Welcome back from that. Let me tell you a bit about my guest. After he graduated from the University in Nigeria, he struggled to get a job for at least two years. During this time he says he thought there was more to his life. In his attempt to make a difference with his life during this period, he realized that the situation was not peculiar to him alone. Several other young people were facing a similar challenge. This inspired him to find means to help his demography of people. He began to work with universities to help young people develop project management skills. He also contacted a number of businesses to try and understand the skills and competencies they looked for from Nigerian graduates and began to develop the company's engagement and value proposition around these skills. This was the best of Utiva. Let's make welcome, my guest, the CEO of Utiva, Eyi Tayo Many thanks for joining me on Business Insights. Thank you so much. I like the way you pronounced my name. I pronounced it right, right? You did well, you did well. You go, Justin. Let's talk about this. Let's talk for me from the way I introduced you. Tell us about your story really. You graduated for two years. You didn't get a job and that you felt there was a need to actually add value. Okay. I mean, so I went to one of the best schools, you know, and I got some of the best education, you know, boss. I got to the job market and I struggled with, you know, finding the job. So when you think about it, you know, I had gone to the university to study medical physiology. I thought I was even the departmental president. So I thought, you know, I should have some soft landing, some leverage in the job market. Well, most likely to succeed. But I couldn't get a job.  What's their fate? But I got lucky, actually. I got a mentor who supported me, who helped me to learn text skills. I moved to the US in 2015, you know, as a product manager. But while I was in the US, I was so on, I couldn't find the rest that I needed because I kept thinking about where I was coming from, you know, and the fact that there are a lot of young people that really need the same opportunity that I had. So I came back to Nigeria in 2017 and started UTIVA officially in 2018, 2019, really, because it was quite very tough to understand the space and how you were going to start, you know, quite a struggle here. Okay, fine. In your introduction, you talked about text skills in person. So let's talk about ATEM, that why it is really important for young people specifically to actually have or harness these skills. So there are two ways to think about it. The first one is that the demand, you know, is quite really high. And we're not talking about the demand at a much more local level. You know, not just Nigerian based companies or African startups, but talking about the opportunity to globalize, you know, your skills and contribute to a much more larger ecosystem of the technology community.  So the demand is quite very high. The second opportunity is the fact that within a very short period of time, you can learn the skill, you know, unlike some other skills that might take up about four years to learn, you can pick a data skill and learn it in four months, you know. And those are the two major opportunities and it's no longer pricy, you know, with quite very small resources. The most important thing is for you to be dedicated and got like an internet and laptop to really say you want to learn. Okay. You make it sound very easy. You talk about just get internet and laptop fired in as much as internet penetration has actually improved in the country. But when you talk about hardware, it's not really a thing that people can really get or access. So easily. But let's talk about that in Nigeria as it is right now. What would you say is the reason why Nigerians per se have not fully embraced that this skills because it's actually getting the well paid jobs, blockchain, AI and all of that. How come we are not yet or it's not yet for us here as a country? Yeah. So there are three ways to really think about, you know, that's the first is the cultural mindset.  So we still have primary school teachers, secondary school teachers still saying the same thing to the kids. So people are going to the universities to invest their time, learning skills that are not really in the high demand. You know, that's the first problem. The second problem is there is still not enough and sufficient, you know, adequate education to really help people get that level of awareness that there are opportunities in the space. The third one is as much as I make it look like it's quite very easy, nothing really good comes easy. You still require a lot of discipline, hard work.  However, when you do a deeper dive and you define to the lives of these people, you would realize that it's a lot of commitments, you know, learning, midnight candles being born, you know, both the opportunities are there. The good thing with the tech spaces, it's so really impossible for you to be that good, for you to have learned that skill and stay unemployed. It's almost impossible. The ecosystem is so bold that people are placing their bets on people. They're giving you internships, apprenticeships are there, opportunities for you to take freelance jobs, side gigs.  But for someone to commit a million into you and say, hey, build this for me, you need to be good. And what does it take to be good?  Okay. So speaking of capacity building, you know, in passing, you also talked about education. Let's look at our educational systems, specifically our ivory towers right now. Would you really say that they are equipped to would modern realities of our present times right now? Because I don't know, back when I was in school, when I did my first degree, I only showed a discount on that when the word had actually gone beyond that. So would you really say that in Nigeria, in Africa, specifically, that our schools have what they take to build young people so they can actually take the most and get the benefit of, you know, what's happening in fintech and the digital world as we speak? I mean, so the short answer to that is no. There are five different cardinals, you know, to wait the way to think about this, you know, the capacity of the educators themselves, the lecturers, you know, the tutors, the coaches in school, the institution itself becoming digitally transformed, such that everywhere you go, the narratives and the conversations in the school is really about, you know, the tech ecosystem, the technology landscape. The top one is the curriculum itself, you know, the way and the way I think about this every time is you don't really have to be a tech person. Whatever you are studying has to embrace tech. If it's medicine, you know, it has to embrace tech. And that's the way to kind of like transform the university. And the fourth one, which I think is the most important one is the incentive. You know, the incentive for these young people to say, I really want to learn software engineering. And in terms of the incentive, we need to restructure so that we have a much more private sector driven educational system where private sectors are coming to the universities, funding the universities to train those young people to become tech oriented and tech driven, and then come back to pick them and place a bet on that through internship and apprenticeship. And that's the last, and the last one is the government itself. We need to now begin to enact policies. We'll talk about the government in a moment because there's a whole lot to talk about when the government is actually brought to bear in development and how to change the narratives. It is still business insights on Plus TV Africa. My guest, Aitay Ogumala, is still here. We'll take a quick break and we'll come back. We'll be looking at the role of government in building capacity for the young people. And of course, some things they have done in their own lead to actually model young people to actually be their best in a moment when we return to join us again. All right, welcome back to business insight and Plus TV Africa. We're looking at ICT development and of course, the building capacity for young people. My guest is Aitay Ogumala. Many thanks for staying with me. Just before we took the break out, we're talking about how government can actually play a vital role in changing the narrative. Please continue. So the way to think about it, I mean, it's quite a very brover engagement that the government needs to do, but it usually starts with a lot of investment and curriculum redevelopment, making sure that we're intentional about infusing the demand into the supply. We need to ensure that we do a lot of research and understand what the employers are looking for, then go back and redesign our curriculum and whatever we are training these young people in to ensure that we cover the demand side of the equation. And then that also comes with also investing so much in the educators themselves, the lecturers and schools. I know Microsoft is doing something around that, training over 10,000 lecturers to learn tech skills and also getting them to in turn train the university students. So there's so much to do, but it usually starts with understanding the demand side. The part that I'm so much excited about is really dragging the private sector to come to the university and invest, like a probably private partnership, but investing upfront, because if you don't invest upfront, it's so difficult to get a private sector company to also want to come to the table with you. So if the government invests upfront, then get the private sector to say, hey, we've trained 100,000 software engineers, data scientists in the past four years, are you happy to provide them with internship, apprenticeship, what you would find, and this has happened in legal states before, you would find the private sector getting excited about this. And that's one of the things I think the government needs to start to do. Okay, let's talk about some sort of, let's say corporate social responsibility. Over time, I know that you have worked out with Binance and Microsoft to actually build capacity of young people. Can you tell us about it and can you tell us how Nigerians can actually benefit from that? Absolutely. I mean, there are not many organizations and institutions, especially the large corporations that are invested so much at the level that some of our partners are doing. Like Binance, for example, invested to train 50,000 people and also provide 1,000 scholarships. It's quite very easy to access some of those things. One of the best things to do is to check around and see the scholarships are available for young people, not just in Nigeria across Africa. I think almost 20,000 people have actually accessed the opportunities, but we still have a space for about 30,000 people fully funded by Binance Charity. And this is one of the initiatives of Binance Charity. And just to put it out, it's not only Binance Charity that is doing social good. There's so many other organizations that are doing the same thing. HP, for example, Microsoft, like I mentioned, so young people also need to be very proactive, getting aware of this opportunity so that you can plug into that. Okay, fine. That's well said. Speaking of opportunities, now for someone who actually has a left school and he has done his compulsory national youth service call and he really wants to get into a profession in ICT and the value chain or the ecosystem. What would your advice to him be? So the first advice would be attend free sessions where you can educate yourself and get yourself familiarized with the entire space so that you don't understand the different opportunities in that space. The second thing will be speak with a learning advisor. Getting a mentor is always a very easy route to get into a new territory. Find someone who can coach you. If you can also find an expert that can help you align your or the skills with the tech skills. For example, if you've got great leadership, you are a people's person, there are opportunities for you in product management. If you love to analyze and think out of the box, data science might be your thing. If you're creative and you love visuals and design, product design might be your thing. So there's so many opportunities in that space, but the three fourth things that I mentioned would be the lowest-handed first and there are so many free sessions out there that can kind of like get you familiarized with the ecosystem. Find a mentor who can help you get the clarity that you need. And the most important thing, make sure whatever space you are getting into align with your soft skills. Because you don't want to get into a space that frustrates your creativity or your energy. And that's the way to think about coming into the tech space. Okay, fine. Still talking about the government, let's talk about baby challenges. We've talked about that in the education sector. Are you also perfect some solution about educating educators as well? But what would you say are the challenges that is actually mitigating against the growth of the ICT ecosystem here in the country? And one more can be done to adjust both Niger. So Niger can actually be like a hub. So I mean, when I look at all those other ecosystems, I've lived in almost four countries and I study some of the territories and the things they've done, we need to lower the barrier to entry. And one of the best ways to do that is to provide study loans. Learning the tech skill can be very, very expensive. Because then you need to bomb data, to have a laptop. You need to attend classes, you need to attend sessions. But if we provide study loans and then we spread the loan, people are able to learn and pay for quality. The second thing we need to do is we need to really provide opportunities for people to practice what they've learned. I saw lots of young people who are graduating from different boot camps, but do not have the platform to express their capacities. So we need to start to foster relationships with institutions and organizations that can provide them with three months, four months internship, just to practice what they've learned. I think the most important thing is incentivize success. I like what you're doing. We need to also bring other smarter young people who have gone through these things and have gone through the toughness of these things to tell their stories, so that other people can see from the reality and the lenses of people who have done it before. I think these are the three ways to really supercharge the ecosystem. All right, it was a very big thank you to you Ita for all of the useful insights that you have brought on the show today. We do appreciate them. Thank you so much. All right, my guest has been a Yi Taiyo. Ogumo Lahi is the CEO and founder of UTIVA, but just before we go, Ghostmode Digitization is a panacea to financial services, security, and other bottlenecks. It is an innovation by Fintech to ensure privacy as well as solve the draw challenge of protection and security. I'll leave you with details of that report and I'll see you again next time. I am Justin Akadoni. Many thanks for watching.


Something I always have to remember is to live in the world that I actually live in rather than the world that I wish I lived in. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. And what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah, I'm going to talk about the real problem with Lily Singh, but it's not even really about Lily Singh. It's about society and just kind of the world as a whole. So every commentator on the planet has made a video recently, and I was trying to stay away from this topic in my last video, but it brings up something else. So let me catch you up to speed for those of you who don't know what's going on. Lily Singh sent out a tweet talking about how the Forbes highest paid YouTuber list didn't have any females on it. And a lot of people got really upset about that, you know, so I'm not jumping into, you know, that debate on it.  That is what fascinates me. All right. So like I said, like a million commentators made videos on this and this is just something that cracked me up about the commentator community as a whole is that like everybody's like, Oh, I need to make a video about this too. Like, I mean, hey, I'm even getting views from it. So ain't no hate. Today we're going to be talking about Lily Singh and just just I'm just a little bit angry right now. I talked a little bit about last video, how I'm extremely annoyed when it comes to overly entitled babies complaining because they don't get spoon fit anymore. I have people asking, well, what is your opinion regarding what Lily's throwing out there? And what I would personally say is I think that Lily is basing a reaction to all of this on information that may not be completely factual as well as a misunderstanding of our environment here online versus that of the mainstream entertainment industry. One regarding the how factual the list is part. I don't want to blow up people's spots, but I've heard and seen some of the money that gets thrown around in the female beauty vlogger space and oh, that's what she's not in the Forbes list anymore. So please stop trying to force her on to it. I think today is going to be a big lesson in YouTubers and entitlement. I was on the Forbes list last year making millions of dollars. I'm still making millions, but not enough to get on it this year. I love how she like slightly chuck that in. You know, I was on it last year. Guys, I what I am a millionaire. But anyways, like it just it it's interesting to see what people get upset about. So the Forbes list is talking about how much money YouTubers make right and all of this stuff like it's been on Philip DeFranco to where people are talking about like like this thing about how much money people make like you guys like as a society like we need to like really check in with our priorities like there is so much news.  We are constantly being told on a regular basis that looking good and making money that is what's going to make you happy and we are getting brainwashed by this and it just it bums me out as somebody with a mental health channel trying to bring awareness to mental health it bums me out how many people keep focusing on these things that we know we know for a fact will not make you happy something that I always remind people of I always remind like my clients of like when I'm working in a treatment center they're like but I want to make money I want to buy this I want to buy that like I remind them of the countless celebrities who have passed away from overdoses and suicides clearly clearly we have evidence that money and success does not always equal happiness something that I haven't kept screenshots of but I wish I did was some of you know I've been on like a weight loss journey the last year or so when I go on my Facebook page and I'm like at the gym or I do away and I'm like hey lost another five pounds hey lost another 10 pounds I get so much engagement from my friends and family right I get all these likes I get comments people saying congratulations this and this all this other stuff right but then whenever I talk about mental health it is crickets it is crickets like you guys I cannot stress to you enough six and a half years ago I was the worst person you will ever meet like friends and family did not want to talk to me because I was a garbage human being not only was I just angry I was lying I was stealing from people I was constantly having these mental breakdowns like why is it why is it that nobody's like hey Chris you haven't had like an episode in a while like that's pretty cool or hey Chris you haven't lost your crap on somebody lately you know like hey Chris you haven't screamed at somebody in public in years that is awesome like why are we not celebrating like mental health accomplishments that is what I don't get because like I said we know that you know what what you look like and how much money you make are not going to guarantee to make you happy and if we're going to be real too like your mental health and your happiness is it's way way more achievable than making the most money or being the sexiest person alive like that's just the way it is but anyways anyways one of the reasons I made this video is because I sent out a tweet yesterday that I posted on my Instagram I post on my community page and there's been some pushback alright and here's the tweet right here and I'll read it to you says alright I'm going to do it I'm going to do a video five YouTubers least likely to have a mental breakdown in 2019 let's shine a light on the creators you think exhibit exhibit the best mental health tag them in your reply and we'll do a vote so I've gotten some pushback on this and and people like oh you know you know people suffer in silence and all these other things and I'm like like I just want to make it very clear I am not in any way shape or form apologizing for that tweet not in a million years if you think I am you clearly don't know me alright like I get it I get why some people are like oh my god Chris but like you guys why like couldn't we argue the same point like we're putting these people on pedestals who are making all this money right like let's look at Chester beddington alright let's look at him alright how many times do people say he's like one of the best singers one of the best vocalist Lincoln Park is one of the best bands so we're putting him on this pedestal and he was dying inside alright so I am not going to ever agree with you that we should we shouldn't talk about how somebody is mentally healthy like why like okay what about the people we say who are physically healthy like you just over the sexiest man alive what if that dude is miserable what if he hates himself what if he hates how he looks you see what I mean so like again like one of the reasons I have this channel is to promote like mental health awareness and like my views are a little bit different but you know like here's the thing I'm trying to change the way that all of us look and talk about mental health and some of this stuff's difficult because we have a look that in a certain way so I will admit like you know just reading your guys's feedback and some of the pushback and there wasn't as much pushback as it may seem but it it felt like enough where I needed to address it because this is a topic that I'm very passionate about like I think I'm gonna just rework the title that's about it like I might change it to like the most inspirational people and tie it into mental health you know what I mean but we do need to celebrate people like if somebody's gone all of 2018 and doing well and they're happy and motivated and all these other things like let's talk about it and I get the argument that they might not be doing well mentally but but why can't we take things from them to inspire us you know what I'm saying like although I don't care about money like I'm inspired by the hustle that Gary Vaynerchuk has I'm inspired by his mindset I'm inspired by his mental health and his empathy for other people so again like even if even if these people are not doing the best mentally I think we should shine a light on people who are not causing drama not getting into fights on Twitter you know people who are acting right and being a good positive influence because one of the reasons I do this channel is to teach you what you can learn from people and something I admit that I don't do nearly as enough is shine a light is shine a light on the amazing inspirational youtubers who are a positive influence on every person that they touch alright so so again like I really want you to sit back and check your value system like why do you think money's gonna make you happy why do you think having the certain body's gonna make you happy real quick before I let you go I just posted a video about Trisha Paytas and how she keeps buying things to make her happy and I've already seen multiple comments saying oh she can just go buy a Lamborghini must be nice must be nice like are you not getting it are you not getting it she's freaking miserable like so what do you mean it must be nice like I look at that I'm like oh dang like I'm looking at somebody who is living proof that buying a 250,000 dollar car is not going to fill a void within me so never ever ever ever that think that just switching places with some rich person is gonna make you happy alright alright that's my little that's my little spiel let me know down in the comments below are you somebody who realized that money wasn't going to make you happy are you somebody I would love to know from somebody to down in the comments if you have lost a lot of weight if you have gotten in shape and you still struggle with being happy like there's nothing to be ashamed of there's nothing wrong with that but I do want people to learn from other people's experiences that this is not always the thing that is going to make you happy all right so let's have a conversation be nice be kind and love each other down in the comments sorry for bringing out tough love Chris today but I really had to talk about this alright anyways if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you hate it give it a thumbs down but either way subscribe or win the notification bell because you know just do it a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel run patreon you're all awesome and there's a brand new patreon exclusive video up over there if you haven't checked it out yet alright thanks again for watching get your priorities straight and I'll see you next time


What can they do? What should they do if they feel like they might be struggling with PTSD or CPTSD? Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely treatment for PTSD. And before we start recording, we talked about innate neurodivergence versus acquired neurodivergence. So autism isn't innate, like you're born with that neurology. PTSD is acquired. And so it's an acquired neurodivergence that can be treated, can be supported, we can heal from it. I think for a lot of people, the combination of pharmaceutical, so medication support and therapy tends to be the ideal equation. This gets much more complicated for autistic people. We don't have it so far anyway, just for helping autistic people with like mild anxiety. Yeah, partly like therapists are scared of us.  A lot of therapists, if they don't have like extensive training in autism, they're like, oh, I don't do autism. Like it feels, I mean, talk about alien, like a lot of therapists treat it like this alien other of like, oh, you have to go to a specialist for that. So finding support. So finding someone who's not scared of you and it will take you on. But then also finding someone who understands your neurology. So for example, alexithymia, someone who's autistic could be in therapy and suffering a great deal. But their mood is flat. They may be talking about incredibly traumatic things but not showing a lot of emotion. So a therapist might misinterpret that as they're not suffering because they're not displaying their emotion in the typical way. I suppose you have the lack of using the indirect communication as well. That as well. And yes, and also then with trauma work, really considering the sensory profile. A lot of trauma work, not all trauma work, but a lot of trauma work involves exposure to some extent because one of the core symptoms of PTSD is avoidance. And avoidance actually perpetuates the anxiety around the trauma and it makes it grow. So trauma treatments, different levels of exposure. Some it's like really intense exposure, like a lot of kind of military PTSD treatments are very intense exposure. It's not all that intense, but there's some element of exposure to talking about it. So considering the sensory profile of the person when you're doing exposure based work, I think that is one of the tricky things. You asked me what people could do and I'm telling you like all the hard things about getting. So let me flip to something more hopeful. So those are some of the barriers people experience. There is no one like therapy that works for all autistic people because we're an incredibly diverse group. Some of the therapies that I often hear autistic people have positive experiences with include internal family systems or parts work. And that can also be really powerful for trauma. So IFS is the acronym, internal family systems. EMDR is effective. Yeah, it's I do some IFS and I really like it. You're talking about different parts of yourself, which makes it, it takes this kind of abstract idea of the fact that we have multiple parts of us in terms of concrete, which I like. So I like it for autistic people for a lot of reasons and I like it for trauma. And so I think it can go really well in the combination of autistic trauma. Some people respond really well to EMDR, other people don't. Cognitive processing therapy is kind of the gold standard for PTSD in a lot of circles. I think that's where you really want to be considering the person's sensory profile. I think some autistic people can certainly respond well to it. Some have a really strong reaction to it. But I think, I think, so yeah, there's all these different theories. I think finding a therapist that you feel really safe with connected to is probably the most important part. Is this someone who is curious about your experience, who you feel connected to?  But I actually think that's probably the most important is finding a person that you can connect with and feel safe with.  You can tell like, hey, I'm getting sensory overloaded or like, I'm shutting down. I know I look regulated, but I'm shutting down. We need to hit the brakes here. Someone where you can safely communicate that, yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to kind of look at you with an inquisitive light. What do you mean? What do you mean, you look so calm? I've had lots of ones like that before, but yeah. I'm just, my head's going off on all the barriers in therapy and stuff, and yeah, it's there. I think finding someone that you can genuinely connect with is the best. If you're always closed off and you're trying to present in a certain way, then it's going to be really hard to open up about things. And throughout all the years of therapy that I did when I was younger and some of the therapy that I've done in adulthood, really, it's really tough. It's hard to find anyone. We already have an issue with employment and pretty much all of the autism specialists that I can find in the UK. There's no general health care version of it. You go there for them to help you treat with your depression and anxiety, but not in the context of autism. If I was to say, Alex, if I were to them, they would have no idea exactly at all what I mean. Even just the basic concepts, so the majority of the actual therapy that's done is me explaining to them bits about autism. So it's like almost I'm educating them rather than telling my experiences and having it dissected and broken up and processed. There's so much education that happens. There's a really interesting article. It's a qualitative study. It talked about autistic people's experiences with therapy. And I think that was one of the themes that came up. I just feel like they were educating their therapists about what autism is. On one hand, if it's a long-term therapist and they're curious, I think that makes sense that we do some of that. And that can be part of explaining our internal world. But if it's a shorter-term therapy and a person's feeling like they're spending the bulk of the hour educating versus actually diving into the work, that's just not a great equation. It's also awareness of the overlap of things as well. The different reactions that we can have to different conditions, different neurodivergencies, acquired neurodivergencies, like PTSD. I mean, panic disorder for me, I'd probably say that. Acquired. I don't know, it's a hard world to have a game. Yeah. I'm starting to feel guilty that I was so negative. Can I skip back to some practical suggestions for people who are maybe listening to this and feeling so deflated now? Yeah, yeah. I think, so I know for me just learning the science of what was happening to my body with PTSD was so regulating. Similar to like, oh, my dopamine is low. And I think for autistic people, if we can understand what's happening to our bodies, it's really helpful. A good therapist can do this, but you can also actually do this with YouTube of the anatomy of PTSD or just understanding the fight-or-flight response. And then being able to kind of like, okay, my amygdala is going haywire right now. So I think for autistic people, learning what's happening is really helpful and people can do that on their own. The second thing is grounding strategies. People hear a lot about relaxation strategies, which helps get us out of our stress response. I think the two basic ingredients of a good trauma treatment starts with grounding and then relaxation strategies. But I actually prioritize grounding first. And that is, again, those practices that help us relocate ourselves in the here and the now. So it can be as simple as going and washing your hands with cold water and focusing your attention. Like this is what the water feels like on my hands or creating pressure or like there's the classic five, four, three, two, one, like list five things you see going through the senses. I actually have some grounding strategies up on my website available for free like a PDF or you can YouTube or Google grounding strategies. But education of what the heck is happening to your body, grounding strategies and then getting some like medication support. I think for a lot of people, especially if they can't sleep, those would be kind of until you find a unicorn therapist that knows how to work with you. Well, in terms of the medication front, I mean, I don't know much about PTSD medications. I imagine it would be similar to anxiety. Or is it kind of more like the type of. Depends on the person depends on the provider depends on what they're like presenting with if they're if they're more dominantly like shut down depressed. Versus if they're more in that activated state, but getting like good pharmaceutical support just to help your body kind of be able to absorb some of it, especially because like I mentioned, I think our sleep gets really dysregulated for autistic people. But yeah, there's there's a variety of different medication options.


Sopranosaxophonist and flutist Jane Bounette was born and lives in Toronto, and has received many major Canadian awards, including the Order of Canada, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Premier's Award for Excellence, and four Juno Awards. She's an Amherst to perform at UMass with her band Maquique. With Maquique, Bounette has created something new and phenomenal. What started out five years ago as a project to record and mentor young, brilliant Cuban female musicians has become one of the top groups on the North American jazz scene. In the last couple of years, they have played major jazz festivals like Newport and Monterey, been featured on NPR's Jazz Night in America, were nominated for a Grammy Award for their latest release, Odara, and voted as one of the top ten jazz groups in Downbeat Magazine's Critics poll. It's a great honor to have Jane Bounette here and Amherst with us. So Jane, I wanted to talk about your early career and serendipity because you had a major injury. You grew up playing piano in the European classical tradition and were quite far along on that pass and then had a serious injury, and that changed your whole trajectory of your musical career. So I want you to talk a little bit about the role of luck and serendipity and chance and how it got you where you are today. Well, my background, my parents weren't musicians, but we had a very lively, creative household. I'm the youngest of three kids and there's a seven-year difference pretty much between the three of us being the youngest. So the arts were always very encouraged, especially my parents were very much into visual arts. So they often, weekends, when my father maybe would have a Saturday off, would go to art galleries, the small independent art galleries that were supporting young painters, sculptures, visual arts. And I would often tag along with them and be exposed to this world. And we finally moved when I was tiny to a bigger house and the house that we bought had a piano in it. So my father was sort of born on a farm and I guess it was a status thing in those days to have a piano and he never had a piano in the family. So this was a bonus to buy this house because there was a piano in it. And I loved to play it and my sister was given lessons, but it never took for her. And later I was given piano lessons and I really loved it. But I was always in between, I was very, you know, like a lot of children. I wasn't totally, you know, focused and especially as a teenager I was just all over the map. I went to five high schools to give you an example of my academic career. Did you get kicked out of four of them? Three of them I got kicked out of. Two of them I chose to leave. So, you know, the academia world was very tough for me, but I was very creative and always in between art and music. And yeah, so when I was later, you know, I'd never really finished things. I would sort of get halfway with something and then get bored with it and move to something else. And when I was about 16 or 17, having stopped and started with a couple of piano teachers because I didn't like them and I didn't really like practicing, I then went at it again at age 16. And I went at it a little bit too hard and that's when I did develop tendonitis. And I had a wonderful teacher, his name was Harry Heap. He only took about 10 students. He just lived around the corner, my mom heard about him. And I went and auditioned for him and he was a student of somebody who was a very famous musician. I think she was from England, Mona Bates. So it was kind of a privilege to be able to study with he. So I went in and auditioned to see if he would take me as a student and I played Love Is Blue. Remember that song? It was a big hit in the 60s. And I think I played the theme from Romeo and Juliet. And I had one other poppy thing and then I played one Bach Prelude, the very first one. And he said to me, you're very musical, but I don't teach that other stuff that you're doing. I don't teach that. And this is, if you're going to study with me, this is what you're going to have to do. And from there he really formed my study habits then because I proceeded to study of course Bach, Beethoven, a lot of more modern composers like Aaron Copeland and Debussy, Ravel. And he made me from the get-go memorize music. So at that point, either I would just be sitting at the piano improvising and taking a piece and doing with whatever I wanted.  I had to start with very, very defined discipline regimen of working on sometimes eight pieces at a time and memorizing each, you know, let's say 12 bars a day of each piece. So it was a heavy workload and it was discipline, which I had never really had. We were very loose with us, with me in particular being the youngest. The other two were, you know, grown up. Anyway, he was a wonderful teacher, but I ended up, you know, damaging my hand because I finally, when I started to sort of find myself and feel like I was advancing, that's when, you know, this injury happened. I was, you know, very disappointed and that, you know, it took about a year for this thing to really build up so that it was like I couldn't even, you know, pick up a cup. It hurt so much. So my mom took me to see some doctors and they wanted to do some surgery and my mom was like, I don't think so. And then one of the doctors said, rest, you know. I think she just needs to not play for a while, let's say six weeks, and then let's see. It might just settle down. So I went with my cousin to San Francisco, suggested going somewhere warm too, was I think of February, January, February. Went to San Francisco and found this club Keystone Corners. And it happened the night that I arrived in San Francisco that the Charles Mingus group was playing, performing there. And we went the first night and the second night and went every single night. And it was just an enlightening, you know, experience. At that time, even though I'd been exposed to jazz and my father having kind of a bit of a jazz collection, not big, but you know, standard things, Count Basie, Allington, Teddy Wilson. My brother had some Mingus records so I was familiar with the name which drew me in. When I returned to Toronto after the three weeks, I had pretty much made up my mind I want to play jazz. But I did not know how I was going to proceed in that music.    I want to get this certificate that says I've got my grade 10. So I did that and then I decided I really want to play jazz. How am I going to do this? No universities, no jazz departments at the time. And eventually by another accident found this place that was doing workshops and there was a couple of jazz artists there that were teaching how to improvise. And I just started hanging out there and I signed up, you know, for like 10 classes and I started meeting like-minded people that were into jazz. Some of them were my age, some of them were older adults that had, you know, jobs. I was still living at home, you know, with my parents. And going out, I started going out more to clubs and hanging out in the record stores and asking the guys that worked in the stores, who's this guy Archie Shep? Can you put this on for me and stuff like that. Now at that point had you picked up the flute or the soprano? I had played flute in high school and I had started on the clarinet in public schools. So that's like, it was a small school band and I auditioned though they had, you know, the teacher who would travel around to the local little public schools to teach band class. You know, they would ask the kids who wants to learn, who wants to be in the band and I really wanted to be in the band. I really wanted the flute at first and there was no flutes left. So, you know, he did air training with everybody and he wanted me to play the violin. I guess because I had a good ear. And I was like, I don't want the violin. He was like, okay, how about cello? And I was like, I don't want a cello. I wanted a shiny instrument. Flute was the one I wanted most. All the flutes were gone, I think there was two. And in the end he gave me his personal silver clarinet to play, which I played on for grade five, grade six. And then he happened when I went to the next school for grade seven and eight. He was still at that school, so I used his clarinet for that. And then after I was finished grade eight, I was sent to a girl's private school and there was no music, there was nothing creative at that place. And I really rebelled. So, I didn't have a clarinet, I didn't have that outlet. I mean, I loved playing in the school band as a kid. I loved that feeling of practicing your part and then all of a sudden you were playing your part and all this was happening around you. It was just a great experience, you know, as a child. So, I loved that. And anyhow later, after going to many, many different high schools, like five, like I said, I found myself in my last year of high school playing flute, which was the instrument I really wanted to play.  And I got very good on the flute quickly because I really loved it and I was putting the time in. So, this is like grade 10 and 11, I'm playing the flute. And at the end, this teacher, he was obviously loved music too. He really fought to get monies from the school department. You know, there's always this fight between sports and the arts in school for the monies. And he managed to get the monies to take the orchestra once even to China. And he would take, you know, form the students. He had a specialty music class, which I really wanted to take and I was allowed to take it. But this was one of these teachers who puts, he's like one of, you know, these kind of people that like to put their imprint on the students and say, I taught that person. It's like sports coach where you pick particular students and say, I'm going to really nurture this student along and the rest of them can all go somewhere else. So, he picked out the students that he thought were really talented and really encouraged them and really spent extra time with them. And many of them were very, very talented. I happened, this particular year that I was in, there was probably eight students that were super, super talented. And at the end of the year, I had decided I thought I wanted to be a professional musician. And so I went, he said, so what are you going to do next year? And I said, well, I think I want to study music. And he went, meh. He said, you'll never be a professional musician. And I said, what do you mean? He said, because you didn't start when you were eight and most people that become professional musicians, they start when they're eight years old, they're prodigies. And I got quite upset and I said, I started crying and I said, you can go to hell, I am so. But anyhow, I still had that in the back of my mind because all these other students were so good and I was mediocre. And anyhow, that's a whole other thing. That always really stuck in my head for a long, long time that I wasn't good enough and it was always going to be hard for me. It didn't come easily. And anyway, much later, even after winning my first Juno award, after like five, they invited students back. I'm like in my 20s at this point. And yeah, I mentioned this thing about, there was kind of a clubby thing that would happen. This is the bad part of the story. On the Monday mornings, when Ben, the orchestra practice was, and I got in the orchestra quickly too, because he needed a flute, I would say like eight in the morning, these students being so chummy with him and like, they'd all been partying on the weekend together with the professor. You know where this is going, right? He's starting to get a little weird. Yeah, so anyhow, it was like, oh man, I wish I was in that club. They're all a lot of music and they're all hanging out. Anyhow, go back, like I'm in my 20, 21, 22, and they're inviting students back to the collegiate that have gone on to do interesting things with their life. I had at this point won a June award for one of my records, and he vetoed me coming back. I found out through my art teacher there who told my sister's friend that didn't want me coming back to the school. So this guy had it, there was something, he had it out for me, you know? And because I wasn't fitting the norm of what he wanted. Anyway, a couple of years later I'm on a plane and this was always as heated at me, this guy, and my husband said, who was the most famous music teacher again? And I said the name and he opened up the newspaper and here was this guy going to jail for molesting students.  Yeah, so I mean, if this had a real bittersweet thing and maybe in some ways I was meant to have to take the hard road and that's why I've always been kind of my mentors, they've always been people that I've seen outdoing it. And I took on a different way of allowing myself to be mentored. Yeah, it's kind of weird, but it's still like everybody's journey is so personal and the things that happen to you of course affect the course that you're going to take and I don't know if I proceeded to kind of push that thing. I don't know what would have happened. Well, I want to certainly talk about M'keke and your relationship to Afro-Cuban music which is a crowning achievement and an ongoing one, but before we do that I just wanted to touch base with some of my jazz heroes and your jazz heroes who you had a chance to play with and I'm thinking of Don Poolin, Dewey Redman, Paul Blay, Billy Hart. So quickly run us through. They're all so different, oh my God. Just run us through that process, like how did you get from hanging out at jam sessions in Toronto to playing with these jazz players? I guess because I have a lot of, I guess I'm not afraid to be turned, like the worst somebody can say to me is no. And I guess because I'm so inspired by these musical heroes of mine, that was the road that I choose that I want to understand how their minds work. I want to work alongside them to see what I can learn from that, if I can learn something from it. I was never, what's the word, disappointed with all the musicians that I really loved as musical innovators. When I got to know them, I was never disappointed with they as people because they always seem to, their music always seemed to be them. So I think that cannot happen. There probably are some great, there have been a couple of people, a couple of crazy people that I've worked with, brilliant genius people that I saw sides of that kind of spooked me, that real dark sides. But generally, most of the musicians that I love have just become like a special part, like almost family, and I've just learned so much from. So it was just taking that leap, just not being afraid to be turned down. I mean, when I met Dewey, I went running down into his dressing room right after the show. Like a lot of people, maybe in this day and age, you wouldn't do that kind of thing. When musicians would come to Toronto, for example, James Moody and Frank West, and they would sometimes come for a three and four night run, and I would go hear them night after night, and then I would say, you know, next night, could I have a lesson with you? And so I would go to their hotel rooms the next day because a lot of the time, you know, watching TV or something and to find somebody who was really eager to learn, is that, yeah, sure, come on over and I would expect to pay. And they'd go like, forget the money, just practice the stuff I'm showing you type of thing, you know? That you're not just wasting my time, you're going to practice this stuff. But back to Don and Dewey and Billy Hart, these are all people that, you know, you meet them and you see the, just the humility that they have. You know, the nights that they're playing and playing incredible music, and there's like 10 people in the audience. It's something that I try and always keep in mind because sometimes, you know, we as a band, the girls will get somewhere and they'll be like, there won't be a lot of people in the audience. Sometimes we're packed, you know, sometimes it's sold out. But, you know, you have to keep these things in perspective, you know, because I've seen it happen. I've heard Mingus in Toronto where there was like 10 people there and they played their asses off, you know? It was just the most incredible music and I was like, where is everybody? Am I the only person here that's going... I've asked that question myself. Yeah, I'm sure you have, you know?  Yeah. And it's like, wow, this is history being made and there's 35 people there. Exactly. So, you know, that gives me hope that, you know, or it gives me an understanding that, you know, musical success and the course of the music is not related to commercial success. Yeah, and it's often, it's just time, you know? Yeah. Time has to take its place for people to be really valued and appreciated. So, let's move to Cuba and Mequeque. You've been to the island over 100 times and have devoted a lot, almost all of your musical career over the last couple of decades to Afro-Cuban music. So, tell me how you got hooked on it but also how you learn this music which is so complex and so African in nature. Well, not to sound like the classic I'm still learning but I really am still learning. There's like, there's so much. It's the same with, you know, the history of jazz that there's still so many names. You know, I just, when we came in here, I was like, I don't know this guy's name and you said a local trombone player, Greenlee. And I was like, oh, I should know this guy. He played with R.J. Chappell. Oh, God, I've got to check it out. But there's, you know, in Cuban music, my first trip there, I didn't even have any clue. I had, I was playing in a band, getting called sometimes to play in a band, salsa band in Toronto, partly because I could improvise. And everybody in the group was from somewhere else. There was not one Cuban in the group. There was a Chilean. There was someone from Columbia. I think the band leader was Colombian. Someone from Uruguay. Someone from Argentina. Someone from Peru. And they would bring their charts in or something that, you know, just a standard chart and we would play it. And because being a jazz musician, I could play on the Montunos, the repeated vamps and stuff. And do the solos and play the chart. Play the chart down because I could read. But when I got to Cuba, and my first trip and it was just because of going to Mexico, getting sick, went to Cuba 82. And I started to hear this music and like just within the first day of going there, five different styles of Cuban music within just a few hours. This was like, whoa, there was a sound that I had never heard. And then when I went into the city of Santiago and Cuba and heard a couple of the folkloric groups and I would hear this Afro-Cuban sound that was so much like listening to Coltrane's Africa Brass or Feral Saunders, you know, something that Feral Saunders would play. And I would hear Afro Blue by Mongo Santa Maria is actually a traditional Afro-Cuban chant. That's not an original piece. That's actually a chant that he later did something with. So I heard this connection between the two musics that just were like, wow, they're almost similar. But then, you know, as I started to travel the country I realized, number one, there's regional sounds right across the whole country. Very, very, very different. Of course, there's clave in the whole country and cowbells. But then because of the African dyspora and the different groups that came from the slavery times, there was particular languages and particular musical sounds and there's, you know, in the eastern side you hear a very strong Haitian influence especially when you get to want animal and in Camigwe you hear something a little different in Havana, there's a sound, you know, there's still, because it's a big city, certain parts of the European sound like the dance songs and the Contra dances, these are the early classical Cuban music forms from the 18th, 19th century. You start to hear like this incredible world of musics that so many people think Cuban music is just the one thing. So as I started traveling around with Larry, my husband, trumpet player, we started to hear all these different musics and meet the people that were making them and some of them the originators of the music. Kachal Lopez, you know, many people say he's the founder of Marble, you know, and the group that he had, I played often with Frank Emilio, I'd go over to his house and he's the original, or he's the founder of Los Amigos with Guillermo Bereto and Kachal and I played with him and I was like learning firsthand some of these discargas and how they came about and that was one kind of thing, that was a jazz-related thing and then I would go into some small village in Perico when it was way outside of Havana where there's a particular style of music that's not performed anywhere else except there, it's particular to Perico and you get to Barricoa, there's something else different in Barricoa. So, this investigation has just been ongoing the changui, which is a music that you don't hear in Havana at all. All of a sudden now you're hearing people throwing the word around changui and some of the timbre groups and stuff like that because it's starting to become the fashion as Roomba became at one point. But now the changui, you know, that is one of the indigenous music of Cuba and that took me like 15 years to hear. Had to go to Guantanamo to hear that and get deep into Guantanamo because if you just go through Guantanamo you're not going to see anything, really. And so you have to investigate these things, have your ear on the ground and that's been the fun, that's been the adventure. It's just going into these places and speaking to people and they know somebody, I'm going to take you to this guy, he's from Sanchez and that's his little town. On the way to Santiago I'm just doing a blank. But he eventually left for Spain and unfortunately passed away but he had a particular piano style that was like, how do you call it, was like a legend, legendary. Thank you, Jane. It's been really fascinating. Continue this in part two. My name is Glenn Siegel. Thank you very much.


Hi. It's Bridget. How are you? Oh, it is Sunday and I am reflective this morning. I am thinking of where I was last Sunday. At this time I was at the Magic Kingdom. Yes, that theme park in Orlando, Florida, in Walt Disney World. And if you know me, even a little, you know that I have a thing for Disney. I love the creativity, the innovation, the just the feeling of all that goes into making ideas manifested. That's what Disney is to me. And I love that expression. I just, I love how it feels there. So this time last week, that's exactly where I was. And so I'm reflective this morning. I'd like to talk to you about magic, magic. Magic isn't just something that comes from illusion, from a fancy trick, or a craft or art form. It's not a show or entertainment, but rather magic is something that we can choose to express. Or to receive. So it's both something that we can share and something that we produce within us and we can share it outwardly with others, with the world, et cetera, through various venues or avenues. And we can choose to receive magic. So I'm going to ask you this question, where are you with your magic? Right here, right now, are you feeling more along the lines of receiving magic, tapping into connecting to the world around you and what is available to you that is magical or has promise of some magic? Or are you at a place, a center point within yourself where you feel, or maybe even are just beginning to feel or open up to your own unique brand of magic? What is that for you, right here and right now? There is no one correct answer. There's no multiple choice. It's an essay question fill in the blank. Receiving or expressing. The thing is, is that you can choose both, depending upon where you're at, what you're working on, what you're moving through, what you're facing in your life at any given moment. So right here, right now, are you on the receiving place with your relationship with magic or are you on the side of the essence of the expression of magic? So do you have some ideas, some things that you've been pondering, some things that you've been working on creating either for your business or your job or in your home, maybe you're redecorating, maybe you're working on a novel, working with some creative art form or expression of your essence, or perhaps you are right here right now at a point of receiving. With your full awareness of your heart, the magic of energy is ever present. It's always here. Now the level or the volume of it will change and adjust depending upon how you are moving through your day, how you are moving through the world, how you are choosing to interact or engage. Your ability to receive is connected fully at your heart space. Your heart chakra is a place that offers ample opportunity for gathering. In fact, I often will compare the heart chakra to Grand Central Station. I've been there once in my life and it was busy. This huge echoing stadium like place with marble walls, columns on the walls and marble floors and people fancy, dressed so fancy, rushing from here to there. That is kind of how our heart space feels and looks when you're looking at it from a psychic perspective or a claricentient perspective as an empath, for example. Receivership is really important when it comes to the concept of magic. So magic isn't something that is only for alchemists or people who practice specific art forms or expressions of alchemy or manifestation. The station magic is for those who want to be part of a positive potential of hope and a community that shares the common ground of this heart space. The communication that occurs between human beings through that energetic space of the heart through the multiple channels of the heart space. This is where the magic is exchanged. It moves about freely. It moves into new and different and creative spaces in your life and in the life that you touch of others as well. So you as a receiver, as a center point, as a gathering place in your heart space can utilize and even resource the magic that is available to you as you are receiving it. When it comes in, you make it into whatever is appropriate for your need based on the moment in time. Now, as we shift into the concept of expression, I'm very aware of that low belly, that spirit chakra, the solar plexus, that golden yellow sun chakra and its ally, the womb space, the sacral chakra, the divine feminine embodiment of strength here, deep and low, like a well of magic within you.  This is the place that continues to curate this beautiful cycle and repurposing of energy, providing for magic to come from seemingly out of nowhere at times or in the smallest of moments or places through a memory, an image, a wisp of air, a beam of light in your conscious and cognizant mind or in your dream state. Magic is imbued within you. It is part of who you are. So you see when you are able to receive in the heart space magic through others in their expressions, when you can receive that, you amplify that in this Grand Central Station area of the heart and all, all become productive, all become purposeful and meaningful.  It's not just for your psychicness. It's not just for your intuition. It's for all parts of you, human and spirit, magic, your own special brand of magic. All right, my dears. Well, there you be.  I'd like to say I'm glad to be back from the magic, but the truth is I am the magic. It is with me. It is in my heart. It is in my soul. And it is growing and swirling within my sacral womb space as well. My divine feminine is active and activated and so very, very inspired from my recent journeys and my travel experiences in the most magical place on earth. Well, for some of us anyway, that is. And if you're interested in catching up on my trip, go ahead and check out my Instagram page, Bridget inspired. Bridget inspired on Instagram.  You can also catch up on fairy grasshopper, my YouTube channel. I share a few blogs and some live streams that I did while I was away. Those of you who joined me on my live streams, that Bridget inspired on Facebook. Thank you so much for that. I will also be uploading and sharing those back on fairy grasshopper, YouTube as well. I hope I've inspired your spirit today with some of this magic talk.  Oh, it's your life after all. This is your life and you get to live it and just live it. Thanks for being here.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com coming at you with our last solo pack break to knock out tiered random team number nine. So big thanks to everybody who got into the action. No, half case random team number nine. Big thanks to everyone here for getting into the action. 10 of the 30 spots are gonna be in that break. So good luck, but as always, we're gonna do the pack break first and then we'll do the randomizing for the other stuff later. Four times one and a three for names and teams. After four times, we've got Logan down to Steve. Four times for the teams, one, two, three and four. After four times, New Orleans Pelicans down to the Jazz. All right, so there's the first half of the list right there. There you go, Logan, Pelicans, interesting. It's a solo pack, but who knows? Who knows? Silver Zion Pops and then it'll be awesome. Sea Block, Grizzlies, who knows, right? All right, so let's advertise these by your first names, first names of the teams, cities, names, and no trade windows and stuff like this. Let's just print, rip and give away those noir spots, get into that noir in a separate video. Good luck in this little solo pack right here. We have a 24 pack break of this on the website right now. Jaspy's casebreaks.com. It's those two box breaks that you see. Just want to do some more mosaic hoops tonight. Second year Luka Donch is just do all right. And NBA debut, Jackson Hayes, all right. Nothing earth-shattering there. What about in these pink camos, which are exclusive to these packs? Julius Randall, Thomas Bryan, and Kelden Johnson. All right, nothing earth-shattering there, but let's give away those noir spots. All right, so let's flip back here. So, from Kyle down to Matt and everybody in between. New list, new dice roll, let's roll it, let's randomize it. Two and a three, five times. Top 10 after five, one, two, three, four, five. After five times, there's the top 10 already right there. Big thanks all of these folks are getting in. Congrats to Quinton, Keele Kessler, Logan Collister, Mike G, Joel, Kevin, Eric, Chad, Eric, Kevin, and Steve Locke. Congrats to the 10 right here. There you go, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com. I appreciate everybody getting in. Congrats again to the winners. Coming up in a separate video will be the break itself.


Good morning to all watching us by the social media and to members of the press. We are here at Telusaka High Court with the acting president Honore Bo Given Rwinda, the secretary general Honore Bo Raflo Nakachinda, Honore Bo Mwila Davis Mwila and Madam Capona here, members of the Central Committee and other Central Committee members. Oh, our national chairperson Honore Bo Mwila Mwila Mwila Imanyo Mpankata, who's our member of parliament for the Posochi, is our acting chairperson after the decisions that were made over the weekend. We have some development here at the high court. I will hand over to SG to speak to the matter, then invite the president to speak to this matter. Acting president and colleagues, chairmans, MCCs that are here. I may not have to speak to the principal issue, but only to report that because of the criminal enterprise that was conducted yesterday by one Mao Sampa, who is not a member of patriotic front, as of yesterday, he had been facing disciplinary charges. He was expected to comply with the regulation and processes within the party, but instead he chose to take the route of impunity and commit what would be considered tizonalas. And to that effect, he found himself in a situation that is no longer a member of patriotic front. And after that, the party sought for what is legally right to be done that acting president will speak to. So may I call upon you just to speak to the nation about the new development. Thank you. Before I do let the national chairman say something about it. Thank you acting president. You see, it is very unfortunate in Zambia that the police can go and provide protection to Unloaf Assembly. Imagine it is the PF, ask the original PF, the owners of the party, who did that. They brought a whole cankinza, but they went ahead to protect Unloaf Assembly and gave it that prominence. And we have the visiting head of state, which is very shameful. And that is an illegality that was conducted by Mao Sampa. Mao Sampa is no longer a member of the patriotic front. I am the acting chairperson of the party who is supposed to be the convener of the general conference. And no member of the Central Committee attended that. And no part of officials who are in our party register attended that. So that was an illegality and we don't recognize it. So as a nation and my appeal to all members of the patriotic front, genuine ones, that was an illegality. Please take as your leaders, we are in charge of the process and inform you accordingly. Thank you. Fellow countrymen and countrywomen, we in the patriotic front have said time and again that we are being governed by a gentleman who is totally undemocratic.  That's what he is. For him to have allowed the police or to have instructed the police to permit Mao Sampa to conduct an illegal conference on the day when this country was celebrating its 59th birthday, its 59th independence anniversary, is totally uncalled for and undemocratic. We know that Mao Sampa is not working on his own. We know that Mao Sampa is only a tool in the scheme of destroying democracy in Zambia. We know that Haga hindi he did a must spend sleepless nights just at the mention of the name patriotic front and he thinks and knows that was long as the patriotic front survives his chances in 2026 are new and this is the reason why he's working extremely hard and spending a lot of money to decimate the patriotic front. But as God would always have it, right is always might and in a country that espouses multi-party democracy, a country in which there is a clear separation between the three wings of government, the executive, the judicature and the legislature. You cannot have it all on your own. The executive cannot think that they can interfere with the operations of the other two wings of government. And this is testimony of the fact that there are still some judges who know what it means to be judges in a multi-party state. We're therefore grateful that the judge has granted us this injunction and I want to sound this warning. The police are now called to order. We reported to the police when Mao Sampa went and destroyed our secretariat, to date the police have not taken action and now with this expati order we know that Mao Sampa would dare us by going ahead and masquerading as leader of the patriotic front.  As a matter of fact people must be reminded that it is out of the benevolence of these men and women in the leadership of the PF that Mao Sampa was even a member of this party. We expelled him in 2015. He came and knelt down, he was sleeping at our homes begging us that we re-admit him. We re-admitted him, we even allowed him to stand as mayor for Lusaka and yet look at how he is stabbing us in the back.  We forgot this, but now we have been reminded and we are sending this warning all those members of the patriotic front who found themselves at that illegal conference can you bring yourselves now to the secretary general come and apologize to the secretary general before we take action against you because you participated in an illegal assembly you did not get instructions from the SG you just decided because Mao Sampa gave you a little bit of money you went and gathered there can you on up now come and report to the secretary general so that you get some clemency from him otherwise the acts will also fall on you this party has a lot of members and yes we are recruiting even more members so we will not allow anyone to destroy the path that the zambians have put us on the zambians are expecting this political party called patriotic front to give credible checks and balances to Hagainde and Hagainde doesn't want that that's the reason why he's using people like mails to try and destroy us that we shall not allow him to do we'll make sure that we defend our party this is a democratic party and at the right time when the time comes we shall have our extraordinary general conference we already announced honorable chairperson for information announced after our last meeting that in three weeks time we shall have a central committee meeting to discuss the issue of the extraordinary general conference so people take heart be patient this party is in safe hands and this party is for sure going to thrive even higher thank you very much maus for testing us because we have now proven that we are a strong party you thought that we were weak and that was scumper and scramble because of what you illegality you did yesterday but now you have proven the fact that we are mighty this is the mighty patriotic front and it cannot be moved by little chongololos like you mailsampa now we have expelled you and we want to even tell you don't even dare go to parliament stay away because if you want come to court to come and challenge our decision to expel you we gave you the opportunity to save the people of matero instead of saving them you want to destroy the hopes of the people that elected you that will not allow you to do mailsampa now i want to warn you mailsampa even the resources that you borrowed from the party the resources you borrowed from the leaders of the party bring them back quickly because now we'll start taking you to court for all the property you're holding which belongs to members of this party you're holding our property which we gave to you to use in your campaign and you don't want to even give it back to us now this is a war with you we declare war on you mailsampa thank you very much because before you leave just your call to democratic institutions first the speaker of the national assembly i think you've delivered a letter that the speaker must act on your letter as a party as expelled mr mailsampa uh the registrar of society there may be attempts to attempts to change what do you i think speak to these institutions of democracy and their expectations in relation to the rule of law we are very clear on the fact that the statutory instrument 529 which was published by jack mwimbu minister of affairs and internal security was all couched to aim at the patriotic front this is no wonder that mailsampa who had actually sued the registrar of society is asking the registrar to compel pf to go to an early convention decided to withdraw that matter from court at the time when jack mwimbu was also issuing that statutory instrument it is clear that they are talking to each other they are working kuhut and we know that the registrar of society is under tremendous pressure but this morning secretary general went and filed a letter with the registrar to warn her that the event that took place yesterday was in inequality and must not accept any papers from mailsampa fortunately now we have this expert order which secretary general will go and give to registrar of societies you are now compelled by law by the by the judiciary not to entertain any person who shall purport to be presenting any list of leadership of the patriotic front because the leadership is already registered by yourself any attempt to do that will be going against this court order and that is punishable by law madam speaker of the national assembly we know that even as you preside over the business of parliament you are always against members of the patriotic front this time you have this order we have instructed you that we have expelled mailsampa and can you please make sure that mailsampa vacates his seat in parliament he is sitting there not on his own accord he is sitting there because the patriotic front sponsored him to be a candidate and he wants the material seat or the courtesy of the pf we have now withdrawn our membership of mailsampa and therefore he is no longer qualified to sit in the national assembly let him go to court it is not up to you madam nele muti you have received notice that we have expelled him let him come and battle with us in court not in parliament and please don't you get involved this is a party matter it is not a national assembly matter all members of parliament who go to parliament on account of being adopted by political party sees to hold the seat when the party withdraws their membership so please follow the law madam nele muti thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much let's just attend to his emergency it's two things yes on one hand we regret that we did that but on the other hand we are happy that we gave mailsampa a second bite now the zambian people will see that we are not vindictive a person that went against us we still readmitted him because we thought that you would learn this is how democratic we are but now he has done something that is not forgivable this time mailsampa must know that he has no more future in the patriotic front i have not suspended him we have expelled him yes we have we have expelled him the constitution of the patriotic front gives power to the central committee and to the president to take any measures to protect the security of the party and in this case we cannot allow a person who drugs the party into dispute who goes and arranges an illegal meeting we can't allow him to continue to be a member of the party he is expelled and shall remain expelled maybe we can even add a voice from kansu kansu makebi take the you ask the question okay so mailsampa earlier got an injunction to stop him from being expelled from the party suspended or suspended from the party that related to a different thing that he did but he committed yet another offense and there's no nothing that stops the party from moving on a new issue so the old issue that he wasn't nothing was done to him he wasn't suspended but he committed yet another offense on the basis on which he was expelled so that does not apply now he's not a member of pf anymore based on the new uh circumstances and he will remain not a member until the court orders otherwise if the court sees it fit because he's been expelled and the injunction is to the extent that he should not hold himself out as a member of the party anywhere or a functionary of the party that's what the injunction says and the matter will be head inter parties that is with him in november on the 21st of november that is the next time in the meantime he remains not a member of pf and the national assembly has been informed of the same judge total yes the first order has been overtaken the first order has been overtaken that that injunction that injunction relates to a different issue this is a different issue altogether that restraint was not for purposes of having held a convention that was not authorized that related to something else and um exactly so it's it's different it's different so it's it's different you should understand it from that context yes when somebody starts with matter it's not the same as he's taking a phone