TVCNEWS — broadcast
20260808 200000 UTC
451 transcript segments
Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp)
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:00:00] Let's now bring you more development from Ibadon, the state
[00:00:03] capital where an explosion has taken place, tell us about this
[00:00:07] incident.
[00:00:11] of TVC news, first with breaking
[00:00:13] news,
[00:00:19] at tv news, wherever the big news stories
[00:00:23] of happening, we're get up to
[00:00:25] of aggregate. First with breaking
[00:00:28] news.
[00:00:41] of of
[00:00:56] is Honorable Kafilla Okbara and she is member
[00:00:59] of the house of. representatives representing Cosofe federal
[00:01:03] constituency of Lager State and she is the chairperson
[00:01:07] of the committee on women affairs and social
[00:01:10] development. It's
[00:01:17] Nigerians often uh judge the National Assembly
[00:01:20] by laws it passes and oversights that it
[00:01:24] conducts from women's inclusion to
[00:01:27] in public uh petitions and
[00:01:29] in ongoing. investigations, do you believe the parliament is
[00:01:33] truly delivering justice and equal opportunities or is
[00:01:37] falling short of public expectations?
[00:01:40] well, the
[00:01:42] of 10th national assembly, or rather the tent house of
[00:01:46] representatives where i belong, led by right
[00:01:49] and abbas, so far, i think we have been
[00:01:53] able to do our best
[00:01:57] with
[00:01:58] of you, available resources. to us, because I
[00:02:02] believe um, members really want to do
[00:02:05] a more, but we have lot of limitations, where members need
[00:02:09] to do oversight and you need to travel
[00:02:13] to different places and you
[00:02:15] of don't even have the funding to do all that, so we have lot of
[00:02:19] challenges in that regard, and of course I believe that there have been a lot of
[00:02:23] loss that we have been able to pass, impactful
[00:02:27] laws
[00:02:27] of and laws that could
[00:02:29] you know... "we can say that as
[00:02:32] nation, we have been able to make
[00:02:34] a remarkable changes in
[00:02:36] of the nation, like the you know state police bill that we've
[00:02:39] just passed, and of course the gender bill that we are
[00:02:43] of speaking about recently, which we are
[00:02:45] in looking at it for it to
[00:02:47] go as
[00:02:54] of a an executive bill this time around, you have made lot of campaign, lot of advocacy, lot of
[00:02:57] efforts to reach out to. all our constituents
[00:03:01] across the nation to sensitize them, to mobilize
[00:03:05] people, to let them know what the gender bills are
[00:03:09] actually about, especially the reserved seats for women
[00:03:12] bill. so far, so good, we are ready to pass the
[00:03:15] bill, but the model had been the
[00:03:19] challenge, we have had lot of excuses and reasons why the
[00:03:23] bill may not go in that format, and we are looking at the electoral
[00:03:26] college model of which we intend to use, to pass the bill
[00:03:30] now, so landmark bills like this, if they are able to
[00:03:34] scale through and they are being implemented, they will
[00:03:38] be
[00:03:40] of informing us that this tent assembly has done what
[00:03:44] other assembly has ever done, because these are you
[00:03:47] know steps that will be taken to change a lot of things
[00:03:51] in terms of our
[00:03:52] of security across the nation and of course in terms of women
[00:03:56] inclusion as you know
[00:03:59] of the history. imbalance that we have on women under
[00:04:02] representation is is aliming
[00:04:06] and we cannot afford to leave defent
[00:04:10] assembly without ensuring that the inclusion bill is
[00:04:13] passed and implemented by the grace of good, well many nigerians
[00:04:17] believe that the national assembly does more talking that than
[00:04:21] it acts um women remain under represented like you
[00:04:25] said petitions drag for months and investigations really
[00:04:29] lead to any reasonable convictions, what should Nigerians
[00:04:33] believe that the house is making a real difference? yeah,
[00:04:37] you spoke about the public petition
[00:04:40] committee, which I'm also
[00:04:43] of member and then recently we had
[00:04:45] a retreat and lot of our
[00:04:48] of setbacks and
[00:04:50] of the challenges that we are facing and the barriers,
[00:04:54] limiting uh, you
[00:04:56] of know, success story were highlighted and This
[00:05:00] still includes
[00:05:01] of funding, because one, lot of Nigerians are not even
[00:05:05] aware that we have a committee like the public petition
[00:05:08] committee where any Nigerian, regardless of your...
[00:05:12] background regardless of where you belong, your
[00:05:15] affiliation, wherever you come from, as far as you're a Nigeria, you are
[00:05:19] entitled to write a petition to the public petition committee
[00:05:22] to lay your consents or your complaint or your
[00:05:25] grievances, but we have challenges of you
[00:05:28] know sometimes when people have to show up
[00:05:32] whether they are you know high up there in
[00:05:35] government or people have to travel from
[00:05:39] far, sometimes they don't get to show up and when you have to
[00:05:42] postpone and the complainants or the
[00:05:44] petitioner has been coming severally and then
[00:05:48] the you know the person they are petitioning against does
[00:05:52] not come up so what do you do and they have to travel from far
[00:05:56] away and all that and there are instances where we have
[00:05:59] petitionars describing some locations
[00:06:02] and some you know
[00:06:06] visible requests that we need to see for
[00:06:10] ourselves even the funding for... members to travel down
[00:06:13] to go and see that these things are done, the fundings are
[00:06:17] very difficult to come by, so I don't know, we need
[00:06:21] to prioritize what we need as a nation, we need to
[00:06:25] prioritize what exactly our focus should be, the house of
[00:06:29] representative as a parliament should be the people's
[00:06:32] house, and I think to a large extent this 10th assembly has been
[00:06:36] able to prove that, even though we are not yet there, for
[00:06:40] me, if I'm going to analyze, we are not here. there we are, we have
[00:06:44] introduced the opel week of which Nigerians are entitled
[00:06:47] to come in, speak to our activities for the
[00:06:51] week and contribute their quota and also come
[00:06:55] up with their own um ideas, but that is not enough, it's not
[00:06:59] every Nigerian that can travel there, and I think we also need to
[00:07:03] leverage on technology usage to ensure that you know
[00:07:07] parliamentary assignments get better
[00:07:10] results, yield better results. for instance the public
[00:07:13] petition committee, if we
[00:07:15] are able to digitalize all our
[00:07:19] reports, all our documents, all the
[00:07:22] petitions and everything that we have, even petitioners
[00:07:26] can you know lay their complaints and speak to us
[00:07:30] virtually or otherwise, so if generally as a
[00:07:34] government we are able to leverage on technology, it will go a long
[00:07:38] way to solve lot these problems. how do you respond to crit?
[00:07:42] who say that the national has assembly has
[00:07:46] become more of a tool in the hand the executive rather
[00:07:50] than you know being an independent arm of government.
[00:07:54] I'm talking about the phrase rubber stamp that has been tagged
[00:07:58] to the national assembly, especially the 10th assembly.
[00:08:01] Well, when you have instances where the
[00:08:05] majority the legislative arm of
[00:08:08] government are the ruling party.
[00:08:11] Sometimes. people assume that that is rubber
[00:08:14] stamp or
[00:08:15] you know that they are, they just do whatever the
[00:08:19] executive wants them to do. for the third assembly, i
[00:08:23] think Nigerians should see the
[00:08:26] legislative of government and the executive arm of government has been
[00:08:30] collaborating together, has been cooperating together and of
[00:08:34] course has been trying to ensure that the work together to have
[00:08:38] speedy results of you know bills.
[00:08:43] and policies that affects Nigerians directly,
[00:08:46] sometimes when government is trying to get
[00:08:50] results and there is no
[00:08:52] you know arguments back and forth from the executive or the legislative
[00:08:56] or government or disagreements, people tend to see
[00:09:00] it as being rubber stamp or just obeying
[00:09:04] the other the executive, but we forget that as
[00:09:07] nation and as a country we also need a
[00:09:11] government that can work work together, the judiciary, the three arms of
[00:09:15] government that can work together to get results, especially
[00:09:19] considering the critical states of our nation, as we speak today,
[00:09:22] considering the critical state of which the present government
[00:09:26] took over this government, remember before
[00:09:30] Ashinobu came, we had the subsidy where we didn't
[00:09:34] know what was happening to,
[00:09:36] you know the subsidized funds that people were saying that they are
[00:09:39] subsidizing the foil, the subsidy has gone now, today you
[00:09:43] cannot find cues in our filling station. i think as Nigerians we forget so
[00:09:47] quickly. then when we used to have long cubes at the filling
[00:09:51] station, i think for somebody like me, i will pray that the fill is
[00:09:55] even as high as it can be. let me just be able to get my fil and
[00:09:59] live here. today lot of our children, young people
[00:10:03] can go to the university, apply for the student loan and also
[00:10:07] as a parent we don't have to bother about the school fees,
[00:10:11] and it's not only that, they also... get stipends at the end the month,
[00:10:15] every month, this has never happened before in this country, before ashhuaju
[00:10:18] came, you find
[00:10:19] out that most of our governors, they were borrowing money to pay
[00:10:23] salaries with. government, we have never heard
[00:10:26] anything like that, and of course you can see the
[00:10:30] roads, super highways, if you look at FCT alone as a case
[00:10:34] study, if you know what governor wik has been able to do here,
[00:10:38] you wonder if we had any government even before now,
[00:10:41] so lot of strides have been taken, look at the minimum wage
[00:10:45] increment, that's a very bold step taken by a government that means
[00:10:49] well for the people and that is determined, i saw a video
[00:10:53] of um some ' retired
[00:10:56] soldiers, retired pensioners and they were so glad, they were
[00:11:00] so happy, they've never seen anything like this before, before they used to
[00:11:04] sleep in front the national assembly, wake up there with their mattress, their
[00:11:08] pillows and everything and they are just stuck there that until the
[00:11:11] assembly speaks for them for their pension to be paid, and all these things
[00:11:15] are now stories history
[00:11:19] just a very short while, so I believe the government may
[00:11:23] not be perfect. can this government do better? yes, the government can
[00:11:27] do better, and of course we need more
[00:11:30] impactful you know programs that Nigerians directly
[00:11:34] generally will be able to benefit, because
[00:11:36] there are a lot of complaints about hardship, about you
[00:11:39] know people not being able to afford
[00:11:43] you know basic things and all that, the light, our
[00:11:46] electricity bill very high, different complaints, but we
[00:11:50] also attest to you that a number of places
[00:11:54] a in many places the electricity
[00:11:57] you know supply has really improved and in many places,
[00:12:01] many of our estates, for instance in Lagos State, I would tell you that
[00:12:05] most people don't even need to use their generators, so I
[00:12:09] think there are a lot of developmental strides and of
[00:12:13] course there are still a lots for government to do to be able to
[00:12:16] catch up and meet the yearnings and you know the consens of
[00:12:20] Nigerians generally, what Nigerians need is just for them to be
[00:12:24] able. to have basic
[00:12:27] amenities, good life, be able to, we
[00:12:31] all travel all over the world and we know how things work there, so
[00:12:35] what Nigerians are asking for is just to be able to have a good
[00:12:39] life irrespective their status, their
[00:12:42] background or you know wherever they come from, and I
[00:12:46] think with time we will get there with the right leadership,
[00:12:50] the house is sp being um agencies alleged to have um
[00:12:54] operated. said illegally, how
[00:12:57] did institutions report reportedly function for years
[00:13:00] without proper legal backing? does this expose a
[00:13:04] systemic regulatory failure and oversight on the part
[00:13:08] the national assembly? it does, it does, and this is the
[00:13:11] truth. i was personally embarrassed, for me, i
[00:13:15] think this is a national embarrassment
[00:13:18] for us to have case like that, and immediately
[00:13:22] the house got wind of that, the... they were able to set up a
[00:13:26] committee, fact finding committee, which i think you know they
[00:13:30] are still on it, the report is yet to be presented to the
[00:13:34] house, and i believe as nation we need
[00:13:38] to, immediately that has happened, we need to be proactive, we
[00:13:42] cannot continue to defend issues like that, we need to quickly
[00:13:45] have a you know an audit of all our
[00:13:49] agencies, look at where is wrong, because
[00:13:53] for for me the way i think for. to have that, maybe there's another, so we need
[00:13:57] to look at, audit the system, fish out all these
[00:14:01] ghostts agencies that we may have, even ghost workers,
[00:14:05] they may still be out there, so we need to do that, and we
[00:14:08] also need to be more responsible, more
[00:14:11] responsive to the needs of
[00:14:14] nigerians, because all of us in
[00:14:17] public offices, whether as legislators or we are in the
[00:14:21] executive, we are all here by the will the people. 'we
[00:14:25] are all here by you know the
[00:14:29] mandates of our people and we should be, there's nothing else
[00:14:33] we should be thinking about than whatever concerns the people and we should
[00:14:36] work for the people, so I think as a government from
[00:14:40] the executive from the legislative arm, we
[00:14:44] should ensure that this investigation that is
[00:14:47] ongoing leads to logical conclusion, without
[00:14:51] sweeping anything under the carpet, we must get the truth,
[00:14:55] the facts and we must ensure that
[00:14:58] whoever, no matter the number that they
[00:15:02] are, must be brought to book, and Nigerians must not be
[00:15:06] disappointed by the outcome the investigative
[00:15:09] panel for this agency. All right, we still have some
[00:15:13] more to discuss, but let's take this very quick breat and don't go
[00:15:16] anyway have more for you on the program, stay with us, we bring it
[00:15:19] back. This is your frontal seat to the heart of
[00:15:23] power, watch
[00:15:24] the hall. chambers every Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
[00:15:36] Ogbara and
[00:15:37] we have been speaking. about issues issues pertaining to the house of
[00:15:40] representatives and the national assembly in general, well some
[00:15:44] government agencies sometimes ignore
[00:15:48] invitations the national assembly. should the parliament
[00:15:51] have stronger enforcement powers against public officials who
[00:15:55] refuse to appear? we already have
[00:15:59] strong enforcement powers, it's just that most the
[00:16:03] time we don't fully implement such
[00:16:06] powers. and sometimes when you as
[00:16:10] legislator try implement
[00:16:13] fully, you get to have some interferences here
[00:16:17] and there sometimes, so but
[00:16:19] at the same time we are politicians
[00:16:22] and we are all Nigerians, so we try to do our
[00:16:26] best in our own space, and um, for some of
[00:16:30] us who are particular about better
[00:16:34] Nigeria, better government and... better
[00:16:37] life for all Nigerians, I believe
[00:16:41] that we must continue to do our oversight the
[00:16:45] way we all to, we need to replan,
[00:16:48] restrategize and rejig our funding system
[00:16:52] in the house so that we can ensure that we are independent
[00:16:56] in terms of our oversight functions, when you are trying to go and
[00:17:00] oversight an agency and is that agency that will buy your
[00:17:03] tickets that will fund your
[00:17:07] your... that will pay for your hotel and whatever you
[00:17:10] need, mean how do you oversight such an
[00:17:14] agency, he will pays the piper, the takes to tune, so
[00:17:17] sometimes you don't get to get the desired
[00:17:21] result that you ought to get, we have such
[00:17:24] limitations, so as house i think we need to sit back, reflect
[00:17:27] in the coming assembly and see
[00:17:31] how we can work together in the interest of this
[00:17:35] nation, nigeria cannot... continue to be business as
[00:17:38] usual, we cannot continue to do things the same way and expect to
[00:17:42] get different result, so there are we have our flaws,
[00:17:46] we have our shortcomings, we have our limitations, so but I
[00:17:50] think sincerely with the right sincerity of
[00:17:53] purpose, we should be able to look into these areas and ensure
[00:17:57] that we do our oversight function very well, we ensure
[00:18:01] that budgetary allocations budgeted for ministries,
[00:18:05] departments and agencies. is are judiciously
[00:18:09] used and of course our budgetary system we have to ask
[00:18:13] legislators scrutinize and look at every
[00:18:16] line, every line. i saw a video recently to
[00:18:20] where they were saying that somebody said he did not see the
[00:18:23] budget, i don't
[00:18:24] want to mention anybody's name, but this is the truth, some don't
[00:18:28] see that budget at all, they don't go through it at all,
[00:18:31] many, i don't want to go down
[00:18:35] uh, you know, many people don't. get to see the budget to
[00:18:39] see what is actually because is
[00:18:41] a is a bulky is a bulky document and we need
[00:18:44] to ask legislators actually scrutinize maybe the issue
[00:18:48] of this agency fake agency that came up you
[00:18:52] know if they had been proper scrutiny and everything
[00:18:56] probably would have
[00:18:57] you know been able to identify that but i think since
[00:19:01] the investigative panel is still ongoing by the time the report
[00:19:05] comes out will be able to know where the... fault really came from,
[00:19:08] because as legislative arm of government, it's not in our power to
[00:19:12] create you know uh such an agency, so by the
[00:19:16] time they finish the investigation we will be able to know what exactly
[00:19:20] has transpired, but think as a legislative arm of
[00:19:23] government, we are doing our best, but our best is not
[00:19:27] yet enough. if you had to convince a skeptical
[00:19:31] nigeria and that the national assembly is still capable of protecting the
[00:19:35] weak against the powerful, what? evidence and not promises
[00:19:39] now would you point to? well
[00:19:42] um,
[00:19:44] I will um tell any Nigerian
[00:19:47] today that Defense House of
[00:19:50] Representatives is doing a lot in the interest
[00:19:53] of all Nigerians. With
[00:19:56] the public petition committee that we have, we find
[00:20:00] out
[00:20:01] that lot of Nigerians have been able to use this channel to be
[00:20:05] able to air their grievances. and we have been able
[00:20:08] to collate such reports, we have been able to
[00:20:12] ensure that you know our resolutions
[00:20:16] are implemented, we have people that were you
[00:20:19] know unjustly removed from work
[00:20:23] or maybe their land, maybe land
[00:20:27] allocation issue and things like that, different stories, i don't even want to
[00:20:30] go into all those stories and we have been able from our resolution as a
[00:20:34] house been able to ensure that they get justice.
[00:20:38] lot of Nigerians we are test to that, even though the percentage
[00:20:42] of Nigerians that have been able to use this channel are very
[00:20:45] minimal for me if I will rate it, it's still very
[00:20:49] minimal not, many Nigerians know that they have that
[00:20:52] window to be able to add their grievances and get
[00:20:56] justice, so and what we need to do more is to ensure
[00:20:59] that Nigerians have
[00:21:01] access to the committee, is
[00:21:05] accessible, we are also
[00:21:07] you know delivering justice and we are also ensuring that
[00:21:11] any Nigerian irrespective their status are listened
[00:21:15] to, so this is very vital aspect,
[00:21:18] and of course I will also assure... Nigeria that in the
[00:21:22] house, the way we ensure that the bills are passed, it's
[00:21:26] a process that is very transparent, when a bill is
[00:21:30] passed, it is the will the people that is passed, it's not just
[00:21:34] bill, because when a bill is introduced to the house, it goes
[00:21:38] to a first reading, it goes through second reading,
[00:21:40] it goes for public hearing, when it gets to public hearing,
[00:21:44] everybody is invited, we publish, we we we
[00:21:48] advertise on the tv, even though those that may not have
[00:21:52] television may not know what we are doing or those that do not have
[00:21:56] radio or those that that cannot
[00:21:58] you know get to newspapers, but we publish all these things
[00:22:02] and nigerians relevant stakeholders come up for the
[00:22:05] public hearing to air their views, point
[00:22:09] out their observations, their requests, what they think we should
[00:22:13] do and how we should do it, so we now collate all these
[00:22:17] ideas together to amend. what you have introduced to the
[00:22:21] house and then we use the report to go for
[00:22:25] third reading and then the process goes on and on so you find out that it's not
[00:22:29] just bill, an original bill by a law maker most
[00:22:32] the time do not end up
[00:22:36] never never ends up the way it came because
[00:22:40] Nigerians would have contributed and relevant stakeholders would have
[00:22:43] contributed to ensure that that bill reflects the
[00:22:47] will and the wish the people so so far so good, this is
[00:22:51] how we operate in the house, basically what we do is to make
[00:22:54] laws, to represent and of course over
[00:22:57] oversee um our relevant ministries and
[00:23:01] agencies and
[00:23:02] in terms of oversight we have done a lot of
[00:23:06] remarkable oversight functions that have been
[00:23:09] impactful where we need to you know
[00:23:13] address corruption where we need to address
[00:23:16] anomalies where we need to address inadequacies. and you
[00:23:20] know other is like that, we do our best to ensure that we
[00:23:24] get results and like I said we can do better,
[00:23:27] 50% of our oversights, as I speak today, 50%
[00:23:31] of our oversights and not what they should be, but we can
[00:23:35] definitely improve on all this and we can do better, the house of
[00:23:38] representative is the people's house and Nigerians should be rest
[00:23:42] assured that we are there to represent them, we may not be
[00:23:45] doing enough as they
[00:23:48] expect, but We are definitely doing our best
[00:23:52] within the capacity and
[00:23:54] you know the available resources that we have. All right, very quick one before I let
[00:23:58] you go. I heard that you were not able to secure your party's ticket to
[00:24:02] return to the house of representatives and more so you
[00:24:06] even lost your ticket to another man.
[00:24:09] Well, how, what do you think this does or how
[00:24:13] do you think that this affects the uh championing of
[00:24:17] more seats for women in the national assembly? and what would be your next line
[00:24:21] of action? well, thank you very much. well, I cannot
[00:24:25] accept that I lost to anybody yet
[00:24:29] until the final list is released, because I want that
[00:24:32] election, and whatever
[00:24:36] result that was published was mere
[00:24:40] written, it was merely written by just whoever wrote it, I don't
[00:24:44] know yet, but we are still on it and we are still discussing
[00:24:47] about it, and for me, I think gender
[00:24:51] conversation, any conversation around the gender inclusion that we
[00:24:55] are talking about, should not be confused
[00:24:58] for men and women, men
[00:25:01] versus women issue. it is a
[00:25:04] conversation around us,
[00:25:08] ensuring that we have better Nigeria, we
[00:25:12] have growth and development for this country, and of course we must build
[00:25:16] nation where talent, knowledge,
[00:25:20] or even service is not limited
[00:25:24] by gender, and I believe that once we are able
[00:25:28] to identify this, we can build better nation for
[00:25:31] this country. For me, for the the primary elections that we just
[00:25:34] held, if you watch the
[00:25:38] videos the primary elections that we had, you will know that I am the
[00:25:42] one with the numbers in my constituency, and I still believe that I won
[00:25:46] that election, and we are waiting for the final verdict of. the
[00:25:50] party, we are waiting for the official announcement from the party,
[00:25:53] ibara, i am the one with the numbers for kosof federal
[00:25:57] constituency, i am the one that the people want and
[00:26:01] my people as still waiting for the party to resolve
[00:26:05] that and since we did the primary elections i must say that this is the first
[00:26:09] time i'm speaking about the
[00:26:12] election you know that we had
[00:26:15] held this
[00:26:16] is the first time i'm speaking publicly about it because i believe the party
[00:26:20] knows what to do there had been so many intrigues so many
[00:26:24] lies so many fabrications and all that but i am
[00:26:27] not to be moved by all those rumors and all that
[00:26:31] so i'm still wait team for the final verdict from the party
[00:26:35] and we have continued to do our work, have continued to campaign for the party, we have
[00:26:39] continued to work for the party, because we believe that party is
[00:26:43] supreme and the party's decision is going to be
[00:30:48] Hello and welcome to labor lenti, I'm Sharony Jason, on this week
[00:30:52] edition the program will be focusing on the financial sector
[00:30:56] and the government policy, especially that the banking.