 You're welcome back to the breakfast on Floss TV Africa. It's now time for Off the Press. It's our segment where we analyze the day's newspapers. And we have as our guest this morning public affairs analyst Mr. Ezekiel Eiatok. Good morning, thanks for joining us. Good morning, good to be with you. Great, let's begin with the nation newspaper and it's all about the elections. The headline reads, INEC 2022 timetable raises political tempo in Echiti, Oshun. The writers read, parties rev up governorship bid. Echiti goes to poll on June 18, Oshun, July 16. Lagos, Cano, top in INEC's 176,846 new polling units. 749 units removed from churches, mosques, shrines, palaces, and homes. Oshun, the nation newspaper above the headline, ex-bank MD Atouche, jailed six years for 25.7 billion Naira fraud. Two dead, many injured in Ibadok motor park clash. Ibejuleki equates six lane road ready by the first quarter of 2022. Oshun, the nation newspaper, Limpin Babaijesha's trial for High Court. N-Pan excluded from NPC bill public hearing. Also in the nation, presidency accuses PDP governors of seeking more cash to blow. They're pressurizing NNPC to font their proficiency. Also five killed in Oguntank explosion. Kigmaker dies during Obaz's selection. That really is a sad one. A very very sad one there. From the nation we'll move on next to the Pancha newspaper. Making banner headline, the small and federal government borrowed 1.3 trillion Naira in four years to subsidize consumers and firms. With two riders in Niger in Spain, less than production costs, says World Bank. A fund used for gas payment, settling collection shortfalls that attributed to the federal government just below the pictorial there. A man plot fiance's murder of a 14 million Naira promises a killer, herbalist, five million Naira. A, P, C, PDP clash as Einagher, peaks date for Iketi and Oshun, Cuba, Poles, soldiers, police, amotec, hunt bandits over killing of ondo farmers, children. Now five burnt to death as diesel laden tanker, the touches explode in Ogun state. And the Pew court dismisses Jagada's case against Akeru Deluz victory. Above the mast head, external reserves dropped by 1.4 billion dollars in two months. High poverty expert back World Bank Fort Buhari agency complies or compiles list. Amishi blames national assembly for Ibaton Canary project delayed as travelers to access four or 84,000 or $4,000 a CBN boost forex supplies. And those are the stories on the front page of the punch newspaper this morning. All right, looking at the Guardian newspaper, queries as FG plants sale of TCN to complete power sector privatization. No federal law created grazing reserves. Senate spokesman insist. World Bank report on poverty has exposed you. PDP tells Buhari. World Health Organization traces recent monkeypox to outbreak in UK to Delta. A Pew court reaffirms Akeru Deluz victory in ondo guba pose. Hazardous digital dump site heightened cases of cancer, had diseases. Who's are the mast six additional states for Southeast defense Buhari on restructuring? All right, so the daily independent next insurance sector loses one trillion to oil and gas on the right hand. These war fighters set military base on fire in Borno. Bandit raised houses of ex-emo AG assembly member behead God. Five died to injured as fuel tanker explodes in Oregon state. As federal government seeks to regulate internet broadcasting and social media. Well, the rider there resumes land swap deal in FCT after fact approval. On the guba pole, Akeru Deluz wins at a Pew court. Then this bank named best corporate government financial services in Africa. All right, Nance threatens academic activities at Unilag, a Yabatek, a game automator. Former bank PHB MD at 2J Bucks, 126 years imprisonment. Ono J PDP threatens civil action against Senate presidents. INC at 56,872 polling units moves 749 from worship centers and shrines. And those are the stories on the, you know, front pages of several newspapers this morning. Like we said earlier, we have Ezekia Nya Edok, a public affairs analyst who will be analyzing some of the stories with us. Let's start from the guardian. You know, I am really touched about the story. The federal government is querying and plans a sale of MTCM to complete power sector privatization. This issue of privatization in Nigeria has gone on for so long. And Nigerians are saying, most Nigerians are saying that we have not been able to see changes specifically in the power sector. How do you react to this particular story? First, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with privatization. Secondly, if I was to look at the different managers of the economy, I would look at the organized private sector or look at government and maybe the informal sector. The informal sector is not what it can put with it. Between government and the organized private sector, who is the better manager of our resources or of our institutions? The answer is as clear as could be the organized private sector. So if government say, look, we're not doing well, we'd rather have the organized private sector take over some of our national institutions or assets and manage them in a more productive manner. I think that would be a great idea and I'll support that anytime. The problem I have as in power privatization is that we have not learned how not to draw the line or not learn how to draw the line between national interest and political interest. As a result, we discovered that we hand over our national assets to the hands of incompetent people for reasons I really cannot understand because if we did due diligence and we are a man, I'm an architect, I'm into real estate. There are certain questions about real estate you ask me and I'll answer you with my eyes closed. There are certain questions you ask me about broadcasting and I'll start talking nonsense and you will be laughing and wondering what's going on here because that's not my area. If you're going to privatization, I think it's just as simple as possible if they're going to power. Look at the world powers, the world leaders in power administration. One, two, three, four, five, you shortlist them. You bring them down. You give them what they call... No, no, brother, nobody wants to run on a margin that I'm an architect, I say that again. If I asked you to wait for something like I want you to build a three bedroom bungalow for me and you come to me and say you're going to do that with the materials I've specified for 2 million, how would I be okay? If you say you're going to wait for 50 million, how would I mean what are you going to use? It's going to be gold or something. But there's a range that you give me. You give me maybe 3.5, 4, 5 million. I'm like looking, I don't get the low end. You want to now go into 10, 15 million yourself and meet range. I have an understanding because I know what I'm doing. So who are those privatizing national asset? Who are they privatizing them to? They are friends, cronies, business or political associates or the most competent people. I think the time has come when we the professionals should do much more than just sitting and watching and take more than a passing interest in the things we do. I am absolutely nothing against privatization. If anything I believe is the way to go, what I am concerned about is the transparency of the process and to what extent we bring the experts that have the capacity, the competence and the capability to be able to manage this national asset to the end that we are the better for it on the long run. All right, so we know that the elections are drawing closer. INEC has released the 2022 timetable for AQC or SHUN as well. INEC has also introduced new pulling units, 176,000 of them. What do you think of these moves and what lessons do you say that we must have learned from the previous elections in the country? The very first thing is I want to commend INEC. I would say that it does have a lot of implications. I've contested elections twice and might yet still do that again. So what I look at as a politician, it's different from or as a professional politician. I really hate to call myself a politician or whatever it's worth. Okay, but what I look at is even contesting the governorship of a pipeline state, for instance, I look at the pulling units that have moved Florida to about over 4,000. What that means to me is that I'm going to have agents in as many pulling units as have been created because you must have agents in every pulling unit if you want to make success of what you're doing. So the higher the number of pulling units, the more I have to budget all of them. And unfortunately, we don't have agents who are going to be there because they believe in you a lot of times because of this monetization of the processes, it becomes something that it's easier for those with a deep pocket to see the situation. So we really need to still go back and look at our political processes to the end that the competent come out and not see the deep pocket. So coming back to that, anybody who wants to contest presidency is asking, Sir, am I going to look for agents in over 176,000 pulling units? That's how they look at it. Then again, and I will say that, maybe we start with a man like Mikey Guinea in a private state because he started this process of taking pulling units from something we used to have pulling units in their hotels, you know, I'm aware of that. I spoke with him one-on-one. I told me all these things. And he said, it can't be. Every pulling unit for the, in a neutral station because I mean, assuming I'm a big man in ADC, African Democratic Congress, and I have a hotel and I put a pulling unit there, like, look at this, people from other parties will say, oh boy, don't go inside this man's house to fight. Some people are in the Hobas Palace, they're not in the King's palaces and things like that. So that move is very, but I haven't heard that somewhere in Shrine. But let's say, yeah, I don't care who knows what to go into Shrine to vote or whatever it's worth. So I comment on what they've done and what they've done is proper. The only thing is that we need to come back and look at our political processes because it is just too extensive. Everybody means, yes. All right, Mr. Nya. Etok, since we're still talking about an election, just also the PDP is threatening civil action against the Senate president over the confirmation of Loretta Onochi. How do you react to this particular development? I think that with all due respect, the Senate president should give himself a little respect. I think he should. This is one of the core functions of any assembly is representation. One of the core functions is representation. And you don't need rocket science to know that Nigerians are incensed. We just feel taken for granted, taken for a ride. It's like anything will go wrong. You know, they test the waters and it just goes. And they've called him all sorts of names, robust and everything. He should have a dialogue with Mr. President before the list goes down. Yeah, in the same party. It shouldn't be things on the reading there for the first time of the quote, isn't it? The lady in question is who for partisan and not even quietly so, but very loudly so. And okay, somebody says, I heard a man make an argument that when you come and you take a book of coffee, it's for you to be fair. And I wanted to ask him which state it comes from. I come from a quite good state. And I wanted to ask for his state for voting. Mine is a quite united. And I want a situation where two of us hold a football match and then the coach of Aqua United takes the book of coffees of being fair to be the referee. He'll be the first person to say, God forbid, don't tell me that. How can the coach of Aqua United come and be the referee in the match that involves Aqua United? That lady, you see, one of the things, Lord, they say that just is not only done, but it seems to be done. I hope I put that right. So whoever is coming, nobody's absolutely impartial, so to speak. But there's somebody that comes and you're like, okay, it makes sense. For instance, there's a man, I call him again, Mr. Mikey Ginning. I mean, he's a human being. He's also friends. He was my friend. You know, I was for testing elections, but nobody would say anything against him because we believe he's frame-minded. But when you bring a lady like Ronald Che, the Senate president has not done himself well. This toga will be a robust term. I think it's when he leaves office that he will realize how much damage is done to himself, just to be a friend of Mr. President, to put it at this stage of your life. There's so many things you're able to stand for and be seen as a man of integrity, as you see, as an independent person. Yes, work with the president, but the way to work with the president is not to come to the floor, and it's for him to, before something comes to the floor of the Senate, advise Mr. President. And I know that if Mr. President was duly advised, he wouldn't have said the name. The people who want to say anything can be done. We can be present about it. We can, we don't care anything. And that's not the attitude of a leader. A leader cares. A leader cares. Okay, so really big issues regarding the economy as well. We saw a story here on the punch newspaper that said, external reserves drop by $1.4 billion in two months. And this is a report that the CBN has put out about the falling external reserves. We've also seen that the Naira has fallen to about 500 against the dollar at the parallel markets on Wednesday, and that's from 495 Naira last week. What's your comments on these economic figures that seem to be on the decline in the country? Two things. The very first is that I'll be the very first to admit that I'm not an economist. And for me to try to be an economist, it's going to be like a dog trying to meow or a cat trying to bark. The one I can tell you is that yesterday I went for dollars. I was not $500, it was $505 Naira to a dollar. And I'm asking myself, what's the way out? A friend of mine, Mr. Kola Iyer, said something yesterday and I loved it. It simply said, look, a question you ask yourself, is the route I'm taking, is it okay? Has it yielded results? If I've done the same thing for the past 16 years and all I'm getting is a system that is not improving, can I just have that presence of mine for me to change my strategy? And I think that from the things I've heard and the things I said, there's an absolute need for this government to change their economic approach and strategy and the next two years they can redeem themselves in a way. Get rid of some of these people advising you. They aren't telling you the truth. Look at policies, look, infrastructure is great. I'm going for infrastructure. But go to the constitution. You're not an organized private sector. You run a system based on the manual of that system. And what does the manual of the political economy say or political marching order? Chapter two, section 14. Some section two says that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. So if I asked my, if I was to choose between railway as great as this and social intervention so that the people are able to leave first, you know, what will I choose? I will choose social intervention when the people are home ground they can take care of the big picture. I believe that. That's why I'm a proponent of social governance which is a bottom to top approach to governance. You understand with the primary objective of bringing the citizens out of poverty. It agrees fundamental one with the marching order in the constitution. So I really think that the time has come with people that are cerebral should come into politics. We should come into politics because within politics is where you have the policies and the policies drive where we go. A lot of people coming into politics just to be able to feather their nest and become rich overnight is killing all of us that call ourselves professionals. And what we do is sit down on television and want it like I'm doing right now. I think the time has come for us to move into the field and day to day. I believe that he will test wins. All right. Okay. Then again on the daily independent the issue of the new media is still making headlines and taking the front stage. Federal government seeks to regulate internet broadcasting, social media. This is common all in the wake of the ban on Twitter. And of course, the minister of information and culture was just before the joint committee yesterday where he was talking about how the social media needs to be regulated. You really want to get your candid opinion concerning all of these developments? I'll tell you this. APC is one party that is not thinking in my opinion, thinking well. They are not. You are two years to general election. And you really think that controlling the media is your biggest problem and you forget how you got there rather than caught the people. Look for how to get across the people. You are dealing with disenfranchising of the people. And you think that for whatever is wrong, that you can muscle the people so that when you get to election, you'll be able to get away with it and then you can now win again and what a terrible awful or disingenuous strategy. Are you aware that you are probably creating a platform that by the time the food is ready, your composition and they want to go and eat that food? Have APC thought of these policies? How it will affect them? If they are not in power by 2023? Have they forgotten so soon? They said the memory of man is straight rose. Have they forgotten so soon? How the social media helped them to remove the government in power? By the time that you are new, because the people are actually, they are just waiting and they started a little too early. So the surprise element is not coming. People have a strategy. Oh, we want us to keep quiet. We want to hustle as we want to kind of restrict us so that you can do whatever you want to do and get away with the election. Okay, Nigerians are most intelligent of people in the whole world. I've been around and I can tell you for a fact, we are waiting. And if they're succeeding passing these bills, they are passing the bills for the new government that is coming, which is not going to be their government. You can take that to the bank and they are going to really, really regret ever taking those decisions. And that's what distorts me about our policymakers. You don't take a decision because it involves you for now. Think of what will happen. No, there's one of my government that took a decision. I will not be specific, one of my government friends took a decision and by controlling the party. And yet, when another government came in, he said he cannot control, I told him, I said, you're excellency. You remember, you did this. So you've got to, you know, empower. You've got to let the man that's empowered now to enjoy it because that was the argument you have. I fund the party, I do everything. Why should somebody else direct and control what to do? The current governor funds the party and everything. So how am I should somebody say, you excelled, that was your argument. I said, you know, you know what I said, no. We should know that policies are not for the moment, they're for all time. And as a result, I want to tell ABC to just slow down and bring a few cerebral people to help and strategies to help talk to them. They can get back to power if they just reverse the trend and know that right now on a daily basis, they are disenfranchising the people and distancing themselves from the people. We're not getting better. All the illnesses showed that we are getting worse. Things are not okay. And not even with that, now you're beating a child and all you're doing now not patting the child and say, don't worry, please, why did you do this and that? He said, you're putting his mouth and say, if you dare, no problem. There was a little child that was forced. He said, sit down, kneel down, kneel down. And the child said, when he kneels down, he said, now you're kneeling down. He said, yes, in my knees and kneel down. But in my heart, I'm standing up, okay? So maybe they think that they are hustling the people, but in the heart of Nigerians, they are waiting for whoever will come and liberate them. And if the position is wise, like the third force we are trying to put together, we are going to use all those things that we use against the people to move the people. And the people are going to come in in groups and this government will be shocked at what they will meet at the polls come 2023. Thank you very much, Mr. Yizik El-Yaitok. We really appreciate you joining us this morning. Have yourself a great day. Same here. And thanks to all you guys doing real good. I like you saying, hi. Thank you so much, sir. All right, so we're going to break here and return to give you details of what happened in history. I'm going back to the year 1994 to tell you about a very famous chase. This didn't happen in Fast and Furious. It happened in real life. And of course in 2017 where there was a missed trial for the Bill Cosby's rape, sexual allegation cases. In a moment, we'll be right back to doing justice to all of those. Stay with us.