Today, because governments at all levels, in BC and in Canada, are committed to environmental stewardship. I'm really, really pleased to be here today to announce that our government is providing $738,000 through Canada's Gas-Tep Fund. It is an important, valuable community asset. We want to do our part, not just at government levels, to preserve it, but to make sure that as Minister Wong has said, the future generation students in front of us here today will remember this project, will use this as a great educational tool to help guide them in making that decision on whether they will go on to study in marine biology or other innovative areas where breeding of the economy and breeding of their communities is important.


Another refree serving on Nigeria's electoral process for over four years, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Benway State, Nentawe Yelwata, has resigned from the Dependent International Electoral Commission, INEC, and immediately joined partisan politics. Now Yitwada was appointed REC in July of 2017 and posted to Benway State. He has participated in the conduct of the elections in Benway, Anambra, Oshun, Rivers and Cross River states. Now, when contacted on Wednesday, the former REC confirmed that he stepped down from INEC for personal reasons and that he had joined partisan politics for joining us to discuss this. And why all of a sudden we are having this conversation is Gide Olugun, he's a legal practitioner. Thank you very much, Mr. Olugun, for joining us. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Yeah, the question in everybody's mind is why is it such a crime for an INEC official or public servant of his standing to cross over to, you know, the political side and want to, you know, be part of the rumble, even though he was once a referee, now he wants to be a player? Actually, there's no crime in that. If you want to go by the provisions of the law, in fact, I believe he has done horribly well by resigning before joining active politics. It should have been more of a concern if he decided to join as an active staff of INEC. And if you look at the law setting up INEC, the Independent National Electoral Commission Decree 17, now an Act of National Assembly 1998, you know, it's envisaged a situation like this and had a provision in section 17 of that decree stating that notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law, the person who holds or has held office as a member of the Commission under the decree after a period of five years, after even leaving, will not be qualified to hold an elective office, you know. And this provision has been expunged from the law I made reference to. And if we have no law now prohibiting a staff that leaves INEC to join active politics, then we need to push the ball to the National Assembly. If the fact that he has now walked with the same commission that we handled elections and it's likely to understudy the game so well to have advantage over other candidates, then the National Assembly should find a way of reinstating the provisions in our laws or another one that we prevent this occurrence. And he is not the first person that has taken this step. I recall that in Cross River State, Franklin Breye, the resident Electoral Commission in Cross River in August 2019 also resigned in a bid to join the governorship race in Biasa State. So the lawmakers are expected because we look at section four of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 as amended is to place that the National Assembly shall make law of the peace order and good government of Nigeria. So when issues like this come up, if you search for paramount concern, then we need to come up with laws that regulate it. As we speak now, no law prohibits him from joining active politics. Well, a lot of people frown at it. And one of the reasons why we hear the National Assembly even came up with that act to try to put a stop or put a gap between the time when an INEC official steps out of office or resigns and the time he starts running in for an office was because they felt that it was somewhat not necessarily moral. And I asked myself, is it an issue of morality as long as we have the law that we're looking at? And these people, I mean, of course, the people that we have as our politicians have the right to one day wake up and say, well, I want to run for office. Even the Aved Nigerian who's in the private sector can wake up and say, well, I want to resign from my job and run for office because my people need me. But what exactly is wrong with the INEC official who obviously knows the modus operandi of getting elections done. And of course, maybe having free and credible elections running for an office. Is that not trying to make a change? So should we be talking about the morality of this at all in the first instance? Interestingly, you may say it is a morally wrong step to take. But we are not talking about morals here. We are talking about legal issues. So by virtue of the law, he has not contravened any law. And like I mentioned earlier, if it's that important to the government, we have three arms of government, we have the legislative arm that can come up with laws to regulate this type of practice. But as we speak now, it's just like if somebody leaves an NPC or somebody leaves immigration and decides to join active politics. I mean, I've said it that he has even done honorably by resigning. Recall at a time that the president was, you know, let's just, let's, let's, let's face it as it is right now that the National Assembly should take a deep look into this development. Like I said, this is not the first time this is becoming prominent because right now we are in the season of declaration for you know, running the race. And he has resigned and his, his experiences in INEC does not guarantee him victory at the port. He still has to go and confront the stakeholders within the party. He has expressed intention to join the All Progressive Congress APC.  And then he may have to really network to find his way. He has to pass through the primaries to even imagine as the candidate for the governorship race. So there are still a lot of hurdles ahead of him. And if he has chosen to go into active politics, I think his experience in INEC should aid him. But I don't see how that is going to give him any undue advantage in the sense that the party structure will still have to determine who will be fielded for the vacant offices that he will survive for, and this time around the governorship of the two states. Do you think that maybe I'm just wondering that the opera maybe might not necessarily be about the fact that he resigned and then immediately declared his intention, but where his intention is, or where he's gone to, the political party that he's gone to. Could that be also the reason why people are frowning at this? Maybe if he joined just another party, probably wouldn't have been a problem. I'm just curious. He could have joined any party and no law says he cannot be investigated. So if he is investigated and found to have awarded unnecessary people to APC as a party, he looked forward to cutting in the future. Then we may spring up case in that respect. But right now there are no allegations. I mean, he's been the, except we want some people now want to claim that he rigged the election that produced the president governor in play two state. If that is not the case, I mean, he's free under the constitution if he mixed the requirements to contest for office. And like I said, his experience as a resident electoral commissioner, we only support his maneuvers within the party, you know, to be able to navigate effectively. And he should also be closely monitored that if he clinches the ticket to fly, he doesn't get undue favor from the same body that we regulate the elections. By and large, the global picture here is that the National Assembly should be on ground to monitor the polls like this because laws are made for the people. And as events unfold, we try to manage our laws to suit the purpose. I mean, we still have the case of the the victory of Governor Wike in river states that discovered that even the federal government collecting value added times from states is not constitutional. And the matter, if it's in the Supreme Court, but the stakeholders are seeking political solution rather than legal solution. So laws should be made to cover these polls. Like I mentioned earlier, there was a law to that effect that was expunged. You know, the section 17 of the INEG decree of 1998, now an act of the National Assembly. So if it was expunged, it's either you introduce it or you don't. And then you just feel comfortable with the decision he has taken. But like I said, if there are infractions he has committed in office, then the loss of the land can go after him. Just like we are debating this issue of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill that is hanging now, the issue of primary or direct primaries and indirect primaries.  And some can even go for consensus candidates. So if he is influential enough to clinch the ticket, we proceed to contest. I'm just curious, I'm curious as to why, like you said, if a particular act or an amendment is important to us, we should continue to put pressure on the National Assembly to push for laws that we think one way or the other will plug loopholes that would continuously creep up in our constitution. And you made mention of the Electoral Act, which is still hanging. And for this particular, you know, act for the Electoral Act that was, I think it was the principal act, that's what it was called. After a while it looks like the people who were pushing for it just let it go and that was the end of it. But then now people are crying wolf about this particular situation. So where is that, you know, continuous pressure or the tenacity that we need to make sure that our lawmakers do the beating of the people as opposed to what they want to do, which will be in their own interests? You know, I really don't know the level of pressure with each amount on them. They made promises before going in there. The Constitution already gives them a mandate in Section 4 to make laws for the peace order and good government of Nigeria. I mean, talking about the Electoral Act amendment bill that is hanging, a lot of us engage the media space, analyzing the pros and cons and prompting the fact that direct primaries may make the engagement reflect more the democratic energy expected, which is participatory. But then for some interest within the power bloc, you may not fly. And I recall mentioning that even when the president vetoes the bill from the National Assembly, it's just an individual. We have one and nine Senate Senators, there are 60 House of Res members considering the National Assembly. The National Assembly also has power under the Constitution of Nigeria to veto the president. So are we now going to beat them up to do the needful? At the point we read that the House of Senate was able to put together about 73 signatures, more than the two tone required to veto the president. But the Senate hasn't come out to actually say that that is a truth because they've been tight-lipped about everything for so long. So we really can't even verify if it's a rumor, if it's actually a fact.  But on the issue of you saying that we really don't have to, but then there are many people who are on that, the floor of the National Assembly, whether it be the upper or the lower house, they need an extra nod because we do respect most of them. They do not really know why they're there. That's what we say. When you have a purpose, if you don't fully appreciate that purpose, then abuse is inevitable. So are they there for the people? If they are there for the people, it should be easy for them to make laws that will sanitize the environment. Or if you benchmark what we have in the country now with the mandates they are expected to exercise, you look at insecurity. I mean, is the insecurity in Nigeria so bad that the National Assembly could have shut down the National Assembly and compelled the executive arm to give us security in this land? That's a big question that Gideologo is asking. Is poverty in the land, the inflation in the land, the unemployment rate in the land, are they grievous enough for the National Assembly to rise up? Because the role of the National Assembly is to facilitate the execution of laws that will sanitize the country and give us prosperity. Section 14, subsection 2 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 as amended says that the security and the welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. That is a law from the National Assembly is the executive arm executing it. And there are provisions for impeachment within the same constitution. So if it's so important to them, it will rise up to get things done. What pressure do you mount on them? One of the aspirations of the ensouled protesters was to ensure that we sanitize the brutality we have within that sector of our national life and you saw what happened. That's a conversation for another day.  We will bring you back and talk about this issue of the National Assembly very soon. But unfortunately, our time is up and I want to thank you for being here. Barca Logan has been speaking with us on this issue. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, God bless Nigeria. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. Before we leave you with the comments of Nigerians on the lift of Twitter's suspension by the federal government, I have just a few words for you. It's not enough for us to go on social media and hide behind our avatars and talk smack about the government or criticize and cry foul. Do you have a PVC? Do you know what your ward is? Have you ever registered at a polling unit? There's still time so that you will not go back on social media in a few years' time and cry wolf. I'm Mary Anacone. Have a good evening. I think it's a nice decision. Though the decision in the first place was a bad one because it will affect Nigeria's freedom of communication. And two, it's going to affect revenue generation for the youth because we are in a social media age where everybody do most of their business online. So by doing the government that said they are creating an employment for people, putting a ban on Twitter, we create unemployment. So it's a nice decision for lifting the ban. One and two, outside, it's also a poor decision from the government in the first place. That is what I can say. Because of election, election is coming and you know in 2015 Twitter played a very important role in putting this government into power. Now election is around the corner. They are trying to use the same medium they used in 2015 to also maybe win the election or capture the youth. They know most youth are on Twitter and they want to also use that to say okay, we lift the ban because of Twitter has met their target. The reason why they are lifting this thing is because of election that is coming next year. Definitely there must be a fire that ignites a smoke somewhere for the government to call for the ban of the Twitter. But I'm suspecting something from the government. It's good that they lifted it. It's good for Nigerians. And as they lifted it, I'm happy about it.


So last week on the program, we talked about how Beto O'Rourke was relaunching his 2020 campaign because obviously the momentum died about a month after he announced. There was, you know, a little bit of a trickle of enthusiasm and then all of a sudden we're not hearing anything from Beto O'Rourke. So on the program last week, we talked about how he would be relaunching his campaign and some of the things he would be changing is one, there would no longer be this self-imposed blackout where he doesn't go on any news programs and we saw that he went on the view, he had his town hall on CNN which we're going to talk about and one other thing that he's trying to do is talk about policy now. He's trying to put that front in center as opposed to platitudes. The problem is that you should have done that from the very beginning. I mean the policies are what should have been the driving factor that made you want to get in the race but it's Beto so man I was just born to be in it so that's why he wanted to run and the hands if you can see. So he's a complete and utter joke but nonetheless I do see somewhat of an improvement at this seat in town hall. He is talking more about policy which again credit where it's due. You should have done this from day one but nonetheless he talked about ending the drug war but where you really see that there's been no fundamental change is when we get to the issue of Medicare for All. Now I'm going to play a clip where somebody is going to ask him a question about healthcare who will have a very poignant story about how one treatment for her illness costs thousands of dollars for just one dose. So he's going to give you an answer and it's going to start out really strong. He's going to talk about all these things. He's going to list the issues that affect her and all of us and here's what I want you to pay attention to.  In spite of them using terms like universal or guaranteed or healthcare as a human right that doesn't necessarily mean that they believe every single American should have healthcare. And the reason why we should assume that that isn't what they believe is when the word access comes out of their mouth because access is very different than just having healthcare. Like my goal is for you and I to have healthcare. Period. Full stop. But politicians like Beto will say well I want you to have access to healthcare. Well having access to something and having something these are two very different things.  So he's going to throw around this buzzword. Watch out for that. And then on top of that he's going to be asked directly about Medicare for All and his answer is going to be absolutely atrocious. This is basically Beto O'Rourke face planting on national television because this answer was that bad. I have multiple sclerosis and this disease is treated with very expensive pharmaceutical drugs. In addition to the ever increasing costs of my generic drugs the cost of the primary drug I take for the multiple sclerosis now retails one dose at $21,800. I get this every six weeks $21,800 for a little bag of white of clear liquid that is infused in my chest. It has depleted our savings and I worry about how we can afford the ever increasing costs of these drugs that reduce the progression of my MS. Diane thank you for being here. And again for having the courage of sharing your story so we all understand the consequences of the policies that we've adopted in this country. You should be able to get the care that you need to live your life to the fullest. And cost should not be an object or a concern or an anxiety of yours. I want you to focus on being well and doing well for others. To add insult to injury you and I as taxpayers have funded so much of the research and development for the cures and the medications and the pharmaceuticals that are sold back to us at the highest prices on the planet. We prevent you from buying from Canada or from Europe or somewhere else where you can purchase it cheaper and we refuse to use the purchasing power of Medicare. The leverage in all of the prescription medications that we buy for those beneficiaries to drive the price down. We have a plan to address this. We're going to make sure that every single American has access to high quality universal healthcare without exception. There's a plan called Medicare for America that will ensure that everyone who does not have care today is enrolled in Medicare. Those who have insufficient care they can't make the copay after insurance kicks in or afford the premium or bridge the deductible. They can choose Medicare as well but those who have employer sponsored insurance and like it because it works for them and their families are able to keep it and we use the leverage of this government not just for Medicare but Medicaid beneficiaries, VA beneficiaries, tricare beneficiaries to bring the prices of these medications down so that you and other Americans can afford them. That's what we should be able to do. Thank you Diane for asking a question. Appreciate it. So you mentioned your plan or the plan that you signed on to Medicare for America. Why not Medicare for all? I think about Diane. I think about Joey, a young man 27 years old that I met in Laredo, Texas. He's been to a doctor once in his life because he does not have insurance and that doctor told him that he had diabetes, that he had glaucoma and that he would be dead before the age of 40 because he's not getting any care right now in this country. Joey, Diane, others, they don't have time for us to get to the perfect solution. If we were to start from scratch maybe we would start with a single payer but we've got to work with the system that we have here today. The surest, quickest way to get there is Medicare for America. It guarantees every single person in this country gets the care that they need to live to their full potential and do those things that they were placed on this planet to perform in the first place. So that's why I support that plan. Thank you for that. So health emergencies can't wait for a plan like Medicare for all. That's why he's not supporting it. That sounds familiar.  Health emergencies can't wait for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass. They don't have time for us to get to the perfect solution.  I am surprised that the audience didn't laugh at him. Like I was actually offended that they applauded him because that answer did not deserve a response. He was clearly bullshitting and I need you to realize something. Most of the time whenever a politician starts out an answer by name dropping a particular person that they talk to. Well, listen, I know this person named Joshua who I spoke with. They're giving themselves time to think of a way to dodge the question. He's trying to talk about this personal anecdote in order to think of what he's going to say to get himself out of the corner that he was backed in.  I mean, it's idiotic. Quite frankly, it's idiotic. He says that the reason why we can't have Medicare for All is because that's just too difficult. We need a really quick solution. And if you do Medicare for All, you're starting over. Except that's literally the opposite of what Medicare for All is about. What is Medicare for All? Simply put, you take an existing policy that we already have Medicare. People love it, but you improve it. You close all of the gaps and then you expand it to 100% of the population. How is that starting over? In what world would that be considered as starting over? That makes zero sense whatsoever. And this idea that if we do single payer now after we already have an established for profit system, that's too difficult. It's starting over. Do you think any other country who has some type of universal healthcare system started with single payer? No, these were things that were fought for. It was fought for in Canada. It was fought for in other countries.  That's all that this is about. And it's funny how he doesn't support Medicare for All, but he's coming up with a different plan named Medicare for Everyone. I mean, semantically, this is the same thing, is it not? But it's not. Because what he's saying is, I want you to be able to keep your insurance if you get it through your employer and you like it. Okay, well, that sounds lovely, better or work. But the problem with that is you're still leaving these for profit health insurance companies in place. And if you do that, then what's going to happen? They will use their power and influence to chip away at our single payer system. They'll try to pressure lawmakers to privatize parts of it so they get a bigger share of the profits. And all you're doing is setting up another system like Obamacare, where ultimately it will fail. And what makes this policy, Medicare for Everyone, quote unquote, especially disingenuous, is that he's appropriating that word Medicare. He's taking basically Bernie Sanders policy name, Medicare for All, and he's stealing it and he's trying to convince you that it's something it's not. He wouldn't call it Medicare for Everyone if he wasn't trying to gas like you. And this is what a lot of people are doing. We have Pete Buttigieg, who has Medicare for Everyone who wants it. So you see the word Medicare in a lot of healthcare proposals for these 2020 candidates. But when you ask them, you know, do you support Medicare for All in the sense that you believe healthcare should be free at the point of service?  I know this guy named Joshua, who I talked to in Iowa, who said this, this and that.  There's one candidate who is especially strong on Medicare for All and that is Bernie Sanders. Understand that what Beto O'Rourke is saying here is completely nonsensical to even suggest that Medicare for All is starting over is so disingenuous. I think you can actually say he's just lying because it's not starting over. You are taking an existing plan, you're expanding it, and you are improving it. How is that starting over? And furthermore, to take this to the next logical step. If Medicare for All, where you take a plan that we already have and expand it and improve it. If that's starting over, then why isn't his plan, Medicare for Everyone, not also starting over?  You're tweaking Medicare. He wants to, I'm assuming, reduce the eligibility age to 55 and maybe offer some sort of Medicare buy-in. I don't know what he wants, but I mean, how is that not starting over? How is the ACA not starting over?  He doesn't want to support Medicare for All. The reason why he's very careful about his words here is because he wants a pro-corporate friendly policy to make sure that he doesn't upset the health insurance industry providers.  And the problem with Beto O'Rourke is that he may be a really nice talker. He may, you know, wave his arms around and get people excited and knows how to work a crowd. But at the end of the day, if he gets elected, do you honestly believe that your life will be substantially better? Absolutely not because this is not someone who's looking out for you. He's looking out for his own career because he's just born to be in it. And that's what he cares about. It's to get himself into a position where he's powerful and he's popular.  Beto O'Rourke is absolutely a joke. And when it comes to the issue of healthcare, he is dead wrong. And if he doesn't support Medicare for All, he needs to go out of his way to explain how Medicare for Everyone is not the same thing as Medicare for All. And maybe don't name your policy something that sounds similar to Medicare for All. Because it sounds like you're trying to gaslight people. It sounds like you're trying to dupe people, Beto. So maybe you should change the name. Maybe you should try to actually be upfront about your ideal for America. Where we make a few tweaks around the edges, but at the end of the day, the status quo isn't necessarily shaken. And these for-profit health insurance companies that are predatory, they can still make profits off of us by denying us the care that we need.