 Welcome back to the breakfast. Now our final conversation this morning is on organized labor and the ministry of finance. The organized labor is again up against the federal government and as usual it's all about salaries. Labor unions have rejected the plan to slash the salaries of Nigerian workers. They say they are shocked by a statement from the Ministry of Finance that salaries may be slashed as part of a plan to reduce the high cost of governance. Of course this is one of the things that we had shared earlier on the breakfast this morning that made the headlines across the country. And it is once again I think I would agree and stand with an area of the person who is shocked at this plan. The federal government would always put out statements with regards to reducing the cost of governance, about government spending and Nigeria not being able to afford the level of spending that is going on in the country. But it never affects the National Assembly, never affects the politicians, never affects governors, never affects the local government, chairman, doesn't affect the presidency. Every one of these measures that the Nigerian government has thought about to reduce the cost of governance has been targeted at the people. In every single way that the Nigerian government has thought let's make more money, let's increase our revenue, has been targeted at the Nigerian people. If we're having a conversation for any reason whatsoever about reducing salaries for Nigerian workers, are we having the same conversation about reducing the cost of living for Nigerian workers? Are we having the same conversation about reducing the cost of electricity or the cost of petrol or the cost of food stuff in the market? We're talking about inflation and how we currently are dealing with another inflation figure that is completely shocking. So how do you have an idea? How do you even think about reducing the Nigerian's workers' salary when even what he currently is receiving is not enough to deal with the current cost of living in Nigeria? There should be a series called Surviving Nigeria. We're leaving the series actually. Yes. It should be a very, very long series, just sharing what it really means to survive in this country. How do you have that conversation when the same labor has protested against increasing electricity tariffs? Nothing really was done. The tariffs are still high. The same labor has protested against reducing the cost of petrol. We keep hearing these excuses about subsidy and how we can't really have cheap petrol in Nigeria because it's dependent on the cost of oil prices and all of that in the world. So why will this ever be considered when we still have billions of Nair that goes into funding the National Assembly every year? We still have National Assembly members receiving millions and millions of Nair every month for, you know, as a salary and as their wages. We still have state governments spending security votes or whatever it is every month unaccounted for if nobody gets to audit any of this. We still have a government that doesn't know exactly how much it loses every day through leakages in government. Billions and billions of Naira that just disappears in Nigeria's space without being accounted for. We still don't have borders that are closed. You've said it all regarding this particular issue because it makes me ask myself the statement to reduce the cost of government. It seems like a political one. We keep hearing this year in, year out, want to reduce the cost of governance, want to reduce the cost of governance. But, you know, just like we had Shinwo Onigminde from budget yesterday and had, you know, other guests to analyze the situations, we found that there are lots of projects that are in the budget that shouldn't be. 316 duplicate projects worth billions of Naira. Why is the government not checking those leakages? Why is the salaries of politicians, you know, still one of the highest in the world? And the government says, let's reduce the cost of governance. And the first place you can think to cut is a civil servant who's earning 30,000 Naira. And it won't be struggling for that 30,000 Naira to be paid. So it's just an irony that a government that is constituted to serve the people end up serving themselves. Like, you know, we had one of the guests yesterday say that it seems that the budget is an extension of personal interest rather than be a budget of, you know, a budget that would uplift the lives of people, change the economic situation of Nigeria. It seems like one that simply enriches politicians. So if you want to cut down the cost of government, we know where to start from, not civil servants who are earning little money, not civil servants who don't even get paid. Civil servants who, after working so many years, they can't even get their pension, civil servants who can't afford treatment. That's the people, that's the salaries of people you want to cut. It just is irrational. So I'm happy that Labour seems opposed to this. They condemn this, criticising this and saying they would not let this stand. So let the government focus on places that are basically gulping up lots and lots of our money and begin from there. Good luck to Labour also. We've also seen them make similar statements in the past, you know, and I'm not sure how successful they've been with protesting moves by the government. But that's, you know, all we have today. Hopefully we have an extended conversation about this tomorrow on the programme. Thanks for being a part of the Thursday morning's edition of The Breakfast. And if you missed out on any of it, quickly get on our social media platforms. Some of the clips and videos from today's conversations will be posted on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and our YouTube, all at PLOS TV Africa. It's bye from me. I am Osao Ghye, Agmohan. And I am Annette Felix. Bye-bye.