Thanks, thanks everyone, coming along. So I'm going to be talking about open source sustainability through corporate social responsibility. Yeah, I know, it's going to be a bit preachy. So bear with me. The first thing I want to talk about is sustainability. So you may or may not have heard, but there, there is a sustainability issue within open source in general. And it's something that I've, I've heard about, I've read about, but I wanted to explore myself to find out, you know, just what, what are the issues and just how real is it? So what I did was I picked a project, a project that I know well that I've used a great many times and I started asking myself some of the difficult questions. So the project I picked was Express.js. If you haven't heard of it before, it's basically the de facto web server for Node. It's very widely used 50,000 stars on GitHub, 14 million weekly downloads, 10 years old. It's part of OpenJS Foundation, which is itself part of Linux Foundation. So it's a very well established open source project. So, you know, my first interactions with it were, it's fantastic. It works really well and even better, it's free. You know, what's not to love? However, I thought, okay, it works really well. It's free. If I'm going to build, I don't know, a payments platform on top of Express.js, I'll probably better do a little bit of due diligence and find out a little bit more about who's behind this code? What are the licensing constraints? You know, what am I actually buying into here? So the first thing I did was I started to look at how is Express.js actually composed? Now Express is a single project. However, as a project, it currently has around about 48 dependencies. So by using Express, I'm not just using Express, I'm using 48 open source projects. Interestingly, I downloaded the data and had to look at how the dependencies of Express.js changed over time. So what you can see is over its 10-year history, over time, the number of dependencies grow. It becomes more complex over time. And then at the major version increments, typically, the maintainer or the author will take a look at all these dependencies, and they will do some significant redesign.  Now, this is a chart for a single open source project. However, I'm going to sort of extrapolate somewhat. From my own personal experience, projects, open source projects are becoming more complicated in nature, more often than not, we are now using not tens of projects in our production code, not hundreds, but more often than not, I'd say, thousands. So yeah, I'm a little bit worried. So rather than now checking Express.js to determine the suitability, I now have to check 50 projects to determine their suitability, because that's basically what I'm buying into now. My problem just got a whole load more complicated. However, that's not the end of the story. Express.js has 49 dependencies. It actually has 195 development dependencies. So if you're not a developer, just to explain this, when Express is maintained and built, the tooling around Express.js is itself open source. So Express is written using languages, using CI tooling that is itself entirely open source. Now, does this matter? Well, actually, it matters quite a lot. You may or may not have heard of software supply chain attacks. This is a growing concern where if I want to do something malicious to Express.js, rather than attack it directly, I can attack the tool chain that's used to build Express.js. And this is a very real issue. There have been some quite high-profile supply chain attacks. There was one quite recently where a cryptocurrency wallet was targeted and a significant amount of cryptocurrency was stolen as a result of a supply chain attack. But cryptocurrency, it's not real money. So what does it matter? I'm starting to get a little bit concerned now. But things get a little bit more complicated. How do I know that the code I'm running is the same as the code you're running? Now, typically, what we use to communicate this is version numbers. However, developers in their infinite wisdom like to make it a little bit more complicated. There's a concept called semantic versioning. What this means is you state, I would like to use version five of that project, but I don't mind if it's 5.1 or 5.2, but don't give me version six. It sounds relatively logical. However, what this means in practice with Express.js specifically, between version 14.16.4 and 14.17, there were actually 33 different configurations within the seven month window. So the chart that I showed you earlier about the dependency graph of Express.js changing over time, replace that with a more complicated graph. Things have got a lot more complicated. And again, what I'm trying to verify here is, is the code that I'm running safe and secure. Now I'm starting to worry, do I know what this code actually is? Yeah, I'm getting a little bit worried now. So the way that you use this code typically is you download it from some external repository. And the next logical question I asked is, who holds the keys? So at the moment, there are 49 dependencies. I went and had a look at how many maintainers are there behind those dependencies who have the privilege to publish a new package. I found that there were 88 of them. Some of the packages had a significant number of maintainers, some of them had far fewer. Again, does this matter? Well, as I mentioned, supply chain attacks are an issue. Also, of these 88 maintainers, I have the email addresses of every single one. What I discovered is the repository that they use npm only 7% of users have two factor authentication turned on. So what that means is in practice for 93% of these 88 people, all I need is their username or email address and password. The very first email address I typed into one of the websites that allows you to determine whether an email address has been compromised in an attack came back positive. So for this, the very first email address I've tried, it had been compromised through LinkedIn, through YouTube, and I think I don't know whether it was Instagram, something like that. So there's a very real possibility that for these 88 maintainers, I will be able to find a password that they've used in a social media account. They don't have two factor authentication turned on, and I bet some of them password recycle. I didn't try it, but I'd be willing to bet that I can find my way into Express.js through its dependency graph.   The next thing I wanted to ask is, who's keeping all of this safe on my behalf? It's a great worry of mine. Surely there's a whole team of people that are keeping this safe. Actually, that's not the case. Express.js is maintained by a single individual. Over the past four years, the vast majority in the high 90%, the vast majority of commits on Express.js have been from a single individual. So there's one person bearing the weight of this complex infrastructure, all these attack vectors. This is this is pretty worrying. What's even more worrying is that particular individual is not terribly happy. And I must admit, I wasn't expecting to find this. It may seem a little contrived. I picked Express.js entirely at random. I wasn't expecting to find that it was maintained by a single individual. And that single individual was very close to burnout. Just to get I mean, I've blanked out their name. You can find it. It just didn't feel right putting it up on a slide. Just to give you a bit of context, what happened here is Express.js is a web server. One of the security companies had found a security vulnerability within that web server. And they had released a, what they called CSR or so. Basically, they had they had published a vulnerability that a large number of large organizations had then picked up on. And they descended on mass onto this project and said, you have a critical vulnerability, you really need to fix it now, please. And you need to fix it this way or that way. This one guy, all of a sudden faced with a flood of people telling telling him what he should be doing and why he was causing them problems. Basically, you know, closed his laptop and walked off for a week. He said, I'm not dealing with this anymore. So we have a pretty big problem in open source. And as I said, you know, I picked a project at random. I'm pretty confident if I pick another project at random, I will see similar problems. So what are the current solutions that people are advocating at the moment? Money, it's clearly the solution to pretty much everything. Surely, the problems with open source sustainability can be solved by just throwing a sufficient quantity of money at it. Yeah, makes sense. So what I did was I had a look again at Express.js, I had to look at all of the 195 dependencies to see whether any of them had a funding model out of all those projects. I found one. ESLint. Again, you may or may not have heard it, but head of it. Basically, it's a tour. It's a code style code formatting tool that's really quite well well known. ESLint is funded by a by an organization called Open Collective. It has charitable status in the US. It's a very simple model. You make donations to a project and they make sure that the project maintainer spends it on spends it wisely.  So it's a decent mechanism for allowing you to to fund open source projects. That's great.  So what I did was I looked at the top 100 projects within Open Collective. I scraped all the data from the website. And what I was fine, trying to find out is how much of an impact does Open Collective realistically make? So what I found was taking the taking the budget for each of these projects, I wanted to turn into full time equivalent. So I wanted to say if this budget was being used to fund the development team, how big a team would you get? ESLint, their funding would pay for around about 1.5 developers. ESLint is the third most funded project. The most funded project will pay for around about five developers. If you look further down, well, if we look at the top 30 projects, the ones lower down the list are pretty much, you know, get a cup of coffee every week. So whilst I think Open Collective is a great idea, it's not really moving the needle. Just to put this into context, it's hard to find good statistics. Well, it's hard to come up with a good methodology for determining the overall value of open source. I've seen varying reports. There was one published by Open UK recently that their methodology pointed to open source contributing 43 billion annually to GDP in the UK. I mean, I don't know whether it's 43 or 40 or 80. Doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure it's going to be in the billions. There's going to be a lot of zeros there. Open Collective in 2020 collected half a million. You know, we've got a few orders of magnitude difference there. The largest funding body I could find was a company called Tiedlift. They've brought in 40 million of VC funding. So it's questionable how much of that will actually get to the open source project. So the funding that exists at the moment is a drop in a much bigger ocean. So that's one potential solution to this problem, money, and clearly it isn't working. I'll tell you the other solution. This is the one that everyone tends to be using. And this is the general concept of build your defences. If there's some nasty stuff going on out there in the world of open source, your best policy is to build a wall around your organization and make sure that this nasty stuff doesn't affect you. And the way that we do that is we tend to pay third party organizations to take away some of the problems and challenges with open source, whether it's licensing, whether it's support, or all these other aspects. And this is generally speaking the way that most banks protect themselves against open source. Again, does that work? Well, it contributes to some pretty big problems in the wider open source community. So these are a couple of interesting quotes I read from a recent blog post. The top one I think is the most sort of eye opening. This was taken from a prominent open source developer who went to an open source conference and walking the floor, most conferences are supported by product vendors. And he walked up to one of them to find out a little bit more about their products and how much it costs to get a license for their products. He walked away coming to the conclusion. So this company charges, say, a 50-person startup $30,000 a year to help them feel safe using the code that open source authors like me have given away for free. So whilst from a selfish perspective, building up your defenses does work, it does have a pretty bad, it results in quite a lot of damage to the wider open source community. And again, burnout becomes a problem. So how do we solve this?  I won't do that to you. I genuinely think that to solve this we need a new direction. And a new direction isn't a different funding model. I think the way to solve this is that we need to change the way that we think about open source. So the first is, you know, fairly obvious. It's understanding and empathy. And a book that I read recently called Working in Public by Nadia Ople is something that is a book that I'd recommend everyone reads. It's a book that really describes the economics but more the social side of open source and asks questions about how does this actually work? How does this sort of fragile ecosystem keep going? And a few very interesting observations that Nadia made is the open source world has changed considerably in the past sort of five years or so. And a lot of that is down to GitHub. Some of it is positive. GitHub is a fantastic tool for open source developers. It's a very good productive platform. I use it all the time. However, what it's done is it's created a highly centralized community. When I first started working on open source, it was actually quite hard to find the communities. Some of them were on listservs. Some of them communicated over IRC. You know, some of you might not even know what that stuff is. But basically the communities were quite hard to find. And what that meant was when people found the communities, they tended to stay within that community. They were quite close near. GitHub has made, has lowered the barrier to entry. But what that unfortunately means is people tend to have very fleeting relationships with the open source projects. People flip from place to place to place. And this has resulted in Nadia describing what she calls a stadium model for open source. What this means is there will be one or two individuals effectively on stage with thousands in the audience. But the quality of the connection between them is very, very poor. So whilst externally, you look back and say, OK, there's, wow, there's 10,000 open source developers. If you look in and you understand that it's a stadium model, it's not, it doesn't have the richness of interaction that you might expect. And the final thing that I thought was really interesting in this book, getting back to the money point. She concluded through many interviews that attention is the most prized asset of most open source maintenance. It's not money. So what this means is they want to focus their attention on specific tasks that they personally enjoy. That's what they want to invest their time in. And anything that takes their time away from anything that subtracts from their attention is damaging to them. And one thing that I found, which was a great example of this going completely wrong, was DigitalOcean. Each year they run a thing called Hacktoberfest. Funnily enough, it started again just a few days ago. What they found, so what the basic idea is DigitalOcean want to encourage open source contributions. That's great. What they did to support that was they gave away t-shirts. Sounds great. What happened was it resulted in a significant number of very low value contributions from people just wanting to get t-shirts. It took away the attention from the maintainers. They found themselves spending a lot of time closing issues, getting into conversations, trying to explain to people that we don't want that stuff. You've got it wrong. They went so far as to call it a distributed denial of service attack on the open source maintainer community. And again, this is what happens if you don't understand the community. DigitalOcean wanted to do the right thing. They didn't want this to happen. But because they misunderstood how the community works and misunderstood that attention is the most prized asset, it all went horribly wrong. Hacktoberfest started again about five days ago. Another thing I want to draw your attention to is the language we use. I've always thought that the phrase open source is a little bit too narrow. And it's it doesn't, to my mind, really describe the community that genuinely exists around open source. A few people talk about open source as our commons. And I think this is a great way of expressing it.  This is straight from Wikipedia. The commons is the culture on the natural resources accessible to all members of society, including natural materials such as air, water, habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately. Most of you will have had experience of commons not just from the air that we breathe, but from things like common land and farm land or fields, areas that you can freely access with a few simple tweaks. It actually works really quite well for open source. So the commons are the software resources accessible to the entire development community, including code, standards and shared infrastructure. These resources are held in common, not owned privately. So the concept that we already have of commons really does work very well for open source software. And I think it's a much better way of describing it than the phrase open source, which is very narrow. It focuses on the code alone. So what can we actually do with this? With a better understanding of the community and a better language, the idea of the commons, can we start, can we take a few steps towards a potential solution to this problem? Can we start asking ourselves what is our responsibility over the open source commons? And this is where we loop back to the idea of corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility originally was a self-regulation, an opt-in concept, where businesses were opting into the idea of some responsibility towards ethical concerns. And corporate social responsibility is a framework that allows you to link ethical concerns with the way that you actually run your business. There's already a model that you can use. Now if we look at corporate social responsibility, this is a thing called Carol's Pyramid, which is a very simple structure for understanding how corporate social responsibility works. So this is effectively in very simple terms, your responsibility as a business. The foundation is economic. Be profitable. That's pretty obvious, whether it's for the sake of your investors, your shareholders, or just simply for the sake of your employees, you have a responsibility to manage your business economically. The next layer up, legal, to obey the law. We all have an obligation to conduct our business in such a way that it doesn't break the law. As we go higher up, this is where these these aspects are optional. The next up is ethical, be fair and responsible. When making business decisions, you're not legally obliged to be fair and responsible, but generally speaking, most people would like to work at a business where they believe that business decisions have an ethical angle to them. Looking back at the previous slides, whilst you could pay $30,000 to a company to protect you from open source vulnerabilities, is that fair and ethical? Should you be diverting that money or the effort equivalent to actually solving the problem? And finally, philanthropic, is my business a net consumer of the resources around me? Or do we give back? So this is the framework that businesses use for corporate social responsibility. So how do we map that onto open source? Well, if we look at the right hand side, starting at the very base of the pyramid, the economic side of things, this is where most businesses evaluate open source from the perspective of consumption. All enjoying the economic benefits of free software, it's pretty much a given the economic model for using open source is really quite easy to understand. And the vast majority of businesses are already bought into that. From the legal side of things, again, this is this is a known entity that the legal side of of consuming open source concerns things like licensing, trademarks, copyright. Again, that's well understood. However, you'll notice there's a gap. There are very few companies that talk about the ethical aspects of open source, the way that we consume open source and use open source, the way that we protect ourselves against some of the challenges in open source. Are we using our resources in an ethical and fair fashion? And then finally, philanthropic philanthropic, I think there are very few businesses that genuinely sit back and say, do we give as much as we take from the open source community? So that's it. I cannot profess to have all of the answers, but hopefully that's some food for thought for you for you all. Thank you very much. Don't know if this time for questions, but I'd be happy to have questions or if you want to chat over coffee, that's fine as well. Oh, we have a question. Cool. Oh, I like the alliteration pyramidal punchline. I'm I'm not a leader of Phinos. I'm a member of Phinos. What do they think about the gaps? I think on a personal level, I know that the leaders of Phinos all care deeply about the wider open source community. It's I think it's I think it's very challenging. It's I think it's taken businesses a long time to understand their ethical and moral responsibility to things like climate change, diversity and inclusion. I think it's going to take another 10 years or more for them to start considering open source as an ethical concern. I just don't I just don't think they're ready for that. Yeah, that's a that's a very good point. And you're quite right. I think a lot of open source projects express maybe one of them node is a great example. Yeah, I think people genuinely a lot of people do this because they want to scratch that creative itch. They do it for the joy of creating. They don't you're right. They don't necessarily want to turn it into a business, but that this is again why I reference Nadi Eggwell's book where to help open source become sustainable, you have to understand that people aren't necessarily motivated by money, they're motivated by different things. And just because they're motivated by different things doesn't mean you cannot help them. It's conversely, it's really weird. It's far easier to get a large organization to write a check than it is to get them to invest some of the time of their people. It's it's weird, but it's a lot easier to do that. Whereas with the likes of node JS, I don't think you should be supporting it by writing a check to help a maintainer focus their attention. You should be doing things like answering issues. You should be doing things like helping them with their documentation. You should be going over to Stack Overflow and helping there. You should be supporting. I mean, I've seen companies help open source maintainers just by giving them travel bursaries so they can go to conferences. There are great many different ways that you can help. But to help you have to have an understanding of what the motivations of those individuals are. It takes time and quite an investment. It's not just writing a check. Cool. All right. Thanks so much, everyone. Cheers for that.


You're welcome back. We're going to have a second guest now. I remember that I said first guest. Well, Mr. Zickel Etanyok was actually our first guest. But our first hot topic today, we'll be looking at the challenges or all the Nacima having challenged Tunibu on SMEs and private sector driven economy. That's what we'll be looking at now. So we're glad to be joined by Mr. Frank Eleanya, a technology and media news editor at Business Day. Good morning and welcome to the program Mr. Eleanya. Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure being on the show. Okay. The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commons, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Nacima as we're calling them, have urged the President Bola Tunibu led government to tackle challenges that small and medium enterprises, SMEs encounter in the country. And some of these challenges that they mentioned are poor power supply, multiple taxation, infrastructure, infrastructure forex, availability and diesel availability and all that. So we'd like to hear your thoughts. Nacima have mentioned these as the problems that they, that sector faces. Let's get your comments on how right they were or are there things that they are living out? Yeah, they are absolutely spot on. I believe one of the things that they are referring to is the fiscal policy measures of 2023, which have added more taxes on top of what the industry is currently facing. Don't forget that the industry, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, suffered a decline of about 2.8% there about. And that's a decline from actually last year, which was at 3%. The industry also is currently facing, like everyone else, is currently facing inflation, which is at 22.22%. It is not easy. There was a report that business they wrote about that came out in today's paper, which looked at the fact that on sold, on sold products, the number of on sold products have actually risen. Why is that is because consumers are pressured. They are facing a lot of pressures. They don't have the amount of money they have to buy goods are getting thinner and thinner every day. No thanks to the inflation, which I mentioned earlier is at 22.22%. It doesn't help anybody that you go and pile up more pressures by adding more taxes to the manufacturing sector. If you want the economy to grow, what you need is an economy that is productive. And where is the engine room for production is the manufacturing sector. If you what you need to do right now is to find measures by which you reduce some of those pressures. I think the idea of adding more taxes is absolutely a bad idea at this time. Don't also forget that we are also facing the removal of subsidy, which also means that consumers are buying their products at a ridiculously high high rates now because of the pump price that retailers have to add to whatever it is that they are selling. So if you put all of that together, what that means is that in the next quarter, we're going to see more on sold products on the shelves of the manufacturing of manufacturers, and it doesn't look good. What we need to do now is how do we reduce that pressure on manufacturers? So if we're going to help them, if they're importing things into this country, all those excise duties that the government is always excited about, you know, collecting, maybe we need to think about how do we relax some of those? How do we relax some of those excise duties? How do we relax some of the taxes that they are facing from maybe the state and also the local government? You know, so it is everywhere and it needs to be addressed immediately. The economy needs to start growing and it needs to get back to the point of to the point where we're creating employment. You know, so at this point, you don't expect any manufacturer, you know, to to create more businesses or to create more jobs. You know, but then the new president has said that he plans to create one million jobs, for instance, from the ICT sector. How do you do that when you're also pulling more pressure in the form of taxes on the ICT players? You know, so some of those things are what needs to be considered. And Nassima is very, very important when they say that the government needs to review his approach to taxes. We said before that there is a need for harmonization of taxes. There is a need for a review of some of the taxes that doesn't make any sense. You know, some of them are actually duplicates. The state government collects the the local government comes for his own. You know, so all of that house pressure on the productivity of the manufacturing sector. So I think it's high time that we look at this and say, how do we get these people back to their to their plant? How do you get them back to to producing stuff again? We need to become a productive country one more time. Thanks. As of today, we know that tax or the the the story in the newspapers is that tax to GDP has risen to 10.86 percent. Now, explain to us what the implication of that is. So what that means is that unemployment is not going to reduce. OK, like I said before, who pays the taxes one less less ourselves, who pays the taxes?  But then they place that money on the goods that they produce, which the consumers will eventually pay for. So what does what that means is that if consumers currently are pressured and they're not buying what is already being made, how sure are we that they're going to buy the ones when we increase the taxes? You know, so that's what we are facing. You know, for for the manufacturing sector, it's it is critical that we start thinking about how do we incentivize that sector, how do we incentivize the players? How do we make them more productive? It's it can continue the way we think where the government is is going about it. There's something I read just a while ago from the PWC, which says that some of these increases that the government is making is actually inconsistent with the fiscal policy that is signed over 2022 to 2024, where it plates that it wasn't going to increase more taxes on the sector. So it's important that we stick to that. That there needs to be some consistency. There needs to be some measure of the commitment that says that we see what you're facing and we want to help you get out of it. We want to make you the engine room of this economy. We have seen that oil and gas sector isn't quite playing the role that we expected it to play in years past. You know, it is dropping currently contributing about six percent between six percent to seven percent to the GDP. What we have now is to rely on our non oil sectors. Make them productive. Make even the service sectors needs to be encouraged. The telecom sectors need to be encouraged. Every sector that is not oil actually needs to be encouraged right now. If we're going to move the economy forward, already what we are facing is that inflation has has declined for four consecutive times, which means we are inching closer to another recession. If we don't address these issues about productivity, then there's no way we're going to avoid it. The government needs to start looking at how do you incentivize these in these industries? How do you make them productive one more time? And which is also one of the concerns I have when the when the president came out and just literally just announced the removal of subsidy without announcing was the cushion or what are the palliatives that you're putting in place to help people go through the phase that you're asking them to go through. Also today on on a business that we're talking about if you're going to ask people to make sacrifices, you too have to make sacrifices. So we are waiting for this government to do something about the cost of governance. How do you how do you want to run the government? It means we need to know about it. And that needs to be we need to start seeing that some of the expenses that the government run that are necessary are being cut. For instance, why don't we sell off some of those aircraft that the government has about nine of them? So some of those things the government also needs to start making sacrifices on its own. If you're asking people to make sacrifices, then you have to start making sacrifices. That is what the manufacturing sector is looking for. Make some sacrifices and also give them some incentive. Let them know that you care. The CBN at that time started this program where they were giving a hundred Naira for every one dollar that a manufacturer brings into the country. And I said to someone, look, it is not going to do anything. It is not going to move the needle, you know, because you have an address of fundamental issues that the manufacturers are facing. You can just because you're giving somebody hundred Naira for one dollar isn't going to be enough motivation for him to go back to the plant. There needs to be some commitment to show that you are addressing issues around electricity. You are addressing issues around infrastructure. You are addressing issues around health, around education, because they need talent. So those are the things that needs to be addressed before we start seeing things moving to the to where we want them to move to. You talked about encouraging encouraging the SMEs, the encouragement could come in two ways or one of two ways, maybe giving the incentives you have talked about by way of loans, soft loans and all that or or removing the tax. But both of them cannot go together because the government still needs to make some money and all that. In your opinion, which of the incentives will be better for the manufacturers and any other any other person or any other organization under the SMEs that you're thinking about? What kind of incentive or sacrifice do you think should be should be the first that will be given to SMEs to make them grow? I will think tax incentives will be the first for you to present to them because if we're looking at loans right now, loans are not very they're not very attractive. Look at the rates, the MPC have recently increased the rates and that's like too high. If you're going to a bank right now to go and collect loans for your business, you know what it is, it probably will have increased maybe to from 10 percent or more. And then if you maybe leave the banks that you want to go to digital land us to go and collect that money, you probably will get it even much higher. So loans are not looking very attractive at the moment, even though banks are willing to give right now, because when you have higher interest rates, it means that banks get to make more money. But those who are going to collect it will start thinking about their books. How do I pay back if I collect a loan at this percentage? You know, so I think for small businesses right now, what they will be looking at is if you can reduce some of the taxes, perhaps, because there's a lot. There's a lot of taxes that they're paying. You know, for instance, look at the telecom sector. The telecom sector pays about over 40 taxes, 40 different taxes, over 40 different taxes. And you look at how how effective are these at these numbers? How how do they impact the books of the telecom sector? It is a lot for them. You know, if you're not an MTA and if you're not an Airtel, you probably are down on your knees every day, trying to make ends meet. Now, think about an SME that is paying maybe about 10 taxes or every day. It is it is a lot. And then add that to the fact that they also have to provide their own electricity. Add that to the fact that they also have to provide every other thing. They have to provide a health care for themselves that will provide every social amenities, because right now, government isn't providing much for for many people, you know. So I think it's time that we start thinking about how do we taxes for me remains number one, not loans, maybe in time when the economy starts getting better, the loan, the interest rate will reduce and then the market can come back, you know, to to make the demands for loans. But right now, loans are not very attractive. So taxes for me will be where to start from. OK. The Commons and Industry Correspondence Association of Nigeria's chairman said that even though the government said the inflation rate is slightly above 20 percent, that is just official. But the real issue is that the inflation is above 40 percent. Are you also thinking the same way? Actually, KPMG had had an estimation like that, that the inflation has gone even higher than what is being stated, you know, and there is there is some sense in that if you go on the streets, you'll find that the cost of many items have gone up. OK, food, for instance, have have skyrocketed and it will even be higher if we also impute the current realities where people are having to buy people are having to buy petrol at 600 Naira to 700 Naira from from about 185 Naira, you know. So if we're going to calculate what the inflation rate is going to be in the next few months or even quarter, we're going to find that the inflation rate is going to be a lot higher than it is. And again, this is pressure. This is this is just on the people because at the end of the day to the people that bear the brunt of all of these inflation happening. So what do we do to bring palliatives? What do we do to help people survive this period? Because somebody said, OK, he's going to pass away. I don't I don't actually think it's going to go away. You know, I think unless the unless we get back to the point of production where we are producing what we are eating, where the exports trade is unbalanced with is is at par with import trade. Then I don't think inflation is going to come down. It will come down if we increase production. But it is up to the government. We are waiting for them to see what they're going to do. First of all, who are they going to appoint? Because the quality of the team that they have would determine the extent of productivity we're going to have. OK, let's take a final one now. One of the other things that the Naseema talked about is private sector driven economy. We have seen that a lot of people say government has no business doing business, even though we've also seen that somewhere in China, China is doing well, even when the government or the state controls a lot of things. So how far can the economy be left in the hands of private entrepreneurs to drive the economy? How far can they leave? The private partnership is good. Running a private sector driven economy is good. But how far can the government hands off to make the economy to put the economy in the hands of the private individuals and make it work? I think that if we're going to use what happens in China and maybe compare to Nigeria, we'll probably not get the best picture because what applies in one country may not apply in another one. And Nigeria is a very big example on that. Saudi Arabia, for instance, have run a state company that runs their oil sector. And we've seen how Aramco has successfully positioned the Saudi economy on oil and they have made a lot of progress on that. But in our case, the reverse has been the case. We have seen with evidence that the Nigerian government, whether it's from a passenger, whether it's from a passenger to Yara Dua, to Goodluck Jonathan, to Buhari and even to, I'm not sure it's going to be different with the current government. So that's why the sentiment is let the government focus on making policies on creating the right environment for businesses to try and leave private sector to do business the way it's supposed to be done. We have seen evidence with the way the refineries were run. OK, we have four refineries and every year we make budgets that we tell ourselves we want to refurbish, we want to rehabilitate, whatever synonym they want to choose in a particular year. But at the end of the day, we don't see any results from that, from the projections. Currently, they said that the Port Harcourt refinery is is near completion. We we wait to see what what they have done. You know, if it comes mainstream, that would be nice. But I also insist that if you wanted to run efficiently, give it to a private sector player to run it. A government for me in Nigeria does not have any business running any business. All they should just focus on is make the right policies, bring things, bring the right people, create the right structures, create the right teams and create the right environment. Then businesses will try even up to building roads. If you create the right environment, you will find that you you find private sector players that will come and tell you, look, we want to help you build this road. But then this is how these are the conditions and you can negotiate it and you don't even to build the roads with your money. You can supervise it. You can you can be there, you know, just like we're doing say with the refinery, he's building the refinery and we have a 20 percent stake from it. So whatever he's going to make, whatever profits he is going to make, our 20 percent stake guarantees that we make money as well. So that should be the way forward of running business in Nigeria. If your government stick to your job of just creating the policies, allow private sector to do what they're supposed to do. So I think it's actually very important with the new government, it is the same thing. Don't try to be the minister of petroleum when you are the president. Bring somebody who can run the industry and who knows how to hands off and just make the policies so that the industry can try. Don't try to be the minister of petroleum. It's a disaster waiting to happen. So I'm expecting that these current administration has lessons and is going to make the right amends. So is everyone's expectations actually? That's a good way to a good place to land and wrap up this segment. I'd like to thank you, Frank, for coming on the show and giving us your perspective to what is happening and lending a voice to what Nassima said. Thank you so much for being a part of our program. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, Frank Leanya there on the program today. Frank Leanya is a technology and media news editor at Business Day. He's been talking with us on what Nassima said, the challenge to move on SMEs and private sector driven economy. We do hope that our economy will grow in lifts and bounds. And then the fear that is in every heart of a Nigerian will no longer be there. Good luck to the president administration. OK, we'll take a break now when we return. We'll be talking to our third guest. Stay with us.


Today I am reviewing Sheikhu Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan. I'm crazy about historical fantasy and Sheikhu Became the Sun is one of the best I've read in recent memory. It is also, as far removed from the previous historical fantasy I read, the Night Circus. Drawing the Red Turban Rebellion against the Mongol Yuan Dynasty into the ever so slightly fantastic, Shelley Parker Chan rewrites history in more than one way, the most defining that this would be progenitor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Chongba, dies at the onset of the novel, his identity and destiny, taken up by his nameless sister, whose own fate is to become nothing. In taking up the name, Zhu believes herself capable of also claiming her brother's destiny for herself. In some ways, Sheikhu Became the Sun is both a confirmation of these hopes and a renouncement of the very way the destiny and fate work and are perceived. Much about the way in which this novel is written, bolts at typical fantasy conventions. Time passes at a breakneck pace, events folding and unfolding with a swiftness and brutality you never quite learn to expect. Massive battles are built up to then dismissed with a few lines describing the outcome. Concentrating on how this outcome affects the increasingly influential players on both the Mongol and the Red Turban sites of an ever more brutal conflict. You might find this anticlimactic if you read fantasy for the gritty visceral descriptions, the blood-bounding glory and horror of combat. For that, I'll happily point you to Joe Abercrombie, who does it better than nearly anyone else, or if you care for another Asian-inspired and Chinese-centered fantasy series of novels that does excellent combat and excellent magic, this would have to be the Poppy Wars. Excellent, I tip my hat off to that one. Park and Chan's novel has different aims in mind, and she succeeds in those creating characters who are harsh, achingly human, locked into destinies of their own making, shaped by them as they are shaped by the culture of the times. Another way in which Park and Chan dismisses typical conventions and then steps outside the genre conventions is with POV, point of view, changes in that often come with a jolt rather than divided into clear-cut chapters for each main character, as say George RR Martin does in his Song of Ice and Fire books. One chapter might jump between three four different perspectives in She Who Became the Sun. Creating at times a stereoscopic view of key scenes, at other times this technique stumbles, creating some confusion, even a sense of whiplash. Ultimately, I enjoyed this far more than I disliked it, so I can see how some might take issue with it. This is also excellent queer fantasy, in that it captures forbidden yearning in so breathtakingly beautiful a way. Desire is a central theme to She Who Became, and for good reason. It is what drives all our main characters, as well as the novel's finest antagonists. The Will to Power defines Park and Chan's red tubans, blah blah. Let's try this again, shall we? The Will to Power defines Park and Chan's red tubans as much as their fight against the Mongol Yuan dynasty. Perhaps more. True herself desires authority over others as much as she desires survival itself. Perhaps even more. The extent to which she will go to gain a place of prominence among the rebels is neither less nor more than what other among the rebels' leadership are willing to do. Make of that what you will. But I was telling you about the aspects of this novel, which make it queer fantasy. Much of this can be seen not so much in Chu as in the unique general Wu Yang, whose complex relationship with the Mongol prince Essen, Wu Yang's former owner, master and friend, has so many twists and turns as to give you even more whiplash. But in a good way this time. On a side note, I adore Chu's first impression of the general. She saw someone who seemed neither male nor female, but another substance entirely. Something holy and powerfully of its own kind. The promise of difference made real. Nathalie Nordus narrates the audiobook, which is how I came to enjoy she who became the son. I first became acquainted with Nordus' work on the narration of the Boneshard daughter, and I continue to be in awe of the talent this narrator displays. Her range of voices, the smoothness of the delivery, the emotion she summons and imbues each character with. It makes for truly great listening, if you enjoy, the medium. That sounded like I was talking about the video game, the medium, which... Anyway, she who became the son is the first in a duology leaving off at a place at once of triumph and of bitterness. I do not know when the second book will be coming out, but I know I will be there at launch. You get to listen to every last line. It's a good book, I recommend it. You should pick it up. If you like audible versions of books, this one is phenomenal. If not, I imagine the text reads just as well. And let me know, have you read any Chinese inspired fantasy before? Have you read Arif Kwan's The Poppy War, which I mentioned earlier? Perhaps some others? Let me know. And also, as always, if you have any books you'd like to hear my thoughts on, just say so in the comments down below. Meanwhile, I have but one more word for you, and it is subscribe. I demand it. I will see you next time. Bye! Oh, and don't forget to smash that like button.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casewrakes.com. I'm coming at you with a team random That'll help fill up HTA choice pick your team number 11 and we took $40 off a spot on this as well 16 spot team random everyone's guaranteed a team We're just randomizing your names not the teams name on top. We'll get the Guardians Yeah, just in that order right there big. Thanks to this group for making it happen appreciate it Let's do it. Let's roll it. Let's randomize names one and a five six times One good luck two three four Five and fingers crossed six in final time Jason fractors names on top after six So congrats to you Jason We'll put that rooftop next name. You got Cleveland David with New York Jose with Seattle Zach with Colorado Brett with the Rays Adam with the Rangers David with Boston Wade with Baltimore Jimmy with the Royals David with the Angels Michael with the Mets Dan with the Giants Jacob with the Braves Michael with the Phillies Brian with the Marlins and Anthony with the A's I'm Joe. I'll see you in the next video for the break Jaspy's casewrakes.com


members, veterans, and friends. Today here at Berlin Armenty School, we wish to honor those who have served and followed for our country. Today we honor Memorial Day. Memorial Day, which is observed next Monday, started as an event to honor Union soldiers who had died during the American Civil War. It was inspired by the way people in southern states honored their dead. After World War I, it was extended to include all men and women who died in any war or military action. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. The current name for this day did not come into use until after World War II. Decoration Day and now Memorial Day used to be held on May 30th, regardless of the day of the week in which it fell. In 1968, the uniform holidays bill was passed as part of a move to use federal holidays to create three-day weekends. This meant that from 1971, Memorial Day holiday has officially been observed on the last Monday in May. For many of you, this upcoming three-day weekend marks the start of summer, a long weekend of fun and adventure. However, Memorial Day must be recognized and not taken for granted. Our ceremony today here at Berlin Elementary School is not a celebration. It is a solemn occasion for silently reflecting and honoring those brave men and women who have died for our country. Today you will hear songs and poems from students. When they are finished, we ask that you remain silent. Please do not clap. Please do not cheer. We ask instead that you think, listen to the words, and remember, at this time we're going to ask everybody to please stand as very VFW Post 790 will present the colors in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please be seated. At this time, Ms. Janice Gooden is going to come up and be the one to sit with kindergarten first and second graders. Hats off. Kindergarten first and second graders, please stand. Eileen Reynolds, Grant Ferrell, Zoe Hayes. St. Flag Songpole, by Nancy Bird Turner. We can count every star, and the red, blue, and light, how lovely they are. Floating high, floating wide, we can see it from far. Our flag, it's the flag. We can count every star. We now hear from Ariana Conny, Emery Sands, Calvin Winters, and Christian McForest, being a time-tree member, and have you all commended. It's time to remember, to honor and show our respect. For all men and women who give their lives to the country they thought to protect. Although we cannot picture all of their faces, nor recognize each person's name, we give thanks today for those brave soldiers when thought fought by our country they came. We now hear from Fort Pater's Emmeline Cloud, Sophie Young, and Jesse Bador, St. American Flag, by Erin Ryan. Red, white, and 13 stripes remind us of their past. The colonies so long ago, so thought they never last. And the stars although they've changed, for states both old and new. On a field of blue, they're 50 strong. A home for me and you. So wave your flag, and show your pride, and never let it fall. And remember while you pledge each day, with liberty and justice for all. At this time, Third Fort Pater's will be singing American Beautiful, accompanied by Janice. Also, Third Fort Pater's will stand. And Fourth Pater's, Carolina La Rosa, Lula Kilburn, Fifth Pater's, Ashley Nickel, John Stafford, meeting Unknown Soldiers by Roger Rubishaw. You need not ever know my name. This Unknown Soldier seeks no fame. I'm here to bring out fall from you. May our hearts see more than your view. America, we marched with pride we gave our lives. For you we died. How well we knew that time might come when life could sound that final drum. Please think of us as life moves on. We try so hard to that last dawn. Do let our spirit fill the land, pass treasured freedom hand by hand. God bless this country with such love. Hold in your heart abundance of. And when you stand before my grave, think of not one but each who gave. We'll now hear from Fifth graders. Four winners. Eames McAlister, Abner Farrell, presiding Inflander's Field by John McFrey. In Flander's Fields, the poppies blow. Between the crosses, row on row. That marker place, and in the sky, the larks still bravely singing fly. Scares her to mid the guns below. We are the dead short days ago. We lived, felt dawn, so sensed that glow. Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flander's Field. Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw. A torch for yours to hold it high. If you break faith with us who die. We shall not sleep though poppies grow. In Flander's Fields. We'll now hear from Sixth graders, Emily and Rocha, Kenneth Rousseau, Lydia Haggett, and Eames the Frazier. We think freedom is not free, like Ellie Strong. I saw the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze. A young marine slew it, and then he stood at ease. I looked at him in uniform. So young, so tall, so proud. With haircut square and eyes alert, he'd stand out in any crowd. I wondered, how many men like him had fallen through the years? How many died on foreign soil? How many mother's tears? How many planes had been shot down? How many died at sea? How many foxholes were soldier's graves? No, freedom is not free. I heard the sounds of taps one night when everything was still. I listened to the bugler play. I felt I stood in chill. I wondered just how many times the taps had meant amen. When I flagged, I draped the coffin of a brother or a friend. I thought of all the children of the mothers and the wives of father, sons, and husbands with interrupted lives. I thought about a graveyard at the bottom of the sea of unmarked graves in Arlington. No, freedom is not free. At this time, Fifth and Sixth graders, please stand. They will be singing, This land is your land, accompanied by Mrs. Clay. Fifth and Sixth graders, give you turn and face our guests. We're here from Sixth grader Grace Hagerstead, bringing a daddy bird address. That nation, or any nation, so conceived or so dedicated, cannot be done. We are met on a great battlefields that world. We have to come to dedicate a portion of that field. As a final resting place, we cannot dedicate, we cannot follow this ground. The great men, living and dead, Really today, when the Monday comes, take a moment to remember, as our very GFW post 790, retire the colors.


But this fundamental idea that things travel as waves wasn't too controversial, but the fundamental idea that they did both travel as waves and then jump when you look at them was very upsetting to a large number of physicists, including those that were instrumental in developing the theory of quantum mechanics. Here are some of the things they said. So despite all these misgivings, quantum mechanics kept on giving us such accurate and precise answers to questions about how the universe around us works. It gives us theoretical calculations that agree with experiment up to 14 significant figures, better than any other theory we have. And the fact that it's so successful means that perhaps all of this problem with the worldview is more about our intuition and our own prejudices rather than about the world around us. After all, we don't get to tell the universe how it's supposed to work, just because that's how we expect, the universe gets to tell us how it works and we have to adjust our intuition to suit. A couple of generations later, Richard Feynman said this. A couple of generations later, and physicists really are more comfortable with quantum mechanics. We've gone from the point of questioning its every axiom and trying to reform it into a more pleasing theory, and we're focusing more these days on actually doing engineering with it. We're deliberately using its strangest behaviors to build novel technologies like quantum computers.


All this month get any smartphone 32-gigand under for a 50% off regular price at Appalachian Wireless. Better service, bigger savings, that's today's Appalachian Wireless. While supplies last, two-year agreement required. At approximately 3 p.m. this afternoon, the Prestonsburg Fire Department was dispatched to West Prestonsburg with reports of a large forest fire behind the Mountain Arts Center. When the guys got over there, it was a pretty big one. They had some extra people come out to help them with it. They sprayed some water in the area to keep it off of the residents over there. They got that under control probably about 4.30. And we got back to the station and about 15 minutes later we had another one at the mouth of Little Paint just past KDMC on US 23. Today's fire grew so quickly that additional assistance was needed from outside the county. We started on top of the hill, brought two control lines, one down each side, burnt the fire out as we come down, burnt it out then it's controlled, then we can leave. The fire started by arson, it started up on the hill above the houses. If it had been debris burning, it would have started down closer to a house. Last year we had Game Wardens come out and done the law enforcement for us this year. I don't know if that's going to happen.  With today's fire, officials want to remind residents to use extra precautions during burn season. Burn season, February 15th, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. is the only time that you can burn. Has to be wood or wood particle, you have to be 150 feet away from a wood area and you have to be with it at all times. And even though right now it is okay to burn after 6 p.m., we do ask folks to just look outside and see if it's windy outside. The Kentucky Division of Forestry reported fires in Johnson, MacGuffin, Pike, Knott and Floyd counties today. Coming from Prestonsburg for EKB News, I'm Shawn Allen.


All right, here we go. We got more drama about the baseballs in MLB. Apparently, they used two different balls in the 2021 season. The reason being, they were going to change the ball altogether in 2020, 2019. It was tight, and it was heavy, and it was flying like crazy. And they said, you know what? In 2021, we're going to go back to what we think is the best performance.  It's going to fly a little less. One flies, the other dies.  We got you. But in February of 2021, they reached out to the Players Union. Apparently, MLB says they reached out. And they say, hey, guys, you know what we told you about only using the new balls? Well, COVID happened. Rawlings factory production halted. We don't got enough balls. We got to dip in to the batch from 2020 to get us through this season. So it's going to be a bit of a grab bag, our bad. Next year, 2022, we got you. It's only going to be the new balls. Apparently, they told the Players Union about that. A lot of players say, I didn't know that.  So one's heavy, one's light, one's loose, one's tight. They are all in the window of approval, just on different ends of that window. And they didn't like, apparently, we don't know. We don't know anything about this. But the report doesn't say they were like, hey, that's a game that we need some eyes on.  There was just random because they didn't have enough. But the true weird part is that Dr. Meredith Wills, who's been studying the baseballs and doing research on them for years, we had her on the podcast. She puts a lot of hard work into this. She's been cutting open balls. And she says, per her research, that Rawlings was still producing both versions of the ball after the February memo went out, when they were like, sorry, production's been halted. We got to dip into the old ball. So some of the flying, tighter, heavier balls were still being made after COVID, after the memo. They were still producing both balls. I don't know. NLB owns Rawlings. So they can do whatever they want. And then according to them, they told the players union. So they covered their butts that way. And both balls fall into the approval window. So they probably are safe there. But is it good that you got one ball that flies and the one that dies and the pitcher doesn't know which one he's holding? No, it's not good.