The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned a husband and wife, Baba Sule Abubakar Sadiq and Hafsat Kabir Lawal, alongside two others, Abdullahi Bala and Ladani Akindele, before Justice Amina Bello of the Kaduna State High Court for obtaining money by false pretense, money laundering and stealing to the tune of N197,750,000 (One Hundred and Ninety Seven Million, Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira).

They were arraigned on six-count charges on Monday.

According to EFCC, the defendants allegedly colluded among themselves and defrauded their victims through different guises, including impersonating the wife of the Governor of Katsina State, Fatima Dikko Radda.

One of the charges reads: “That you Hafsat Kabir Lawal, Babasule Abubakar Sadiq, Abdullahi Bala, Ladani Akindele Ayodele, sometime in December 2024 at Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this honorable court with intent to defraud did obtain the sum of N89 million Only from Aminu Usman which money you caused to be paid in to the Taj Bank plc account number 0009914725 belonging to Abdullahi Bala under the false pretense that you had the sum of $53,300 to exchange for the Naira equivalent which pretense you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (1) of the advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 punishment under Section 1 (3) of the same Act”.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were read to them.

Prosecution counsel, Bright C Ogbonna prayed the court for a trial date and for the defendants to be remanded in a Correctional Facility.

Counsel to the 1st and 2nd defendants, M.S Katu (SAN), counsel to the 3rd defendant, ⁠Jazuli Mustapha and counsel to the 4th defendant, Paul A. Okachi informed the court that they had filed and served their various applications for the bail of their clients and that they were ready to proceed.

Ogbonna vehemently opposed the applications on the grounds that they were not ripe for hearing. In response, all the defense counsel prayed the court to allow for an oral application for bail.

After listening to the submissions and arguments made by both parties, Justice Bello agreed with the prosecution and consequently remanded the defendants in a Correctional Facility and adjourned the matter till March 17 for hearing of bail applications.

Investigations showed that Hafsat contacted the petitioners as one of the wives of the current governor of Katsina State, Malam Dikko Radda. Using that guise, she allegedly obtained the sum of N89 million and another N108 million from a petitioner claiming to have $118,300 to sell to them.

Further investigations showed that Hafsat’s husband, Sadiq( the second defendant) provided his wife with two sim cards and registered the same with the True Caller as Fatima Dikko Radda. He then allegedly contacted the fourth defendant, Ladani Akindele who was his former colleague at a new generation bank, and asked him to provide him with the contact number of the Chairman of Unity Bank, Hafiz Bashir, through whom he got the contact number of the petitioner who is a bureau de change operator.

Hafsat thereafter contacted the petitioner, Aminu Usman, and collected a total sum of N197,750,000 from him, claiming that she had dollar equivalent of the money ($118,300) to offer him.

EFCC says the money was said to have been deposited into the bank account of the 3rd defendant, Abdullahi Bala, provided by the first defendant, and the money was allegedly distributed among the four defendants and laundered through various means.

US university Johns Hopkins on Thursday announced plans to lay off more than 2,000 of its employees around the globe, noting that the move is coming on the heels of President Donald Trump’s administration’s massive reduction in foreign aid funds.

In a statement made available by the school on Thursday, the leading scientific said, “This is a difficult day for our entire community. The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work.”

The university is based in Baltimore, Maryland, the largest city an hour’s drive north of the US capital, but is eliminating at least 1,975 jobs in projects across 44 countries and 247 jobs in the United States.

New US President Donald Trump and his senior advisor, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, have embarked on a campaign to slash federal spending, targeting in particular support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for foreign aid, research and development.

Johns Hopkins University is one of the institutions hardest hit by these drastic reductions. In early March, its president Ronald Daniels explained in a message to students and professors that federal money accounted for nearly half of the backing it funds received last year.

Referring to a “historical relationship” between the “first American research university” and the government, he warned that students, researchers and professors would see damage to programs designed to improve health, hygiene and medicine across the world.

– Drinking water –

Thursday’s announcement confirmed that the cuts hit the university’s medical school and school of public health as well as Jhpiego, a global non-profit organization founded more than 50 years ago and which works to improve health in countries worldwide.

“Johns Hopkins is immensely proud of the work done by our colleagues in Jhpiego, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine to care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” the university said.

The university receives roughly $1 billion annually in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is currently running 600 clinical trials, according to The New York Times, which added that Hopkins is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging such cuts.

USAID, the largest funding agency for Jhpiego, distributes humanitarian aid around the world, with health and emergency programs in around 120 countries.

Trump, whose appointees are dismantling the humanitarian agency, signed an executive order in January demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid to allow time to assess expenses. Critics warn that slashing USAID work will endanger millions of lives.

Kaduna- Former Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasiru El-Rufai, has said that he sought the permission of former President Muhammadu Buhari before he left the All Progressives Congress, APC, and joined the Social Democratic Party, SDP.

He spoke in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, monitored by our correspondent in Kaduna, yesterday.

According to him, there was nothing he does without seeking the consent and advice of Buhari.

He said: “The APC has derailed, the party is no longer abiding by its founding principles. Everyone is working for himself, looking for money. The government is commercialised, everything has a price tag.

Justice has been kept at bay, those who worked for the party were ignored instead of being compensated. If there is any position or appointment, they give it to a Lagos boy, etc.

“That is why we’ve been speaking, we spoke, we said this is not the party we know. The party is dead. I said the only option is for me to meet Pastor Tunde Bakare, because he dragged me into APC. He took me to Buhari. I did not join the APC because of Buhari, it was Pastor Bakare, who dragged me to APC and courtesy demands I should let him know.

“Buhari too, I told him I was leaving the party, I sought his blessings and prayers. He said he has given me his blessings and prayers. We are the ones in politics, he (Buhari) is now father of the land and has been praying for us, so what remains?

“I’ve publicly denounced my membership of the party, they can go and hold on to the party, they can eat the party alone like food,we’ve given up.”

Asked if he decided to leave the party to avoid being expelled, El-Rufa’i said it would have been much better for him to be expelled from the APC.

“That would’ve been much easier for me, but look at it, as I kept on saying, I did not leave the party, it’s the party that dumped me. Why did it left me? First of all, I was marginalized, not involved in all party activities. Not that I was invited and refused to honour the invite, I was completely sidelined.

“Secondly, what we had planned to implement when we form government, it’s not what’s being implemented,” he alleged.

On the widespread assertion that he left the party because he was not considered for the ministerial appointment, El-Rufa’i said that was just a popular view.

“But did I even look for the ministerial position? I know those who even paid money to be appointed as ministers.

“Yes, I was at the screening because the President begged me. It was in the public glare, not the two of us for him to say he had never begged me. It was in Kaduna where he begged me to come and work with him. Even then, I did not agree until when we sat down and he told me what he wanted. That the problem of electricity had refused to allow the country to progress. He said he would like to be the President that would finally resolve the power problem and he begged me to come and help him achieve that. I told him that I would look at the challenge he gave me and would consider working with him. I thought he meant it.”

The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State during the 2023 general election, Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday.

According to TheCable, the meeting, which was not publicly announced, reportedly took place between 2 pm and 4 pm.

Naija News recalls that Jandor recently resigned from the PDP, citing “indiscipline and anti-party activities” within the party, but he has yet to disclose his next political move.

Jandor was previously a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before defecting to the PDP to contest the Lagos governorship election.

However, his run was marred by internal party divisions and what he described as a betrayal by the PDP’s national leadership on the eve of the election.

He insisted that he “would have won” the election but for a “false claim of alliance” that allegedly misled PDP supporters into voting for another candidate.

During the 2023 governorship race, the incumbent Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC secured 762,134 votes, while Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party came second with 312,329 votes. Jandor finished in third place with 62,449 votes.

In his resignation letter from the PDP, he expressed disappointment in the party’s leadership, saying, “I am here before you today without a heavy heart and a clear conscience. We have dedicated ourselves to the ideals of democracy—both good governance and the pursuit of a better Lagos.

“However, it has become evident that the leadership of the PDP, both at the national and state levels, has failed to uphold its principles.”

He also hinted at a potential move to another party, stating, “We will consult widely with everybody and then take the decision to collapse our structure to another platform. The major thing now is that we have left the PDP.”

The details of Jandor’s meeting with Tinubu remain unclear, but sources within Aso Rock suggest it was a fence-mending move that could pave the way for his return to the APC or an alliance ahead of the 2027 general election.

Prior to his meeting with Tinubu, Jandor had also visited former Heads of State, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, in Minna, Niger State.

He later met with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and senior officials of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), fueling further speculation about his next political steps.

Confirming the development, Jandor’s spokesperson, Gbenga Ogunleye, stated: “I can confirm that Dr. Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran (Jandor) met with President Bola Tinubu on Monday. He has also met with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former President Ibrahim Babangida, former Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and SDP’s 2023 presidential candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo, among other notable figures. These meetings are part of his ongoing consultations following his resignation from the PDP. 

“The PDP National Secretary and other party leaders recently visited him, appealing for a reconsideration of his resignation.

“Dr. Adediran is scheduled to meet with his political associates and key stakeholders in Lagos over the weekend and will address the media on Monday, March 17, 2025.”