So the next speaker is Ivana and she's going to talk about how to avoid becoming a 10 times engineer. Ivana is a back-end developer building web services at Wegfinder. All right, so welcome everybody again to this talk. I hope you had a good lunch. I was too nervous to eat lunch, but at least you know, if you did, that's good. So, all right. So I would like to talk to you today about engineering and balsamic osos. And I guess it's a sentence that you've never heard in your life, and that's okay, we will get to it. But first, let's get, you know, the annoying boilerplate out of the way first. So if my slides work. Oh, yeah. So I wasn't sure how good the video quality would be. So this is a candid picture of me taking while coding. This is what they usually look like. Yeah, I like to paint mugs. It's just the thing I do. I have way too many plans and they kind of seem to multiply on their own. Not sure what that is all about. And I also speedrun sometimes. And don't worry, this is not a sport. This is basically trying to complete the game as fast as possible, either using glitches or not. And it's all the fun. And it's a very, very nice thing to do with your programmer because if, for example, there is a puzzle in the game, you can just write an algorithm that solves it for you in the most optimal way. So it's fun. You should try it sometime if you're into that kind of stuff. So with the important stuff out of the way. As Mark also said, I am, I am a web service developer, so I basically build web services and APIs, mostly with the HTTP. And, you know, I kind of like Python, like, it's okay. So, I have been doing this programming thing for a while now. And basically I started with some website stuff when I was in school. Then I moved on to work in InfoSec and data processing for a while. And then I basically landed back in what is basically web development. And, you know, sometime in between getting my first engineering job and bringing down my first production database, I basically came to realize that there is, there are two things that are kind of very common and they're very present in engineering circles wherever you go.  Like, like, whatever tool, software, library, process, you name it, there will be somebody who just doesn't like it and it's very vocal about the fact that they, in fact, don't like it. Except Postgres, Postgres for some reason is this unicorn that seems like very well liked across the board. And the second thing is that everyone has opinions. Okay, maybe it's not everyone, everyone, but the people with strong opinions tend to be very loud about them. So it seems like it's everybody. So, there is this thing called the internet, you might have heard about it. And really, it's an awesome place. Like, okay, maybe accept that. But otherwise it's great. Okay, okay, okay, fine. I mean, it has some hiccups, but what doesn't. Okay, how can you not like the place that brought us synonym rules? I mean, there's just no way, right? It's physically impossible. So, I mean, so there's a, there's a, just ignore it. Okay. So there's a lot of stuff, you know, beyond your linguistic foot endeavors that you can share on the internet. And the easiest thing to share on the internet is your opinion. And when it comes to opinions, the internet is basically dynamics in them, right. So on the internet have opinions about all sorts of things. So obviously, what it means to be a good or bright programmer or how to become one is really no exception. And you have no doubt come across some of these pieces of advice already, like maybe you even sold them out. And many of them make sense. Not all of them. Not all of them. So what I did for this talk was that I looked up what the internet has to say about being a good or bad programmer and basically how to recognize that you're a bad or a good programmer. And I looked as a lot so that I can share it with you now and we can grow together as programmers and human beings in these roughly 25 minutes. So let's let's just start. So the first opinion that I want to showcase is this. Unless it's a real research or publication conference where people discuss and propose solutions to challenging problems, you won't find top notch programmers in these meetups. Why, because more often than not these meetups tend to waste too much time rather than actually solving some problem. This is awkward.   Okay, I hope you will understand if I skip the part where I actually try to debunk this like considering the circumstances. Okay. The internet also tells us that it is a good sign. It is a sign of a good programmer. If they glance over your shoulder and point at the bug in your code with their finger. But, you know, unless specifically asked, because you might be able to demonstrate your superior bug finding skills but it will probably not win you many friends. So next up. There are some marks of great bad programmers by phrases such as, I am so sad that my program doesn't work. I have tried to plead with it, and it still doesn't give work, or by. I feel that this code is right but I'm just not sure why it won't work, or even by, I read to my program every day and try to be a good friend, but it still doesn't like me. Whenever I try to attach to it, it gives me a core dome. So I mean to me, this kind of makes sense because you know reading to your program. I'm like reading to my little pony pillow will probably not too much good, especially considering that the program is already doing exactly what you told it so change this or that the problem might lie elsewhere. And also I have I have basically to, I think I have to come myself lucky because I have never come across anybody who talks like this. So I guess I have only met good programmers along the way. So that's good.  Should you get to attach to your program, unless you're a debugger, it's probably not that good of an idea. But that's being said that your program doesn't work make you a bad programmer. I mean, your guess is as good as mine. The internet tells us that with the right tools, when the 10 times engineer can do the work of 10 engineers, because they are so much more efficient with their time and execution. While an average engineer might be fumbling their way through a process at 10 times or is already streamlined it and it's two steps ahead. So there is this tool that will streamline your productivity all for the low low price of 1000 euro per month. I mean, where do I sign up. Usually I like to have some sort of a need for a tool first. But, you know, I guess it's just the case here that this is the like the pizza scissors of software tooling right you you didn't basically even know it existed until you found out you needed it. Or is that the other way around. Another sign of a good programmer is that they can complete any sequence of dialogue from Lord of the Rings Star Wars, or it worth or Monty Python. Um, so does Gilmore girls count, or are those the only approved shows because. And is it fine if I know all but one season because the that one season was written by somebody else and is like really bad and like the, you know, like the characters don't act like themselves bad. Like, okay, listen, I like nerdy stuff as much as the other person okay but I think it's important to recognize that stereotypes like this can prevent us from recognizing the, the potential and the value of people who basically do not fall into a need bucket like this, because nerdy out is cool and all but gatekeeping a bit less so. I mean, there are many people who would never even consider programming, because misconceptions are like these are just so common like they feel like being in nerd is is a requirement. Like it's like this club but instead, instead of like showing them your ID you have to do a really good Jedi mind trick impression, like, and it's a shame because while being in nerd is cool.  You know your album name. Okay, and I'm saying this as somebody who actually owned a set of hand made album years in my teens. Okay, so there's a reason why I don't write that down on my CD, because nobody would be interested. No other reason. If you want to become a better crawler, according to the internet, you should type faster. The author continues, when I see someone who has been working with computers for a decade and can surpass 100 WPM words per minute by the way, for even a short burst. I'll admit, it makes me cringe a little bit. It's just lazy as just Jeff at would put it. This one is a bit less demanding on memory than the previous one because, you know, instead of like remembering all dialogue from a show you just need to remember this one magic constant. Although, I guess knowing all the dialogue from a show is kind of helpful because if you're all, if you're all run out of things to type you can just keep on typing and keep an average, a very respectable average WPM so that's a good thing. Yeah, listen, I don't know about you people but on my average day at work, I spend much more time actually thinking than typing. And the product of the thinking is often fairly proportional to the time spent thinking. So what is more important, the ability to dismantle a problem and find a solution or, you know, writing it down. And your guess is as good as mine. Next up. You probably guessed that this one was coming and for those lucky enough, who don't know what this is about. So this is a Twitter thread from about a year ago, where this person basically shared their observations about 10 times engineers and how to spot them. It's a longer thread and it would probably make for a whole talk on its own. So I'm only picking two things here. 10 times engineers laptop screen background color is typically black. They always change defaults their keyboard keys such as I have an X are usually worn out more than a SME email senders.  And I usually change the default so I guess that's good for me. But I have no idea what makes I FNX more special than a SME and probably in my case, W as D is the most worn out are the most worn out keys anyway. I guess if you if you kind of, you know, make the math that still makes me like a, like a 3.5 times engineer so that's pretty good. 10 times engineers rarely look at help documentation of classes or methods. They know it in memory and can recall it from memory. They write code at the same uses writing English, no breaks, no pause just type. I was with you I'm failing this one so hard, like there, there probably isn't a day where I wouldn't have to look up something I don't know either in Python docs or in the docs of whatever library I'm using. Like I can never remember the order of parameters that go into reduce, like I just can't I guess my memory is just to average for me to meet the standard of some random person on the internet. Thanks again. In case you started programming in your 20s or, you know, even later, and you're wondering how to become a great programmer not just a good programmer. The internet offers this great piece of advice. You should have started being interested in engineering when you were in your early teens. To relate all you can be is a normal engineer.  Okay, listen, I started coding in my teens, but the most I learned came from basically when I moved from like individual tiny projects where I was experimenting on my own to actually coding with people. And then looking at other people's code and them looking at my code and pull request reviews, this sort of stuff. So it's not really about the pure time spent coding. You're really not missing out if you started up started out later so don't get discouraged. Next up. One guy, he just graduated a call himself a programmer. I asked him a couple of questions. So the tool tips of the application. Have you made a setup for your program. Have you set up tap stops according to the flow. His answers were simple. No, no, no. Yeah, I don't know either let's just move. So next up. To prove, believe it or not, I have written one million lines of code in under six months, resulting in a very functional, relatively back free commercial product on the scale of something like Microsoft Office, though totally unrelated. Further, the product was an innovative and fresh territory as in no competitive products no answers on Google, just completely on my own. I don't do it again because I was then on the hook to maintain one million lines of code. But I guarantee you that's at least 10 times a normal engineer. That's about six K LOC a day. The average engineer I've worked with puts out about 500 LOC a day, the best button or truck stores put out about 2k LOC a day. So it's not a clear 10 times mapping. That's 12 times normal engineer and three times a grade engineer screw in numbers all you want, but there's still a clear divide between rock star output and non rock star output. Yeah, so this person likes numbers.  And I was kidding but apparently there are people who are actually capable of precisely quantifying the output of a normal engineer. And they do it presumably like down to the decimal point. That's impressive. And they measure how good of a programmer they are by lines of code read. So, but you know what the best, most maintainable most buck free code is like code that was never written in the first place right. It's the best thing in the world to just write code for the sake of writing code and bonus points if you're doing it consistently at 100 WPM or faster. But you know what's harder, like maintaining code right. And what do you, what do you do more often, right a new shiny thing or like maintain this existing spaghetti code code base. It doesn't make any sense to maximize the amount of code written or its maintainability. And finally enough, the author even kind of realizes this but you know, so close and yet so far. And just a sign note, optimizing for the least amount of code written is probably also not the best strategy ever unless you're cold golfing. All right, let me take a breather here. The thing about a lot of this kind of advice is that the author basically assumes that everyone works exactly like them. Like that unless you watch the same shows or you know you have a certificate on your desk, stating just how fast you can type, you can only be mediocre at best. And you can even get so detached from reality that your advice doesn't even make sense to anybody else but you like that all tips person. And, you know, the worst thing about this is though that the perpetuating basically the myth of a rock star or ninja or 10 times or real engineer can be really harmful because it can very easily alienate people who feel like they don't fit the stereotype for whatever reason. I mean you've got to give it to the stereotype it's a very smart way of perpetuating itself. And this myth has also often been used as an excuse to keep people around who make others feel unwelcome without realizing basically how much of an effect this has on the community as a whole. And how that it actually prevents others from contributing, you know, because that's the hidden price of worshipping rock star engineers with poor manners like you might be keeping this one person who can get away with anything because they can get things done. But at the cost of losing many others potentially people you don't even know. Yeah. So that was a bit too serious for this talk. Okay, so let's talk about something else for a bit. Let's let's talk about food. Okay. So let's talk about Balsamico sauce or BS for short. I think that we, you know, as developers, come in contact with Balsamico sauce every day. And you might think in being able to tell whether something is legitimate or Balsamico sauce is an essential skill. So basically it takes time to build up, but I think there's a handful of signs or like red flags that you can basically sport regardless of your experience. So imagine you have, you have an axis like this, where you have like the potentially harmless maybe even valuable advice on the left hand side, and strong Balsamico sauce vibes on the right hand side. So let's start with an easy one. Okay. So if an article suggests that you wire up your dusty time machine and travel back to your team so that you can start coding earlier. I think you should feel free to disregard this advice of this as it will not be very helpful or encouraging. If an article is condescending towards people do not need some arbitrary standard and this is a fairly large group of articles. In some cases, this might be legitimate. Okay, right. Like, I don't know, don't store plain things passwords. Okay, but the key here is the word arbitrary, because you have to think about if enough reasoning is given that supports for example the 100 WPM limit or is that just something is that just the magic number the author thought of in the shower. Your guess is as good as mine. Sometimes an article is just trying to sell you the one true solution to a problem you didn't even know you had exercise caution, even when they're not even trying to hide it. And finally, if an article tells you to dance around the campfire naked on the six full, six full moon of the year. I think we know where to put this one on the axis but still make sure to apply additional bosomical filters because I mean, it sounds reasonable but who knows what they're suggesting later on right. Yeah. So with that said, I haven't really thought this through that well because I mean, I have been making fun of, you know, random advice from the internet.  What do you suggest. But then if I give you any sort of advice then I'm just another random person on the internet but in opinion. So why should you take any advice from me and you know, you shouldn't, at least not until you apply your own bosomical filters to it beforehand. Like I said, if you want to become better at writing codes. I really don't have any glamorous piece of advice for you. You just need to practice. You need to write you need to rewrite you need to read code. The best thing you can do is have other people read your code as well and comment on it. Write down things that take you along to figure out, for example, make a make a get record with notes with solutions to problems that took you to key days to figure out because you will forget what the actual solution was and you will come up. But the problem with will come up again.  If you can stop comparing yourself to others. You just need to remember that for every amazing program or you see what you don't see is basically the days of mistakes and struggling. And you basically only see the end product. And you can also get there, you just unfortunately have to go through the struggling part first. Yeah, but there's another thing so when I think of a great programmer. It's not that much about code. I mean that matters to of course but it's more about the attitude. It's it's more about how the person approaches problems and how they approach other people. Like, are they willing to help you. Can you bounce your ideas off of them or can they say no to ridiculous demands and shield shield others from them. You know that sort of thing. And I think there is one thing that I think really gets underestimated sometimes and that is that, you know, whenever we write code with very few exceptions. We are part of a community, right. If be it's an open source project or your workplace. And regardless of your standing within the community, although the higher up you are formally or informally with the more of an influence you have of course you influence what is considered normal within the community. You know business like that one time that you were lazy and got some spaghetti cold into the cold base. It might continue to grow because others will be like, Why should I care if this other person doesn't you know, if they can get away with it, or, you know, I don't really like I don't really care about implementing this feature in a nice way because there's already hacks in the cold base so you know why bother. This extends to to social interactions to so your actions, so the precedent. So, what I'm saying is, it's good to be aware of the influence that you have on other people, even if it may be hidden, the first site. Because in the end you know it's much easier, like the easiest way to get a 10 times engineers to get a 10 times 10 times engineer is to simply have 10 completely average engineers working well together and helping each other out. And at the end of the day it's very much okay to be an okay engineer. If you if you took absolutely nothing from this talk, and you just want to know how much of an engineer you really are, you can just pick install this package and it will tell you bonus points if you can get the true ending. And with that, thank you everybody for listening. Thank you very much for this very, very nice talk. We have one question from from Jill. Any suggestions on understanding during interviews if the company you're joining has engineers like the ones you showed over 10 times engineers. So as a participant. That's that's a good question. Well, there are there are things that you can then you can maybe already already spot, like at the interview right you can see what kind of people interview you you can see how will you, how will you get along with them. You can also see what kind of people they are. For example, if they're, if there are people from underrepresented groups there in the interview already that's that's I think a good sign. And I guess you can come up with good questions to somehow detect this I cannot think of anything at the moment because my brain is frozen. I'm pretty sure like, like you get you get you should already somehow feel the vibe from the interview and from the people who interview you. It just somehow clicks and and maybe you can ask them I don't know about you know about about work life balance and all these sort of things because they tend to go together with with a nice company culture. But I think there would, sorry, would you would you recommend going to a conference, sorry conference and into a company that obviously has these 10 times engineers so would you recommend not going there. The 10 times engineers or 10 times engineers.  Probably not but there's also I think value in trying to, you know, to, to, to be sort of a force for change in in a community or in a workplace if you will. So, it really depends. Like, it also depends like how, how, how you are. Like what your approach is and how, how resistant you are to these kinds of things, you know. So I guess it comes down to personal preference but I would, I would, I would probably avoid that. Okay, thank you. So let me play the applause. I really like the fact.


CFA acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and pays our deep respect to Elders' past, present and future. CFA is very happy to introduce the Aboriginal Engagement Guidelines. The Aboriginal Engagement Guidelines are intended to help CFA members better engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to improve knowledge and understanding and to improve awareness of the sensitivities that exist. They are part of CFA's commitment to improve Aboriginal engagement and inclusion. Back in 2014, Barma Brigade members took part in Aboriginal cultural awareness training and realised the need to be more actively involved with Aboriginal run events. Since then, every year, the brigade has taken the truck down to the local Aboriginal Danya Cultural Centre for the annual NAIDOC Week event. Our Murray Blair, I'm the Barma Brigade Captain, have been for the last three years, been involved with this brigade for about five years and with the CFA for over 40 years. Well, mainly we've been, as part of the community, we've been heavily involved with the NAIDOC days in July. Our brigade has a good representation out there every year and, generally, we just sort of participate with anything that may come up around the town. We live in an area which is very culturally significant for the Indigenous population being mainly yordy-yorda, so we just like to be active and be proactive with the community around here. When people feel included, respected and connected, they are more likely to access CFA services and programs and to implement safety measures. Rochester Fire Brigade members are proud to fly the Aboriginal flag on culturally significant days and leave it flying when they can as a sign of respect and inclusion. Well, pretty special for us in our situation. We took on the CFA's initiative through the Kia Plan and as a result, through District 20, we were able to hold a smoking ceremony here in this station and that is actually the first smoking ceremony in a fire station in Victoria, the CFA station in Victoria. So, we're pretty proud of that and as part of that day, we were gifted an Aboriginal flag from the yordy-yorda people and we've been flying that proudly ever since. And, incidentally, as we were handed over, it was introduced into the smoking ceremony, so it's had that special treatment. It's not as if it's just going by it off the rack. It's been handed to us by the Aboriginal people, so pretty special. I think those brigades that have taken on flying the Aboriginal flag is great. The flag is a symbol for Aboriginal people to give them some sort of status in which it has. Now, when we see that flag flying wherever, we know that we are welcome to go in and for the ones that are flying that flag, I congratulate them on making that happen because that is one way of saying to some of those non-believers that we are having a change, you know, to this organisation and certainly we're going to make a way in this state of ours. These guidelines are full of tips for engagement that can help your brigade and your district office decide what you can do locally. Be guided by CFA's values, be respectful, show integrity and work together with Aboriginal people and traditional owners. We had a really passionate member who brought forward some ideas in relation to recognising the local Watherong community. She was a really good artist and she put together a really lovely plaque that we've got on the front of our station. We eventually had it made in Brance. And it was just an acknowledgement of country, acknowledgement that the first Australians were here, are here. She made some connections through laying in Cal Cal Prison with some of the elders that are doing some work in their helping Indigenous youth sort of get some connections within their Indigenous culture. She brought that back to Brigade as a possible idea as to, hey, are you interested? We came to the conclusion and we got it off the line and came to an agreement so we'd move forward with the artwork. The artist that we've chosen, it was his first piece of art that he'd ever done and it's a really great piece of art and it's provoked some fairly good conversations. By building partnerships, trust and mutual respect, CFA can work together with the Aboriginal community to improve fire safety and improve how we use planned fire in the landscape. Indigenous people are very passionate about looking after country and at the moment with the way some of our rivers are looking and some of our forests, they are very, very sick and one way we used to heal country was through traditional burning. Traditional burning practices have been interrupted in most parts of Victoria. Even so, traditional owners and the Aboriginal community retain their connection to country. They have a deep responsibility to care for country and know that burning is a vital part of caring for country.  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are generally more receptive and willing to talk openly when they know that you have some knowledge of their culture. Therefore, cultural awareness training is important. I did the Jigajah program, which is an Indigenous burning program up north to Hellsgate. We did some cultural burning and got some education on Indigenous culture. Really, really good experience. Some really good people bringing back some great ideas and sharing together. The Kiap can open the doors to Aboriginal people. It can make a difference to certainly Indigenous youth if they're given the opportunity to be part of a great organisation such as the Country Fire Authority. Aboriginal cultural heritage sites are found across Victoria and are representative of over 40,000 years of continuous culture. Under the Aboriginal Heritage Act, CFA needs to ensure that no harm is done to these sites, even though exemptions are in place when there is an emergency. Page 18 of the guidelines lists the different types of heritage sites and places and the risk, fire or machinery can pose. Our heritage is vitally important of what makes up who we are today, what we need to focus on in the future, but also acknowledging the past and how we all need to connect on the continent that we call Australia today. Respect is one of CFA's core values and it's important to respect Australia's first people and to respect their affinity and connection with the land. We fly the Aboriginal flag to recognise the first Australians and I think that's probably the most important reason to be respectful towards the first Australians. Aboriginal engagement guidelines, it starts with respect and it matters to Aboriginal people. Visit www.kip.cfa.vic.gov.au


Pidigal requests for 500 billion naira to cushion subsidy removal impact. This is a possibility, I wear out a coat. With five weeks left from the eight weeks, the federal government had an organized labor agreed to the conclusion of subsidy removal talks and relatives. President Bollard, who yesterday asked the House of Representatives to amend the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act to allow the federal government's source for 500 billion naira for palliative to cushion the effects of petrol subsidy removal. The president in a letter addressed to the speaker, Tajidina Bas, which was read during Wednesday's plenary, said the money would be sourced from the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act of 819.5 billion naira. Now joining us to discuss this is Shagun Shah Pidongi, he's a public affairs analyst. Also joining us is George Ashiri, he's the chairman of the ADC in Lagos. Thank you so much gentlemen for joining us and good evening. Good evening. All right, I'm going to start with you, Mr Ashiri. The Senate also has recently okayed the borrowing of $800 million. Even when the last borrowing, according to the last government that left, that we had so many borrowings, $800 million, $200 million that the former attorney general, the finance minister, or the former finance minister are yet to account for. And now we're having this new attempt to borrow in fact. The Senate has okayed it, that means it's good to go. Now during the wandering, why are we borrowing, yes again, if the other monies that were still for the cushioning effects or the palliative, as we call it, for the subsidy removal. Why do we still have to borrow again? You know, just to be very straightforward with you, this is just politics. Already the government is saving about $400 billion every month since subsidy was set. In fact, the end of the federal period is still there.  So this government will have, and it's the amount of money they're trying to borrow just by saving on subsidy. So everybody was approved by the previous governments. This, this, this, this racial extension, it does not mean you have to draw down, especially since we are spending a lot of money. All of the income of governments is now basically paid for debts. You know, it's not like there's a problem in the size of our debt. The problem is that we're not early enough to pay for it, we're not a productive economy. We are a trading economy. We rely too much on foreign products, so we are not exporting enough to earn enough to be able to pay off our debt. So the size of economy is used as justification for borrowing, but the size of our actual net income is not sufficient to pay off our debt. So, and even if you're going to take this this debt, this borrowing in order to create a palliative for the masses, you don't send them pitas, not enough to make a pot of soup for a family of five. And you are planning to give that to 60 million people through 12 families.  This does not make any sense to anybody who's discerning. If you make education cheaper, that's a proper palliative. If you make health care cheaper, that's a proper palliative. If you create public services that people use on a daily basis, that's a proper palliative. You have taken, you have increased 30% of their monthly costs, transportation, the generator, that they are now paying for, you know, they're paying for more, more fuel to be able to power the generators, factories are going to pay more, you know, to be able to run transport is going to go up. So, essentially, people are already going to be feeling a massive weight, you know, of this subsidiary mover, which everybody agrees is sensible. What we're saying is this, plan for it, prepare for it, and create a pathway that it can have a positive impact to the people. That's my immediate thought at the moment. I don't think that 500 billion is going to be used that way. It will benefit the people we have seen from past activities or previous governments that are giving people cash. It's not the way to jump start the economy when we are facing unnecessary inflation because of the policy of the semi-government. So, let me come to you. In 2012, one of the good block general selling administration, when subsidy removal was first the foremost brought to the fore, where we store the likes of former president, Mohammed Buhari, and the rest of them go on that march called Occupy Nigeria. To the credit of the Jonathan administration, they gave us details as to how this was going to work, if they eventually were going to remove the fuel subsidy. We have details. They were made public down to the T, but then in this case, under the Timber Administration, the whole idea of the subsidy removal and the palliative system and whatever seems to be shrouded in secrecy. Why do you think that is? Well, Marianne, I think there's a lot about this conversation that is wrong. The secrecy that you refer to, I am not sure it's as much secrecy as it's about a lack of a coherent plan. I think that's what you're seeing. I think what we're seeing play out is a situation where something has been said for a long time. It has come to be accepted as something that has to happen or something that is the truth, and a president who has just come on board, who is new in office, feels that it's an opportunity. The fact that he's new in office is an opportunity to do something about it while he has goodwill. In fact, if you like, maybe it might even be that he's trying to use this subject to derive some goodwill from the right quarters, from the right stakeholders. I think what we have seen is what I think is basically a major poorly planned policy action. The subsidy issue is a very profound issue. It's not something that you trifle with lightly. If you want to talk about subsidies and talk about whether or not they should be removed, whether or not if they're removed, what will happen. You have to go through a very thorough, rigorous planning process. You have to put a lot of thought into it. You have to look at what has been done in other parts of the world, how has it worked, what are other countries doing. I do not see any evidence that any of this has happened with enough detail for us to have the desired outcomes. I don't think what you're seeing is secrecy. I think what you're seeing is the government simply playing it by air, responding as we go along, putting in policies as we go along that they feel will address the concerns that are being raised by the stakeholders. I think that's what we're seeing. That's why you see, for example, that the first thing that was said was that there was a loan from the World Bank, and then after you had a loan from the World Bank, then you're now talking about an appropriation of 500 billion naira. Mind you that this appropriation is not a fresh appropriation. It is basically seeking the approval of the National Assembly to convert, at least that's what I saw in the news, to convert an approval that had been given previously by the same National Assembly to the Guari administration for an 897 billion naira infrastructure intervention fund to deal with the outcome of the problems resulting from flooding and insecurity at that time late last year. What we're seeing now is the president now asking the National Assembly to approve for his administration to use part of that money for something else. So again, you can see that perhaps enough thought has not gone into this. To talk about palliatives, like my brother said, you can be talking about distribution of cash to people, especially the cash in the amount that we have heard. And if you have to do that, then you've got to ask yourself, why was the subsidy removed in the first place? If the reason for subsidy removal was that there is corruption in the system, and that only a few people as a result of the corruption was benefiting from this, how come we're replacing this with conditional cash transfers that is pretty much almost impossible to track and prevent corruption from derailing? It doesn't make sense. So it looks as if the government is simply going along and just playing it along by air as they go, and it's simply not good enough. Let's talk about accountability because we can't keep talking about these loans, and we don't talk about these monies, how we track the monies and follow it. And who's going to give account for these monies? Back to you, Mr. Sheru. We see, like I said at the beginning, Malini was at some point asked to show up at the National Assembly with the former finance minister to give account about certain monies. And there's several other monies that have been borrowed to spend, as opposed to borrow to build infrastructure or put into businesses that would bring cloudback profit. How do we get these people to be accountable, whether it's a previous government or the governments before them? Let me even quickly chip in that Sarah has recently gotten a ruling from the courts that has said that the Jonathan, Obasan Jol, the Yadwal government needs to give account of all the monies that they got under the nomenclature of the Abacha Lute. They need to give account. How do we get these people to give account right now? Because where we are, we're in a tight situation between the devil and the deep blue sea, and Nigerians have continuously, I remember under the Jonathan administration, we were told to tighten our belts. Do we still have a waste to even put the belts around? Is that you? Thank you very much. I think in a public service, I've never been accountable. The public service have never done this in power. I've never seen themselves being accountable or wanting to be accountable. I think we're right back to the days when supposedly for 12 billion dollars, spent 12 billion dollars to prosecute the walls in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the ECOMOC fund, we never got a breakdown as to whether money came from and what was useful. So the various governments generally have raised money through different sources and never been accountable. And so we have a history, the history of just not being accountable. And this requires public service reforms. Freedom of information acts that we talk about is not actually being used to accept you go to the courts. And even when you go to the courts, we know selectively that government will obey one order or the other or various courts. So it is a problem. It is one of the pillars of injustice in the country. It's one of the reasons why corruption continues to thrive. But what I would like to say is just quickly going back to the issue of subsidy is that the reason subsidy became necessary was because of exchange rate issues in the first place. The moment we were devaluing our currency, the lending cost of fuel, obviously, because it's so the dollar keeps going up. Now you are just removing subsidy and then the cost of getting the dollar to buy the oil has just gone up because you're floating the forex. So everything is just going around in circles. So this is in itself its own accountability. The fact that you can't even link up the two economic factors so that we can all have a debate and say, no, you're going to do one before the other, one after the other. You just put everything, knowing that 60% of the population of Nigeria, they're living under what is a worldwide scale for poverty. And so in economic terms, we have a problem. And then the lack of accountability of government before it even announces policy is a big problem not to speak of accountability after it begins to implement those policies. So that's a conversation we need to have as well. Amirianne?  You belong to an accountability network of sorts where you're supposed to push for good governance and part of good governance is making sure that we have open budgets, that we have governments that are accountable at all levels. And when we talk about accountability, we're always mostly pointing at the federal government. Now in this case of subsidy, yes, so we rest on the table of the federal government. But the how to is what we're trying to get at now. And you obviously work with civil society. How do you think that we can get these people to be accountable? Because you see, most people will say that once the government leaves, it's very difficult to track and trace, especially monies that have not been accounted for. But might you have an idea as to how Nigerians can go about this? Aside from Sarah, who's been going to court every single day and pushing for accountability, how else can we go about this? Shevon? Well, first of all, I can't praise Sarah Pinoff. I think that they're doing an amazing job. They're carrying the weight and the load of the entire civil society space at the moment with regards to providing some sort of checks and balances for the government. Even if at the end of the day, we all know that the government tends to implement court orders, court judgments selectively. But at least somebody is standing up and saying, come on, give us an account. We at ACT Network have done this a couple of times in the past. We've done freedom of information requests to the federal ministry of agriculture. We've done to the federal ministry of transportation. And we've received responses in varying measures.  So we keep talking about the culture of impunity in this country. And I think that this is perhaps the root cause of all of this. We as a society find a way to ensure that there are consequences for bad behavior. So when you make a demand of a government agency or the federal government or a state government, as the case may be, that they know that if they do not respond to your demand that there will be a consequence. Now, what kind of consequences could we possibly have? Yes, you could go to court. But since the likelihood is that there is no mechanism in place to compel them to obey court orders, the only thing that I can think of at the moment that could serve as an accountability system for governments are the elections. So you know that at the end of the day, if you do not meet the expectations of your citizens and of your electorate and of your voters with regards to their accountability and you being transparent with how you use the resources they've entrusted to you, that you will be voted out at the next election. Maria and you and I know where we stand, which regards to that system and how that system has continued to fail in terms of providing a mechanism. Because I was about to ask you that in the interim, because especially for this government, they just got here. So what do we do in the interim while we wait for another election cycle, which again, many have queried because they don't necessarily think that we've been able to have anything close to a free fair credit for the election. So what do we do in the interim? So in the intervening period, I think we sometimes underestimate the power that we have as citizens. Marianne, I honestly believe that Nigerians don't realize how powerful we are that when we unite behind the course that we will have our way, that the politicians are low key, right? They are low key afraid of the citizens. They recognize that the citizens do have power and they do everything in their in their own power to ensure that the citizens are unable to wield and utilize that power by ensuring that education is crippled by ensuring that poverty is weaponized and all of that. The politicians do all of these things because they know that the moment those things are taken out of the way, then citizens can make demands. I have several examples of situations in the past five years where just using the tool of social media, Nigerians have risen and united in their voice against a particular action or plan of a government and the government has had no choice but to stand down. This has happened repeatedly, so I can give you examples. The Ruga initiative, if you remember Ruga about four or five years ago, the social media bill that was being proposed at some point, you know, the ban on Twitter, you know, even though Bwariah stubborn as he was as a president, eventually he bowed to pressure. I don't know, that's that's that's out there, but the point is when Nigerians unite behind a course and we speak repeatedly and consistently about that course, the government doesn't have a choice. They would have to listen. So beyond the elections, I think we need to ensure that we do not get tired of speaking. We do not get tired of speaking on whatever platforms we have access to. It doesn't matter. You don't have to have access to, you know, TV stations like some of us do and maybe radio stations.  So, you know, I think it's important that people need to know that they do have a voice and they should use it. Mr. Sheree, let me come to you. Just picking up from where Sheree Goong has stopped, the power of the office of the citizen of the federal republic, it's something that we say with a loss of power. But just as he said, we probably do not know how much power that office wields. But he said all the fine and dandy things about how these this office of the power that we have can be influential. But let's also cast our minds back to the ensouce campaign and we saw how it tended and how people were hurt in the, you know, the eye of the whole world. The whole world was watching when soldiers, you know, came to attack these unarmed protesters. Now, many people would say, oh, we saw what happened in Occupy, Nigeria. That was one successful. But could it also be that these protests in Nigeria only succeed if it has a political face? If a politician is leading it, if it's to the interest of whether it be the opposition or the sitting government, that is the only time these protests work. Of course, our Constitution allows for us to protest because we are supposedly in a democracy. But why does it seem that when Nigerians land together, just as Shabu said, they're scared of it, but then half the time we're attacked? Well, I did. Protests have always been part of our culture. Anybody who went to university in the early 90s. Now it was extremely vibrant. And it was this incessant protest against it that actually made it easy for the police to attempt to move it from office. So, you know, we had quite a lot of powerful civil society activities in the military era. So what has happened is that after Australia left the NLC, suddenly the civil society as a whole became gentlemanly and felt they could negotiate and discuss with politicians in power rather than take the old, known road. If you are consistent and you don't get tired in making an issue on the front boner, it has an impact on politics. But people get tired, they try once and then after that they get tired. But if we go back to the old culture where, you know, an active opposition was on the streets, the days when, the days when, and so on and so forth, didn't get tired of coming out every six months. What led to, I mean, to let you look, you'll not have been pronounced president of this country when he's, at that time, the president was ill. The so-called doctrine of necessity, it was because some people went out to the streets and were aggressive about it. So if there are policies that we do not agree and it's a accountability issue, we have to go back to that old one-out way to get people to continuously look at the issue. But once we do it once and we step back, they will step back, politicians use the opportunity to quickly reach out to the leaders of these protest groups and, you know, begin to give them appointments or, you know, whatever it is that they do. So I think that culture is what we need to bring back. The culture of taking an issue, taking a stand on that issue, not actually led by politicians, because that makes it even worse, because it is easy for people to now say the politician is beating the protest. It is because he's using it as a form of campaign. What is required is good citizens of this country, patriotic individuals in this nation, across different sectors and stricter societies, coming out and say, look, we don't agree with this policy. We don't agree with this federal government. We want to change. We want something new. And it doesn't always have to be violent. That's a matter of fact, I don't subscribe to any form of violent protest. But peaceful protests, look at the Black Lives Matter protest. It was worldwide and it made a difference. It brought justice in the case of the gentleman that was killed on justice. And I think it shows that humans by nature, we don't like being cheated. We would always want to go out there. The moment we know that the people leading those protests have a right agenda and the right motives, we will sustain it. So that culture needs to come in. But if you look at what my my governorship candidate in ATC has done of research, Funchal Doherty, he has been writing, has been doing a one-man opposition to the police of government in Lagos State and the federal. He has been writing to the Lagos State consistently disagreeing with lots of policies, disagreeing with the PPP altering agenda, concerning buses and transportation. And it has forced the Lagos State government to respond. They have been forced to call into meetings and the state assembly. They've been forced to respond to him with letters because it's sustained. And I think that's what we need to do more of. We don't get tired from just one attempt. We have to be consistent. We have to be dogged. And we have to be led by people that have integrity and they have right motives. All right, gentlemen, we're going to continue this conversation right after this break because we're going to move on to talk about the tune of the administration and its trajectory. And lots of this whole subsidy removal means for Nigerians going forward. Stay tuned. The still plus politics will be right back after this break. It's still plus politics. And I'm still being joined by Mr. Ashiru. He is the chairman of the ABC in Lagos, Bill Ashiru. Also, I'm being joined by Chef Nishopita. He is a political analyst and also of ACT Network. Now, before we went on the break, I was talking to Mr. George Ashiru, I beg your pardon. But, Chef, let me come to you. You mentioned while we were having this conversation of the culture of impunity that is one of also the bane of corruption in this country. The fact that anybody who, in fact, everybody has made one way or the other, politics in Nigerian look like a national cake of sorts where, well, when I get there, no matter how much I wax lyrical during my campaigns, I want to go there and get my own share of the national cake and get going. And knowing that several other people have done this and then they've gotten away with it, either with a slap on the wrist or, after a media trial, everything goes cold. No matter how interesting the plans of any president or any administration is, if the culture of impunity continues to run within the corridors of these powers or alliances that they have due to whether party affirmations or whatever, can we really ever see your experience of good governance, especially at a time like this, where Nigeria is almost on its knees? It's a very fundamental question you've asked and I'm glad because at the end of the day, we need to recognize we, as a people, when I say we, I mean Nigerians, need to recognize that a lot of the things that we're seeing today, the flip-flop nature of the implementation of this policy by a government that is just 40 days old, who you would have thought, having just won an election, knowing fully well the effective March, I think it was March 6th or thereabouts that INEC declared the results, knowing fully well that May 29th, three months later, they would be in control in government, you know, one would have thought they would have, you know, they would have, you'll see more coherence, right, that the only way to get this government to do the things that we need them to do is active engagement by Nigerians in the governance process, there is no other way, there is no short course. If you go to any society that works anywhere in the world, be it the United States, the United Kingdom, anywhere in the EU, you know, Germany, France, you'll find that the citizens have an opinion about everything and their voices are heard and they are loud. Look at what's happened in France, just in the last couple of weeks, one boy was shot and the people felt that this was unjust because he was an immigrant and all of that and the whole country shot down, you know, we need to get to that point where, as a people, we recognize that nobody is going to deliver good governance to us and a platter of gold, the same way that the president, the incumbent president said during the elections that power is not given ala cat and that you have to grab it, you've got to run with it, you've got to, I can't remember those words that he used, you know, the horrific one. That, those same words just replace power in that charge from the president, the current president and replace it with governance, good governance. Good governance will not fight for it, we've got to struggle for it, we've got to run away with it until we do that, we will not get governments that do the things that we need them to do now. How do we do this? I know the conversation always comes down to the how, you know, where 200 and something million people in majority of home are impoverished, less than 2 to 3% of these people can be said to be really comfortable, the rest, you know, maybe 10% are probably in the middle class, everybody else is poor, so your business running around trying to survive, how do you engage, how do you make your voice heard?  He's been on Twitter for a long time, we've followed each other, you know, we've been engaging over the years, he is the special advisor on social media or new media now, so whatever you are tweeting, tag him, he's going to see it and he's going to relate some of that to the president, we need to keep speaking Mary, and there is no other way, there is no shortcut, I'm sorry, but that's just how it works, that's how the other societies go to where they are today, that we admire them, and that's what we have to do, we've got to keep speaking, there's no other way. Hmm, Mr. George, let me come back to you, let's talk about the trajectory of the Tunigual administration, when we were on the break, I was just trying to paint a picture, now that they have said to us that this is our, this is the situation, they've taken out subsidy, even though the question still lingers, you took out subsidy because you wanted to put an end to corruption, to plot the loopholes, but now we're seeing another idea of gas being bounced around, and many have, many pundits have proposed that, look, these are the same guys who have been principalities in the oil and gas sector, coming up with another idea with which they're going to strangle this administration, and of course the people with, so with the things that we've seen this government doing the 40 plus days that it's, you know, it has ascended to power, can we really say that they're on the right track, or are we being a bit too judgmental too early? The truth of the matter is that the economy of a nation, and the, as you said, the principalities, they cannot be dislodged, you know, just by wishful thinking, they can be dislodged by presidential acts, they can be dislodged by decrees. It's going to take a period of studying the system and coming up with alternatives that can neutralize the existing, you know, platforms. For example, the moment we introduced BVN, you know, we shut down some areas of, you know, some loops in the way money has been transferred, you know, when the government came up with single treasury account system, they reduce a certain level of corruption within the monetary system in the general government of Nigeria, asking everybody to go through a payment platform for paying of goods and services online reduces. So these are the activities that the government does, reform, reform, reform. And when you focus on reforms, you automatically diffuse all of these various struggles. But if you are focusing on targeting individuals and targeting groups and targeting blocks, you are fighting on necessary political battles, and you forget the people, what is tantamount to good progress in any nation is reforms, reform the civil service, reform the reform education system, reform the health system, reform the oil and gas, you know, apparatus, reform the financial system, you know, you remember that Soludo, when he was central bank governor, he forced four or five banks to come together, that's when we began to see some banks were weak and some banks were strong, you know, so reform the evasion sector. Since reforms came to the evasion sector, we don't hear of aircraft crashes like before. So these things are common sense politics that you can do as a president, as a governor, as members of national assembly, rather than just sit down there holding on to the simplest and easiest ways to govern, which is, oh, let's move subsidy. So there were money to play around with. What are you going to do with the money? As long as those strong goals are there, as long as those same responsibilities are there, the same amount of money we stick around trip to these same individuals, and in another four years when you finally leave office, people are poor, and then you will say, but I did my best, you did your best, you were simply unprepared to cover, you were simply misunderstood. I said this message once, you know, a minute after the election, I said, governing the states and governing the federal government, there are two different things. It's a whole mighty massive mountain to govern the federal government. And that is why succeeding presidents are failed. It has been difficult for them to succeed because they go in there with this naivety, this idea that when I go there, I will play, you know, presidents have failed to do this, and people will follow. If people in the civil service to sabotage opponents, they would not implement what is implementable. And then so these are the reasons why the only way is a president vice can succeed is by listening to the people. You don't turn down to the people, you don't come up with policies and push it down our necks. You, I will have expected that president Junoble will take a month and a half to two months to listen to all the arguments concerning, you know, subsidy removal, and policies that can go with it, economic policies that can come forth with the savings, and then make pronouncements, make speeches, presidential addresses. Everybody alone. Everybody feels, yes. So even if we're suffering, we know the purpose. If there's a denial of something, we know where it's going to come out from. So if you don't give me money here, but I can see that I'm spending less money on, on, on electricity or I'm spending less money on, on, on my healthcare, then what you took from me here, you gave it to me there. That's equanimity. That's equity. That's perfect. But if you take from here, you take from there, you take from there, and then you want to reduce corruption. Where? People are hungry and want to steal. People who don't have to go into crime. You will now spend more money on, you know, managing crime. You spend more money, you know, I keep saying it. These things are common sense. You don't need an economy to sit down to let you know that every time people suffer, you increase the chances of insecurity.  So the money you saved here, you spend it there. So as far as I'm concerned, what this government can do is to be a listening government, is to be a government that listens and communicates with people and gets feedback from people and make policies based on that conversation.  People, the fact that they are not speaking now, doesn't mean that when the time is right, they will not come and express their displeasure. And it may not always be through the ballot box. And that's one thing we have to prevent. Yeah. Mr. Shapito, let me come to you now and look at this issue of young Nigerians, just like Mr. Shiro has said, there seems to be some quiet, you know, and a lot of people, some are grumbling quietly. Some are not even saying anything. And many have accused us Nigerians as always just, you know, taking everything that politicians give us. We just roll over. But then Mr. Shiro has said something that maybe at some point there might be a breaking point. But for a person who, if you were to advise the TNGO administration, again, looking at the trajectory here and how things are going, what would you be advising Mr. Shiro has said, listen to the people. I'm guessing because I remember when the last time you and I had a conversation, you said, oh, that the TNGO, the man TNGO himself has worked with technocrats, people who have bright ideas, et cetera, et cetera. We're yet to see the people of course become his commissioners and special advisors. But right now there has to be a kitchen cabinet. There are people who are supposed to be advising him. Do these things that they are doing the job pretty well? Well, I think it's tempting to just say it's too early. But I honestly don't think it's too early. I think that there's a proverb in Yoruba, and I think it's a common proverb in most cultures. You know the evening from the morning. The morning tells the evening. And the way that I've seen this government flail, that's the only word I can use. They're flailing around with policies. There is a lot of incoherence with regards to fiscal policy, tax administration. They made a pronouncement and they reversed it and all of that. And then the subsidy thing, you're taking subsidy out with the wave of a hand. And then weeks later, you're talking about palliatives that will cost you possibly as much as, if not more, than what you were spending on those subsidies. I don't know who's advising the president. I suspect that he has good advice, because I know some of these guys. Some of them I know personally. Some of them you know them from the public, from the public person and the public person. A number of them are the intelligence. You listen to them speak.  They're not dull. They're well-educated and all of that. And yet these things are happening. It will suggest to me that perhaps the president is not listening to people. You know, President Tinugu, if you've lived in Lagos for long enough, you know his personality. Yeah, he could be very, he grandstands a lot, right? So I don't know. I'm not sure it's the quality of advice as much as what he is intending to do. So my charge to the president is to be careful and not to mistake the silence that we have now. It might very well be the count before this term. I suspect that what's happening, people are waiting for the ruling of the court. And so between now and that time, I would have suggested that the president behaves in a more attentive manner, listens to the people and show that he's listening and reacting positively to what they're saying. Otherwise, people will react. Okay. Well, I want to say thank you, gentlemen. This has been a very trusting conversation. Shagma Shuppitan is on the ACT Network and of course, George Ashur is the Chairman of the ADC here in Lagos. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for having this conversation with us. I appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Thank you. All right. Well, that's the show tonight. We want to thank you all for being part of the program. Don't forget, you can play catch up on our YouTube to watch our subsequent episodes on plus politics. Just go to plus TV Africa or plus TV Africa lifestyle and subscribe. My name is Mary Ann and I'll see you next week as we continue to talk for development. Have a good evening.


Spring has sprung people and if you're like me who works from home there are plenty of sunshine distractions to keep me from getting focused on my work. So today we're going to talk about my best practices for staying focused while working from home. Folks working from home has a ton of advantages but when you're in isolation it can be hard to stay focused. Right now this time of year it's usually springtime and it's sunshine and patios but year around it can really derail you from your productivity efforts. Now I did a blog post about staying focused when working from home and you can find that link in the description for this video. So today I'm sharing some of my best practices for staying focused while working from home. Number one schedule your time.  Don't answer your phone, don't answer your email but focus on the task at hand and use the most of that time. Family buy-in. Make sure that your family, friends and spouse know that you're working when you're working from home. Now I have a husband who also works from home so he gets it but at the same time we have very strict ground rules when we're working in this exact same space together trying to get stuff done. So make sure that your family is bought into the fact that when you are working from home you are actually working when you're at home. Number three dedicated office space. Make sure you have a space just to your own that you can get work done. It's more of a mental thing than anything else but it gets you in the game so make sure that you have your own space. Number four take breaks and include exercise and a change of scenery. By moving around and shifting your perspective you're going to be more focused when you come back to your desk. I assure you of that. And number five accountability. Now I'm very lucky I have a business partner and we're very accountable to one another. We talk every single morning about our goals for the day so that the next morning we can follow up with each other to make sure that we've achieved our goals but if you don't have a business partner like myself make sure that you find an accountability partner. Maybe it's a colleague from your office who also works from home but someone that you can be accountable to and report to on a daily basis. Do you also work from home? I want to hear your productivity tips please share them with the community by commenting on this video. Those are my productivity tips for working from home. If you'd like to see my videos each Tuesday make sure you follow me on LinkedIn and if you'd like to learn more about the complimentary services that we provide for meeting planners jump on over to our website at conferencesource.net. Thanks for watching see you soon.