 Reps ignore public outrage and passes Bahá'í's 23.7 trillion Naira extra budgetary spending as President-elect Bola Tunibu is to inherit 46 trillion Naira debt from the current administration. This is cross politics and I am Mary-Anna Khan. Despite outrage at Wednesday's Senate approval of President Mohammad Bahá'í's request to restructure the 23.7 trillion Naira loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria extended to the federal government under its ways and means provision. The House of Representatives yesterday centered to the President's controversial CBN overdraft. Recall that the federal government had said it would repay the loan which is which was at as at December of 2022 at 23.7 trillion Naira with securities such as Treasury Bills and bonds issuance. Bahá'í had in December of 2022 asked both chambers of the National Assembly to approve his proposal but the lawmakers who had promised to consider the request before proceeding for the election break failed to list it for consideration during plenary in January. When President Mohammad Bahá'í begged Nigerians for forgiveness many said much damage had been done to the nation's economy. Now the incoming administration will have to face the challenge of repaying these heavy debts. The 46.25 trillion Naira debt excludes the 369 billion Naira loan approval from the present government. Well approval that the present government claims it received from the World Bank to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal for the implementation of June 2023. Now joining us to discuss this and more is Babatundi Badamosi. He is a former governorship candidate and a former senatorial candidates with the People's Democratic Party. Thank you so much Mr. Badamosi for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Great. Let's start with the fact that recently if I'm not mistaken the IMF and the World Bank had raised eyebrows as to our debt profile and had on several occasions pointed at that some of these monies that were loaning from them were not put into the right kind of infrastructural development that would make or justify these monies that are being taken. As we speak the finance minister and the attorney general had been summons by the National Assembly to come and tell us about 200 million dollars that has not been accounted for. I mean the list is endless and more and more monies are being taken as loan but half the time the average Nigerian is asking whether the money go. Okay and first of all I think it's important to stick this. Buhari has always been financially irresponsible. He's always been financially reckless and controversy as always controversy over money over disappearing money has always followed him in almost every public position that he's ever taken. For instance he was the minister for oil during the Obersan Jury team when 2.8 billion dollars was alleged to have disappeared under his watch. We're told that the reason for the coup of for the military coup of December 31st, 1980 was because the cynic then headed by Senator Sarki, Senator Olusola Sarki, the father of the you know the man who was too late to become the president of the 8th Senate, Senator Pukala Sarki had discovered an account in the then Midland Bank in London and that account was in his name and the money was apparently allegedly there and they were going to bring him up for you know for charges you know for charges corruption charges whatever and he was then he slyly you know initiated his boys and got them to got them to carry out the coup against the civilian democratically elected at the time. There was that one then there was the PTF funds about 28 billion that was supposed to have disappeared under his watch as chairman of the PTF under the Abadja administration. The man that he apparently outsourced his job to at the time one Syracuse was killed just as the Obersan Jury administration began to look into the affairs of the PTF so all the evidence basically just disappeared. Now he s president and it s been a borrowing pest, it s been borrowing recklessly you know without regard to normal financial rules I mean like this this latest one that s been recently approved by the National Assembly is basically an illegal loan that is taken from the central bank against the law the CBN Act actually places a 5% cap that is 5% of the previous project on any borrowings from the CBN under section 38 of section 1 but Rouharri has exceeded that 5% and borrowed to the tune of over 2,000% not 10% not 20% not 50% over 2,000% has been borrowed illegally from the central bank and without checking without carrying out an audit to ensure that the money was spent for what it was taken for the National Assembly has criminally typically gone ahead and approved the loan to be securitized against Nigeria's Treasury bills bonds and so on so that Nigerians will now be paying for will now be paying that loan over the next 40 years at an interest rate of 9%. I think that s unconscionable I personally think that Rouharri should be arrested and tried for serious economic and financial crimes when he leaves office. I believe that every lawmaker that voted for that request should also be probed, investigated properly, prosecuted and if possible convicted for economic and financial crimes abuse of office at the very minimum because what they've done is they've basically sunk Nigeria financially that's what they've done and look at how long it took the Abbasanjo administration and the efforts that it took them to wipe out the loan interestingly borrowed by the same Rouharri when he was military head of state as usual requested you know that money was initially borrowed by him and it carried on from one administration to the next from one administration to the next until it got to the Abbasanjo administration and it had become about 31 billion dollars so they they managed to obtain debt forgiveness for most of it and because they were able to prove that the loans were obnoxious and they paid off the balance okay left the Jonathan administration with very a minimal debt and a huge foreign result the Jonathan administration still left a massive foreign result for them for the Bahia administration and he's he's spent the whole lot he's squandered it and left us with a huge debt of a hand what that's not what that's not what Garibash I'm so sorry to talk over you that's not what Garibash who the spokesperson of Mr President had to say recently he spoke to newsmen two days ago he had to respond to all those who were saying that the president had not fulfilled his promise in fact he clearly stated that the president had inherited an economy that was in disarray paucity of funds in the national reserves and of course a country that had a Boko Haram that had taken over part of the country that was the size of Belgium and this is an opposition to what you have just mentioned well Garibash he would say that I mean he is known to lie you know habitually he lies a lot that everybody knows that the whole world knows him to be a liar so I wouldn't expect him to say anything different from what you're saying he said but that he said it does not make it the truth the truth is yes there was some economic disturbance at the time where it was taken away but that was a mobile thing it wasn't just about Nigeria no every country that relied on commodity to boy their economy had problems but these are problems that we had overcome before and that would have overcome if we had a sensitive government I mean remember Buhari came into office and he didn't appoint ministers for six months he was the only minister the oil minister for six months and guess what there are problems with the with the uh accountability of oil revenues from the nmpc very serious problems too oil revenues for the first four years of Buhari were not reported there was no accountability whatsoever and he is the oil minister so the main source of funds for Nigeria he was sitting on it and the money is not accounted for so we can safely say that he stole most of the money we can safely say that when you say the president stole all of the money or most of the money I mean we can't make these kinds of allegations we are having yes we can if we have no accounts if there are no accounts we have to assume that the money is gone but again the people who are saddled with the responsibility of making sure that these government officials especially the executive is accountable there's a national assembly but you have said also earlier on that these people are in cahoots with mr president and they should also be held accountable and they should look I I generally don't talk like this but this has gone on for too long this has absolutely gone on for too long and you know Nigeria is at the end of its tether economically speaking okay these people have dragged us from the biggest economy in Africa so I think maybe third of hope now okay we don't even know how much we're earning it's it's absurd okay so this has to stop and we need to act Nigerians actually need to stand up now and start telling the truth the president has stolen the country blind and he's handing over to somebody who also has serious allegations of corruption hanging over his head okay so these issues need to be addressed frontally we need to stop you know we need to stop pussy-footing around the the real issues that are affecting real Nigerians and that are resulting in the deaths of millions of Nigerians garbache who talked about Boko Haram when Boko Haram when when the northerners in general a lot of northern politicians were agitating during the Jonathan administration that there should be negotiations with Boko Haram that they should have amnesty and this in fact Boko Haram nominated Buhari as their representative I don't know if you remember that and I don't think they would have done that if there hadn't been some kind of back channel talk or front channel talk going on between them so these are questions that need to be faced frontally for the first time let's let's tell the truth you know or else Venezuelans will look at us and say oh therefore for the grace of God go we interesting let's look at because we're talking about this money's and the level of indebtedness that Nigeria is at at the moment because you know every time we talk about debts most politicians will say well even the United States is indebted and I mean so Nigeria's case should not be different but but that is so careless and reckless to say I mean but it's people that have um you know no history of transparency people that have clouds of allegations of financial impropriety in public office hanging over their heads bad ones that usually stay stopped like that such you know careless talk but let's talk let's look at how Nigeria gets to dig itself out of this hole because we can't talk about the problem and not look at the solution yes the only way to get out of this hole is to recover all the monies that have been stolen the billions that have been stolen under the Goharia administration that's the only way out how do we do that how do we do that because even Sinopu has hold on what do you mean but I'm so sorry May 29 is sacrosanct so but we like it or not he has been hold on it's not it is the day that a president has to be there's there can't be a vacuum we all know this you know this you know this and I know this and again we we're not certain if the tribunal what's the tribunals rulings will be and I mean it does not necessarily have to end on May 29 we've seen governors swanning and then of course the courts takes them out we do not know we cannot be at the courts as we speak we know the antecedents of the man that that they want to swear in on the 29th of May so my argument is that a president to let this warning on the 29th of May is not sacrosanct what is sacrosanct is that the president must leave now if he leaves there is an order of succession there's a president there's a vice president there's this there's a senate president and then there's the chief justice of military all right that's the order of succession so if the president and vice president leave the president of the senate gets to take over office until the court decides who the actual president is because look you cannot swear in May 29 somebody the senate president sees this to be senate president on May 29 it doesn't work that way if somebody has committed surgery it cannot be president if somebody has a dual nationality but that's for the tribunal is that but you see you're pre-empting the tribunal that's for the tribunal to decide yes the tribunal has to decide those issues before a president and that's why you and I can't say that February 29 May 29 is not sacrosanct those issues must resolve before the president is one if they swear him in with the dual nationality issue hanging over his head they have violated the constitution they have launched Nigeria into a constitutional crisis again that's what they've done what i'm saying is that you are pre-empting the court let the tribunal do its job there is a serious allegation May 29 is a day set aside to swear in the president there is a serious listen there's a serious allegation that this man is not loyal to Nigeria this is fundamental these are allegations that need to be proved in a court this is this is fundamental to the existence of Nigeria that somebody who is not loyal to Nigeria is about to become the president of Nigeria but still has to be proved in court now if that is well we've seen the passports and the governments of of Guinea Conakry have already accepted that yes that passport was issued by them it's a diplomatic passport and diplomatic passports are not issued to people who are not citizens of country it doesn't happen okay i'd say it again these are all allegations that we cannot pretend that the facts are not out in public we cannot pretend but then we can't sit on tv and decide who's going to be sworn in or not because that is the job of the tribunal i'm not out there we cannot pretend so we are not saying i'm not saying that the that the tribunal should decide one way or the other i'm not saying that what i'm saying is until that decision is made it cannot be sworn in so what do you presume will happen i mean because somebody has to be sworn in on may 29 whether we like it or not so the senate president can be sworn in on the tribunal proceedings don't necessarily have to end on constitution makes clear the constitution makes clear a succession process okay the definition is clear so it is constitutional for the president todeep it is also constitutional for the senate president to take over when the president and the president but he ends also when the president's tenor ends and makes way for the next one it's end once it ends you know and there is a constitutional prices such as there is no there is a There is a constitutional crisis, whether we want to believe it or not, there is a constitutional crisis. But we cannot break the law. I know that you practitioners, I know that you practitioners of colonialism and the foreign state of the realm have had all sorts of warnings and threats from official from official quarters. So there are certain things that you should not allow in this situation. But I will say what needs to be said. You don't have to say, you don't have to agree. But I'm saying what I'm saying. What you're saying contravenes the constitution. It does not. It does. It does not contraven the constitution. It does. You can't make a senate president who tenor ends on May 29, sit back and listen. Go back and read your constitution. Go back and read your constitution. You realize that nothing I've said violates the constitution. Absolutely nothing. Well, you're saying that the senate president from a government that is about to go out needs to take the place of a president if there is no president's one. And I am telling you that there is no vacuum. There has never been a vacuum. And at the time when we had an interim government, it was a total. There will be no vacuum. There is no senate president until the senate president is sworn in. And the senate president is not sworn in on the same day as the president and vice president. That is a fact. But his government ends on May 29, whether we like it or not. Yes, his government ends. That doesn't mean that government does not continue. The senate president will take over. That is what the constitution says. Let's move away from this. We might come back to it, but let's talk about what lies ahead for the next president. Because again, we're looking at paying off these debts. If the next president is going to borrow, that he's going to print money. Basically doing exactly the same thing that Buhari has done that has led us to a debt hole of $51 billion. He's going to do exactly the same thing. He's not talking about production. He's not talking about enterprise. He's talking about borrowing. Let's look at FDIs and manufacturing and businesses. Because as we speak, our oil has been stolen. And we cannot have power if we have a government in place that does not believe in power. Look, the constitution has been amended to allow states to generate and distribute their own electricity. Has any movement in that direction occurred in any of the APC states? Let's even start with Lagos state. Let's leave all the other states. Maybe they're not as financially viable. Has anything in that direction started in Lagos state? No. So what makes you think that Lagos state is firmly in the control of Bola Amit. Let nobody deceive. Maybe the governor, but he's a placeholder. And everybody knows that. So let's be factual. Silubu will not turn Nigeria around. He will sink it up into a deeper hole than it's already in. His standards are not quite the same standard as those of decent people. They're not the same. The things that he accepts as ultra-modern or progressive or whatever, they fall far below the standard that is required. But during the campaigns of the APC and those who supported strongly and still are supporting the president-elect, they point to his governorship and his leadership here in Lagos state and all of the changes they said took place under his watch. Well, you can't really argue with people who have really low standards. You can't really argue with them. You can't argue with people who don't understand that road construction is a basic, very basic function of government. You can't argue with people who don't realize the provision of water and electricity are very basic functions. Very, very basic functions of government. You can't argue with people who don't realize that ensuring that every child of school age should be in school. You can't argue with people like that. You can't argue people who don't realize that the public health care system should work for taxpayers at least at least if not everybody else. Okay? You can't argue with people like that. People who at the slightest bite of a mosquito, they jump on the plane, they're going to France for medical treatment. They're going to England for medical treatment. And it's not just in the woods, all of them. I mean, he's just returned from medical treatment, hasn't he? Well, I didn't have a conversation. In the Lagos that they built, in the Lagos that they built, there are no hospitals that can take care of him. I did have a conversation with a presidential spokesperson who was also campaigning on behalf of the president-elect, who clearly stated in this studio, I do remember, that the president-elect was going to put an end to medical tourism, was going to re-gig our hospitals and was going to help our doctors stay back in the country by paying them the kind of monies they needed and upgrading their welfare. Let me say something about that. Let me say something about that. And I'll take you back to the federal administration. During the federal administration, medical doctors in Lagos, they went on strike for better working conditions and better welfare. And the strike was protracted, it went on for quite a while, it was a very serious dispute. And during the dispute, Polar Sinubu was seen on television telling Fashola to sack all the doctors that had gone on strike. They were over, they were just about a thousand doctors in the employee of the Lagos State Government at the time. And Fashola did sack them. He did. Now, it was this Sinubu that is now talking about attracting doctors back from abroad to Nigeria that had all the doctors sacked. He told him on television, two days sack them if they don't want to work. He said that. The footage still exists. Okay? Now, that person, who was younger then and had better mental equity at the time, is the one now talking about bringing back medical doctors and blah, blah, blah. How? The same person that we've seen on television was saying, no, I don't think so. Well, the issue I would try as much as possible not to make... And there is a record. Listen, there is also a record that President Muammar Dugwari said during the campaign that people flying abroad for medical treatment, blah, blah, blah. He said a lot of stuff about it and said it would end. What did he do? He came into office and went to London for 107 days. He packed the presidential jet at Stanford Airport at the cost of over £10,000 a day. So that alone, the packing bill for the presidential jet alone was bad enough not to talk of the medical bill that he incurred. I think they said it was £40 million or something like that. Now, what in Thinibu's history shows us that he will not do even worse? What? His pension package includes... His pension package with Lagos State includes a limitless medical benefit for himself and members of his family. So every time he falls sick and goes abroad for treatment, Lagos State is bearing the bill. Every time any member of his family gets a cough, they go abroad, Lagos State has to pay under the law. A law that was enacted when he was still governor. Interesting. We're going to go on a quick break. And when we come back, we need to talk about all the things that Nigeria needs to do to be able to pay back this loan, to be able to... I mean, I'm not sure if we can get debt forgiveness at this point, but what must we do in order to dig ourselves out of this hole? We'll be right back. We still have Baba Tundig Bada Mossi here, a former senator or candidate of the People's Democratic Party. Stay with us. It's still plus politics and we still have joining us. Baba Tundig Bada Mossi, he is a former senatorial candidate of the People's Democratic Party. And we're still looking at Nigeria's level of indebtedness, the state of the nation and what to look forward to after May 29. Mr. Baba Tundig, thank you very much for staying with us. Now, in eight years of President Bohari's administration, the Debt Management Office has said that Nigeria's total debt stock had hit about 46 trillion Naira in the eight years of Mr. President's reign. They also revealed that Nigeria's debt profile has grown from 12.6 trillion Naira in 2015 to over 46 trillion Naira. The situation has continued, like you and I have been conversing about, to raise fiscal worries, especially as the IMF has said that Nigeria has almost emptied its treasury on debt servicing in 2022. In other words, we borrow and we service the debts and we are also left with more debts to pay back. Now, let's look at if you were supposedly called on to be part of the economic team of Mr. President and you were asked for your input as to how to pay this loan off or this debt or how we can even dig ourselves out of this hole, what would be the few points that you'd be putting forth to help us get out of this mess if it's possible? Well, the first thing to do would be to block all leakages in the public sector. There are plenty of them. That's the first thing. The second thing, okay, I'm not sure that I should actually say this on the airport. You know, let's just say that there are certain steps that the government can take that will see to the restoration of fiscal balance as it were. Things are done the right way, paraphrase President Bitao B. If things are done the right way, then the debt will be repaid. But if things are not done the right way, then there will be problems. One of the best things to do. No, you said things are done the right way and I'm asking what is the right way to do these things? That would be telling you, wouldn't it? That would be telling you. There are lots of things that need to be done, but I will not mention these things on air for now because I think that this Excellency Bitao B will have a lot of work to do once he's pronounced President by the courts. But he didn't win the elections and I don't want us to dwell on that. He had two million less votes and so he's got the winner. Exactly. But until then, our president-elect is what I mentioned to him. Well, again, you're preempting the courts because we do not know what the court or the outcome of the case will be. Well, you're clearly preempting the courts. You have a lot of work to do. No, no, you're preempting the courts. Whatever the outcome of the tribunal is, then we'll take it from there. I don't see it happening. I think he will actually deepen it and make it worse based on his criticism. This is a man who's spent his whole life being a godfather, putting people in office as according to him. You're not in whole life. Being a, well, I mean, he's spent his time, even as he was in the Senate, he's been a governor, he's, according to him, been a kingmaker, and he's in his 70s. What does he have to lose? Why would he want to sink the country that he's begging to lead? Because he doesn't care. Because if he's going to lead the way- If he didn't care, why would he go through all the trouble to run for an office? Because he's into a death hole. Lagos state is indebted to the tune of over a trillion naira. And that is in terms of the deaths that can be seen. I believe that there are many other local there that we have not yet identified. That when they come to the fore, we'll probably be looking at over four trillion naira in debt, agreeable to Lagos state. So you're telling me that a man who spent so much money, time and energy to want to be president of this country will do it just because he wants to destroy the country. He wants to sink the country. Just because he wants to answer his excellency, that's all. Just because he wants to be on the list of people who are ever presidents of Nigeria. Can I ask you, do you have a personal beef with the president-elect? Do you not like him? Absolutely. Well, I don't like his behavior, certainly. But I have no personal problem in personal. I don't like his behavior. So if you call that beef, I don't know. It's entirely up to you. But again, he's not going to be just your president. He's going to be the president-elect, rather the president, when he's sworn in. He's going to be the president of the whole country. And I'm guessing that if he succeeds, Nigeria succeeds, and you succeed, so why do we not focus our attention on the things that can help him succeed when he becomes president? Again, I will be very clear about this. The election is up for interpretation at the presidential election tribunal. It's not a matter of when. It's a matter of if. And that completely depends on what the courts say. So it's not a further complete, it's not a foregone conclusion that Polatimu is the president of Nigeria just yet. President-elect, yes, but he's not the president yet. And so I would have us not preempt the court and wait until the judiciary completes the exercise that they're undergoing at the moment to decide whether he is, in fact, the president or not. But based on his antecedents, I'm going to say again that there's nothing in his history that suggests that he's going to do a good job by Nigeria if he is sworn in as president. Let's move away from that quickly. Let's talk about a few things before we wrap things up here. Let's look at some cases that were raised just before the elections. The fact that we had a lot of crude oil that was leaving the shores of this country unaccounted for, money's not getting back into our coffers. The whole of last year I'm sure that you would, I'm sure you'd know that the NMPC really said zero into the nation's coffers. And this is supposedly our mainstay. And of course we're dealing with refineries that have continuously gotten money's ear back for servicing but have not produced or refined anything in so many years. And then all of a sudden we're pointing fingers to the Dangose refinery and applauding that once it's up and running then things would go right. But what about those other refineries that are lying fallow? Care to speak on it? Yes, that's the question that we should ask the Minister for Petroleum. I mean, let's not beat around the bush. You know, if we can't ask the Minister for Petroleum, we should ask the President who just so happens to be the same person as the Minister for Petroleum. You know, the fact is, we have the longest-serving minister in this administration is the Minister for Petroleum, who is Mahamadubu Hari. Let's ask him. Where did the money from the NMPC go? Because the Ministry for Petroleum is the one supervising the NMPC. Where did the money go from all the oil? Why are there all these leakages in the oil sector? Why is our oil being stolen? And so when you asked me about repainting debts, you remember I said that we would have to plug all the leakages. And you've now mentioned one of them, the oil leakages. Hmm. Now, the NMPC has been christened, rechristened, window-dressed and given all kinds of names to try to see if it would work. Many people have advocated for the privatisation of the oil and gas industries. That's something that you would give your approval to. I personally think that the Constitution should be amended, that the Land Use Act be either amended to give Nigerians freehold, mineral rights and air rights over their land. The powers given to the governors over land should be revoked from the Land Use Act so that the governor no longer holds the land in trust for the people who trust that they have abused over the last 24 years. Very paramount, you know. So it's clear that the Land Use Act as it exists now only empowers corrupt politicians to exploit the people's resources and deny them the opportunity that the land presents for economic advancement. So the whole thing starts from the Land Use Act. Get rid of the Land Use Act, grant mineral rights to landowners, grant air rights to landowners. And the whole privatisation thing will start from that because if you own land under which there is oil, you own the oil. And then you can do with it whatever you like. But then what about the taxes that government would put on those products? This is where the NEI-TI initiative comes into play. The National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. You know about that, right? One that was espoused by Madam Obe Ezebrizili when she was in the Ovasanjian administration. That is where that initiative comes into play. And all that needs to happen is that every well head, every single well head needs to have a meter so that we know exactly how much oil is coming out. No matter what happens along the pipeline. If the pipeline gets vandalised, what about that business of the oil company? All right, it becomes their business to secure their own pipeline. Right now because it's owned by government, nobody's responsible. Well, recently, I'm sure that if you'd be following the news, you would have heard that recently a 40 plus billion Naira contracts was rewarded, re-awarded, I beg your pardon, to government a compolo, that's Tampolo, to protect the pipelines. And yet we have naval police. We have our normal police forces on our waterways and all of that. Some of his men came out, if you remember, outside the contract overseas was granted. Some of his men came out and identified pipelines from which oil was used, I found, throughout the United States. I think at one point the count had about 74 different illegal pipelines from which oil was been stolen in the United States. And I'm told that I'm told by people on the ground that they are far more than that. Now, these things happen again, I was stressed, because it is government property. There is an attitude in Nigeria that government property is nobody's property. It's a very terrible attitude. So we hear all sorts of stories about pollution by members of the military in oil theft. We hear stories about pollution by NNPC officials in oil theft and so on like that. So now if the people who are supposed to be looking outside the resources are the ones that are still in it, how do you stop it? The only way to take it forward is to privatize and then have the NNPC or whatever I do stand as a regulatory organization, as an ombudsman, as it were, for that industry. And their job would then be just, supervisory, quality control, regulatory, whatever. So that you would have meters on every wellhead, every single wellhead must have a meter issued by the ombudsman or whatever authority. And it is from that meter, this is our preferably, that we'll be able to know exactly how much oil is coming out of the ground and how much it's our company. Once a royalty has, it's a sensible royalty. I'm not talking about a punitive royalty. It's a very tiny amount of money, a barrel of oil that comes out, you know. And perhaps it could be arranged in a percentive stance, maybe 0.1 of a percent, 0.5 of a percent, something like that, a barrel. And that would go straight to either the, it all depends either the local government or the state government or the federal government, whichever one. And of course, you know that these companies will still pay their corporate taxes anyway, you know. One of the measures that could be taken to those two, and I'm suggesting this, I'm suggesting this purely speculatively. And I know that a lot of people come at me for this, is that whatever commodities we're selling at the world needs, could be sold in Naira. Very interesting. That's a whole different conversation on its own. I mean. So we could actually insist that, you know, you have to buy a oil in Naira, so that whoever has their dollars and wants to buy oil, will have to come to Nigeria, sell the oil, and buy in Naira. And that will. And you think that this is going to help our Naira grow? That will do two things. If oil remains, well, oil still has a shelf life of around another maybe 10, 15 years, based purely on the technological advancements in the automotive industry right now. And I'm not talking just about cars. I'm also talking about heavy equipment. They're being electrified as well. We now have electric vehicles, has electric wills, has electric forklifts. Well, had electric forklifts for a long time. We now have electric excavators. And there are electric ferries now, electric boats. Those are actually a thing, you know. So oil has a very short shelf life left. Now in that 15 year window, what we could do is insist that whoever wants to buy from us has to buy in Naira. And the BRICS group of nations provides an excellent opportunity to make that happen in my opinion. Okay, all right. Well, I want to say thank you. Babatundi Gwadamosi is a former senatorial candidate of the People's Democratic Party here in Lagos. Thank you so much for speaking with us and we really appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure. All right, well, that's the show tonight. But before we go, we will leave you with the highlights of all our conversations this week. Don't forget, you can also catch up most of our programs on our YouTube platform that is at Plus TV Africa. So go and play catch up. I am Mary Annaco and do have a beautiful weekend. See you on Monday. The trends which has always led our sensors to be so controversial. The last acceptable sensors in Nigeria, which was not in any controversy, was the Nitrous 63 sensors. Since then, it has always been one suspicion after the other. For instance, let me give you a good example. Nigeria is the only country in the world where there are more people in the bushes, you know, in the certified areas than in the coastal areas. It runs against the currency of thinking, currency of movement, migration, anywhere in the world. So how does this happen? It's not the physical thing. You only need to go and stay in baguette or stay in some water. You see how many drops of people are moving into diggers on a daily basis. You know, carrying passengers and dropping people off and all that. And many of them are not going back. Whereas when you see that, or when you see the sensors, the figures you will have will be totally different. You know, so it's quite a very difficult situation. But we can surmount this problem by using technology and ensuring that, you know, everybody has NIN. Once you have NIN, you'll be captured on the system. Then we need to integrate the whole system in a way that it will be easier for governments, including authorities like Nigerian police force, CFCC and others, to easily access information without violating people's privacy, but access information, particularly when crimes are committed. Buhari and the man, Tinubu, are two different types of people. There is something that Mr. Tinubu knows about people. He understands betrayal and he knows exactly what Wike has done. And I want to tell you that even if Wike is a minister, within one year, there's going to be a problem that is going to create a scandal just for him to be exited from the place. I don't know what sort of agreement he's going to have and said, I must be a minister for four years. I don't know how that's going to work out. But at the end of the day, there's something that Mr. Otsu said, which I found very instructive. Why must we in the Niger Delta always be the cash cow for these people? Do they really respect us for who we are or the text to exploit us for the resources that we have? Was Wike approached on account of his superior capacity and intellectual prowess? Or was he approached because he had the money and could turn and do the daily job? Even my government, why was he made the chairman of the campaign committee of the PDP? I think we in the Niger Delta need to really come back and sit down and ask ourselves very critical questions on how our resources will be deployed at national level. Still on this security. And America was kidnapped somewhere in Africa and was brought down to Nigeria. And the American president said, it won't let America release allies within 24 hours. And from all the way from America, they came to Nigeria and they rescued the people. Is that how we talk to Otsu leadership? And some people are traumatizing you in your country and you're calling a gorilla warfare? A gorilla warfare? And you cannot tackle it? Anyway, let's leave that because our title is equality. Let's come to economy. Let's come to economy. What were the economic indices that made Nigeria the fastest growing economy in Africa in 2015? Because the data starts there. Not manufactured by me, but even by our Sanjuku group in Nigeria. All right? What were the indices then? What do we have now? I wouldn't want to use words that will not be easily described by listeners. But rather, I will go to the basics. In 2014, 2015, what was our exchange rate? That's number one. What was the productive capacity of our industry? That's number two. When we're looking at rate of employment, what were we having then now? How much was a bag of rice then? How much is it now? I'm talking about market price indices. What do we have there? What do we have now? Are you talking about economy? Listen, what was the rate of people, professionals, learning people, living in our country then? I mean, tomorrow. It is just now that we're not having, I mean, a very loud Japanese region. The continuum. What does it say? Because there is a continuum. We will not continue until that is not a defined health as a people, whether you go to schools, universities, the houses that we stay there, whether a lot of people are now into unemployment, whether our economy is going to change the rate, whether our defiantly are not working, whether we put in money to make our defiantly work, we're not borrowing money. We're not borrowing money. So give to people. Because we want to remove subsidy, that is what this government said was a fraud. Why do we campaign?