Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:34of of
00:00:53on the program, nlc labor congress
00:00:56of demands of wage awards pallatives over rising few oil
00:01:00of prices once crude oil sold in naira to
00:01:04refineries. President Tinubu Hills Nigeria's
00:01:08victory over Sunrise Power and Transmission Company
00:01:11of Limited at International Chamber of Commerce, ICC
00:01:15Arbitration Tribunal. He says ruling
00:01:19clears single biggest legal hurdle to Mambilla hydroelectric
00:01:23power project. And later on, we'll share this with
00:01:27you. Andambra
00:01:27of state governments releases. loan
00:01:30records, video evidence
00:02:00of
00:02:02of
00:02:02of
00:02:26of a international music
00:02:28of stars will... always glad in the the
00:02:32of mind, in you know, so we have
00:02:36three
00:02:37of them, three
00:02:38of the trio of davido, fino and
00:02:43of terms have - gladden our minds,
00:02:46now let's go there, the ascendancy of our performing arts,
00:02:50artists gladens the mind, even as they remain
00:02:54our
00:02:54of great ambassadors, the trio of debilo, tems
00:02:58and fino a upd the ante as a won
00:03:02major
00:03:03of awards at the 2026 African music magazine
00:03:06awards afrima. Divido picked album
00:03:10of the year, Teams got Best Female West Africa
00:03:14award and Fino picked the best male
00:03:18rap. An award, we must remind
00:03:21you, is not just a
00:03:24of trophy, it is the time, effort and excellence made
00:03:27visible. Becail. Yes, um,
00:03:31this, I don't think um, this
00:03:35came as a surprise to anyone, yeah, because
00:03:38uh,
00:03:39these artists have shown
00:03:41consistency on the international
00:03:45scene terms, is
00:03:48the Nigerian um, female music
00:03:52star, all right, who has been the most consistent in terms
00:03:57a of
00:03:57in international awards that she. one is been
00:04:01nominated for gramming,
00:04:03she's - she's
00:04:06also um done very well in
00:04:10other uh music categories so
00:04:12um at this um
00:04:16award ceremony david won album
00:04:18of the year yeah for five while tems and ruga
00:04:22took best female and best uh male
00:04:26west africa
00:04:28in respectively fino won the best male
00:04:30in rap and mchinwo was named the best
00:04:34gospel out, however the artist
00:04:36of the year prize went to kongolista fi
00:04:40lumpa, another major nig victory
00:04:43came from
00:04:45bnxn and
00:04:48producer sarah whose
00:04:50collaboration uh back
00:04:54outside one song
00:04:55of the year yeah for the rising star of nigerian
00:04:59um uh music right now, the
00:05:03newest kid on the block who is doing very well was named
00:05:06best newcommer while other nigerian
00:05:10winners are uh pastor ranking who won best
00:05:14male regel and dancehall okay and uh
00:05:17victoni who received the fans choice award
00:05:20remember victory song soweto -
00:05:24very very popular song both in
00:05:32um these guys they've done very well they've done
00:05:35very well and we can only hope that they
00:05:39will continue to keep. are flag flying
00:05:43flying yeah a full stuff as they say uh
00:05:47while you are not surprised only last week we talked
00:05:50about uh b and ko you know but
00:05:54here if devido is - in the limelight
00:05:58nobody surprised yeah um i'm really glad
00:06:01about what is happening to nigeria in the
00:06:05realm of creative art music
00:06:08entertainment performing yeah yes it's another
00:06:12confirmation the fact that in spite of
00:06:16environmental limitations, Nigerians are
00:06:19breaking barriers, using their own creative
00:06:22skill, rediscovery themselves,
00:06:26you know, and crossing borders with their
00:06:30potentials, with their talents and attracting global
00:06:33audience, and if you look at that African
00:06:37music award, is the one the few international
00:06:41voices in the US. that promotes African music,
00:06:44African art, and uh, we started as far back as
00:06:482013, and I'm glad that
00:06:52Nigerians, more than more than 17 Nigerians,
00:06:55you know, won awards in this international uh, competition,
00:06:59so I'm really very glad, not only that to promote Nigerian
00:07:03music in the US, which is the global center
00:07:07of entertainment, it also build new
00:07:11audience in the US. people begin to love nigerian music
00:07:14because the entertainment was a big international event and
00:07:18thanks to the mask behind the
00:07:21cutting
00:07:23you and
00:07:24bago who started this uh was he grew up in Nigeria
00:07:27here and traveled to the US at the age of 25 or
00:07:30so this from IMO state was raced
00:07:33in abia
00:07:35so I'm I'm glad when you
00:07:37go to the US he did not goingto um
00:07:40legal things he was able to... discover himself and discover that he could
00:07:44showcase African music to the world and since he started
00:07:48this projects in 2013, it has been a global
00:07:51success, so I'm really very happy about
00:07:54the the um outcome of
00:07:58this uh, you know uh about the the performance
00:08:02of nigerians in the international uh space, and it's
00:08:06a challenge to all
00:08:07of us, especially people in the entertainment world that we can also do similar things in
00:08:11Nigeria, "we can make Nigeria to be the center
00:08:15of uh entertainment to have international
00:08:18awards that are domiciled in Nigeria so that great starts in
00:08:22the US, in Asia can also come to Nigeria to receive
00:08:26award, I think we have built that reputation, and I believe we can do
00:08:29it, rap music uh was like
00:08:37I I'm I'm I'm glad to say is flying a flag,
00:08:40yeah absolutely, and also in the area of comedy, nigerians also
00:08:44won award, gospel music, you also came
00:08:48top, so we are almost all rounder every area, we are
00:08:52just
00:08:53and thanks to the founding fathers of music in Nigeria who started
00:08:57this before the advent of digital technology, all
00:09:00right, and they laid that foundation, I'm happy that they were able to inspire a lot of
00:09:04younger generation that are now making us proud the international
00:09:17uh, Nigeria is, also amongst the prophets,
00:09:21as they say, we have the, we have the
00:09:25raw talent, we have the sense of
00:09:28invention, oh yeah, and we have
00:09:31the tradition and culture
00:09:35to continue to stay at the top of afro beat,
00:09:39especially, and even when it comes to..." movie
00:09:43making, okay, we are also
00:09:45exceptional, our movies are
00:09:49watch all over the continent and beyond, in fact
00:09:53if we try to stop
00:09:57people in some countries of africa from watching
00:10:01nigerian movies, there will be
00:10:05riot, because when we talk about the woods, Nigeria is
00:10:09number three, Hollywood, Bollywood, the next one is...
00:10:13Yes, yes, and uh, in terms of home
00:10:16movies, we are just behind the
00:10:20India, all right,
00:10:22you know the Americans are not crazy about home. movies, but
00:10:26we have really done well with, so we are a good place, in
00:10:30short, we are a good place, and uh, this stars continue to
00:10:34make us proud and they are going to be at the top
00:10:38for many years, devido, bona
00:10:41boy, terms, um,
00:10:44even the ira star, yeah, whiskid
00:10:48who literally open the door for lot them,
00:10:52you know, they will be at the top for a long time.
00:11:07is here, you the untamable fuel price hike
00:11:11in our country continues to trigger a
00:11:14bubble, bubble of protest by the day,
00:11:18the Nigeria Labor Congress, NLC has reacted
00:11:21characteristic characteristic. common
00:11:25characteristically by demanding immediate wage
00:11:29awards and the sale of crude oil to local refineries
00:11:33in Naira. Contextually though, labor
00:11:37demands at Germain, we want to say, only that fuel pricing
00:11:40has lot to do with tensions in the Middle East. Yes,
00:11:44labor admits that the federal government is racing in money
00:11:48from crude earnings. It's in fact a two edged
00:11:52sword, while Nigeria struggles to meet its. production targets
00:11:55even as we are dealing with pipeline vandalism and
00:11:59under investment, we expect labor to be on the same page with government,
00:12:03don't you? well, i think
00:12:06the reality is that in many
00:12:10areas uh, with labor we are on the same page,
00:12:14we cannot deny the fact that the cost of living has gone
00:12:18up, yeah, because of essentials of
00:12:21life, even water that we call uh poor
00:12:25water that we call pure water that we call - we call it poor
00:12:29water we call pure water, it's gone up
00:12:32everything, gas, gasoline,
00:12:35foil, basic things, no
00:12:38gary, so there is no how
00:12:42that we can see how we can be thinking of
00:12:46living with 70, you so i agree
00:12:50with them you know at that level, we should also be mindful the
00:12:53fact that there are uh global um
00:12:57the mean we are working within the rem of global contest yeah that
00:13:01the f price is not something that came out of
00:13:04local challenges yeah but because
00:13:08the crisis the middle east you know in Saudi Arabia
00:13:11between Iran and the US the time is between Ukraine
00:13:15and and Russia so we are also part of that international
00:13:19community so whatever happens in those areas will
00:13:23affect us the issue now is what should be
00:13:26done, what should be our objective
00:13:30response, because every country is coming out with solutions to
00:13:34deal yeah
00:13:35with the challenges
00:13:36you know um based on the what is happening in the middle east so I
00:13:39think um I agree with them in the area of
00:13:43government coming out with certain uh palliatives in terms of
00:13:47maybe we can the access we are making from good oil we
00:13:51can go into supporting transportation.
00:13:55transportation, we have done it to this country before, and also
00:13:58to ensure that our local government, because every time we talk
00:14:02here and when people talk on the straight, it's as if the only institution we have is
00:14:06the federal government, there are seven four local governments in this
00:14:09country, yeah, there are 36 states,
00:14:12you know, so each local government should find a way to invest in the
00:14:16agriculture where possible, if you are talking about local governments in bayesa,
00:14:20in lagos that
00:14:22you know are aquatic area, they can go into fishing. so
00:14:26we should not always be focusing on what i going to get from
00:14:30abuja you know weekly mean monthly allocation another so our
00:14:33local government uh leaders, the state governors should
00:14:37be more creative in investing in the agriculture yeah so i
00:14:41think if you can do this and i also think one major problem is the lack
00:14:45of social safety net we don't
00:14:49have social security system so if anybody is
00:14:52ill if
00:14:53you want to deliver a public hospital now a place like Lagos,
00:14:57if you don't have at least 30,000, if you sear operation, you
00:15:01are talking about 200,000, so how do you expect people
00:15:05to get that kind of money? so if you
00:15:08have health insurance, then
00:15:12you can go to you know to the, mean to you can walk into any hospital
00:15:15even when you are see you don't have the money you will be attended to, we don't have
00:15:19mortgage system whereby you i can build a house without
00:15:23necessary having the money over? time about 30 years, you can begin
00:15:27to pay back gradually, because if
00:15:29you want to build a house in legos life, you don't have 10 million for a start, how do you want
00:15:33to build it, and how long will you take it to accumulate up to 10 million unless you
00:15:37still? so these are some the challenges that I think the government can look
00:15:41at so that we can be able to cousion the impact of this uh
00:15:44there's no that that we have made some
00:15:46you know we have advanced for instance um some five some
00:15:50six you know five six years ago one meeting up our target
00:15:54but today Nigeria is producing about 1.5 to 1.6
00:15:58million barrels per day that's significant achievement
00:16:02and that means that we have been able to deal with the problem of uh
00:16:05vandalization uh activities bunkering so
00:16:09it's a major achievement for this country and we are also making
00:16:13advance in the area of economic growth, you look at the foreign reserve,
00:16:17you look at the volume of funds that is going to state local state and local
00:16:21government, however there's a difference between growth and
00:16:24development, if the funds are increasing there must
00:16:27be you know it must relate to the you know to the
00:16:31needs the people, so I think these are some the area that we need to look at, but
00:16:35if you just increase salary. now maybe to about 15000,
00:16:39i can tell you of 30000, which is even still small, but if you don't
00:16:43weigh the options very well, it may come out to be counterproductive, you all
00:16:47discover that trans to jump to another 500%, i would not be
00:16:51able to meet up, yeah b, let
00:16:53me start from the first part of
00:16:57walley's intervention, you know over time
00:17:01somebody had said we still are suffering
00:17:03from a prolonged military.
00:17:09interference,
00:17:10you know, that the unitary system,
00:17:13everything must come from the top,
00:17:15you know, and so on,
00:17:18yeah, um, and in terms
00:17:22of um, even a potioning
00:17:25blame, everyone thinks that
00:17:29it is the president that should be blamed for everything, they
00:17:33are not prepared to ask questions, pertinent
00:17:36questions. the governors, the local
00:17:40government chairman, they watch governors, they watch local government
00:17:44chairman, no, collect
00:17:48allocation every month, questions are not asked
00:17:52about what is done with the money, all
00:17:55questions that people want to ask relate to
00:17:59the federal government, when you talk about
00:18:01Nigeria being multi, Nigerians being
00:18:05multidimensionally poor about 70. percent of
00:18:08us, lot
00:18:10the factors that
00:18:13make our people poor
00:18:16are issues that can be addressed
00:18:19frontally by the states. okay, for
00:18:23example, the matter
00:18:25of um, transport
00:18:29subsidy, there's no state in Nigeria that
00:18:32cannot take care of transport
00:18:35subsidy, right? because what
00:18:39they just need to do is some the monens that they are
00:18:42dedicating to building bridges, you know,
00:18:46provide bridges and all that, they can buy high capacity
00:18:50vehicles for people to use and
00:18:53subsidize. i have talked about
00:18:57what governor zulum has done in bno state, oh yeah,
00:19:00whereby he bought these buses, buses
00:19:04that run on electricity,
00:19:08electricity um buses that
00:19:11run on CNG and it is 50 n
00:19:15per drop oh yeah yeah this is not
00:19:18fiction this is what we
00:19:21saw now how many states are trying to do
00:19:24that or have even attempted to do
00:19:27that because that's subsidy and what the man
00:19:31said is look we experience
00:19:35a minimum of 15 hours of sunshine, if we
00:19:39cannot exploit that
00:19:42to give our people electric
00:19:46cars, charged
00:19:50by solar, then we've not done well for our
00:19:53people, the same man
00:19:57puts buses on the road to not just take
00:20:00students to school, but to take
00:20:04farmers to their farms located.
00:20:10in fact secondary
00:20:14school students, male and female are
00:20:17supplied bicycles to take them from their
00:20:21homes to their to their schools, they right to
00:20:24school, especially in environments that are not too far far
00:20:28apart, no the the way those the schools are not usually not
00:20:32even far from yeah uh their
00:20:34localities there are... a big mega
00:20:38schools all over the place, so that that's a bus, yes,
00:20:42this is
00:20:42b, yes, this one runs on CNG,
00:20:46so 59, so that's subsidy Lagos. can do it,
00:20:50every state can do it, yeah, but if we are waiting for
00:20:54the federal government to do everything, that
00:20:58is when the other day when i was talking about insecurity in the
00:21:02north and i expected northern leaders to do much more,
00:21:06much more, some people are saying oh, did the president,
00:21:08you see, you see the kind of foolish statements that nigerians make, so
00:21:12it's only a president that can solve all the problem, can
00:21:15trump, the president of america, a
00:21:19country that is bigger than West Africa, can
00:21:22he solve the problem the 50 states of
00:21:26America? That's why you have
00:21:28governance. Governors must do lot
00:21:32more to take care the welfare of our people, because
00:21:35they
00:21:36lot federating unit, because the resources are there, not just because the the
00:21:40resources to do that. Okay, even ube,
00:21:44somebody built the biggest mother and child hospital in
00:21:48Yube, and the same. person he
00:21:51has made dialysis free
00:21:55mm for everyone, did he take permission from the federal
00:21:58government? no, so he
00:22:00is doing and that's one the poorest states in Nigeria, yeah, but over there
00:22:04dialysis is free, so since
00:22:08he can do it, oters to can do
00:22:11it, can't, I will never be convinced that they can't do
00:22:15it, so some of what the the
00:22:18NLC is right in now. taking these demands,
00:22:22but this demands, some of it can be
00:22:25addressed by defederating units, this is the point,
00:22:29transport subsidy for example, you look a country like Great
00:22:32Britain, they subsidize transportation, oh yeah, they
00:22:36will not subsidize energy costs, but they will subsidize
00:22:40transportation so that people can go to work,
00:22:43spend less money going to work, lot of our people,
00:22:47including our staff here, the... b their salary goes
00:22:51to transport costs, the b
00:22:55of people salaries go uh goes to
00:22:58uh um housing uh paying
00:23:02rent, so there's a lot more that
00:23:06our leaders can do, that's a lot more, so
00:23:10I agree that look something must give,
00:23:13because if these
00:23:17- iranians and the Americans who are fighting
00:23:20order yeah a senseless war if they continue it will
00:23:24continue to drive up prices of uh
00:23:27energy cost diesel
00:23:30across the world diesel no everybody is affected oh yeah that was
00:23:34the point made here last week when people think oh is by having
00:23:38refineries buil no even if you have
00:23:421 million refineries as long
00:23:44as crude oil prices are
00:23:47denominated in
00:23:49the in in dollars. what can help us is for our own currency
00:23:53to become stronger, nothing else, of course you you draw attention to
00:23:56Texas, the largest state in the US and they have more than 20
00:24:00refineries,
00:24:02that state alone, energy,
00:24:06energy costs
00:24:07are high, it's
00:24:08is everywhere, but they need to help like
00:24:11um even wage
00:24:14awards, they can do wage awards, states can do wage awards, oh yeah, they
00:24:18don't
00:24:18have to wait for the federal authority. states can do wage awards and think
00:24:22even um has has
00:24:25done something like that no matter how small we have to give him credit for that they can
00:24:29do uh wage awards i don't think neither
00:24:33based crude oil sale to is a bad
00:24:37idea i know that we have joint venture and all all of
00:24:40this that also affect policy in
00:24:44this regard but when we are faced with
00:24:47critical problem like this then we
00:24:51have to find a solution, because we cannot
00:24:54wait for f prices to go to
00:24:562, 2,
00:25:00nira per liter, that would be crazy, we can't wait, we
00:25:04must do something, the president has said that by October
00:25:08that the transport cost will come down, we are going we are trying to
00:25:12see what he and the governors are planning, so
00:25:15we are eager to see that come down, at least that will really
00:25:19help. it will go a long way, it will go a long way, if
00:25:23if they drive down transport cost, it will go a long
00:25:27way. all right, uh,
00:25:30again, what we do is give context to the issues as they
00:25:34come, so you must bear with us. our
00:25:38next story is here, you know, Nigeria's part
00:25:41situation is curious mix of fragile national grid
00:25:45capacity, low generation output and
00:25:48liquidity. and debt crisis perhaps more sharing
00:25:52is the recently secured favorable international chamber of
00:25:56commerce ICC arbitration ruling
00:25:59rejecting claims by sunrise par that clears a
00:26:03major legal hurdle for the long-stalled
00:26:071,500 megaw mambilla hydro
00:26:11electric electric project. now president
00:26:14bolatinu has welcomed the tribunal ruling stating
00:26:18that we would never succum to predatory or opportunistic
00:26:22claims. we are ever open to genuine partnerships and
00:26:25legal obligations the president added. meanwhile,
00:26:29some years back,
00:26:34visited the site the mambela hydropower project, i
00:26:38remember that scene to investigate why the project had not taken
00:26:42off, he discovered some staggering issues stalling the
00:26:45execution the project. one these is that there's
00:26:49no root leading to the project site, which signified that
00:26:53nothing much has been done about it. let's bring back this
00:26:57story just to refresh the memory. let's go
00:27:00there.
00:27:08It has been more than 30 years of waiting for what could easily
00:27:12become the biggest power project in Nigeria to kick off. The
00:27:16Mambilla Hydropower project is estimated to cost the
00:27:20nation 2.09 trillion naira (that is
00:27:24about 5.8 billion US dollars) situated in the
00:27:27heart of Mambilla, Nigeria's paragon of undefeated beauty
00:27:31in Sadana. local government of taraba state, getting to the project
00:27:35site is a big challenge that tax one's body and soul.
00:27:39it begins with six hour trip from jalingo, the taraba state
00:27:42capital to kakara, the famous home of highland tea, and a
00:27:4615 minute ride on multiterain vehicles to Amadu
00:27:50village. even the best of multi-terrain vehicles cannot
00:27:54go beyond this point. i'm getting
00:27:58set to go to the site the mambilla
00:28:02hydro. plant project, one the
00:28:05three big
00:28:08waterfalls from which
00:28:11the water will be
00:28:14collected is not
00:28:17very far from this village, as you can see
00:28:20it is not accessible
00:28:24by car, our journey on motor
00:28:28bikes lasted 1 hour 20 minutes a rocky treaturous ondulate.
00:28:32landscape on food paths already covered by overgrown
00:28:36weeds. As we move closer to the baru
00:28:39waterfall, it was clear that we had to complete the journey on
00:28:43foot. The villagers who were attracted to the
00:28:47project side by an unusual motorcycle convoy aar the federal
00:28:51government to quickly kick off the project. This is the
00:28:55baru waterfall, one the three
00:28:58main water collection points for
00:29:02the... the mabila hydropower project that is capable
00:29:06of delivering 4000 megw of
00:29:09electricity. this
00:29:12point is about
00:29:1550 meters
00:29:17deep and villagers here told
00:29:20me that this rock used to
00:29:24be at that point, but the force the water push the
00:29:27rock to where it is
00:29:29currently.
00:29:37the time has come for this project to be constructed, we are still
00:29:40waiting, hopefully it will happen soon. should the federal government
00:29:44move to site and eventually completely hydropower
00:29:48plants? it has the potential of boosting power supply and
00:29:51economic fortunes of taraba state in particular and Nigeria in
00:29:55general. given the erratic nature of
00:29:59electricity supply in the country, many Nigerian. expect the government
00:30:03to treat the mandilla hydropower project with atmost
00:30:07urgency.
00:30:14b, the story is yours, yeah,
00:30:16and um, i almost died
00:30:20in, in fact after i
00:30:24descended into that valley, i
00:30:27could barely breathe, it was a police man's water
00:30:31that i got. I quickly drunk it,
00:30:35wow, you know, I, we had
00:30:38treged, we got to point that the bikes could
00:30:41no longer, because
00:30:43it was quite steep, so we could no longer
00:30:47um use our bikes, I fell down two times on the bike as
00:30:51we going there, but the cameraman refused to record
00:30:55it, he was inexperienced cameraman,
00:30:58okay, um,