With the clock ticking towards 2023's general election, palpable fear, anxiety and tension has enveloped Nigerians, particularly those who desire a new set of visionary leaders different from those that dominated the political sin since 1999. The atmosphere is already charged and discussions on politics have suddenly become the preoccupation of majority of Nigerians. Many especially the youths continue to show willingness and preparedness to participate actively in the electoral process like never before. However, despite these apparent enthusiasm, there are still concerns that the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, may not be able to deliver free fare and credible elections come 2023. Well, joining us to discuss this and more is Mr. Katch on Anujuhi, the Special Advisor to Peter R.B. on Public Affairs, Iman Alonwuka, who's a broadcast journalist, Opponaba Incultaria, a civil rights advocate, and GDO Logo, who's a legal practitioner. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you. It's my pleasure to be in Nigeria. Opponaba, I'm going to start with you. We talk about good governance. We're pushing for good governance. We want good leadership, but what is the idea that we have of good governance in Nigeria, knowing our antecedents, where we've come from? Because I'm asking because we see a lot of people say, oh, the former government was better than this. I mean, even though we thought that was bad, it kind of is better right now. So again, we seem to be slaves of the past. So what do you think the idea of good governance in Nigeria actually is? Well, when you say governance, governance is all about the pattern of governance. And if you say good governance, you're actually making reference to a pattern of governance that positively impacts on Nigeria, those you govern. As a government, you have a social responsibility, a social contract with the government. There are basic facilities that you must provide. Of course, in Nigeria, we say the principle rule of the government is to provide lives and to protect lives and property, social security in the country. These are the principles. But of course, you have other rules that you could refer to as auxiliary rules that are equally very important, quite crucial. You're talking about provision of amenities such as fire and water. You're talking about creating a conducive environment for businesses to try and a whole lot of that. But unfortunately, in Nigeria, there is a vast understanding of what government is all about. And that is simply because you have people with distorted perception of life, accidentally discharged onto the political surface. People who have a misunderstanding of what government is all about, those who believe that while you're in government, you're there to feather or line your pockets. So they go in there to please the judge withdraw. Growing up as a kid, just for example, you find somebody who, from 1999 to today, has never worked in any private company before, has never done any private business. He's been in office from 1999 to today. And without any compulsion, without any repulsion, such a person swarms the fruits of his crime, they've gotten well. And the society has brought such a person. The person becomes a world model. So when you, I would be a step beyond that one. You see, it comes across a very path, even in the educational sector, you have somebody, a parent who will tell his son, no matter what it takes. And that is the beginning, no matter what it takes.  Don't come back to me to tell me that you failed because you received, to give the lecturer money, whatever it costs you. And those are the same characters that will become the governors, the ministers, and the presidents tomorrow. And you cannot be quit what you don't have. So if you don't have what it takes to be a good leader, of course, definitely when you get into office, you're going to be quit that decade that it's already new. You have a lot of people in the national assembly, if I can even say the national assembly, not this particular one, but even before this one, where the former president of the country, Lucifer Apache, they were all votes. The national assembly members would test it, and he said, okay, no problem. If you want an apology, I'm going to render that apology, but after disclosing the names of those I referred to as votes. And that matter was set under the cabinet. A former AIG on the floor of the Senate expressed shock, shock. He was there to see those, of course, who said that they were supposed to be in jail, elected as senators. And the sentient that got the floor of the House raised the same issue. They asked him to apologize. He said he was not going to apologize. He was going to come to the floor of the House the next day with the file. That matter was set under the cabinet. And these are the same characters that are the governor. These are the same characters that are the legislators. These are the same characters that you will admit. You have somebody who has lots of fraudulent cases against an INEC who claims he's going to contest. If he wins, thank God for the big bigger, the former is going to win. If he has the bigger, you can reap yourself into office. If such a character wins, he becomes the governor. He becomes the president. And if he's supposed to be a role model, now, what are you teaching the younger ones? So that's why they didn't want to understand what Godness is all about. So then Godness is all about stealing money, planting your wealth in fruits of your crime without any form of punishment within punitive. And that is why we ask where we are today. Okay. Thank you very much. Let me come to you, Baista. It's very interesting to look at things from the perspective of Upanabok. But then it's interesting because I asked the question at the beginning, what is our idea of good governance? Because, like I said, we have had all different kinds of government. And half the time we asked these people to leave because they didn't fulfill their promises or the government, the leadership, the qualities that they seem to possess do not necessarily fit what we want. So again, I'm going to push this. Have we as a country ever experienced good governance, whether it be under a military administration or civilian role, have we ever as a country experienced good governance? And how can we go back to attain that if there be any? Definitely. Immediately after our political independence in 1960, we became, you know, a republic in 1963. And the economy of the first republic was quite buoyant. But at that point in time, we relied on agro-economy, we relied on political gas. Despite the civil war, even in the early 70s, General Gouwan retired who was the military head of state, came out to announce the war. And the problem of Nigeria was not having many, but knowing what to do with the money. And if you recall, that was the time when there was an attempt to reform the civil service structure in Nigeria. And though there were recommendations given, the one that attracted the stakeholders was to award the Udoji, the Udoji award, you know, and money started flying. And that was about the time Ostentatious living, you know, came into the civil service and into governance, generally speaking. And there was the time we had our oil bomb. So you find out that when Nigeria set out as a politically independent nation, I mean, we were doing well until gross mismanagement came in massively to question the fact that should we even have been allowed by the colonialists to handle our resources. And it is because we have not connected to the concept of good governance. And let me express what President Joe Biden said at the recent U.S.-Africa leader summit. You know, Joe Biden, in his closing remarks, said that Africa's economic transition depends on good government. And when you talk about good government, Mr. Padigo mentioned something that is central, and you can find that in section 14 of section two of the Nigerian Constitution in 1919 as amended, that said that the security and the welfare of the people shall be the primary focus of government. So, you know, Joe Biden said that the future of this continent, particularly Nigeria, depends on good government, healthy populations, reliable and affordable energy, you know, and this is what we attract investors into the nation. And security is very important. But today, how many global investors we want to come and risk their resources to invest in Nigeria? We have been doing a blame trading on insecurity. You know, correctional facilities are tied. They are simply trying to kidnap the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. And when you look at the economy, if you read section 15 of the Nigerian Constitution in 1919 as amended, it says that our resources should be harnessed in a way that we have a self-reliant economy, that we provide maximum happiness for the people, you know, that wealth is not constantly in the hands of you. You can go and read more up to section 18. And can we claim to have that? Recently, I was shocked that Nigeria lost about $2 billion to all teams. So, when you talk about good government, there must be security for the people. There must be wealthier. I won't talk about wealthier. There must be sound education for the citizenry. There must be power, energy for the industrialists. The tax regime must be enabling, not disabling. The social fabric of the society must be built on the concept of unity. And I mean, can you try to explain to me why in the nation that has the largest deposit of broken gas in Africa has, if I were, 33 million of our citizens within the multi-faceted poverty bracket? So, you find that rather than maximizing the poverty resources God has given to us, that we have mismanaged. And what is good governance? Good governance is creating common wealth or common good. And we can mention some nations that have achieved that. So, by and large, considering where we are today is such a very pitiful condition that it's best imagined than experienced. And for those who are experiencing it, that's why the union is so wide that we seek, you know, a resourceful leadership of this nation. So, Nigeria was a very great nation. There was a time when there used to be three course meals in the universities where you could have only two or three students to a room.  Job opportunities are brought to you. And of course, attached with very cool of your choice. You see, there used to be a time when foreign money came to Nigeria for medical treatment. There used to be a time when foreign lecturers came to Nigeria to lecture. You see, there used to be a time when things were rosy, you know, I mean, but those were in the past now. But for some of us, we look forward to a new narrative of this nation. And that's why it's so important now that as we are approaching the elections, we are setting the agenda for good governance. And may I echo that good governance is the creation of common wealth or common good. And if you want to look at countries that have achieved that, you can go and look at Sweden, you can look at Iceland, you can look at Singapore, you can look at UAE, you can look at America. And let me answer my submissions right now on this concept of health. I mean, I'm looking forward to when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will come to Nigeria for medical treatment. I'm looking forward to a time when elections will be coming up in the UK and the politicians come to Nigeria to hold their meetings. You see, and these are the same terms that have shown that rather than grow as a nation, we have not since our since our over 60 years of political independence. Okay. So we are far away from good governance. That is not to say that we cannot retrace our steps. And you know, right now, Nigeria has nothing less than 40 mineral resources that can make us prosper in overflowing abundance if we can only have reasonable leadership. All right. Let me go to catch. We're setting the pace for this conversation by going back for us to be able to go forward. Now, I'm curious as to why it seems like the good governance seems to elude us now and again, even when politicians at the polls wax lyrical and tell us that they will be able to do all sorts of things, even when it's not within their reach. And then once they get into office, the story changes and then it's a totally different song and dance. I'm wondering for all of the things that the barista has listed, these things are right here with us. It's not that, you know, they're far fetched. We were blessed. We're a blessed country if we're blessed with natural resources. And I'm guessing they were also blessed with people who have leadership skills, who are smart, industrious, technocrats. But why has good leadership seemingly continuously eluded us? Well, it's a very simple question. First, we need to be a nation. We're not yet a nation. And so you need to ask yourself, why are we not yet a nation? Today, the current government actually encourages ethnic cleansing. As I speak to you, under the current administration, we have been Nigerians living in IDP camps, yet in their own homelands, foreigners are living there. And don't forget this. And this has been done under a man who said he will come and become president of Nigeria. Now, why do I say that? And everybody keeps quiet. And most people are very afraid to even speak up. And that was why I was very encouraged when one of the candidates visited the IDP camps. When he came back, some of those who were actually responsible for conniving with Tabitha Polaku to commit these ethnic cleansings actually were saying openly that people should not vote for whoever they are going to attack the bandits. Tabitha Polaku is a West Africa wild Fulani vigilante organization. It is responsible for the violent actions you see across Nigeria. In which right now what they are doing is a slow motion war using ethnic cleansing to gain ancestral land so as to be able to re-settle foreigners across Nigerian villages and ancestral lands. But the owners of those lands, as I speak to you, are in IDP camps. And we keep quiet. Other candidates refuse even to visit those IDP camps so that they do know and care the role of those who are responsible for such operations. Those are the questions we must ask ourselves. But do these candidates necessarily have to visit IDP camps to know the state of things? I mean, I'm sure that this is not news. We have information about these IDP camps spread across the country. We even have some in Edo state. The information is out there. It's not hidden per se. I understand when you say your candidate went there to understand what's happening. But then we have that information. What are we doing with the information as opposed to weeping up sentiments? That's what I'm looking at. It is not weeping up sentiment when you speak the truth about these problems. Now I say it, somebody could even be afraid to even mention it. Now that is the nation building. Why are we Nigerians afraid to speak up when issues like this are on? Why should we have IDPs when Nigeria is not at war? Why are some people keeping quiet and shying away from addressing such things like this? Why do you shy away from speaking when Nigerians are displaced? Then you have no right to ask why is the country going bad. Speak up if you see something wrong with Nigerians. Don't keep quiet because this is not happening to somebody from your village. This is what I am saying. Let all of us be for each order. Let all of us speak up when you see Nigerians are in problem. Don't keep quiet and then say, no, is there, we've seen it. What is it proper that international terrorists should come to Nigeria and commit ethnic clizzes? No, it's not proper. Why when I raise it up you say, oh, is there, it's not there everywhere. It is not normal. You must speak up for it. You are journalists. Attack the bad things you've seen. Don't keep quiet and say it. Like I said before, like I said before, we all know that Nigeria is experiencing terrorism on every side. They're uprisings in the southeast. I mean, all kinds of killings. It's not news. But what are we doing about it? I mean, the people in these camps are crying. Northern Elders Forum have come out time and time again to say, Mr. President has abandoned these people. We've seen governors speak on this issue. The better state governor is not left out. So again, what I meant is that it's not necessarily news. But then let's talk about solutions as opposed to pointing fingers. Yes, you work for a political politician. How do we deal with this issue? It is you trying to say it is not new. It is new. It is not normal. It's never happened before in this country. Agreed. It's not normal. So what do we do? Speak up against it. Raise your voice against it. Don't say it's okay. Don't say it's in this state. It's in that state. And so you don't run away from it. We must raise our voices when you see something bad. How could we keep quiet and we actually look at the stories about him. They want him out. Have you asked yourself why? Who are those people targeting them? targeting the ironing chairman? Who are these people? Why are we keeping quiet? Why did we keep quiet two months ago when some people actually intended to plot a coup and use violence to disturb the democracy? When we keep quiet as citizens, then we have no right to complain when things go wrong. And that I mean raise your voice. It is there are people raising their voices that some of this evil are stopped. But if you do not raise your voice when you see something bad and you start asking how do we resolve it? No.  Raise your voice. That is how people in the village and neighborhood will hear you and come and help you. We should not keep our voices low when things go wrong in any part of the country. So as you're asking right now why are we here? We are here because people condone it. We're here because people keep quiet. We're here because people think it's all right for some people to suffer and as far as it's done we're suffering. Let us now look at what the youth are doing. Support the youth. The youth right now are out of frustration seeking to take back their country. As far as I'm concerned that's where I am. And anybody who means well for this country should support the youth to get back their country and let us start from there. Okay. All right. Talking about young people now. I mean literally the conversation has shifted to your side. But then let's start with the fact that you're a journalist and I'm sure that before you became a journalist you probably were not that interested in politics but you must have felt something from your parents saying oh this country is hard, this country is bad, this person did that. And then here we are again still singing the same song from when you were younger. And with what happened on October 2020 and the tragic tree since 2015 are we part of the problem? So the first thing first is I wasn't very interested even as a journalist. I wasn't interested in politics.  Don't watch political news. I don't have any interest in it. But I kept on this program some time ago and I caught a fire and I listened. I got a PBC just two days ago. Congratulations. So I'm going to vote. After I vote I go over the elections. That's what I'm going to do because I found out that you see we can't keep complaining without taking any action. We can't keep complaining without taking any action. You're just going around in a cycle. Now the thing about good governance, good governance to me is delivery. Delivery of your promises. Delivery of what you say. And you see politicians are very vocal when it comes to elections, when it comes to campaigns. So they are so vocal, they have voices that you need to hear their voices when they hold their mics and they are shouting and screaming, shouting down their own agenda. They all have a strategy. Let's be honest with ourselves. They want to always ride on the campaign, ride on the trend to get to us, to get to everybody. And I need to tell Nigerians one thing. Everybody needs to do their own due diligence and investigate the person that you have, that you think is the right person to be voted for. Investigate. Run your own investigations. Find out what the person has done before.  But if you go on the internet and research, you find the information there. Find out what these people and find the person that is the best. Find the person that has that ability to deliver, not the one that comes to say. You see, their voice are very loud when it comes to elections, when it comes to campaign season. They tell you to shout, they tell you to scream.  But they are selling an agenda to you. You have to be wary of such persons. Understand that you are the soul, the reason why they are pushing this agenda. But every politician does have an agenda. Yeah, yeah, everybody has an agenda.  You need to have your own mind, you need to think for yourself. Don't let them do the thinking for you. So, everybody, right now in Nigeria, nobody can sit on the fence. Are you a journalist? You can't sit on the fence. You can't tell me you're neutral. You can be professional, alright. Quite alright, fine. Be professional. I'm neutral. No, be professional, but you can't be neutral. Neutral. You must vote. Why? Because it's affecting you right now. And it's still going to affect you on the long run. Generations are tied to you. Generations are tied to me.  And whatever decision I take right now affects millions of persons to come. And if I take the wrong step right now, it's going to affect more people. And I think Nigeria's have to start taking it that direction. We'll take a quick break. I like the fire that's in the room right now. We'll take a quick break when we come back. We're still talking about good governance. How can we as a country attain good governance? Even as we're getting ready for election season. Stay with us. Still talking good governance and the need for us to push for it. While we get ready for the 2023 elections, we still have in the studio Gido Logo, Opunabo, Inco, Taya, Katch, Onenuju, and Emeka. Before we went on that break, we were laying the foundation as to why we're where we are today. But I want to go back to you, Opunabo. Let's talk about inclusive leadership. Now, just as you've all said, politicians wax lyrical, but when they get into office, they don't do the right thing. Followers, we're here to obviously make sure that there's some form of accountability. But are we playing our roles to also make sure that these people are accountable to us? Or what exactly is our problem? Talking of playing our roles, that's exactly what we're doing, even as we are talking on air right now. Because what we are doing is actually an appraisal of a system that has actually failed. Miriam, I must tell you that we are about to call the morass of leadership vacuum. You know, and that's why I don't believe in manifestos. Manifestos, yes, to me, they are more or less like desiderata and not synchronous. Because I could get somebody to alter a wonderful manifesto that could even move the people of Emeka, that could even move the American president. But the truth about it is that at the end of the day, if the candidate himself never even went to that manifesto, each time he went, he goes and stopped it. Then somebody tells him what to say. So policy is more or less like a gravy drink to Nigeria, you know. It's like a shot cut. That is like all kinds of harassment. And if we want to have good leaders that are going to be there in the image of Nigeria, then we must look at the antecedent. Unfortunately, our decisions are informed and planned on nepotism and sentiment. And that is where we are today. That is the vein of our country and the leadership. But if we now look at the antecedent of most of these people that have come out to contest for some of these offices, we are not definitely going to vote for them because they're bad guys' things. I can tell you that. But because Nigeria's are also important, finance has also been big for now. And that's why I tell Nigeria, some might disagree with me. What I say to Nigeria is, collect this money but vote your conscience. Satisfaction has to tell you there is no way you can collect it. Once you collect the money, you become a completed fellow. I strongly disagree. Collect this money but vote your conscience because for another four years, especially in Nigeria where it is difficult to impeach and remove a governor or a president of that four years or while it is in office, for another four to eight years, you have sold everything, including yourself, for a measure for it. And what will that amount to? The cataclysmic leadership we are having right now in this country has to speak right now. Where you have a president that has cost us them back on a long, sudden and a lot of inertia is not bothered about what is going on in this country. So if we have to get somebody that will come and view us out of this mountain of despair, that will move us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, somebody under with bright stars, springtime will be born in this country. We must go to the antecedents of that person. Fortunately, all the candidates, former candidates today have antecedents. They didn't offer that one point in time or the other. So let us look for the one without sending them. Let us because it's like rain. When it's going to rain, nobody will respect. Let us look for that person that will believe to go in there and throw things around. Because definitely, Nigeria's are desponding and unfortunately, we are heading slowly, but steadily, I mean, to prevent the food which anarchy are the result of cataclysmic leadership. So the antecedents, I'm not the person, the antecedents of this candidate must be given priority. If we have to cast our vote in the first commentary on that, for us to have good votes. Mr. Ndujoo talked about inclusivity. He talked about the ethnic differences and the fact that a loss of Nigerians are tight-lipped about speaking truth to power. But then the pastor of the Trinity House, Itwai Godalo, was recently speaking about good governance and he talked about inclusivity and he said that this is one of the things that we need to be able to help Nigeria have good governance because we're a diverse nation. What role do you think that inclusivity will play at this point? And we're looking at Nigeria in 2023, getting ready for the elections. How will it help for whoever emerges or sits on that seat come later this year? The motto of Nigeria has amplified the power of inclusivity. It saves unity and creates peace and progress. And where there is no unity and the sense of equity and judgment that keeps unity running, then there won't be faith in the nation. And when you don't have patriotism, you begin to experience agitation like we are having across the country right now. And what results from that is that a peace of the nation is dislodged, apart from the external forces that have been brought into Nigeria to terrorize us. And where there is unity and peace, there cannot be progress. Absolutely, it doesn't matter the kind of resources you have. You know, I did a study on the quality of life, which is the essence of good governance to promote the quality of life. And number one top country for quality of life in 2022 is Switzerland, about 195.6% rating. And you talk about China. Do you know that between 2020 and 2021, China and the United States becoming the wealthiest nation in the world. In fact, China is discussing prosperity, not poverty, because China has enthroned prosperity in that region. About 90% of the citizens are proof of the government. I think about 1.3 billion half assets to health, insurance, and the care for the elders and things like that. That's what we're talking about. As I speak to you now, I'm running on generational. You see, apart from the noise pollution because you are running generational, what is the cost of this? So when we talk about inclusive, it's not about, it's about what experience are you giving the people?  I challenged my great brothers and sisters in the South-Eastern part of the country in particular. How many of you traveled for holiday? So the culture of that region of our country is fast changing. Look at the train attack. In March 2022, or Jerebao, there was a train attack in Apuja, and we discussed surveillance and the need to equip for security purposes. Look at the one that happened in Edo State. The one that happened in between Kaduna and Apuja, even though the government, you know, succeeded in getting all the assets out. How many of the kidnappers were arrested reportedly or even prosecuted? So what sense of belonging are you giving the people? Even the elections where we are approaching now is so ethnic-driven, religion-driven, and you keep asking yourself, the UAE is managed by Muslims. They are prosperous, united Arab Emirates, inclusivity. So what happened in Qatar? Qatar made a lot of profit, and it brings us to the same good governance we are discussing. We've been talking about Qatar building the first air-conditioned stadium in the world, and they achieved it. Nobody invested in it. Yes, this is not chasing anybody anyway. They didn't allow religion to scuttle that big event, and they're going to benefit from it for a long time. We are still asking in this country, who are the oil thieves? So whether you are from Medjugorje, whether you are from Arochu, who have been to all parts of this country by the grace of God, we have wonderful around the country. Who are these cabals? We understand the prosperous tourism in this country about 400. Who are they? Who are they? Who are the oil thieves? When you talk of inclusivity, I'm sure that if you do effective profiling, all the ethnic regions in Nigeria are represented among the oil thieves. Let them come out and defend themselves. So we are asking that whether I'm from Kaduna, or I'm from Goya Yubei, or I'm from Andambra, let's have a sense of belonging. And if you want to study a template in Africa that has achieved that, go to Rwanda. You don't even mention ethnicity in Rwanda. You are in Rwanda. And I guess why that region is one of the fastest-going economies in Africa. But that's because Rwanda had to learn the hard way. They also were somewhat dancing around the same situation that we have right now. I was making some reference. Now we are talking about... In this country, some people have been moving around with daggers for years as part of the addressing culture. We were talking about Kota system. Where is the equity in the system? That's what I'm saying. I have never read that because somebody is from New York or Maryland in the U.S., so you have access to the university and someone from Texas. We don't have access on the same score. So we have created a system that is promoting injustice. And where there is no justice, there cannot be good governance. I appreciate one of our colleagues here saying that we need to speak up. We have been speaking up.  How is the London health facility? How is it managed? How is the economy of Switzerland managed? How is Saudi Arabia managed? What are we saying? Now we have found oil in the north. We have oil in the south. What benefit has all given to Nigeria? At the point, NNPC remittances zero to the federation account. Now it's now limited to what extent. So we need to wake up and enjoy the good of this land. Okay. All right. You see, insecurity, hardship, no, no, no, no. Inclusivity means we all enjoy. I'm an American. I'm an American. I enjoy the America well. All right. I need to go to Dr. Barista because we do not have time. Mr. Nenuju, there are many pundits who said that maybe a democratic system of government does not necessarily fit the Nigerian system. There are many who would say that maybe democracy has been forced down the throats of Nigerians and that's why we're so terrible at it. Do you agree that maybe there is another system of government that we need to employ that would one way or the other set us right? Despite its problems and challenges, fear represents the very best for a multi-ethnic, multi-religious diverse society like Nigeria. I see nothing wrong with it. We have had an example of very bad governance by the current administration of President Govheri. It is not enough to force us to lose hope in the promise of democracy. No, it's not enough. Govheri fails simply because he failed to embrace Nigeria as a nation of diverse people. Now, yeah, he simply sought to employ nepotism as policy and that's why his administration failed. There are no two ways about it, but that he failed does not mean that we should lose hope in the promise of democracy. We must continue to do it. It is due to Govheri's failure that awareness was suddenly forced upon the land and due to that availability of awareness, the youth took charge as it's been historically. Whenever in any society the elders seem to disappoint the youth, the youth have always been known to force their ways forward and then take charge as they are currently doing. So, I believe, as I said earlier, we should never shy away from speaking up.  I ran a particular program on television for up to seven years and I was very successful in bringing light and being able to actually push what I wanted and bringing a lot of information for people to understand. Most people didn't understand before that there was actually a slow-motion war for ancestral land across the country. Some people thought there was actually as being bandied by politicians a farmer's heather crisis. There was not. It was a simple strategy to deceive the population whereas the slow-motion war, who thought being supported by that musician sustained. Why did it sustain? People kept quiet. We refuse to speak truth to power. Don't stop. Democracies flourish when citizens are awake to alert other citizens about wrongdoings by politicians or by those who seek to hijack the institutions of state. But what is a democracy if you just talk and then other forms or other things that make up a democracy doesn't work. For example, Oppenabod did say that it's unfortunate that you cannot actually probe certain people or get them out of office while they're in that seat, especially for members of our National Assembly. It seems like a thog of war of sorts. And again, why is this a democracy if the court systems are flawed? If the legislature is a rubber stamp one, why do we call it a democracy? What is a democracy if all of these things do not work? You do not keep quiet. You don't give up hope. But what is shouting for if I cannot get a result from just shouting or speaking up? We can get results. Take for instance, Mr. Pitu, we went forward, accused the government of the day that its members are responsible for the OU theft. What happened? I feel sustained. They went back and they suddenly stopped doing that. You cannot stop simply because sometimes you don't succeed. No, keep trying. Don't stop. Don't give up hope. We cannot afford to sell despair to our millions of citizens. We must continue to do that thing. Don't stop. Don't stop because it didn't work the first time. Continue to press your game. Continue to sustain. It took a lot of targeted action by Pitu, as he kept speaking for any position to agree that yes, the OU was being stolen by people in government. And what happened today? They have stopped the stealing. Or at least we have seen that they have not made a declaration of the production. So we cannot afford to keep quiet. The fact that we can talk means things can get well. Don't stop ever speaking to power.  You did say something about doing background checks and not just relying on what the politicians say because I've heard Jimmy Ducey say you can get a really good manifesto. Anybody can write a manifesto. You can sit in the UK and write a really good manifesto. And the man who is being written for has no idea what's in the manifesto. But then also, as stakeholders, whether it's maybe the media, civil society, the voters, every single person, young people, women, people living with disability, there's a lot of information that's available to us. But we hardly go for that information. We rather go for hearsay. We forward these messages on social media or WhatsApp that sometimes is propaganda. Does it have to do with illiteracy or is it just outright ignorance? People like to be spoon-fed. They don't like to do the work. They don't like to take their time and do research. I was reading something.  You don't investigate. Funny enough, they tell us that we don't do investigations. They come to the media and they tell us that, oh, you don't do investigation. You don't investigate. Do you do anything? Do you do anything? Even research. You want your professors to go do research. You go there and you go copy something there. If not because of all these little apps and all the websites, they are catching their little failures. But they don't have the time to actually go out there and actually do the research and hear from the main source about these persons. Ask relevant questions. Don't wait for people to come to you and start telling you this and start telling you that and start making because this is a very sensitive time. Everybody is trying their very best to appear very good. But this is the time where you have to make sure that all the information you're getting are credible information. I went on Wikipedia today and I really was amazed at the information that is out there about certain things that happened. And it was, it didn't even hold back. The 30 persons I was reading about today are like, how are these three persons still working free in Nigeria? For everything they did in the Niger Delta region. So these are some of the information that is out there for everyone of us for us to go there and read about these persons. There are credible articles online about people, not propaganda. Look for something way back that wrote about somebody. Check the person's profile. Come back and ask yourself, does this person fit into the person I want? See, Nigeria today we can shout. We know what shouting has done to us. It is until you bleed, that is when you get results. The shouting alone can never help you. Until you bleed, that is what they always wait for. We need to be able to petition our government and then hold them responsible. There were things that some persons in the House of Assembly, some persons in the Senate did or have done and that were worthy of them stepping down. But today they are still there. There are people that have held that place down like it's their own private property, like it's a equivalent land. They should live. Well, I want to say thank you to all my guests today. I want to say thank you to Katch Under the Jew. He is a special advisor to Mr. Peter Albion, Public Affairs, Emmanuel Ouccai as a broadcast journalist. Opponabot Incultire is a civil rights advocate and Gideo Logo is a legal practitioner. Thank you so much gentlemen. I don't think that this conversation should end. I think we have to continue in this conversation some other time. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Well, before we leave you on the show tonight, we have a round up on all of the highlights from this week in case you missed the show. But don't forget, go get your PVC at this teal time. INEC has extended the time for you to get your PVC.  I am Mary Anacone. Have a great weekend.


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One, got a handful extended. Two, carry another birdie. During phase three of the aerosol school, the students have learned how to tie their hip rappel seat, conduct a successful hookup, belay the fellow students, and actually conduct operations off the tower. So the students really receive three classes. First is called ground training. They receive a belay class, which teaches the students how to safety for their other rappellers. They also learn how to hook up to rappelling ropes. Then they demonstrate that they can do these things on the ground, then a 15 foot slant wall, and then they move up to the tower. They will rappel off the tower five total times. Hollywood, which is dressed just in ACUs. And Semi-combat, which is a load bearing equipment and a rifle. And then full combat showing they can rappel as a full combat equipped soldier for the Rocksack. So when they rappel, they tie their hip rappel seat. That gets inspected by a cadre member. Go up to the top of the tower.  Once they hook up, they'll place the ropes through their carabiner and lock their carabiners. They'll then get the commands to actually rappel. Once they rappel, they'll do their three breaks, which shows that they can stop and have control. They'll come all the way down, belay for their other students, and make sure that they're safe and have a safe rappel. This training is important because it gives unit commanders an option to insert by rappelling, especially from aircraft. These students have to conquer their fears if they have any of heights, and it makes them more confident that they're able to be an asset for their unit. I just encourage anybody who's interested in trying to come in their badge to come try out. Don't let a fear of heights stop you. You'll just overcome that.


Do you think, I mean, in your heart of heart, so you're noticing that A&R reps, labels are becoming just more and more concerned with social numbers and general online hype and maybe putting less of a focus on actual talent? I hate the answer to this question. Yes, I do find that. In fairness, it's a business. So if you're in the business to sell water, for example, do you find the best tasting water and bring it to market?  It's more of a business than an art form, and I hate this answer, but it's the reality. Yes, they're looking at numbers more than ever. Research is more prominent than ever. Back in the day, we would put music out based on our gut. Today, we do research. There's four different research companies that I use to see who's up and coming. What are they doing? Where are they strongest? Is Instagram their strongest platform? Is TikTok? But I'm also watching, Xavier, and this is such a great question. I'm watching the labels sign TikTok influencers, right? So during COVID, they signed 60 or 70. I can't remember how many it is, and this brilliant woman from water and music put together a spreadsheet of all these artists and what labels they signed to. And I'm watching this spreadsheet to see, okay, as the pandemic is lessening, what's happening with these artists that got signed? Are they putting out music? Are the labels getting behind them and taking them to the next level? And me, as somebody that's not a TikTok person, I only recognize three or four names on that spreadsheet. So the rest are all strangers to me. So I'm really interested to see where do their careers go? Is this really what the fans want? Do they really want to see their favorite TikTok artists put out albums? Or are the labels all kind of going in the wrong direction and signing popularity and fame and mistaking it for celibacy? That's not really a word, but are they mistaking it for what people will spend money on? I'm happy to watch people on TikTok for free. I think it's funny. Would I spend $100 at a nightclub to do that? Probably not. So I'm anxious to see what happens. But yes, digital is running it right now. Numbers really matter.


reas of overlap in people's responsibilities, so I think that a bit more clarity on individual roles and responsibilities would help the local ferry committees and communities, but all in all, our relationships seem to be reasonably effective. Okay, thank you. My final question is that the committee has heard calls for more community representation both on the boards of the ferry operators and also on the decision makers for the ferry services, so I wonder if you agree with that and how you think that that could best be achieved. Again, if it's okay, I'll start with Councillor Robertson. Well, it took us some time to get a meeting with the new chair of the David McBrain board. It took about several months to get the opportunity to sit down and talk with him, and I set that against our relationship with Hyal, for example, where the local authority meets the chair and chief officer of Hyal on a monthly basis, along with colleagues from Orkney and Shetland and Hyland, the ones that are in that area. I would have liked to have seen that kind of commitment from the chair of the David McBrain board as well to meet on a regular basis with us as local authorities. That's been a disappointment. Obviously, the issue of having islanders on the board of David McBrain, Hyal and others is well rehearsed now. Of course, we have somebody from the islands on the board of Semal now, but I can understand the argument that you need a certain expertise on the board, but you also need people with lived experience on those boards. I hope that that's something. I think that there's some potential of having that change shortly on the David McBrain board. It's important that we have island representation on boards. The problem that we have currently is that we listen to all those people who have a view and who apologise all the time. Those apologies have no substance, really. I've always argued that we should transfer quite a large chunk of Transport Scotland ferris division to aniland, and then they'll realise the difficulties that we face at times. I agree with you that island representation is very important, particularly on that topic. Are there other panellists who would like to contribute to that, Scott Reid? Yes, thanks. We have a very advantageous position as local councils in being able to engage directly through elected members who oversee our day-to-day work, but also consultations and actually meeting with the communities. Recently, I just finished a consultation in Danone. We're on-going consultations just now in Cochregan. We've had meetings on Iona, and we've also had meetings quite regularly on Islay. I'm going to come to Dura, because one of the points that was made in the earlier session from Orkney is the consultations in the community. We listen very regularly to the communities, but I share the frustration and the fact that we don't have any more to offer. We get the revenue funding at the moment, which is I take it that it's supposed to be to fully fund our revenue budgets, but Argyll and Bute certainly haven't quite got there yet. That's the intention, but that's to maintain a level of service that our communities would say is not good enough at the moment. There's one thing listening to the community council in the ferry group from Dura, but they're not hearing very much from us, except that we can't do any more than we possibly can, because we're at the limit of what we can do, so we really need to find some way of building in and future-proofing what we do so that we can listen effectively better with the communities. Murray, do you have anything to add on that point? Nothing major, just one comment that I've heard from various dealings with all sorts of people involved in the world of ferries, and that some people seem to think that there's too many small groups set up and it's like pulling all that representation from these small groups under one to get one sort of discussion rather than having so many individual small committees so everybody's voice can be heard at the appropriate forum through with engagement of local authorities and government. Russell, your opportunity to add anything? Yeah, thank you. I think it's my point of view would be that ferries are a lifeline for our two islands, Cumbria and Arran. I think there is no other way on or off the island. The ferries are so important to them in their everyday life in terms of their health and wellbeing and their social experiences and their general quality of life. I think it's very important to place a high degree of importance on delivering services with communities rather than to them, and that is certainly a mantra that North Ayrshire Council has been adopting in the creation and delivery of our two 10-year island plans. I think the voice of the community is really important and being part of the solution is empowering and provides a mechanism for ensuring greater buy-in and ownership. Listening to the life experiences and needs of local communities is very, very important for co-produced and co-belivered solutions. Thanks very much, Ash. Jackie, I think the next question is yours. I was just to ask the panel in general, so if you can just raise your hands, if any of you have been involved in Project Neptune and if you have, do you have any views on some of its recommendations? For example, it's been muted, a possible merger between Seymal and Calmark Ferris, so if anybody would like to—Councillor Robertson. We've had Angus Campbell, chair of the community board, give a presentation to council two or three weeks ago, which was very well attended by elected members. We went down the occasional rabbit hole, of course, when we were because of all the issues with Ferris, we tend to get on into issues that are not part of history myth. I note that it's a difficult task for them to cover all those islands north and south before the end of April, I believe. It's quite a difficult job for them. We had argued at the time that they seemed to be pointing at a kind of Seymal Calmark coming together in the report. You've decided this is what's going to happen. It's not kind of opened out for communities to give a view on it. We've argued that maybe we should look at the likes of Seymal, for example, who have the experience of boats and infrastructure and so on. Just get rid of Transport Scotland out of the equation together, maybe, and have Seymal overlooking the contract going forward. We just feel that Transport Scotland do not have the expertise at the moment to challenge Calmark on the various decisions that they make. I'm very conscious of time, convener. Can I just ask the rest of the panel if they have an opposite view of that and would like to come in, or would you all just be in agreement with Councillor Robertson? I'm well aware of rabbit holes as a former councillor, myself, Councillor Robertson. I'm happy to go back to you if nobody asked that. I'm just looking to see if everyone agrees with Councillor Robertson or whether they're not going to say that they disagree with them. I think that we're there on that one. We'll take it if they do agree. Monica, I think that you've got a question and then we'll come to Mark. Okay, thank you, convener. A question for each of our witnesses. What needs to happen to ensure that there is actual co-ordination of ferry bus and rail services, including timetabling, through ticketing and co-ordination of action during service disruption, sort of packed a lot in there, but yeah, just keen to get your views on that. Scott, I'll come to you first. We have recently, as part of the Danunguruk Kilcregan reference group and working group, taken an action fairly early to see if we could get a cohesion. Simply put, there's no point in getting off a ferry. There's no point in getting on a ferry if you can't get off it at the other end. It has to be matched up. When you get off the ferry, waiting an hour for a train or a bus is not really helping matters in that way. So what needs to happen is that there needs to be co-ordinated, joined up, built into all the OBCs and the stags that this is something you need to look at. It becomes very complicated because there's different bus owners, there's the rail that you make a train late because the ferries late that type of thing. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. So the big thing that's needed is energy and a commitment to actually address the problem and get it because there's enough clever minds involved to have a holistic view to get the right people round the table so that when we have the vessel, we know the capacities, we have the infrastructure for meeting the vessel when it gets to the shore, that we have the trains and the buses and the onward active links as well as the road network to progress that journey onwards. As the colleagues from Shetland said, when you get off the ferry, that's the start of your journey to where you want to go in a lot of cases. So it's just a matter of getting the right people round the table with the remit and the authority to make the decisions on the timetables. So at the moment, are the wrong people round the table or are there people missing from the table? I think it's just not happening at the moment. For example, in Dunedin to Gwrwch, there was the more central travel look but we still need to make the effort in that process to get the right people from the trains and from the bus networks to come in and then sit down with CalMac and deal with the timetables and see if there's common ground that we can make. From my experience so far, it's not that it's been stopped, it's just that we're not taking advantage of what we probably should do. We've done quite a bit with my high trans hat on and some of the technology is way over my head, I have to say. I know Ms Hyslop in the meeting we had in Carnish, you raised this, and I have sent on the information to the committee on the Gohai app, so I'll just say what it says. Technology exists today in the form of the Gohai Mobility as a service platform that enables passengers to plan, book and pay for transport services to a single app. The model offered through the app currently includes AIAD by Israel, e-bike, folding back, car club taxi, demand responsive transport and ferry. The only ferry operator who I've been able to provide a data service to enable integration into the app is Serco Northlink, but I believe that there have been discussions this week with CalMac on it. So there is something out there, there is movement on it but as I said the technology just is slightly beyond me at the moment, but it is moving in the right direction. The technology exists to meet this happen. Yes, you just need to get organisations like CalMac et cetera to bid into it, basically. Thank you. Come to Muddy Beiningen to Russell. Yeah, nothing more to add on that from myself. Thank you. I think one of the previous speakers indicated already that the ferry has really just worn leger along her journey, so there needs to be a greater co-ordination between all transport modes, including connecting modes on the islands and on the mainland. On both Arran and Cumbria, bus services are largely time to meet the ferry on arrival, and this work to align is positive but is generally undermined by issues with the reliability in ferry services. So reliability issues with the ferry can have significant knock-on impact for the wider transport network. For example, on Arran and Cumbria, if the buses wait for the late-runner ferries and the timetables not met, which impacts the buses serving wider communities on the islands and on Arran, those bus services are also critical to school transport. I think the impact of pan-reliable ferry services disrupts residents, school pupils and tourists to an extent. It is also the case that residents and visitors that are going off are drawing their being inconvenienced by aligning rail travel, which is similarly synchronised just now with the expected ferry arrival times. I think that there is probably a better need for improved public transport at Clineg. It is fair to say that the outcome that we are experiencing just now is more cars on and off of the island due to the frailties in the reliability of the ferries, probably not as a result of not trying to align other modes of transport with the ferries but the frailty and reliability of the services just now. Thank you. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Monica. Mark, you have some questions, I believe. Yeah, just to wrap things up, convener. I wanted to ask you about the island's connectivity plan and how engaged you've been in that. My understanding is that there have been some consultations on individual aspects, so a plan for vessels and ports kind of separates the rest of the plan, so I just wanted to get your kind of insight into how that plan is being developed, your role in it, whether it's progressing in the right way or whether there's better more fundamental questions that need to be asked as part of that plan. So, throwing it open to yourselves, can I start with Councillor Robertson? Well, we've just recently seen, as elected members, just in the last few days seen a draft, but our officers have been involved in it over the last while. I can't, at this stage, say much more than that. It's part of our committee series this week, actually, to discuss, so I'll leave it there just now. I would say that the general consensus has been that it has been a slightly missed opportunity, in the fact that it hasn't engaged with local authority ferry services. It's concentrated, particularly on the Calmaximal routes. When we get down to the communities on the islands and an island connectivity plan, or could have had more input from the islands and the communities that are served purely by local authority ferries, what we don't want to see and we have quite a danger of seeing is a council operated ferry. For example, Dura is becoming the poor cousin to the brand new large Calmax ferry coming into Port Asgig with the new infrastructure that's being paid for through the public port in one way or another. The opportunity is not quite being available to the residents of Dura, who are seeing slightly less of the whisky and the economic benefit that they could do if we went down that line. Sorry, are you saying that the connectivity plan is too narrow? Yes. I think that what could have been done was to involve the local authority ferry services a little bit more at the start. Can I get from a mario highland council perspective? Yes, thank you. I think that the islands connectivity plan was disappointing and too narrow. It was my understanding that it was going to be a successor plan to the Scottish ferries plan and there's no reference to any local authority. I think that that's disappointing. I don't think that it's really a connectivity plan when it's missing out about 50 per cent. The Scotland, from a coron perspective, you go across on the coron ferry and you connect with part of the net. When I cross on the coron ferries, blissfully unaware, they just think that it's the same ferry except that it's got head council badge on the site, but then it was across on a calmock ferry to link up with Mal. It's all one network, so it doesn't really strike me as a connectivity plan for all the other vessels leaving out local authorities. I think that there's opportunities for the islands connectivity plan to explore some of the options that we've talked about today, particularly around the traditional large bespoke vehicles versus the use of smaller, cheaper and more flexible environmental credentials of the ferry services as well. I think that there's opportunity there. I'm just clarifying in my brain that there's still time to influence the outcome of the connectivity plan, so your disappointment should probably be pointed in the direction of getting further engagement in it, is my understanding. I'm noticing everyone's nodding, so no doubt you'll be telling them exactly what you want in it. Thank you, Mark, and now I come to the deputy commune of Fiona. I'd like to ask Councillor Robertson in particular what sideline you have for future funding of ferries for services, the Western Isles and what discussions you've had with Transport Scotland about that. I mean, your discussions with the current transport minister have been very good, I have to say, over the last while. She's engaged well with us, has been willing to come to the islands to meet, and we've had quite a lot of teens meetings over the last while bearing in mind some of the problems with her, so she's engaged very well with us, and we obviously had the very, very good news, you know, for a community used and harassed that have shared a ferry for 58 years to get the announcement that we were getting two vessels, which we've been arguing for some time now. The situation with ferries at the moment is bad, of course, but what we needed to see was to give the community confidence that things were going to improve, and I think we've got that confidence now. Clearly the announcement a few days ago that these vessels would appear in 25, which was probably a year earlier than first thought, was a huge encouragement to us. Of course, we've got the two island vessels, one due to appear in October 24 and one early 25, and that will help the network. We're not quite sure what's going to happen in relation to Glen Sannox and 802, but potentially we could have six new vessels in the next few years, which are certainly going to make a huge difference to our communities up and down the west coast. To go back, the engagement with the minister has been particularly good, the current transport minister in terms of engagement. I think that with our help and seamals getting past the argument that we've been putting forward for years in terms of the 58 years that we've been sharing a vessel has given us great encouragement, great confidence in the service going forward. Thank you, and then looking forward, knowing that you're going to have these vessels, looking then at what you were previously saying about the different relationships, do you then see that the role, therefore, for Government and or Transport Scotland is simply about the tendering for the contracts and the provision of capital for on-going very procurement and that, therefore, what that then should be decentralised is the management of the ferry service in terms of its accountability and relationships with ferry users and local councils. Does that therefore lead to the situation where the management might be unbundled, but the tender and contract might be a larger tender contract, but it's the day-to-day management, month-to-month management of the service that could perhaps be decentralised if there's sufficient ferries and good quality new ferries, et cetera, to run those services? Is that what your future vision is? That's exactly it, yes. I couldn't put it any better. Okay, and obviously that would have an impact potentially on our colleagues in North Ayrshire and Agriol and Bute. What's your view? Does that reflect the way that you see things for the future? Maybe Scott first, and then North Ayrshire. Yes, I think that there would be clear and logical correlation between the closer you get to the communities and the timetable and the reaction to disruptions, the better the ferry service will be. As the council has said, the perception is all about the confidence that the customers have that the ferry will be running, that they can rely on it, and that confidence is lacking at the moment. So the closer that actual day-to-day running of ferry services are to the communities who use them, the better. As far as the management then goes, I think that you may have a slight uphill struggle in the fact that, if only the budget and the money comes from a central point, there needs to be some kind of an expertise there to understand that the money has been in your getting-best value for the money that you're spending. We certainly, on the short term, need to have reassurance for our lifeline services that the revenue funding will continue and maybe even allow a small envelope for either capital investment programmes and improvements to the actual services so that we can react to the feedback that we're getting from our communities. Certainly, I have some kind of commitment or some kind of mechanism for capital investment programmes for the vessels, because the lead time for infrastructure and the lead time for vessels is so long that it's not good enough to be reactionary. Which is a challenge of where the expertise and accountability can lie. Finally, because I'm very conscious of time, if I can maybe ask Russell McCutcheon if he wants to comment on what he's just heard. Thank you. I'll keep it brief. I don't have enough of a lot more to add other than I agree with the previous speaker. I think for me it's all about outcomes. It's about the reliability fitness for use and the deliverability of the ferry services that meet the needs of local people, islanders, tourists and businesses working on and off the island. For me it's listening to the voice of the community and taking on board their lived experiences to develop a service that is going forward as sustainable. You wouldn't be that fussed if the management then was separate between yourselves and the Western Isles, for example? No. Thank you very much and thank you to all the witnesses for giving evidence this morning. I think it's really been interesting questions of reliability, punctuality, cost-effectiveness and a connected service with local input have all been at the forefront, I guess, of everyone's contributions. It's been very helpful to us and I'd like to thank you for taking part. I was going to suspend the meeting, but I'm very conscious of time, so if I could ask the witnesses to quietly move away, as we push on with our agenda, I'd be grateful. I reiterate thank you very much for all your contributions. So our next item is gender item 5, which is consideration of a negative instrument, the packaging waste data reporting Scotland regulations 2023. The instrument has been laid under a negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul them. I can say that no motions to annul have been laid. Does any member have any comments on the instruments? No. Okay, so no-one has any comments and therefore I'd like to invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to the instrument. Are we agreed? We are agreed. That concludes the public part of our meeting and I'd like to move straight into private session.


Okay, so we have our title bar from the previous episode, if you haven't watched it you can follow the link in the description, now let's improve this a little bit, instead of having everything here on signals and with text instead of the icons, I did here quickly some vectors with the images so I can export them, get them into Godot, they have a transparent background but since I'm working with white I wanted to have something, this program is Figma, it's free to use but it's not open source, so yeah I'm not gonna go into making icons, you can probably download them from any place as well but they are quite simple, so I exported those and save them here and Godot as PNGs, so now for our buttons, instead of going with the text let's go with the close for the close one and minimize, let's remove the text, let's load an icon, minimize okay we have these two buttons now, so since we want them to be always on this corner and organize, we can create one of the control nodes which is container box container and H horizontal box container, this will have them all very tidy and organized in the corner for us, so okay let's see, let's put this close one inside and minimize inside, okay so we have them now, the order of the buttons is gonna be the order of this list so if you are you know on mac and you want to have them on this side you can change the order but yeah, okay so now that we have this element let's make it as small as possible which is going to respect the size of those buttons and now as a layout let's anchor it in the top right corner, so we have now the buttons there and I think it's a bit better organized, okay so this is a pair bones toolbar you know like how we have it and let's say we want to change the color for this for this toolbar in the future and we want to reuse it, so what would be a way of making it, what we can do on any script is create some variables that will be editable from the inspector itself, the same way you can change the color from here or you add the alignment from here you can create your own as well basically you need to type the name of the variable that you want to say background color and now how the default value is going to be let's make it black and now we have this variable so to expose this to the inspector you can export at the beginning and in parenthesis you need to add the type of variable that is going to be this in this case gonna be a color so now that we have this if we save it and we select our title bar we see that we have this variable here this is great for making tools for other programmers on the team or if you want to keep things easier to manage for instance this title bar now is an entire scene and when I'm on a program and I use this title bar and I included you have this value here so if I modify it and I want to go back to the default I can do it from there and you can have different properties without modifying the main scene now that we have this new background color setting let's do that every time that we modify it the color node that we have here the correct color is going to be equal to the background that we selected okay so let's say we want the color to be green and let's try it out yeah it's green but it's not very useful when you are working with an editor like this and you don't see like the changes happening how can we make those changes to happen instantly well to do that you can add at the beginning of your script the word tool and once you add this this word tool this will expose all this code to the editor so this is the editor it will run here as well as on the game so now let's create a function that updates that for every time you change it do that doing the set get and now you name a new function which is going to be update background so in this new function we are gonna get a value which is this one is gonna be sent as the first argument so let's go ahead and modify the variable that we have saved to the value that we set on the editor and now we can do the color right color equal to the background color we can remove this now and we save it so now that when we are here we can see the changes happening already and if I modify this value you see it changing as well on the editor this is great for when you want to customize different elements so you don't have to touch the children so okay so let's go back to default one okay we have now a selector for the color and let's start doing something that we couldn't do in our previous video which is the maximize function let's add a new button here that will enable us to maximize it let's create a button inside here we can actually clone this one with control d i duplicated let's call it maximize button let's go ahead and do the anchor again top right okay let's set the icon now title bar icons maximize okay and we want to disconnect this one and create a new one new signal on the title bar on maximize button press so there is already a function in the os window maximize you see here if you want to check the documentation of of anything you can press control like I did press click and now here we can go to control here window maximize and we see here is window maximize set window maximized okay so we can use this function from the os class so os set maximize true so when we press that we should be maximizing it oh set window maximized sorry my bad okay now it should work let's go and yeah we get it maximized problem is we cannot change these values and there's a lot of cases that we need to update so let's go to restore the value we have the is windows maximized function so let's use this one to test it out and to toggle it oh if it's maximized let's set it to true sorry forgot the os here okay else we set it to false so this way like you will check and if it is maximized sorry let's check it false and if it is not let's go let's try it out pick small big small yay it is working okay problem is I am think that the screen recorder is not liking this because it's detecting the window as maximized so apologies for that but it is working as intended I just have a problem with my screen recorder okay next thing we want to do is to update the icon so we select the let's rename this one let's rename it to buttons okay that should work let's also remove the button side from it since we know everything inside here will be buttons okay this looks cleaner okay so now let's select from the buttons the maximized one and the icon is gonna be if it is false which means that it's a default one we want to show this one and otherwise maximized icon let's gonna show the restore one let's see okay sorry I forgot we need to load this before doing that that way you're telling uh got out to load it as a resource because since it is an image you need to get it there okay and maximize it okay oh the screen recorder is getting it right now that's great apologies again for the problem so now we have the maximize the minimize and the close what else do we need well on every good title bar we want a label with the name of the program so let's add a label here which is gonna be my title bar and let's make this the entire size vertical line to center let's add some room there and since it's in the top left corner we don't need to do much more we have the title bar there okay so if we are using this on a regular program let's pretend this is my program and you're using the title bar as a separate instance you can either have editable children or let's continue making this a tool so let's create another export variable which is gonna be a string gonna be the title the default is gonna be my program my title bar and set get update title let's create now this function with a value and select the label which we're gonna call title here title label so it's more precise so title label text is gonna be equal to the value and and the title is gonna be equal to the value as well let's see so now we have here my title bar yay okay let's go back to the default okay so this is the one we have as a custom scene and on our serious business program we can go here and say this is the welcome screen and we can set the color for it because we want to have here a red title bar for some reason okay next potential thing that you can add is an icon as we have which is gonna be just an image and on the next episode we're gonna see how to do the resizing of the window right now this custom window doesn't have any resizing except for the maximizing and we want to change that I want to make a shout out to the rocky dude who posted on reddit and he built an awesome title bar so you can see here and it's great so if you have any creation you want me to display on my videos I would love to it's great to see what you guys are making in godot so if you want to send me something I'm really really excited to see it so you can see he was able to add also the icon and everything which is nice let's hope that our next tutorial helps him complete the entire thing and we get the maximized and the resizing there and I would like to thank everyone for the comments and if you have any suggestion to any others that you would like me to cover write it on the comments I would like to thank my patreons it's awesome to have your support and see you guys next time


Several peculiarities of teaching EFL in a kindergarten. English as a global language, very young learners are becoming an increasingly bigger market in China. Children as very young learners are in a golden period of language learning. Relevant research supports children have a natural ability to learn a foreign language in the same way they learned their mother language. That's why most people are aware that children learn a language more quickly and effectively than adults. So when can children start to learn a foreign language? The answer must be the earlier the better. Kindergarten teachers' qualities For children in the kindergarten, whether they can meet a good teacher or not will influence directly their language learning to success. A qualified teacher should be kind and patient, really likes teaching, cares more about the learning of the students. Additionally should be enabled to build and encourage children's motivation by making classes enjoyable, varied, and interesting. Anticipated problems for teachers For teachers facing a group of very young learners is also a challenge for teaching. Normally young learners only have short attention spans and have no sense of rules or discipline. Perhaps giving an English name to each child will be a good start to establish rapport with them. With this English name children will be happy to communicate with each other. Children's English name should be used very often during teaching and learning to get children's attention. Creating English learning environment In addition the teacher can create learning surroundings by English posters, pictures with English words, or dialogues. The enjoyable and interesting atmosphere will be helpful to promote children's motivation for English learning. Before class if I were the teacher, I will talk with the children and will try to learn about what they are interested in, what sensitive period they are at, such as visual, space or imitation, etc. Then I will think carefully what kind of materials I can choose to teach and how can I make my class interesting and attractive. I will consider from following aspects. Visual teaching aids such as objects, pictures, cards, and posters may create a real language atmosphere for children and also attract children's attention. Children's interests and motivation will be enhanced as well as children can step into a better understanding of the language. Search some materials to supplement from a coursebook which will be graded to the level of the students. Such as games, rhymes, songs, chants, cartoons, and holiday celebrations, which offered original language environment. The children in the kindergarten are at a sensitive period of imitation, therefore these activities will improve children's English language sense especially for the children from non-native speaker countries. Additionally reward the children's performance, they will be likely to learn more willingly and become more confidently in English speaking by teacher's affirmation and encouragement. Teacher's behaviors patterned such as eye contact, facial expressions, voice, etc. The greater the variations of teacher's behaviors, the greater the effectiveness. Assigning different active tasks such as role plays, discussions, retelling a story by given words, which give children further understandings of the lesson. Meanwhile children can practice what they have learned in class. Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today. Overall teaching EFL in a kindergarten will be a challengeable task. Teachers should focus on not only teaching methods but also children's psychology. To be observant on children is also one of the factors being a qualified teacher. For these very young learners, they also need a stress-free environment for English learning. Teachers should help and encourage them to join class actively. It is important that children have fun while learning. Here on the left for more interesting teaching tips for getting certified to teach English abroad and online.


Okay, I think we can get started now. So thanks everybody for joining today. This is the Telcom user group monthly call. Just a reminder that this call switches between more APEC friendly, which is this call, which is at 11 UTC and next month, it'll be the more US friendly time at 1500 UTC. Before we get started, I just wanna quickly run through the agenda. So pointing out some of the upcoming events that we have, but is there anything anyone wants to add to the agenda before we jump in today? Okay, I know, is why Linda Lee from China Telecom on the call today? I know she wanted to present last month. Okay, it doesn't seem like they're on the call today, even though they listed themselves in the attendees. So I guess we'll just skip that point. So upcoming events that we wanna point out, there's the Etsy plug-fest in February and the CNF test suite developed by the CNCF, will also be there to test out the cloud nativeness of cloud native network functions. And so if you're planning on attending, look forward to testing out how cloud native your CNF is. And then we have kind of two things coming up today or two things on the agenda for today. The first is a white paper that was originally started by Jeffrey Seilins around telecommunications challenges and drivers. And this is something he kind of wants to move forwards on in the new year. And so if we look into this doc, it was originally started in 2019 and kind of the goal of this white paper is to dive into kind of what is driving cloud native transitions in telecommunications and also kind of what the problem statements or what the problems are as telcos try to go more cloud native. And so what we're looking for is people to contribute to this and continue to develop some of the ideas in here. So he's kind of laid out the initial framework of different challenges and different drivers for the cloud native transition. And what he's looking for right now is people that are interested in helping write up different sections. So if anybody on the call today wants to kind of like volunteer for one of these sections say for the generic telco one of the challenges and going cloud native is integration into existing systems, tool sprawl operation I operate rationalizing new tech layer two, layer three integration. There's lots of different things on here. If there's anything else, please feel free to jump in. Does anybody have any like questions about this so far? Hello. Yeah. Hello. My name is Asis and today is the first call I'm attending the user group. So I would like to ask the question the challenges mentioned in the document are taken from the vendor perspective or it's just the user group like they have come up with the requirements from like from the past experiences or taking the cloud native journey to forward Yeah. So this, yeah, absolutely. So Jeffrey Salons is at charter communication. So he's an operator. So I think this is focusing on the operator perspective. So service providers and operators go more cloud native. What challenges do they have? And part of it is kind of understanding the hurdles that we need to get over and learning from the NFV transition. Okay. And the other thing like can we introduce more challenges or is it just have to be like we have to work on these challenges itself? No, no, no. You can absolutely add more challenges. So if you think there's important ones that are missing please feel free to add them. We'd love to have your contribution. Because like what I see in the generic telco in the NFV section like these are more towards the wired infrastructure like it's more towards the core network side or more towards the like the transport network basically it looks like that way. But it doesn't capture the RAN specific like operations or the what goes into RAN or like in the more importantly the protocol stuff of like a E node B or a G node B in that sense it doesn't have those challenges listed here. So. Okay. Is there something specific that you want to put down in the document? Right now, no, no. Right now, I won't put it down anything. I'm just asking like can we introduce more challenges or like can we reduce a new category of like making a RAN section for the for the NFV like cloud native journey for the RAN also not from the just NFV perspective or the transport network or yeah. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So do you mind if I put your name in here as like you suggested this as a section? No, no, it doesn't matter. There's no need of any name or anything. No, no, it doesn't matter. Please, yeah. Okay. I mean, this is a common document, right? I mean, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, if you have more ideas or want to contribute something, please feel free to flush out this section. I'm sure other people will start contributing it to it too. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Does anybody else have any questions on this document? Okay. So if you're interested in adding more, please feel free to start contributing to the doc. Obviously anybody can start writing in there. The second part is so Tal from Red Hat is currently sleeping because it's about five a.m. for him right now in the U.S. So I'm going to give a brief presentation of something that he's interested in talking about. So apologies Tal, if I don't do it full justice. But so what he's interested in kind of talking about or starting up is kind of a group to talk about Kubernetes networking orchestration. And I guess when we say networking, this isn't like layer seven, it's more layer two, layer three. It's because obviously there's already SIG networking in the CNCF and the Kubernetes networking SIG, but those are more a little bit different than what he wants to talk about in this. And so starting, I guess the starting point is like Kubernetes networking is to bear because there's really only one layer three network for all the pods. One of the fundamental concepts within the Kubernetes is that all pods can talk to all the pods on the local network. And you can also create services, but that's not the complete way to do it. And so there's currently four different parts that are core to Kubernetes networking, which is the CNI plugin, which is in charge of IPAM and internet connectivity. Qproxy allows services to have stable virtual IPs, DNS, which is decoupled from IPAM and optionally there's also the ingress controller. But the problem, one of the other problems is that Kubernetes has no option for multi-cluster networking. This problem is being worked on in the multi-cluster SIG, but it's not a solved problem or has a really good solution yet. And the real problem, especially for this group, is that this isn't quite good enough for telcos or for network functions. This really, this single altering network is pretty insufficient for telco needs. A lot of telcos have wishes for special types of network, including there too, hardware acceleration, WAN, RAM, and other exotic networks, let's say. People have tried to kind of go around these shortcomings with different types of solutions like multis, NSM, or DanM. But the problem is, is each of these have to be configured more at the platform level. And so therefore deploying a network function actually begins like way, way, way before. It really starts when you're deploying the platform too, because it's so tied to that. And so a CNF can't be just packaged as a Kubernetes workload, because it's reliant so much on how the platform is set up too. And so it can be challenging to orchestrate network services at scale across these platforms. And so if we go back to previously previous clouds, like OpenStack, one of the key focuses there was isolation and portability between environments. And so the really big difference there is that layer three IP networks and subnets are actually resources owned by the workloads. And it's actually included in the platform. And so a virtual machine can connect to any number of networks rather than just the one main one. And so therefore the networking providers like Neutron actually do the heavy lifting rather than having to rely on the actual network function. And so what Tol wants to discuss is how we can kind of bridge the gap between these two systems in Kubernetes. And so one idea that he had is to bring back kind of the portability. So allowing us to move CNFs from platform to platform. And so the idea is, what if a CNF could request the type of network that it needed through a Kubernetes CRD, then the platform provider could know what's available and can handle the provisioning and configuration. And thus the provider can give visibility into how networking is being used by the app, by the node or by the cluster. And so in a way to make this cloud native in a narrative like automated fashion is they can be themselves become Kubernetes workloads. But one of the problems is a lot of providers would need to have privileged access to host capabilities. And so one thing that Tol kind of POC was this project KNAP which enables like cloud native providers for a multis. And so what Tol wants to do is set up a group that is interested in discussing these problems within Kubernetes. And so what he wants to set up is a little Kubernetes networking orchestration task force. And so what he's going to do is have a meeting to discuss this. One of the first ideas is to have a white paper under this telecom user group to discuss kind of what's missing and what should be done. And figure out the exact configuration of this group. So one idea is to have it fall under the telecom user group or create a new SIG within CNCF. And so I think this is kind of like a walk crawl runs this stuff or sorry crawl walk run. And this is still very much in the crawl phase. It's the initial things. This is he's kind of stated what the problem statement is. And now the idea is to bring together a group of people that are interested in it to discuss what the potential solutions might be. So if you're interested in being more involved in this please contact Tal, his emails here. And once again, sorry Tal if I didn't do this exact justice. But yeah, if you want to know more please feel free to reach out to Tal as he'll be kind of working on this going forwards. Are there any questions? Okay, that's it. Is there anything anybody else wants to bring up today before we close? Okay, thanks everybody for joining today. Just a reminder, the next meeting is next month on February 1st at 1500 UTC. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks Will. Thank you.