Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:01these agencies for whatever random purpose and
00:00:04have had the well with all to be able to do all it takes institutionally
00:00:08to bring them to life, buse those agencies actually
00:00:12of existed, except that they were unauthorized and they were illegal, but they actually existed, they
00:00:16function, they were living,
00:00:17of breathing,
00:00:18you know, they were money guzzling, you know, you
00:00:21entities that actually existed, so you know,
00:00:25I'm not surprised at the outcome
00:00:26of the ICPC investigation, I think... "it was a given
00:00:30already that that was going to be their conclusion, because I already said from the beginning that
00:00:34the police cannot police itself, and where I look it is that the ICPC is
00:00:38an organ
00:00:39of the presidency, accountable to the presidency, and the
00:00:42of investigation is centering around someone in the presidency, at least the
00:00:45allegations, so I didn't think the
00:00:48of ICPC was a correct agency to do this, and I
00:00:51wasn't, it was a forg conclusion how they were going
00:00:56eventually conclude, but the news that came out that there were other..."
00:01:00agencies created by this same
00:01:03of person um it's not that big of a surprise because if you could do
00:01:06one and function with it yeah what stopped him
00:01:10from creating as many others as as as he could benefit
00:01:13from
00:01:14of really interesting yeah so but the thing you're saying
00:01:19of authentication
00:01:20i have fourback position the thing that that you said that struck me
00:01:24of though kelly
00:01:25of is that it looks like he's going down alone alone we will not allow
00:01:29of it
00:01:30of i don't think because I think I think if he sees he's going down, I think
00:01:34he will start singing like a canary,
00:01:37and I think that's why he's insisting a public hearing as opposed to the house
00:01:40wanting
00:01:41a closed
00:01:41of door hearing is, I think he knows that discrete hearing, it was the exact words
00:01:45of the chairman
00:01:46of of the com our time, they don't want the public leave the guy
00:01:49alone, absolutely,
00:01:52of yes, yes, absolutely, I think that the only way we can get to the truth of this is
00:01:56of if everything is put on the table and everything is out in public, unfortunately
00:02:00part of this whole sack guys that the middle man
00:02:04who was the go between has tragically
00:02:08passed away so at this point is really just the
00:02:10of he said she said and where the truth really is is
00:02:14difficult to determine. i think again the federal government has
00:02:17a responsibility
00:02:19of to through the agencies that are supposed to do this work maybe the
00:02:23police in this instance the
00:02:25of man was he
00:02:26of murdered did he because he said the place where the man was staying was run down i think
00:02:30a
00:02:31of hotel or something or something, yes, but the whole hotel didn't burn down, it seems to
00:02:35have just been his room, so nobody's talking, and this gentleman, this at me guys
00:02:39of mentioning that people are missing that point, that that is the man who
00:02:43allegedly you introduced him, they never had an interface
00:02:46with the president, chief of staff, all
00:02:49of the accusation that that's the middle man, would have loved, but the
00:02:53middle man is now dead, yes uh, and i don't think if this
00:02:57work has
00:02:57to be done responsibly, we need to find out we died, it may
00:03:01not give us much, but it can give us an idea of what we're looking
00:03:06of at, of but
00:03:07of if if it is about this man going down, then it's a very dishonest
00:03:11process, it's not going to be makes sense, and uh,
00:03:14let's let's repeat, mr. gagd, honorable gagd, let's
00:03:18hear this thing publicly, yes, don't keep
00:03:21of anything secret, yes, all right, let's go to the
00:03:24of guardian newspaper, uh, i like this one, he's taking a
00:03:27total, detal from the things we've been looking at
00:03:31how
00:03:32a poor regulation shields oil firms
00:03:35of and host communities that's the methane
00:03:38emissions in the Niger delta, there's been
00:03:43of a sipage that has been reported in places like
00:03:44of I think B community, I think that should be in deg also local
00:03:48government area of river
00:03:49in state, we've we've done this, we brought people that are
00:03:53living in that area to come and help us understand what's going on, I know
00:03:56that is in Nra, one of those agencies. responsible i
00:04:00visited i think also so visited but
00:04:04i don't know what but the guardian is saying look
00:04:08um the the the firms that
00:04:10of of are doing business in this area need to be more a bit more accountable what do you
00:04:14make of it? yes, i remember many years ago these iocs
00:04:17shell and total when we became more conscious
00:04:21of the spoliation
00:04:24of of the environment from the exploitation of fossil fuels in the beginning we we were just so
00:04:28excited about discovering all that it was about extracting it from the ground and
00:04:32exploiting um its financial uh
00:04:35potential, but then we began to see that there's a price to be paid
00:04:39as well and you begin to see you know uh horror
00:04:42stories of communities completely devastated
00:04:45you know whether from oil spills, whether from even
00:04:48gas flaring which we still
00:04:49do today to the detriment of even us having enough adequate cooking
00:04:53gas uh for domestic purposes, so there's a lot
00:04:57of spoliation
00:04:58of the environment and you know... to do, the world is more
00:05:02of conscious now about things like climate change, global warming,
00:05:06you know, um, depletion
00:05:08of the ozone layer, you
00:05:10of so while everybody is trying to cut, emissions in
00:05:14terms of
00:05:16pollution, we have a situation where
00:05:20instead of cutting, we are just negligently allowing it
00:05:24to proliferate, so when you see communities
00:05:28in the Niger delta, where this primary resource that we all depend
00:05:32on for our sustenance, is this oil and gas that is more or
00:05:35less propelling the country's entire economy and all of our well
00:05:39beings, but the price that has been paid... for all of
00:05:43us to be able to thrive and prosper, the price that is being
00:05:46paid by the environment and by the people of those
00:05:50communities is totally and completely
00:05:53unsustainable, and so we have regulators and those regulators
00:05:57in the governments are supposed to make to hold companies to
00:06:01account whose activities are having a negative impact
00:06:04on people's livelihoods, on the environment, on
00:06:08quality of life, mean you see people with long disease,
00:06:12is simply from inhaling all the particles in the
00:06:16atmosphere, and so you would expect that there should be
00:06:20severe penalties that are enforced
00:06:24on those who are responsible for spoliation the environment in the
00:06:28all producing areas, but it's not happening, so what that report essentially is saying is
00:06:32that poor regulation, poor oversight is
00:06:35leading to devastation of livelihoods,
00:06:39degradation of communities and
00:06:43declining quality of health of those people and the government should buck
00:06:47up and make the IOCs, they are not poor people, when you look at these
00:06:50international oil companies, they've extracted so much wealth from the
00:06:54ground that they should be able to do right by the communities
00:06:58where they are extracting their product from,
00:07:01but you know they make a small show of okay, there's something called
00:07:05community, they employ a few people within
00:07:08you know the community to keep rest, yes to keep restiveness
00:07:11at bay. to the barest minimum that he can get away with and
00:07:15leave it at that and it's not satisfying, so I'm glad that the guardian has
00:07:19highlight highlighted the story, maybe it will lead to
00:07:22greater scrutiny into the activities of of
00:07:26those who um, and it's not just oil
00:07:30producing, even in terms of other mineral resources, where
00:07:34there's mining, there's also all kinds of
00:07:37devastation that happens in all
00:07:44story on the guardian, the manufacturers acting for a 20% on the
00:07:48MPR, you were 26 point some is it 26.5 because the
00:07:51cost of borrowing is quite high and is affecting business for them,
00:07:55how how how are you able to to keep business going when you're boring at
00:07:5926%, how can you pay you can't even that's a benchmark
00:08:02so yeah when you get your
00:08:04more retail so
00:08:05bank uh it the be manufacturers are crying that borrowing cost is too
00:08:08much but we must thank you so much for coming on the program and bringing very
00:08:12sharp insight to the subject matters that we've raised from the dailies.
00:08:16Mr.
00:08:17to be thank you, my pleasure always have a great weekend Nigeria and see you on Monday when we shall be
00:08:21saying thank God this Monday. Let's go a
00:08:25break, we'll be right back. Stay with
00:08:26us.
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00:09:13"the day begins with news gathering and research. we need to confirm
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00:11:12Welcome back to the program everyone, this is the morning brief, we are live from our
00:11:16global headquarters here in Lagos, Nigeria and you right here we always try to
00:11:20have very timely conversations, this morning the spotlight again is on
00:11:23Ocean States. the developments there, the politics
00:11:27there, and this very latest twists where the president has now
00:11:31asked the EFCC uh to vacate
00:11:35uh the court order, we
00:11:36are joined this are by a senior advocate of Nigeria,
00:11:40Kayode, joins us live on the program virtually, thank you
00:11:43indeed senior advocate of Nigeria for joining us here on the
00:11:47program, um, the twists and the
00:11:50elections, the politics in Ash is getting really interesting, first the
00:11:54EFCC the accounts the oshin state government uh
00:11:58then Mr. President uh went ahead to ask
00:12:02the the the the commission to you what the case the
00:12:06court order the same yesterday the Ash governor
00:12:10Ademola Adelec has now suwed the
00:12:13EFCC 2 billion
00:12:15nara um for damages
00:12:19sir thank you
00:12:22thank you very much um these events honestly, i think
00:12:26are quite interesting, but let's leave the
00:12:30politics that may be associated with these events
00:12:34aside for moment, and let's just talk about the
00:12:37law. now the EFCC uh
00:12:41create was created in 2004,
00:12:44for good reason at the time, and we must ask
00:12:48ourselves, what is the scope of authority the
00:12:51EFCC? the EFCC has the authority. to
00:12:55investigate, prevent and prosecute crime which
00:12:59associated with economy or finance, financial crimes and economic
00:13:03crimes as well. now do we have an
00:13:06EFCC that is like a supervisor of all
00:13:10regions, all states, all governments, all
00:13:14departments and agencies,
00:13:17and under who do they operate and to whom should they
00:13:21account? these are the relevant things that we must ask ourselves now.
00:13:25"now as I said,
00:13:26the EFCC creation of statute and of course let's say let's put
00:13:30it this way by an act the national assembly, but we
00:13:34shouldn't forget that we are, in fact especially
00:13:38now stranously trying to approach
00:13:41through federalism, so should we have a situation where
00:13:45an agency the federal government will simply come into a
00:13:49state and say, we do not like what you're doing, and as such we are going to bring an
00:13:53order against you." Let us look at
00:13:57section 126, 125 the
00:14:01constitution, which provide for the
00:14:04appointment of accountant general and auditor
00:14:08general for the respective states. This is a
00:14:11constitutional provision, and if we go to section
00:14:1512 um 54,
00:14:18it says the auditor general for
00:14:21the station have the power to conduct periodic. checks
00:14:25of all government statutary corporations,
00:14:29commission, authorities, agencies, including all persons and
00:14:33bodies established by law the house of assembly. now
00:14:37don't forget money spent by states are money
00:14:41spent under the law by way of appropriation. now
00:14:44this constitution which we refer to, which of course is superior to the
00:14:48act of sets of EFCC, goes for that to say in section
00:14:521256 that in the
00:14:55exercise of his
00:14:57functions under this
00:15:00constitution, the auditor general
00:15:04for a stage shall not be subject to the
00:15:08direction or control of any authority or
00:15:12person. so if we truly find that some to
00:15:16what thing is going on in the state, i think the first port
00:15:20of call should be the auditor general of that state, well of course people would
00:15:23probably just simply say, well the auditor general and appointe
00:15:27the governor will probably just do his beading,
00:15:31but we must recognize that the constitution is superior to any other
00:15:34enartment. aside from that, the ES see in
00:15:38itself must ensure that it does not bring
00:15:41about um processes, procedures or
00:15:45acts that may truncate the smooth
00:15:48running the accounts of a state, affecting civil
00:15:52servants, affecting the people, affecting the programs the
00:15:55state, especially the executive who was
00:15:58properly elected by the
00:16:01people, so as we speak,
00:16:04let's talk about the directive which is the big
00:16:08elephant in the room, so initially
00:16:12when we saw the is it letter, the release or the directive for the
00:16:15PND to the banks by the EFCC, the
00:16:19argument was whether or not they
00:16:21had the rights or they had the powers, the other certain things insue to
00:16:24talk about 72 hours, the must get a court order, we didn't get to
00:16:28see that court order, the first time personalized saw, heard anything
00:16:32about a court order was from the president's statement where it said the ESCC had gotten
00:16:36a court order. on August the 5th and is saying to them, please go back to
00:16:40court and vacate it uh and allow these people, because what you're doing
00:16:44is embarrassing to me uh, people will misread this to be
00:16:48political, the the place is already charged, let's talk about the extent to which the
00:16:52president can go, because when I was reading through that statement, I wanted to see what
00:16:56provision the law he relied to be able to intervene, can
00:16:59he intervene,
00:17:03well there
00:17:04there are two ways to look at it, first, did we
00:17:08actually have the ASCC going to court to get a court order,
00:17:12who was the judge, which federal high court was this order obtained
00:17:16from? so i i think that is still hanging on the air, was there
00:17:20a court order or was the president simply
00:17:23advice to ask EFCC to go to the
00:17:26courts to now give act the
00:17:30EFCC evania of
00:17:33um uh proprietatory and ask them
00:17:37to
00:17:37then sall we vacation this order properly, an order
00:17:41that in my own opinion, because I haven't got the evidence that they actually proceeded
00:17:45before a court to obtain the order to freeze the accounts the ocean
00:17:49state government, although they said well they have 72 hours which to do
00:17:53that, but the point is should the
00:17:56president be the one to say go to the court
00:18:00to vacate the order, well the the
00:18:04the EFCC is a agency. under the
00:18:08control the executive and to that
00:18:11extent the work at the pleasure and
00:18:15I use that very loosely at the pleasure of of Mr. President, not in
00:18:19the day to day running, but in the appointmentts, in the
00:18:22policy, the of course they have board of board of
00:18:25governors, the policies and what have you, but
00:18:29we must be careful, and I think if I had an opportunity to say this
00:18:33to Mr. President, should not create the impression that he is.
00:18:38to
00:18:39go to court or ask people to you refrain
00:18:42from going to court or to set aside and order properly made
00:18:46if indeed it was properly made, otherwise the
00:18:50impression that we create is that
00:18:53the the president has overriding
00:18:56authority to determine what happens even in the courts,
00:19:00but that cannot also be so, especially if
00:19:04we have a criminal case. or charge
00:19:08against somebody where whoever it may be, because the only person
00:19:12under the law that
00:19:13you can enter in only prosec is the attorney general,
00:19:17but then again the attorney general is part the executive,
00:19:21so lot these things require um are testing them
00:19:25in court, well a manner of speaking,
00:19:28think it is a good thing that um governormal has gone to
00:19:32court, it might be an opportunity for us to address these issues,
00:19:35mr. president should be my opinion have simply whispered
00:19:39to somebody, tell EFCC to
00:19:43back down and allow um proper running
00:19:47the state to continue, especially as he also said in the
00:19:50statement, that is so close to election, don't create the
00:19:54impression that something towards going to happen and that I am in the
00:19:58no, we have delicate balance that we're trying to maintain our country
00:20:01now, lot of people do not have lot of mistrust, lot of people
00:20:05have accusations against the executive. center, so we must not allow
00:20:09these things to build over, that's my
00:20:11view. well, now
00:20:14that the governor has suwed the EFCC uh two billion
00:20:18nara as as damages, or for damages, I wonder what you
00:20:22make of this, you think that perhaps was this really
00:20:25necessary, and then in terms of um, the directive by the
00:20:29president, it looks like a presidential overside, but where
00:20:32exactly does this leave the
00:20:36EFCC in terms of operational
00:20:38independence, well
00:20:41I do not think ESCC uh still will be unable to operate
00:20:45without interference, I think they would be allowed
00:20:49to ' but you see don't forget the constitution which we run gives
00:20:52lot gives enormous pass to um the president and this is
00:20:56why
00:20:57you know there has been a lot of call for
00:21:00uh federalism so that people in various regions can run their
00:21:04affairs as much as possible in the direction they want to go but to go to the first question
00:21:07which you asked about governor swing well i just know
00:21:11what he's asking for i don't know what damages but the base upon which is asking for
00:21:15damages but of course we have an idea he's been embarrassed and for the
00:21:19one or two days "a lot of things may have gone under, but the truth is that
00:21:23we must realize that every
00:21:25law made by the national
00:21:29assembly, and I'm going to refer to decision the Supreme
00:21:32Court, I think it was in 2003 was attering general legal
00:21:36state versus general the federation, in which the Supreme Court
00:21:40held that any act enacted by National
00:21:43Assembly, a subject matter must
00:21:47be subject to constitutional power." the
00:21:50states so as to reasonably um
00:21:54restrict the act to
00:21:57mains in other words the national assembly
00:22:01should ensure that even in enacting laws of
00:22:04regulations they do not make sure laws that will trample
00:22:08upon the authority and the rights of states under
00:22:11the constitution that case I refer to was with
00:22:15respect to the oban and planning
00:22:18of of. legal state and what the authority to to
00:22:22give um planning approvals, so the states must be
00:22:26recognized not as sub to the national, but they must
00:22:29recognize as as having the authority also to
00:22:33go ahead to run the states as the defeats
00:22:36particularly provided for by the constitution, but
00:22:40should still back down in doing what they have to do, but they
00:22:44must do so within the amit the
00:22:46constitution.
00:22:50Let's let's go back to the law and prosecute that you talked about,
00:22:54so would this have been handled
00:22:57better or it should have looked less messier than it
00:23:01is if it was the attorney general that you know
00:23:05made this move and could he have made this move, at what points can the attorney
00:23:09general the federation coming, because as we say we don't have anything establishing
00:23:12the fact that there was actually a court order, we only believe the president because
00:23:16it's in his own statement, but we don't have any other evidence to... show that
00:23:20there was a court order to that effect, but never
00:23:24mind the fact that yes, there
00:23:26was
00:23:29that president, but of course i believe that he must have
00:23:33got somebody to draft it, maybe whoever just it just included in
00:23:37it that you should proceed to the courts to
00:23:41um that who who
00:23:45determ where what what's
00:23:49the present? "the president is allowed to run the
00:23:52country also in provision the
00:23:56law and we should not allow states to uh to be
00:24:00bullied, we should allow our
00:24:02governors emasculated in the manner of
00:24:05speaking. i don't if I answered your question. okay, so let's
00:24:09let's go back to the issue, we'll come back to it in just moment, let let's
00:24:13go back to the issues the state. now the reason
00:24:17efcc, well literally every agency of..." government is
00:24:21is is dealing with crisis of confidence, is
00:24:23almost almost literally everywhere wherever you turn because
00:24:27of selective application of law and justice, and
00:24:31there's something I want to bring to your notice and maybe your judicial
00:24:35intervention, I had we had a conversation here with both sides of
00:24:39this argument, meaning the APC in the state and the accord party
00:24:43in the state, now the EFCC swiped in due to some
00:24:47spending the saying that had to do with ecological funds and to the
00:24:51tune of 11 billion and they said they accelerated spending on
00:24:54transaction few days to the election raised the suspicion which is
00:24:58why they wrote a letter to the
00:25:00bank for a P and they post no debit that's
00:25:03on one hand now the state government is also
00:25:06alleging has also said that since February last
00:25:10year when the court about who should be in
00:25:14charge the local government whether is the PDP den or the APC
00:25:17chairman happened the APC chairman have. in charge and
00:25:21fac has been paid directly to them, according to the commissioner said
00:25:25about 11 billion monthly is spent on the local
00:25:29government when they sorry 11 billion comes
00:25:32into uh from fac to the local government areas in the state, but
00:25:36expenditure in terms of salaries and all the things they make payment in terms of recurrent
00:25:40comes to about 6 billion, but since this chairman
00:25:43took charge, they've not paid a couble to
00:25:47any teacher that the state government has been. bearing the cost,
00:25:51don't you think that if VSC want to do a thorough job so that it will not look like
00:25:55selective justice, they should also go and check what this chairman are doing
00:25:58with the common wealth their people at the local level?
00:26:03Yes, indeed, the if the
00:26:07ESST the
00:26:10citizens,
00:26:11whher
00:26:15government, then they should go to the local government
00:26:19as well, but let us bear in
00:26:23mind that
00:26:26um, the can you hear
00:26:28me? Hello, yes, go.
00:26:32sir, we can hear you, if you can hear me, we can hear you, I can hear you, so
00:26:36we must ask ourselves a
00:26:39question, many governors have
00:26:42left the government lodge or governor's
00:26:46office and we have had ESCC coming after them after they have
00:26:50left office, we have the case of cogi state, we have several other
00:26:53states, now on the balance, should
00:26:57we not encourage EFCC to
00:27:01go after? suspicious funds whilst
00:27:05people are in government as against allowing them to leave
00:27:09office before we pursue them. mean no disrespect to governor
00:27:13demola del at all and i'm not suggesting that any such things
00:27:16happen in his state, but the point i'm making is that if there
00:27:20are persons who we have reasonable
00:27:24belief are taking the common partimony the citizens the
00:27:28state and are not using for the purpose for which those funds the
00:27:31revenue. are intended, then I think we
00:27:35should give EFCC the
00:27:39the the the latitude to go after this f,
00:27:42because the overall benefit the citizens should
00:27:46override the personal authority and interest the governor or the local
00:27:49governments, if the local governments are not paying teachers, they should
00:27:53be invited and
00:27:54you know questions should be asked, and then if somebody says like I have said
00:27:58earlier, what does
00:28:00the constitution allow, should be? the new the new the new
00:28:04provision which allows the local governments to receive
00:28:08their their allocation from fac and to disvse
00:28:11accordingly. if they fail to do that, whose responsibility is it
00:28:15to challenge them? well, if no one is going to do
00:28:19it and EFC is willing to do that, I will
00:28:23sooner accept that EFC will um do that for
00:28:27the benefit the people rather than looking at the
00:28:30legalize of. 'if we allow local governments to take the
00:28:34money away, they're not paying teachers, they're not doing
00:28:38necessary primary healthcare that they should be
00:28:41doing, then the whole sense of having
00:28:44the new tax law and of also
00:28:48having the new um law that and that gives
00:28:52autonomy to local government will become a
00:28:54mess,
00:28:58well senior advocates uh clearly on states '
00:29:02looks like the only states where local government autonomy is working, because that's the only states
00:29:06after two years the the judgement by the Supreme Court
00:29:10uh align for local government autonomy, that's the only states where local
00:29:14governments are receiving funds directly from the federal government, it doesn't
00:29:18apply to the other 35 um
00:29:21states, um so but
00:29:25when we look at what is playing out here um 30 days ago Mr.
00:29:28President directed ICPC to
00:29:32investigate um or to probe the Phantom Council and Phantom
00:29:36DG, and then just yesterday the president is
00:29:40directing the EFCC to vacate a court
00:29:43order. I'm just wondering in terms of
00:29:47maybe structural reforms for
00:29:51these institutions, what do we really need to
00:29:54do to indeed get these institutions
00:29:58independent in the true sense of that word?
00:30:03being really um standing firm without
00:30:07the interference, because I mean if the president has the
00:30:11ICPC had to wait for the president to direct them
00:30:15to probe the Phantom DG and Council, and then
00:30:18yesterday the president is directing the, in fact one
00:30:22would have thought that maybe the president should have even asked the commission to
00:30:25review its position rather than
00:30:29directing them to vacate a court order, so I wonder if you
00:30:33think, and I like the fact that you started all with that background that EFCC was
00:30:36created somewhere around 2014, so we are almost
00:30:40about almost, 20,
00:30:4324, no, 14 years down the line, so I'm just
00:30:47wondering what kind of reforms do we really need to put in place to ensure these
00:30:51institutions are indeed independents and you know away
00:30:54from the influences of those from the executive side of
00:30:58things.