Hey, good morning, and thank you for connecting on this session. We continue with learning about the book of Hebrews We started out in the next in the last session by looking at Hebrews chapter 1 and we were somewhere Midway or maybe you know just In the earlier passages, so we'll continue with that. Let's pray and we'll Get into our session. Let me just begin with the word of prayer Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word Lord. We thank you that your word brings light Even today father as we take time in the book of Hebrews May your word come alive. Oh God and father may Lord the truth of your word of Father God help us Lord walk aligned to your heart Lord to honor you to serve you even better Lord. Thank you Lord. Thank you for this opportunity in Jesus name. We pray amen Okay, so let's get back to Hebrews chapter 1 here and in the last class We saw how God spoke to us in many different ways But the best way that he used was his son Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ is the pattern the best pattern of God's character and God's Manor of working and we said that he is the very express image or or you know in other words something like a Mirror image or even better of the Heavenly Father We saw how God has orchestrated everything and he has set things in motion by the word of his power We also saw how we are invited to worship our Lord Jesus Christ who has received a name which is greater than any other name by inheritance and That the Lord Jesus is exalted by the Father. We saw the interactions within the Trinity the way the Father Speaks to the son and he declares that the angels are meant but to Worship the son and so we were discussing and we were saying that angels are created and They are subject to Jesus and Jesus is deity. He is the Christ He is the son of the living God and therefore we must not mix up the two We also remember that the Lord Jesus is Eternal whereas the angels are created beings now we were also Saying that the angels are ministering spirits. They are Spirits by you know their nature, but they are ministering spirits So the term used is Little little Joe's or little God little Joe's where it simply means they are like public servants for the Lord They have been called by God or created by God to serve In other words minister That's where you know, we understand minister or ministry. So that is their role. We saw how they worship God and we looked at the word worship also the understanding that it really means to Be in adoration as if to even bow down before God So that is the role of the angels unto the Lord and we said that even we should be worshiping God For who he is now, let's continue from verse eight We read the entire passage in the last class. So we're not gonna read it once again I'll just go on explaining here. So from verse eight to verse 14. We see Some quotes which are from the book of Psalms. Now, you don't have to worry about jotting down all these References I have stated earlier that one of the primary commentaries that we are going by is David Guzik So it's mentioned in his commentary already, but yeah, it's in case you want to take it down your most welcome to so Sam 45 verses 6 through 7 Sam 102 verses 25 to 27 and some hundred and ten Was one are the passages which are quoted here So as we look at these passages from verse eight We see the way The father speaks to the son. So it is written here Your throne. Oh God is forever and ever a Scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom Many things to understand about the Lord Jesus here through the comparison between Jesus and the angels we concluded that Jesus is eternal and That he's not a created being Earlier we said that he was involved in creation He is a ruler and he is the ruler and he reigns over everything All things are subject to the power of his word. Now, let's add to that What according to verse eight what we are understanding is that the father Is addressing the son as oh God That's very interesting. The father is addressing the son as oh God So what does that mean in the Trinity? Jesus is co-equal That is why even the father is referring to Jesus the son as oh God So another thing that we can add to our understanding of Christ is that he is co-equal With the father and that describes the Trinity for us where God is three persons In one and all these three persons are Co-equal meaning one is not above the other but they they are all on level ground and He also talks about the rule and rain of the Lord Jesus Christ So that again gives us the picture that the Lord Jesus is a is a ruler or he is King and that the way he rules is with righteousness So it says a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom So we understand that he is the one who is who is coming back again He will rule and reign at the time of the millennium We know that he will judge the world so a position of rulership is what he has Now as we move on to verse 9 It again reveals to us the character of our Lord Jesus where the verse says you have loved righteousness and hated Lawlessness so it really tells us that God is a very just judge He is a happy with what is righteous before him, but the things that are lawless He hates it Okay, so because of such a Character that he possesses we understand that you know God has anointed him with the oil of gladness more than his companions so there is a reward for Walking in righteousness and disliking you know a stronger word is used here hating lawlessness So it just shows that that God is so pure and so very just in the manner In which he deals with things So Jesus Christ. Yes, he's a ruler, but he's also a righteous ruler from verses 10 and 11 It says you Lord in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands They will perish, but you remain and they will all grow old like a garment Now we've already understood the work of the Lord Jesus in creation as much as the father is involved The Holy Spirit is involved even the Lord Jesus is involved now to add to that We see that the heavens will perish So it's it's a You know, it's a thought that Not very easy for us to digest because we see the certainty of the things around us, you know every day The Sun rises and every every day the sun sets there is a night And this is the experience of our lives and for us to imagine that one fine day these things will not happen is is very challenging to really sort of come to terms with but what The writer of the Hebrews is trying to tell us is that even these things will perish. So The heavens will which are the work of God's hands the earth, right? All of these things will perish, but the Lord Jesus himself is self Existent. So that is another attribute that we can add to the Lord Jesus He is self existent and talking about the heavens It's amazing that he would say something like they will all grow old like a garment so it's as if you know some when we have old cloth what we tend to do if it is of no use and You know, it's useless to us. We just throw it and Similarly, he is saying that even the heavens will perish in that way But one thing about our God is that he is self-existent. He will never perish Now verse 12 Continuing in that same thread.  So we are reminded of the That God is eternal Jesus is eternal that Jesus is self-existent And if you want to use other words here, you could use words like immutable meaning Unchanging he will never change. You can even Finally attribute this word almighty to the Lord Jesus because all these other characteristics that we just listed out have To do with deity or God. We don't we don't Speak about man in this way, you know man is mortal man Is destined to die one day? No as far as this world is concerned, but when we look at the Lord Jesus Christ It's so very clear that he was more than a man. He was God himself and That you know, he has those characteristics that we talk about of being omniscient Omnipresent and omnipotent Verse 13 it says but to which of the angels has he ever said sit at my right hand Till I make your enemies your footstool and In this what we are understanding is that God the father has called Jesus to sit at his right hand now again coming back to the expression of sitting down is To see that somebody has completed the work which they were supposed to do and therefore now is the time to rest So now that the Lord Jesus has finished the work of redemption he very Victoriously sits at the right hand of the father and the father is speaking about the victory that will continue to Completion before the Lord Jesus Christ now We know that Jesus has already won the victory on the cross, but there are many things that are unfolding in the world Which are tending towards that completion and the Lord Jesus will watch that he will see that all these things will finally culminate in Proclaiming and declaring the ultimate victory of our Lord Jesus, which is already won on the cross of Calvary for us And finally he reminds us about the angels He says in verse 14 are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to Minister for those who will inherit salvation. So referring to angels once again He's saying ministering meaning serving Spirits they have a task given to them by God and whom do they serve they serve Those who will inherit salvation. So who are the ones who will inherit salvation, sorry Who will inherit salvation? I'm not able to hear anyone Yeah, so We the believers are the ones who will inherit salvation and therefore our understanding is that angels are Serving spirits who will Help us and God sends them to help those who believe and That is something we can settle in our minds and how our angels activated I think we discussed about this also in the last class or Rather in the some of the courses earlier. How are angels activated any idea? They come to help us, that's fine, but how do they how do they work? Anyone okay angels come to help us that we've settled How do you put them to work? We can expect the ministry of angels when we Command Okay, that's true. We can expect the ministry of angels that part Yes Command meaning John In the sense to To request Okay, Lord to send these angels because he has said I'll send my angels to God over you and Okay, yeah in that way, okay So, yeah, so we can pray to God To send angels and for angels to help us But here's the thing for us to remember Psalm 103 and verse 20 it tells us His angels who excel in strength who do his word Heeding the voice of his word. So that's a reminder that the angels by Iraqi or the way they have been formed they are Designed to respond to the word of God. So we cannot cut that structure and Command angels it won't work We can pray to God because ultimately God has to call the In give the instructions only then angels will work because they heed The voice of his word So that's the way angels work not by us telling them what to do. They won't listen to us because God is their ultimate chief commander But if we want them to work for us One of the things that we can do is Declare the word of God. No when we say for example John you just mentioned and said that the angel of the Lord and camps around those who fear him and delivers them That is already the spoken word of God. So when I declare even when we make declarations we can expect Angels to start to work in line with that declaration Okay, of course It's like God commanding them.  So these are all the ways one is we can pray expect for ministry of angels Secondly, we can declare God's word over our lives and those declarations Will you know as all these days, you know, they people use some language like activate and also Basically angels will listen to it and they will obey the voice of the Lord. So that's the way in which they work so overall in Hebrew chapter 1 if we try to Look at the emphasis the emphasis would be on the Lord Jesus being a Part of the Trinity The Lord Jesus being fully God. So all the attributes of God we've listed them out, right? Things like creator eternal Immutable unchanging So all of this is attributed to our Lord Jesus Christ. So in essence Hebrew chapter 1 is Stating that the Lord Jesus is God Okay, so that's the key message that is coming through in addition to that there is a mention of angels and The clarity that the author gives to the believers saying Angels are just ministering spirits They're there to help those who believe and that one should not worship them They may be heavenly beings, but that doesn't mean that we are so much in awe of Heavenly beings and angels that we start to worship them instead we need to worship the Lord and Angels also worship the Lord Okay, so these are the key points any Any thoughts or questions before we proceed to Hebrews chapter 12 here? Okay, so I think that's quite clear Let's move on to Hebrews chapter 2 would someone like to read the entire passage, please This again is quite long therefore, we must give The more honest head to things we have had Least we drift away for if the word Spoken through angels proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received adjust your word How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who had him God? Has bear also bearing witness both with signs and wonders with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will For he has not put the world to come of which we speak in Subjection to angels, but one testified Testified in a certain place saying what is a man that you? Mindful of him or the sort of man that you take care of him You made him a little lower than the angels you crowned him with glory and honor and Set him over the works of your hands You have put all things in subjection under his feet for in that He put all subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him But now we do not yet see all things put under him But we see Jesus who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of the death Ground with glory and honor that he by the grace of God might test death for everyone It was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom all All things in bringing my sons to glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering for both for both he who Satisfies and and those who are being satisfied are all of one for which Reason is not ashamed to call them brother insane. I will declare you Your name to my brother in in the midst of the congregation. I will sing praise to you and again I Will put my trust in him and again here. I am and children Here are my and the children whom God has given in as much Then as the children were partaken of flesh and blood He himself like like was shared the same That through death he might destroy him who had the power of death That is the devil and release those Who through fear of death were all their Lifetime subject to bondage for indeed he Does not give aid to angels, but he does give aid to the seed of Abraham therefore in all things he had to be made like his brother in that he might be masterful and faithful high pristine in things pertaining to God to make Propropriation for the sins of The people for in that he himself has suffered being tempted He is able to aid those who are being tempted amen Thank you. Thank you. Lebega. That was quite a long passage that you read for us And we appreciate that now coming to people's chapter 2 We have a couple of themes So I'll just state it and then we get into understanding the entire passage So initially there is a warning as I shared when we began the book of Hebrews It was written to persecuted Jewish believers they Where people who were going through a lot of difficulties, so there was always a temptation of letting go of the newfound faith. So time and again the writer is Encouraging them and even warning them just to let them know that they must not give up. So it starts with Like an urge not to neglect the great salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ because doing so will have consequences and then He goes on to talking about the Humanity of Jesus so in chapter 1 it was all about the deity of Jesus Christ in chapter 2 It's about the humanity of our Lord Jesus and how he Shared in our humanity in such a way that he has become our merciful and our faithful high priest before God for us. So These are some key things that we will look into so starting out with verse 1 He starts with that warning that I talked off. He says therefore we must give the more earnest Heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away So he's reminding the believers that whatever they have heard about the Lord Jesus and especially Through what he has stated right now He has stated about the supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ and that he is God himself So that truth He's telling them not to let go of it. Don't let go of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ Okay, don't neglect it and he says something like Take Give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard meaning there are things we know about God to be true Things we know about Jesus to be Real so these revelations must Be revisited these revelations must be held on to and we must never let it go never Neglect it What will happen if we do that? You know if we neglect this truth or the revelation about the Son of God If we do that he says lest we drift away So when we talk about this drifting away It is said that he was talking in the context of something like a ship that is anchored Momentarily and then the anchor if it is removed what might happen to that ship We would see that it'll slowly start drifting. It'll move in the direction of the wind The waves and it'll just move away to you know any place no certain Destination so to speak so with that in mind The writer is giving us that picture and he's saying when we are careless about the revelation of who Christ is we run the risk of Drifting away like that ship and usually when drifting away happens One of the things that we can we can affirm is it doesn't happen You know in one shot like that It's little by little before you know the ship is somewhere, you know a little some Trust of the wind some push of the waves and it's gone So even in our lives when we we may not do it You know outright Lee and say oh, I don't believe in God's Word or I don't believe in Jesus but the little things that we say yes to the the Unrighteous thoughts that we tolerate in our minds. Those are the culprits little by little little by little Very subtly the drifting away may happen And so he's warning the believers and he's saying don't give place as Paul wrote right taking every thought captive And bringing it subject in subjection to the Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ That's the way we need to live and so he says be very Sincere to hold on Ernest heat to the things that we have heard the things that we already know which are the foundation of our faith We must be strong in those things and never drift away Verse 2 he says for if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every Transgression and disobedience received a just reward How shall we escape if we neglect so greater Salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him so He's bringing back the thought of these Jewish believers to the time when the law was given to Moses I know in what we read it sounds like the word came through angels The word spoken through angels, but though in English it is angels In the Greek it is Angelos and Angelos has the meaning of a messenger so It's not that angels gave the law they did not give the law the law came by from God And it was issued through Moses who was Moses at that point. He was just a messenger so Angelos so through Moses the law was given and If you look at the old under the old covenant, it was a really strict way of You know judging people they couldn't transgress even the smallest of commandments and Whenever they make they neglected or they disobeyed they were consequences So he's reminding the believers and saying see even under the old covenant Things were so serious and people were called to Take heed to what was given to them. So how much more we the message came through Moses And people were asked to take it seriously this time around the message has come Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. He's the one who has died on the cross for us So we need to take up what Jesus has done for us very very Seriously, so that's why he's saying if we neglect so greater Salvation or the work that the Lord Jesus has done for us We should not be doing that and in verse 4 he says God also being witness both with signs and wonders With various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will so apart from the work that Jesus did on the cross and His teaching his ministry. We know that Jesus taught he healed any work miracles. So We are told that God affirmed the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ So there were signs wonders miracles gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were all a work of God So there was a genuine demonstration of the power of God through the ministry of Jesus and he says that God bearing witness Okay, so God himself has affirmed the work of our Lord Jesus Christ So when the word of God the truth of God and the truth of Salvation that has been provided for us has come so powerfully God has backed it up God has backed up the work of Jesus He's just Asking us this question. How can you neglect it? It's come so powerfully and Just because we are going through some difficulties and challenges, you know, would you just let it go? Would you just neglect it like that? Please don't do that. That's that's the manner in which he is speaking to the believers even for us today There can be very many temptations around us and just because the going gets tough Letting go of our faith in God or you know, just making some compromises here and there It may be easier, right?  It'll just flow easily in that direction Sometimes we want a life like that where things are so easygoing and no difficulties no challenges and Sometimes we hope life is like that when we believe in Jesus, but It's not even Jesus said in this world, you will have tribulation but take heart I've overcome the world. There are going to be challenges and difficulties and especially when we believe in Jesus The journey may not be easy But that is not a good enough excuse for us to let go of our faith And so in this way, he's encouraging the believers and saying What we have is too great to let go. So don't let it go. Verse 5 It says for he has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels But one testified in a certain place saying what is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you take care of him You have made him a little lower than the angels You have crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands You have put all things in subjection under his feet for in that he put all in subjection under him He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him So there's a lot that is said here if we want to just shorten it and bring out the essence It's talking about the completeness of the deputization of man We've talked about this when we did the subject believers authority in Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 to 28 We read how God created man in his own image and then he made man and woman the rulers of this world and said you rule over You know the land you rule over the sea the creatures of the sea the creatures of the sky So man and woman were given authority and dominion on the earth That's what this entire passage talks about and he says that God did not give this earth to the angels But he gave to man and he made man responsible for this world And there's one point here that may sort of bring in a little bit of confusion In verse 7 he says you have made him a little lower than the angels So then the question arises yes God gave the earth to man and woman to rule and reign But did he make man as a lesser being of some sort in comparison to angels The answer would be no, so it's not about greater and lesser It's just about the heavenly glory Now because as we read on we will see that even for Jesus the same thing is stated So in verse 9 it says but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels So you see it's the same manner of talking but is Jesus lower than the angels? Definitely not because we've just justified the fact that the angels are subject to the Lord Jesus Christ So then what is the meaning? What is the understanding? It only means that when we are human we lack heavenly glory That's all, nothing else to it, we lack heavenly glory And in that context first he stated that man made a little lower than the angels And then later he says Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels So now what he has told us is that man is created for dominion on the earth What about Jesus?   It really shows the great love of God for us First of all, God becoming a man, that is incredible love Secondly, living to die to taste death for everyone That's why he came and in verse 10 For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things And by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings Made a little lower than the angels So what do we see here?  Any thoughts on that? Made perfect through sufferings Yes, he died to bring salvation, that we understand But made perfect through sufferings Did sufferings make him perfect? I just have a thought, I don't know if it's right Maybe to become a perfect man Maybe he had to go through the suffering Maybe that's what I look at it like Might be right, might be wrong Okay, thanks Jafina for sharing that thought So when we talk about Jesus Even later on in the passage, we'll see that Though he was tempted in different ways He went through everything But he was victorious over temptation, over sin So Jesus was already perfect in that sense Then what is this being made perfect through sufferings? So it's not talking about Like Jesus maturing any further By the sufferings, like sufferings having a quality To make Jesus better than who he was It's not like that But what it means is that Jesus Experienced, Jesus had a human experience So that made him an understanding High priest, that made him an understanding Saviour Because he had a complete human experience He underwent pain, sorrow Which is a part of human life So that's what it means We could also say that when it says Sufferings Though sufferings, we know Jesus went through The trial and Physically he was assaulted He went through pain of every kind All of that he did through his obedience But it is not to say that those things made Jesus perfect No, that couldn't be the meaning He was already perfect But he had a human experience And he underwent the sufferings As he went up to the cross Which made him more, if you may want to use the word Well acquainted with being human Well acquainted with humanity So that is the understanding that we get So is that okay everyone? Or any further questions to that? Okay, not really So let's move on Now it gets even better We just saw that Jesus was fully human He shared in our humanity Experienced the way we experienced Now from verses 11 to 13 We are told that Jesus Can be referred to as our brother Okay, so how much better can it get? Verse 11, for both he who sanctifies And those who are being sanctified are all one So Jesus is sharing With us in that humanity And he's relating to us He who sanctifies is him It's the Lord Jesus who has sanctified us Those who are being sanctified is us And the scripture says we are all one Because he became a man God became a man And then he says for which reason He's not ashamed to call them brethren Having shared in our humanity He's even okay with calling us brothers and sisters Jesus our brother Verse 12 saying I will declare your name to my brethren In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to you And again I will put my trust in him And again here am I And the children whom God has given me So he is ready to relate with us as brothers And he is also proclaiming the greatness Of God to us In the assembly of the people In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to you Jesus is glorifying the Father In our midst So I hope everyone is in sync with me Or has the ship drifted already Meaning in your mind You're elsewhere Okay so you're there Great great yeah that's good to know So the essence as I shared earlier is That Jesus has shared in our humanity Now We will look at verses 14 to 18 in the next class Because I'll have to elaborate on it Whereas we have only about 2 minutes left right now So we can wrap up Any thoughts or questions? Hebrews chapter 2 When it says in verse 10 In bringing many sons to glory Can you just let me know what the praise actually means Okay so it is referring to The lost glory of man Or the lost dominion of man After Adam and Eve sin So we lost it But Jesus paid the price And it was restored back to us Bringing many sons to glory Bringing us back to that original glory That was meant for us Okay yeah there's another part Regarding Jesus facing death And restoring back the glory to us And what exactly is done for us But I think we'll come to that in the next class So let's stop here We could pray and close And I just want to request Any one of us to lead and pray Let's pray Do you have any further we come to Under the name of Jesus We thank you for this daily Thank you for the beautiful class that we had But we stand to know of you How you are equal to God And how you chose to come down As a human for us And God your plans Your way of thinking It's all beyond imagination God I just As we are learning this truth As it was written in the starting That help us to never let go of it Help us to Be with the truth in our life And to have our anchor Really strong in your word So that we will never be drift away To the left or the right But we'll always keep our eyes on you And keep moving forward towards the purpose And the calling that you have given us Jesus And God I give all my classmates Bless them all in the name of Jesus Thank you for past analysis God has all these things We thank you for this beautiful time And we give the rest of today In Jesus name I pray Amen Thank you Jafina Thank you everyone God bless you Have a blessed day ahead


In this video, I'm going to give you some tips for how to organize your data to make the plotting in this problem set easier. So your data file probably looks like this. This is just a text file. And for each earthquake in the row, there's a bunch of information about it. There's the date that it happened. There's the time, the latitude, the longitude, the depth, the magnitude, and then some text information. So what you want to do is just grab out the magnitudes, because we don't really care about anything else at all. And just to make our plot, all we want is the magnitudes. So I use awk, but you can use something else. Or nothing, if you'd rather just work with this entire big data file. So I make a new file that just has the magnitudes in it. And here it is. So here's all the magnitudes in order. And now I'm just going to use Ctrl A to copy the whole file. Select the whole file and then Ctrl C to copy it. Then I'm going to open up a spreadsheet document. I use numbers because I'm a Mac user, but it's very similar to Excel. So if you're used to that, this is going to look normal to you. And then I'm just going to paste in the contents of that file right into the spreadsheet with Ctrl V. And there are all my earthquakes. So they're all sitting here in this column now. And the thing I'm going to do to make my life easier is I'm going to choose to sort them in descending order. That means the largest magnitude earthquake moves into spot number one. It's a 4.3. And the smallest one moves into the spot in the bottom. I'll move this file up so you can see it better. But there's 180 some earthquakes in my catalog and the smallest one is a magnitude one. So there we are. Now, there's only 180 some earthquakes in this catalog. So it's conceivable that you could count them all by hand. Because you want to populate an X and Y table with the magnitude and then the number of earthquakes greater than or equal to that magnitude. So it won't take you too long to count them by hand. But if you had a really, really big data file like 20,000 earthquakes, you would not want to count them by hand, of course. So look at how these are sorted and see if you can think of a way to count them without doing it by hand. And if you're still stumped, watch the next video.


What's up, everyone? It's your girl Kenzie here from Leighton Sports Cards, and I'm ripping a personal for Mike D We've got another 2022 TriStar hidden treasures autograph basketball jersey box here we go Mike. Thanks so much So for Mike the first Nike authentic jersey that we fold was a Tyrese Maxie And the second one was a Coby white Those have been the two Nike jerseys that I pulled out A lot of old school players as well All right Here let me take a peek. How about a deadlift shrimp three time all-star at 93 95 97 13 and 95 six men of the year German player of the year 13 all-american all team first team all pack 10 and Hall of Fame Recently inducted 2021 Deadlift shrimp. That's cool Nice auto there Chris Mullins came up last night. That's cool on James. You got your JSA sticker right there with your matching tag Deadlift shrimp That's a cool one Alrighty Mike that will do it for your box congrats again. Thanks as always for hopping in and we'll get this one right out to you


Welcome to the non profit show. We are so glad you're here. It's another episode today and we are so thrilled to have Derek Drear with us. He's here from your part time controller where he serves as the department leader of government funding and he's going to tell us more about that soon. We want to talk to us about federal grant and application insights so stay with us as we dive deep on this very sexy topic with you Derek and I'm looking forward to it. But before we jump into conversation we want to remind all of you who we are we haven't had the opportunity to meet you yet. Good morning or good afternoon to you Julia. Julia Patrick CEO at the American nonprofit Academy and I'm chair ransom your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group and sometimes Julia holds me hostage or I should say ransom as her own nonprofit nerd as her own nonprofit nerd but there's many of this nerdiness to go around and really glad to be here in conversation with you Julia as we have this really deep dive here with Derek. We also want to let you know that we have some amazing presenting sponsors that keep this show going and slowing. So thank you to our besties over at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy your part time controller nonprofit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University staffing boutique nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk many of these companies have been with us from the very beginning you see your part time controller there that's where Derek is joining us from. Thank you so much to Jennifer Aliva one of the partners there that has been with us from the very beginning of the pandemic and literally bringing us a breaking news. Yeah as we're broadcasting and it was typically on a Friday so thank you Jennifer and to the entire your part time controller team. Hey we've helped or we have produced over 800 episodes thanks to the help of our sponsors and you can scan the QR code right now to download the app and that's here on your smartphone you can do that and we have not left the other platform so you can also find us on podcast as well as streaming broadcast so plenty of places to find the information that we provide here at the nonprofit show all free again thanks to our sponsors. So Derek, we are thrilled to have you again for those of you watching and listening we have Derek Drear with us today he's joining us from Philadelphia if my memory is recalling just like a 22nd. Okay conversation. Again where he serves as the department leader of the government funding at your part time controller welcome to you Derek. Thank you I'm delighted to be with you today I always enjoy this show. Thank you. Okay, Derek you said something that kind of like blew my mind when we were getting going in the green room chatter and that was the very distinct role that you play within YPTC. First of all you are now in 49 states we have one more state to get you into. We do. Yes, we're going to do, but talk to us about what the number of providers YPTC now harnesses and what you do within that whole ecosystem. Yeah, so, interestingly, I was a client of YPTC for many years, a long, long time ago, we won't say how long ago, but when it was a very small company. I managed a nonprofit for 25 years, and YPTC has grown now to the point that it has clients in 49 states, we have 1600 clients, we have over 600 staff members. And to your question, over 300 of those staff members are accountants. And one of their core capacities is helping their clients manage report on and steward grants of every kind including federal grants where you often have that complex single audit that comes at the end. And that's not what I do. I don't have an accounting background. I have a background in art history. And I'm part of a new service. As you noted, our managing partner Jenna Lever announced it here first a couple of months ago we have a new service to help our clients find and apply for federal funding. There's lots out there, but it's complicated so I do that front end work.  We have fresh office successful application last week actually. And then we can pass that off to our staff accountants and they can help our clients manage the award. So it's basically a 360 service now we're helping our clients at the beginning and during and at the end. That is so fantastic and I love that you refer to yourself I had to write it down. Find it and apply for it guy and so I want to know is that what your business card says because I think it should. You know, I started working during the pandemic so I didn't actually get business cards yet but they're they're in production now.  Good. Thank you, Derek. Let's let's dive right in. I'm really excited to have this conversation. Let's start off by if you would share with us. What do you successful applicants look like and again for those of you watching and listening this is really all around the federal application so what's the successful applicant look like they can they can look lots of different ways of course the federal government gave out over 56,000 grants last year totaling over $20 billion and this fiscal year the government has already awarded some $7 billion in just in grants up to $1 million to nonprofits so the feds give away a lot of money to a lot of groups but there really are some characteristics of your classic great applicant and I think the most important one is that you have a hook. There's a compelling story you can tell why your organization. Why your project and why now because ultimately the government gives away money to have a benefit to society right we want to see an impact of some kind maybe you're helping more patients you're serving more clients you're doing something in such a good way that it can be replicated elsewhere they want to lift you up and support you. But again if you can't tell a story of why me why now it's harder to convince the program officers. Another thing that I find is a common characteristic you've existed for a couple of years already so you've got a track record, you want to demonstrate to the feds you know how to manage money and implement programs. The budget is it's kind of a Goldilocks thing it's not going to be too small, but it's probably also not going to be too big. I find the sweet spot for a lot of our clients is between say half a million and then up to 510 20 million in annual budget. Now you can get grants when you're smaller. But if you're too small there's a worry on the side of the federal government you won't have the wherewithal to implement the program and manage the monies.  And of course, I was going to say I love the Goldilocks analogy you know it's like this might be too small this one might be too large but right here in the middle. That's that's just right. That's where that's where most of the grants are. It's absolutely true. And, of course, there are exceptions to all of these rules, but we're not here to talk about exceptions. One of the main things to keep in mind is as a client you are not in a rush, because the federal government provides wonderful, wonderful support, but they don't do it quickly. So if you're in a rush, you're not looking to the federal government. It's during the pandemic with all kinds of emergency programs but it's not the case now. And finally, we don't want any red flags if you've got chronic series of deficits if you have a leadership transition in progress and let's say the executive director just left and the search hasn't even begun yet for your successor. It's going to be hard to convince a federal agency that they should trust you with money right now so you want to think about the right timing for your grant as well. That timing is important. Well, let's talk about even more determination of if we're ready right so you had mentioned, you know, we definitely want to track record we want to have some audits behind us. What are some other determinants of readiness. And track record, it's not just a question of oh we've existed for a minimum of three years it's not about the time per se it's about it, but there's a two, two kinds of track records one is a track record for creating and implementing programs that have impact. Again, whether you're feeding the homeless creating exhibitions doing medical research, whatever you do you do it well, and your track record shows that you also have an audit track record for some agencies. You can't even apply unless you fill in the numbers on certain lines of your audit or your 990 tax forms that go back three years. So if you were just created, and you don't have three years of 990s or audits yet. Best to wait, build that track record and then come back. But another important thing is your staff has the where with all to implement a program so the federal government feels like we can trust this organization they're going to manage the money well, they're going to do what they say they do. And ultimately they're going to have a benefit to society that's what the government wants. So if you've got all of that where with all and that track record. It's time for you to think about applying. Let me ask you this question this question popped into my head. So many of our nonprofits, you know, 1.8 million nonprofits that have their letters of determination from the IRS across this country. But there's a growing number of small nonprofits and sometimes growing nonprofits that are fiscally sponsored. How does that fit into the mix is that somebody that would be a candidate for this or really should they be out from under that type of stewardship. They can be but it's definitely a hurdle you'll need to clear typically organizations that have a fiscal sponsor have that because they're very very small. Your annual budget is $50,000 or $75,000 or even $100,000. It probably doesn't make sense for you to seek to say a $200,000 grant from the federal government. They're not going to trust that you'll be able to implement that properly, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't apply. There are many programs at the federal level for smaller grants with streamlined applications and there's no reason small organizations that are doing good work shouldn't apply just because they have fiscal sponsor. Wow. That's sure. Don't you think that's a fascinating thing to think about. It is and that's that's a great question. I love that you asked that, you know, I've written a few in my career. I prefer not to if I'm being completely honest right. It is it is a project in and of itself right like it's, I think it's cumbersome. There's a lot of eyes to dot there's a lot of T's to cross. There's a lot of moving pieces, you know when it comes to this so so making sure that we we can, you know, adhere to the requirements first of all and then what you said Derek right like the program staff as well like the execution of this is equally as important as what we put down on paper, or digital That's correct. My accountant colleagues are fond of telling organizations that are celebrating because they just got a grant award and they're thinking yay all our work is over now actually the hard work is just beginning. Right. That's right. You need to implement program you said you would and you're going to need to track everything you do very very carefully. You want to be ready at the beginning to submit those interim and final narrative and financial reports if you're going to have an audit. I want to make sure you know in advance what you'll need to report on. That's right. And would you mind. Yeah, would you mind telling us that threshold for the single file audit. It's $750,000 it gets expended in one fiscal year. And as always there are some exceptions to that, but there are a lot of nonprofits that either have several federal grants or they have a large federal grant, and they hit that threshold. The first file the single audit. Yeah, you were saying Jared you don't like writing grants I love writing grants, I love sitting down and writing, but I can't stand the thought of preparing a single audit so I'm glad I could hand that part off to my colleagues. Well, then you're in good company there. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so give us the skinny on grants dot com dot gov how do we harness the power of this platform and again grants dot gov what It's a wonderful website. It's the government's official website where all 26 federal agencies that give grants and mounts their grants. It's updated daily. I've, of course I visited every day that's where I live. And as of this morning I can tell you, they were 2756 active grants listed on grants dot gov. It's actually a wonderful thing and a horrible thing all at once, because it's wonderful that there's so much there there's something for almost anyone. Yeah, but it's also bewildering. And I hear so many complaints about grants dot gov and I think one of the problems people have is that it's just so much information there they don't know where to start. I was at a conference last week and I was hearing people complaining about how you, one person said oh you need three different passwords for grants dot gov know you don't. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. But what you want to do is take some time and browse over to grants dot gov. You don't need to have an account to browse. You don't. But now when you open the website, you will get a little dialogue box will pop up that will say you need an account, but you don't actually have to log in to browse so get started. And you're going to find all kinds of ways to narrow your search you can narrow by agency. Maybe I only want to hear about Department of State grants or the Institute of Museum and Library Services. You can narrow by type of recipient. So I can say hey I'm a 501c6 not a 501c3 what do you have for me. There are also ways to include or exclude actual posted grants, as opposed to forecasted grants so let's wait until they get posted right let's just take those off the top right away. When you start to use all of these different ways of narrowing down your search, then the most powerful one. It's kind of the most obvious there's a keyword search field, you can enter any keywords you like. So no matter what your organization does you're serving the homeless, you're supporting journalism, medical research, millions of possibilities and millions of nonprofits right put in the keywords you care about most and you're going to zero in very quickly. And that is when you want to sign up for grants.com account because if you've gone to the trouble to set up a complicated search. You can save it when you have an account and then you're going to hear about you'll be able to log in easily these are dynamic searches so it might change from day to day or week to week you'll see three grants one time and five the next and to the next. You can always figure out what's newest and learn about it and just zero in right away. Another great advantage to getting that account on grants.gov is you can sign up for updates for grants that interest you sometimes the deadlines change. Sometimes the rules change. Sometimes the amounts change and you don't want to be spending three four weeks working on your narrative and then learn whoops, the deadline got moved up the last week. Now I can submit. So, again, the government gets a bad rap for having a complicated website but I think probably the worst thing about it is also the best thing about it they're just so many grants available on it so creates your account. It takes a couple of steps, but it's actually very simple. Derek as you talk about this it reminds me of the cheesecake factory menu right where there's so many choices. I know I'm curious, would you recommend you're in that daily and I get that because you're the find it and apply for a guy. For those of us, yeah that we're managing and I know you're managing other things as well. How often do you recommend we check the portal the grants.gov portal is this a weekly occurrence by monthly. What's your recommendation there. So ideally, you're going to set up that account, and you're going to set up some searches and request updates on on the couple of grants that interest you most. Most organizations are not going to apply for dozens and dozens of grants you're probably two, three, maybe even four or five grants but for some it's just one grant, they want to apply for and these tend to get renewed annually. Some grants are announced at the same time each year by the agency for, for example, Institute Museum and Library Services, almost all its deadlines are November 15. The State Department has deadlines every week in issues hundreds of grants and Health and Human Services has thousands of grants they're deadlines every day. You don't want to go in there daily unless you're me. So if you set up that account and get those updates, it's kind of a set it and forget it thing unless you're, you might be a development director and then I would expect you're in there more often poking around to see if something has been announced and another tip I would have something again it's easy and free. If there's a federal agency that seems like a likely funder to you. Go to their website and sign up to get their newsletters their email blasts whatever way they have of keeping in touch again 26 federal agencies. I can tell you from experience 25 of them will send out email newsletters to tell you what's going on and I get dozens of email names letters every day. Small business administration, I'm wagging a finger at you for not having an email newsletter, serve your public, but the rest of them do a great job. And then you don't need to go to grants.co constantly, but don't fear it. Yeah, ironically the SBA is our guest tomorrow so we'll make sure to tell them. They're not, they're not direct. I don't expect them to have a newsletter by the end of the week, or maybe they already do and I just haven't checked recently. I love it. They were the one holdout recently. I love it. Yeah, well, tell us about the top dos and don'ts when it comes to the grant applications. What are the things that we need to consider and what are the things that we need to like make sure again back to those dotting our eyes and crossing our T's. What is the list of these. Yeah, I'm going to start with the don'ts because it's always best to get the negatives out of the way first and a couple of those have to do with the timing of your work. The first is, don't wait to register. When you're going to apply for a grant, it's not enough to be registered with grants dot gov. You're actually going to start with organizing. Excuse me by registering your organization with Sam dot gov, the system for award management. So your organization registers with Sam dot gov Sam dot gov has introduced a new process called validation. They will validate that the address you type in is in fact your physical address. This can take a few minutes. If you're lucky. It can also take two weeks. The organizations that got founded they used the address say of their law firm or their fiscal sponsor but now they're located at their own building somewhere else. That's not going to match up on the federal side. So that can take a long time so register well in advance never leave it to the last minute. When your organization is set with Sam dot gov you can sign up as an individual for grants dot gov. Do that as soon as you're starting to think about grants. And then when you find a grant you think is a good one. Don't wait to start your application. They can literally take three to four weeks of time, very intensive time as Jared said you have to dot the eyes and cross the T's. Even if you are super organized. You may be relying on colleagues or partners outside your organization for other bits of information maybe you collaborated with a local feeder or local homeless shelter you need some numbers from them. Well don't call them at 11pm the day the grant is due reach out immediately start working on this stuff now. Don't wait to submit once your application is done many of these grants are due in midnight on a given day. What if your website collapses what if you lose internet or lose power or any other thing happens well the federal government is not going to give you an extension. So, set yourself a deadline that's a couple days in advance and then you have that buffer time that's what I always do and I've never regretted it. I love the time Derek and I also would tell my team, the buffer time, but I didn't tell him it was buffer I was like this is the deadline, right. I do, I do that with my clients as well and I, and now the secret sale is probably some of them. It's important to do it benefits everybody in the end. Another don't don't submit things the agency didn't ask for if they ask you for a narrative and a budget and a staff list and nothing else. Don't upload your recent annual report don't decide to upload a summary of your strategic plan, give them only what they want. Otherwise you might get rejected, and the converse is also true if they ask for something. Don't think to yourself that that's optional, give them exactly what they want. Don't request monies to support activities, the federal government won't allow. This is a big no no it happens all the time. A lot of agencies make it clear for example that they won't support food and meals in most circumstances and certainly not alcohol at those meals. We had a client once, they had a wonderful program where they had decided to invite a Supreme Court justice. And the justice gave a wonderful talk everyone said it was a great program and then they took the justice to dinner and the justice ordered a glass of wine. Well nothing wrong with that right except they sent the bill for that to the federal government and that case almost went to the Supreme Court itself. Read the fine print carefully. If the government says they won't pay for it. Don't ask for it. Don't decide to be a maverick and do things a different way do it exactly the way they want. They'll go to the dues. The government asks questions, and they will often ask a very specific questions and they'll usually tell you how they're going to evaluate the answers. Make sure you have answered all the questions thoroughly, clearly, and thoroughly do reach out to the program officer I often hear from clients I'm scared to talk to someone at the government or I don't want to call the government. Program officers at every agencies are there to help you and make your job easier. You can run an idea by them and they might green light it or they might tell you it's not going to work. Go to them with questions and there's a wonderful add on effect. They're going to make notes about the fact that you called to ask questions and when they come to the review time a few months later they'll say, Oh, why yes, Derek was in touch with us three times and and we had a chance to weigh in on this project as it developed and we really like it. Yeah. So do you recommend Derek that we always find an opportunity to reach out to the contact. I do. Good. I do there. They are paid to help you and they actually all enjoy their jobs a lot they love talking with their constituents, and they can give you insights on any specific initiative you might be interested in applying to and those are always very very useful. We already talked about how you're going to sign up for updates on grants.com that's on my do list as well but I'll say it again. As your writing proceeds do have someone else proofread everything. Your eyes can just go cross-eyed after a short time and if you've been working in a document for hours and hours, they're bound to be mistakes in there. You might have used jargon that you understand but no one else does. Ask someone with fresh eyes to have a look at it. Ask that someone to make sure that your budget and your narrative tie out. How many times have I seen people say in one place that they're asking for $200,000 but in the other talk about 250. Which is it? Right. This should tie out perfectly. You can verify that you're actually eligible before you apply. There are a lot of grants that get announced and they say eligible applicants include 501C3s and others. Don't assume other is an open category that anybody can just jump into. You need to look at the fine print. The answer might be restricted literally to a specific organization or a specific type. So read the fine print but especially make sure you are eligible to apply. And then good luck doing your writing. It's worth all of this trouble and effort because you have the chance to bring in a big piece of the enormous federal pie to lift up your programs and make your nonprofit stronger. You know I have loved so many of the things that you've said. I think that they're natural. They're logical. In some ways a lot of what you've said actually gives me greater confidence about working with the federal government and that these are you know prescribed processes that are open and methodically managed. And so Derek this has really been a cool opportunity for us to really get a new look at what this work can be like for us. Department leader government funding. Wow that's just a title that really we're thrilled it got announced on the nonprofit show of course but we need to have more discussions about this because there's anything there's just such a mystery around this and fear. There's a lot of mystery. There's a lot of finer points. I didn't want to get lost in the weeds today but the message overall is it really is worth the trouble for most applicants. Well we'll have you back on Derek and that topic will be lost in the weeds with federal applications. I'll be back in time. Yeah thank you so very much and thank you for all of you that joined Julia Patrick and myself, Jared ransom today really glad to have you here. Federal federal applications is definitely something that you know is kind of this you know, mystique unicorn, if you will out out somewhere in the jungle but we need to know a little bit more about it and so glad that you're here to share that with us. We want to thank our presenting sponsors thank you so very much to our friends at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller where Derek drear joined us from nonprofit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Please check out these companies they're here to help you. They're really good people their mission is your mission and they want to help you do more good. Absolutely. You know, it's a really amazing time for the nonprofit sector and we are so thrilled to be in partnership with so many folks helping to let all of us navigate the system Derek this has been a great conversation and I agree. We need to keep moving forward on this because this is where the rubber meets the road for so many of our organization so as we like to have me and thanks for everything you do. Oh my gosh, Derek, it's been a lot of fun really I learned a lot and you really got those wheels turning. I know we're going to have even more questions for you. As we end every episode we like to remind ourselves our viewers are nonprofits in search of grants to stay well so you can do well. Thank you everybody and we'll see you back here tomorrow.


Stitch this and share your religious horse story. You like this fellow may have experienced hurt by the church. It's easy for Christians to disregard with this experience as rare and reaffirm the idea that you should be putting your faith in Jesus and not people. The problem is, is that when we're part of a church, those connections help to build our spiritual identity, how we see ourselves and how we see God. When someone is betrayed, mistreated, abused in a Christian context, that person's perspective of God is severely damaged. So what can we do for those who have been hurt by the church? Well, we should seek to foster curious and compassionate communities where those who have been hurt by the church can rediscover who Jesus truly is. It's not about disposing the truth of the Bible because some people that claimed the name of Christ did some bad things. It's about helping them understand their hurt through the lens of the loving savior who will one day make us whole. Seek to be that type of person in their life and follow for more Christ-centered content.


Welcome back to Tennis Talk, my name's Kayon Williams and Nobak Djokovic has responded to his ban from entering America and therefore not playing the US Open later in the year. Also, the lead-up tournaments to the US Open, he won't be able to go and play either. This is what he had to say in his press conference before Wimbledon, which starts tomorrow. This is what in all I had to say, as of today, I'm not allowed to enter the States under these circumstances. I'm aware of that and that is an extra motivation to do well here. And hopefully I can have a very good tournament as I have done in the last three editions. Then I'll just have to wait and see. I would love to go to the States, but as of today, that is not possible. There is not much I can do anymore. It is up to the US government to make a decision whether or not they allow the unvaccinated people to go into the country. So there you have it, Djokovic responding to not being allowed to play the US Open unless he gets vaccinated. He also got asked a follow-up question asking if he's going to stay unvaccinated and stand his ground. And he said yes, so he is not changing his mind as you'd expect him and he didn't change his mind in Australia. So why would he change his mind for the US Open? And he's just waiting and seeing because, you know, we all know that COVID is sort of hopefully at the tail end and a lot of, you know, countries are opening up to all people again. So hopefully America will do the same for him and he'll be able to play the US Open. But let me know down in the comments below. Do you think Djokovic will win Wimbledon and have this extra fire? Because we know that he didn't play the Australian Open, which he has won so many times. He played the French Open, a little bit underdone. But of course, played Rafa and almost beat him in that quarterfinal. But Wimbledon is the only tournament he can play really and probably his best chance of winning a slam and keeping it close to Nadeul. Nadeul is on 22 slams. Djokovic is on 20. He needs to get this one to stay close. So let me know down in the comments below. Do you think Djokovic can win Wimbledon with his added fire?


The Nigerian Senate has passed a bill to empower lawmakers at the national and state assemblies to summon the country's president and the state governors on issues bothering on security and other issues on which they have powers to make laws. Out of a total of 93 registered senators, 77 voted in favour of the bill to summon the president and governors. 13 were against and one lawmaker abstained. It also passed a bill to make it an offence and to provide the possible conviction of any person who refuses to honour the summons of the National Assembly or any of its committee. Joining us to discuss this is Dr. Monday Ubani, he is a legal practitioner. Thank you very much Dr. for joining us. Thank you for having me. Good evening. Yes. To the average mind, what exactly is the Senate trying to achieve here? I mean, I know instances where police chiefs, where heads of departments and agencies or federal power statels were invited and they didn't show up. But I'm yet to understand what they're trying to achieve with governors and presidents coming to answer, especially on issues of security. Yeah, what I'm going to talk about is that we can actually put everything into the constitution, which is what actually has happened here. But if you recall, sometime last year, there was a time that the Senate wanted the president to come so that they can discuss about the security situation that was deteriorating every day. And the president made a promise that he would honour the House. But eventually, according to the same president, he was advised that he would not honour that invitation. And of course, a lot of anger and a lot of discussion in the social media and the normal media. And I think that is what has actually reflected by this amendment that has been done in order to have it in the constitution that at any point in time, over any matter that the legislators have competent, legislative competence, they have the right to invite the governor at the state level and they have the right to invite the president at the national level. They are trying to make it like a constitutional issue so that nobody will be in doubt as to whether they have the power to invite the president over a matter they have legislative competence. That's why they have done it in the constitution. But for some of us also have this belief that it's not everything you put into the constitution, but you have to put certain things into the constitution when you have a country that doesn't operate. Normally, we are thinking that are supposed to be normal and not normal. Maybe you have to now become more detailed to avoid the situation where people will begin to argue that it is constitutional or it's not constitutional to do certain things. I think that is actually what has happened in the present circumstance by putting it into the constitution. But I don't think that any country in the world has such a provision in their decent because normally the president comes and addresses the legislative assembly and anytime the president is wanted by the legislators, they usually normally unknown such an invitation. But here, it's a different argument and I think that's why they have gone this far in order to insert it into the constitution. I know that you're not the president. Neither do you work with the presidency. So I'm just going to ask this question and I'll give you reasons why I'm asking. Now, I want to know why it's so difficult for this president or any president to show up at the national assembly to answer questions or brief the national assembly on issues that are mass arising or in terms of security like we're facing now. I'm asking this because, for example, in the UK, you have the prime minister's questions and it's every week. So you see a Boris Johnson or whoever, if it was a David Cameron, they would be there answering questions from members of their political parties and even the opposition. And it seems very seamless. Does that mean that maybe, or does it seem that maybe our leaders do not want to be questioned or that they do not know what they're doing in the first instance, hence the reason why they don't want to show up? In fact, there are many reasons why such things have come in this part of the world. There is this absolute arrogance in governance. There is absolute arrogance in governance. Where people who are in government feel that they don't owe you any responsibility, they cannot account to you, can't even invite them and have certain questions. And with certain arrogance in government, it will reflect when they have been invited for purposes like this. Especially over matters, these people have legislative competence. They have the right to invite the president. And you have just mentioned it. Virtually every day, the prime minister of the UK interacts with members of the House. Questions have been asked. Sometimes being booed, sometimes being called names, sometimes even being abused. And he has to reply in order to really show them that he is there to represent the people. He is the president of the people. And so those guys in the legislative assembly are also representatives of the people. And so they ask questions to reflect the wishes and the whims and caprices of those people they represent. And so whatever they ask, the president will must be in a position to give an answer to them. But here, it's arrogance of power. It is issue of impunity. It's also issue of maybe they don't even understand why they're in governance in the first place. We, Lawrence, may have also impacted in the way we treat each other in this part of the world. And also politics. You know, they may be also afraid that when they go to the House, they may be harassed by the opposition. And then they may not even have something to probably offer by word of explanation. That also accounts where you don't have anything to say. The only thing you need to do now is to use arrogance to cover it and say you will not appear. You will not even go and answer certain questions. But of course, if you have done well and you are very confident that you have done so well and then the House is inviting you, you shouldn't be afraid to go and give them an answer and probably, you know, give them explanation of what you are doing in governance. So most times it's also issue of incompetence and you have done very much and you have not done much. There's nothing you're going to be able to explain that will actually make sense and all that. That's why they keep away. So it's incompetence is lack of giving good governance. It's also arrogance is also impunity and also lack of accountability. These are all combined facts that makes us to be different from what are things in order to develop plan. Let's look at the houses of assembly. I mean, as much as we would point fingers at the National Assembly where these the ruling party seems to have the majority of members, the state houses of assembly are majorly occupied by people also in the party of the governors. And half the time, the laws that I don't even know what laws are being made in the states so far or what legislations are happening there. But how do we expect to see these lawmakers at the state level, summon their governors, being that most of them like you said to borrow your word are the women and capricious of these governors. We've seen this happen so many times. I mean, we've even seen local governments as an appendage of state governments. So I mean, whether this this bill is passed into law or not, what changes will we see? I mean, we've had so many laws that have been broken or flouted. What's what's what would what difference would this one make? Well, I I it's an intelligent question. It's better we have this legal framework in the in the in the first place. Then we need to actually change our political culture. This is sure subservient being subservient to a governor and the governor being unduly interfering with who becomes a speaker of the house and the leadership of the house so that they become subservient. They don't query the governor and all that. We need to first of all deal with issue of legal framework, which is what is going on now. A time we come we are the leadership of the houses. You know, we become very independent enough, just like we had in Syracuse era, where we had Syracuse that was questioning the president and all that. Remember that it was like he's in opposition. He was in a different political party but later he jumped to the other side of the of the political party. So let's have the legal framework, which is what we have actually succeeded in doing now. But let's agree that it will even pass through said through in the in the various states as a assembly because I know that the governors may not want that autonomy, which is very critical legislative autonomy and judicial autonomy, which the state and the House of Rev, have actually passed. They to reflect in the two thirds of the of the 36 states that will actually conquer before it becomes a conditional provision. So I hope they will be able to do that. At the end of the day, if the houses will begin to have legal independence in terms of financial autonomy and administrative autonomy, we may have to come to a time where they will begin to summon the governors and summon the president, you know, and ask questions. And if they refuse, they may likely take some level of action like impeachment of the governor and all that. But the legal framework is the first info. And I think that what we should concentrate our mind now is to ensure that all these innovations that actually have come with this passage by the Senate and House of Revs will be replicated by two thirds of the 36 states. Because if they don't do that, then it means that the whole thing will collapse again. Let's look at political parties and the role they play in this in all of this, especially for states. And just like you said, the governor somewhat has an influence on who's the speaker. Half the time you see speak people who were speakers impeached by other members of also have no confidence passed on them because at the behest of the governor, even though it's not made to look that way, but we know what happens, you know, underneath. Now, when it comes to the place of political parties, sometimes even tickets to rerun for that office sometimes can be taken off of those candidates. And they're robbed of those tickets because maybe they're in a position to what the governor wants or what the governor is saying. How the political parties play into this particular legislation, because we can't also say that this is what will happen in the lower and upper houses without also looking at the implications when they go back to the meetings within their political parties. The political parties actually in Nigeria have not developed to the level of a political party, but it's different from those who are in government. Most time the political parties panda to the state executive at the state level, at the federal level to the presidency, because they lack ideal. They lack ideology. What do political parties in Nigeria represent? What do they stand for? They stand for nothing. And as long as they stand for nothing, they fall for everything. So the president says that they're looking at the president's body language. The same thing with the governor at the state level. And so it is really a big problem for us. So the issue of political culture of independence and probably having an ideology in what they believe in and what they propound, we go a long way. But when the political party has an ideal, every member that follows the ideal is respected and then upheld. And then you can be sure of coming back to the house, even when you work against the interests of the party, believing that you are the respect to ideal, the respect you have believed. But here, someone like Shea Usani remember because of certain things he did and revealed in the house. That was why they make sure that he never came back. So the political parties, he accomplish it. They aid and abate some of the wrong thing that is going on in Nigeria. They don't have any ideal. And as long as they don't have any ideal, they fall for everything. And that's why we're still having problems in terms of developing a political culture that actually works in the interests of the people and the interests of the country. We don't have a political party that has actually matured in a manner that we have other political parties in the climate where we see what they believe in an ideal and people pursue that ideal. We are over here, they fall for everything. The government controls the leverage of power at the state level. At the federal level, it's the president that does that irrespective or whatever they believe is their ideal and ideology. Well, I want to say whatever happens, you know, it remains to be seen because in this conversation it looks like no matter where we look, no matter how we look at it from whatever angle, it looks like it still boils down to what sort of decisions the governors and Mr. President make at the end of the day. But I want to say thank you Dr. Mondio Vani for speaking with us on this matter. We'll keep our fingers crossed and we'll see how this legislation unfold. Thank you very much for having me. Good night. All right. Thank you all for staying with us as we round off the conversation on the show tonight. In today's Street Views, Nigerians are speaking out on how the fuel crisis is affecting them. I'm sure it's affecting you too, but I'll leave you with this as I come back tomorrow with Plus Politics. I am Mary Annacle. Do you have a good evening? Since around the 50 minutes after and they have to buy fuel, we are killed for other pallets dead down to turn to order the under the bridge to come back to the movie. Give them some money and stop. First of all, I even went there to see what was going on as I missed their office and the last month, they said that's what Nigeria did. I said what should Nigeria do? They said I should give them money or pass me an entrance and say like I'm going to say okay I should give them one five. I say for what? It's very bad, very very bad as you can see. I'm opposite my office here. National Open University. I was here in the morning. I didn't even go into my office. I had to queue to buy fuel and see where I am. I'm not even sure what I'm going to get for. I've been here since 9 a.m and this is actually getting terrible. We actually started our queue from the other side of the road. We have to go down under the bridge then make it down here. Since it's 9 o'clock, we checked the time now this past three. That means I've been here for over six hours just because I want to get to four. I think it got bad over the weekend. It wasn't like this last week. But possibly my opinion, maybe the good fuel that we have available, proud to the foul fuel that they brought, we are possibly exhausted now. And once it gets exhausted, of course there will be scarcity. Knowing fully well that the war in Russia, Ukraine, they said has disturbed distribution.