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00:00:44We of are live from Lagos Nigeria's commercial capital, this is the
00:00:48morning brave Friday August 7,
00:00:502026, I am Kelly Egiger and I'm
00:00:54Jeffrey is the weekend edition the program, I hope you're having a great
00:00:57time, I
00:01:17yeah, the twist as we count down to the osum states governorship
00:01:20elections, just eight days to go, president b
00:01:24just
00:01:25of yesterday uh directing the economic and financial crimes commission afcc
00:01:29to gate a court order freezing the
00:01:33accounts belonging to the oshin states governor, the
00:01:36presidents states government rather, the president says
00:01:40uh he was not aware, he felt embarrassed uh by
00:01:44that
00:01:45of decision um uh by the EFCC, and we had
00:01:49that conversation right here on
00:01:51in this program yesterday where we questioned the EFCC, we questioned
00:01:55the fact that you this look like, well perhaps um the
00:01:59of voice of J coup but uh the hands
00:02:01of eso and but it's interesting to see the
00:02:05president now waiting to the situation,
00:02:08wilson has
00:02:09of been speaking yesterday, the
00:02:11of director of public
00:02:12of affairs
00:02:12of the at the EFCC and he made lot of um lot
00:02:16of sort of uh pushbacks as to whether or not uh the
00:02:20EFCC has the
00:02:22of authority to freeze the accounts
00:02:24of the Aushen State government, so it's interesting to see now that the president has
00:02:28stepped in, I
00:02:29of don't know how... "this is going to play out
00:02:33um with the body, because um, if we say that that
00:02:36institution is supposed to be independent,
00:02:40you know, I wonder just how independent it is right now
00:02:44to uh, when the
00:02:45of president has had to waid into it, um, so uh, it's it's
00:02:49it's another twist to the events ushin
00:02:52state, but it's good to
00:02:54see the president stepping or waiting, because under
00:02:57of his predecessor, the immediate pass administration," "a lot of things will
00:03:01go, will go south and the president
00:03:05would just sit back
00:03:06of there and mostly would not do anything, so I'm happy that the president um has
00:03:10had to move swiftly, whether or not he was aware, some would
00:03:14question, I mean could have been possible that he wasn't really
00:03:17aware, Nigerians would really, really um um
00:03:20doubts that, but we want to see um indeed
00:03:24clarity in the coming days as to what
00:03:27of exactly is playing out with that particular account if they..." cc are raising
00:03:31some sort of alarm about some sort of spendings uh, as much as
00:03:34nigerians may want to sympathize with the oshin states government, i think the right
00:03:38thing has to be
00:03:39of done,
00:03:40of but it shouldn't just be in ocean state alone, it should be done across all
00:03:44the states,
00:03:45in monitor the account of all the states government,
00:03:48a not just
00:03:48in ashin state where they are cut party is in power, what is
00:03:52happening to the
00:03:52of other 31 states where we have APC governors
00:03:56and leadership in power, that is what uh
00:03:59in we want to see. EFCC also uh get to work, you say you're investigating
00:04:03those uh state governments right and their accounts, let us he see and let
00:04:07us hear what exactly your findings are,
00:04:10jeff, it's all shade of a mess, what
00:04:14has just happened, it's all shade of a
00:04:17of mess, the situation is just too messy, yeah, trying to correct it is even
00:04:20messier, yeah uh, when you look at it, i double back,
00:04:24doubled down on what i said about when the president met with the catholic
00:04:28bishop,
00:04:29of people wonder why i'm... is saying that and this is why,
00:04:32first, I will blame the handlers
00:04:34of the president for
00:04:36of allowing that expression to find his way to the
00:04:39in public, because there's no b, the knock-on effect
00:04:43is that because he has
00:04:44of the levels of power, if you're not careful when you say all is fair in
00:04:48politics,
00:04:49of he can allegedly influence institutions of state which can
00:04:53constitute abuse of power and lead to an
00:04:57impeachable offense, so let's establish that, number
00:05:00two, the ESCC, according to section
00:05:0367 and it think some miscellanous provisions as well
00:05:07uh in the money laundering act also has powers to
00:05:11be able to in swiping any
00:05:14anywhere just to
00:05:16you know if they feel that there is a prima fashia case or reasonable
00:05:19suspicion that something fishy is going on they have such powers even
00:05:23case law i think that has to do with b one case in
00:05:27modi to that extent but there's also the
00:05:30wisdom the political wisdom that ESCC did
00:05:34not display in this instance as far as this case is concerned even the
00:05:38supreme court there are times the supreme court that's why it's called
00:05:42uh
00:05:43the the apex court in the land, also the court of public policy, so what I
00:05:46mean by that is that when they make a decision, that decision is final, and
00:05:50when you're in court, by what we understand as conventions of
00:05:54law, it's supposed to be that decisions are made or
00:05:58judgment is according to law or justice is according to
00:06:01law, but I have a feeling that sometimes the Supreme Court can look a case
00:06:05and say, what will be the overriding interest, if this particular will go
00:06:09like this and burn down the country, so what is the? decision
00:06:13now, they may choose to delay, choose to be evasive, there
00:06:17are so many tactics you can use, this
00:06:21issue around the EFCC and ashun state government, as much as the
00:06:24EFCC has the power, it was just lack of wisdom to have swooped
00:06:28in given the precedent of what has played
00:06:31out to this point, so I try to establish the fact that
00:06:35they have the power to do what they have to do based on case law and some the laws they
00:06:38quoted, they can swiping any time. the
00:06:42common sense and wisdom should have advised otherwise.
00:06:46now I want to read what the president said, Kelly, yeah, I have
00:06:50read through the president statement, the president could not site
00:06:54any law he relied upon to be able to do what he has
00:06:58done. now he was making more of
00:07:01logic and a persuasion in terms of morality.
00:07:05his first paragraph a line in the first paragraph
00:07:09says, this is so because every action taken by "an
00:07:12institution of state, especially at the federal level, is always
00:07:16credited to me, as the president, even when i may
00:07:20not have had any prior knowledge the action. well, you don't need to have
00:07:24pry knowledge of any action, mr. president, you are,
00:07:27you just leave them to do their work, they do their work,
00:07:31now if he didn't souping, people
00:07:35will blame him, he has now souped him, he's also going to get the blame, but because
00:07:39the question is, and i'm going to ask the lawyer who is going to join us later, from where
00:07:42does the president derive the power to stop investigation? what i
00:07:46expected to have maybe happened, get to
00:07:49courts, the 72 hours and maybe look for a way
00:07:52to see the case being heard as quick,
00:07:55i don't whether the court is on vacation or something of that nature, and then the
00:07:58attorney general could have come in you to discontinue the case one way or the
00:08:02other, i'm sure there are other ways, but now that the president has swiping to say
00:08:06stop what you're doing, even call the ch the governor the
00:08:10state, people are beginning to ask questions. so does it mean
00:08:14that the agencies of government they take signals from the
00:08:17villa and is not looking good for institutions we
00:08:21should build that's why were saying it's messy from the
00:08:24beginning the EFCC has the right they have the powers they
00:08:28can swiping any time
00:08:29but they did not display political wisdom in this instance and as we
00:08:32said now that you
00:08:34have told us that you're checking every account i
00:08:37can let me not say what i can
00:08:41we are watching yes we support you to for
00:08:44anti-graft work, because if the Ashron state government sincerely and
00:08:48truly is doing something fishy and you have a primer fashion case,
00:08:52you should go after them, but we're talking about the political wisdom, the timing, which is what the
00:08:55president said is embarrassing, now giving what has been playing
00:08:59out, you see said whatever happens at the federal level is created to him, and
00:09:03that's why i said it was out of place for him to have said all his fair in
00:09:07politics, it was also poor management of proo from his
00:09:11handlas to have allowed us to come to light in the first place, so that's
00:09:15why I said if you look at the entire thing is messy, the president, I've read through
00:09:18Kelly, yeah
00:09:19to see, because normally they will cite how where the president has the powers
00:09:23to do this, investigations are still on, he stopped it, maybe
00:09:26he has, I don't know, but I'm trying to see what he relied on,
00:09:30so first blame, I'll blame
00:09:34the the management of this entire process, you
00:09:37understand, there should have been greater wisdom in this process,
00:09:40because now It is almost established that two things have
00:09:44happened, that the ruling party may be doing everything possible
00:09:48to win osu, whatever is necessary, two, the president is now
00:09:52a bigger bad bad light, I almost use bader, bad
00:09:55light to say he can swip in an investigation and stop
00:09:59it, I heard you should have allowed it to get to court and then the
00:10:03attorney general will do, they have this back, in fact there's a way,
00:10:07maybe a phone call to the ESC chairman, there are some things you could have
00:10:10done for the... reason is for the
00:10:13institutional preservation, it's
00:10:15not an individual here, yes, you said it, politicians can
00:10:19behave anyhow they like, i really don't care, because
00:10:22it is their thing, yeah, but when
00:10:24you come to institutions, inec, escc, ICPC,
00:10:28military, DSS, police, which them, all these
00:10:31people, no, we have to protect them,
00:10:34so then we'll break it down uh, with the senior advocate
00:10:38later on on the program, help us make sense of what has played out and how
00:10:42this says, but this is just very messy, as in the words the
00:10:46president, totally embarrassing, I don't know was
00:10:49oversilous, not to know, so political timing, I
00:10:53think chairman has to do that. explaining to Nigerians
00:10:56if was there a petition
00:11:00or did there
00:11:01i think no there should be petition there will be petition so perhaps um it has
00:11:05to come they say they've been tracking it since match so let's give them the benefit the
00:11:09doubt they've been tracking is a match so let's let's so
00:11:13that the public will know they have the powers to do the things they do but we're
00:11:17talking about the timing giving what has been happening in the state
00:11:20and
00:11:22is a is an opposition state you understand? 9 days or 10
00:11:26days to the uh exercise, nobody will understand what you're
00:11:29doing, nobody in the world will understand, so it wasn't wise, it was not
00:11:33wisdom at all
00:11:34at all, it wasn't wise, so now the president has been
00:11:38forced into the mess, because from his mouth to our
00:11:42listening ears, he said whatever they do at the federal level hits
00:11:46me,
00:11:47and i don't some i don't even know what's going
00:11:48on, you have to be, you have to know
00:11:52mr president, you have to be aware speaking about um another mess
00:11:56and scandal which we've been tracking the
00:11:59ICPC uh the reports it's
00:12:03day 30 already and they have presented their
00:12:07reports to Mr. President um yesterday
00:12:11I saw the statement by your nonoga Sunday dary as
00:12:15well um posted
00:12:17you know after briefing Mr. President the ICPC
00:12:21chairman uh spoke with the media where he said number of things
00:12:25about their observations and
00:12:28investigations and
00:12:30you know um, I'm not sure if Nigerians are really, really
00:12:33surprised by
00:12:35what has played out, but what we know from what the chairman the
00:12:38ICPC is saying is that
00:12:41Mr. um,
00:12:45perhaps almost acted alone, I'm trying to see if I can pull out
00:12:49that statement tonight, it says the fake appointmentts letter of
00:12:52um Matthew did not originates
00:12:55from the presidency, that's the ICPC chairman telling
00:12:59journalist Dr. Musa adamu aleyu
00:13:02an,
00:13:03and he's gone to list few other things at that pressure
00:13:07uh briefing journalist um about the outcome their
00:13:10findings and investigations, whether this hold
00:13:14water or not, many Nigerians i'm not sure would be
00:13:17satisfied um with this with this
00:13:21probe by the ICPC after 30 days.
00:13:25um, i saw for me, when i looked at some of uh the points, was a
00:13:29bit concerned about few of some the things that he said,
00:13:32um, but i'm just wondering again, just like we
00:13:35said, how possible it was for our dme to have acted
00:13:39alone, how possible for him to have
00:13:42faked, forged, falsified
00:13:46all the documents uh that he was able
00:13:50to was able to
00:13:51manufacture, it beats.
00:13:55imagination just high was able to do that,
00:13:58so um, he look, it looks like he's going to go down alone
00:14:01from what the from these findings, one the the
00:14:05points by the ICP chairman, let
00:14:08me just read that, it says the inter reports found that witnesses in
00:14:12verification, interagency oversight and government
00:14:15processes was exploited by adeni
00:14:19with some level of negligence and
00:14:22connivance, negligence, and connivans, well I
00:14:26think apart from the head of service uh DD Wilson Jack
00:14:30Jack who has uh come out openly to say you what, I take
00:14:34responsibility, the other persons or offices were mentioned
00:14:38or officials were mentioned in all of this, no one has come out to say you what,
00:14:42I also take responsibility, I think the FRC as well was also explaining to
00:14:45Nigerians yesterday how uh got the number
00:14:49plates that he did get um some days ago I was listening to
00:14:53the the the chairman the ado committee at the house of reps on
00:14:56PFIP, well start to
00:15:00say that
00:15:00what is the chairman the House of Reps ad committee on
00:15:03PFIP, was
00:15:07saying that they are going to meet with ADE discretely, they
00:15:11cannot live stream their probe or their hearing with
00:15:15Ame, and that would also again further make
00:15:18Nigerians cast doubt in the process
00:15:22about the transparency of that. Nigerians would have love to
00:15:26see on live tv how Mr. Dami would be probe
00:15:30remember Mr. Demi himself has been asking for that, he wants to,
00:15:34he wants his his hearing to be broadcast live and i
00:15:37think just been there hasn't be fair hearing for nigerians
00:15:41to see that process uh live on tv
00:15:43jeff two things i expect to
00:15:47happen and every Nigerian who is consentuous would expect to
00:15:50happen if this probe comes and goes and only ADME takes a
00:15:54fall then this government is not honest let's say that
00:15:57clearly i'm happy with what the ICPC says that's what's looking
00:16:01like first yes because i'm going to put it on the entire government
00:16:05this time because that man's the budget found is way to the presidency,
00:16:09yeah, the president is not an MDA, so is in the
00:16:12presidency, so if this guy takes the fall alone, then the
00:16:16government is not honest, that that is as simple as it
00:16:19gets, so we expect people to be fired, we expect
00:16:23people to be suspended, not
00:16:26just tap on the r reprimand, mean
00:16:30sacked or suspended for
00:16:34negligence for connivance depending on which is so... "let's
00:16:38put that out there, because it is not possible, you cannot convince any
00:16:41rational, reasonable human being that this guy was able to pull
00:16:45this off all by himself, it's not going to happen, it's not possible,
00:16:49so and i want to advise mr. gady and the house of reps, if you don't want
00:16:53the guy to be screened, sorry to be uh, the hearing to be
00:16:57public, please don't even invite him, what are you doing,
00:17:01yeah, what are you doing, you want to, you want
00:17:04to, how do they put the word now?" " you want
00:17:08to his session has to be private? why?
00:17:11why? what are you hiding? what does he want to
00:17:15say that he has not said? so please uh house
00:17:19of reps are committee on this whole matter uh
00:17:22the police has said because of a court case you know uh they may not
00:17:26be able to release him they need a court you know court papers
00:17:47seeing that the papers are already having it, so let's get straight to the papers, sure, this
00:17:51nigeria is the first paper will be looking at, help us
00:17:55two stories i would like you to speak to, okay let me st stick with one
00:17:59so that we can build uh tinuble why i directed efcc
00:18:02to unfreeze auction state account that's a page for read uh some the
00:18:06riders action hill timed embarrassing to
00:18:10me says president uh jubilation noshogo
00:18:14applause for presidential move well his uploads
00:18:17and flash actually getting yeah it's a
00:18:21hot mess really
00:18:22to tell
00:18:22you the truth because you look at it and you wonder what there better
00:18:26options for example the EFCC truthfully believes
00:18:30that there is some underhanded moves that play with or show funds in terms
00:18:34of its investigation is showing that large sums of money are
00:18:38been moved into uh certain questionable corporate accounts, the
00:18:42question is doesc fold his hands and just sit and watch
00:18:45and say, oh well, because elections are just 12 days away, how will
00:18:49it look politically that uh we take
00:18:53a step that will look like we are
00:18:56victimizing the opposition, so do we fold our
00:19:00hands and watch and allow
00:19:03you know the common wealth the people of osh state to possibly be diverted as...
00:19:07sconder because of political considerations, on the other
00:19:11hand, do we just do our job as we see
00:19:15and put aside all political considerations, so the EFCC has that
00:19:18quagm already in terms of timing, and then when
00:19:22it did what it had to do, which um, I believe
00:19:26legal expert is coming after this segment
00:19:30the show, to come and tell us the legal basis as to the
00:19:33powers the EFCC has and as to the powers of president.
00:19:38has to be able to call the EFCC and say please
00:19:42resend this action. That is the second
00:19:46situation in this matter that also is
00:19:50a bit messy, because the issue then becomes we question the
00:19:53independence the EFCC, if the president has the power to
00:19:57be able to call them and say, go and stop, go and stop this
00:20:01investigation, then the president can also in other
00:20:04situations order them to go and investigate for political... reasons,
00:20:08so you look at it and you ask yourself, how could this have been better
00:20:12managed? should the EFCC have taken the timing into
00:20:15consideration? should the president have
00:20:18taken how his interference would look
00:20:21in terms the independence of that agency?
00:20:24because there's already concerns in terms the president is
00:20:28one who um hand picks the
00:20:32FCC president, I mean chairman, handpicks
00:20:36the chief justice of... federation handpixs the
00:20:39IGP, handpicks the INEC, these are all the
00:20:42institutions that play a role in the outcome of elections, so the
00:20:46presence is already so powerful that you wonder that agencies... that are
00:20:50supposed to be independent, institutions that are supposed to
00:20:54function on their own, should the president be able, and even
00:20:58if he can, whether by executive order or any
00:21:02other means, is it politic, is it proper, is
00:21:06it appropriate for him to step in to a situation
00:21:09like this that's
00:21:10a hot potato in terms
00:21:12of
00:21:15a anti-corruption, remember this administration has
00:21:18always stumped this... first about being an
00:21:22anti-corruption administration that they will fight it to a stand
00:21:26still, so a situation like this where the EFCC says, this is
00:21:29corruption at his peak that we are investigating, what does that
00:21:33do to the administration stance in terms of being an
00:21:37anti-corruption crusader, so either way you look at
00:21:40it, it's not palatable for either parties,
00:21:44both them could have done things differently, you
00:21:47know, but doing it differently with have had consequences
00:21:50on both sides, like I said, if the EFCC didn't take a step, there was
00:21:54clear and present danger that Osu funds might have been uh
00:21:58diverted, probably even just to run the election in 12 days, that money
00:22:02could have gone towards putting up a credible fight in the
00:22:06election as coming up, at the same time if the president didn't walk
00:22:09back that order
00:22:12then oshu might have been starved of funds, it's people might have had to go
00:22:15without you know, if they had lost the election they would have said it was because
00:22:19the... phones were withheld, so the fallout on
00:22:23both decisions is seems to be greater than whatever
00:22:26benefits were derived, that's what we're saying that would have been
00:22:30applied, absolutely, the first click already has
00:22:34sent all the wrongs signals, legal clicks, yes
00:22:38and the president is a
00:22:41mess, yes right now, and then the reaction seems to have overshadowed
00:22:45the initial action itself, anyway before we leave the this this
00:22:49nige Yeah uh, I wanted you to comment on the story by the
00:22:53side, fuel subsidy golbed 1.1,
00:22:561.16 trillion in 2021, that's according to revenue
00:23:00mobilization and fiscal allocation committee, at senate
00:23:04threatens to compel the auditor general's
00:23:07appearance, yes, because we're not, we're not
00:23:10seeing the benefits the savings from for subsidy
00:23:14removal, so all of sudden the question starts to um rise
00:23:18that uh, was this? is a good thing to do, the whole
00:23:22purpose that it was sold to us was the fact that government can afford
00:23:26it and will save so much money from it, that it will be to the benefit of all Nigerians,
00:23:30that just few people are benefiting from this fuel
00:23:33subsidy that are uh uh running away with all kinds of criminal amount
00:23:37of money in terms of what they're making from four subsidy, but that if we
00:23:41take it out the savings will be beneficial to all 230 million of
00:23:45us, well guess what, three and a half years later we are not
00:23:49seeing those things translate into meaningful change in our quality of
00:23:53life, and so questions are being rightfully asked that,
00:23:56where's the money, what happened to it? let's explain, I
00:24:00mean uh, how many trillions is humengous amount
00:24:04of money uh, if you look at what was was spent in
00:24:072021, so if we extrapolate that from
00:24:112023 to 2026, you can imagine how much money has been saved
00:24:15from f subsidy, well where's the money, what has it done to benefit
00:24:19people? fuel is expensive, electricity is expensive, food is
00:24:23expensive, rent is going through the roof, school fees are on the
00:24:26rise, you can't point to any aspect the
00:24:29microeconomy where these savings have had an impact,
00:24:33unemployment is still high, healthcare is a crisis, i
00:24:37heard report where the governor of legal state said yesterday that
00:24:41there's a shortage of about 40,000 doctors for the state of
00:24:45legos alone, so you can imagine that the health careare sector
00:24:49is a crisis. so where is all the subsidy
00:24:53savings and how has it benefited us? the very reason
00:24:56i
00:24:57was given says infrastructure, but we don't eat
00:25:00infrastructure, it doesn't put, it's not food on our tables, why
00:25:04is unemployment st so high studen, nerfound
00:25:08yes, more people are able to afford to go to school, but that's a four year
00:25:12long-term project, it's not immediate gains, so what
00:25:16has the what has what is the substantive benefit that?
00:25:34and and it's not reflecting in in the lives, I mean look at look at the roads for
00:25:38example in this rainy season, the roads are terrible, floods are terrible, how
00:25:41come some
00:25:42of that money couldn't have gone to abate some of those news houses, really
00:25:45sad, let's uh turn our attention now to daily trust, it
00:25:49leads with another perhaps some would say national embarrassment as
00:25:53well. Phantom Council, ICPC clears
00:25:57presidency, the ICPC discovered
00:26:00that I also created
00:26:04two additional fictitious government agencies,
00:26:08apart from the one that is known in the public domain an
00:26:12investigation unraveled two other fake government
00:26:16agencies, namely FCT investments promotion
00:26:19agency and foreign investment promotion agency and
00:26:23public private partnership. this guy is
00:26:26genus,
00:26:30but his brain should be studied by those who are in
00:26:34security agency so they can do their job maybe better, but um, he couldn't
00:26:38have done this all by himself, it's not possib, but it looks like
00:26:41he's going down alone, it's not possible for him to have been as an
00:26:45outsider from the outside gone into the government and created
00:26:49agencies, it doesn't happen, he doesn't have the well with all, he doesn't have the means, i
00:26:53don't care how much of genius, if he has the iq of Albert
00:26:57Einstein, he couldn't have done this thing on his me of hp
00:27:00actually? "yeah, we
00:27:04have lot of ingenious brains in Nigeria, but I don't think there's that
00:27:07much accuman in the world uh, from all our collective
00:27:11brain power, to have from outside been able to make this happen, even with
00:27:15institutional loopoles, so he's got to have had inside
00:27:18help, in fact matter of fact, I think it was a tool that was
00:27:22really available and was used that this whole thing was designed from the
00:27:26inside, that's the only, he can't have sat in his study in his home one
00:27:30day and just conjured up this" scheme
00:27:33to you know uh create these agencies for whatever
00:27:37random purpose and have had the way with all to be able to
00:27:41do all it takes institutionally to bring them to life because those
00:27:45agencies actually existed except that they were unauthorized and they were illegal but
00:27:49they actually existed they function they were living
00:27:52breathing they were money gozzling you know you
00:27:56entities that actually existed so you
00:27:59know um I'm not surprised that the outcome the... ICPC
00:28:03investigation, I think it was a given already that that was going to be their
00:28:07conclusion, because I already said from the beginning that the police cannot police
00:28:10itself, and where I look it is that the ICPC is an organ the
00:28:14presidency, accountable to the presidency, and the investigation is centering around
00:28:18someone in the presidency, at least the allegations, so I
00:28:22didn't think the ICPC was a correct agency to do this, and I
00:28:26wasn't, it was a forg conclusion how they were going
00:28:30to um eventually conclude. but the news that came out
00:28:34that there were other.