateralISH issues Whose interests are not You know Capital Underline They are not Tune the interests They're pursuing the interest of people that sets them up and that call the shots there. So how can our CBN be telling Nigeria that they're working with the IMF? Absolutely ridiculous. So the president needs to come out and admit that we're paying subsidies. That will help again with the options too. Are they always doing it? Okay. Yeah, so let me quickly run a problem. On the issue of exchange rates, I think the area, and I've repeatedly said this, the area that the most impact, the most boot can be done today is in exchange rates management. If we're able to somehow persuade, manage, massage our exchange rates back down to under 1,000 there, let's just say 950, you will see how the temperature will come down in the country because it will have an impact on prices. We import a lot of things, almost everything that we eat and wear and use are imported to it. If we're able to manage that, the CBN can do this. It will just take some bold, very hard decisions but they can't do it. They need to intervene in the market at market prices. They do not need to intervene in the market the way they did last week using a specialized exchange rates that come back to MSLADs and then you begin to look it for critical. So they need to intervene in the market. It's a desperate need now. They need to provide supply for at least two months to drive these prices down. Why are there policies to bring in foreign portfolio investors, foreign direct investment, harness the square of evidences? Why are there policies going on and why are there policies useful? They must intervene to bring the exchange rates back down to below 1,000 there. If we do that, then you will see that things will be much better. Yeah, like I said, I wanted to say I was always asking myself why they were hiding the fact that subsidy was being paid when it was a point to their advantage and you expressed the same. But I'm just wondering in the news also we find that CBN has slashed customs effects duty rate. I don't know, will that help or is that just playing to the gallery? It will help, but it's not enough. It will only help us to be much enough. What we, you know, I mean, so the way to simply look at this is what percentage of lending of any article that you talk about is accounted for by duties or percentage. Duties typically 10%, you know, or some items 5% or some items 20%. And those are usually items that are considered almost lottery and non-essential. And then some luxury goods you talk of 50% to 60%. So it will affect those ones, you know, significantly. But you know, the irony of that is that the things that will probably bear the enjoy the benefit of this reversal, the most will be things that we don't need anymore. But for the things that we need, the percentage of their lending costs represented by due by import duties is small. It's not significant enough. So, you know, so the human right over them, adjusting the rate of course, I didn't really follow it because well, yeah, it's bad, it's again just for the optics and yeah, there's some first implications of that. But it's not significant enough. We need significant fundamental actions from the CBN. Just reviewing the rate for duty computation back down to I don't know what rates they've gone to now. I don't think that will do it. It's good that they've done something, but we need a whole lot more, something far more fundamental as to happen. We need to drive our exchange rate down. Yeah, but we need to drive our exchange rate down to below 1,000. That is the solution and it's the only solution. Okay, I don't know. So well, maybe sometimes they have to just put their tail under their legs and then go back to the policies that were before now and admit that they are wrong. Kenya did it. I think Kenya also, they did this fuel subsidy removal and after a while they said, oh no, we find out that people are suffering more and they revert it to the old thing. Why can't we do that? Are we too proud to do it or something? Anyway, this is where we have to draw the cotton with you this morning. We would like to thank you for your time, Mr. Chopiton, for coming on the program this morning. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. Thank you so much. We've been talking with Mr. Shergoune Chopiton and we're looking at the fact that the federal government has said they are going to distribute grains again to the people. Again. Again. In high pitch. Again, yeah. That is 762 bucks or so to 200 and something million Nigerians. Let's see how that goes. Yeah. I think it's crossed. I hope it gets to your duster. And I hope it gets to mine as well. I don't hope it gets to my duster. It might be contaminated. Or bad. Yeah, that's bad. Anyway, this is where we draw the cotton. I'd just like to give you some motivational talk this morning. Sometimes you feel that at day, you're at the end of your life but nothing else can work for you. There are some people who made billions at the early age of 20s. Like the Mark Zuckerberg of this world, he became a billionaire in dollars at the age of 23. But we have people like Tiger Woods that got to 45. We have people like George Lucas that got to 52 before they became billionaires. Maybe the target you are hoping to have today you think that you are at the evening or in the evening of your life, don't give up because tomorrow might just be that bright light that you need. I'd like to thank you for being a part of our program. My name is Nyam Gol Aghaji. My name is Rume Paul Singh. Thank you for having breakfast with us. We'll see you again tomorrow. Have a good day.