Welcome back. It's still the breakfast on TV Africa and we will be focusing on politics specifically as regards the election matters. What the PDP opposed in the nomination of President Mohamed Buhari's aide Loretta Anurche as one of the commission and nominees for the independent national electoral commission, they have even threatened legal action. Yes, they have done more than threatened legal action. They have called on all Nigerians to embrace every legitimate means including civic action to protest against what's happening in the Senate right now. So we know that Loretta Anurche is a CAD CARE member of the All Progressives Congress. You know, we know where her party loyalty lies. We know that she has, her name was forwarded to the Senate for confirmation as Ainek, Ainek commissioned her about eight months ago that was rejected. So last year or about October, Buhari forwarded her name again for confirmation and screened exactly. So now it's coming up once more. You know, lots of reactions to this, especially within the opposition people's democratic party. They're basically saying that the fact that she is an APC member hasn't changed. So what's the essence of bringing this up when this was rejected about eight months ago? Looking at this whole issue morally, I'm trying to understand how it would play out because it is really something mind boggling to think that as a member of the All Progressives Congress and over time you have spoken so loudly, passionately, dispassionately as well concerning President Mohammed Buhari and of course the All Progressives Congress, even if you take like our analysts said during the paper review, even if you have shown some sort of oath and not to be impartial, the fact is that you have your antecedent. How are we sure that you are going to be non-partisan? How are we sure that you are supposed to be impartial? How are we also sure that you are going to be independent of all that concerns election matters? And of course the All Progressives Congress. Exactly. That's the challenge because there are no guarantees as to the impartiality of what Loretta Onoche might represent if she becomes an commissioner. So that's why lots of Nigerians... Another thing, looking at it Annette, if she eventually is creamed and is a member of the Commissioner of the Independent National Electrical Commission, does that also mean that she would stop being a member of the APC, would she actually leave that particular party just because she's now a member or a commissioner of the Independent National Electrical Commission? How does it really work? Yes, really, how does it work? These are questions we really need to ask. Would this be a condition for her to be screened and confirmed as Inaq Chairman, for her to actually defect to another party, or for her to actually just pull out of all these police affiliations? Would this be one of the preconditions for her confirmation? There should be some conditions before anyone is actually appointed to be part of the Independent National Electrical Commission. Exactly, and that's why the PDP is just against this. They're saying, let me read a quote from Ola Bojigno here, PDP spokesman. He's basically saying that their intent and their purpose is to preserve the sanity and credibility of Inaq and that the APC would never allow Senator Lawan and his APC to smuggle a fox into Inaq's ship pen in their beach to corrupt and further desecrate the commission. And they say that they would never allow the APC to derail their national efforts towards free, fair and credible processes in their country. They went on to say that President Muhammad al-Buhari is basically trying to perpetuate misrule. You know, his misrule beyond 2020, his misrule beyond 2020, his misrule beyond 2020, his misrule beyond 2020, his misrule beyond 2023. So this is an allegation that the People's Democratic Party is making that the reason, the only motive why President Muhammad al-Buhari is insistent on Loretta Onochi as Inaq Chiamman or Inaq Commissioner is so that he can rule beyond 2023. I really don't see how that will work because our constitution does not provide for presidential race or candidate or beyond two terms. So we really don't know how that will work. But he went on to accuse Lawan of, you know, trying to be like a puppet to the APC, accusing him of not being independent, of being biased, you know, trying to say that what he's doing is an impeachable offense, that basically is a gross violation of Nindres Constitution and just basically saying everything that is wrong with, you know, the act of putting forward Loretta Onochi's name as an Inaq Commissioner. Okay, he went on to say that our party reminds him, Senator Lawan, that the reason that forced his hands to stand down on a chase voted nomination eight months ago have neither changed nor abated. The reasons are still sticking and they are not far fetched. Quote, he says that in case Lawan needs to be reminded, paragraph 14 of the third shadow of the 1999 Constitution as amended forbids a person involved in partisan politics to hold office as a member of INAQ. The Constitution clearly stipulates what is required for anyone to be part of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Indeed, these are the real issues that we have to begin to debate to find out exactly why does the President, you know, once Loretta Onochi approved and confirmed as INAQ Commissioner. We know we now have a public affairs analyst, Izikal Eiatok. Good morning, Mr. Eiatok. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, thanks for having me again. Yes. All right, we've been looking at, we've just been discussing the issue that we mentioned earlier, you know, when we were looking at of the press, the issue of the nomination of Loretta Onochi as a Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission. We've tried to analyze the moral justification and of course, constitutionally, because the PDP clearly stated what the Constitution says. In case Lawan needs to be reminded, paragraph 14 of the third shadow of the 1999 Constitution as amended forbids a person involved in partisan politics to hold office as a member of INAQ. And I'm sure the Senate President, as the Costodian or law maker, clearly knows what the Constitution of Nigeria says. You know, we started this discussion in the morning. I tell it to people that this, what concerns me is what really motivates people to take public office. We really need to look into that very, very, very seriously. Mr. President is not just a president. There are one, two, three things that stand out about it. Number one is I was a former head of state. So he understands what it means. He should understand what it means to be the leader of a country. Though he was so at a military time, but even at a military time, leadership is global. Whether you are in the army, leadership is leadership. Whether you are head of a corporate body, leadership is leadership. Whether you are in a democratic setting, you should understand that leadership is about organizing the system to the best interest of the constituents of that system. Okay? So he heard that he's not naive. He's not, he's not, he's not new to the public. He's been a head of state before. Second is that he's wanted to be a president on four occasions. The first three didn't work out. The last one worked out. Okay? So if you've done something three times, I've contested twice to be a government. As of today, I should be able to tell people what it is, what it means for you to want to be a governor. It means you have the resources of the people. It means you have the life of the people. It means you have the hopes of the people for you to manage so that at the end of your tenure, the people are better off. It's about the people. It's all about me wanting to be. If it's about this now, whatever, who built your company? Can't be the CEO of your company and they can do what you wish. But when you are the head of an institution, you're not the owner of that institution. You know? And again, in government, before we talk in terms of the processes and the evolutions, there were times that you had, you know, warlords who were kings and they conquered territories. It was about 10. It was their domain. The superintendent over those territories, they were the lords, they were the kings. But this is a democracy where the leader of that democracy is the chief servant. And on the line word is servant. Why am I saying all these things? For Mr. President to mix it in, what am I called? I choose to call mistakes for my own sanity. I think I find it difficult to come down to the issue in question. Please, does Mr. President not understand that my name is expected to be a fair, unbiased, after running three times, failing, calling jagged names, and all sorts of things, being very unhappy that he was badly treated, assuming that he was maltreated, that the system was unfair to him, seeking justice, going as far as to the Supreme Court. He should understand what it means like to be on the other side of the divide. And what's fair is fair. He's a man of integrity. He should understand the concept of fairness. Why would you, of all people, want to have your media aid as an on fire in INAG? Exactly, Mr. INAG. That really is my question, Mr. INAG. What do you think Buhari might be thinking, President Muhammad Buhari might be thinking, that motivated him to send Loretta Onoucher's name, who's a cadre member of the APC, as an INAG commissioner? When the party, when INAG in itself, you know, has the word independence as it should be? Two things. The first one might not be very nice. And that's that, to what extent is Mr. President aware? He said, oh, he signed the letter. I'm happy to hear. But let me tell you something. And I should say this advice said, I think that there are many letters. I think that there are many letters coming from the President, President, that Mr. President, we need to draw a line between Mr. President and President. And nothing makes this more subtle than a question asked by the Secretary to go made for the Federation. A man who occupied the office that is like the engine room of the presidency. And Babachi Lauer, when he asked me a question, he retorted, who is presidency? That question is instructing. And Nigerians should not just laugh over it like we do. Who is presidency? We need to understand what presidency is and what presidency. So my question is, how many of the documents that come out of presidency really have the scrutiny of Mr. President? That he signs a letter. There are two types of signatures. One could be electronic signature and that electronic signature could come one way or the other. One is that authorize you to go ahead and take a decision for me on my behalf. I don't know how it's done. The second is that Mr. President has a way of trusting people. One of my friends told me a very, very big person in government. He said once I'm rushing to the car and the print documents for me to sign, I never sign those documents. Because they would have worked with you, understand when to give you something that you don't need to read through. They make it like an urgency and they're like, okay, have you read through it? Yes, I've got, are you sure it's okay? Yes, it's okay. Papa, papa, you signed. I said, they read you, they study you like a book. They know what document to bring to you and what time. I've been friends with a lot of people that are either working directly with the government or even in the presidency. And I go to discuss a matter and they say, cross, leave and talk now. Don't worry, do it in the right time.  What they need is that there's a time for every game. So the question is, have these people studied Mr. President like a book and know the time to submit certain things that he will not interrogate? Secondly, have they primed his mind in a certain way, you know, before time? So I'm going to take a document to him, say something we did and blah, blah, blah, just add the names. And they know there's a way you could put a name in a list and nobody knows. Ms. Aiyai took, Ms. Aiyai took, are you inferring that the decision to submit Loretta Onoche's name as Aiyai Commissioner was not solely the president's? There's a possibility that the president is not in the full picture of that, because I know that, you see, no matter how much, I'm not too much a fan of Mr. President. I know that there are certain things he goes on to, you know, as principles. I know that for a fact, okay? And you'll be shocked that if you asked him in one of those interviews, Mr. President, why would you want your age to be, you know, an INEP Commissioner, knowing how sensitive he might ask you who? You'll be shocked. That's probably one of the reasons, because Mr. President, he has this childlike, you know, approach to things, and he just says what's in his mind. Look at the interview, just in one of your sister's stations, under the NTA, you can tell two different people, a man that talks off the call from his heart, and a man that knows who... So, Ms. Aiyai took, Ms. Aiyai took, you're basically suggesting that the president really is not in charge of some of these decisions that seem to be by the president. So, if that's the case, who then is the presidency and who's in charge? And again, there's a follow-up to that question, a follow-up to that question, even if the president is not so aware of who he nominated or appointed. Speaking about principle and morality, shouldn't the aid herself know that she, since she is a card-calling member of the All Progressive Congress, doesn't morality tell her that she should not be part of an independent commission? It just shows that her personal interest supersedes the reputation of our world. And it's sad. It shows that her personal interest, it shows that loyalty within this context, won't be questioned. Because there are certain things that we want to do, even there are certain things your boss wants to do for you. And he said, ah, ah, let me do this office, the way people they talk. I appreciate it. Let it be the other way. That's because in spite of the fact that it will benefit you, you're thinking this is a social media lady. She's active in the social media. She knows what's going on. To what extent is the reputation of her boss important to her? More important than her personal, you know, gains and advertisement and all that. So I think that I don't want to talk about the lady and I actually feel between you and I. The Bible says all things are lawful but not all things are expedient. She should know better. So back to my question, Mr. Ieyetok, who then is controlling the presidency? I want a question. I think I should ask the journalist who is, who am I? Claudia Tectola, I know his house. So journalists please, who is behind the presidency? That's one question that we are, you know, all looking forward to getting answers to. Let's stay with election matters. You know, also yesterday the independent national electoral commission announced new polling units. They have created specifically about over 50,000 of them and of course some new policies were made, you know, voting cannot be done at mosques and churches and some other areas. But with this new development with the creation of more polling units, do you see the desired changes we hope to see in our election maybe in 2023? I've continued to be a fan of INE because INE needs to know that they have people there who are supporting them so that they can take independent decisions. If the system, what I say system is like the presidency, the party in power wants them to hand that to their own wins and caprices. They need to know that there are other statesmen out there who are behind them so that they do the right thing. We can't all be knocking on it. If not so, taking line of this resistance is a natural human self-preservation mode, okay? So to that extent, I think that in election management, the turnaround time is very important for you or to you as an upfire. As a result, you want to try to see that you don't have more than 500 people within a polling unit because you're asking yourself if I open the voting by 12 o'clock or by 8 o'clock in the morning, how many people taking the turnaround per person can I have by maybe 2 o'clock? And when the number comes between maybe 40 and 16 depending on 400 and 600 beyond the people and you take the average line of 500 and you discover that the polling unit has as many as 1,300 people. It's just wise for you to seek a situation where you can have less people per polling unit. This is basically the underlying factor behind the action that INEC has created and I think that that INEC, that decision is informed and it is well motivated. The only thing is that they found themselves doing this if we had a situation where there was a combination of online voting and then on-site voting, then they would now know that even a polling unit that has as many of say 1,500, about 1,000 of such people may decide to stay in the comfort of their homes and do their online voting. So that will not be a problem. But for a situation in the current dispensation we are in, I think that INEC, you know, with all due respect, I'm taking a decision that is patriotic, that is informed, that is difficult, you know, but I think it's the best thing they could do and within this context I applaud INEC's efforts. All right, INEC also made some changes and some polling units have been moved from where they were before to all the places, specifically from mosques, from churches and to shrine. In your opinion, do you foresee any sort of a maybe miscommunication during election period, maybe next year when they even have those of them or showing of course in the equity state? Good, that is where it will come in with respect to feedback. Locking it for me, this decision has not been taking two weeks to election. No, it has been taking about a year to election. It is therefore the duty of parties and it really bothers me that we, those are wrong parties, you know, there is a story I would not want to go into when I was the national chairman of your democratic party and I went for high power, the first day was an election and I applied for the office of the vice chairman chief of that noble body and when I was even five minutes to talk I told them party is government, either in waiting or in action. Today BDP is party in, in, as of that time, in action. Any of us can be the party that comes up so you are party in waiting and if APC had listened to me then they would have prepared themselves knowing that they were party. Why am I bringing this up? It is the duty, responsibility, obligation of every party chairman at the state level to find out this polling unit, have regular meetings, enlighten their people so that they are not disenfranchised on the day of election. This is very important but we cannot leave it to pilot, for pilot to come and let every polling know, yes, pilot has a role to play, for instance, if they have an electronic register and this electronic register shows where the polling unit of each person was, I think they will have two options. Option number one is to ask people as clearly as possible. These are the two units which you want is closer to you and then from the responses if they have a spreadsheet at the back end which is where technology comes in the analysis can be done easily and then they can now see that from what they have done they have been able to change this and then there's still an overflow of these they can direct the people and then within a month or two they can send direct messages to as many people that have phone numbers. There are some areas that people will not have very good best you can by letting the people know and secondly going to publish this list early enough so that people can go and look almost a year to election and not only election the people are running health and skills are trying to do so that that communication I think has a role to play, parties have a role to play but the first thing should be calling the parties and having a meeting and let them understand how they so that each person can do themselves well and communicate with their electorates. Okay so now polling units have been added to the ones that we had so what do you think annex should begin to to do to ensure adequate security in these new polling units ahead of the election? Nothing. They can only appeal to the police. You see like I said I was a chairman of a party at the national and I had a lot of interface with INEC and INEC chairman and he vented his frustrations because he has no control over how can I prosecute people that have no systems structures and infrastructure to handle. Secondly on violence protection that is a constitutional rule of the police and other military or paramilitary agencies to come in as maybe coordinated by the police so to that extent the best that INEC would do is to have a very strong interface by letting the police know this number of units and then letting the police know the manpower required per unit letting the police also know their risk analysis of polling units. They are setting polling units in such an area that you don't really need to put too many people there because I don't need to name the best. They are setting high rates per polling unit so this question of the one policeman want this one that the polling unit doesn't want we need to come down to the realities and I believe that when that unit of INEC interfaces with the military or with the police I use the police now to talk in terms of all the apparatus sections that give us protection. I think it should start early enough to have an interface so the police will be able to let the national assembly know that for this period we may need to bring in a few more of our retirees to bring them back you know in every system they are always a segment that can be called up for national duty if they need to arises for that specific timeline so these are the ways we need to start to think in government and governors so that these retirees who are still strong I mean yesterday it was on the telly of one man that was a retired general at 57 which means it's just my age mate well we might be a little younger because of November 158 and you can't imagine that I am retired at this time when my energy is still real top notch so what am I saying such people can be on the reserve list and for a national assignment like this they could be called up but that will only work if that system is negotiated early enough so that the budgetary provision is made and special budgetary provision so I think that it is possible if we start planning early you know the bottom line the first one is early strategic planning all right Mr let's just finalize but just confirming how possible this is what the INA chairman said yesterday that these will enable let me just quote him fresh registrant and those seeking transfer will know the new polling units and it also enabled them to choose their preferred voting locations on election day do you see this being possible that the voters can actually choose where exactly they want to vote on elections or election days rather it is so possible all I need is to have one day interface with the ITD unit of INA you know what the internet can do is amazing it's unbelievable I can sit here today and transfer money to somebody in India or Finland I can do almost anything imagine the base the database that contains billions of people and yet we have just about a hundred million voters now two things are possible one is those that have the that are online and those are not let's start from what is possible how many of our voters will like to Ina just say if you are a voter you have your PVC and you like to vote online or register online or not is it please go online and fill this form okay and on the health side within one week they will have a database that will take nothing less than 40 million voters I can tell you this so they can deal with that and see how they can segment that now the next step is those that are not because we always say about those that are not those in rural areas my guy my village is rural area and I know the number of people with phones and internet and I communicate with them so don't tell me that every rural area is so rural that they don't want to have access to things like that if in my village I can get two units where people can go there and provide that service because I want my people to vote and not to be disenfranchised all of us seeking election we are going to be Ina's food soldiers who are going to send out those information and the people will give a feedback and Ina will be sitting down in the office spending not a dime not a common and yet being able to get maybe 60 percent of the problem solved the other 40 percent or even 40 percent of the problem solved the other 60 percent they can now bring their ingenuity creativity okay what we need to work with within a private sector who are the heads who are the people the village look there is a body called the national association of village youth leaders in a private state every village has a youth leader imagine and they have an interface with these youth leaders of all the villages they become very easy point of communication and because you're probably next to nothing you know we should come to us you know in Nigeria or less we put money to a thing we don't think it works because we don't think in terms of service we think in terms of contract and it's sad there are many things you can achieve without lifting a finger because of technology let I make the rate of technology and life will be made much easier for them and I want to live with national assembly and the amendment of the electoral act let them give I need leverage to do a lot of technology Nigeria has moved on look at when Mr. Sanus left your school years last day Amy and Sanus say you know say we should go cashless everybody said no no no we're not up to that no we cannot you just carry clothes on his head to the decision now everybody has a card that they work with it's working we're not as a cake and a chronic stick as we would see we are moving with the time and you're as intelligent even in the villages it's not a hundred percent but even if it's 40 percent start with that 40 percent then you know that you have only 60 percent to contend with we want to sit down and think everything has to be contract everything has to be physical everything must be manual everything must be cost it is easier for it to manipulate that way I think we should get on that all right Mr. Ezekiel yeah I talk with thank you you really have mentioned important points about adopting technology into electoral processes to make that you know more convenient and safer thank you very much for for coming in my pleasure I do appreciate your time thank you sir thank you all right it's still the breakfast on plus tv africa yes and we'll be right back to discuss more important issues in the country do stay with us


We have some things on the video, there is one display and it just has some Shaktis in it. The display is not available in the country. We still have it because they are trading laptops and period display monitor. Can you see the... 3D capable display, what is it called? No we haven't gone in that direction at all. We have explored it this way. We can do that. It may be 102 dollars. We are scaling to 100 and this one is true. And they use in one class also. So there are shows from outside and connected to issues which are slightly different from the basic small class ones. If it goes to a bigger class one, there is a bigger sequence. Can I see the quicker code? Yes. It shows the level of condition of the computer. Currently has no material connected to the computer. It can be connected. Because what is the output of the computer? It is like a primary computer problem. When it was a single... That is the point. That is the point. Thanks. Here was the same thing that we have seen is the robot. Yeah. To separate by face and other things. Everything... It will change the other robot only. The full control is now... The control is back to the separate. Now we have done it in parallel. And how will I see? I will see after. There are two screen models that are possible to see. So this was a lot. Usually it is designed with version 1 and 2. It was key based. So these are our centers. These are the center. The one is the control center. We are interested to be committing more centers. We are under the same case. We are under the same case. We are under the same case. We are under the same case. They are... They are quite long information. So we can send them here. This is automatic. More than one message in single websites. And you discuss that the team members... They should have taken care of them. They have to test that in the middle. Do you want to do it on a piece? Yes. I want to do it on a piece. Please. We will come down to two slides. So we will just give you a brief overview. What is running at the moment is the Yankar Robotics competition. There are four themes which are running at the moment. One theme is this one. Portable filling robot. Where we have given them our basic robot. And some extra sensors and accessories. This is the basic robot now. It has evolved a lot. It has become quite versatile. And they will build everything else around. Sensors and hopper mechanism. And several to open and close this thing and so on. So this one will fill potholes. Typically with Moong Dal. These are potholes. So what we do is we send them the artwork of this arena. They printed themselves locally. The quality of your communication skills. Writing skills. Presentation skills. DPDs and this and that. And at the end we will choose from each theme. There are about 131 teams taking part. And in four teams. That's about 35 in each. So what we have to do. All the initiatives that are happening is part of the project. The first thing is we identify the same order. Students, colleges and teachers. And all the initiatives that we include them. How we are targeting students. How we are targeting the colleges and teachers. They come together as one unit. And how we are targeting them. So the competition is a first set. And workshops for this and internships for students. And here in the labs it has a question. Srinagar, they are so overwhelmed. I remember being saying that. They are so pleased that the government of India is taking interest in us. And they are very interested in it. And the students there were second to none. They were very smart. And they were very overwhelmed. We want to start a movement. Where they take the models. And they have a lab set up. Where they can assign projects to their students using. They initiate the college. Initially through the workshop. And tell them that you have a set up infrastructure. We will start you by giving you a small, you know, starting kit. And then we engage the teachers. And we enter a robotics teacher competition. While they are going through this competition. The setup will take place. They will place a purchase order. Get the lab. At the end of the competition. When we are ready to give a prize. We have a template. For everything which they can use. To implement their own projects. Yeah. Just go to the side. Yeah. And identify where aligns this. And align the cutting mechanism which they have to. Along with the stalk of the fruit. Cut it. So that it drops. Collect through a basket of their own design. Then go to the next one. How do I program a robot? The research which is happening in the lab. Is new paradigms for the robot. Programming these robots. At a high level of abstraction. Now we have a problem that 100 projects. Right. 2 minutes. For 1 minute. Yeah. How do we make our IP that we have. Which is the application code. Independent of the actual robot. That means that I should be able to use this on a bigger robot. This code. And the processor can be an add-on. It can be a Raspberry Pi. It can be a mobile phone. It can be anything else. All the processing can be in the cloud. And new languages to make it easier to program. So we are using Sylab to do images here.


Now we're going to incorporate the minor scale into a walking bass line, and it's really pretty much the exact same thing as incorporating the Mixolydian scale into a walking bass line. We're going to focus on the root, and we're going to work really hard to identify the chord by the roots and the fifths, but then put those walking scale notes all around it to kind of make it sound good. So the tune we're going to use is, or the changes that we're going to use are from a tune called Mr. PC. It's in C minor, and you'll be able to see the chord changes on this video as we go. It uses a C minor scale, or a C minor chord, then an F minor chord, and eventually it gets to an Ab7 chord, which is a major scale for four beats, and then a G7 chord, which is also a major scale for four beats, and then it goes back to C minor. But here's what I'm going to do. When I get to that Ab and G chord, rather than mess around with notes that don't match up with the minor scale I'm playing, I'm only going to use the root, the fourth, and the fifth degree. You'll remember, those are the same in major and in minor scales, and you'll see how that works really, really nicely. For each chord change, I'm going to anchor my index finger or my first finger on the root. So let's show you how this will work. Starts out with a C minor scale for four bars. So find our C root, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's two bars. Keep going. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now we're ready to go to our next chord, which is F minor. Happens to be the four chord, and this will be for two measures or eight beats. So we'll just kind of go up about half the scale and come back a little bit, and then it goes back to C minor for two measures. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now one measure of A flat right here, then one measure of G, and then back to the C minor. So again you'll notice on the A flat, in fact I ended up using root, fifth, root, fifth. That's even better. And on the G, root, fifth, root, fifth, and then C minor scale. So let's do it with the changes for you. Here we go again. C minor. So that's incorporating the minor scale into a walking pattern over changes that you might be using. Go ahead and try it out in this key, C minor, and then try it out in all kinds of different keys. That walking minor scale is going to come in real handy in a lot of ways. Good luck.


So tonight, we're going to be exploring the parting of ways between Judaism and Christianity. I think it's safe to say that today, Judaism and Christianity are two different distinct religions, two world religions, that have their own faith system and faith structure. They have their own list of beliefs that they adhere to and we want to go back and explore how this parting of ways actually occurred. You see, two thousand years ago, if you walk into Jerusalem and you bump into a follower of Jesus, what's the first thing you know about that person? He's a Jewish. He's Jewish. He's a Jewish. It's the obvious thing we know about a follower of Jesus two thousand years ago. And so we want to understand that if the origins of this group, the origins of this Christian faith started out in Jerusalem, started out in the land of Israel, started out within the Jewish community, how did it go so far to become something that is no longer recognizable as part of the Jewish faith? Now in order to discover this, what we really would like to have are multiple sources of accurate information about this group. And the question is, where can we go to find it? Well, unfortunately, there are not many sources that we can go to. And so therefore, it's important for me to point out that this whole presentation tonight is speculative, which means to say that not all the details are ironed out and not all the things we can swear to are 100% accurate. Not what we will try to do tonight is present a plausible explanation as to what might have happened throughout the history of the church. So throughout Jewish history, generally speaking, the Jewish community viewed Jesus and his followers as being people who broke away from Judaism, started their own religion, and therefore, we have nothing to do with them. Where do Jewish people get this idea from? Well, one of the places that could be argued that this idea was taken from are from references in the Talmud. Historically, we know that people within the church accused Jews of disrespecting Christianity, disrespecting Jesus, the founder of Christianity, by making derogatory references to him in the Talmud. And it's because of that. Many cartloads of the Talmud were burned publicly because of this. And so there are references in the Talmud. In your reference sheet here, you'll see I've referenced about five of them. There may be one more, maybe six of them, which refer to an individual who's known as either Yeshua or referred to as Ben Stada. That's the person referred to. And it has been pointed out that there are some slight similarities between the character that's mentioned in the Talmud and the character of Jesus. However, many people have pointed out that there are serious discrepancies between these references and what we know about Jesus of the New Testament. For example, there's a problem with the dating. The Yeshua that is referred to in the Talmud is someone who lived in the time of Rabishur Ben Parakhia, who was about 100 years prior to the time of Jesus of the New Testament or to someone who actually lived 100 to 150 years after the time of the Jesus of the New Testament. And so therefore, there are automatically problems right there with the timing. Some Jewish sources argue that in fact it's the Christians that have the wrong dating, and we have the right dating in the sense that they believe that the views that are held about Jesus being someone who went and rebelled against Judaism and went to worship idols. That's the true story of Jesus, and the story in the Gospels are not true, and they're confused. However, other people point out that besides the name Yeshua, there's very little else within the context of these stories that seem to line up with Jesus. So for example, one of the things that's mentioned in the Talmud is that this person, Yeshua, had five students. Now we know from the Gospels that he had 12 disciples, the 12 apostles. It speaks about this person having a mother named Mary, the one who is the hairdresser, Magadla Nashaya. Now we know that Mary Magdalene was not his mother. And so there are a number of things that lead us to suspect that perhaps they're not one and the same person. However, we must leave it open as a possibility, perhaps it is the same person. But if we are going to say it's the same person, and if we are going to say that Jesus was just a rebel, someone who abandoned his Judaism and started a new religion, well then that would be the end of tonight's presentation. Because then we know where the break started, it started with Jesus, he came along, started a new religion completely different to Judaism, and that's the end of the story. However, there is so much within the New Testament. And what we know about the early followers of Jesus from sources outside of the New Testament that ask us to re-examine and to see whether perhaps there's more to the story. And that's what we want to look at tonight. I have a quote here in the second reference on your sheets from a rabbi named Rybiakim Emden. He was a great rabbi that lived in the 17th or 18th century, and he wrote that we should actually have another look and see that really Jesus wasn't somebody who came to teach about the abrogation of the Torah and that people should renounce their Judaism, but in fact he came to teach that we should follow the Torah and we should follow the laws of the Torah. So here I'll read to you, therefore you must realize and accept the truth from he who speaks it, that we see clearly here that the Nazarene and his apostles did not wish to destroy the Torah from Israel, God forbid. For it is written so in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17, the Nazarene having said, do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Torah. And then he goes on to say it is therefore exceedingly clear that the Nazarene never dreamt of nullifying the Torah. So here we have from a very respected Jewish rabbi that lived about 300 years ago who was of the opinion that Jesus didn't depart from Judaism and start another religion but actually came to fortify the religion to fortify Judaism. Now there are references that people will look to in the New Testament which seem to imply that actually Jesus was constantly fighting with the Pharisees and so therefore they suggest that we see from this that Jesus opposed Judaism, he kept on pointing out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that he was engaging and was lamenting against how the Pharisees of that time seem to have lost the way and what he wanted to do is bring people away from these Pharisees and to something new that he was trying to introduce. However if a person takes a little bit of a closer look we'll find that it's not so simple. I have over here in point number three from Luke chapter 13 verse 31 where we're told that when Herod was running after Jesus to excuse me not Herod but the Romans were looking for Jesus to kill him some of the Pharisees came up saying to him go away and depart from here for Herod wants to kill you so I'm sorry it was Herod. What this intimates is that the Pharisees actually had a decent relationship with Jesus and they had no intention of him being killed. As far as they are concerned if someone is out to kill Jesus we've got to warn him about this and we've got to ask you know give him time to run away. In Matthew chapter 23 we read what Jesus says to his followers, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat so you must obey them and do everything they tell you but do not what they do for they do not practice what they preach. Now what Jesus is saying over here is that as far as he's concerned it is the Pharisees meaning the rabbis of the day that really sit in Moses' seat sit in a place of authority and so therefore if you want to know what God wants from you you should follow the teachings of the rabbis. Clearly this is not something that somebody who believes that the rabbis have got it all wrong and are teaching false doctrine it's not something he would say. He manages to get in a backhanded slap over here at the Pharisees saying that look while they're teaching right doctrine but they're not practicing what they preach and one could say that that's actually quite common to hear rabbis quubble amongst themselves and accuse each other of being hypocrites but nevertheless they don't believe that people are out to teach false doctrine. And so therefore what these passages within the Gospels themselves seem to intimate is that Jesus actually was in line with the Pharisees and just had certain disagreements with them which is quite normal for his day. But we know from the Gospels and the reason why we're using the Gospels tonight is because really when we speak about Jesus the person of Jesus there are no other sources to really go to to tell us anything about his life. Yes, you can go to Josephus and read a small obscure passage that may have been forged may not have been forged but even that passage doesn't tell you much about his life. So if you want to go back and discover anything about Jesus you can go to the Talmud as we mentioned and there also you're not going to find much about him if those refer to him or you can go to outside sources which come up with nothing or you can go to the Gospels and so what we'll have to do is go to the Gospels and try and piece together whatever we can from there. So the story in the Gospels are basically like this. There's a man named Jesus who's born in a time when there's a brutal occupation of the Roman Empire that have occupied Judea and the life of the Jewish people is becoming increasingly increasingly more difficult especially when it comes to religious observance because some of the Roman Procuters were actually quite mean and they did everything they possibly could to offend Jewish sensibilities and so people were hoping and waiting for God to intervene as he has in the past and to bring about redemption to free them from these oppressors as he has done in the past and so within this context a man shows up his name is Yeshua Jesus whatever it might have been and he manages to gather together a group of followers who really like what he is teaching now what is he teaching what is Jesus teaching at this time at this time the most common teaching of Jesus is that the kingdom of heaven is at hand what does he mean when he says the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of heaven refers to a time when God's will is not only done in heaven but it's also done on earth and so when he says the kingdom of heaven is at hand that's another way of saying that the messianic era is about to come it's about to happen well that's good to know and what do we need to do about it well Jesus tells his followers repent you need to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and the truth is this is not just Jesus's message but this is a message of John the Baptist that came before him the same idea the kingdom of heaven is at hand and what we need to do is we need to repent is there anything wrong with that message I don't think so it sounds like a very Jewish message to me that the Messiah can come at any moment and we believe with sincere and complete faith in the coming of the Messiah and that he can come at any moment and that we can actually have a hand in making him come by repenting by preparing the world for that age so far so good and in fact Jesus in Matthew chapter 16 that's in reference five over here he turns to his followers and he says who do you say I am in other words who do you think I Jesus am and Peter answers Simon Peter Peter answered you are the Messiah the son of the living God that's what Peter answers now the question is what does that mean what does it mean when we say that somebody is identified as the Messiah what would that have meant 2,000 years ago well let's remember this is before Jesus was crucified this is before the alleged resurrection this is before all of this and so in fact what we find in this chapter in Matthew chapter 16 is that when Jesus tells Peter that he has to go to Jerusalem and he has to suffer and die Peter says far be it from you that should never happen to you so Peter seems to be completely surprised by the notion that a Messiah is going to die well if you were living 2,000 years ago and there was no Matthew Mark Luke and John and there were none of the epistles of Paul where would you get your information about the Messiah well probably you'd get it from the Jewish scriptures and what do the Jewish scriptures tell us about a future anointed king what does it tell us so what I have over here I've done and again this is not really what we're going to delve into tonight about the differences between the Jewish idea of the Messiah and the Christian idea of the Messiah although we will go through it but briefly but what I want to do is I want to go through some of these references quickly okay we have in Numbers chapter 24 verse 17 to 19 passages which are actually part of the prophecy of the non-Jewish prophet Billa which describe a military victory that's going to be brought by this leader that's going to come in the future Isaiah 11 1 verses 1 to 9 speaks about a leader that's imbued with the spirit of God wisdom understanding counsel strength knowledge and fear of God and we're told that he will be a righteous judge and he will smite the wicked dead again these are passages that you can go back at home and look at it in depth and see entire chapters which speak about a portrait of about a leader that's going to be living and ruling at a particular time we have over here in Isaiah chapter 23 verse 5 through 8 speaking about a king who executes justice and charity and that there will be security for Israel in his days you have in Ezekiel chapter 34 verse 23 through 31 a shepherd and a prince during the time of peace security and bounty Ezekiel chapter 37 verse 22 through 28 speaks about this future leader in the context of the temple being rebuilt Israel's reconciliation with God the gathering of exile observance of the law etc this is where the followers of Jesus would have gone to get their notion of the Messiah and what they were hoping for is that this Jesus living 2,000 years ago to be that leader to be that righteous leader that's going to come and bring in this era of peace remove all those people that fight against God remove them from the land of Israel and ultimately bring everybody back to unity and worshiping God together they believed that this was going to happen in their lifetime that's really important to understand the followers of Jesus did not assume that Jesus was going to die and come back 2,000 years later that's not what they were hoping for they anticipated an immediate arrival of this messianic era that was going to be ushered in through Jesus and so Matthew chapter 16 verse 28 a couple of verses after Peter acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah Jesus tells them assuredly I say to you there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom and this is again a reference to Daniel chapter 7 where in Daniel chapter 7 Daniel has a vision about someone that is like the Son of man that is brought close to God and ultimately given dominion over all his enemies and again this is in the in the context of the future messianic era Matthew 24 verse 34 assuredly I say to you this generation will by no means pass away until all these things take place Matthew 24 is where Jesus is speaking to a crowd and telling them about things that are going to happen in the future things are going to happen in the end time and he's saying we're right here right now it's going to happen now but we have a problem what's the problem the problem is that Jesus is crucified without anything happening what I mean without anything happening what I mean is all these promises that are spoken of in the Jewish scriptures about a utopia that's going to come and that will have a leader that serves as the catalyst for this change none of that comes about and Jesus is crucified like a common criminal and so the hope of the first followers of Jesus are shattered again we need to understand that the the New Testament paints the followers of Jesus as not understanding Jesus's messages about him having to suffer and die and I can understand why they wouldn't understand because that's not what we get from the Jewish scriptures and so what happens what happens ultimately is that when you have your your beliefs challenged and you start to feel very uncomfortable with what you're believing you need to do something to accommodate these changes to be able to remove the dissonance and this is a theory that was coined by somebody named Leon Festinger who spoke about something called cognitive dissonance cognitive dissonance and it is possible that what happened for the followers of Jesus is as they walking away from the cross as they're seeing him dead they're asking themselves so well what's going to be with all our hopes they didn't want to give up those hopes and I can understand that I wouldn't want to give up those hopes either and so what you want to try and do is come up with some kind of explanation about how God's plan is going to actually still continue that it's not being derailed imagine you've invested so much in something and you encounter a glitch what you want to do is say okay it's not the end of the world I can still go on with this I can still go on with this plan there's so much still here at stake and that's what they do they believe that Jesus is going to come back he's going to come back and therefore we can still hold on to this hope that Jesus will still take us out of this miserable occupation from the Romans now is that a problem for Judaism is it a problem for Jewish people to believe that someone will be resurrected and will serve as a leader serve as the Messiah so there are many that would say yes it's certainly a problem it's a huge problem we as Judaism believe in only one coming we don't believe in two comings and somebody who dies that disqualifies him and that's the end of the story however it's not so simple it's not so simple although it may not be viewed as normative but nevertheless we do know that Daniel in chapter 12 speaks about a time when the Jewish people will be resurrected there'll be a resurrection of the dead Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 multitude to sleep in the dust of the earth will awake this idea is also spoken about in Ezekiel and so therefore it's not completely outside of the pale of Judaism to speak about people being resurrected and when it comes to what exactly is going to happen and how it will all play out there is room for a bit of ambiguity the Bible doesn't lay out step by step how the redemption will take place so although it might not be normative but nevertheless it still can be considered within the realms of a possible hope for a Jewish person to believe that someone has died but God will choose to raise them and that they could then lead as the Messiah it's possible however time passes a generation passes many of the first followers of Jesus are now dead they've passed away and so the followers the believers are starting to ask themselves what's with our hope we believe that Jesus is coming back but he hasn't come back and a generation has passed and people have passed away and what you'll see in first Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13 is that Paul has to deal with this Paul remember is writing around the year 50 and he's writing to people who are dealing with this challenge to their faith that nothing has changed they're still under this brutal occupation and really it's business as usual nothing's changing so he says but I do not want you to be ignorant brethren concerning those who have fallen asleep lest you sorrow as others who have no hope he doesn't want his followers those who he's ministering to to give up their hope in Jesus to give up their hope in this future redemption and so therefore he's trying to tell them that verse four verse 15 for this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means proceed those who are asleep what's interesting to note in this verse is Paul seems to believe that it's going to happen in his lifetime he thinks that Jesus is coming back in his lifetime and so until more than a generation two generations pass everything is still on track but then the next generation grows up and there's nothing there and they're left with a very very uncomfortable question and that question is if Jesus is coming back and at the time that he comes back he's going to bring about this incredible change to the world that we're all looking forward to why did he need to show up a hundred years ago and be crucified like a common criminal what's the point of that who needed Jesus to come the first time around if everything that he's going to do is only going to happen the second time around that's a very very strong question and so what really began the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity is when a particular change had to come in to be able to deal with this difficult question and that was perhaps the role of the Messiah isn't just to bring in a future utopia perhaps there's another very very significant role that the Messiah plays what's that role that role is to die for the sins of the world that in order for us to have a relationship with God we need to have a Messiah who comes and dies for our sin now you may think that perhaps that's something we should consider what's so wrong with that well apart from there being absolutely no scriptural support for such a concept what do I mean by that when I say there's no scriptural support for that concept what I mean is there's nowhere in the scriptures that speaks about a future Davidic king that will come and rule that is to first die and suffer for our sins there is no such passage there is no such passage that speaks about a future Davidic king that dies and suffers for the sins of the world and that's clear besides for that what happens is that in the wake of this assumption or assertion that a Messiah comes to die for the sins of the world what happens is we are automatically dealt a whole new series of questions what do I mean when I come along and I tell you that someone has come to die for your sins the first question is why do I need somebody to die for my sins that's ridiculous last week we had a whole presentation on how one can navigate their way back to God after sinning and it's clear in the scriptures that the way to navigate your way back to God is by doing exactly that returning to God and God makes it very clear in many many places that if you seek God with a sincere heart you humble yourself and you return to obeying what God has asked of you that's the way back to God so what then happens is in order to be able to still hold on to a notion that a Messiah has to die for your sin what has to happen is I need to negate the possibility of you being able to actually get right with God yourself and so that's exactly what the Christian scriptures end up doing Paul in Galatians chapter 2 verse 21 says if righteousness could come through following the Torah then Christ died in vain what that means is as far as Paul is concerned it is not possible to follow the law it's not possible now you see this idea that you cannot follow the law is there to be able to help us justify Jesus is dead do you see the connection he connects it quite plainly over here if the righteousness could come through following the Torah then Christ died in vain Jesus would not have to have died if we could keep the Torah well what do we know from the Torah we know from the Torah that we can keep it Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 11 through 14 this is in reference 17 over here it says now what I'm commanding you today this is Moses speaking it's not too difficult for you or beyond your reach no the word is very near to you it is in your mouth and in your heart that you may do it God tells us through Moses in the scriptures that it is possible to keep the commandments and so here what happens is not only do we start to have different views about the role of the Messiah but what happens is and remember the title of the lecture tonight is the domino effect once you hit one domino once you start to change one thing in Judaism then there are consequences and those consequences who knows where they end because watch what happens you you start with redefining the role of the Messiah to be able to accommodate your hope and then you have to start to redefine the notion of commandments and whether whether it's possible to follow the commandments of God and then what happens is then what happens is that a person is told they cannot keep the commandments and therefore they need to have a sacrifice and the sacrifice is the death of Jesus right you ask yourself the question well why specifically Jesus why did Jesus have to die we have so many thousands if not millions of other people who died at the hands of the Romans and people before them and people after them why does it why is the death of Jesus so significant what happens then is we have a whole new world that opens up and that is Jesus wasn't just an ordinary person Jesus was actually sinless and the sacrifice needs to be sinless the one that's going to serve as a sacrifice to atone for your sins needs to be sinless Jesus was sinless but doesn't the Bible say that there's no one that is sinless this is where we come to another change and that is Jesus wasn't a human he wasn't like me and you he was actually God incarnate he was the second member of the triune Godhead and so God had to send himself into the world in order to be able to sacrifice himself in order to be able to have your sins forgiven and that's the function of the Messiah and so the problem we have the problem we have is that from going from a righteous Davidic king who comes to transform the world we ultimately end up with a God born of a virgin who comes to die for the sins of the world that's our radical departure that's a radical departure from the notion of the Messiah that we have in the Jewish scriptures now the question is what about the followers of Jesus the first followers of Jesus did they subscribe to these ideas did they subscribe to these doctrines well what we have from the New Testament itself are two very very interesting passages in Acts chapter 15 we're told about the council that took place in Jerusalem that gathered together to deal with a very very interesting question that they had you see today we take it for granted that Christians followers of Jesus are non-Jewish and when we hear about a Jewish follower of Jesus Jesus we're all surprised we're all in shock what a Jewish follower of Jesus but in the first century in Palestine what happened was for a Gentile to be considered a follower of Jesus was out of the ordinary and so they had to deal with a question of whether or not a Gentile that wanted to follow Jesus had to go through conversion had to embrace all the commandments and go through circumcision like anybody who wanted to convert to Judaism in that time and at that council they ultimately decided that there was no need for a Gentile to adopt all of the commandments or to go through circumcision but what they would have to follow are some of the universal Noahide laws that God had intended for all of mankind what is incredibly insightful in this passage is and for this you need to have a little bit of a Gomorrah cop as they say goes like this if they're discussing about Gentiles and asking the question whether they need to keep the law in order to follow Jesus what does that say about what they thought about themselves of course they need to keep the commandments it's without it goes without saying that they felt that they have to if they didn't believe that they need to follow the commandments then the whole council wouldn't have taken place they wouldn't have been having this discussion about Gentiles having to keep the law and then we go to Acts 21 where we read that this is when Paul came back to Jerusalem and there was this whole meeting and many of the people were very upset with Paul very very angry with Paul because they were hearing rumors that Paul was going around in the diaspora teaching people against the law of Moses and they were very upset about it and so it says it says over here in Acts 21 21 they have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to to our customs they were incensed and in fact in that passage it talks about followers of Jesus who were zealous for the law Pharisees they speak of over there what this tells us is years after the death of Jesus none of the followers of Jesus assumed that they don't have to keep the law in fact I'll tell you something interesting in this passage in Acts 21 in order to be able to prove to the council that Paul had not forsaken the way of Moses they require him to make a demonstration that he's actually still faithful to Moses and to the commandments and what do they ask him to do they ask him to pay for the sacrifices of people who had come to the end of the time of growing their hair we know in Judaism in the book of numbers it speaks about Nazarites people who take upon themselves an oath to grow their hair and to refrain from drinking any wine and at the end of the period they were told to bring a sacrifice in Numbers chapter 6 we're told that that sacrifice was actually a sin sacrifice so what's interesting over here is the followers of Jesus are telling Paul that you need to pay for sin sacrifices years after the death of Jesus what does that tell us what that tells us is that the followers of Jesus had no notion whatsoever about Jesus coming to die for their sins and abolishing the sacrificial system once and for all but on the contrary they still believed that Jesus wanted them to keep on going in the way of the commandments of the Torah and to continue within Judaism the only difference between them and other Jews would have been whether or not they anticipated Jesus to be the one to come and redeem the Jewish people in the future what happens centuries later in the second century we have a group of Jews who still believe that Jesus was the Messiah and they were known as the Ebonites and what we read about from Irenaeus is that these Ebonites they use the gospel according to Matthew only which means they do not accept any of the other gospels they repudiate the apostle Paul I want to why maintaining that he was an apostate from the law we're told that this group of followers of Jesus that lived in the second century practice circumcision preserve and observance of the customs which are enjoined in the law and are so Judaic in their lifestyle of life that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God so what that tells us is that the church is starting to split in a major way with a few Jews remaining loyal to their Judaism but the majority of the church shifting radically away Eusebius who was a church historian tells us about these Ebonites saying that they did not believe in the virgin birth they did not believe in the Trinity they kept the Torah and they followed the Hebrew gospel of Matthew of Matthew and they rejected Paul and so what happens over time is not only does the church the Pauline church drift away from Judaism they end up persecuting the original group of Jewish followers of Jesus they try to stamp them out they consider them heretics because they don't accept the Trinity because they don't accept the virgin birth because they still maintain a loyalty to the law of Moses and to the Jewish people and so we ultimately end up in the fourth century with somebody named St. John Chrysostom who writes the following the Jews sacrifice their children to Satan they are worse than wild beasts the synagogue is a brothel a den of scoundrels the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults a criminal assembly of Jews a place of meaning for this for the assassins of Christ a house of ill-fame a dwelling of iniquity a gulf and abyss of perdition the Jews have fallen into a condition worse than the vilest animal it is the duty of all Christians to hate the Jews and so when we move so far from a group of Jews living in Jerusalem who were loyal to the Torah who believed in the keeping of the commandments to a group of people who are not Jewish living outside the land of Israel who despise even Jewish followers of Jesus and become rabid anti-Semites we are very very very far away from the original group that followed Jesus I was debating whether or not to discuss tonight something that I have been speaking about on my facebook over the past 24 hours the reason why I'm hesitating to uh to bring it up is because my intention is not to label all Christians as anti-Semites or to justify anybody who uses passages from the New Testament to vilify Jews but nevertheless it is important for us to recognize that European anti-Semitism did not grow in a vacuum it's not something that popped up out of the blue European anti-Semitism I would argue is very much rooted in the texts of the New Testament the way they have been read over centuries and the way they were taught throughout their communities it is by no coincidence that the Holocaust did not only contain murderers from Germany there were people from every background every uh nationality that took part in murdering Jews it didn't come as a surprise to them to view Jewish people as subhuman where did that come from you want to know where it came from it came from this notion that Jews by their mere rejection rejection of Jesus are so intrinsically evil and vile that they need to be hated unfortunately that message has been around for so long that it is really really really difficult to uproot and so when I saw that this Robert Bauer had prominently posted on his internet profile John chapter 844 which referred to the Jewish people as children of the devil I wasn't surprised I wasn't surprised does that mean I think that every Christian that reads the book of John is going to pick up a gun and walk into synagogue not at all there are very decent people in the church there are very decent Christians that are I consider friends of mine and neighbors I'm not saying that Christians are going to do that but what I am saying is that the texts of the New Testament have a very bloody history and more needs to be done to challenge the way these texts are understood by Christians when a Jew is pointed to as somebody who rejects Jesus Christians ought to be telling their children that Jewish people reject Jesus because they believe that that is what God wants them to do it is because they love God that they reject Jesus it's okay for Christians not to agree with us and it's okay for us not to agree with Christians it's okay for us to have different points of views but once I start attributing motives to another group that doesn't agree with me that ultimately leads to dehumanizing that person and so when Christians read in their scriptures about Jewish people rejecting Jesus what they're not hearing in the Christian scriptures is how these people actually love God and believe that it is their duty to reject doctrines which they believe go contrary to what the Bible teaches and so what I'd like to conclude with tonight is a message to all of us that we need to judge other people favorably we need to think of people in the best possible light and we need to speak of them in that way the reason why we need to speak about them in that way is because the more you speak positively about somebody the more they become positive the more they will try to live up to that characterization however if we speak negatively about people it just has a negative effect and it ultimately leads to stereotyping racism and ultimately prejudice and persecution of people that are different to us thank you for coming


Right Thursday the 5th on Friday night need these today. It's really cold Nice hats So we're back at berries We're getting 40 commons Which I'll now help Alex with So what are you doing here? Just picking up the job light now the 125 Two sheets, and then we need to go to the waybridge for the 19 mil I think I hope so we're getting the fiberglass from here or no we go for the good woodshed for that Oh berries yeah, yeah You've got to know what's where you get the insulation from the woodshed and you get the Polystyrene from the waybridge It's like if you don't know where you're going you need a map Look at the size that's a tiny part of it So Alex's here comes our stuff on me forward and help Alex in with them There goes Alex off for the ticket tickets in the corner there. Yeah, if you walk over to the brickshed I'm heading over to the brick shed Alex is meeting me over here while I book in the bricks So we're on the job We've been here about About half an hour 40 minutes in the long morning We're getting off it's 10 to 12 Pins of screw fix and topped up with them our ties Three bags I Think 12 quid for 25 the good ties them And then the source and take this is on offer 6 quid so we've got someone doing the viscouin so we've picked up That's for another job. That's an SK 50 for an older job with a smaller cavity Got all our blues 180 We picked up this concrete blocks and the commons bit of sand and cement to get us started so we can get this up to DPC today Just take your hand. It's the last of it. There's our 125 chap. There's still one at home There's our 19mm cold bridging strip That's our new method of how we do it now And the barrier There's an ice So We're all set Well, we would be if I didn't forget the die so The mortars died Garden walls not not died dust and cement, but the house I Can't work out. That's brown or purple It's a dark brown or a purple the extensions been done. It's very light brown That's dark brown. I don't know. Let's get some brown and put a bit of black in just to darken it So I've got to go off and do that So while I'm away Alex can get this vertical damp put in and stuff get the rest of the dark the ties put in Get the blower and get the get our line back. It's covered in dust There's the splash from yesterday Yeah, so we're all set ready to go and we can't start because I've got no die So that's another half an hour but set back So this is going to be up today then Saturday we're going off to do that little job that you saw in the van Sunday, we're going to get this prepped because Won't be so bad because everything's here We just need to pick up some grit sand for doing the sand blinding and then Monday We'll get a truly concrete in and get this slab done. It's going to be nice straight forward straight tamp And we don't have to have a stupidly long time for this one. There needs to be about three and a half meters And then we've got a steels order for there and they're not going in there. They're going in Into the floor, so it's going to be a bit of an awkward one But we like a challenge don't we Alex?  You've done nothing Finally got some knitting to it. Luckily Alex had the genius idea going to tool station for the die. So we've done that So we've got a three brown, which is quite a light brown Which is no good. So I've got a tube tin of black Because we're going for that kind of tone Like a dark brown So we've got a tiny bit of black in with it So hopefully this will dry nice That little trusty measuring bucket So let's see how this works out Right, it's just gone three. It's got that last mixing. That's the door side up.  You've got 73 mil brick in the corner Then you've got a split then we've got a flag So it's a bit up and down as long as it's long as it's level and you get to the We've got all dimensions, right? It's all squared up. So all diagonals are done So we're just gonna finish the brick work off Get the block work up and then come back Sunday to prep it when it's gonna add two days to go off So yeah, we'll crack on with this side now and then once we've got this side And we can just string line across don't need to build corners on the inside because it's a course of brick and a block So now it's a bit So yeah, but that's it for a bit We might film a little bit now because we haven't done much filming on this one So I'll put you on normal in a bit So see you in a bit So we're on the final wall So thought we'd do a bit of normal speed for this bit I can get it in So that's someone in the comments saying is that one of those stupid girl pros?  Oh, um something that barra My legs, um Not very steep sorry What's that? I have no idea We'll put the frog down with the tight beds, and it's a very shallow frog so we're fine We've just found out that there was a wall Yeah I don't think I've ever put one of these colors frog up before So you're filming that's why I dropped them over there That's all right we spun it I thought, I know I've seen that, I thought you've gone through it you see Yeah That's the level sorted out Actually you know what I thought this out? Do you know what I'm looking at looking at the chains? I'm not sure We'll see if I'll be able to have a look I don't want to be there No, not interested So this is the work you're trying to do there Yeah You used to do this at weekends Did it? Yeah, yeah, yeah I think that's the best you've ever used Pardon? Okay, so that's the best I've ever made, isn't it? What's that? I'll just do it so I'll probably swat it I think it's a good idea I think it's a good idea A lot of me I don't think it's just for something to do I used to film that, it's for college Do you make it though? Yeah, yeah, yeah Heavy domestic building The other one that does all the Do nothing We don't have dirty bits We also have heavy bits Yeah Can I just cut them? Cut, yeah I'll just put it What's that? Yeah, I did my two years after I left high school So I'm only 15 or 17 Yeah The stuff that your dad does is not right The stuff that your dad does is Because you learn different things That he was a modern way of doing something You'd have to be a bit outscrewed We've just got health and safety We've run down our throat for two years What have you done, idiot? I was the only one there Who actually was there to do bricklaying Everyone else was there to fill up the maths and English He was the only apprentice in the class Yeah That's the college stage for the boring trade Can I know? Yeah That's the That's the That's the That's the That's the That's the thing That's the thing I'm not doing that It was an artist's do about bricklaying I don't think they were dealing with people It was an artist's do about bricklaying It's soon I've got to like it We're probably the most underpaid trade You've heard the term as an electrician In that proposal Yeah, yeah, yeah It's a piece of thing, doesn't it? It's not It's a screw I saw it a whole winter Yeah But that built with A&E They just didn't want They put the class in order on washes That's kind of quite that First of all, as you can see, doesn't it? Yeah Yeah, if you can see quite that If there's a reason for that Yeah Yeah Yeah, I take it When you're good with the flooring When you think of doing that Don't like Is that going back in, is it? Yeah So you put that in And then Sand I like a bit of sand And then that sheets You put the whisky down first And then that on top of the whisky Yeah That doesn't get wet It's not I think it's because You know the other stuff The dense stuff with the floor back on it I think that stuff works That's different though That doesn't except water Water can't go in there It might go through But it goes through the whisky If it goes through though It may well then Have an effect on it Yeah Pelton braces How do you stop that from closing then? It doesn't You've got whisky on top of it So you pack it with whisky Yeah So you put two loaves of whisky on there He's used to closing the panko Yeah, that's what I'm saying I'm going to top it off I'm talking about something else I'm talking about something else Yeah There's a two number 11 He's used about the number 11 You know what I'm talking about Yeah, we'll be the guardians I think we've got this So I'm going to top it off So I'm going to top it off I think we've got our pictures And also So if you came to start He's always telling me that He's always saying Make sure you like it I'd like to know what's it Usually What happens if you don't If you go like, does that happen I don't think that works I think it's Can you just help me get out there more So people will not subscribe I suppose it raises up the search The Brit name If there's one YouTube analytics You can get a detail of it You can spend it on it And read it all the way And try not to look at it Because it's just so confusing I'm fair Through their Their process is what we're going to call it I'm fair It's something to do with Because I've got My oldest work team That's in the environment And the door thing We've got it to that same department We've changed the environment We've got all my team What will probably happen What I reckon will happen It will see the light you've got And it will pick out the lights And I'll put them to the top of the thing Same thing with the churches The more people share this with them The more that will go to the top The more it gets to the top People come on the sliders I can get distracts on them Dissects You bring it here They're interacting with the channel You'll also get dislikes from opposition Yeah So Google They'll be aware They'll be aware That you're doing dislikes I'm the same with Chip and Beiger Where it is It's competition, isn't it? We'll have to check the slab before we prep it What do you mean? The height 250 250, but I'll leave 5 metres for installation There you have it, we're all squared up at What's 4? 7 minutes too Not bad We've got an hour before it starts going too dark We'll easy crack it won't we Alex is just filling the holes up It's going to get covered with a hessian tonight Frost protection We've had a couple of ground frosts the last couple of nights And yeah We're ready to put the vertical damp in And get this blockwork round So it's solid Round to where Alex's left leg is Door and then another little pillar there So that should take long now, we're going to have a lot more left over But it's It's dyed brown So I didn't want to just do half a mix Which probably wouldn't have been enough Anyway I'm waffling now, let's get on with it There you go Over here Yeah, it's dark When did the clocks go back? About 4 days ago This is our second pitch black finish Alex has got security lights so he's just struggled We're going to have to get on with our walkie-lights At the garage, we don't like having them in the van Just in case we need them but We're struggling Yeah, we've had to switch him A bitty morning We'd lost a whole morning right, it's a one o'clock, didn't we To be honest, we were not going to be able to work in the morning When it was raining It was raining, yeah Either way, we've got trouble some morning We've had to make up for it in half an afternoon Everything's been paid Everything's getting delivered Monday So we're organised now from today And we've also looked into some nice Fancy t-shirts which are going to get sorted out For our next project Next big project Yeah, I can see you This thing's meant to be good, isn't it But yeah We're up to damp We've got it backed up with the Weird 50 mil cavity It just doesn't feel natural But we've been allowed by the building inspector To use the 50 mil cavity To give them more floor area More space in the conservatory An extra 50 mil in the projection An extra 100 mil in the width Yeah So we're coming back Sunday To get this all prepped I have to remember the visqueen Alex, as you can see Alex's got one of the jabs there There's a jab in the garage And there's one in our garage Tomorrow we're having a day off There's not forecast very good And there's not much we can do here What we like to do If we can give it a day So the block's nice and solid So when we're doing the wackering It doesn't knock over the blockwork Yeah, I've done that before If you're rushing it, it's no good It's a shame because if we Just started work this morning at 8 o'clock We could have had that wall set out But that's the way it goes I'm afraid So hopefully if I would come here It doesn't matter what time Anything goes Monday I just have to make sure ring up Toward the concrete tomorrow Get a load on for the afternoon I think it's a cube So Right Over and out


Welcome back to why in the morning, and as usual, if it's Tuesday, it's end of finish of Tuesday. My name is Michelle Ashira. You can follow us across all our social media handles at Y254 channel at Michelle Ashira. In this particular session, we look into a conversation that focuses on ways you can monetize on TikTok. We all know that in a very short time, TikTok has become a social network that is used by millions of people worldwide. We've gone from being a simple social entertainment network to a platform where you can earn money thanks to content and community. That is you and me. The studio is joined with Leon Ondieke. He's a Kenyan-American TikTok influencer and a content creator based in Atlanta. He has over one million followers on TikTok. Welcome to Y254. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thank you for having me. How long have you been in the country? Let's start from there. We came into Kenya Friday, so we've been here for a couple of days. So far, what are you enjoying here? I love the weather. In Atlanta, which is where we're from, it's been really cold. It's been around 33 degrees Fahrenheit, so 1 degree Celsius over here. So it's been super cold, so I love the weather here. What about the food? The food has been great. Which is your delicacy right now? So the Kenyan sausages are good for breakfast. Let's see. We've had some donuts over here. I love phanta black currant. We don't have that in the U.S., so I was looking forward to getting that over here. So Leon, Karibusana? Thank you. So when did your journey, when it comes to being a content creator specifically in TikTok, when did it all start? It started late 2019, around like September, October. So I created my first video, we were in class, and one of my classmates was like, hey Leon, we should create a TikTok. We had just finished class, we had like 20, 30 minutes left, and we had nothing to do, so I was like okay. So I downloaded the app, we created a video, and I posted it. I didn't think much of it until like a week or two later, when I was in boy training. And we had finished class early there too. So I decided to record another TikTok. I made a little like gym skit, posted it, didn't think much about it, and then like a week later I woke up to like my phone like blowing up. Like there's so many notifications coming through, and I checked it, I was like what's going on, looked and saw I gained 50,000 followers on TikTok overnight. And throughout that weekend I gained an additional 100,000, so by that Sunday evening at 150,000 followers on TikTok. Alright, so what kind of content do you create? So I create content that involves a lot of social interaction. I'm a college student right now, so I film a lot of my videos while I'm in school. What are you pursuing before you even get to that? Oh yeah, my major is computer science. Alright, okay. So yes, going back to my question, the kind of content that you create. Yes, so I create content that involves me interacting with my peers at school. Like one of my series right now is a sign video. It was inspired by these other two people in the U.S. who do like a similar type video, like I hold a sign and it has like a challenge. It's like do this for this. So it's like it could be like pour water on your head for a TV. Which you actually did, I saw that. And people are actually doing it? Yeah, people are doing it for sure. And another one of my popular series right now is Your Hair Tangled. So I just have a lot of combs. And it's a quick-paced series where I walk up to someone and I'm asking them, is your hair tangled? They say yes or no. And then we see if they're right or wrong. And then at the end of the video they get to keep the comb because it's COVID season. So everyone gets to keep the comb. You could see the video whereby I think you're holding a placard saying that you're offering. It was $50 when they get you a professor or something. Yeah, so that's one of the sign videos. So each one has like a different type of dare on it. It could be anywhere from like pouring the water in your head to get the TV or like bringing a professor, getting $50. Or like even like bringing me a sprite for like $10 or $20. It's just a bunch of different types of dares for a reward. And the creator which I got that idea from like I saw and inspired me, they called Are You Kidding Me TV. That idea was brilliant and like I had to like take it up. It's great. All right. I learned as we keep this conversation going you could give out guys to show me the handle. So you can follow me and also check your order on TikTok as well. Oh yeah. All right. So before we even continue, maybe you can check out one of your videos. And some people can really get to relate with what we're talking about. Then we'll come back for more conversation in there soon. Yes. Rachel, is your hair tangled? I'm going to say no. No? Let's see. It's not. You get to keep the cone. Thank you. Sierra, is your hair tangled? Probably. Probably. Let's see. Oh. It's not. Yay. Thank you. Rachel, is your hair tangled? I'm going to say no. No? Let's see. It's not. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. You get to keep the cone. Thank you. Sierra, is your hair tangled? Probably. Probably. Let's see. Yeah. It's stuck. You get to keep the cone. Thank you. JP, is your hair tangled? Of course not, man. I got that nice grader here, man. You already know. It's stuck in there. You get to keep the cone. So how many views does this one get? This one got around 400,000 views. No. Okay. I remind people where they can find your antique rocks so that they can actually check out more of your videos. Okay. So my handle is leonleon.ond on TikTok. Oh, why? Oh, why? So you create so many videos on your page, of course. I would like to find out the level of consistency and how many videos you do in a day and how important is it for a content creator to be consistent. So recently I've become a lot more consistent over the past three weeks. I've been uploading once a day. So that means I'm going out to record three or four times a week, roughly, just to get enough content to post them. And consistency is so important. Early in the year, I was in two consistent. I was posting once every two weeks, and I was really stagnant. I was not growing. And then over the past three weeks, when I've been posting consistently, I went from 840,000 followers to 1.1 million followers during the past three weeks just by posting consistency. Consistently, yeah. Yeah. So consistency is super important. All right. And of course, when you get to see your videos, there are good quality as well. How long does it take to just edit? Because TikTok videos are quite very short, they're in seconds. So how long does it take to probably edit a video? So the hair tangled series that just played, those ones take not too much time to record and edit. I record those ones on my phone, and I could edit them within five to ten minutes. But the sign videos, those take a lot longer to record and edit. We're actually using a professional camera for that, where we have a cameraman hidden somewhere. There's a whole team. There's a whole team after those. So recording those takes anywhere from 20 minutes per video. And then editing each one of those can take upwards of an hour and a half. Just because we were condensing an eight to ten minute clip into a minute. So that does take quite a bit of time. And then after that, after I'm done editing, my younger brother is my other editor. So he goes back and he puts the words on the screen just to make it a lot easier for the viewer to know what's being said. And also relate and understand as well. I believe so. Okay. Let's look at the side of just monetization as well. Before we get there, I would like to find out how do you keep up with the trends? Because I feel like there's so many creatives out there, the different content being released each and every day. So how do you keep up with the trends and make sure that you can't unleash for yourself as well for your target audience that is? So that's the unique thing about my content. I don't have to keep up with trends. Okay. Because my content is completely detached from trends. So I could post the same type of content, the same three types of content, and they'll do well despite whatever trends are going on, just because it's content that appeals to everyone at all times. It's like me giving stuff for quick pace videos, which people could watch at any time of the year, despite the trends that are going on at the time. For someone who is watching this conversation and they want to, or maybe they are creatives number one or number two, they are looking forward to getting in the same space. It could be on YouTube or any other social handle. What would be your advice to them in terms of just to be able to stand out in the market space? So my advice would be to post consistently. That's the most important part. But also focus on developing a niche. And then once you find that niche, give it all your effort. The better the content you're producing, the more people are likely to view it. Because you have to think of it through the eyes of the consumer of your content. If you're watching content, do you want to watch mediocre content or do you want to watch the best quality content you could watch? So the higher the quality of your content, the more likely people are going to watch it. I think that just takes it at home.  So let's look at how you monetize from TikTok. What are a couple of ways that people can monetize from TikTok or how do you monetize from TikTok? So there's two ways which I monetize. I am part of the creator fund, which pays based off of the views which you get and how the viewers engage with the videos. So the creator fund doesn't pay an absurd amount of money. It's nice money to come in. It's like passive income from your posting. But the main source of revenue from TikTok or social media in general is through ads. So working with companies, once you've gotten views up and you're doing well, then you can work with a company and they will pay you to post an ad for their product or service on your account. Like collaborating with brands. You mentioned something about the creator fund. So is it by the number of views that you get? TikTok hasn't really published the exact formula they use. Sometimes it makes no sense to me. I'd have a 15 million view day and make less than a 14 or 13 million view day. So I don't know the exact formula they use, but I do know it's a combination of your engagement with each video posted or I guess that went out that day and then the views which you get. So it's a combination of views and engagement. I don't know necessarily how it works, how it breaks down, but those are the two primary factors.  So lives is another way to make money on TikTok. So how it works is you go live and then if the viewers on your live love your content or they want to show appreciation, then they could send you tokens or gifts during the live which are saved as TikTok tokens which could be converted into money later. All right. Let's look at another thing which I feel it's very important for someone who's watching this conversation and they want to get into the creative space as well. The couple of challenges that you face, has there been a space whereby these creative blockages because I've had that from YouTubers and everything, is it the same case and how do you deal with that? So one of the biggest problems I've had is managing time because as a full-time student and influencer you have to find a way to make it work. So sometimes I just be so stressed with everything that I have to do that I run out of ideas to pose. So that creative blockage does come up and I found that the best solution for that, at least for me, is to just take some time off. Even if it's taking two weeks off, just focusing on myself during those two weeks so that whenever I do come back, I'm fresh if that makes any sense. I'm able to focus on what I'm doing then because I relieve myself from this stress for two weeks. So if Leon is not creating content on TikTok, what is he doing? And if he's not at school, so what is Leon doing? I love going to the gym. I spend a lot of time there. That's where I hang out with most of my friends. Most of my friends love going to the gym too. So I'm going to either be at the gym or just hanging out with some friends. So that's it? Yeah. That's just what I do. Between school, TikTok and the gym. Fitness. So how can guys reach out to you on social media if they want to keep the conversation going? And when are you going back or are you still here to stay? We're going back to America early January, but if anyone wants to reach out to me if you have any questions about social media or anything, my Instagram handle is all my TikTok profile, but if you're searching it through Instagram, it's leonleon underscore o underscore underscore. Alright. Thank you very much, Leon, for creating the time to be with us. Looking on ways we can monetize from TikTok. I think now I'm encouraged. I can officially join TikTok. Thank you for having me. You're welcome, Leo. So that is Leon Nendeke. He's a Kenyan-American TikTok influencer and content creator based in Atlanta. We're looking on ways we can monetize from social media, which is TikTok. So guys, back at home, I hope you've learned a couple of one or two, three things and make sure you keep the conversation going. At michela shirezo you can find me across all my social. At Y254 channel is where you can find as across all our social media handles. We'll be right back with so much right here on Y in the morning.