Arise TV Rufai Oseni and Rotus Oddiri in a heated exchange on the Morning Show

Arise Television anchors, Rufai Oseni and Rotus Oddiri clashed on the Morning Show on Wednesday, August 2 over the demands of the Labour Union.

On Wednesday, the Labour Union and CSOs embarked on a protest across the country to lament the Federal Government’s “anti-poor policies" which has left Nigerians in discomfort.

The discussion of the fuel subsidy removal and the refineries in the country led to the anchors in a a heated exchange while giving their take on the subject matter.

Rotus Oddiri described the demands of the Labour Union as unrealistic and not practicable.

He explained that they cannot complain about the hike in school fees while also demanding increase in salaries. He noted that the public schools are supposed to be revenue generating assets which will be used as payments for the teachers.

In his submission he said, "The demand they are putting forward, I think there is a lot of cognitive dissonance where you are trying to hold two opposing views at once. Labour's demands for refineries to be fixed, its going to take forever to fix them. Also Rufai was talking about modular refineries in the private sector, You cannot have profitable modular refineries in a downstream sector that is regulated... you cannot ask for refineries to be fixed and also have fuel subsidy in place. It cannot work. Dr was talking that they want teachers to be paid more, well, the public schools are supposed to be revenue generating assets and fees have gone up. You cannot complain about fees going up which is supposed to improve the remuneration of teachers and also want government to continue to keep fees down and subsidize education. Labour Union needs to be more realistic about the demands they are making and how they can be implemented," he said.

Rufai Oseni on his part, disagreed with Rotus. He was of the view that the demands of the Labour Union was due to government's lack of transparency.

He explained that; "Prior to this time, the problem about subsidy has always been about the transparency. They've been talking about turn around maintenance of the refineries all this while and they've been giving deadlines and we don't get turn around of modular refineries... If you look at what the government has expended as regard cost on this refineries all these years, it has been as a case of corruption that do not make us go to the end of all of these."

Oseni further said that there is a provision in law which, in order to guarantee energy security, allows fuel to be bought in naira by marketers. Oddiri interrupted: “But at what exchange rate?” Oseni refused to answer, noting that Oddiri was ambushing him.

“I’m not happy about your conduct. You’re ambushing me. If you interrupt me again, I’ll stop,” Oseni said.

Displeased by his action, Oseni called out his colleague, Rotus and threatened to stop his explanation which was intervened by Dr Reuben Abati, a co-host on the Morning Show.

Watch the video below;