 Trouble in Imo State as the House of Assembly leadership suspends six members, including the chief whip. National Assembly screams President Mohammed Buhari's aide, Doretta Anurche, over her nomination as an Electoral Commissioner. Opposition parties say she shouldn't have been screened due to her partisanship, but Anurche claims she is no longer partisan. We will be discussing these two issues plus the regulars of the press today in history and sports with Wale Scott. With that, we say good morning and thanks for joining us here on the breakfast on PLOS TV Africa. The Friday morning edition, we hope it's going to be very interesting. I am Osau Gye, Ogbawa. And I am Annetta, Felix. Good morning to you. And good morning, Osau Gye Ogbawa. It's a little wet, actually modern, little wet this morning across Lagos. It's been raining since late last night, 3am. It just went totally crazy. It felt like it was a complete storm in Leckie last night. I hope that people can get to work this morning. For everyone who's commuting to and fro, work home and all of that this morning. We, of course, wish you a safe ride in the rains this morning. All right, so our top trending stories today. The first one is about politics and the second about money. So regarding the politics story, we just read that teaser about Loretta Onochi. There's a whole lot of controversy regarding her nomination as an INE commissioner based on her affiliation and membership of the All Progressives Congress. It's been the subject of debates, you know, back and forth for the past few months. But the big issue here is that during her screening by the Senate Committee on the Independence National Electrical Commission, Loretta Onochi was among those who were, you know, being screened for confirmation. And three times she denied, I was about to say denied Christ. Three times she denied being a member of the PC. See, I'm going to read some quotes that she, you know, from her. She said, since 2019, I have not had anything to do with any political organization, including Buhari support groups. She said, when the APC was doing revalidation of party members, I did not take part in that exercise. She says, as I am sitting down here, I am not a member of any political party. I have no partisanship in my blood. I have seen many petitions against my nomination, not only from the PDP, but also from APC members. She went on to say no one has any reason to fear for her nomination as I am a commissioner representing Delta State. She said she follows the law and she went on to defend herself saying she is, you know, this is basically where it all lies. Then if, there's lots of controversy theories about this. If you've checked what people are saying online, they'll say that if she claims to have stopped her partisan, her eight APC membership and affiliation in 2019, it then seems like a long time coming. Maybe, you know, this was the end game for her to end up being a commissioner and so she had to cut all those ties so she can claim to be nonpartisan when the time is now, when the time is right, which is not now. And also you would remember that there has been statements from Loretta Onoche even in recent time, commenting on political matters that seem to take sides to the ruling party. So I still don't really see where exactly she drew the line between her membership with APC and, you know, nonpartisan politics. But this is what it is. She is defending herself. She has denied the APC three times and says, you know, the Senate has no fear. People can go ahead and confirm her as any commissioner for Delta State. Well, she obviously lied and I'm hoping that the members of that committee, you know, can see that she is lying. It's, you know, I don't understand, you know, why this is so hard, you know, but I think I understand why, you know, we're having this conversation in the first place, why she's even in front of that committee or that hearing. It is because of where, you know, Nigeria currently is and the fact that we currently have a government that doesn't necessarily listen to the cries of the people. And we also have very, very short attention span to some of these things. Because I saw someone's article, you know, saying that if Nigerians really would be willing to focus on one particular thing and clamor and demand a change, you know, in one government policy or the other instead of getting distracted after two days, then maybe some of these things wouldn't, you know, pass through, you know, and, you know, happen. But, you know, the reason is because of where we are today. So she obviously has lied and there's so much evidence. There's even a court statement, an oath. It's a plaintiff's witness statement of oath that she has her name in. And from 2021, where she says, there's a line here that says that I am also engaged in active politics and a member of the Neighborhood Watch and also contested the local government elections under the Conservative Party in United Kingdom. I'm also a member of the Upper Progressive Congress and a volunteer of the Buhari Support Organization. And this is from 2021. Yes, 30th of, I'm not sure what month this is, 6th of May, I guess. So it is shameful, you know, that we have found ourselves in this place. This is very much like, you know, giving a go to piece of yam to keep for you. That's, you know, where we are currently with or nominating her. But I need, you know, everyone to understand, you know, how much partisanship a person would have shown that at a time when they are nominated for position like this, the whole of the country, including APC members, can tell that there's something wrong with this. That's how much partisanship she showed. This is not just a regular, you know, person who had, you know, APC membership maybe in 2015 or in 2018 or sometime and has just, you know, had their name as a member of the party. No, this is a person who has shown so much partisanship. So much involvement. She has been fully involved in issues of the APC that the whole country, including her siblings, including her family members, all know that there's something wrong with, you know, nominating her for position like this. And so it's sad that we're having this conversation. It's shameful that she even really has to get to the state where they even have to have a screening and have these conversations with, you know, members of that committee. It's really, really sad. And I've also seen people say, well, this basically is a reminder. There's really nothing that Nigerians should hope for with the 2023 elections. You know, these are really just signs that that election may not be free and fair. It's very, very likely that, you know, if the government can see that there are these concerns about the people that are nominated for this commission and has thrown, you know, a blind eye and decides to ignore all these concerns, then there's so much more that would very likely be ignored, you know, as concerns concerning the free and fair elections. And so we, you know, as Nigerians have also lived through times where we've seen politicians who have no honor, because if Loretta Onoche as a person had any honor, she would have declined. She would have declined. There's really no, go get another job. You know, I'm sure you must have been doing something. You went into the president's in the last couple of years. Stick with that responsibility or find some other place that she can be put, but not with the elections. So we have no honor. And these are persons who sweep party to party every two weeks. You know, whenever, you know, every three market days, they decide a new party. They're going to join. And so that's why we are where we are today. And it's once again, very, very, very shameful. Osawa Giowa, why do we even, you know, decide to take away the decision by the presidency to nominate her as INEC commissioner for Delta State? Take a look at the person Loretta Onoche had personality. You'd find that even while she was eight to the president, she was never a favorite of the people. There was just so much opposition and criticism of her personality and of her views. Do you, do you understand what I'm talking about? When she puts out statements, when she puts out tweets, how people respond to that and say you're just so against the people. You're just so partisan. You're just so. So the, the reaction towards her personality and who, what she represents wasn't one of favor with the people. But it's not, it's not the people's fault. It is because a lot of people can see beyond her statements and realize that this person would rather stay on the side of partisan politics than on the side of truth. That's what I'm saying. It makes you, it makes you wonder if this is someone who, you know, is not in the good books of Nigerians as a country. How are they all doing? Exactly. No, it's that also, that's part of it. What I'm saying is, can't the presidency pick someone that there's a consensus on the person's integrity and what the person represents? I mean, if Nigerians are not satisfied with her performance in office and, you know, have views regarding politics and, you know, the Nigerian state, why is it that the presidency doesn't just listen? Why is it that it seems that you do not listen to Nigerians and you do the opposite of what the people want? It should be a government of the people. It should be a government that does, you know, that serves the interests of the people. When you have a government that, you know, people are clamoring for one thing and it's the opposite, you give them, it just is weird. So, while I did radio, a lot of times I spoke with people that came on the radio that I interviewed to blindly defend certain policies of, you know, one government or the other. They knew that they were lying. They knew that they were talking nonsense. But, you know, because they felt like they would get favors from that government, they, you know, wear regulars, you know, to defend any, you know, government policy whatsoever and different political parties. And a lot of times, you know, after the radio show, they would admit, okay, I know I'm lying, but, you know, as he being that kind of thing. Wow, they wouldn't admit that to you. So, yeah, you know, I mean, when the mics are off. So, there's a lot of these persons in Nigeria who, you know, would take, you know, that route in life. You know, that's who they are simply because of what they feel they will benefit. And so, whatever it is that she has been doing all this while is because there is the expectation that she would be, in quotes, settled by the government that she has been defending so far. And that's, it's pretty much the same thing with a lot of these characters that you see in, you know, in the media space today who, you know, get granted interviews, who get, you know, to come out to, you know, set up a counter-protest, who get to, you know, set up, you know, their own small committees and say, you know, committee of Ogunaba or market men in support of so-and-so governor or president. They do those kind of things. Mostly because they feel like they will get, you know, some settlement at the end, either financial settlement or, you know, a job or, you know, an appointment at some point. And that's really where she has been. There's a couple of others, you know, that because what they're not part of comes from the government. Are there no other qualified non-Patterson women? Well, the government wants to settle, the way it looks, the government will settle the people who have been, you know, on their side for a long time. That's a shame. But there are other people who are qualified, who, you know, whose integrity we can vouch for to make sense. I mean, Aloreta Onoche is not the only person. You know, someone else can fill in those shoes. If there's so much opposition to her character, then someone else should fill in those shoes. When you're talking of qualifications, the court just gave a judgment saying that you don't need to have served the country, you know, with the NYSE for you to be appointed minister. You don't. What qualifications are you talking about then? Do you remember when people were saying, even if he has NEPA certificates, you know, we'll vote for him? Do you remember all of that? So what qualifications are you talking about? Let's talk money now. Maybe we might be happy. But sadly, it's not a great story regarding money this morning. And it's the FIRS, the Federal Land Revenue Service, made a shocking revelation yesterday that multi-choice has never paid value-addict tax since its inception. Remember a few weeks ago when we were speaking about Professor Yamio Shimbajo, vice president of Nigeria and how he spoke with, you know, the tax buddy in Nigeria, regarding taxing institutions, like global financial institutions, like Twitter, Facebook and the rest, you know, big FinTech companies like that. There was lots of opposition to that. People say, oh, this is just a follow-up to the Twitter ban. But the financial analysts that came on the show helped us to break it down and, you know, made people see that there is some sense in this, there is money to be made, there is revenue to be made by the Nigerian government when they tax foreign companies like this because even in their own countries, for example, in the U.S., all these other countries like, you know, Google and Facebook and the rest, they pay taxes to the government, right? Now, VAT multi-choice. The story here is that they have never paid and the FIRS is raising the alarm over the level of noncompliance by multi-choice Africa, MCA, and the parent company, multi-choice Nigeria, MCN, saying the company has never paid taxes since its inception. Also, the story doesn't end there. We also see that the FIRS has frozen the accounts of multi-choice and has appointed banks to recover 1.8 trillion-dollar tax liabilities. Malifiyed and Hinau is the amconvassor. So what's the other one now? How they begin to fight over who owns the taxes? Who should receive the money? Well, it's a shame that Nigeria is a country that should be making, you know, should be generating revenue from all these streams by, you know, truth taxes when it gets in there. When Nigerian businesses, when Nigerian people or Nigerians go abroad to set up businesses, we pay taxes. I have people who have businesses abroad. They pay taxes. I mean, everything is regulated because definitely it's a whole value chain regarding the economy. So the government has to receive its dues. But here in Nigeria, it seems like a different kettle of fish. Yeah, so I wouldn't put, you know, the Twitter, you know, conversation simply with multi-choice. You know, it seems like two different, you know, things entirely. Multi-choice has offices here. They employ Nigerians here. They have people here working for them. They have offices across the whole country. And so, you know, it's a different thing from Twitter. But the president did mention that it doesn't matter whether you have offices or not. As long as you operate in the country, Nigerians are beneficiaries of your services. You have to pay tax. That's what he said. Well, I personally just wouldn't put it in the same series. But I agree with, you know, being able to expand our tax bracket instead of increasing taxes. You know, find ways to, you know, develop systems to increase the number of people that, you know, the tax bracket captures. For the multi-choice conversation, I personally, I don't, I feel like, you know, in the next couple of days we will know a little bit more because it makes no sense that since they've been here in Nigeria for more than a decade, they've never paid any value added tax. It makes absolutely no sense. And it's hard to believe that. So maybe they've not been paying exactly what they should have been paying. And there should be questions, you know, for, you know, whoever it is that was in child of a fire as, you know, all these many years that they have been there, where they were in pain. You know, what was the person doing? Who was meant to be monitoring multi-choice accounts, who was meant to be auditing and ensuring that they pay that, you know, turn their face away. So those questions should also be, you know, be brought in here. Have they paid? Have they not paid? Have they paid below what they should have been paying? We will find clarity on some of all these things. And yes, I once again agree taxation. There should be more people added to the tax bracket. There should be better systems with regard to taxation to ensure that every single penny that should belong to the Nigerian government goes to the Nigerian government. And at the end, you know, when we're able to raise revenue through, you know, better taxation systems, then, you know, hopefully we'll be able to, you know, stop borrowing and we'll be able to use those, you know, funds to fix infrastructure and fix the, you know, the things that we currently lack as a nation for Nigerians. So I'm just going to leave it as let's see what the next couple of days brings. Let's see what defense multi-choice has. Let's see where they go from here and best of luck to them. If they haven't been paying, then they definitely should pay that 1.8 trillion. But we'll see. We'll take a break here to join Mr. Julie Johnson as a chief lecturer at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism for Off the Press to stay with us.