 Senior Pastor House on the Rock Church, Paul Adefarassin in a sermon on the current crisis in Nigeria, lamented the level of insecurity and bad governance. He spoke on the expectations of what the country's next leader should look like, and he also called out the ills of the country's current leaders whom he says, cannot see beyond their noses and are only after the allure of power and money. Well joining us to have this conversation are broadcast journalists Femi Di Amelie and Chyna Acherry. But before we get to them, let's take a look at that video. As to what the next president of Nigeria should look like, and the first thing is that we don't care what part of the country that person comes from. We care more about competence, capacity, vision, understanding how to lead a nation and build a country after so much debilitation. Secondly, apart from not caring what part of the country the next president comes from, the next president must be given to development and must have proven in his or her track record, public sector or private sector, that they can deliver and have delivered development. Nigeria needs to develop. Our roads, our healthcare, education. That's why we have so much incompetence in leadership today because of the lack of education. Number three, we need a president who is not a genderist. We also do not need a tribalist, sectionist or ethnicist. That must not happen and the constitutions must provide to exclude those sort of people from high executive office in all three tiers, all three arms of government. We also do not want a religionist. We also need somebody who has brilliance, is well educated and hasn't left his or her education in the theoretic realm. We also need somebody who can amass around himself across the reach of governance and government, particularly in his or her cabinet. People who are like him or her in competence, capacity, brilliance and vision. And we have to find a way, my friends, to lock out the people who only go into politics and governance for personal gain and aggrandisement, for the allure of power and money. Democracy is the government of the people, for the people, by the people. And we're sick and tired, forgive my rudeness of these idiots who cannot see beyond their noses. If you're not good enough for the job, leave it. If we call ourselves a federal republic, one, we must be republican and two, we must be federated. This is not a federal republic. I see nothing republican about Nigeria and there's nothing federating about Nigeria. I say this because no country in the world history has survived two civil wars. You could be in flight and running for dear life any day from now if this thing does not come to an end. So I'm joined by China, Chiru and Fermi Dianmele, both broadcast journalists. So I'm going to start with Fermi because you deal with this topic just like me every single day. And I get people telling me, people stop me and ask me, how do you deal with the stories of the day? They're very, very traumatic. Are they not draining? And you have to talk about this every day. But hey, and now we have to listen to it in church, Fermi, let's take a look at the nitty-gritty of what Paula DeFerasen has said. As much as some people would say, religion has no business in church, where do you stand on some of these things? Well, the early church, if we're going to start off to talk about it by any means is even possible. A lot of the documentation, if you say in the Bible or the Quran, has always had profits and the likes of them associated with the politics of the time. So we may not necessarily accept the very notion to bring in religion close by to politics, but even a lot of the documentation in the Bible accounts for such a moment. Many of them. I could name them on and on and on, various profits. But here we are in Nigeria at this time, where over the years we've seen religious leaders give different connotations and colorations to very many major events. Are they declaring to be prophetic? That's to be futuristic as regards what they think would happen or to even endorse in some sense of it. However, with such positions, they've drained away a lot of the respect that's often been attributed to religious organizations over the years. Now, it brings forward the question about, should a religious leader analyze the politics of the day? Likes of Tundebacher and the rest of them have often done it over the years. And some say that may not be exactly for the spiritual development of the members of their church. But here we are now, where we're seeing a strong Pentecostal, quite followed, an icon of his generation, speaking extensively about what leadership should look like and what leadership is not. And having made this clear difference with regards to where we find ourselves and the issues that they're out to deal with, especially along the lines of leadership and also touching on restructuring, it brings in only one accurate perspective, and that perspective is to question about, well, finally people are speaking up, Bishop Kukak likes of them have been speaking up for a while now, but now we have more voices. Will these voices matter? Will they matter differently from the same set of voices of a lot of Nigerians who are educated, complaining, describing the government of the day in many words that one would wonder about? So if governments of religious leaders make a difference, and that's the reality. I think they can congregate quite a number of people into a think tank, and we're seeing that transformation going on among our religious organizations, where you're seeing them congregate a large number of their followers, whether in living fate or in any of those other churches, they are not congregating as think tank. And that is some sort of dangerous to anybody who wants to have status quo remain the same, and yet is life changing for everybody who wants the future. Let me come to you, China. Just last week, the presidency had issued a statement of a coup d'etat of sorts, an overthrow of government, because allegedly there are certain religious leaders, top religious leaders, former government office holders, and even former leaders of this country have been fingered according to that press statement to be coming together, like let me use the words of famicongregating to want to overthrow the government. And I did ask a question as to where does criticism stop and when does it metamorphose into a coup d'etat? Now looking at what critically, what Pastor Paula Deyfarassin is saying, what should we be taking away from this instead of just shooting the messenger? I think we should take away the fact that people are partly speaking, right? We expect people to speak, religious leaders, leaders of thoughts, society leaders, social critics, elders in society, statements. We expect people to speak. And Paula Deyfarassin is not the press, like Pamir has said, we've had people speak before the likes of Trinidad Bakare, Bishop Kuka, we've had people speak before. It's not the press, but you talked about we had to withdraw the line between criticism and a coup d'etat, like the statement said. I think a coup d'etat is a serious issue. What Paula Deyfarassin said is criticism and I watched his video over and over and over again. As much as he tried to be hard on government, he did his best to be politically correct, right? He spoke passionately about the kind of Nigeria he expects and he also tried his best not to ruffle feathers. He tried to be politically correct. We needed that kick off the backside. We needed it. If Paula Deyfarassin is not speaking, then someone else should be speaking. And yes, no government would like to be criticized in this kind of way. So it's okay if they come up with this kind of statement. It's okay. Speaking from the government point of view, what Paula Deyfarassin said in his video, I watched so many times this morning, this is what we expect. We see the country and it's not what we expect it to be. It's not what we had hoped for three, four, maybe five years ago. So yes, criticism is good and I like what Paula Deyfarassin did and how he did it more importantly is the how that was more important to me. He tried to be politically correct. I tried to hit it as hard as he could to. Let me go back to Femi. He talked about something that hit me in that statement was the Constitution. He said that we need to realize and come to terms with the truth about our foundation, our amalgamation. He said that we need to jettison the 1999 Constitution. But there's nothing really new in that whole 1999 Constitution. We've also seen agitations in the Southeast and some other parts of the country where they are saying, look, our amalgamation was faulty. We need to talk about it. But then you know that every time we have conferences or any confab, we always keep those issues of amalgamation and our foundations in no-go areas. In other words, we never want to talk about it. How long can this silence go on? Because he's saying that if we do not address it, we may not be able to go forward as a country. To start with, I mean, in a student's case, you would tell you that at any point in time, any country that is drawing up a Constitution at the very point of even drawing up a Constitution is also fully aware that there are areas of improvement on that same Constitution that they are drawing up at the very point in time they are drawing it up. You could go back to the likes of the United States of America and the likes of what happened almost 200 years ago and drawn up the Constitution. And of course, the Confederates, the differences of who they were, having to see, for example, the issue of slavery, do you agree or don't agree? I mean, that is still one issue that is pending in some schematics waiting to be resolved. But come to think of it, when you draw up a Constitution like we have in Nigeria, and I would say this, one of the things that there is to acknowledge is the motives of people who don't get documented on the Constitution, the emotions of people who don't get documented on the Constitution, the thinking behind writing phrases and choice of words, don't get documented. You look forward to a universal nature that is encompassing as much as you can. So yes, is there a perfect Constitution? No. Is there a Constitution that could be processed, actively processed, meaning reviewed steadily, by different men and women who have national interests, who know what it means like to know, in the words of the phrase of Pastor Paul, he talked about hydrating a republic now, about a federal republic, who know what it means to define a federal republic, the organs, the institutions, how they work with each other. Because one thing to write down the words is another thing to give those words some measure of life by the actions that are carried out. So yes, the 1999 Constitution may have its flaws. But then we've had many points in time to correct many of those ways, to change based on the times as they change, but we have not successfully done that. Rather we've ignored doing that, and in some occasions chose not to even review that. When you bring up the example of comfort, like you mentioned, and the ideas behind it. So you will think about it about 900 plus, in fact, 980 something pages of that comfort document sound like brilliant ideas. But guess what, people talk about the ideas, the motives of who was in the room as against the ideas in those documents at the end of the day. So do you need more documents in Nigeria, do you need more laws in Nigeria, do you need more words that describe what we want to achieve in Nigeria? Maybe not necessarily. What we need is a sense of action with where we are and what we want to get done. Back to you, China, to pick up from where he stopped, Pastor Paul had said that for the people who have not fully understood what the federal republic is, and those who really know what to do and have refused to do, we need to find a way to lock out these people. Is that ever going to be possible in Nigeria? Do you notice how my voice went up? Is that really going to ever be possible in Nigeria? Because we have tried, we've protested, we've been shot at, we've done all sorts. And it all seems to be falling on deaf ears, just as I asked my former guest, why the silence, why the collaborative silence, it's not like we don't have a lot of intelligent people in this country, we have so many of them, within and without. But whenever they get into the system, it literally, it's like, I don't know, somebody waves a wand and then everybody just conforms. How do we break that jinx? China, you need to unmute yourself so we can hear you. It will be difficult, right? It will take a conscious effort to do this. Let me put it this way. Someone thinks that maybe China actually is a good person, if you make him governor of a state, or if you make him Nigeria's president, he will do well. But what about the system around him? It's more than just one person, we need to change the country. It's about all of us deciding. Now, look at the figures in the last elections. Compared to the figures in the 2015 election, compared to the figures in the 2011 election, the numbers are reducing every day. People are losing interest. Now, the very people who could come together and change the way the country is run have lost interest, and the consensus is not their own. They will still count the results. That kind of mindset is not affected or so. Yes, there are lots of intelligent people in Nigeria, but are they interested in the politics of the day? And yes, I know, because we have this mindset that it is for the politicians. Now, yes, it is for the politicians, but what do we do? Sit down and complain every day. That's what we are doing every day. We need to tell ourselves it's time for that change. And when we make up our minds that we're going to have that change, then we start from the grassroots. Now, what we do these days is wait for the major political parties to pick candidate. Oh, I think we lost China there. So let me quickly go back to Fermi, because we're going to wrap up. We do not have time. Fermi, how do we lock out these people who are coming just for the allure of money and power to pick the words of Pastor Paul once again? Well, one thing I would say, there's the part about you're hoping that they get out of the game. But apparently, nobody in Africa just gets out of the game without almost being kicked out of the game, either by reality or by life in itself. But one thing I must say is this, the first thing to do about locking out such people is to realize that the very essence of what you want to get done is not about picking up new set of people to go in. In your introduction to this question, you talked about how sometimes people come with very noble ideas and they want to get in and get their idea of regards what they want to achieve themselves. And once they get into the system, they seem all wrapped up and lose their way. In other words, they can't get anything done from the inside. So the first question is, should people be able to be going on the inside? Should we really be getting politicians, people who are interested or politicians go in? Maybe what you first of all need is a lot of appointees, fewer elected people in government with good ideas, not essentially people who want to take over the echelon of politics all the way through, because whether you like it or not, politics is in faces. And yes, you may have bad leaders, you may have leaders that you may not satisfy to be good enough, but they need to be faced out. And sometimes reality is the only thing you can count on to have their face out and some other maneuver action. But down the line, what it comes down to is politicians of Nigeria at this point in time are just following what you call panic interest. Panic interest is simply, oh, well, just in case people decide to vote along tribal lines and along so many other factors that are quite popular in Nigeria, let me be safe, let me not be sorry, let me be sure, like Pastor Paul said, I understand what plan B is, not just the people in the country have a plan B. I should also have a plan B, take what you can. So you need to face them out and it takes a lot of guts to do so and sometimes grace. Well, this is just paint and bleak up picture than what we actually presumed that the situation of the country is. But hopefully we can all get to that point where we decide that enough is enough. But I want to say thank you for me. Dear Mele is a broadcast journalist with Nigeria Info FM China. Cheryl is also broadcast journalist and he is an import hacker. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being part of this conversation. We'll take a short break and when we come back, we'll find out what Nigerians have to say about the President, not speaking on the issues of insecurity. And after that, I'll give you my take. You should have addressed us since a long time to this challenge because insecurity is taking place in everywhere in Nigeria. It's too rampant. Nowhere is safe in Nigeria today. We cannot move about for our daily business now. It's too very, very unconstitutional. It doesn't even make the difference whether you address the nation or not. Because there is nothing else between the two justice. Yes, it doesn't make any difference. The president is not doing anything. The country is not moving. It is not moving where people are suffering. I think the look of things, I don't think we have to present it yet. Yes, it should address the nation. Even not only addressing, let him take a proper action concerning the security of this country. In South East now, the whole of South East now, it's not everybody are sleeping without their clothes in their eyes. Why? In South West, the same thing. In the North Central, the same thing. So what is now happening? Are we not in Nigeria? It's time for my take. Now Nigeria belongs to you, I, the politician, every single person. And like I always say, these people, when they wanted to run for office, came to you and I to ask us for our votes. If we were not important in the scheme of things, they probably would never come. That's why they brought the salt and the wrappers and the rice because they wanted to get your attention. Now that they have your attention, they're not speaking to us anymore. They're not answering us, we're calling out to them and they're acting like they cannot hear us. We're asking that things be changed and they're acting like they're not hearing us. We're asking that, can we go to sleep with both eyes closed and know that we are safe? Well that seems to be like asking for too much. So I want to implore you dear Nigerians, you gave these people a job. You can take that job from them. You can also remind them that you have the power, you are the citizen of this country. You are their employer and they are your employee. So it's time for us to start making demands. Do not rest on your own, it is not their Nigeria, it is our Nigeria. And the more we continue to jettison our powers and our responsibilities because you can't just say, oh well, we have a president, we have a governor, we have members of the National Assembly, they have jobs to do, yes, but we also have jobs to do. Our jobs is to put those people on their toes. And until we realize how powerful we are as Nigerians, these people will continue to treat our Nigeria the way they like because they know that you do not understand the power that you have as a citizen of this country. So it's enough. Let's not sit in our palos and complain and mama. Let's not wait for the journalist or the on-air personality to cry and wail on your behalf. It's time for us to all be on our feet and decide to make a stand. Ask government what you want. Make sure that they do it because at the end of the day, this Nigeria belongs to all of us. I am Mary Annacle, thank you for watching.