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00:02:42we, I don't
00:02:47of know if anybody caught our headlines this morning, but um, lot
00:02:47of the headlines from Oos states to
00:02:50of on state,
00:02:51a to edo state and Quara state,
00:02:55I believe, all the headlines were reporting were
00:02:58about rescued.
00:03:00kidnapped people that w previously kidnapped and now
00:03:04rescued in
00:03:06the uh polytechnic students um edo states
00:03:10some uh commuters that were um ambushed along the way by
00:03:14people in vigilante clothes um the
00:03:18war of um residents that were kidnapped since
00:03:22February uh they have returned to a laury and then you
00:03:25know uh and so many others and I'm
00:03:28wondering when did the we gets here
00:03:31in or of how did we get here? miracle? you
00:03:34of know, i read over the in the course
00:03:40of of the week uh something that said, i think he was reacting to one
00:03:44of the rescue processes, said he had told you people
00:03:48that
00:03:49of the rescue
00:03:50of the children
00:03:52of in will be dramatic, indeed it was, it
00:03:56was drama, and what i heard that, you
00:04:00now it seems like the federal government has found some kind of
00:04:03of module like you kidnapp our people, we kidnapp your people,
00:04:06yeah, so whether that
00:04:10is after they say all is fairing well right, so
00:04:14maybe that is just maybe,
00:04:16i don't if that is what is working now, um, but
00:04:20then I don't know whether that really resolves the issue
00:04:23of the funders, the the backers of
00:04:26this whole thing, if we know the people behind the... people who
00:04:30are perpetrating the crime and we know those who are
00:04:34backing them, let's go after their own people too, yes,
00:04:37of and the irony
00:04:43of of the issue is that in the same orire, there was also attend
00:04:46of attempted abduction of teenager just a couple of days
00:04:50ago, wow, he was rescued though, i think his dad put
00:04:56of a distress call through to the security agencies and they were able to get him back, but
00:05:00and I'm wondering
00:05:01what is going on, the same place when you know it was how many days
00:05:05after the kidnapping
00:05:07ore was it that they
00:05:11they... children the former minister of power was
00:05:15also picked in ibad right in the capital
00:05:18city now that that is definitely making some kind of
00:05:22statements was that ring road area yeah that
00:05:26is definitely you know making some kind of statement that
00:05:29look we are far and near so to speak you
00:05:33know but I'm just I'm just happy that at least now
00:05:37there is some kind of momentum but then there is also a question a good
00:05:41number of people are asking. and I hope that what is happening in the south
00:05:45will also happening in the north, which is how come somebody was
00:05:49asking that question, I don't how far is true, that
00:05:53the the the situation the kidnapping and all of those things
00:05:56and rescue is not happening in the north as frequently
00:06:00or as more seriously as it was happening in the south, it's a
00:06:04question, I don't have answer to it, I don't even know whether it's a
00:06:08right or wrong answer to a question to ask, it's just something that...
00:06:12also being put out there right uh and talking about
00:06:16insecurity, well whether this will help, we we'll get to know that a
00:06:19moment uh, the president has approved the increase of
00:06:23salaries the armed forces between 30 to
00:06:2680%, i think, yeah, the the larger percentage is for the
00:06:30lower cader and the smaller is for the uh
00:06:33the seniors, one the things that's
00:06:35always um
00:06:38interested me is how we
00:06:41care. for our
00:06:43men and officers and men who are
00:06:47in the eye the storm all the time so that some of us can't sleep
00:06:51with our two eyes closed, do sleep with my two eyes
00:06:54closed, you know, we if we don't care for them,
00:06:58we are setting them up, yeah, if we don't take good care
00:07:02them, ensure their lives, secure their families, we are putting
00:07:06them, they themselves at risk, and some them may not have family
00:07:10after the they they have... have paid the supreme
00:07:13supreme price. we have heard cases where people,
00:07:17men in the frontline in the in the
00:07:21northeast back then in those years, they will be complaining that they've
00:07:25been there for too long and no one is taking care them, they don't get enough. in
00:07:29fact, heard
00:07:29we have situations where some them have to procure uh,
00:07:32you know, official boots and all of those things by
00:07:36themselves with their own money, which they probably don't even get as
00:07:40frequently as they shoot. so... um, I'm
00:07:43hoping that beyond this payment, first of all, of course, as you
00:07:47said, we'll be getting into that conversation, but beyond this payment, I'm also
00:07:51hoping that we have a situation where all the things they
00:07:55need, the enabling environment to perform their duties, they
00:07:58also have all the enablement from the rank and file
00:08:02the military, and I'm talking about the entire military, the air
00:08:06force, the army, and and the
00:08:10navy, so that let these people be happy.
00:08:12to do their jobs, right? let them be just be happy, so thank
00:08:16you, Mr. President, for doing that, and thank you for listening to whoever give you
00:08:20the advice, and
00:08:24so just before we get into our menu, we also have the ICPC uh
00:08:28chairman submitting the reports on the
00:08:30PFIP after what he calls
00:08:34thor investigation into the matter. I
00:08:37don't, no, I don't have the names of those two new agencies
00:08:41that the man said. he said there are two new agencies discovered
00:08:45two new agencies by the same person and changed the name of
00:08:49one agency to something else, i missed those two names yesterday,
00:08:53thankfully she was able to put them out, in fact one of those um
00:08:56agencies is to the fct,
00:09:00fct, something something foreign fct revenue no say
00:09:03foreign, both them have revenue
00:09:07something foreign something, i can't
00:09:09remember okay
00:09:11so now that's
00:09:16so um so that's that,
00:09:19i ICPC has recommended prosecution, yeah, so
00:09:22far the prosecution has not be gone, in fact we
00:09:26heard uh, i don't know how far, it's true though, uh, you may want
00:09:30to confirm it that the man was
00:09:33invited, mr. was invited by the house
00:09:37of representatives
00:09:38and yeah, that's what he claimed, they invited him somewhere. and gave you
00:09:424000 400 million na to do one no
00:09:46no they let him not he said that heard
00:09:50that he said that if they don't have the press and his lawyer present
00:09:54that he will not say anything i'm
00:09:56like um that's not the law court is
00:10:00it um you don't want to be you do you need your
00:10:03lawyer present so that the lawyer will be telling you what to say what not to say it's a
00:10:07house committee investigating a matter i don't know
00:10:11whether it's against love for the house too, when you watch
00:10:15those those movies, those cry movies and there's a suspect that
00:10:19finds that he's been boxed into a corner, when he finally says
00:10:22i need to call my lawyer, then you know that. something is
00:10:26so where is the lawyer
00:10:30present so that you would not be caught saying anything that will indite him
00:10:34further
00:10:34but he's already in trouble anyway so waiting for i'm
00:10:38waiting for how the federal government is going to handle that matter and i'm talking about
00:10:42federal government now you because know
00:10:46um holistically some institutions of government have been indicted
00:10:50yeah and individuals lots yes yes they have been indicted
00:10:54so there is no escape, yeah, names have been mentioned, specific
00:10:58names have been mentioned, so waiting for how it's going to go,
00:11:02right, and so beyond the bank alerts, what will better pay
00:11:06yield, better security, and you know, we've talked about
00:11:09increase in unforces um salary, so that's
00:11:13what that chat is about, yes, that's our first conversation this
00:11:17morning, the next we'll be talking about policies versus reality
00:11:21in the housing
00:11:23in housing crisis, out more about that
00:11:26um in the next segment after that and then
00:11:30we'll focus on Oshin elections as well that's about a week
00:11:34away so let's know what's happening
00:11:36what should be happening and the politican intrigues
00:11:40in ocean states as we speak then
00:15:26Right and welcome back from that break, beyond the
00:15:30bank alert will better pay yield better
00:15:34security and that's the question we're asking.
00:15:37As we charted earlier on, the president
00:15:41has um approved the increase in the
00:15:45salaries of members the armed forces, um,
00:15:49that is a massive 30% to 80% increase for members the
00:15:53Nigerian Armed forces effective September 1 uh,
00:15:562026, so by after this month, I mean they will start
00:16:00getting their pay, this historic wage adjustment will directly benefit
00:16:04about 250,000 military person. personnel across
00:16:08the navy, army and air force. the initiative aims to enhance
00:16:12troop welfare, boost morale and reward the heavy
00:16:16sacrifices made by the servicemen, battling persistent internal
00:16:20security threats like terrorism, bandatory
00:16:23and of course kidnapping across the country. so let's look at the
00:16:26breakdown by rank, the salary structure disproportionally favors
00:16:30junior ranks to support for lowest earning personnel on the
00:16:33frontlines, private staff, surgeons get
00:16:3750% increase, warrant officers uh
00:16:41get and to colnels get 50% increase while brigadier general to
00:16:45generals get 30% increase, the
00:16:48financial and operational impacts expected budget
00:16:52increase, the defense wage bill will jump from
00:16:56660 billion nara to 924 billion
00:17:00nara annually introducing an extra 264
00:17:03billionaire in personnel spending based
00:18:08oyi wogini senior researcher bon international center
00:18:12for conflict studies who also joins us virtually
00:18:15gentlemen uh thank you for joining us we wait for Mr.
00:18:19Dati
00:18:19to join us but let's start with the conversation with
00:18:22you uh captain Umara aliyu
00:18:26uh being uh retired uh military
00:18:30personnel what do you make of this
00:18:34um increase in the salary of ' the
00:18:38armed forces and
00:18:40you and the structure that it takes uh the lower
00:18:44cader personnel get the highest percentage
00:18:47increase and uh the high the seniors get the lower
00:18:51percentage increase uh captain aliu
00:18:54yes what do you make of
00:18:56it?
00:20:09Dr. you've heard this um and a
00:20:13good number of people have, you have spoken about some these things from time to time,
00:20:16particularly as it affects various communities, how helpful do you see this
00:20:20initiative the federal government in the fight against all
00:20:24these shades of insecurity? uh, yeah, thank
00:20:28you very much and good morning to Nigeria, I think the
00:20:32increase in the salary the military, which
00:20:35signif of improvement in their welfare, it's
00:20:39a welcome development
00:20:42uh uh given that uh on like before we do have quite a lot of
00:20:46issues to deal with in our frontlines and in the border area.
00:20:50which also have to touch the aspect the risk and the
00:20:53exposure these military men uh uh you know
00:20:57to the risk and I want to give you very good example
00:21:01I i published report on the on the crossborder
00:21:05dynamic of violence in the lecture basing last year
00:21:08uh over 4000 plus survey was
00:21:11conducted and what is important to know is that most
00:21:15the entry part the the legal uh
00:21:19entry. where uh the arm group also penetrated uh
00:21:23we have 80% of those area which are cover and control by
00:21:27the states and we have 10% of it which are technically
00:21:31still
00:21:32you know temporarily or intermittently controlled by the handbook. what
00:21:36is important to know is that despite the fact that the hamburg control
00:21:3910% uh it's interesting because the cross border
00:21:43trade within that sphere makes it even more
00:21:46appealing for people to pass through well group control and but
00:21:50what i think the question we need to ask is why? the reason is
00:21:53because when the uh the transborder trader
00:21:57or the the community member want to pass through those legal route they
00:22:01always face challengings of they have to pay for some money for at
00:22:05the checkpoint and when they are coming back they have to
00:22:08pay and at each checkpoint they have to pay so when they pass
00:22:12through the harm group control area they pay only once so they have to do
00:22:16comparative advantage and see that for them it's better to pass through. area
00:22:20even though there's a risk involved so what i'm trying to say is
00:22:24that improve welfare in such manner will actually
00:22:27you know eliminate or reduce the vulnerability of our
00:22:31servicement to extortion and that is very commendable
00:22:35one. now if you look at that space for example in the lecture
00:22:39basic comparatively to nigeria, cameroon, niger and
00:22:42chad, you could see that in 2023 for
00:22:45example, cameroon has has been increasing the
00:22:49salary. the the military staff by
00:22:525%. for charge, it also has been increased also
00:22:56at the same time, but what is important when you compare
00:22:59them comparatively, you will see that the allowance, the
00:23:03risk allowance for the frontline military the charge
00:23:07still has a larger percentage compared to the rest the country,
00:23:11but in terms the 30% or especially the 80% that
00:23:15will benefit the younger cader of our Nigeria
00:23:19minitry. to place them of course at least a comparative level
00:23:23with their fellow for example who are participating in multinational joint
00:23:27tax for
00:23:34but
00:23:34then i'm not very sure um uh dr
00:23:38guinne that um one how how this matter gets
00:23:42into um the minds of other
00:23:45people, the people that are directly affected, particularly the soldiers on
00:23:49the... field, we
00:23:52understand the the privilege given to the generals, senior officers and
00:23:56all, but the the the men
00:23:59who are on the field, who are on
00:24:03the frontlines, those are the ones that are directly
00:24:07affected by these, so on the one hand, their family, they are
00:24:11getting more pay, they
00:24:12are getting better pay now, and from what joker said earlier, if we calculate it in
00:24:16dollars, is almost, well, it's well more than $100,
00:24:20you know that each them will
00:24:21one be getting a month. now part the
00:24:24reason the the federal government gave was
00:24:28moral, to boost the moral the men
00:24:32and uh to encourage them to do more and to do
00:24:35better. how do you see this playing out in the minds the
00:24:39people or on the field? uh, how do you see their
00:24:43commitments increasing or not
00:24:46increasing? and do you see this?
00:24:50increment, this this um encouragement so to speak that we hear
00:24:54now, do you see it um being reflected also
00:24:57in the gears that they use to get their jobs done, the
00:25:01equipment, the the clothing and all those
00:25:03things, oh that's
00:25:05a very interesting question you ask, i think uh what we need
00:25:09to uh first consider with respect to what you are saying
00:25:13now is um if you look at the junior
00:25:16cader of course there are the instances where you people
00:25:20say they are buying their material themselves, the they are doing quite a whole lot of
00:25:24things. i think what is important to know is that the the basic
00:25:28salary is not increase in basic salary will not
00:25:31address some operational challenges that they face. as you can
00:25:35see, Nigeria is still spending less than 1% of this
00:25:38GDP on defense. compared to alliance of
00:25:42saher, when you look at it comparatively, you will see that they still spend
00:25:46more on defense, so in ratio you could see that of... of course our
00:25:50spending has increased, the defense spending has increased, if you
00:25:54look at it from 2022 upward, we are now getting close
00:25:58to 6 trillion or so in that direction, but it's still...
00:26:02enough and what is important to know is that improve in the
00:26:06welfare is one thing, another thing is the aspect
00:26:10of the operational
00:26:14accountability and others which will now lead to
00:26:17community trust, so these are two different things, so increase in
00:26:21defense will not eliminate violence, it will only suppress
00:26:25violence, but the reform the socio economic situation
00:26:29is what can sustainably reduce v. so these are
00:26:33these two uh dynamics that we need to talk
00:26:49this conversation uh we also talked about you
00:26:52know um the government increasing
00:26:55uh the budgetary allocation to uh military spending and all
00:26:59that um extra 264 billion i
00:27:03annual wage bill,
00:27:05you know, how do you think this will work without worsening uh the
00:27:08national budget deficit? how do you respond to critics who claim that the
00:27:12massive rise is a political strategy to secure the
00:27:16military, the military's loyalty ahead the elections next
00:27:19year? well, thank you very
00:27:23much. i think first and foremost we need to appl
00:27:27uh look at the whole increase in salary a broader
00:27:31perspectives uh. you recall that just recently
00:27:34President Bola Metinu expanded the number of
00:27:37divisions from eight to 12 divisions, so
00:27:41we can look at this from a Berber perspective
00:27:43is where you look at efforts being made to improve the capacity
00:27:47of our military men who are always in the frontlines, and this
00:27:51increment in salary will not only boost their moral and
00:27:55motivate them and also create safety nets for their
00:27:59health, education their children and better stand of
00:28:02living, but also be able to assist even those
00:28:06who fall on the way side in the frontiers of
00:28:09war to be able for the families to continue to grow, so that in
00:28:13itself is is is very key and important, and I
00:28:17also want to say the concerns being raised about how to
00:28:20draw uh from the budgetary provisions to be
00:28:24able to meet up with that, it's very easy, we have seen a lot of turn
00:28:28around, especially in the area of revenue generation,
00:28:32the tax forms all revenues, so all that is
00:28:35needed is tighter strategy to ensure that the
00:28:38leakages are blocked. already we've seen the performance
00:28:42the chairman the revenue uh
00:28:46nigerian revenue service under dr. zakaji where our
00:28:50revenue from 2023 rose from 12 trillion
00:28:54to about 26 trillion, that's about
00:28:57128% per performance, so looking at that
00:29:00trajectory, it is clear that. that there is going to be
00:29:04increment in the income for government such that will be able to
00:29:07cushion the effect of this increment. of course the
00:29:11increment is about 264 billion nara,
00:29:15but you put in it side by side with the benefit, it far
00:29:19outways the benefit, because we are talking about our military men who are in the
00:29:23frontlines, and we are looking at even how
00:29:27the bandits, kidnappers and all that has invested
00:29:31trillions of nar. from innocent victims of Nigeria, so
00:29:35whatever action that is being taken to secure the lives
00:29:39of Nigerians to also make
00:29:42uh Nigerians be able to go out and take uh
00:29:46fen for their living should be applauded, and that in itself shows
00:29:50that the government is taking it ahead and ensuring that appropriate
00:29:54strategies are put in place to ensure that those who are in the front
00:29:58lines are giving adequate motivation, are giving '
00:30:03rest of mine and the the the standard their livelihood is
00:30:07improved such that they will be able to give their best to the
00:30:10country. mr. that apologies
00:30:14i, but you know, um, there are also concerns,
00:30:18you know, that there's a there could be a possibility from those who
00:30:22are fighting uh, quote lesser wars, but
00:30:26fighting all the same to keep community safe, such as
00:30:30the paramilitary customs. police um
00:30:34and
00:30:35you know other security agencies uh that they may actually raise
00:30:38concerns that oh we also want increase in our
00:30:42salaries as well because we are also working uh to keep community
00:30:46safe where uh they've been talks about interagency
00:30:50collaboration and all and all that so such
00:30:54that it's not just the military that are working but everybody else is working hand in
00:30:57hand to keep communities safe.