Hello, Oslade Sync here. Artoria have just released the version 5 firmware for the MicroFreak and let's not beat around the bush here. This update introduces sample playback. Hello, Oslade Sync here. Hello, Oslade Sync here. Hello, Oslade Sync. Hello, Oslade Sync. But not only that, it also introduces three different additional modes where we can do a granular processing of these samples. And this is all extremely exciting, and we are going to dive in in detail about this in terms of getting the samples on, how we can deal with the three different machines and the basic sample playback, we will get into all of that in depth. But first, this update does also introduce two other nice new pieces of functionality that I feel like are going to get overshadowed if I don't talk about them first. So just briefly, we're going to talk about these two additional features and their good ones, and then we're going to get in with the samples in depth. So this first one is a really easy one to talk about. It's really, really simple, but basically it's a new mode for the envelope. So I've just got a basic little bass patch going on here and I've got the envelope set up as I've got it set up. What we have in this new update, if we come into the utility menu and into preset and then into modulations and into envelope snap, is we have a new mode for the envelope which makes it snappier. So this is what it sounds like normally and switching on snap mode. And you can hear that it's definitely snappier. So listen carefully, it's not shorter. It's just that initial part of the movement of the envelope is a lot more sudden. I think this is basically just what you would consider an exponential envelope mode on other synths. It's great for sort of pluckier snappier sounds. And yeah, it's very, very welcome. Is that snappy? So I think it has a more even longer ones, slightly more acoustic sound to it. Yeah, so that's an easy one. We now have this snap mode for the envelope and I'm going to leave on most of the time because I like the sound of exponential envelopes. The second new feature is related to the key arp routing in the mod matrix. Now this by default essentially allows you to do keyboard tracking. So a common thing to do would be to route that to the cutoff so that lower notes are darker and higher notes are brighter. Essentially, notes down near the bottom are going to give you a low value in the routing and notes up near the top of the keyboard will give you a higher value. Keyboard tracking, very useful in a lot of different situations. So what we now have is an alternate mode for that routing which disables the keyboard tracking and instead if we come into preset into modulations and down to key arp mode here and switch this into random, what we now have on this here will be a random value per note played, essentially giving us a sample and hold per note. Now, just before we get into that, that's different to the sample and hold on the LFO. A, because it's not going to change once you've played a note but also the LFO is monophonic on the microfreak whereas this is going to be polyphonic if we turn on the paraphonic mode up at the top here. So let's have a listen to that. So I've got the wave table oscillates here. And what I'll do is I will send, and I'll put this in the middle first. So I'll set that to about 50 and then I'll send the new random key arp to the timbre here by 50 or so. So now, every time I play a note, that position in the wave table has been modulated randomly. And if we turn on the paraphonic mode here, each one of those notes is a different place in the wave table, even though they're playing concurrently. Obviously this sounds pretty cool if we turn on an arpeggiator. Yeah, so this basically gives us a per note random value, which we can send anywhere on the mod matrix, which is really, really great for getting movement into sounds, especially if you're going to do something in the arpeggiator or something like that, but useful in lots of different places. Yeah, great stuff. But no more stalling, let's get to the main event. So moving the type knob up past the wave user, we will get to sample. And now we have some sample playback. So first let's do a little bit of the vital statistics. The samples are of course mono, because the microfreak is mono. I don't have the exact specs, but it sounds like the samples are being down sampled when you import them. And we'll get to importing in just a little moment. And it appears that within a bank of samples, which is all of the samples that you can load all at once on the microfreak, you have about 210 seconds, which for one shot is probably fine. The microfreak comes with a set of factory samples, which will get loaded when you upgrade the firmware, but you can load your own samples in as well. And you do that through the MIDI control center. So let's take a quick look at that now. So here we are in MIDI control center. In order to work with the samples, you need to make sure that you are running the most up-to-date version, which I think is 1.16 as of the recording of this video. But to make sure that you've got the most up-to-date version, head over to our tourist websites and just download the newest version. It's probably the easiest thing to do to make sure you've got the right version. And once you have connected your microfreak over USB and launched the software, make sure you've selected it from the dropdown here. You'll be presented with this familiar interface here, which is where we usually manage which presets are on the device. What's new in this version, however, of course, is we've got a samples tab up at the top here. The important thing to note when it comes to managing the samples on the microfreak is that you don't work sample by sample. You have to collate an entire bank of samples and then send that entire bank over to the microfreak. So at the moment, if you look here on the right-hand side, this is the bank that is loaded onto the microfreak, my microfreak right at the moment, which is a slightly modified version of the factory bank. Here on the right, we have the banks that we could send over to the microfreak. And at the moment, I've deleted the ones I was messing with earlier and we've just got the factory bank here. So the thing I was immediately tempted to do was, well, can I just add something to the factory bank because this is a decent bank and it's got space left in it. You can see here that we've still got 84 odd seconds of sample space left in the bank. So I thought, well, I'll just add some other stuff onto the end here and no, you're not allowed to modify the factory bank at all. In fact, you tried to delete something. For example, it goes, no. So what I suggest you do if you want to start with the factory bank and add some stuff onto it is actually export the factory bank first. So go to export, export to bank factory and call it new factory or something. And I'll export that. Just takes a couple of seconds. And then once that's done, we can import that bank back in as a non-right protected version of the factory bank. So I can come here, import new bank, new factory. And again, that'll just take a couple of seconds. And once this is imported into, once this is imported into the MIDI control center, I can now come in here and I can click on import and replace a sample from inside here. And we can replace it with the microfreak sample format. I don't know what that format is. I haven't looked into that yet. I'll probably have a poke around at that at a later date. But you can also just import any wave or a file that you might want to. So in this case, I could come in here and that's probably too long. But if I come here and grab that there. Now I've added this additional sample. I'll put it into this sort of recreated factory bank and then I can send it over to the microfreak by clicking this button, which I'm not going to do because it takes forever. It's very, very, very slow. So just be aware that when you are all excited to get playing with this new feature and you want to upload the new samples, actually sending the samples over takes forever. So go make a cup of coffee or something while you're sending them over. It is literally that long. Let's jump back over to the microfreak and actually play with these samples, shall we? So once you've loaded the bank of samples that you want to use, once you're in one of the four different sample modes here, you can hold down shift and turn the type knob in order to select the sample that you want. So here I've got basically the samples, the factory samples, and I've also got the one extra down at the end here. Which I've loaded in as well. And one of the first questions that I asked myself when I got to this sample select knob is can it be modulated in the mod matrix? And the answer is yes. So as long as you are in sample select mode, you can choose an assignable slot. We call the type knob, and that's going to set that to be sample. So now we can modulate which sample we currently have selected, which for certain types of things is going to work really, really nicely with the key up random mode. So if I come in here and I put a random amount about that much in here. Make it a bit pluckier. I mean, how can you not love that? Yeah, so it absolutely can be modulated, which is insanely good news. So let's just set the envelope nice and long again just for the purposes of showing this off and choose a... Let's just go with the piano lo-fi to begin with. To come out of the sample select, you hold shift and then just turn the type knob again. Just turn the filter off. So we've got a sample loaded in here and we're currently on the basic sample mode here. And in this mode, the controls are basically the same as you have in like most sample playback devices, I guess. So wave is going to affect the start time. So for example, if you've got a plucky sound like this and you want to shave that off, like that, we can do that. Tower is going to affect the length so we can have a hard stop on our sample rather than let it decay to nothing if we want it. Of course we could affect that with our envelope as well. And then shape is going to affect the loop. So when it's all the way down, we get no looping happening. But as we turn it up even a tiny bit, we start to get looping. And the way that the loop parameter works is as you turn it up, it's going to get closer to the length that you've currently got set. So if you imagine you've got start here and you've got the length, which is the end of your sample. If it loops off, obviously it just plays it one shot. If you turn the loop on to like 0.1, it's going to put the loop point just after start. So you'll get the whole sample and then basically the whole sample again and again and again. And as you turn the loop control up, that loop point is going to get closer to the length. So now you're going to get the start of the sample to the end and it's going to go back to this loop point and loop and loop and loop. And if you have the loop point up here, it's going to go all the way through the sample and then it's just going to loop the last bit over and over again and get kind of tonal sounds out of it. So in this example here, as I turn it up just a little bit, we're just getting the whole sample again and again and again. As I turn it up, we're just looping the bit at the end and if we're careful with our end point, we can bring that back a little bit when we've got more of a timbrel part of the sound. And we've got kind of a lo-fi way to sustain the note forever. There's lots of other nice interesting places in there as well and just before I forget, this of course works polyphonically as well. Oops, bad note choice there. And that kind of looping thing on the decay portion of our notes doesn't sound quite as sort of unreal and unusual. So yeah, this first mode is basically just a standard sample playback mode. One thing that I forgot to mention, let me just turn the loop off for a second. The length is zero in the middle and as you take it further back, it's going to go negative. Now if your start is at zero, you can't go backwards from zero, but if you put your start further up, we can get reverse instead. And you can still work the... And reversing any sample is always a good idea. Yeah. So it's a basic sample playback mode, but remember you've got the rest of the synth to play with as well and you can start modulating stuff too. So one thing that you might want to do is with the pressure or the velocity, maybe modulate the start point slightly on a plucky sound like this so that when you play lighter, it starts to take the start of the sample off. So let's give that a listen. I'm just going to utility, set my pressure mode to velocity. There we go. And then in here, pressure. So we want to set wave somewhere around there perhaps. And in here, pressure, wave. As we play harder, we want it to go down so it goes back towards the start. So minus 18 or so, slightly over that. Now if I play with not a lot of pressure, we get a sort of dull start and with more pressure or more finger on the note. So that moves the start of the sample towards where the pluck is. Cool. So that's the basic sample playback. Let's move on to the three granular modes as well. So the first granular mode here is called scan grains and to introduce it, I'm just going to go back to the sample playback first and I want you to listen to what happens to this sample as I play it at different pitches. In particular, I want you to listen to the length of the sample. So play the sample low. It's fairly long. As we increase the pitch of the sample, we're doing that increase in the pitch by literally playing it back faster. And that note lasted half the time of the previous one. And if I play high, that notes over very fast go even higher. Over very, very fast indeed. Now, if I come across into scan grains here and I do the same experiment, you can hear that there's some sort of tonal change happening there, but each of those notes lasted the same length. So what's happening in this mode is that the sample is being broken down into smaller sub-samples, grains of the sample. And each of those grains are being looped and looped and looped and then moved through the different grains at a rate that you set with one of the controls. What this does essentially is time-stretching. And we'll look at that with one of the loops that are in the factory samples as well in just a second. But let's take a look at the three controls first. So the first control on wave is the scan rate. I've got this set to one times, so it's going through what it considers at middle C, I think, the normal length of the sample. Now, if I want to make this sample go for longer, I can reduce the scan time to maybe 0.25, and now it should last four times as long because it's going a quarter of the speed. But you can also start to hear those individual grains in there, that sort of looping within the sound, which gives you a really interesting texture. And as we push that lower and lower to its extremes, you hear more and more of those grains. So if I go right down to the bottom, which is 0 and then just up a tiny bit, you get what is perceptively a piano, but it's weird. And you can hear it looping and looping and looping, and the texture and timbre is changing very, very slowly. Speed it up just a little bit. Up at the other end, when we make it go very, very fast, this is going to do time compression without changing the pitch, which on plucky sounds like a piano is really cool. You've kind of got the whole movement in terms of the timbre will change over time of the piano, but compress down very, very fast. Let's try a different sample here. I'm going to grab one of the loops in here. So here I've grabbed a drum break that is in the factory library, and if I set this at one times again, like that, you can hear it at different pitches. We're still getting the same length of loop. Again, if we contrast that with the standard sample playback, an octave down is half the speed, and an octave up is twice the speed. And again, taking this to the extremes gets us to some really, really interesting places. So if we take this down to like a quarter speed, those grains are very evident inside these percussive sounds, and we start to get that classic time stretching. Now, this is a great time to address the next control across, which is the tower control, which is going to control the density of the grain. So I've got it sort of in the middle at the moment. If I turn this all the way down, you can hear that the grains have got very, very big, and we can definitely hear each of the grains individually repeating in this quite interesting rhythmic way. It's actually really cool. Taking it the other way, the grains get much smaller, and we should be able to hear them less, obviously, but because they're getting so much smaller, we lose the fine detail. And we get that real classic time stretch sound. At high grain density, because the grains are so small, they start imparting a sort of ringing frequency to the sound as they loop around, because they're so small that they're looping at audio rate. Taking something like this loop all the way down to the very, very slow side of things. We get this super spooky... I don't know how to describe it, but the reverb in the room of the loop sort of becomes stretched out and ethereal in really, really interesting ways. Crazy stuff. The grain density at the low end means that the grains are much bigger, so you can hear things almost like individual delays within the sound. At the very, very high end, the grains become so small that they start to impart tonal qualities to the sound, as well as stretching things out for loops. For most things, somewhere between 50 and 75 tends to be the sort of most natural sound of things, but we don't always want natural sounding, do we, with this kind of thing. Let's talk about this final control here, shape. Shape is a control called chaos, and what this does is it starts to introduce inconsistencies in the grains, both in terms of their size, how they overlap, and also their pitch. We'll try it with this drum loop, first of all. That's minimum chaos. You can hear now that some of those grains aren't overlapping properly. Some of them start to drop out. Some of them are running far too fast as we turn it up. I'm going higher. I think some of them are starting to run backwards, as well. And right at the top for this loop, the sound is basically gone. Let's try that with a different sample. Let's try it maybe with the me saying hello one. So here I am saying hello with chaos at zero. Hello, oscillating here. Sounding a bit spooky, but not totally weird. Turning it up. Hello, oscillating here. Sounding sound glitchy. Hello, oscillating here. Sound to get sort of like beat repeat kind of CD skipping things happening there. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Yeah, now it's skipping out altogether. Hello, oscillating here. And as we change the grain density as well. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Things get weird in different ways. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Hello, oscillating here. Yeah, so. Hello, oscillating here. That can introduce all sorts of interesting new time will changes in here. Let's choose one kind of harp here, I'll do. So I'm more sort of straight up timbre sounds at low chaos. We just get the kind of time stretch, but as we turn it up, starts to introduce almost like a broken tape quality. It sounds like something that's Trent Resner wouldn't mind too much. That's not how it goes, but you can get the idea. Give it some filtering and then maybe set that density to be affected randomly per note. So we can use our key up there again on the timbre. It's so cool. I've got a delay pedal just off the side here. Let's give it a little bit of a stereo delay. Gorgeous. Really cool. Really cool. Yes, there's lots of stuff that can be done there. But let's move on to the next mode. The next mode here is called cloud grains and it is basically working the same way as the scan mode did. In fact, the timbre and shape controls to exactly the same thing in terms of chaos and density. The difference with cloud grains is that whereas the previous mode would scan through the sound for us automatically here, instead the wave control is going to move around the grains manually. Now this becomes really, really interesting when we make use of more complex samples. So let's just find one of those now. So I've just chosen the harp up sample from the factory and that sounds like this. It sounds like a harp arpeggio. And if we move into the cloud grains, we can move through those grains manually now and obviously changing the density. Some really, really beautiful things happening there. In fact, we could modulate the wave here so that each note is different. Again, we can use that random on the key up. Having that there is a thing that we can do. So we can set the wave in the middle there and have this start to modulate it. Yeah, so that's really, really cool. Of course, we don't need to modulate that randomly by any means. And one thing that we can do with the cloud grains that we can't do with the scan one is we actually use tempo synced loops if we want to. So if I choose again that drum loop, so I've got that drum loop in here again and I can scan through it manually if I want. But if I want to do a tempo synced scan of this now, if I set my wave to 50 and I choose an LFO, which is a sawtooth or a ramp up, so it's going to go from minus one up to one. Make sure it's not running too fast. And then if I set the wave control to be controlled by the LFO and I set that to 50, so it's going to start at 50 in the middle, drop down to zero and then go up to 100. It's maximum. I'm sure that's set at 50 to begin with. I should now get a drum loop, which is tempo synced to the LFO, which is then tempo synced to MIDI. Mess with it in other ways. Add some chaos. And of course, we don't need to have it always moving in this direction. If we set this to a triangle instead, it should go forwards and backwards. So you can use the mini freak to mess with loops in interesting ways now, which is really, really cool. The third and final granular mode is called hit grains. And again, it kind of follows on quite naturally from the previous one. So wave does the same thing, sets the start point for the way that we are scanning our grains. So we can again use this to scan through a sample manually. Tambra here is also doing basically the same thing as before. It's setting the density sort of more tonal at the top and more obviously chunky as we go further down. What's different on this one is what the shape knob is doing. And what the shape knob here is doing is literally shaping the grain. So if I turn this all the way down, we should hear that the grains are quite sort of soft sounding.  As we turn it up, it will hear that it gets sharper and more percussive, more like a sawtooth envelope. And once we go past the midway point, it stays sharp but it also gets shorter until it's basically just clicks. Those clicks will change as we move through the sample. And of course, the density is also going to make a difference here. And indeed, also shorten and lengthen them still the same way it was before. As we go up to the top here with our very, very clicky ones, we get quite a vocal scan through the sounds as we soften it. Having access to these different grain shapes is quite interesting. If you don't want the chaos happening as you have in the grains, for the cloud grains rather, just allow for some quite interesting differences. And of course, down near the bottom, you've literally kind of got like a delay almost, a shaped delay. So one really fun thing you can do with this one is the kind of the bouncing ball sound. So for this, we want the ball to start bouncing high as the sound fades out. It starts to bounce closer and closer to the ground. So what this means is that our sort of starting point as far as our timbre goes is high. And then we want it to go negative as it follows our envelope. So we can do in the mod matrix, envelope goes to timbre, negative, and what I just said is a 70-something. So we can try that. And now each note, send it, goes into delay, try a different sample. And then maybe have that start point there being modulated by our random per note. Something like that. As I hold it down, I'm bouncing the ball. Cool. Yeah, loads of interesting things we can do here, both in terms of treating it rhythmically, but also making use of the much tighter densities and changing the shape as well. Yeah, lots of stuff to explore. I think that every time that one of the microfreaks updates came out, I've talked about how much of a big deal it is. Obviously, adding the vocoder was amazing. The wavetables, the noise engineering oscillators are some of my favorites and remain my favorites on the minifreak as well. But this update fundamentally changes what the microfreak can do. And it's huge. This has breathed a whole new life into a synth which is already pretty vibrant. Now, I am a little bit jealous that we don't have this on the minifreak yet. We still don't have the wavetables on the minifreak either. And I certainly live in hope that this mode is going to come to the minifreak because the stuff that you could do with the full polyphony and potentially combining the samples with some of the other modes as well would be just incredible. But I have no insider information there. So I can only just hope that that's going to be the case. And just use my microfreak a bit more again because I wasn't using it because I had the minifreak. So thanks Utteria for continuing to support this little synth. It's fantastic to see this sort of support, ongoing support for a piece of hardware. It is pretty unusual in the synth world for that to happen. I think that's enough talk though. You need to go and have a play with this. So I hope you enjoy the video. It went a little longer than I intended because I just enjoyed exploring some of these modes. So if you did enjoy the video then please do leave a like. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel. It's very much appreciated. Sorry, I lost myself in the filter resonance there. And until next time, take care. Bye bye.


waypoint and I stopped early. I looked down there's there's three patches of lasagna swimming around down there and I just lost one it was about two and a half pounder and I dropped down for the other one. There it is. Look at that.


Okay I think we'll get started. First I'd like to say good afternoon to everyone and thank you for coming to this virtual conference. It's been my pleasure over the last 35 years to have had the honor to serve the people of Vermont as a public servant. As Vermont's Secretary of State for the last 12 years before that I was an eight-year Chittenden County State Senator and before that an 18-year South Burlington City Council member. During these many years as a public official I've worked really hard to serve Vermont citizens in a professional and dutiful manner always striving to make our government more efficient, more accessible, and more transparent for all Vermonters. I've also entered my elected positions in government with over 30 years of experience in the business sector. This background helped me evaluate policies and proposed legislation with a very broad lens examining how our actions would translate in reality and how it might affect Vermonters. For me the end result of the work of government should always be to improve the health, safety, and lives of all of our citizens. After each election I took an oath to uphold the constitutions of both our nation and our state and I worked every day to abide by those governing principles. It was critically important to me that the Secretary of State's office operated in a non-partisan, non-political manner and I know we have worked very hard to do that. After each election, oops sorry, as Vermont Secretary of State I was honored to have served as National Association of Secretaries of State President, U.S. Election and Assistance Commission Board of Advisors, Council of State Government's Executive Board, and I currently am National Co-Chair for the Overseas Voting Initiative for Military Personnel and Overseas Citizens. And I've also been privileged to testify before Congress on both voting and election cybersecurity. During my term as Secretary of State, Vermont models for elections, professional regulation, and business registration, as well as archives and records management, were nationally commended as among the best in the country and an example for other states to follow. Today I am announcing that I am not seeking reelection to the position of Vermont Secretary of State. While I have enjoyed this job every day, I am looking forward to a new chapter next January at the conclusion of my current term. The position of Secretary of State is critically important in the protection of citizens' voting rights and upholding our democracy. It should not be viewed as merely a stepping stone for a higher office. I especially want to publicly acknowledge and thank all of the staff members at the Secretary of State's office. Together, we have improved the operations of the office and the services to Vermonters. I particularly want to recognize my Deputy Secretary, Chris Winters, who has served the office for 25 years with the last seven as my deputy. He has been a tremendous asset and indispensable partner carrying out the work to make our office more efficient, more credible, and more accountable. Chris has been a vital member of my senior management team overseeing policy and operations and spearheading many important legislative changes. In my almost 12 years now as Secretary, we have accomplished many goals as the office transitioned from paper-driven processes to a more efficient and accurate digital environment using online applications and a well-respected and redesigned website. We have endured and we have ensured accessible, free, fair, and secure election processes while protecting and expanding Vermonters' constitutional right to vote. And we've done that through same-day voter registration, automatic voter registration, online voter registration, ADA-compatible accessible voting, enhanced cybersecurity, universal vote-by-mail, ballot dropboxes, ballot curing. I also want to thank Vermont's 246 city and town clerks for their efforts working with our office to perform the very core of our democracy, our elections. Our office protects the health and safety of the public through regulation and investigation of over 50 professions, 80,000 plus licensees, and we assist Vermont's business sector in registering to do business in Vermont. The Vermont State Archives and Records Administration has received federal grants in recognition of the work being done to protect Vermont's important historical documents and to work with state agencies to improve records management and public accessibility to those documents. I also want to thank my family, my friends, my colleagues for their support, including those who have encouraged and supported me in my career, my colleagues from the South Burlington City Council, Chittenden County Senators with a special thanks to former Senator Jim Letty, Governor Howard Dean, Governor and Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, and of course Senators Leahy Sanders and Congressman Welch. More recently has been my honor to work with Governor Scott, Lieutenant Governor Gray, Treasurer Pierce, Attorney General Donovan, Auditor Hoffer, Senate President Pro Tem Ballant, House Speaker Jill Kroinsky, and many other dedicated and hard working legislative committee chairs and members. Most importantly, I want to thank all Vermonters for your support and for the privilege of allowing me to serve you during my 35 plus years of elected public service. It has been my honor, it has been the honor of my lifetime and I am grateful to have been provided the opportunity to help protect, defend, and enhance our democracy. I also want to say thank you to my partner Annie. It's been a great run. Thank you. Stay safe, be well, and please do your part to keep our state a welcoming and respectful place for all Vermonters. Thank you. Okay, we can take questions. If you're a reporter with a media inquiry, please raise your hand either in the Zoom function or by pressing star six. The first person I saw raised their actual hand, so Mike Donahue, you can go ahead. Make sure to unmute yourself and ask a question. So was that an endorsement of Chris Winters that you were making? Mike, as you know, I have never endorsed anybody for elected office, whether it be local, state, or federal. I will say that Chris is, I know he's considering a run for this seat, and I will deal with that at the appropriate time. I noticed you got a haircut the other day, I was just wondering if he was preparing. The other thing, why is it that everybody always claims transparency when they're running for office, but it seems like a lot of people get to Montpelier and they flip flop, and for whatever reason, you have been actually one of the more transparent people around, and I just find it interesting that people that have run for governor and other positions get to Montpelier and suddenly they're not quite as transparent, and they don't see it quite as, but you've stayed transparent. I have to salute you, but why is it that you didn't waver like the others have? I can't speak for why others have taken the steps that they have. Mike, I appreciate your comments. Transparency has always been important to me. I believe that good government is open government, and that's been my mantra from when I was a city counselor as a state senator, and then as you know, as a secretary of state. Okay, thank you. I may have another one, but I'll let somebody else ask.  Okay, up next, we've got Sarah M. Sarah, feel free to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for hosting this today and congrats on the retirement. I hope you can relax a little bit after this. My question is, I'm so sorry if you hear my Slack notifications buzzing off. We've seen in the past couple years nationwide a real questioning of our country's election integrity. And I'm wondering if you can reflect on that, conversation that's happening and how that has perhaps changed your job as since you have had such a long tenure and your kind of statement on that at large. Thank you, Sarah. It is disheartening to see what's been going on around the country. And I think that I think the Lord that we don't have that situation here in Vermont, but it does exist. I will say that that, you know, we've we've propped up on our website, a facts versus myths webpage. It's it's there for the public to see it answers some of the very basic questions that you've seen. The concern I have is that there's this massive disinformation misinformation campaign going on across the country, using social media, whether it be Twitter, or Facebook or whatever the social media platform is through the media, in some cases. And really, we have to take a step back. Our democracy is in dire straits right now. And I really believe that we have to take steps to retake and reset the democratic principles that we have always operated under. You know, I've participated in elections at the local level back in the 90s, early 2000s. I was a state senator, chaired the committee that actually oversaw elections. And there has been really not a bit of truth to any of the false charges that have been levied nationwide. Are there is there some voter fraud now? And again, yeah, there is. It's very minuscule. I mean, it's a very, very small percentage like point 000001. It's really, really minute. We had one case this year that that was adjudicated by the Attorney General's office, one case out of 375,000 votes that were were cast. And that person got caught. That's the thing. We have procedures in place. We have the processes in place. And we work diligently to protect those, but also to enhance them. And one other question before I let others have a chance at it. I know you spoke about your how proud you are of your ability to do your job in a non-partisan and unbiased way. And I'm wondering if you can just expand on that and perhaps tell us some of the things that you're most proud of in your 10-year, 10-year. Well, I think, you know, as I said in my opening remarks, the fact that we went from a paper-driven process to a digital environment was was the key to almost everything that we've done because we've, by going to the digital environment, we are actually much more accurate, much more process-driven. And, you know, things like, for instance, just in the in the corporate, corporations section, it used to take 15 days when I took off as 15 days for someone to register their business and get their paperwork back from us. That included sending in filling out the paperwork, sending it into our office, having us process it and send it back. Now that's done in less than 30 minutes. You know, the annual report cycle used to take 10 to 12 weeks for us to catch up on everything because of the massive amount of paper we would receive. It's now done instantaneously. We've done, we've gone from division to division and put in the processes in place that we needed to do. And this just makes it, again, more accurate, more efficient for our staff. And we've been able to do a lot more with a lot less. And I just think it's, you know, one of the things I'm proud of is in the budget area. When I first took office, this office used to get 1.8 million in general funds. After two years, we gave it all back to the legislature and said we didn't need it. We could operate off the fees that we generate. And, you know, that was a major piece to give back almost $2 million to the legislature. So, you know, there's a lot of things in the area of elections. You know, we've put all these, removed a lot of the barriers and made it easier for people to vote. We've got the protections in place. We went from when I first took office being 38th in the nation as far as a ranking for an election administration to 2016, we were number one. In 2018, we were number three. The new results are not out and won't be until later this year. But we expect to be in the top five at least as we go. So, you know, we have made improvements throughout our processes. And one of the things I've always challenged my staff to do is don't tell me just what you have to do. Tell me what you need to do, what's required. And we can make changes if we need to, if it's something that we don't have to do, that we don't really need, but just because it's in statute. So there's a lot of things over the time. I think we've become more accurate, more efficient, and more credible. Okay, next we've got Gordon D. Gordon, go ahead. Gordon, unmute. We're gonna be there with us. Gordon, hear me now. Yes. I can swear I hit the unmute button. So first off, why have you picked now to get out and do you have any specific plans for that new chapter you alluded to in January? I don't have any new plans. I've been in office now as Secretary of State for 12 years. That's a pretty long time. I mean, if you look back in history, Jim Douglas was 12 years, Deb Markowitz was 12 years, and it just feels like it's time for me. You know, I'm ready to step aside. I've been in elected office now for over 35 years. I had a 30 plus year career in business. It's just time for me to go. Okay. And my next question mirrors one you were already asked. The flip side of proudest accomplishments, is there anything you perhaps wish you had done differently or perhaps some unfinished business you're leaving that your successor will have to address? We've had a pretty good relationship with the legislature and with the governor, both Republican and Democratic governors. So I think one of the things I'm also proud of is the fact that we have run this office in a nonpartisan manner. I've got strong supporters on both sides of the aisle and all the while while we've made improvements to the things that we do here in this office. I think many times people don't understand the complexity. For instance, elections administration is really not something that is simple. It's not as simple as one, two, three. It's a very complex process. We have many, many things in place. And above all, we've got the cybersecurity and I think after the 2016 election or just prior to the 2016 election when cybersecurity really came to the forefront and Vermont became a national spokesperson really on cybersecurity and elections administration. But it was partly because my team and I had worked on that beginning back in 2011, 12, 13, we had started ahead of time looking at the processes that we had in place and how we would protect them. For instance, we do a daily backup of our voter registration system. So if someone were to hack into our voter registration system, we would be able to be back up and running within minutes because we have the backup. And you have to go in with your eyes open as well, Gordon, because I think there is no system in the world that is perfect. And I think every system is potentially hackable. It's whether you have done the, put the proper defenses in place. And we think we have. For instance, a few years ago, I think just before the 2018 election, we had a situation where my IT manager came to me and said, hey, last night's log shows that we had some attempts that originated in Russia. What do you want me to do with it? I called the Department of Homeland Security. He called the Center for Internet Security. And within 24 hours, they had issued a nationwide alert to all election offices to let them know that there were certain IP addresses that were trying to attack election systems. So it's really about working together but working also in a way that is smart, that you're putting up the defenses that you need to put up, and staying on top of it. In other words, you can't just rest on your laurels in this job. You've got to be looking ahead. That's good for me. Thank you. Okay. Up next, we've got Kevin. Hey, Secretary, can you hear me? I can. Thanks for holding this event, really helpful for all of us in the media. I guess I have really just two questions. Maybe some smaller ones thrown in. How old are you? Can I ask that? I am 71. 71 years old. Never would have guessed. And would you rule out running for higher office? I mean, another reporter used the phrase retire. You didn't use that phrase. I don't think. Would you rule out running for higher office? Other office? In this business, I've learned never to say never, but that's not my intent. I'm 71. Okay. So you're retiring from public school? I'm hopeful that I will be retired. Okay. Can you tell us a few things that you might like to do with that time? You got grandkids? Are you a fisherman?  I think I've got grandkids that I want to get close to. I've got my family, my sister, my brother, my mom is 94 years old and still with us. There's a lot of things I want to travel. One of the things about this job has been, many of my colleagues have taken town meeting week, for instance, and they will go on vacation or something or in the summertime. And it's really difficult when you're in this job to do that because there's always something going on that you have to deal with. That's your busy time. You don't get to go on a cruise. Exactly. And then I guess my last question is, if getting back to the issue of the nonpartisan office and being a nonpartisan person in this office, can you reflect a little on the fact that through many years, more recently in particular, one party has been more apt to question election security. One party has been more apt to question the wisdom of mail-in voting, which was extremely helpful for people during a pandemic to be able to vote in that manner, as I understand it. And I think, as you have said, how do you remain nonpartisan in the face of the fact that the parties in your state view election security and these other issues very, very differently? Well, first of all, I would say that here in Vermont, we are fortunate that we have three major parties, the Republicans and Democrats and the Progressives. What I have seen when it's election-related, we have all come together to pass improvements. There may be people who oppose certain parts of it, but for the most part, I mean, when we put automatic voter registration in place, where it was having difficulties nationwide in some of the states, we were the second state to put a law in place. We were the fourth state to actually enact it. And there were three separate votes, two in the House and one in the Senate. And out of 300 votes cast for automatic voter registration, there was only one no vote. And that one no vote had nothing to do with the bill itself. It was a dispute between that person and the party member from that committee that it was proposing this. When we had the vote by mail, we really did have tripartisan support to move to vote by mail. I mean, there were some people that voted against it, but we did have tripartisan support. And I think that in general, we try to come to agreement. We work behind the scenes at the legislature. We talk with people. We're not afraid to talk to people. We reach out and we explain the processes. And I think the fact that I've not endorsed people gives me some credibility. Having been run as a Democrat in the Senate and run as a Democrat in the secretary of state, but I still operate the office in a manner that is nonpartisan. And I think people have that faith and that trust and that credibility in me. Okay. Great. Thanks. Good luck with your next ventures. Thanks. Appreciate it. All right. Are there any other reporters with a question? If you have one, please use the Zoom function of raising your hand or somehow signify to me. Okay, Sarah, go ahead. It looks like you've got a follow-up. I'm just going to take this opportunity while we have you to bring up redistricting. I'm sure it's heavy on your mind right now and is probably extremely challenging considering the timeline that you're under because of how things went. Can we just get some form of an update or a statement from you on how things are going, how you're feeling about the whole process? We're coming up close on, I believe it's April 1st, is your deadline to get maps in from the legislature? Actually, Sarah, what we've asked the legislature to do is to try to have the approved maps signed by the governor by April 1st because we have a lot of back-end processes that have to be changed to meet that. For instance, we have 500,000 registered voters. We have to make sure each and every one of those is in the correct voting district as we prepare for the votes, the ballots. And then you have the situation of the candidates who, as of I think the date is April 25th, is the start of the nominating petition deadline, the window for the deadline is actually May 26th. But we have to know which district they're in in order to get their nominating petitions in place. So there's a lot of stuff that has to go. We're kind of on the periphery. Once it goes to the legislature, as far as what occurs, I will say that when you look at the Vermont Constitution and the Vermont state statutes, both in combination, contemplate up to two member districts in the House and up to three member districts in the Senate. That's what the laws are. So I think that's what the legislature is looking at and not trying to rush through. Part of the problem we're having with the reapportionment this year is that the previous presidential administration delayed and filed lawsuits on some of the actions of the census and that delayed the information by a good six months getting to the states. And I think many of the states, every state has almost a different process is how they do reapportionment. I would recommend that Vermont look at some of these other states to see if we can find a way to do this in a better, more efficient way. It's kind of convoluted right now because we have a legislative apportionment board, which is partisan, and then we go to the legislature, which is also partisan. So I would like to see it get to a point where it really is a nonpartisan board. Anyone else? Last call for questions. Kevin, go ahead. Yeah, I just want to drill down a little bit more on that, Jim, if I could on the nonpartisan board. How does that occur? Would the legislature effectively have to pass a law that took reapportionment out of their own hands? And is that likely? Well, that's the question, I think, Kevin. I was a member of the Senate reapportionment committee in 2001 and 2002. And I've been obviously now Secretary of State for the last two, this one and the one previous in 2011. And the legislature always has the last say. But I think that if we can come up with, I was just on a Zoom call with an elections expert from Denver, Colorado just before. And they have a new system in place, which she says is actually working pretty well. Every system has its issues. And I don't think there's a perfect system out there. But here in Vermont, for instance, we have a seven-member legislative apportionment board. Two members are Democrats, two members are Republicans, and two members are progressives. And then there's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nominates a person to be the special master, if you want to call it, of the committee. Still comes down to it's somewhat partisan. And then that plan goes to the legislature. And then you have all the discussions in the legislature in the debate that occurs there. So I just think that we have to see, I'm a firm believer in not resting on our laurels, but actually looking ahead and saying, are there better ways to do things? And I think that that's what we should do. And the way that that would be accomplished would have to be by statute. Well, yes, there's no question. I mean, we have to follow the Constitution, and then we also have to follow the statute. But the Constitution just makes some broad statements, whereas it's the statutes that actually make the details. So I guess that's my question. Would it require a constitutional amendment to make that change, or could that just be done by statute, if you know? Well, it could be. And in some states, it is a constitutional amendment. For instance, in Colorado, they had to go through a constitutional amendment to make the change that they did. I don't know if that system, I haven't really looked into it in depth, so I'm not sure if that system would require us to make a constitutional amendment. But I think we should look. I think we should see if there's a better way. We've got 50 states, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can look around and see what other states are doing and which ones work best. Maybe that can be your retirement gig. There you go. Thanks for your time. Thank you, everybody. I think that'll wrap things up, and I'll just turn it over to final words to the secretary. So again, I want to thank everyone for participating today. This has been a real honor for me to have served the state of Vermont for many years as I have. Most of it is a part-time, but the last 12 years, obviously, as a full-time state employee elected. You know, it's been really my honor to look for ways to make and improve the livelihoods of Vermonters, to improve our processes, to try to be more efficient, accountable, and yes, Mike Donoghue, more transparent. We thank you very much.


Welcome back to the breakfast and plus TV Africa We're about to look at the pages of our national dailies and we'll be having a guest join the conversation as Zika and yeah I took isn't stand by but let's look at the leadership I set up with the leadership and as always the top stories would be the focus the leadership newspaper this morning says few Skecity bides had a I made NMP's assurance of one billion liters And that's the reality because you can see that if you leave in Lagos and or the pads of the country I'm sure that you probably would have experienced of the scarcity Motorist commuters stranded keep vigil at filling stations transport fare fares rise as one liter cells for 600 naira in a butcher Lagos black markets Skecity may last for another two months says Ipman President didn't order query of the NM DPR a head. That's what officials go there to say interesting and Bello Coco appointed a substantive and PAMD you also have another header here saying 418 million dollar power club reforms federal government state no fate a March 25th and Just before we move away. You have five killed as IED explodes in Burnu after as to colleges of education on lectures threatened strike That's what you have and you also have the FCTA to borrow 200 billionaire for road and water projects citing irregularities president Muhammad Abu Hari six amendment to the 2022 Budget and that's it this morning on the leadership Let's go straight to the front page of the Guardian Which says it is a conscience nurtured by truth with these headlines a big one there Harder times loom as fuel crisis lingers And you have the following writers to that inflation Decelerates slightly to 15.6 percent. That's interesting Data is mockery of market reality Food crisis not reflecting government's investment in agriculture says farmers Association NNPC imports 2.3 billion liters as cues persist nationwide, you know, I'm messy. I've been asking myself Don't we have a stockpile? All right of them of this petrol By the NNPC the almighty NNPC Such that if there's a national emergency, we can always resort to that stockpile. I mean This situation shows that there may be no stockpile You know in countries that have forward-thinking You know measures they would have something kept somewhere so that if there's an issue situation, you know internationally Maybe the vessels are not able to supply feel to their country since they don't refine They can always for some days rely on that so that life and the economy doesn't come to a standstill, you know so they had stockpile on food, you know the stockpile on on Necessities if it's a country that doesn't have water like Singapore, they can have a reservoir somewhere You know the stockpile on fuel and these are the things necessary to keep a country going even if you have to Russian now We haven't the situation and the government has not been able to say okay We have a stockpile of fuel will keep supplying the market. Well replace it with what is coming, you know So hearing that NNPC is importing 2.3 billion liters of fuel is okay But accused are still there and you can see on the phone page the president is at the airport He's being seen off by the Minister of Women Affairs and FCT minister as he's departing the country to Belgium Brussels Belgium Ahead of the EU Africa summit, you know, so I'm there's problem in the country and the president has has jetted out You understand so the Guardian did a good job of putting the picture of the president leaving the country saying bye-bye and You have The picture of the field cues in a boujee. I think you know So did the president, you know drive to the airport was he airlifted to the airport? Did he see the cues is this the best time for him to leave the country some questions Analysts view the answer What message has it passed when Nigerians here the president is hopped on the plane again to go to another summit, you know In Brussels when we have a national situation on our hands, you know In some countries probably you'd see the vice president or the Minister of Women Affairs being sent So just just so that the public will see the president is concerned about the situation and he's on ground So the situation why Nigerians seen the president going, you know to the filling stations to talk to people to see What's going on and you know to you know, it's it's just a situation that I hope our guests be able to Look into or talk about more headlines from the Guardian and may feel a reinforces commitment to Nigeria's economic growth pledges loyalty to Buhari Nigerians, you know I do not know who these people are who were linking in may feel his name with a run for the presidency You know asking him to resign and join politics, you know I mean that they could risk his job because the president he is okay My my central bank governor is is interested in politics even though he's not said anything You know if he may feel it doesn't come out to deny Strongly deny that he's not interested in running in joining politics. It may be taken as he's actually You know is the one behind that so it's interesting the man has come out to come out to shout.  It's all right. Let's see how it goes most stories from the front page headlines and from page of the Guardian this morning and The L. E. A. Replies police vows to prosecute officers Indicted with carry, you know this back-and-forth between the Niger police force and the NDLE NDLE saying give us your man he's He's wanted and the police not doing anything later They had to address the press conference and the police now being forced to do something Hey, you too. You have some people who are also inducted as well. We have most stories from the the Guardian ex-PGF boss writes Buhari accuses Boonee of Planning to scuttle a PC convention Pgf means a Progressive Governors Forum few scarcity Buhari did not order query over bad feel says presidency now That that should be down to a source in the president It's not an official statement from the one I read last night. I mean it's sad really It's sad and the man is out of the country as we speak EFC C. Recovers nine filling stations Lance others from serving military officer. You need to see the list, you know Merci ohm state cross river state has one of some of those property long list and five children abducted from their homes in rivers really sad one, but these are Headlines coming on the front page of the Guardian All right, let's take a look of the punch newspaper this morning The board caption says about Kerry's brother received 279 million error from Hosh puppy others. This is according to police report You have riders of the first says Niger police force probes carry for 33 cases of money laundering Please recommends demotion for embattled top-corp and that's it They're boldly written fuel subsidy federal government states set for showdown overplanned 950 billion narrow F a AC deductions APC convention shaky Buhari Sean's governors and jets off to build Belgium I really don't know why that came up that way market is resolved to blend dirty fuels and scarcity in Persisting states and just before we move away. You also have top military officers for feet 10.9 billion narrow property to the federal government EFCC and shields identity and You're also looking at your struggle shootings. Please indict. I regret your last man nscdc casualty Corpse and student demand sanctions or Lou bad on designate salute a bad on System and promises peace and this is some of the headlines this morning on On the punch newspaper and just before we move away negative reports to tarnish MF is image says friends That's it on the punch. It's quite quite interesting This is some real drama as the man said he wants to be president people have come out And he has to shout to be president said it but it doesn't matter, you know Can rely on people say no because you said I should come and I'll come up But the man has come did for the part for me as a man has come out to Vemently deny but let's quickly move on because we have a guest standing by and the front page of the nation is For the board headline there Buhari governance meeting on hold On APC convention rather fails to hold President gets list of chairman Chairman aspirants who's a demo at a party can shipped convention if necessary Petro subsidy spending put at 2.3 2.55 trillion era 130 land lawmakers projects to be deleted from budgets I wish your last thoughts fired gunshots without provocation says police or shun government Urges president to caution minister students protesters NSCDC office That's what you see playing out there, you know show both gunshots being fired because of this whole situation A little bottom to be craves for a younger monarch in future ICPC blocks 189 billionaire unspent funds in MDAs house invites government officials Bala Osman removed as NPA MD for in support the nation This has been a long winding one between the minister of transportation. What do you mean? She and the MD of the NPA Quarra government How shunger project was diverted it's been one between car government in the sake From a governor of the state as well politics of play. I neck insists on be vast On a kitty or sure elections three policemen shot dead and finally from the nation newspaper Gov general for feats 10.9 billion narrow in properties to government story Details of that story on page 5. That's so welcome at this juncture a zikr in yaitaka expert analyst on all the press this morning Miss a ita good morning to you and thanks for joining us All right, miss it miss a ita. Can you please check your connection to see if you've unmuted yourself? So that we can we can hear you because we cannot hear you right now If you've unmuted yourself, it can just give us a thumbs up. So we know Okay, but and also please try and centralize the camera for us good to know you joining us this morning Let's start with the fact that the President was not able to meet with the governors on the APC Convention and the president amidst the Prevailing situation the country has hopped on the plane to Brussels Belgium for an EU Africa summit. Are you there sir? Loud and clear, please go on The first thing is that neither the APC convention nor the EU a you subject came as a Surprise shock or something that just like popped up, you know an emergency each of these programs has been shared with for a long time and Mr. President did not have an emergency where you have to jet out There is the itinerary of mr. President's that is known to the governor that and there's the Calendar that is known to the president. I think that is a one more case of APC just believing that So so long as PDP is not giving them a position They have to make our democracy work by being their own very serious position I can't understand what is going on and the leadership of the party I'll be invested as it were on mr. President. So just like the world matter The fish rocks from the head and the box stops on the desk of the head And I'm really bothered about the people who are managing mr. President because they are just making us look like They are not taking the issue of governance and management and when I say management is generally general Because governance you are restricting to government, but management is generally which goes into the party and the APC I really don't know why they actually think They should spend a day longer in office because they are really not They're not in From all indices these guys are just not Interested in good governance either of your party or of the nation or even themselves because the extent to which they go to Actually see it themselves apart just shows that whether it is personal or corporate or national They just don't seem to be interested in anything called good governance and management All right. Let's also look at the focus. I mean the call by the umpire asking that the beavers Which is actually a technology to spin introduced for the election be used for the Oshun state election I mean if you look at the FCT election that happened the beavers were also being used and The people cry out the fact that these beavers did not Function properly and that also truncated the process. Although you also have the authority saying the beavers function You know to its maximum capacity, but what what do you think about this beavers and the elections? That we're going to have in Oshun state and also the 2023 elections Are we really ready for this beavers because I remember in 2015 the introduction of the smart card readers the smart card readers did not function You know to the capacity that they should function some of the issues were that the personnel who should actually operate this Devices were not properly educated so they didn't have knowledge issue of network and what have you with this new technology Think we're really ready when we have this technology also decent franchising a lot of persons Yes, thank you. I want I want this answer to be given the highest level of concentration We know that globally Technology is a solution and the way forward Technology globally we've entered the fourth industrial revolution already and This revolves around technology. That's number one Number two have been in politics for as long as I can remember and I know that we all agree that The introduction of card readers was a game changer in the positive to our politics number three we all know that technology Drives the way that we program is to drive and the beavers is one of the best introductions and improvement on the card reader to that extent Nigerians should not should not should not for any reason Start to have conversation of whether or whether I should not be a conversation The conversation should be how do we ensure it works? Leaving the beavers out is completely out of discussion Completely out because we know that suppose any movement number two We know that technology you rise from the way we operate it. What Nigerians every well-meaning Nigerian particularly the media should do is Interrogate the fifth colonists in the nation because they want to drag us back They want to bring us to the area of these people bringing elections Manipulating elections and the highest level of manipulation is what they call incident forms That is where you drop packing people that were not there Look at the percentage turnout that we've been having some places 30% It means that they have a 70% elbow room to manipulate If two people go to vote fine, that is democracy Let it be decided by the two put a go to vote, but let nobody disenfranchise How can people be disenfranchising technology if it is impossible it is technology that drives a banking system It is technology that drives every international relationship and organization It is technology and this technology is not localized Technologies global so let all women and men of conscience Step in and look at the fifth columnist and look at the people who are trying to say this is not working They are trying to sell us a guarantee that we should never never never ever buy We must put our eyes on the ball I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but let's look at this in this angle as beautiful as that sound and we understand You know the importance of technology and you know having that in our elections But you you have the fact that from the experience from the field you have to be verified You know there has to be some kind of verification Before you are even being allowed to cast your vote and in the case where you're unable to be verified Then there's no way you're able to cast the vote and so that already You know minus one vote already Mercy mercy my sister. Let me tell you something you travel There's no country you go to and you don't get verified by your face and fingerprints There's no country you go to none in the world Facial recognition and verification is even your phone Your phone has never been practiced because you try to put in your top and it does not want to agree. What am I saying? The conversation should not be number one. Nobody should be disenfranchised. I agree with you But I will stop. No may not We should apply the technology that is global and make sure nobody's disenfranchised But we insist we are going to use the papers. Let us go the IT gurus Let us go and let's work with Inaik today and see whether the technology that is Addicted in the facial recognition of the papers is effective and upgraded and updated But it is not a conversation. It is not an alternative It is not on the table for consideration that we will accept that's what you're trying to drive the narrative Oh, you should not they want to even make us to as much as think of the possibility of jettisoning the viewers It's not going to happen. It will not happen. Let us improve our technology This is what is used all over the world. It's not like a new technology that you're saying it has not been tested Facial recognition and fingerprints is global So let us do the conventional space how we get to Inaik and Interrogate that process and you know, we can be done We have some of the best most intelligent writers Programmers and IT gurus in the world Residents in Nigeria. That is why Max Cikabum came to Lagos These boys are dead. I'm not going to talk about big tech companies. That's why we're having the unicorns coming from Nigeria So let Inaik open up the window and let us not even have a conversation on whether or whether or not no But we should improve it so that nobody is Self-adjusted that should be the conversation. All right I'm on at the back of a mind to also remember that the electoral act amendment bill reworked fashion Is is yet to be signed elections are meant to her hold in in in February on February 18 2023 we're inching closer to 365 days we'll watch the space and miss a is it going to let's look at them The story on the front page of the leadership newspaper At the bottom right corner of the leadership newspaper you have this headline after ASU Colleges of education lecturers threaten start strike and this story referring to the colleges of education academic staff union co-assume saying that the federal government Only knows how to respond to crisis and not to peaceful engagement and they're threatening to go on strike Over the failure of the federal government to implement an agreement reached between co-assume and the federal government as far back as 2009 and this is coming 24 hours after ASU and back on its own strike The government Rethink The cries of the people work up government So what government does not operate? unfortunately in a client on what is best for the citizen bringing Professionals in the industry who are passionate about their profession and who are compassionate about the people So that they sit down and look at what is right to do That's why the Bible says that righteousness with his do right next Exhaust a nation. That's why we can have a Muslim country like Dubai doing extremely well because they believe in the concept of round paint in brown hoes But who is appointed as the minister of education who is appointed even within the runs all the political appointment What are the concentrations is not excellent and fit for purpose But it is compensation and proniesing. That's just a simple thing. So I think that as we're starting the talk about 2023 Nigerians should move from the concept of the parties who can fund it to go who is Competed enough. I wanted to bring Mr. Mr. Tickle, Mr. Muradu, Mr. Juan Cuarso, Mr. Wade Mr. Chukuka then Let Nigerians start to have a conversation of profiling their competence their capacity What they bring to the table and related to our our primary no a man like like More I look and say I've been an institution person for reforms and fixed countries in other Times that is what I bring to the table. So I'm going to be that piece Reconciliation focus heavy a man like One person can say I've been inside location look at my record in office and out of office on education a man like Mr. Chukuka can say or Mr. Wally can say I've been an Enterpreneur a private set up that I made good out of it. We did you know what is Mr. Articule saying what is Mr. Tino who's saying the right the Conversations which you drive Okay, they belong to which is irrelevant. I Wonder why we didn't hear you include a mistake I took in that in that list To also say a perfect solution to the country. Thank you. We have another story up next. Alright, so just quickly Let's look at this more stories more development as regards the abiak about carries Saga and so you had you hear the punch saying about carries brother received 279 million narrow from horse puppy orders and the Niger police force probes carry for 33 cases of Money laundering and some people are asking the police is asking that they recommend him for the motion For kids whether it's to be promoted by one of the more a man who has committed no crime. No, don't demote him Promote him if he's committed a crime don't demote him send him to jail So the motion should not feature at all because initially before the You notice that the police say all this case should be disposed of within the next few days Or weeks something like that What was that supposed to be I think in They got the way that these guys were going to like her, you know Get ahead of them then they came public and they put such a damning evidence out Now it is either these people are trying to cast ticket and eat no sense Nigerian Oh This person never again without enough enough of that let this guy play the music whether he is at this point in time Nigerians will stand on the side of justice fairness and equity by doing what send him to try out If he's innocent apologize to him if he's guilty he loves it So I was actually going to come to that because The question would now be where do we have The court of competence jurisdiction Actually proving him innocent or guilty because according to the law his innocent until being proven Otherwise, that's correct. That's correct. They're trying to be smart by half, you know That's how they're going to do the next thing you have to talk about beat back in all those things He's not going to have to Nigerians must rise up and say do not cast ticket and innocent So and do not free a criminal That is a byline and he goes to simple go to competent court of law All this media trial is absolute ballad ash and we should get out of it by now Bring your case you've established it take it to a competent court of law make it open OJ Simpsons case was made open and everybody was following the case. This is going to be a super corp A super corp cannot be tried in it in one quiet place. No, no, no, no If I let it become a media thing that the media can make a lot of money from and everything This is going to become something that just wakes up people and at the end of the day What you achieve if you're a strategic thinker and you mean well for the country Is for you to show the common man that justice is blind And that equity is open to all so you take him there you put the evidence We see the country are trying to act for me. We see them. We hear them We see the joint that makes a joint name based on the evidence that is made available to the people We see transparency. We see accountability. We see justice and the data that pronouncement is made We either lose confidence in a legal system or we say thank god A new dawn has begun for the Nigerian judiciary Oh, wow. Let me say I took interesting one from you there. Let's quickly round up a round up rather than I am Going back to because we talked about the president's absence from the country despite the accused but Regarding the fuel scarcity reports that this biting had a for instance on the front page Of the leadership newspaper comes this headline Fuel scarcity bites fuel scarcity bites harder. I mean nmpc is assurance of 1 billion liters We're hearing, you know things like 1 billion liters 2. something billion liters being imported into the country Um, uh, I have asked a question. We've asked a question this morning before you came on Why we don't have a stockpile of fuel as an oil producing country a stockpile of fuel somewhere For situations of emergency like this and we have to wait for Imports to be made before we can resolve the situation No head had as rolled till now Today's the ninth day. I'm not mistaken of this national disaster national crisis I mean if it was happening in another country where the lights went off or there were fuel queues It'll be a national crisis. No head is rolled till now. What do you make of how bad the situation has gotten? Yeah, I'll tell you this. There was a lady Um, uh, first and ester. I think man, you know, we're going something like that. She was the head of ppmc And she was Unseminously removed from office. She had a hearing on the floor of the senate That was very damning as to what was happening in our petroleum sector She brought up a case of where the stock that was left was being sold Of of of records or things like that Now what happened to our other people she was you know, and that lady is still removed to you today And I expected mr. President to call somebody like that woman and say exactly what happened tell me If he means well for this country, you can't tell me we don't have a natural reserve You can't tell me that because even if nothing goes wrong because we import swell There could be an international situation where very You know vessels cannot come into a country pick up to be a worse situation even amongst others that block the route So we are able to have a stockpile that we can deal with until the situation is resolved Now the situation at the end of the day. What do we have? We have mr. President with the minister of of of petroleum It's just it's just absent completely absent Even in all these things we haven't had you say anything I mean she shouldn't say ahead of road by now me because we're looking at people like the nmpc gmd Hey Because it's so important. Let me tell you the next risk that i'm looking at And god help us and that is people trying to play smart by mixing the adulterated with the new ones So as to breach the gap fast and what's gonna happen is that The poor man is going to be worse off because his engines are going to get affected Nobody's going to know what's going to happen. It's going to take maybe about 10 years for them to do a research And that research paper might never come out, but we would have suffered innocently Where is the transparent process of recall of all the bad fuel? Who is showing us to be transparent as to see what is being done Who are people holding them in their in their tanks and then getting paid for them to have been removed People being paid for nothing done getting new fuel mixing them up. What is the situation? Why can't we just care about the man on the street? I cannot afford But how about my driver? I just managed from so many years being given a very good And he's using it to augment the salary by selling as transportation and now the engine knocks or something goes wrong What is the fate of that man?  So why do you insist on continuing to just kill stealing and stealing and stealing and impoverishing the poor that already died? They have blood but their cries will weigh you up somewhere for the night We need to wake up and have a little bit of a conscience in this country. It's getting out of hand. I can't take it anymore Interesting indeed. I think very important what you've just said Is it going to we need to wake up? Because of course if the people do not wake up and things will continue to be the same This is a situation where the the regulatory authorities Has consistently since this thing unfolded lied to Nigerians about the situation Saying limited amounts of fuel and the head of the agency is telling Nigerians He will not take responsibility and that this is just a small thing that will be solved in no time It's a limited amount of fuel and nobody has been fired He is still in a job. Um, anyway, we have to see what happens and hopefully Nigerians would Will do something about this to let the government know how they feel Um, Izikanyi, I took his public affairs analyst. Thank you very much for giving us your expert analysis on the day's headlines Thank you, God bless you all And well, that's the size of it. We do appreciate your time Izikanyi. I took we look forward to having More of your thoughts on some national issue We will take a breakdown and of course bring you and tell you what happened today in history being the 16th day in the month of February Please stay tuned


Total solar eclipse, totally awesome opportunity.  I'm going to give you a few tips for watching the eclipse. Fortunately there are several inexpensive and simple methods with which to view the partial phases of an eclipse. One is to use shade 14 welder's glass. This is very dense filter that just completely blocks out the sun except for one part in 100,000. You can mount it on a sheet of cardboard and protect your face from the sun's rays, put some sunscreen on as well. But this is very safe. You can also buy online solar eclipse glasses. Again, they block 99.999% of the optical light, 100% of the ultraviolet and infrared light. You can also use a projection technique, what's called a pinhole camera. Here I have a bunch of them. Sunlight going through those holes produces an image of the sun. So during the partial phases you'd get a whole bunch of crescent suns. But when the partial phases end in the path of totality, take the filters off, otherwise you'll see nothing. The total eclipse is completely safe without filters, but the partial eclipse must be viewed with filters or with this projection technique. The excitement building up to totality is extreme. So I suggest you go to the bathroom 20 or 30 minutes ahead of time because when totality is approaching and you need to go, you don't want to have to go. You don't want to miss any part of totality. Take one or two quick snapshots for your memory book and believe me, there will be plenty of excellent photos available online.  They said no, and that's really sad. Totality lasts only a couple of minutes, so savor every moment. The diamond ring at the beginning and at the end, that's only a second or two. That's really a fantastic time. Looking at details in the corona, little eruptions from the sun called prominences, all those things to see. The stars come out, the 360 degree twilight sky colors around you. All these things will take up a few seconds each. Try to soak in as much as you can, but don't worry if you don't get it all in a single eclipse. That'll simply provide motivation for you to see another total solar eclipse.