 We're glad to know you're still there and watching us. It's the breakfast on Plus TV Africa, and we have some headlines here on all the press that we're looking at. Let's start with one of the national dailies, Daily Trust, is where we're beginning our surgeon through the headlines this morning. Daily Trust leads with the headline, Petrol price heats 700 naira per litre as federal government says no going back. The writers on that story are that government to pay us 2.8 trillion naira deficit, that's according to Kiari, NMPCL, NMDRA marketers back the move, TUC LPSDP kick, say pronouncement ill timed and commuters, hike transport fares. We also have some other stories, Sokoto governor Saks 14 Monax nullifies appointments of 23 permanent secretaries others, just two days inside the government house. NGX market value heats 3 trillion naira in single trading amid subsidy removal. Dauraho special derba to welcome Buhari. Those are the headlines from Daily Trust, we will move now to the Guardian to take some more. The Guardian has this story, nationwide chaos, pain as stakeholder sick caution on subsidy removal. You can see that on page 6 of the Guardian. It also has a story, Tinnubu reinstates sanity as DSSEFC squabble over property in Lagos. PEPC admits five exhibits from OB print out of Biva's results from Atiku. And we also have a Dedoine, two hoteliers to die by hanging over murder of OAU student. Tinnubu Shetema resuming us to villa as Nigerians await official appointments, okay. These are the ones we will take from the Guardian, we will move to the next newspaper which is Nature News. Nature News has it that 90% of textile waste in Africa, Asia come from Europe. That's the report on page 3. Then World Hunger Day, Afan emphasizes they need to attract young people to agriculture. We also have another story, a smaller headline, subsidy remark. Petrol stations hike prices, scarcity returns, after inauguration speech of Nigeria's president. And energy transition scholars, activists embark on lobbying and advocacy tour in Europe. We have a sports news there which is, yeah, Nigeria wheelchair basketball picks 2023 African Games ticket. Now, the next newspaper we'll be looking at the headlines is The Punch. The Punch newspaper, this one leads with fuel cells 600 naira per litre, cues worsen as filling stations shot. That is on page 2. The riders are Tinnubu, NNPCL, GMD, others meet, framework for removal underway. Federal government cannot fund subsidy again owes NNPCL 2.8 trillion naira, says Kiari. Quara, Ekiti, Bayelsa, governors, others won marketers against hoarding. Smaller headlines there, Tinnubu inherits over 16 trillion naira uncompleted projects. 11 trillion naira spent on moribund refineries in 13 years, according to Haas of Reps. And ASU, caught okays, no work, no pay policy. Then below the major headline we have National Assembly, anti-zoning group condemns a life plan to arrest Bertara, Yari, and Oyo Police, Storm Auxiliary hideout, arrest 78 with arms. We also have the story Adedo Yen workers back death sentence, hotel forfeited. Okay, those were the headlines from the four dailies that we decided to take this morning. And so we're glad to be joined by a legal practitioner here in Lagos State, in the person of Tunde Kolaule, Tunde, good morning and welcome to the program. Okay, well, we're glad that you woke up with a smile and a hope and then Nigeria is working. Fuel cells according to some newspapers is for 700 naira and others for 600 naira. Most of the filling stations we've heard that are selling very high, at a very high price are selling for 600 naira. Only one of 700 naira is new to me, but it is possible. And that is what is happening right now. Feeling stations are shutting down and those who are selling are selling at three times the price they were selling or even more than that. But fuel subsidy is the cause of what is happening right now. So a lot of people, stakeholders have said that the way it was removed, it shouldn't have been removed. But this is something that has been spoken about for a very long time. What is your take on the pronouncement of the president on the day of inauguration that fuel subsidy has been removed, especially seeing what has that effect has been, the effect of that pronouncement has been? Let me quickly say that he will filter it and note it all. I went out here today from Pambu to Surulere and the transport fare from Pambu to Surulere and back cost me almost $3,000 naira. In the past, I would have spent less than $1,000 naira to commit to change those places. So if the fare has gone up, it is a reflection that the transporters are also no longer buying petrol and diesel at the old rate at which they used to buy it. So that is one. The second one is that the Nigerian people are paying for the inefficiency for the recognition of this and the incompetence of its ruling allies. If a Dan Boteh, an individual, can build a refinery that has not been my judge, the biggest and one of the best in the world, what excuse does the government that has more resources, that has more personnel, that has more goods, that has almost everything undercut on the platter of goods, what excuse do they have not to be able to build more refineries? I am wrong the old refineries very, very efficiently. But they cannot do it simply because they are not wired to do so to save, because of the corruption. You remember about a year or two ago, there was a gun press in the President Muhammad Uqwari and watered a jumbo counter for the terminal and some of the old refineries in the country. What has become of that counter? I have been on the rise of all the race and eyebrow and said, look, you are a few months from leaving office, about a year or two from leaving power. Why don't you allow the incoming administration to handle that project? And look at what you have read in the papers this morning that the Afghan government has left several trillion of contacts, abandoned contacts or uncompleted or uncompleted contacts all over the place. That is one. The third one is also that when the APCC people were coming into government in 2015, they categorically told us that there is nothing like a forced subsidy. The one we have been having is just a phantom subsidy, which the allies have been using to enrich their colleagues, sponsors and their relations. So what has happened between 2015 and 2023 that they are now talking and saying that they have used millions of dollars to subsidize the petroleum products? That is another one. The other one is that before the subsidy would be removed, they would have put on gun the whole load of pallet to cushion the capacity of the removal of the subsidy. With all this hard cut during the era of Aganga, when Aganga was, I think when it was the Minister of Finance, what they are about, and all that, he even told us that there are all manners of subsidy can allow me electric buses on the ICs waiting to be discharged, and that the women in the middle of the subsidy would be removed, those buses would be taken on carrying the insurance from one place to the other. Ever since Aganga left for several years ago, we have not seen a single or one of those buses that they say was on the IC or atapapa and think an island to be discharged. So these are loads of propaganda that we hear from the ruling elite to regard to these petroleum issues. And you have to eat the massive steps, the massive oil bunkers that is going on in the Niger Delta area. Could this be that it is here, and is there any possibility that it is involved in that? The answer is no. It is also the Nigerian ruling elite that are bleeding the economy of the country by engaging in massive, massive oil, the pump clean and cleaning of oil, the two long orders. And when they are also stealing it, they also are going to put that to them first to save gas, to protect, to provide security for the entire flight. So it's like asking the push it up, to try to give security or protect a roasted man. But with that, as it may seem, I want to say the excuses that the ruling elite have always given up for their inefficiency, for their lack of performance, for the lack of development in the country is because of these petroleum transmitting. So let them remove it and let us see what other excuses they would have for their misgovernment, for their inability to perform, for their inability to develop the economy. But times it has number of people saying China has problems, that you can run the central economy, you can run the socialist economy, you can run the government can run businesses and see, make it viable and successful and profitable. Unlike the story that we are telling now, we are telling now, that capitalism is the only thing, without capitalism and pocket, then you cannot run this sector. China has a policy that they prove that that is not the right. The economy, their growth is one of the policies in the world. And China today can be set to be faster going than even the United States of America, which I used to be the host of most developed projects in the past. So that's why let them remove it and let us see what other excuses they would have for their inefficiency, for their lack of development, for lack of decade and for lack of job for the needs of this country. But at the end of the day, if the infrastructure will come up and then people do not even find the money to maybe say travel on roads that will be built, to go to the cities that will be improved and developed and all that, at the end of the day it means that no work has been done. Right now, does it not worry you that the president met with the NNPC GMD and other people to fashion out a framework for the removal of the subsidy? He just met with the people to fashion out a strategy, to fashion out a framework for the removal of subsidy that has already been removed? Why do they keep doing this? And now NNPC is saying that the government is owing them a lot of money. My brother, that's why I put in the cards before they go. What they have done with that is to put the palliative regime on ground, seven months before the removal of the so-called panther and before the removal of the so-called subsidy. This has put the palliative on ground and now that I am sure. And then also a modality by which I am going to transmit from the so-called subsidy regime, from the low subsidy regime. The care that we are seeing on the roads in the petrol stations and now that will not be there. If it is not impossible and what we are seeing or that we are back to the era of the Agenda, we will show they are going to be palliative, but at the end of the day we are never likely to get anything. Even if they are planning a palliative regime, where is the money for them to really want a palliative regime? The country that is almost a panther that is going three years of my life to all manner of creditors, both foreign and local. Where will they get the money to run the palliative? I don't see it coming. But most times government wants to say very sweet change to their citizens so that those citizens the restlessness in the fighting can be tamponed. That is my proposition. What we are getting out now? Happy NLPC to fashion out the palliative. It is also tamponed the restlessness in the fighting. And even if they are going to run the palliative, it is not the NLPC that is going to do it. It is going to be a program between the minister of finance and some of these other technical departments in government and not the NLPC. Don't forget that NLPC has decided that it is not expected to run as a kind of a limit on the ability to profit generating private concerns that will only pay profits to government at the end of every business season and not to cut the wrong palliative for government. Okay, let's just break away from the petrol and all that because there are so many other things we could have even talked about. The fact that 8 years of the 13 years that we have heard that the federal government spent so much on the Moribon refineries were of the Buhari administration by implication the APC administration 11 trillion Naira was spent on Moribon refineries and all that. Anyway, like I said, let's leave fuel. We are not going to go. Yeah, nobody is talking about that. Right now they are owing NLPC of more than two trillion Naira. But the courts also have made a pronouncement that no work, no pay. So whatever ASU is asking for cannot be given to them so eight months of their lives have gone because they protested. What is your take on this pronouncement by the court of no work, no pay? As regards to ASU, not even any other body under NLC but ASU, the lecturers that will have to teach our children. Well, the law is law. And the law is the describer of whatever decision that the court may come up with. When you look at all the Eastern peoples laws in the country and all that, you tend to agree with the example which says that when you do your part of it, when you don't walk, you are not expected to be taken. Okay, Tunday, just a moment, Tunday. This is why I asked the question. I just want to understand. Before now I was asking myself this. I was thinking aloud. Lecturers teach children in school. They teach our children in school. So they went on strike for eight months. And when they returned from the eight months, they are expected to cover the syllabus that they didn't do. The whole work that they didn't do in eight months. They are expected to cover it. So if you talk about no work, no pay, does it really apply to these people who have to cover the work that you see that they didn't do? Are they paying the price of not being in class for that time or not doing the work? Because there are two different things. I came back from wherever I went to, and I still have to do the work that you said I should do. Then you cannot hold me that I didn't work. I didn't do my work. It was just at that time that I was showing you that I was angry with you, that I stayed off work. But I came back and did everything I was supposed to do within the eight months. Does this law really apply to them? Make it make sense to me? Well, that's really the same thing I was saying. Because the law does not apply that way. When you go to court, there are three elements that are involved. There is the fact. There is also what we call law. I mean there is evidence. If there are two people who are going to court and put evidence before the court, that in spite of the fact that they went on strike for eight months, every thing that was expected, in terms of teaching, in terms of supervision, they were still able to do it. I am sure the court may have a different opinion with regards to the change that it has taken now. But if you go to court and you don't say I assume or you think the court will know or that the court will be alive, that all you were expected to do was think what to do as a public, then the court will not say, if you didn't put that fact on the ground before the court, then the court will know fine for you to know who is in your favor. Here they know, sometimes they describe it as a kind of an ash. But you must also remember that on the first argument, there are two cases to court and not the other way around. And then again too, when people go to court, apart from what you are asking for, there are sometimes some things that slow what's called consequential orders. The court also look at some of those things. It is not the end of the day even to answer people they could see a fee based on the constitution on fundamental rights on constitutional issues both to the court of appeal both to the Supreme Court for a different interpretation and perspective on the decision that has been taken by the industrial court. But like I said, you will use law, you will use facts, you will also use evidence that is available to you. You don't have to do anything. Okay, so this is the same thing but let me just ask what if ASU decides that okay, for any time we go and strike whatever we are going to do we'll just come and start from a fresh slit and leave the things that we left behind and just go. Can the government take them to court again? Because they will forfeit their salary and say okay, we are not taking our salary so for that we are not also working let it be very balanced that we didn't work and we are not going to work. Of course that is a beautiful not a beautiful question you have asked and I will reply to that by simply saying that employment between an employer and an employee is a contract just like marriage is a contract. If at a particular period in time you are not likely to discharge responsibilities and all that and you fail to see those declined or neglected to discharge those responsibilities and all that Of course, depending on how the employee can go to court as they look this person has breached this contract use the court kindly compelling to do what is expected of him and the way he has refused to do functioning either by working damages or whatever to have a digital for future for future negligence what have you. That is what we call the performance compelling to do what is expected to do for that which he has failed to do so I say this both are true both the federal government can only go to court use the field as any aspect of the contract between the two parties has been breached but you see that was why it was even better to take this matter of absolute to a kind of negligence or arbitration because the court may only be interpreting the co-letters of the law but if it was an habitual panic as they were facing those ones have the way of deciding cases based more on what I would call equitable remedies they are not looking at the co-letters of the law they would have looked at the other side they would look at the federal government side and then oppose the issues from the middle of the road which are so bottom Tunde this is not the time we should have lost you but well we are hoping that Tunde will reconnect with us. Tunde is a legal practitioner here in Lagos state and we are interrogating some of the things we have seen on the headlines we talked first about the fuel scarcity that has been occasioned by just a single pronouncement by the president and that was that fuel subsidy has been removed now is the time that the government is sitting down with NNPC and all the stakeholders to fashion out ways to alleviate the sufferings of the people because of the fuel subsidy removal why didn't they do that before now we asked that question and also we asked about how whether it is fitting for the courts to just pronounce no work no pay for a group of people like ASU the lecturers in the university that may have to combat to do all the work that they are not going to be paid for just because the state home we were trying to interpret the law there but we are going to take a break now and look at what the weather is saying or weather experts are saying and when we return we will go to something else stay with us