My name is Nipendra and I am founder of Cloudiga. Before starting Cloudiga, around seven years back, I have worked over a decade in different companies, but primarily with Red Hat though. I have experienced as system administration, support engineering, file system, kernel and perfending engineering. In 2015, I wrote a book on Docker and then published a course on edX for the CNCF on Kubernetes which has been taken by more than 200,000 users across the globe. At Cloudiga, we provide trainings in the space of cloud native and have many clients. Now let's get back to our topic. EPPF at the heart of it is a way to program the kernel dynamically and get insights from it. It is changing the game in the system side the way JavaScript has enabled us to bring everything on the browser. And because of that, many interesting use cases are coming up for this. Even the Windows kernel is going to support the EPPF in some time. Let us now look at brief history about EPPF. So before EPPF, there was BPF which is Berkeley packet filter. As the name suggests, it is used to filter the network packets. In any OS, we have two primarily things. One is user space and the kernel space. In the user space, we have programs like browser, editors and so on. While on the kernel side, we have programs using which we can interact with the devices like network card, disk and so on. Before BPF, when the network packets used to come to our system, we used to send them to the user space for filtering, which is very expensive affair. But with BPF, we have enabled that functionality in the kernel by creating a virtual machine inside the kernel itself. So when the packets come at the network layer, we could easily filter them out. And that made things very faster. And I believe you would have used the software like TCP dump which used this BPF and helped us debug the network issues. Let us now look at EPPF, which is extended Berkeley packet filter. But it is not meant for just the network anymore. Though the name is a bit confusing, but that's how it is. With EPPF, we have implemented journal event processing and filtering mechanism. We have a global data store as well, which we call them as maps to store the state between the events and share it with the user space as well. The core of EPPF is lives in enhancing or extending the capabilities of the Linux kernel without changing the kernel code or loading a module. And this makes things very simpler. So if you have been part of the Linux kernel community, you know that to bring up a Linux feature in the kernel may take up to years, which is just too much. And by the time the feature has arrived, we may have moved on as well. But by dynamically programming the kernel with EPPF, it changes the game significantly. And we can now come up with a number of use cases for that. And we will look them in few minutes. We can attach EPPF to different programs like any Linux kernel, anything in the network stack, any user space program and so on. So we can attach this program to any of these events. And whenever those events happen, we can perform something. There are many use cases for EPPF now. Now if you look at in the clouded world, we will talk about Kubernetes, which runs multiple containers. And these containers in most cases are just programs. And if we can attach the EPPF at the kernel level, we can actually look at what's happening in every container and so on. So rather than putting something at per container level like a sidecar, we would filter them out or we can inspect them at the kernel level. So things would become very simple. Now there's one more use case in the networking space as well. So if you look at in the Kubernetes ecosystem, we communicate with the pods throughout the Kubernetes cluster. And generally we do it with the help of Kube Proxy. So with Kube Proxy, we create these firewall rules and that help us communicate with different pods. If we have a lot of pods, then that can be significantly slow because of the way IP tables would work. But again, if we have a lot of pods. But on a similar case, if we move to the EPPF-based C&I plugins like Cilium, things are very fast because we are not going anywhere in the IP tables route. We just go from the kernel layer itself and that makes things very fast. EPPF has been well tested for some of the good balancing projects like Catron from Facebook, Unimog from Cloudflare. And there is an active word going on to implement service mess with EPPF. So good times ahead. As with EPPF, we can look at everything what is happening inside our system. There are very good use cases for both security and observability as well. In the security terms, we can have the tooling built around networking and the runtime security as well. Falco, Tracy and other policies are some of the example of security things there. Similarly for observability, we have different tools like Pixie and so on using which we can observe in the system what's happening through and throughout. Before we jump into the architecture of EPPF, let us look at some very basic examples and see what are possible with just single liners. You can also trigger the lab and then perform the hands-on lab along with me. So now here, I'm going to first install a tool called BPF Trace which is a highly important language for EPPF programs. So let's install that first. Once those will get installed, we are going to run a very simple program to trace all the system calls and then we print them by counts. So our BPF Trace has been installed. Let us now look at our first example in which we are going to get system call counts by the programs. So if I run this script, it is going to collect the system calls called by every program. Now if I just press control C, you can see that there have been few programs which are running on the system and they have called different number of system calls like the node program has called 41 system calls and so on. Now with the next example, we are going to list down all the best commands which have run throughout the system. So I run this particular program and let's say if I open up a new terminal and run few commands, let's say I run few commands like this. Now if I go back, I can see that these programs are listed here. So we have run the date and the calcum on and they're listed here. So again, a very powerful example. If you want to kind of look at what commands people are running across the system. Let me do a control C here. Now in the next example, we are going to trace new processes via the exec calls. Let me run this program here. So the program is now running. Let us now go in, let's say do few more things here. Let's say if we run date command, do a bash here and so on. Let's go back here and check. Now we can see here what are the new processes we have called here and these are being listed here. Now in the next program, I want to trace all the active TCP connections. So I'm just going to again just run a very simple script. And this particular script is now running. Let us now go and try to make some connections. So let's say if we do a curl on cloud with a website, let me just add the minus L here. Yeah, something has come up. If I kind of go back here, you can see here, now it is listing all the TCP connections what we are making here. Now on the screen, we can see different BPF trace types, which you can attach at different places in the system. So as you can see, we can attach them with respect to devices, memory, CPU, user space programs and so on. So we can actually put or have these scripts for each individual subsystem what we have here and we can then see what's happening exactly on our system at any point of time. Now we have seen the basic examples. Now let's see how does BPF actually work. So here is a high-level diagram, which is going to explain you how things are happening behind the scene. So we need to load our BPF programs by the BPF bytecode, which we can write manually, but of course writing manually bytecodes is just going to be too much complicated. And that's why we have different tool chain which have been built, using which we can easily write these BPF programs. So there are different tool links. We have seen the example of BPF trace already. Then there is BPF compiler collection we call as BCC. You can even write now the programs in Rust language and so on. So once we have kind of have generated the bytecode, so now once we have the bytecode either by writing it manually or from any one of these tools, we can load that bytecode to our kernel with the BPF system call. And first we hit the verifier, which would verify whether the code which you are loading is safe to run on the kernel or not. If it is not safe, then verifier would fail it and not run it. Post verification we are going to use just in type compilation step to convert our instructions to the respective architecture what we have. And once we have done that, we are going to attach the program to different events what we have. And those events as I said earlier can be any kernel call, can be any user space programs, can be any trace points or and many more. So once we have attached to any of these events and if those events occur, we are going to do the data collection. And the data collection we are going to do with the help of maps and using this maps we are going to share those stats in the user space which we can visualize or see it in the text or whatever it is. Now there are different kind of maps we can create to collect the state of the events and so on. Now here is a very simple program which we would write with VCC and Python and try to hook it with an event. So whenever that event happens, we get some data out and we'll see that. So again, there are different front ends as I mentioned earlier. So we are going to use the BCC library with the Python program to run a particular example. So only we have just added the front end now. So let's see how this is going to happen. So for that purpose, we are going to first load a few packages to perform those steps. So we'll just load the BPFCC tools and the Linux headers package. Once you have done that, here we have the Python program and as you can see with the Python we are first importing the respective module and then we have this BPF program which we just written in like in the C language here and we are going to load that particular program with BPF call here. So if you look at in this particular program, we are simply saying that whenever this particular function is being called, run the print hello kts and clouded community. Now what we are doing is we are loading this particular BPF program and attaching it to the system call clone. So whenever we are going to fork, we are going to run this function and print out the output like hello kts and the clouded community. So let's try to run this particular program now. So we are now running this program here. It's all there. Now let's go ahead and do some fork. So this is going to kind of spin up few more terminals here. Maybe write, date, some other components here. And now as you can see here as we kind of perform any of the clone functionality by any means in the system, we are getting this particular output on our screen. So with the BPF, we are just bound by our imaginations. With the BPF, we can program the kernel dynamically and to the end user or developer, we're just going to have an API call using which they can program the kernel for their own choice. And that just brings enormous flexibility to the developers to bring up many and many use cases. So in the coming future, we are going to see a lot of use cases coming up with this technology. So I highly recommend you to keep an eye on this technology and see what our use cases are coming here. Thank you.


Well, are you a duck or an eagle? This motivational or inspirational story, some of you may have already read or heard during motivational lectures which you may have attended in the past. But I still thought of sharing this in my own words for those who may not have had the occasion of knowing this particular inspirational and motivational story. Harvey McKay, a New York Times bestselling books author and a well-known columnist covering career and inspirational advice, narrates a remarkable story about a cab driver, about a taxi driver who decided to soar or fly high like an eagle. Ordinarily, our personal encounters and experiences with taxis or cabs are not very pleasant in terms of hygiene, cleanliness, professionalism, politeness, conduct as a whole and more. Getting back to Harvey's exceptional narration, he was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled out, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine, smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie and freshly ironed black trousers. The cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey, showing his mannerism and good conduct. He handed him a laminated card, the driver handed Harvey a laminated card, which said, I am Wally, your driver, while I am loading your bags in the trunk, I would like you to read my mission statement. Harvey was quite surprised, anybody would be and perhaps he was taken aback. He read the card, which said, Wally's mission statement, to get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment. That was his mission statement, which he wanted Harvey to read as a passenger. This completely blew Harvey away, completely blew him away, especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab literally matched the outside, which was immaculately clean, both the exterior and the interior of the cab. As he glided behind the wheel, Wally, the driver or the chauffeur said, Would you like a cup of coffee, sir? I have a thermos, I have a thermos of regular coffee and one of decaf also, decaffeinated coffee as well. Harvey with a smile said, No thanks, I prefer soft drinks. Wally smiled back and said, No problem, sir. I have a cooler, I have a cooler up front with regular as well as Diet Coke, water and orange juice. Nearly stammering, Harvey said, I'll take a Diet Coke. And handing him the drink, Wally said, If you would like something to read, I have the Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today. So as they were dragging away, Wally handed another laminated cart to Harvey. These are the radio stations I get and the kind of music they play. I mean, if you'd like to listen to the radio, just let me know. Which station would you prefer? Said Wally, the driver, the cab driver. To top it all, Wally, the driver told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable enough for Harvey. Next, the cab driver went on to inform Harvey of the best possible route to his destination at that time of the day. He also offered to engage in a conversation with Harvey, very thoughtful of him. And he wanted to have conversation to tell him about the interesting sights which if at all, Harvey was interested in visiting. And if he was not interested in chatting with the driver, he said that he would leave Harvey with his thoughts. Harvey was nothing but utterly astounded and surprised and amazed. And he asked the driver, tell me, Wally, have you always served your customers like this? Wally smiled into the rearview mirror. No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. He said the driver, it's only been in the last two years, said Wally. During my first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wyandyer, on the radio one day. He heard Wyandyer on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You Will See It When You Believe It. You will see it when you believe it. Mr. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you will have a bad day. You will rarely disappoint yourself with the thought what you have had. Bad day, you will get a bad day. Stop complaining, differentiate yourself from your competition.  Ducks quack and complain, whereas eagles soar above the crowd. That hit me, said Wally. That hit me right between the eyes, said Wally. Mr. Dyer was really talking about me, I thought. I was always quacking like a duck and complaining.  I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers, the cabs were dirty, the drivers were impolite, unfriendly and the customers were by and large unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time when my customers responded well, I did more. So Wally took a baby step and then he took a giant step in a way. I take it that has paid off well for you. Harvey said, it sure has, Wally replied. My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year, said Wally. And this year, perhaps I will or probably quadruple it, my income. You are lucky to get me today, sir. I don't sit at cab stands anymore. My customers call me for appointment on my cell phone, said Wally, or leave a message on my answering machine. That's what he said, he was much in demand.  If I cannot honor my commitments to the customers, then I arrange for some other reliable cabbie. Wally was incredible. He literally offered or he was offering a limousine service out of a regular taxi or cab. It doesn't matter if you work in an office or in the field. As a salesperson or after sales support or a teacher or a civil servant or a lawyer or a politician or a businessman or a bank or any other executive or employee or any professional for that matter or a taxi driver or a courier or food delivery agent.  Whether you're willing to change your approach and attitude or not, small changes in life bring about big advancements. As they say, whatever comes around, the theory of karma does work in practical terms. I personally feel it's not simply a theory. You can actually put it into practice, the theory of karma.  We can get inspiration from completely unexpected and unassuming quarters, the way we got this story from a taxi driver. So always keep your eyes and ears of your mind open. You don't know who will teach you what in life, which will eventually become a game changer for you. Yes, a game changer for you. Thank you. Goodbye and good luck.


is leading the charge becoming the first state in the nation to cancel medical debt for thousands of eligible residents. Maybe it's $2,000 or so. Paycheck to paycheck. That's a tough load to have to carry.  This is not something they did because they were spending too much money. This is something that got hit with the medical emergency. The state will work with a nonprofit that buys up medical debt and then eliminates it at a reduced cost. So apparently good things can still happen in America, which is kind of shocking to me because I was under the impression that those days are long behind us. It's all bad stuff from here on out. We're just circling the drain and nothing good will ever happen in American politics. But something good happened. Not just good, like really, really good. So good that it actually made me feel something. And I think that feeling is happiness, dare I say joy, which I'm not necessarily sure because I haven't gotten that feeling from American politics in a very long time. But we've got some genuinely good news, folks. Connecticut's Democratic governor Ned Lamont announced that his state is going to become the first in the nation to cancel medical debt. ABC News reports the state plans to erase approximately $1 billion in medical debt this year by leveraging $6.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, it said. Residents whose household income is up to 400% of the federal poverty line for a family of four, that's 124,800 annually, or whose medical debt equates to 5% or more of their annual income will be eligible under the program, the state said. Some 250,000 residents are anticipated to see their medical debt erased with this initial $6.5 million investment, the state said. More than one in 10 Connecticut residents have medical debt in collections, according to the state. I mean, this is an absolute game changer. It's good policy and it's good politics. And I hope that other governors now feel pressure to do the same thing as well. Now they are financing this as the article stated with funds from the American Rescue Plan. So Republicans can't fear monger about a new tax to pay for this or anything like that. But the downside is that it is means tested. And I think that universal programs are always preferable to means tested programs. But having said that though, the eligibility requirements are fairly wide. And residents don't have to do anything to qualify for debt relief as they usually do with means tested programs because this is automatic. They just get it. It's expected to take effect in June. So if you live in Connecticut and you have medical debt, you should see that erased in June just like that. Incredible. Now this goes without saying, but we still need a single pair healthcare system. We need Medicare for all. So medical debt is no longer a thing in the United States. Medicare for all wouldn't just do away with medical debt, it would say $450 million annually and most importantly, save 68,000 lives per year according to a study conducted before the pandemic by researchers at Yale and other universities. But in the absence of a single pair healthcare system, I think that governors zeroing out medical debt that people acquire through no fault of their own is a massive, massive step in the right direction. And to be fair, it's not the first time that this has been done. Because on a smaller scale, New York City Mayor Eric Adams actually did something good, perhaps for the first time ever. And he announced $2 billion in medical debt relief for New Yorkers who qualify earlier this year. And on top of that, last year, Colorado lawmakers passed the law removing medical debt from credit reports. Now on top of that, local governments have also used funds from the American Rescue Plan to buy and cancel debt for people in large cities like New Orleans, Pittsburgh and other areas. But I mean, this is clearly the next logical step where medical debt is just canceled across the board at the state level. This is huge. And it's going to become increasingly necessary as more and more Americans acquire medical debt, because our system isn't changing anytime soon. It's not just going to automatically get better. We actually have to fix it. So ABC News continues a 2022 analysis of government data by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Peterson Health System track are estimated that 9% of adults, approximately 23 million people owed more than $250 in health costs. Those more likely to report significant medical debt included people with a disability, uninsured adults, low income adults and black Americans, the report found.  And even though 90% of Americans now have health insurance, medical debt is still a persistent problem in this country. So much so that it's the number one cause of bankruptcy, according to the bankruptcy Institute, which isn't necessarily surprising considering the fact that 100 million Americans are saddled with medical debt, according to the Texas Tribune. So once and for all, action is finally being taken to address this and Democrats are doing the humane and popular thing by just giving Americans relief.  You can have a medical emergency through no fault of your own.  Or let's say best case scenario, you have insurance, you were taken to the correct hospital, but then the procedure that you needed isn't covered by your insurance or the medication that you needed isn't covered by your insurance. Well, now you have to pay for that as well. I mean, it's so gross that rather than focusing on getting better if you have cancer, you now likely have to focus on medical debt and worry about that too. Because perhaps the medication that you need isn't covered by your insurance. It's such a barbaric system. Like the fact that we've allowed this to continue for so long is astonishing to me. The fact that medical debt is a thing in the first place speaks to how awful our for profit healthcare system is. But this right here is how you address this in the short term. And other Democratic governors need to do the same exact thing. And Democrats in Congress need to push this as legislation. I mean, imagine if Joe Biden pressured Republicans to support medical debt relief, instead of a far right border bill, imagine what that would do for him politically. And sure, Republicans aren't going to support it. But make them tell their constituents, make Mike Johnson, a Christian, tell his constituents that he thinks that they should be stuck with medical debt, force these Republicans to explain to the people who vote for them why they think they should be burdened with medical debt in the richest country on the planet, even though they accumulated that debt through no fault of their own. This is how you play politics. And again, it's not just about politics because making a difference in people's lives is really important. But you can do both at the same time. It's good politics and good policy.  But as I said, there's no new tax and it's also means tested. So how exactly can Republicans possibly formulate any opposition to this without sounding foolish? And this is how we never like this proposal because it's it's paying off bad, uncollectible debt. So the effect of it is really minuscule. And it's taking $6.5 million that could go towards something else. Bless this heart. In other words, they have nothing. Well, you know, medical debt isn't that big of a deal comparatively speaking. So you know, we really could be using that money for something else. That's it. That's the only argument that they have. Now, the question is, what, how would you distribute this money in a different way? Well, he actually alluded to what he would do and had some surprising recommendations. So in a Facebook post, he writes, the governor may enjoy the headlines he's getting on canceling medical debt. But I have little doubt this policy decision will disappoint people who don't qualify for relief and frustrate organizations, local leaders and residents as capital conversation continues about meeting core needs such as special education funding, heating assistance for vulnerable residents or investing in Medicaid rates for all residents. Okay, so pump the brakes. I'm sorry. Is this Republican inadvertently advocating for a universal policy instead of a means tested policy? Not to mention, is he actually making reasonable recommendations that are, dare I say good?  You can do all of those things. But he's trying so hard. He's trying to find some way to be against this. But he's kind of backed himself into a corner. And the only option that he has, because he's got to oppose the Democrat, no matter what, since he's a Republican, the only option he has is to outflank the Democratic governor who did this from the left. Again, this is the minority leader in the house. See, I don't believe that he actually wants to do those good things. Otherwise, he wouldn't be a Republican in the first place.  That right there is what I call effective leadership. Take notes, Joe Biden. Take notes, Democrats in Congress. And most importantly, if you're a Democratic governor, copy him. Don't just take notes. Copy his homework. Do what he did. Because I promise you, you will be rewarded for it politically. And the best part is you're actually going to make a meaningful difference in the lives of so many people in your state. This is the way right here. Major, major kudos to Ned Lamont. I have no choice but to stand. This man is a king for what he did. Love it.


The Deputy President of the Senate, Ovi Omoa Gege, has urged the national leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria that all the all-progressive Congress APC would not present to people from the same religion as its presidential and vice presidential candidates for the 2023 general elections. Earlier, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria warned political parties against heating up the polity with the either Christian Christian or Muslim Muslim ticket in the presidency. Joining us to discuss this is Olu Martins, he is a political analyst and Leonard Ibute, also a political analyst. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I'm going to start with you Leonard. The issue of Muslim Muslim Christian ticket, should that even be a basis for conversations in the first place? Should that be an issue? What about the issue of merits? What about being fit for the job? What about the people who are being fielded as candidates for political parties? Should we not be looking at their capabilities or their precedents? Should it be religion or ethnicity playing the first card or the first point of relevance in this conversation? Thank you for having me. That's an interesting way to frame the argument. However, we should understand, we've had Muslim Muslim candidates before the Abiyala era, unfortunately they never saw the light of day. But we should understand first of all that this is participatory democracy and democracy is about representation and representation is across tiers. This is why we have geopolitical zones, we have religion, we have ethnic groups, we have minority leader, majority leader. All of these are enclifts of political value that need to feel represented, otherwise a democratic experiment falls on its head. And so while your question, the way you frame it, at least the contrast and this thinking with competence and all that, it's actually not the case. It is true that the real issue is that because political parties want to win election and necessarily must win elections to govern, the way to win in a democratic setting and to feel and to form a government, a legitimate government both in a legal term and in the minds of the people is for them to feel represented. And so the statement, while I agree that it is nuanced debate, yes, it's contrast with competence, it does not, because there are many competent Christians because there are competent Muslims. And so a democratic experiment in a nation where the Christian Muslim divide is very stuck. We are as divided as can possibly be. There is a House of Hulani enclave, there is the South enclave, even in the South, in the South, South, South, South West divide in the North. We have the Northern minority who are a majority in population and they have the House of Hulani who are dominating government. All of these calculations must come into the mix for parties to prevent candidates that are indeed representative of our diversity. So I think the statement is not out of place. Interesting. Olo Martens, we are people who are divided along ethnic and religious lines. We all know that. Every time we analyze issues, we look at them from those prisms. But how well has it helped us as a country going about issues from a religious, either a religious or an ethnic perspective? What has it yielded us so far? I'm not in any way saying that we should not involve religion or ethnicity in what we do, but I'm saying we're so hung up on this and I'm wondering how beneficial has it been for us going forward? Should we not be looking outside of these prisms to analyze issues or really even talk about governance? Thank you very much. Let me again and again continue to applaud plus TV, plus politics for always putting these very tiny issues if you like to speak in the front burner. We talk about the engagement of the media, the forum of the states, the collective freedoms of all of us is endangered. So to that extent, I should give you kudos for always engaging these very popular issues. But the main issue here is that I think that the postulations and our vassions, if you like to put it, of the Senate president is anachronistic, is a cake, is medieval. The world is fast moving away from some of those very pedestrian issues of religion. However, it's that when religion comes to play is when the center cannot guarantee anymore a level playing field for Christians or Muslims. Because after Christians or Muslims, what about the African traditional religion? And what about those who don't even believe in God? You know what? So why we pander to religion? It's a solitary pointer that the center does not hold anymore. We pander to ethnicity. It's a solitary pointer that the center does not hold anymore. What it means is that our thought lines are deepening and perhaps this administration has led by President Mohammed Dubari has even made it more apparent by some of his actions or inactions. I do not subscribe to those arguments. The world has gone beyond that because economics has nothing to do with religion, intelligence has nothing to do with religion, capacity has nothing to do with religion. It is when I feel that because I practice XYZ religion, I am undermined or I feel that I am a second class citizen or I cannot worship my God the way I want to worship Him. That's when we begin to pander to some of these pedestrian discussions. So what the current president has said in his engagement with this deputy Senate president is to tell him that there is a failure of leadership. There is a failure of competency. It appears like if you are a Christian or a Muslim as a case may be, you benefit outside your competency, outside your capacities, outside the things that you are going to, that you will ordinarily have been able to get, but for the fact that you are Christian or Muslim. Otherwise, these things should not even come up in our discussions. You know what? So there's no Christian brain. There's no Muslim brain. Economics, science, chemistry, physics, all over the world is non-religion. So to pander to these issues, they're taking us backwards. We've gone beyond that. I do not care. I'm a pastor. I pastor a church, but I do not care really if my president is a Christian or a Muslim. I think we're having connection issues with you, Mr Lou Martins. But if you can hear me, just say something. I can hear you very well. Can you hear me? Yes. Can I respond to Lou Martins? Yes. No water. Olu, I think you're having connection issues. So let's go to Leonard. Leonard, you think you want to differ on some of the things that he said. So go ahead because I have a question. Leonard, go ahead. Okay, great. Can I speak? Can I respond? Yes, please. Awesome. So, yeah. I mean, so you see the realm of politics does not dwell in idealism. In an ideal situation, a good leader is a good leader. And when leaders are good, nobody cares where they are from, right? Nobody cares that Nelson Mandelaiz Zulu is an African leader, right? Primarily, we identify with him. He has that general acceptability and identity. And to Lou Martins' point, yes, the country is a nightmare. We are not in an ideal situation. And so if we are looking for a democratic experiment that at least is acceptable, we must look at all the different fragmented units and give them a sense of belonging. Why do we have agitations coming from the left, right and center? Some of them are legitimate because some people feel they don't belong. Some may be pedestrian because some people want to use it as a point of activism to bring personal benefits and all that. But the thing is this, democracy is not meant to be ideal. It is the government of the majority where the minorities are allowed to have it safe, but it is a good form of government when the minority has a voice, a voice that can be heard on that platform. And so in the Nigeria of today, where religious sentiment is the single most important dividing factor between the north and south, even though it's not real. We know that the real device is economic. Great, because I was about to ask that who's made, because it seems like we've allowed ourselves to be played along these lines. Because the average Nigerian, for example, when you were growing up, when you were in school, you didn't ask your seed partner if he was Christian or Muslim to let them sit close to you. When you were playing as a kid, you did not ask them. Are you a Christian or Muslim? If not, I'm not playing with you. So I'm saying maybe we've allowed politicians to play us or play up because I think that's what the canned president was trying to talk about. Heating up the polity. So what if we now, for example, you're saying that it's not an ideal situation? If it's not an ideal situation, why can't we create an ideal situation that suits... Sorry, what? You will build from where you are. You can't jump the gun from where you are. But are we really building anything, Leonard? Are we building anything? Because it looks like we let the politicians set the pace and then we follow. I think the right argument is to not discount the role of our diversity in our politics. The whole point of democracy is the recognition of diversity. I'm sorry. I do not want this to be a backup, but what is the diversity we're talking about here? The diversity of Nigerians is their culture, not their religion, is it? Religion should not necessarily play a part in this, should it? It is possible for us to have competent Christians and competent Muslims in government. This is not mutually exclusive. If the idea is to find competence and to have a religious mix that is acceptable, that should be the agenda. I think that agenda is more worthwhile than to pitch one against the other. We can have competent multi-religious groups who exist in the running of this country, and that is a more acceptable model where we are right now than to take competence alone as the only selection criteria. That's unrealistic. I understand, but my question was that can we not just talk about competent Southerners and Northerners and people from the South South instead of saying competent Northern Christians? Do you understand what I'm saying? We're complicating the issue. I might be wrong, but I'm going to toss this to Ola. We're more interested in the zones and the religion, and that plays up more in terms of who we're picking instead of looking at who the person really is and what they're able to offer. I hope that you can hear us now, Ola, because we're having connection problems with you. I've been hearing you. I've been following the discussions all the while. It's been very interesting, but can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead. Yes. First of all, my name is Olu Martins. Olu Martins? I'm so sorry. Yes, yes. I couldn't agree with you more in your engagement with Lenard's. You have made the job in a manner of speaking easier for me because you know the matter is that a good footballer, if you are a striker, for instance, a David Beckham holds the ball. Rud Vanistroe knows where the ball is going. We should go where the ball is going. We shouldn't go where the ball is. We have these convenient arguments that we post all the time. Check for the same. That because the network was bad in XYZ areas. The network is dealing with you right now. Olu Martins, can you hear me? I think we're having connection issues with Olu again. Are you back? I think you're going to have to save the day again. Now, Lenard, I want to go to what the canned president said. I'd like to quote him directly. He was saying that political parties are actually the ones hitting up the polity about the issue of Christian Christian or Muslim Muslim tickets for the presidency. He's saying that these things are not supposed to matter. But you see, a lot of people are analysing it in a way that it seems like all the Christians where the can was going there to say we want to make sure that there is a Christian Muslim ticket. We want everybody to be properly represented. But I don't think that that's where they were coming from. They were trying to say let's play down on these sentiments and look at the people that the political parties are fronting. Yes, so I mean, again, when we make it an either or conversation, we would have an indeterminate argument. My point here, as separatists and Aristotle, you know, the founders of democracy or proponents of democracy, separatists predominantly expressed. Democracy is always the best form of government where competent people are the participators and by participators I mean from the candidates to even the voters. So if you have a medical condition, for example, that is a gynaecological condition, right? Even if we are going to vote via a democratic process to determine who is going to operate on you, the people that are qualified to vote will be gynaecologists.  But democracy is not like that. You cannot discount the lack of education in the polity, the brain waves of the majority, the religious sentiments of the people, the tribal enclaves to which they belong. You cannot discount that in favour of an ideal that says let's find the most competent person. Democracy is not a competency test. It is a popularity test. And so the candidates that we appeal more to a wider base will form the government. So if we are looking for that, then we have better recognised what that base is looking for in religion, to say in religion who is the most competent person of this religious extraction, in tribe who is the most competent person of this tribe. And if we do that, we save ourselves the idealist thinking that overnight we can change a significantly distorted Nigerian political system. And it is not just a Nigerian political system, it is democracy in general. We forget that democracy is not a trumpet America. Are we really impacting the democracy in Nigeria? Because you have been making reference to ideal situations. I do not know if ideally we are practicing a democracy or realistically that's not the case. I do not know but let's see if we can let Olu speak. Olu, are you back? Mr Olu Massans, are you still there? I think you're trying to speak but your connection is really, really bad. Unfortunately, I'm going to have Leonard answer that question. Leonard, ideally we're supposed to be operating a democracy where you're saying that popularity carries the day. But realistically, is it a democracy that Nigeria is operating on or something that is similar to it? Well, there is no perfect democracy. When you look at the American electoral system, it is what we think regularity is. We have a Nigerian version. Democracy is a journey. We are trying to be as democratic as we can be. We are far from it. But my thesis is this. With what we have, I'm a business person. You don't analyze a business case from where you want to be. You analyze a business case from a business case. The business case is this is where we are. If you want to move us from where we are to where we want to be, what can we do now to win in the short term while we are on the journey to the long term? But if we say we shouldn't talk about ethnicity, we shouldn't talk about religion, we shouldn't talk about the polarizing political views. That in itself is a non-democratic statement because democracy is about the alignment of opposing views and opposing concerns. So when you can't chairman or anybody saying these views will better align, trust issues will be better resolved, if we are able to have representation from the two major religions in Nigeria, that is a sensible statement to make. It's practical. We don't have to like it. It is where we are and that is the best place to start from to move towards where we want to be. It is not by accident that the parties have a zoning formula that zones, precedences and positions between the north and south. It is in recognition that people need to have a sense of belonging in the Nigerian experiment across those lines. And so if there are other dimensions other than in north to south zoning, then it makes sense to consider it in the analysis. It cannot be binary, either this or that. Maybe it requires a lot of other variables and I think religion in today's Nigeria is a significant variable that you cannot discount even in business for that matter. Interesting. Let's try again if we have Olu Matins back. I think we've lost him completely. We've lost his connection. Apologies Olu Matins for the internet connection. Welcome to Nigeria. Leonard, before we wrap things up, the average Nigerian is obviously tired of the drama within the political parties. I just finished speaking with a PDP representative and he was talking about the fact that he wasn't really straightforward about the zoning process because I asked a direct question as to if you have already given the national chairman or voted a national chairman who's from the north, does that mean that your party is going to vote for you? The party's ticket is going to the south and he said that the party has opened the floor for all hats to be thrown in and whoever emerges emerges. Again, that of course plays down on the dissenting voices that you're talking about, the fact that we have polarization and we are diverse. But if we do that now, for example, in the PDP, where is the room for all of us to be represented at some points or the other? First of all, that remains a very, very significant hurdle to cross within the PDP because zoning is written into the PDP's constitution. I mean, constitutions can be amended. There is equal voting rights at the table for that amendment to happen. It is not a bilateral decision by some board of trustees of party chairmanship or whatever. It requires an amendment of the constitution which to my mind and I may follow in this space has not happened. As it is today, the indication unless the PDP is able to review the constitution, which I don't think they can, is that for sure the zoning formula favours a southern candidate. But that said, this is not about the PDP or the APC or about the political enclave. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, right? I believe there are equal distribution of competent people across geographies in Nigeria. I am from Benway State. In Benway State, I am from a minority tribe. I am an idoma person. The idomas have competent people from geopolitically they call us North Central. When we don't feel like it, we call ourselves people of the middle belt. We have a political identity crisis that is also a problem for us. But beyond all this, we can have a southern competent person of a religion that is acceptable to those who care about religion. This is the model that we want to, that we should practically be looking at. And we shouldn't be thinking PDP or APC. We should be looking at Nigeria and say, how would the typical Nigeria, I go to my video, I've been to my video, minimum 10 times this year, I've travelled minimum 18 states in Nigeria this year. So I don't know anybody or maybe very few people visit rural places like I do. My business is in transportation so I have to know and I'm involved with them. The thing is this, what politicians know that we analysts have refused to know or we have decided to be blind that we're using our religious brains to analyse. Is that there is a way that the people that form governments in this country think politicians know that and they play those nuances. So if we call on TV and we say the nice things that would happen in a legal business to set up or that would happen in a boardroom set up, then we miss the whole point of democracy because the professor and the illiterate farmer have the same votes. In closing. In closing, I agree fully that a number of variables that need to be in the equation for deciding who the best candidates are. Number one, they must come from the right religion so that they will have acceptability. Number two, they will have the right competence for the Nigeria of today and the next four years. Number three, they must be able to reach out in a manner that guarantees them victory. It is okay for us to bring good candidates that cannot win a election and we do this every year. Please good candidates find a platform that can get you victory so that you don't just become a TV celebrity. We have to go. Thank you very much. Lena de Boute is a political analyst and also we had Olu Martins who is also a political analyst. Thank you very much for being part of the conversation. Thank you for having me. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick, quick break to bring you highlights of the week and all the interesting conversations we've had on plus politics. And when we come back, I'll be telling you good night. And the fact that they try to, you know, cover it up or probably have these conversations behind closed doors shows that they should be something we should be worried about. In the first place, the quality of what they're doing is very important to us and we need to make sure we have a way of tracking what the judiciary are doing. It's just like having our lawmakers over at the National Assembly and we don't know what they're doing. So how are they representing us right? So I think it's something that they have to look into once more and it's something that we, the taxpayers, deserve to know. What is this money used for? Because right about now in Nigeria, the quality of service to the judiciary system is very low. The service delivery is extremely low. The timely delivery of service is also extremely low. The economists have been in existence even before my great grandfather was born. And I think they have an integrity to protect. They have an image to protect. And they can just come out and give that information that is not true. Definitely they've done their finest. Now I went through the report from the economist. They talked about soldiers welfare, that soldiers are not well paid. They talked about diversion of soldiers' allowances, which are not getting to the soldiers. They talked about poor feeding. Now, let's skip aside the area of arms selling now. From those three points out, the economists gave out, I confound for the economists that that report was true. I was a soldier, a former soldier. All what they've stated happened to me, myself, when I was in the Bacassid Peninsula in the 90s. Our funds were cut off. We were not well paid. We were being fed like cows. We are expecting that the government will, as you know, gain an apologise to the people and we take it up from there. And what happens if none of that takes place? If none of that takes place, you would have heard that Mr President said that he has given licence to MPDC or NMPC. I can assure you that one bank will not fly into Ogodw, in the name of oil. If those things are not taken care of. Can you repeat that? What do you mean by that? I read it from the president. If you like me, you will like my dog. You cannot like my oil. Help me. It appears that there is so much on government's business in part of the north. Now, part of the east is also falling in a succumbent towards it. The government will show presence in these areas. If you need to go defeat these guys, hold territory while you are advanced to do more, get more food, so just more boots on the ground like we said elsewhere, and do the needful. It means no longer time for paying lip service and talking. You cannot be warning in this day and age. This is what's going to play out on election day. It's actually going to be between two political parties. It's going to be between ABC and Abda. It's going to be between ABC and Abda. I know that when it comes to that, I believe that Abda will take the day. I believe that the chance to solve the problem has what it takes in this 21st century. It has what it takes to carry on with the development of Alhambra 6. Thank you all for being part of the conversation. We hope you enjoyed all of our broadcast for this week. We'll see you on Monday on Plus Politics. I'm Mary Annacol and have a good evening.


Just a few more weeks left in 2020 the year is coming to a close and as the year comes to a close You start seeing more and more people Authors writing their top five or top ten best Linux distributions of the year and video content creators giving their top five Linux distributions of 2020 and I thought I would Contribute a little bit to that discussion as well I'm going to give you guys my personal top five Linux distributions of 2020 now We need to talk about how I'm going to come up with my top five Linux distributions These are going to be distributions that were released in 2020 and that I took a look at so you saw these Distributions sometime on my Linux YouTube channel and these are going to be my personal Favorite that I took a look at as far as distributions that impressed me that I would run on my personal equipment This is not going to be what everybody else does for a top five Linux distribution list because they're typical top five list are You know, these are the best distributions for the new user These are the best distributions to gain mass adoption things like that. No, no, no, I'm not even considering that I'm going to tell you these are my personal favorite top five Linux distributions of 2020 This is just my opinion. I'm not trying to come at it from any kind of weird angles These are just the ones that I enjoyed the most so looking back at all of the Linux distributions that I featured on the channel during 2020 I covered probably about 15 or 20 of these distributions on camera and The ones that will not make the top five list But I did take a look at during 2020 were Calculate Linux endeavor OS may box the various flavors of a boon to 2004 and 2010 Linux mint 20 for door 32 Devwan instant OS Archcraft. They even covered a couple of nine Linux operating systems I did a video on free PSD. I did a video about react OS But none of those are going to make the top five although all of them were fantastic operating systems Really a lot of people when they do top five list they oftentimes give you a bonus You know the top six really because they give you that one Thing that just missed the top five and I'm gonna do that too just barely not making my top five I wanted to find a spot for it, but I just couldn't it couldn't crack the top five, but elive Fantastic distribution based on Debian uses the Enlightenment desktop and it's just blazing fast and it just looks cool It's got that old-school retro kind of look it looks like Linux did back 15 years ago when Linux was still kind of a niche operating system Not quite as mainstream as it is today and it's just really cool stuff I mean the the Enlightenment desktop is really nice it uses you know like 200 megs of RAM or something something crazy and This just barely didn't make my top five. I wanted to find a spot for But it just misses out. So that's your bonus pick now. Let's get into the actual top five and Coming in at number five is GNU Geeks. Now Geeks is just a really interesting GNU slash Linux distribution It is one of the free distributions 100% free as in freedom. It uses the Linux Libre kernel and Because of that, I really couldn't place it higher than number five on the list because as Fascinating as GNU Geeks is and I played with it on one of my laptops for a couple of months I kept a VM of it around for a couple of months and you know Finally what made me kind of have to move off from Geeks is because it's one of these 100% free as in freedom distributions and uses the Linux Libre kernel and has absolutely no proprietary blobs or anything You're very limited on the hardware that you can actually install GNU Geeks to for example I had it on a laptop a physical laptop that I ran for a couple months I never had Wi-Fi working because I was gonna have to change the Wi-Fi chip in that laptop If I was ever gonna have Wi-Fi working with Geeks I tried to install Geeks on my main production machine and the installer wouldn't even work On my main production machine. So yeah, it's a very specialized kind of distribution But very fascinating because it's one of these Distributions where you write a config file during the installation process the config file is written in GNU scheme No, it's in GNU gal, which is a dialect of scheme, which is a dialect of list Anyway, you write your config file and then it pulls down all your packages and stores them in a really unique way And they call it the Geeks store. It's it's very much like Nix OS It's so, you know geeks has come at it from a different kind of Slant because it's 100% free where Nix is not 100% free Also, GNU Geeks used the GNU shepherd a knit system where Nix of course uses system D But overall, I thought GNU Geeks was just a really cool distribution I wish I could have made it work on my main production machine I would have loved to have ran this thing Unfortunately, I just the hardware I have is just not compatible with it But the little bit of time that I did play with it on some of my test laptops and in VMs I thought it definitely deserved coverage on the YouTube channel. I did two videos about geeks One of them the very first one was good GNU Geeks is an advanced GNU operating system for freedom lovers Check that out. If you haven't anyway, it was really cool operating system I think I had installed it with a XFCE on that video. So we did a desktop environment I also played around a little bit with some window managers with GNU Geeks on camera I would show you guys GNU Geeks in a VM But I'd lost the VM that I had of GNU Geeks because I've distro hop since then and I didn't back up that VM Now, let's go to number four on DT's personal top five Linux distributions of 2020 And this is going to be the only one That is probably a little shocking to people because it is in a boontube based distribution And it actually has a desktop environment. You guys know DT doesn't use desktop environments, but I really like this distribution Linux Lite it's one of those I've always kind of played with I've kept many versions of Linux Lite over the years on USB sticks I have installed Linux Lite many times on friends and family computers You know, they bring me their old windows 7 laptops that's riddled with viruses and they want something new And Linux Lite is great because it has this very light fast XFCE desktop environment And it's very reminiscent of windows now the windows workflow the windows paradigm as far as they've got a panel at the bottom The XFCE menu kind of looks kind of like a traditional kind of windows panel And it's very easy for people that have never run Linux before and even though I don't know if I would personally run it on my own equipment It is one of those distributions that every time they have a new release I always go grab that ISO and I keep it on a USB stick And if you guys haven't ever checked out Linux Lite I strongly urge you to check it out, especially if you or XFCE lover because they do a really nice XFCE desktop environment Now moving on to number three in my top five distributions of 2020 receiving the bronze medal Antics 19.3 What a fantastic distribution. I've always loved antics. It's another Debian based distribution based on Debian stable And it's designed for older hardware. They even still have 32 bit images It's one of the rare Linux distributions that still has 32 bit images So if you've got something really ancient, so if you got some machines that are 15 even 20 years old You know, most of your Linux distributions are not going to be able to be installed to those machines But chances are you'll get antics running. This is antics with the ICE WM window manager the ice window manager That's the default one that it logs into also on the ISO or actually already installed You can quickly switch to other desktop environments and window managers by go to desktop here other desktops Other than ICE WM, we have a flux box that we can log into But just by clicking that and now I'm in flux box here And let's see if I go to the desktop category in flux box. We could also change over to JWM, which is fantastic JWM is one of the lightest window managers you will ever run. I've gotten JWM You know down to using jump like 100 megs of ram before like it's one of the craziest Window managers as far as system resource usage JWM is very much a clone of open box In matter of fact, the right click menu you can pipe dynamic menus through it and everything just like you can in open box It's really a fascinating window manager. So top three of 2020 antics 19.3 and our silver medalist coming in at number two is NixOS and this is a VM of NixOS running the Qtile window manager But I actually have NixOS running on that laptop behind me I've been running NixOS now for I don't know three four weeks on that laptop and that's NixOS I installed Qtile and Xmonad both on that laptop So I've got two different window managers Wi-Fi works and everything works And the reason that NixOS is number two on my list and GNU Geeks is number five Even though they're very similar is because NixOS uses the standard Linux kernel, right? Which means I can install it on pretty much anything, right? All Linux distributions all use basically the same kernel You know the kernel is what takes care of all your hardware support and the drivers and everything So that's why there's really not much difference as far as Hardware support between the various Linux distributions, but that's not the case with a Linux distribution that doesn't use the standard Linux kernels such as GNU Geeks that you they use the Linux library kernel And it's very limited on hardware support So unfortunately as much as I would have loved to have had GNU Geeks up higher in the list Geeks is at five NixOS is all the way up at number two And I did a video about NixOS and this is just a fascinating distribution because kind of like Geeks You know during the installation process the installation process is really you write a config file This config file tells Nix how to install everything what to install how to configure everything How to set up the system everything is done with this one config file And then if you want to you can save that config file push it to your github or your github that way you've always got it It's kind of like having a dot file But a dot file that actually configures your entire operating system for you. It's Fascinating really a matter of fact. I think that's what I titled the video I did about NixOS Yeah, NixOS is a fascinating Linux distribution and I agree I also said it's a truly unique distribution and which it absolutely is it and GNU Geeks are very similar Geeks is kind of patterned after NixOS NixOS is a little older than GNU Geeks And uh, basically Geeks is a clone of NixOS from the GNU guys where they wanted to use A bit more of the GNU utilities and you know, they wanted a fully 100% GNU kind of operating system You can even with GNU Geeks use the herd kernel the GNU herd kernel If you want to if you want even less hardware support But NixOS is definitely deserving of being a number two on my top five Linux distributions of 2020 And the number one Distribution of 2020 according to dt Is there any doubt any of you guys that have been following the channel probably can guess what my number one Linux distribution of 2020 is going to be It's probably the one that would have been my favorite distribution of 2019 as well Because i've been running this for a while and that is arco linux arco linux is just fantastic now. This is arco linux with Xmonad i logged in to xmonad to do this video But i have several different window managers installed arco linux comes in a wide variety of flavors They have something like 20 some odd different isos you can get arco linux with fully configured i3 bspwm Herbs to look i think awesome Xmonad qtile they were the first distribution i've ever heard of Was doing a qtile version And that's really what got me interested in arco a couple of years ago is because they actually released a qtile version and an xmonad version And nobody had ever done that i know for sure Nobody had ever done a qtile version of the linux distribution because qtile was kind of unheard of at the time And they keep doing new releases and adding new features and even new desktop environments and window managers They just had a big release arco linux just had a big release today as i'm recording this actually They released version 20 dot 11 dot 9 And it's got all the standard desktop environments and window managers They've been doing but they added a new one now they have a d w m edition of arco linux So that may be something i want to check out Check out their own customized version of d w m even though i have my own config files for all these window managers So i don't necessarily use arco linux Like their desktops because i have my config files for every window manager i've ever used so i just always pulled down my own But what i really like about arco linux is during the installation process It asks you things to install like what web browser you want to install what office suite Do you want to install if you want to install one? You know text editors and terminal emulators and things like that the installer is really fantastic And it's a very easy way to get up and running with an arch based system But it's a very powerful installer because it lets you pick and choose exactly what you want to install And depending on how comfortable you are with a command line installer They actually have a version of arco called arco linux d that's kind of a command line installer where you Basically install a bunch of shell scripts, you know that Take care of all the package installations and everything you could edit those scripts You know depending on what package is you won't install and whatnot It's just a fantastic distribution of the guy. That's the main dev of arco linux at eric dubois He has a fantastic youtube channel. Let me pull up the browser again. Yeah, here's eric's channel here It's just his name eric dubois And again, he's got like two three thousand videos or some some crazy number because he posts almost every day Sometimes multiple videos a day and it's always about arco linux the latest that's going on tutorials tips Anything you want to know and I think that is one of the best things I've ever seen anybody do with their linux distribution is they have a video channel And they actually show you how to fix things and how to tweet things and That's something that really no other linux distribution has and I think that's why arco linux is my top linux distribution of 2020 Now again, that is my personal top five You guys probably have a different top five than me and if you do I want to hear about it So post your top five linux distributions of 2020 in the comments below I would be fascinated to know what some of you guys were impressed with as far as releases in 2020 Because all of us have probably tried different things, right? There's a ton of linux distributions that I did not try in 2020 So I really can't judge those and some of the ones I tried you guys probably didn't try So it's fascinating if we share what our experiences have been and before I go I need to thank a few special people I need to thank the producers of the show michael gabe corbinium michael devon fran arch 55 30 akami chuck laudio Donnie dylan george gregery kelev devils luis paul scott and willy. They are the producers of the show They're my high steered patrons over on patreon without these guys This video about my top five linux distributions of 2020 wouldn't have been possible The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen all these names are seen on the screen right now These are all my supporters over on patreon because this channel is supported by you guys the community If you'd like to support my work look for distro tube over on patreon. All right guys peace