So, TJ can, is this working? TJ can stand. Not my choice. You'd be happy to just do your job, but you've got some different ideas. Yeah, this is just the, you know, the celebratory meeting. We won't be here passing, so. The public forum was just getting going last meeting. It's going to show us where to stand. It's the way we do it. So I guess we'll stand out here. Very good. Line them up. All in one line. Are you talking about the re-elected counselors? Just one. St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, sure. Yeah, very sure. Yeah. He's lost his job. He has a perfect community house now. He lost his job a few years ago. He said he has a couple of weeks. That's right. He's the best men's clothing guy. He's here. He's here today. There are a little more space. Can we just sit down? There's red and yellow. I've connected your phone. No, Beth does, but. I guess. There's a seat next to Richard. All the best stuff. Jane thought it was hysterical. Thanks. All the best order? Oh. Just keep that. All right. If I could ask everyone to please, please take seats. Thank you, everyone. So we will call tonight's meeting to order at seven 10. First item on the agenda. Is that the agenda? I'll take that. Thank you. Acting president Anderson. I'd like to make a motion to amend and adopt the agenda as follows to add to the agenda item 3.02 public comments oral per interim CAO Anderson per city attorney Blackwood. Thank you. I'll second that and suggest that we join together in the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Opposed. Thank you very much. For our next. Next item on the agenda will actually be to ask four of the counselors. One from each party to please escort the mayor down to council chambers for the. For the swearing in. So I would like to ask council right. Councilor Mason. Councilor Busher. And former president Nodell to please escort the mayor in. So attorney general T.J. Donovan will now swear the mayor in. It is an honor to swear in. They're why murder first third term, especially for somebody who was born and raised in the city like myself who attended and graduated from public schools. It's a real privilege. So thank you mayor for thinking of me. And although. To the chagrin of a few. Mostly my mother. I have moved to a city south of here. I want to thank the mayor for granting me special dispensation. Thank you for bringing me home. I want to acknowledge Governor Phil Scott who's here tonight. Governor, thank you for being here. Who's here as well. Thank you. We look to see if you can. We do. these are truly unique and trying times. In this country. We look forward to your continued leadership. I believe that. This critical time induced patients history will look upon brewinton. And your leadership. As the poet say. It will be here that hope in history arrive. And brewinton will be is always has been. A shining city upon the hill. Everyone who resides here. for your leadership. Please raise your right arm, and we ask that you have to be taken into account. Under the pains and penalties of perjury. Under the pains and penalties of perjury. I, Arora Wyberger. I, Arora Wyberger. Do solemnly swear and affirm. Do solemnly swear and affirm. That I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of mayor. That I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of mayor. To the best of my judgment and ability, according to law. To the best of my judgment and ability, according to law. Congratulations. We were just elected to this body. They joined me in the center of the circle here. We're going to swear them all in as well. Thank you. Four counselors got to sit out this last round. Raise your right hand, repeat after me. Under the pains and penalties of perjury. Under the pains and penalties of perjury. I, Arora Wyberger. I, Arora Wyberger. Do solemnly swear and affirm. Do solemnly swear and affirm. That I will faithfully execute the duties of the office. That I will faithfully execute the duties of the office. Of city counselor. Of city counselor. To the best of my judgment and ability, according to law. To the best of my judgment and ability, according to law. Congratulations. A city of opportunity. I'm very grateful to the people of Burlington. For the chance tonight to take up the oath of office for a third time. I will work very hard over the next three years to make good on the trust that you have placed in me. I want to thank you to Attorney General T.J. Donovan for being part of this ceremony. Burlington is proud to have one of its own sons, leading the state on immigration and law enforcement issues. I'm grateful for your partnership on the opioid crisis and the adoption of 21st century policing practices. And I should have known that I needed some poetry. Some Irish poetry to respond to tonight. Thank you for that beautiful, beautiful words to start it tonight. I also want to thank Governor Phil Scott for joining us tonight. Governor, much of the work that you do in Montpelier impacts what happens here in this room and in this city. And I want to thank you for your leadership on addressing housing affordability and the opioid crisis. I also want to thank you for looking new at the need for common sense gun reforms here in the state of Vermont. Courage and resolve to respond to events and to change policy direction when needed is a rare thing in American politics. And the people of Burlington see and they welcome your bravery on common sense gun reform. Thank you for taking action to make Vermont safer for our police officers, for our domestic violence victims and most importantly for our children. Thank you Governor Scott. Governor doesn't work alone in Montpelier and I want to thank all the state reps and state senators who have joined us here tonight including President Pro Tem Tim Ashes here. Thank you. If you could stand and be recognized we would love to do that. As TJ said, I want to thank Mayor Peter Colval and Betsy Ferries and Mayor Frank Kane and Mary Jane Kane for being here for tonight but moreover for the incredible service and sacrifice you gave to the people of Burlington and still continue to give to this day. Thank you for your service. Mrs. Hartnett for joining us here tonight. Where, where is she? Right here, Mrs. Hartnett. Mrs. Hartnett is here with many members of her family. She has lived on Brooks Avenue for 55 years, volunteered for 25 years at the polls, raised eight kids here in this community. You know, we have your respect. We respect you Mrs. Hartnett for so many reasons not least of which I think you're the only person here in the room that can keep Councillor Hartnett in line. We need more of that. General Stephen Cray and Lisa Cray I want to thank you for being here tonight and for all you do to keep this community safe and to build the links and relationship between the people of Burlington, Vermont and the Vermont National Guard. Thank you for your service, General. I'd like to ask our incredible team of department heads and the mayor's office to rise and be recognized. It is truly one of the great joys of this job and there are a lot of them but one of the best is getting to come to work day in and day out with this great team outstanding group of individuals. I want to congratulate the recently re-elected city councillors Sharon Busher, Ollie Jang, Chip Mason, Karen Paul, Adam Roof, Max Tracy and Kurt Wright and I want to welcome back Brian Pine to this desk for the first time since 1995. I also want to recognize councillors Richard Dean, Dave Hartnett, Jane Nodell and Joan Shannon. I hope and I will do my part to ensure that the next three years are marked by the same collaboration, productivity and respectful debate that marked so much of the last six years. It's been a great pleasure to serve with you all. Finally, to my parents, Ethel and Michael, thank you for being here tonight and for all of your love, support and good teachings over the years and to my wonderful life partner Stacey, thank you, without your patience and love, support and no small amount of sacrifice, certainly wouldn't be possible to do this job. Thank you, the three of you. We send Ada and Lee Lynn home with full bellies of cake but they're a big part of this as well and they appreciate what the city has done for the whole family. Okay, I would like to start my report on the state of the city with some great news. The asphalt plants are about to open and with the council and the voter support for millions of dollars of bonding work will begin next week on more than five miles of paving that will be completed this season including repairs of all the major arterials that will damage so badly this past winter. The fact that we will be able to respond to a difficult winter so quickly and comprehensively is a function of our growing strength as a city in the areas that we have focused on together for the last six years. Municipal finances, downtown economic development improving the city's core infrastructure that supports our quality of life and economy. In the last year we secured another credit rating upgrade that will help save residents millions of dollars in the years ahead and keep Burlington more affordable. Fiscal responsibility is the foundation on which all of our successes, ambitious projects and vision for the future are built. Over the past 12 months we have rehabilitated and improved another three miles of our treasured bike path and completed the first of five years of major investments in our streets, sidewalks, parks and water lines. We have broken ground on one of the largest public-private investments in city history. Already this project has created new contracts for dozens of local firms and CEDO the Demarpment of Labor and Resource will be sharing more about their collaborative job training and business resiliency efforts in the weeks ahead. When built, the City Place Burlington Project will reduce our carbon footprint, create hundreds of new high-wage jobs and reconnect the old North End with the downtown. And after a difficult debate within these chambers we acted with broad consensus to resolve the future of Burlington Telecom in a manner that protects taxpayers, secures enduring public benefits and ensures that Burlingtonians, unlike a majority of Americans will have high-speed air-net choice for generations to come. With extreme progress on these initiatives and many more, the events of the last year including the elections here on Town Meeting Day a month ago have made a plane that our communities work towards a more just future is not done. As in many successful American cities today there are deep concerns within our community about the rising costs of housing pushing low and middle-income households out of Burlington and frustration that this problem is not being addressed quickly or effectively enough. Some of our neighbors desire more and different city engagement. We have major unmet childcare needs as a city and we continue to grapple with how best to treat those struggling with opioid addictions. These challenges come at a time when the federal government is in a period of great uncertainty and failing to meet its fundamental responsibilities of addressing climate change, gun violence, immigration reform and racial equality. Such national failures mean that we in Burlington must continue to lead and continue to step forward. We can and we will provide this leadership. In 2018 the state of the city of Burlington is very strong and it will grow even stronger in the years ahead as we work to ensure that all of our residents benefit from our recent progress and have a voice in the future direction. Though we have much to be proud of as a community we still have much work to do to become the welcoming, equitable community we aspire to be. Over the next year that work will include progress and new efforts in five areas that I'll detail tonight. Collecting and analyzing data on city equity initiatives working to turn the tide of the opioid crisis continuing to build our early learning initiative taking our next steps towards becoming a net zero energy city and strengthening our public engagement efforts. I'll then conclude with some thoughts between these efforts to make Burlington more equitable, sustainable and welcoming in our downtown housing and land use policies. For the last year and a half city employees have been meeting monthly here in this room for BTV staff meetings. Our data collection and analysis effort that attempts to measure and track the results achieved by city departments. To ensure that our city government is properly oriented towards achieving progress for all members of our community in the year ahead we'll be focusing BTV stat on equity. I've asked our department heads and the chief innovation officer to begin measuring each department's performance against new equity goals and to track this data on our public dashboard. In addition, these statistics will be collected and analyzed in an annual equity report that will be published as part of the city's traditional annual report starting next town meeting day. Nowhere is our work more urgent and nowhere is there more at stake than in our efforts to turn the tide to the opioid crisis. It has been four years now since Governor Peter Shulman focused the nation on this epidemic and yet in 2017 again the death count attributable to accidental opioid overdoses continue to rise nationally and here in Vermont. More Americans now die every year as a result of accidental drug overdoses and were killed in the entirety of the Vietnam War. Too many of those deaths continue to happen right here in Chittenden County. Since last August, we have lost 13 of our neighbors to this terrible scourge. One of those lost was Sean Blake aged 27. This is a picture of Sean and his parents. Sean's parents, Kim and Tim a doctor at the University of Vermont Medical Center and a professor at St. Michael's College lived just minutes from here in South Burlington. They wanted me to share Sean's story this evening as they did in the same room in February as part of the monthly community staff meeting Burlington convenes so that the reasons law enforcement, medical, treatment and social service agencies can grapple with the challenges this crisis poses. The Blake's shared their son's story in the hope that we can as a community learn from it. Sean grew up here and he loved the lake and mountains. He was bright, creative and active in theater and athletics. As a young man, he struggled with bipolar disorder and addiction and he had an adulthood marked by dramatic rises and falls. After a brief stint in the Navy, Sean's addiction dragged him downward to the point that he was incarcerated at the infamous Rikers Island in New York City. There, his life actually started to turn to receive mental health treatment and medicine to treat his addiction. He returned from that experience to Vermont with these supports in place and he did well until going off these medications. When he went off treatment, he returned to prison here in Vermont where medicine at that point was not available. Just over a month after he was released last year, he overdosed and he died. The Blake's couldn't be here tonight because they are attending a memorial service in Vermont. Vermont's prisons have been among the leaders in this country in creating opportunities for opioid treatment, yet as Sean's story shows we still have work to do. One of the most important bills before the legislature this year is S-166 which would continue to expand treatment options for people in Vermont's prisons and build on the work that that department has already begun. The city strongly supports its passage as a life-saving piece of legislation and believes it will be an important step to expanding access to treatment in prisons is only one needed step. In the year ahead, we must dramatically expand access to medications that could help save lives. Burlington is proposing that we move towards having a system where a health professional prescribes methadone or buprenorphine to opioid addicted patients at the time patients are ready to start treatment and accept treatment, increasing their chances of freeing themselves from the grip of this terrible addiction. That's not today in too many cases. Currently patients often have to wait an average of 17 days between their request for treatment and when they first receive a prescription from the hub in Chittenden County. We should take advantage of every opportunity, every moment when someone is ready for treatment to start their medication rather than telling them to wait until Monday or to wait until next week or the week after that knowing that for them to stave off withdrawal, that patient who wants treatment will likely use illicit drugs multiple times maybe even dozens of times before treatment becomes available and the opportunity for a better path will be gone. This approach is guided by the emerging hopeful body of evidence that rapid access to medications saves lives. For example, a randomized study in Connecticut found that twice the rate of success in treatment when overdose patients were offered buprenorphine right in the emergency room. With this evidence in Burlington, we're working with experts at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and elsewhere. One longtime member of the Safe Recovery, our syringe exchange program told me that in more than a decade on the job, she has seen so many moments of interest and treatment appear only to slip away for good. No more. Our goal for the year ahead, which we are pursuing with the UVM Medical Center and representatives are here tonight will be to improve rapid access to medication in order to start effective care at the right place and at the right moment to save lives. I want to thank the Burlington Police Department and the Burlington Fire Department and their chiefs for leading the way on taking on new roles and responsibilities in response to this crisis while at the same time continuing to meet the public's very high expectations in all other areas of public safety. In 2018 we'll bring the same focus on innovation and results to grow the new Burlington Early Learning Initiative. While we had conducted extensive research with you, the city council approved the first allocation of city funds for this effort last July with that commitment, the city stepped into a new area where we had little precedent locally or nationally to look to. What we did have is clarity that hundreds of our youngest Burlington toddlers were not getting the high quality of care they deserved and a shared intent to take action to address this challenge. Infant and toddler care is a major equity issue. When kids do not have access to high quality care during this critical time they start pre-K and kindergarten already behind and too many of these kids then struggle to ever catch up. Nine months after the program was created it is starting to make an impact on the ground. Together, last week we made our first grant to a center that will create four much needed new Burlington infant and toddler childcare slots. In the weeks and months ahead I look forward to working with the city council and with the neighborhood revitalization committee in particular to finalize our next ground of grant requests shape the new program strategy for its second year and set a path for securing new partners and funding that will expand the impact of this initiative throughout the city in the years ahead. Also in 2018 we will continue to work towards becoming a net zero energy city with continued focus on the district energy project. This project represents perhaps the single biggest emission reduction action we can take as a community. Burlington Electric has been leading a unique partnership that would move the project to the advanced engineering and design phase and put us in position to resolve the feasibility of this effort by the end of the calendar year. I also appreciate very much the support of our Chittenden County delegation who successfully moved forward a new bill in the past week that will allow Burlington Electric to access over one million dollars in thermal energy incentives to apply to district energy. Thank you to the legislators for that work. How the city continues to pursue this and other work we must continue to communicate and engage the public fully. We excel at public engagement as a community in many ways and we can do even better. Over the next year we will complete three important improvements to our public engagement efforts. First we will complete and bring to the council for approval of the city's first language access plan. Our city is growing and welcoming English language learners into our neighborhoods every day and we must be thoughtful and consistent that impact city services. Second we will bring to the council for discussion and approval a new public engagement handbook to guide our efforts to forward and improve city initiatives and finally as proposed by others in the recent campaigns and consistent with a resolution that Councillor Karen Paul has proposed to the administration we will look to review the role and responsibilities of the neighborhood planning assemblies and how the processes by which city departments work with the MPAs and other stakeholders that we can be improved. These initiatives will do much to make our community more equitable, sustainable and welcoming. They will ultimately only succeed however if we get the fundamentals right and fully fix our downtown housing and land use policies. Growing, dynamic, evolving cities have room and opportunities for people of all backgrounds, incomes and ages compact, dense, walkable and bikeable cities are also the most sustainable communities as residents consume far less energy heating and cooling their homes and workplaces and drive far less than their suburban and rural counterparts. In contrast communities that put up regulatory walls to stop change lock in some of their physical character but they lose their community's soul and the bargain. Young households in the middle class are pushed out by demand and older, wealthier households while low-income households, refugees and others seeking opportunity are blocked from even getting in the door. This is the future we were headed towards just six years ago. We had created only a couple hundred downtown homes over the prior decade despite mounting demand. Younger households were measurably being forced out of the downtown in that period as the average Burlington rent climbed to 44% of median income. Over the last six years I'm happy to say the council and the voters have repeatedly taken action to open new opportunities with our downtown development policies and we are now on a different trajectory. Since 2013 more than 1200 downtown homes have been built or are in the construction pipeline. This effort is starting to work. Vacancy rates are edging upwards and landlords are reporting new price and quality pressure as they seek tenants. And this is happening before the first of the major new downtown projects opens at Champlain College's 194 St. Paul Street this fall. This work, however, is not done. At front doors and coffee tables around the city this winter the cost of housing continued to be the most urgent problem on the minds of our voters. Young couples told me they were on the verge of leaving Burlington or even the state for rent relief. Retirees described frustrated searches years of frustrated searches for downtown apartments near their grandchildren and students many of whom are here tonight turned out in very high numbers this town meeting day in large part because they are demanding better living conditions. In short we have much more work to do to work our way out of the affordable housing crisis. On March 6th after much debate the city voted to keep moving forward with this work. In the year ahead we must bring new resources to our local housing trust fund and get our parking, affordable housing student housing and other local land use policies right. This work is difficult and will continue to require focus and commitment. When we get it done however we will ensure that Burlington will remain what it has been in the decades ahead will remain in the decades ahead what it has been throughout its history. Vermont City of Opportunity where all are welcome to start a career and a business where people of all backgrounds can buy a home and start a family and where Burlingtonians of all ages thrive. Thank you all for being part of this important annual tradition I'm excited and eager to take on the challenges of the next year together let's get back to work and let's have a great 2018. Congratulations. I would like to move to the next item on our agenda which will be a public comment. Just one person wanting to speak so they can come up and use the mic here it will be James Lockridge. I want to send congratulations out to the mayor and to newly elected counselors especially to Brian Pine who I'll be proud to have represent me in Ward 3. During this election we saw many candidates say that Burlington needs more transparency and more citizen voices welcomed into decisions in city government as people like me have spoken up since 2014 to ask for more transparency and representation in how our arts office is governed we were told by BCA leadership that the lack of response is the response. While we were asking for more representation for the arts community including music and theater and dance the board of BCA voted to allow the annual selection of board members who had already completed the three three-year terms allowed by its bylaws 30% of our city's arts office advisory board is now in practical terms permanent and has been there for more than 10 years 30% of the board will never be new voices at a meeting of the parks arts and culture committee the director of BCA described these permanent voting board seats as rewards if the mayor were to declare that one-third of the city council were to hold permanent voting seats and the mayor were to call those seats rewards would you be okay with that or would you be inspired to do the job of leadership you were elected because you're trusted to steward our democracy and make us proud of it Burlington city charter says that you the city council is responsible for oversight of BCA if fairness and transparency is going to happen there it will be because you as a person with integrity and as an elected representative choose to live up to the values that got you elected thank you for hearing this it hasn't been heard yet thank you now move on to the next item which is 401 which is election of a new city council president so I will open the floor to nominations please Councillor Nodale thank you very much acting president it's my pleasure to place a nomination the name of my colleague and friend councillor Kurt Wright Kurt was just recently re-elected by the way in his first unopposed race ever in either the state house or the city council just showing how much his ward feels that he really represents them well Kurt is a seasoned legislator having served of course many years with distinction in both the city council and the state house we know that Kurt will be fair to all city councillors that everyone will have equal access to the floor and to move forward their initiatives I'm very confident that he will defend the council's role in our city government as a strong and independent body while working productively with the mayor to move the city forward finally I know we all know that he will serve in this role and yield the gavel with humor and patience and I'm sure everyone is looking forward to that so with that I will close my nomination and I'm very very proud to be your colleague and friend and I'm very proud to be in your right thank you councilor Nodal any other nominations seeing none we will ask for a vote all those in favor of electing Councilor Kurt right as president of the city council please say I I thank you congratulations president right thank you and I will make this brief because councilor Hartnett has let me know get this over with the NCAA Is anybody surprised? Just a few quick comments though, Councillor Hartnett. I do want to thank the council for the support and the confidence. And thank you, Councillor President Nodal, for those really gracious kind remarks. I, Councillor Hartnett, has also let me know that I have big shoes to fill. I don't think anybody could run a more efficient meeting than you have for the last three years and put in the kind of countless time and energy you have to the job throughout these past three years. I know on a daily basis. So thank you, Councillor and President Nodal. Thank you. The one promise I want to make to all my fellow councillors is that no Republican colleague on the council will get any special privilege from it. Just a few quick, everybody's been mentioned out there, but again I want to thank Governor Scott for being here. I don't remember, of all the times I've been here for mayoral state of the city speeches, I do not remember seeing a governor. Maybe I missed one, but thank you Governor Scott for being here. I could not be more happy to have you here. And of course, the two former mayors. One more time, Mayor Cain. We all love Mayor Cain. And Mayor Clavel, I missed those Monday nights. We had a lot of fun. And I know you missed seeing me on all those Monday nights in the past. Mayor Clavel reminds me on a regular basis that he is now my constituent and he will be weighing in regularly. Lastly, or actually one more. Again, Mrs. Hartnett and the Hartnett family, I'm glad they're all here. But Mrs. Hartnett, you deserve a medal. And I will be seeking your advice and help with Councillor Hartnett from time to time. Lastly, I do want to thank every former city councilor for being here. I see Barb Perry. I see Tim Ash. I see Mike Monty. Celine Colburn. And who did I miss? If there's any former city councilors, please stand up. Any others that I missed? Thank you. That was last, but this really is last. Any school board members that are out there, please rise. I'd like to acknowledge the school board members. I know things are quiet on the school board right now. So with that, I just again, pledge to the city council that we will work well together. I look forward Mayor Weinberger to working together with you on the many initiatives that you just outlined for us and working together with all councilors in a cooperative and collaborative spirit. And let's make it a great year. With that, I will turn it over to Councillor Mason to move to the next item on the agenda, which is the election of the Board of Finance. And I will turn it over to Councillor Mason to for a motion. Good save, President Wright. I would like to, at this point, it is my pleasure to nominate Councillors Busher, Nodell, and Paul to the Board of Finance, each of whom have served, you know, putting in countless hours in support of the city in our efforts over the last couple of years. And I know you, you know, I'm hoping you'll have unanimous support of this council as you move forward in that endeavor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Roof. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favour of electing the slate of Councillor Paul, Councillor Nodell, and Councillor Busher to continue to serve on the Board of Finance, as Board of Finance members, please say aye. Any opposed? We have our Board of Finance for the next year. Congratulations. And with that, Councillor Nodell. I move we adjourn. Seconded by Councillor Hartnett. Any opposed? All those in favour of adjourning? Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We're adjourned. Thanks for everybody for coming out tonight.


And we're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa time for us to talk about, you know, the issues around in the health sector and the education sector. Well, the health sector is battling its worst brain drain for 2023 with no fewer than 10,229 Nigerian trained doctors practicing in the United Kingdom. This is according to the Nigerian Medical Association. Also, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors said the number of medical doctors in the country decreased daily. I think that only about 10,000 resident doctors are left in Nigeria. Well, according to the president of the association, Dr. Meka Oji, about 100,000 or 100 megaparton resident doctors leave the country monthly to seek greener pastures. Insecurity, poor pay and poor working conditions among other issues have been identified as the push factors for the healthcare workers leaving the country. Besides the brain drain, health infrastructure only with us, you know, if it's lived in new teaching hospitals, but not quite as significant considering the various levels that we have. Now, apart from the massive migration of medical personnel to Europe and North America, the same may soon be with us in the education sector as the United Kingdom begins employment of qualified Nigerian teachers from February 2023. We're talking about next month. Now, currently 350,000 Nigerian teachers qualified for such employment from a pool of 1.5 million. So you have to do the calculation. Now, the teachers registration council of Nigeria, Tirao CN, will from February the first 2023 be exempted from sitting or for qualified courses with teaching regulation agency. That's a Tirao, thereby giving qualified teaching status QTS in England. The QTS in England is equivalent of Nigeria's teaching license by the TRCN. So the big question here is where does this leave us as a people? Where does this leave us as a country? Now, to make sense of all of this, we have our guests this morning in the studio. Dr. Meba Wendu. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Good morning. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, by the way. We also have on phone joining us Professor Hope Ehara joining us. Yeah, yeah. Professor Hope, can you hear us? I can hear you. Well, thank you for joining. Good morning and happy New Year. Thank you. Alright, so let's start off with Dr. Tui here in the studio. Dr. Tui, what do we make of this? We hear that we have 24,000 licensed doctors. And as of 2023, according to recent statistics, the population of Nigeria has been pegged at 218 million. Plus, how do we survive with 24 licensed doctors to take care of a population? 24,000. 24,000, I beg your pardon. Licensed doctors to take care of a population of about 2,218 million Nigerians. Well, thank you. I'm not just about the available 24,000 who actually renewed their registration with Nigeria Medical and Deter Council. You know that in the next seven years, by 2030, Nigeria population will rise to close to 280 million people. And the estimate is that you probably need an extra 500,000 nurses and 125,000 or 130,000 doctors to work and deliver your healthcare system. But what we have now is such that Nigeria's capacity to train is compromised. Nigeria's capacity to retain doctors is also compromised. And even our ability to update the quality of the doctor. You know, we have charges with the numbers. We have charges with the mix of the doctors having different type of specialties and even including nurses. We have a problem with distribution. We have a problem with the quality and in fact, we have a problem with the delivery of the outcomes of the healthcare system. Outcomes in terms of, you know, is the person getting well. Outcomes is even the treatment acceptable culturally. There are a lot of issues as far as the number of health workers and their quality is concerned. Now, the key thing is that if you have input into the health system, health workforce is very fundamental. The other is building capitals and then of course, consumables. So, you know, the same input is just that the hospital, the doctors or the nurses or the pharmacists as health workers then input. Other input include building, capital, and then of course, consumables. So, if you look at Nigeria, WHO recommended that we should have one doctor for 600 people. But the country with that 24,000 is just having one doctor for as much as 8,000. And the numbers are reducing. Now, if that shows that for us to meet that target in 2030, we need to still train, you know, we need a number of doctors that is close to 300,000. We need that large number of doctors. So, what are we going to do? Where are we going to get all these doctors? Now, you cannot respond to your health challenge if you don't have health workers. We are having challenges with maternal health. We are having challenges with infant mortality. We are having challenges with malnutrition. We are having challenges with conic diseases, diabetes, hypertension. Accidents are happening. You've got still amyloboridine of a simple gunshot injury. Drug epidemic is coming on. You need health workers to respond to all these things. Now, if you are going to have 24,000 doctors in 2023, it means essentially that you are in a really dire crisis situation. Let me give you an example. I left medical school since 1988. That should be about 35 years or 34 years going to for that five years. My number is 6,776. And your number for what? My number is 16,767. That's my number. That was 40 years ago. That's what doctors had in Nigeria. 35 years ago. But now, the number is now over to 100,000. So it means that in the space of how many years, 35 years, Nijiaq will not dream as much as 40,000 doctors in addition. Because we will produce about 3,000 maximum. If you add strength to it, then it means that we are not having a requisite number in terms of capacity to train. People are not doing science subjects that will make them enter medical school. The medical school is under funded. They are not having sufficient teachers to train them there. You know, even to do a sponsorship and compulsory training as for consultancy. Everything is compromised. So that's where we are now. It seems there's no hope. But again, how do you respond to our health challenges? Okay, let's also bring in Professor Hope at this point. We're talking about, unfortunately, we have been disconnected. We hope that we have him back on the line and to talk further about the issue. Professor Hope, can you hear us? Yes. So what do you make of the recent development as a call? Well, we don't know yet whether the Nigerian teachers would move or stay. But what do you make of the call by the United Kingdom looking for teachers, right? Especially from some southern countries. Nigerians among these countries. Okay. Well, I think, thank you for having me on this program. I think that I can give you a video because of connection with Southern Indians. Well, let me make a simple question. This is that labor is always migrating to where it could be there. I'll take it again. Labor would always migrate to where it could be there and that's what it needs to do. So if I take a very new world view of this, I would say that even in the best of times, countries who are professionals are very likely to migrate, to move, to work, that's 70, I mean there and where they'll be appreciated. But an application comes in from both remuneration, world craft, I love that too. In times of economies because nations stuff out what Nigeria is currently doing, which is migration of people. Put simply, we're saying that when an economy is depressed, especially when an economy is huge, a lot of Nigeria, that you are being estimated to be at 200 million, we're born with migrants. But the question today is what are the implications on the system? We started with medical doctors. Well, we need medical doctors. We need our medical doctors. But our medical doctors are not properly treated here. Labor will find its way to where it could be appreciated. Only yesterday, a medical doctor was piloted by the family of a patient. We're not going to do that. Because when they brought the patient to the hospital, they said, okay, I will see to that, please go ahead and get the police report and then the patient died. They came back and came in. How do you expect our doctors to be comfortable, to feel safe enough? His wife is called to the doctor. That wife is traumatized forever. Why for teachers? Go to our public family school. Go to our public secondary schools. Now that is moving to the university. We're requiring action of the incumbent government. When you treat teachers with legacy, when you treat lecturers with legacy, what will happen to them? They will migrate. We need to get our doctors to be vulnerable. There is no amount of the exertion that you will give to medical doctors. There is no amount of exertion you will give to teachers. They have that opportunity that they want to give to the new teachers. There we go. There we go. Oh my God. I'm talking about the lives of people here. How much did you pay out of that?  If you had an opportunity to do this on this open, you think you would make it, huh? So, if you take it for that person, we will go on with the next week. We'll pay to do now, and because we need the services, you see, I was, I spent some time in New York, and I found out in that area, that area of New York, we had about 4,000 doctors from Nigeria. I'm not talking about 4,000, 4,000. These are the people who were trained in UI, trained in Uri-Land, trained at E-Fair. So, I'd like to ask you this, because we're really running out of time. There's also a response from the NUT as regards the proposition of the United Kingdom and their concern of having teachers move from different parts of the world. Hong Kong is part of some of these countries in Nigeria as well. But the NUT is saying that they are looking for cheap labor and that's almost a doubt that Nigerians might probably not move. So, do you see a possibility of Nigerian teachers going? And is there anything that the Nigerian government can do at this point? Because we'll probably be losing our hands, and it might not just be good enough for the education sector. So, is there anything that can be done? Is there a tendency that there will go? Well, there is good room for clarity by saying that the NUT government is looking for cheap labor. If you have girls, if you have encounters, if you are spoken with Nigerians that are in the diaspora, if you are spoken with Nigerians that are going to the death rate journey, they will tell you that they would rather be cleaner in Italy, road tripers in London than graduate teachers in Nigeria. So, there is no amount of education. I'm raising Nigeria as a people of my generation. I don't believe that we can use Nigeria. However, what the Nigerian government can do is to show concern and improve our services. At this time, you remember at this time when the Nigerian economy was bad, Nigeria was falling by a demand. Now, the time when the Indian economy was bad, Nigeria was falling by an Indian, an Asian. I was forced by an Asian in second grade school. But when the economy was good, we all went back. So, Nigeria used to also sit back and improve the economy. We have 2,000 practices in America. Who in Russia back home want to stabilize their lives in Nigeria? So, what we're going to do, come in the election, let's vote for a government that we can revitalize Nigeria. And I show that the political people and our professionals will come back home. They don't enjoy life at all. They don't, because at all, there are several classes in it. And you see more people if they are here illegally. If they are in deserts, that's about worry. If they are here illegally, if they are in Nigeria, they can help people. Dr. Meberwondu, Professor, I hope we have to come back to the studio and we're costing it down now. Thank you so much for your thoughts. We do appreciate you. But let's get back to Dr. Tuyi Meberwondu. Tuyi, why are we living in the medical? It's obvious. Because the condition is also not favorable. No, it's obvious. We've also had complaints from doctors. There are several complaints. No, there are great complaints. First and foremost, we have our push factors. When you work, and for the next six months, nobody's paying you salary, you will live. Because you have bills to pay. No, we see people who work with us. Yeah, you have people to pay. When your condition of service is so poor, you have to use lanterns to do surgery. You will live. When you cannot ascend to the peak of your profession, and you are not facing a lot of political background, you will live. When you have children to take care of, and they're not having the best of education, and they are thinking about their future, you will live. Okay, well, there's a lot of education. Some of them tell you to murder you because you felt that you are God, that was healed every injury. You will live. So the factors are just many, plenty, plenty. But let me tie the concern of education to training of doctors.  Let's get it straight. What I mean by fixing education system is that, you see, you must be strategically recruiting science teachers that will be able to teach and call people to enter into the health workforce. Because if we don't fix science, how are they going to be trained? I said that in nurse, pharmacist, labric scientist, or a doctor. So you have to fix education system, and it's important. And if UK succeeds in taking our teachers, it's not just going to affect health, you know, if you affect politics, it will affect thinking, it will affect society. Because the starting point, the starting point of training society around this education, education is not just a social concern. Education is an economic issue, is a political issue, is a health issue. So, you know, the first thing is, if we're wise, if you understand that, we should know that we should never allow our teachers, and they're going to pick the best, and leave the crumbs, and leave the crumbs for us, who will not give us turn to hand education? And the country is very likely. But we want to have this conversation, we should have this conversation some other time, for real, because I'm worried. And the question is, what is the government doing? I don't know if there's any, you know, responsible. I'm not sure I want to get an answer immediately from you. We'll come back some other time, we'll come back some other time, and talk about, you know, what the government is doing, to ensure that we don't have all of this movement. Because we're talking about the personnel, the manpower here. If they move, then what becomes of, you know, our country, Nigeria, quite unfortunate. That's the size of it at this point in time. Thank you so much, Professor, hope for being part of the show. And also, thank you, Dr. T, you remember I want you for being with us this morning. We appreciate your time. Thank you.


Hello everybody, HoodedCoverCommander788 here, and I'm all dressed up because this is a special occasion. I'm gonna be doing my first ever unboxing video. This box was sent to me by Arthur at BusyBenz, that's how he wanted to be credited. Arthur sent me this box, unsolicited, for the purpose of doing an unboxing video. I haven't done one of these before, I've been thinking about it, and this is a great opportunity to do it. So, I've opened the box, but I haven't looked inside yet, so I'm gonna do this on camera so you can see what Arthur has sent to me. I'm very excited to see it, so let's check it out, and let's see, let's see what we got. This is like Christmas, let's check it out. Okay, so, opening the box, and first I see some packing popcorn. Packing popcorn. Not enough butter. Okay, so what's the first thing we come to? Let's see. Oh, here we go, we've got some parts to checkpoint alpha, that's cool. I do not have that complete yet, I will have to put this with some other parts that I have to see if we can complete that. And let's see, we also have trip wire, very nice complete trip wire, very good, thank you very much. We have, oh, look at this, look at this, alpine. Alpine and alpine looks to be complete, that's awesome. I don't have a complete alpine, so that's very cool. That is definitely something special. Now I've got, there's a bag thing here, and I'm, oh, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, there's something in the way, and it's something, oh, check this out, check this out. It is Tiger Force, the Tiger Rat, and it looks to be in pretty good shape. Landing gear is unbroken, all the clear plastic bits are there, the paint looks good, this is awesome. This is really cool, this alone would have made it work worth it, this is an awesome thing to send. Thank you so much, Arthur, that's so cool. All right, well, let's see what else we got, let's see. We got, no, I was trying to get this bag out, this bag has more things in it, let's see, so, oh man, I see more down in there, oh, this is great. This is great, and a lot of this stuff will show up as a video review, so Arthur, you are helping the channel and helping create more video reviews with this, I guarantee I will be doing this. This is a box, okay, this is an empty box for the Rock Rampage 50th Anniversary set. Very good, we got the file cards in there, and let's see, we have, look at this, look at this, this is a still on the card, Iron Grenadiers 25th Anniversary Destro with the gold head. This is really cool, I don't think I'm gonna take it off the card, I hate taking things off the card, I just feel like I'm ruining it, so I like, this looks really pretty on the card, so I'm gonna keep that in the package, that's cool. Not a bad Destro, cool. All right, and let's see what else we got, okay, we've got some modern figures here, we've got, let's see, let's see, oh, I see a Baroness, and, oh, there's torpedo, and a Cobra Eel, and yeah, the Baroness, okay, so I'm going to take some pictures of these so you can see each of these individually, and I will cut that in to the video, so we've got some great modern figures here, you normally do vintage, but I have reviewed some modern stuff from time to time, so I may have to give those a look, maybe I'll branch out into some modern reviews. Speaking of which, here is a Zartan, and looks like a modern Python Patrol, yeah, Python Patrol Crimson Guard, with file card, awesome, awesome, and okay, so we've got some packaging here for some of the modern figures, there is, oh, look at that, that's a modern bat. Nice detail on that, I may have to, just for the special occasion because Arthur went through the trouble of sending these to me, I may have to review some modern stuff, just because now I have it, and now I can really take a look at it, let's slide this out of the way, there's so much in this bag, look all these file cards, tons of file cards, we've got, oh, flash, check that out, Sergeant Platt, excellent, cool, and we've got Storm Shadow, and we've got a Snow Serpent, so I'm gonna have to look these up to see what years these were released because I'm not as familiar with the modern figures as I am the vintage figures, most of the vintage figures, especially the 80 ones, 1980s ones, I've got memorized and I can tell you what year they came from, but not so much the modern figures, and so this gives me an opportunity to learn more, which I always appreciate, I'm never opposed to learning, so this is a fairly cool bag, that's some awesome modern stuff right there, so I'm going to set these aside over here so we can dig in some more, and I see some vintage stuff, I see some vintage stuff, okay, oh, look at that, the rest of the parts for Checkpoint Alpha, this is one that I've been, I've had an eye on to do a review, and it looks to be complete, there's the clipboard right there, so this, I may have to review this one in the very near future, so that's awesome, and then we've got a big bag of stuff here, oh, here, this is smaller, but this is some figures, we've got some figures here, we've got, oh yeah, look at that, got Nogahide, we've got, oh, who's that guy? Oh, that's the C-slug, I think the Cobra submarine driver was, yeah, it looks really good, and we've got, looks like Mercer, and Nemesis Enforcer from Cobra Law, and we have, we have Blowtorch, 1984, not a bad Blowtorch there, I'll need to, I've been also thinking about Blowtorch because there are some variants with Blowtorch that I haven't nailed down yet, so I'll have to check and see what I've got, and maybe this will help me progress toward a Blowtorch review, so that would be very exciting, and so all right, now we've got a big bag of vintage stuff here, let's check this out, now this is, I mean, this is, I'm not gonna go through each of these because it's parts mainly, but I can tell from just looking at it, I mean, we've got some parts of the killer whale here, more parts of the killer whale, these are awesome, we've got a ton of missiles, the missile box from the Wolverine from 1983, I'm gonna spend some time, this is gonna be, this is gonna be awesome, I'm gonna, this evening, I'm going to be going through this because this is like Christmas, this is so cool, the RCB Recon sled, shell of that there, got some accessories, this is awesome, and you know, these missiles, it's always such a pain to try to find missiles when you're missing one, this is probably gonna complete some things for me because of the missiles in this bag, so that's so cool, let's set this down here, and I'm definitely gonna spend some more time going through that, what else we got? Well, look at this, we got a bag, oh, low lights, we got four low light action figures in there, that's awesome, you know, I do like low light, I mean, he was a good figure and so that's so cool, and oh my God, look at all this, figure parts, figure parts, I may be able to, I may be able to fix some figures with these, I can see some in here that I potentially need here, we got a crimson guard, we got who that, we got half a big boa, this is another thing that I'm gonna have to spend more time going through, but I can tell from looking at it right now that this is going to help me, this is, some of these have parts that are in much better shape than the figures I already have, and so I will be using these to complete a few things, oh, look at that, it's got my Zap from 1982, my Zap action figure has a heel broken, but you know that soft brittle plastic breaks so easily, they were right there, some intact Zap legs, beautiful, beautiful, so that's really cool, all right, oh, that's cool, okay, setting that aside now, cause there's more, there is more in here, okay, look at this, look at this, carded, carded, yeah, carded Python Patrol Elite Trooper, look at that, that's gorgeous, that's awesome, G.I. Joe Club, that's so cool, so you know, I don't have, and this is a modern figure, you know, I don't have a lot of Tiger Force or Python Patrol, but those two subgroups, I've been wanting to kind of jump into and get more of them, and this is, I mean, this is a nice modern version of the Python Patrol Crimson Guard, that means I'm gonna have to go and get the vintage figure, so that I can do a review, this is all gonna be awesome, and look at all those accessories, look at all of these accessories, you know what I'm gonna do, accessory baths, I've gotta put these in a bathtub and take a bath with accessories, look at all these accessories, this is awesome, I mean, I'm just glancing from the outside of the bag, I can see some that I've needed, so this is, that's gorgeous, I'm going, this is, this unboxing video is not going to, you know, be very long, but this is going to take hours to go through, and those will be happy hours, this will be the best time I've had with G.I. Joe for a while, the opportunity to spend some time going through this stuff and curating it, it's gorgeous, it's beautiful, and it's Slaughter's Marauders, I don't have any Slaughter's Marauders figures, at least I didn't until now, this is great, you know, and this is, something that I hadn't quite delved into yet, but it's one that had been on the agenda, well you know what, there's a good start right there, there's Slaughter's Marauders, Barbecue and Lowlight, a couple of those, that is great, this is, can it get any better? Can it get any better? All right, well we've got some full card backs, we've got some full card backs, modern cards, look at that, and so that's from the G.I. Joe cartoon series, the, let's see, Snow Serpent and Python Patrol, Crimson Guard, Laser Rifle Trooper Flash, we saw the flash action figure in there as we also saw the Eel and the Cobra Android Trooper Thess, that's, this is, you know, again, I'm a vintage collector, but, seeing some of the cool modern stuff, I'm still really excited to see it, I mean, this stuff just looks cool and you know what, I, it almost requires a review, doesn't it? I almost have to do it, still on the card, Spirit Iron Knife and Storm Shadow 50th Anniversary, no, I didn't have those before, and this spirit action figure in particular, was one that had intrigued me and that I wanted to take a culture look at. So, now I will be able to. So this, I mean, some of this stuff is, look at this. Look at all these file cards. That's, that's a ton of file cards. I'm gonna spend probably an hour or two just going through these file cards. That's awesome. Oh, look at this, more vintage stuff. Oh, look at that, that's the missiles and stuff from the Tiger Rat and that looks like, that's Sky Striker Pilot. Look at that. This is, this is, this is wonderful. This is, that's, that may be the showstopper of this whole box. And here we go. Got some vintage, oh yeah, heat viper. I've got an incomplete heat, heat viper with the accessories on here. I'll have to check, but that may help me complete that figure. That figure may be complete now. You know, a complete figure means it can be reviewed at any time. We got some file cards, his tank driver, the torpedo, storm shadow, viper's, Raptor. I don't have Raptor yet, but you know what, believe it or not, that's what I'm looking forward to reviewing. No joke. I'm looking forward to reviewing that figure. So now we've got the file card. I'm one step closer. Let's see. It just never ends. My gosh. Let's see. This here is the, is it the law? Yeah. I think that's what it was. And it looks to be complete. Snap the seat back in there. There you go. Looking good. And let's see. More vintage figures. And now I can't get enough vintage figure. There's a, this is great. There's a storm shadow. There's a crazy legs. It looks like a motor viper. It looks like a junkyard is in there. And even some accessories. All right.  Because this is what GI Joe still is for me. This is what brings back all those memories and what makes GI Joe so awesome. There's a thunder machine. Everybody loves thunder machine, right? Everybody love dread knocks. If not, well, well you should. There's thunder machine. That is, that is, that's clean. It looks good. Looks tight. That's a, that's, that's a nice, that's a nice example of thunder machine. Stick that armor plate back on there. Looks great. Looks great. More packing popcorn. More vintage figures. Look at this. Look at this. Look at that. I can't, you got it. Iceberg, you got a lifeline. Who else is in there? Looks like a kind of a Frankenstein zap action figure. I see a clutch. There's the Stinger driver. This is, there's a stalker. I see a stalker action figure in there. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, obviously that, this is great. So, wow. Okay, I'm a little overwhelmed. Okay, I hope, hope I can make it through this video. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Figure stands. I was just lamenting the other day that I was out of figure stands and I needed some more. What, that, you know what? That's gonna do me for a while. I'm good on figure stands.  All right, so how are we doing? How are we doing? Let's see, we get everything from this side. Think we're good. All right, and then, okay, more. Oh, look at that. Crocmaster, Crocmaster and Crocodiles.  And that's so cool. You know, I didn't have a Crocmaster complete. And this will help me get closer to completing that. And I didn't have the Crocodile or the alligator. I think it's actually an alligator even though I call it a Crocodile. But that's great. That's great. You know, some of these figures, you may not think that I'm looking forward to reviewing, but it's not true. I want to review everything in the vintage line. And even if it's not a figure that I think is a top tier figure or I think is weird, I still look forward to reviewing it. And so I am absolutely looking forward to reviewing Crocmaster. So I think that's it. I hope I didn't miss anything. I don't think I did. I'm gonna take some pictures of this so I can put them with the video because I know it's a little far away so you may not be able to see everything, but I'll try to make sure that you can see what I'm talking about here. So Arthur, thank you. This is my first ever unboxing video. You didn't have to do this. You really don't. You didn't have to. But you did it just out of your own generosity and I appreciate it. This absolutely will benefit the channel. This will help keep the channel going. It'll help complete some things. And I've been so busy lately, I haven't really been able to, you know, do the toy hunting that I usually do. But you know what? This actually solves that problem a little bit. It just, you sent it to me and I'm going, I promise that it all has a good home and I'm gonna make the best possible use out of it. So thank you. Thank you very much. And to everybody else, thanks for watching this first ever unboxing video. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm excited. And if you like the reviews, you ought to be excited too because I've got some more stuff to review now. This is going to propel the channel forward and give me more stuff to do. It's more stuff to look at. So I think that'll be it. Thank you very much again, Arthur. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. And keep watching for more vintage GI Joe tour reviews. Keep watching for some of this stuff to be reviewed in the near future. I'll see you next time.