The Rivers State Police Command said its men killed six suspected kidnappers during a shootout at Obelle community, in the Emohua Local Government Area of the state.

City Round gathered that the gang members, led by one Uchechukwu Daniel, opened fire on men of the anti-cultism unit, who stormed their hideout.

However, the cops reportedly returned fire, killing six of the suspects and arresting six others.

The state Commissioner of Police, Emeka Nwonyi, disclosed this while briefing newsmen at the police headquarters, Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, on Friday

He, however, said aside from those gunned down, some of the miscreants escaped with bullet wounds.

In another case, the CP said operatives on patrol along the King Perekule Junction, GRA, Port Harcourt, intercepted and rescued some kidnap victims.

“On Friday, June 30, around 1000hrs, while on metro patrol along King Perekule Street, GRA, following a tip-off, operatives intercepted and rescued victims of a kidnap case reported to the command.

“The victims narrated that one of their friends was kidnapped and taken away by hoodlums, who were operating in a carton colour Lexus RX 350 after shooting at their vehicle’s tyre.

“Pieces of 7.2 empty shell and a Techno phone belonging to the victim were also recovered,” Nwonyi stated.

The police boss further disclosed that following credible information, operatives trailed some suspected kidnappers to their hideout at Ozuoha, in Ikwerre LGA, where a victim was rescued unhurt, while one of the suspects, Buchi David, 20, was arrested.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of Khana LGA, Dr Thomas Bari-Ere, while briefing newsmen, narrated how men of the Bori division while acting on a tip-off, stormed a suspected kidnappers’ camp and recovered a human skull, a pump-action rifle and two AK-47 rifles.

He said, “We received intelligence that one of the suspects in police custody by the name of Ojukwu has a place where he stores his arms as well as human skulls.

“He uses them to administer oaths to his victims for them to keep his identity secret.

“So, we alerted security operatives; the Bori Police Division, alongside the anti-cultism unit, acted swiftly. The operation was successful. Two AK-47 rifles, a human skull and a pump action were recovered.”

Yoruba nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, is set to return back to the country, his lawyer, Mr. Pelumi Olajengbesi, has revealed.

Igboho escaped from the country in 2021 after operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, raided his residence in Ibadan, an operation the security agency confirmed led to the death of two persons and the arrest of about 13 others. 

The DSS, through its spokesman, Dr. Peter Afunanya, said it carried out the raid after intelligence reports revealed that Igboho allegedly stockpiled weapons in his house.

It, thereafter, launched a manhunt for Igboho who was subsequently arrested in neighbouring Cotonou, Benin Republic, while trying to travel to Germany.

However, addressing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, Olajengbesi, said the embattled Yoruba nation activist, who had since regained his freedom, would soon return back to the country.

“Igboho is doing very well and he will soon be in Nigeria in a very ceremonial way. The arrangements are on,” Olajengbesi told newsmen.

He, however, lamented his inability to enforce a judgement that was delivered in favour of his client, a situation he said was made difficult by the fact that the consent of the Attorney-General of the Federation must first be secured before security agencies could pay judgement debts.

While calling for a review of that provision of the law, Olajengbesi, urged the Federal Government under President Bola Tinubu to have a rethink about people he described as “freedom fighters.”

The lawyer maintained that people like Igboho, the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, as well as the embattled convener of the RevolutionNow protest, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, deserved to be listened to by the government.

He commended President Tinubu “for his purposeful leadership drive, restructuring of the governmental policies and operational systems since assuming the office,” adding that he has “rekindled the hope of average Nigerians that government can serve the common good of the people.”

“We therefore encourage Mr. President to continue in this direction with equity and justice as his working value system.

“We equally want to commend the acting Inspector General of Police; Olukayode Egbetokun for an unusual reforms in the Nigeria Police Force and his commitment to holding errant officers accountable for abuse of official duties and violation of human rights. He is bringing a new value system to the Nigeria police system and this new drive must be sustained.

“We must also commend INEC for filing charges against its suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa Ari in Adamawa State. This is a step in the right direction and it is commendable.”

Highlighting what he termed as certain critical issues in the country that has become a sordid tale for the people, Olajengbesi, asked FG to immediately scrap its Service Compact With All Nigerians, SERVICOM, insisting that the agency has failed to serve its purpose.

The lawyer warned that the Federal Government should stop the tax payers money from being used to fund a moribund organization like SERVICOM which he claimed, is no longer serving any useful purpose.

“The body was supposed to be a mechanism through which Nigerians can lodge complaints against tyrannical and errant public officers whose conducts falls below the standard required of a public and civil servants. SERVICOM customarily have offices in all federal government agencies, take complaints and ensure efficiency, justice and fairness in all government agencies.

“Unfortunately, this body has now failed to uphold the purpose of its establishment. The agency no longer addresses complaints and has now become very ineffective.

“The organization leadership and modus oparandi has accordingly encouraged abuse of official duties on the one hand as well as precluding victims of these errant officers from accessing appropriate remedy within the administrative system,” he added.

Besides, he decried that extant laws in the country has continued to subject citizens to various double taxation policies.

He said: “For instance, the trite position of law is that owners of business names duly registered with Corporate Affairs Commission is not under a legal duty to pay tax over the business name; rather such a person is expected to pay Personal Income Tax pursuant to Section 2 of CITA.

“Unfortunately, it is now a compelling practice for Business names to separately obtain Tax Identification Number (TIN) which consequently expose them to payments of tax while the proprietors of such business names equally pay Personal Income Tax resulting in double taxation.

“Additionally, the government just announced plan to impose the sum of One Thousand naira levy on Nigerian as an annual vehicle proof of ownership levy.

“This is in addition to Personal Income Tax being paid annually by vehicle owners and thousands of naira being paid annually for renewal of vehicle particulars to the government.

“It is our position that these are issues of double taxation that must be keenly considered by the government.”

In many countries, those who are interested in the management of public affairs join political parties to actualise their career in the public domain. Usually, the political parties profess distinct appoaches, which make people qualify them as either progressive or conservative. The classification notwithstanding, parties usually have programmes they intend to execute in furtherance of public good. That is called manifesto. It is same in Nigeria as in other parts of the world.

But here, one of the indicators of our stunted development since flag independence is that there seems to be a wide chasm between what the politicians come up with, which they execute while in office, and what the people REALLY need to live better lives. That explains why today, there are very few states left in the country that do not have an airport. Many state governors continue to embark on airport projects, irrespective of the fact that they may not be commercially viable.

The widening chasm between what politicians do in office and what the people expect and/or need came to the fore earlier in the week just ending, when the Secretary to the Federal Government, Senator George Akume, hinted that in the future, government will reciprocate Chinese goodwill to Nigeria by seeing to it that faculties where Chinese languages will be taught will be established in Nigeria universities. He was receiving a Chinese delegation led by the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun, in Abuja. Let me quote Akume:

“We appreciate the fact that you have given scholarships to our students studying in various universities in the Peoples Republic of China and some have graduated. We want to appeal that you step up the issue of scholarship and give us more. You won’t regret it, before you know it, you find many Nigerians speaking your language. We look forward to the time we will also establish faculties in Nigerian universities where Chinese language would be taught to students,” he said.

I do not think Akume said the right things to the Chinese delegation that visited him, and also do not think that teaching Chinese language in Nigerian schools is the way to reciprocate Chinese goodwill. The best way, in my book, to say thank you to the Chinese is to use whatever loans we took from them for the purpose they were taken, and repay, according to the terms.

In 2020, African countries with the largest Chinese debt were Angola ($25 billion), Ethiopia ($13.5 billion), Zambia ($7.4 billion), the Republic of the Congo ($7.3 billion), and Sudan ($6.4 billion). As far back as 2018, China bidded to take over the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport should the Zambia Government fail to pay back its huge foreign debt on time.

We should not be as remiss as some of our fellow African countries, who risk losing control of key infrastructure to the Chinese because of loan defaults. It will be nightmarish for us to have the Chinese managing the Nigerian Railway Corporation, or the Murtala Muhammed and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airports and others, for which loans were taken by the Buhari government to refurbish and upgrade.

As for teaching Chinese language, SGF Akume should withdraw that as it is simply a NO-NO. If you set up departments of Chinese language in Nigerian universities, you’ll have to import Chinese to come and teach the language, and that will come at huge cost in terms of foreign exchange. Besides, it will open a new vista of re-colonisation by a fast-rising Asian power, while we are still struggling with the effects of European colonialism. I am one of those who believe fervently that much of the ingredients needed for the greatness of Nigeria in all fields of human endeavour remain locked in our languages. We will truly be on the path to national development and greatness when we start delivering educational instruction in our languages. What SGF Akume should bother himself with is how to get the educational system to start teaching Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects in our languages. I know the Russians, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, and other developed non-English speaking countries educate their people in their languages. That is easy to confirm. Graduates of German universities are plenty in Nigeria, and will testify that you go to language school, first, and pass, before continuing with the course you were originally admitted to study.

So, if tomorrow, we find ourselves cozying up with the Russians or Ukrainians and start getting Russian credit, we would reciprocate by teaching Russian? Or Ukrainian?

In reality, Nigerians have endured enough torture trying to use other peoples’ languages to get on in the world. The new government headed by President Bola Tinubu, in which Akume is SGF, should begin earnestly to look inwards for local solutions to the things we spend huge resources to procure from foreign lands. There is bountiful talent in Nigeria; what remains is how we use them for the greater good of all.

Undoubtedly, Nigerians have been swamped and wearied by a barrage of policy pronouncements by the new Federal administration in the country in the past one month. Unexpectedly, these new policies or ‘reforms’ have left the economy worse off than in the first five months of the year. Indeed Nigeria’s economic situation has become a subject of global interest, attracting analyses, reviews, critiques and ‘warnings’ from nations and institutions across the world. Multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), African Development Bank (AfDB) among others, have all in various forms and manners expressed their views about the ‘supersonic’ pace of ‘reforms’ ongoing in Nigeria.

In line with this trend, Bank of America (one of the world’s leading financial institutions), a few days ago, warned that Nigeria’s hyper-inflation rate may hit 30 per cent by the close of this year. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Bank’s sub-Saharan Africa Economist, Tatonga Rusike said “at the current trend, inflation may quicken to 30 per cent by the end of the year from 22.4 per cent in May.” He advised that “the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may need to increase interest rate by at least 700 basis points before the end of the year to curb inflation.” Rusike then warned that “if this decision is not taken, foreign investors might exercise caution before investing in the country.” In sum, he said “if the negative real interest rate is not reversing, then it is less likely to see foreign inflow coming into the country,” and raised a doubt that “it is less likely the CBN will do such level of interest rates increases.”

These admonitions by the Bank of America (BoA) largely contain all the pains and hardships so far unleashed on Nigerians by the economic ‘reforms’ of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in the past one month. Run-away inflationary trend, impoverishment of the populace, low/diminishing foreign investment inflow, quantum Naira devaluation, rattled apex bank that is muzzled by political expediency, etc., have all become features of the economy since May 29, 2023. Although desirable, the sudden removal of petrol subsidy immediately led to skyrocketing prices of goods and services beyond the reach of majority of the citizenry. The purchasing power of the masses (especially, salary earners and others on fixed incomes) as well as their standard of living dropped very sharply. Many businesses (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs) were forced to close shops owing to escalating costs—rooted in high prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) which powers their operations.

As these ugly unintended consequences were unfolding, the Tinubu administration, apparently driven by heroism or playing to the gallery, forced the merger of exchange rates to happen. The CBN, already cowed by the suspension of its (former) boss few weeks earlier, did the puppet’s job of not only forcing the merger of the exchange rates but also dismantling ‘every support’ for the local currency. By every economic consideration, the closeness of petrol subsidy removal and exchange rates unification and ancillary actions amounted to a ‘suicide’ of sorts. A country in pursuit of an export-led economic growth can devalue its currency to make its goods and services attractive.

But clearly for Nigeria, an almost wholly import-dependent and largely mono-product economy—a wholesale floating (or devaluation) of its currency is certainly counterproductive to economic progress. From time immemorial, a large proportion of the citizenry have preference for foreign goods and services; manufacturers import machineries and raw materials; Nigerians in their numbers go for foreign degrees and certificates as well as medical tourism—all paying in hard currencies. This culture and preferences have existed side-by-side with shortage of dollar and other foreign currencies over the years. As a largely mono-product economy—depending almost entirely on earnings from crude oil export, Nigeria has no substantial foreign exchange inflow from the export of non-oil items. Indeed, successive administrations had over the years paid only lip service to diversification of the national economy.

Unfortunately, oil and gas sector—the mainstay of the Nigerian economy—is consistently bogged with motely intractable problems: crude oil theft, to which the country loses over seventy per cent of her oil output; widespread vandalism of oil installations and assets; outright sabotage, among others. All these have whittled the nation’s oil production capacity—leading to inability to meet her OPEC-allocated quota for a long time now. Again, all these have led to diminishing earnings (forex inflow) from crude oil sales. And only a minuscule comes from non-oil exports!

In a manner of throwing away the baby with the bathe water, the Tinubu administration’s ‘reform hurricane’ also pulled down the well-packaged non-oil export drive/incentives put in place by the CBN early last year. Tagged ‘RT200’, the initiative with its bouquet of incentives for non-oil export promotion had gained the buy-in of stakeholders in the past on year. Within the period, it had recorded substantial foreign exchange inflow—an addition to crude oil sales. But the CBN has been ‘forced’ not only to cancel this effort but also to liberalize access to domiciliary accounts by their owners—with authorization to withdraw cash to a maximum of ten thousand dollars daily. So far, the result of all these has been lingering acute shortage of foreign exchange in the forex market: gross undersupply of forex vis-à-vis huge rising demand. And the Naira keeps crashing in value against the dollar and other foreign currencies.

The continued weakening Naira translates to (high) cost-push inflation as producers of goods and services factor in huge (unplanned) volume of the local currency for forex procurement. The more Naira they commit to acquiring forex, the higher their overall cost of production, ultimately. In turn, worsening forex scarcity translates to more Naira per dollar—now standing at about N760/$, up from N460/$ a month ago! This collapsing Naira value—and implied inflationary pressure—translates to declining purchasing power and impoverishment of many citizens. This trend is yet likely to be worsened by the Federal government’s plan to license more companies to import PMS, rather than the fast-tracking of the re-streaming of the existing local refineries.

The PMS importers will obviously utilize volumes of dollar, and thus add pressure to the already scarce forex, and their (selling) prices will surely reflect the high exchange rate. This will likely keep pushing up the prices of goods and services in the polity—in the form of the runaway inflation as warned by the Bank of America. But beyond the dreaded high inflation, Nigeria’s overall investment climate is anything but attractive. Widespread insecurity, barrage of new policies, multiplicity of taxes and levies, ever weakening consumer demand, deeply entrenched corruption, among others are serious disincentives to investors—local or foreign.

Indeed, Nigeria remains uncompetitive in the world of investments; it is only hope for a better future that keeps some optimists going—businesses and individuals alike! They are looking forward to the Eldorado that may never come, because in the words of the revered Economist, Maynard Keynes: “in the long run, we are all dead.” In truth, the Tinubu administration is yet to place before Nigerians and the entire world, its full economic development roadmap. What is happening now is more of a whimsical arbitrariness and staccato disruption of the economy. Some kind of ‘dismantling’ of perceived ‘ugly’ past, in the face of uncharted future pathways. We hope it doesn’t end up as a mere grope in the dark!

• The author, Mr. Okeke, an economist, sustainability expert and consultant on business strategy lives in Lekki-Lagos. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sunset at dawn on a dark day, 7th of July, 1998. Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, Nigerian entrepreneur, philanthropist and politician exit to the great beyond. It was five years and 25 days after the military annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election and incarcerated the acclaimed winner, the charismatic businessman and politician, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola. The symbol of Democracy and African version of Martin Luther king Jr (MLK) died in a very controversial circumstances in the hands of the military adventurists.

MKO, was a man of pan-Nigerian vision and ambition, who went into politics to give the people hope, to unite them and lead them out of poverty. His campaign manifesto was instructively titled “Hope 93 — Farewell to Poverty: How to make Nigeria a better place for all.” Bashorun was a Pan-Africanist Par-Excellence not an ethnic champion. The pillar of sport in Africa laid down his life for DEMOCRACY. He was larger than life: Let me mention one aspect of him that makes him standout: in my opinion, his quest to see majority of the black population go from illiterate to literate and from rags to riches hasn’t been matched till date by any Nigerian or African rich man. As a lover of literacy, as at 1993, he had already built 41 libraries across 24 states in Nigeria. Don’t get it twisted, it was unlike the ‘packaged fraud’ Bashorun Abiola was the issue; the real thing about Nigeria is the MKO’s mandate ‘June 12 and the controversial circumstances of that dark day 7th July 1998.

Before, going further, let me share with us part of the revelations or confessions within the corridors of power on that dark day: Zadok returned, he met Major Aliyu, who told him that Abiola fell down after taking a cup of tea.

“I quietly went inside,” said Zadok, “and I saw Chief M.K.O Abiola lying on the floor facing down.

“I called him for the first time; he answered and I lifted him up, and turned him upside, and called him again for the second time; he did not answer.”

Aliyu informed Abdulsalami minutes after Abiola was confirmed dead.

Fifteen years after this chain of events, Akhigbe died on October 28, 2013, without revealing all that he knew about Abiola’s death.

It is on record that Akhigbe was the only highly-placed member of the Abubakar junta that openly admitted that Abiola was indeed murdered. Even though he insisted that his convenient presence in Aso Rock on the day Abiola was murdered was an “unfortunate coincidence.

Unarguably, MKO was richer than a country. He was influential and powerful. Bashorun controlled virtually everything in his lifetime; from business, communications, politics, international affairs, reparation issue and even sports in Africa. MKO had virtually everything he wanted; fame, connection, and influence. He was even elected President of one of Africa’s freest and fairest elections. Although, he was robbed of his mandate under enigmatic circumstances.

Thankfully, June 12, Democracy day celebration, without any iota of doubt, is M.K.O Abiola’s day of glory. It is akin to Martin Luther King’s national holiday in America. Abiola is the single most important architect of the modern democracy. He won the June 12 presidential election in 1993 fair and square. But it was annulled. In pursuit of his mandate, he paid the supreme sacrifice. The struggle to actualise that mandate, prolonged and sometimes vicious, eventually resulted in the return to democratic dispensation on May 29 1999 with political power ceded to the South West, the home region of Abiola.

In conclusion, I like to join our compatriots home and abroad in standing with the family members of the pillar of sport in Africa Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO) in celebration of life and times of the African soldier. And also to salute the demonstration of courage, determination and resilience of our great leaders who stood their grounds for DEMOCRACY. The likes of our current President Asíwájú Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Prof Wole Soyinka (WS), Ayo Opadokun, Femi Falana (FF), Yele Sowore (SOS), Col. Umar Dangiwa RTD, Ebitu Ekiwe, Ndubuisi Kanu, Frank Kokori, Kunle Ajibade, Bagauda Kaltho, Kudirat Abiola, Pa Alfred Rewane Anthony Enahoro, Beko Ramsome-Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi and many others too numerous to mention.

Richard Odusanya a Mind Restructuring Enthusiast.

Italy, the beautiful south-central European country that juts into the Mediterranean Sea and embraces the Alps, giving mountainous hugs to Switzerland and France, is one of the earliest human civilizations. So civilized that its animals are protected in the country’s constitution and have fundamental rights such as the right of a dog to be walked out in the streets, at least thrice weekly. Animals kept for farming purposes have the right to food, water, satisfactory environmental conditions and right to free movement.

If animals can be so well regarded how much more humans? However, that is the basic issue. While the Italian state treats its citizens with dignity, it has laws on migrants headed for its shores that states clearly that their lives are not only worth less than that of a dog or rabbit, but that they do not even have a right to life.

In its Piantedosi Act passed on February 24, 2023, if a charity vessel carrying persons rescued at sea comes across a vessel in distress, a shipwreck or persons drowning in the turbulent waters, it must not rescue them. Rather, such a ship must first sail to a designated port, no matter how far, discharge its passengers, do necessary paper work before seeking to return to the disaster scene. The new Italian sea law criminalises multiple sea rescues. The captain or owner of any vessel which breaches the new law is liable to a fine of between 10,000 and 50,000 euros ($53,355) while the vessel can be impounded for up to two months or even confiscated.

The new law is a fine-tuning of the Italian government’s 2022 policy of blocking humanitarian ships from accessing its ports because it is not the duty of Italy to take in people rescued from the seas.

In implementing the new law and ensuring drowning people are not quickly rescued – if they are rescued at all – the Italian government designates faraway ports for rescue vessels. This not only increases the operational costs of the vessels, but also reduces the time for possible new rescue. Although Italy claims its coast guard rescues vessels in distress, but the complaint is that it is only when a distress vessel reaches the Italian search-and-rescue zone on its own, before the coast guards begin to respond. Even at that, it is not an immediate response as the vessel may be left on its own to tug on to an Italian port before rescue is carried out. Until then, the distressed vessel and its occupants are on their own.

The Italian government’s action against the rescue vessels in the name of stemming migration, is not logical. This is because statistically, the overwhelming number of those migrating to Italy, do not come across the Mediterranean Sea, they come from Eastern Europe. For instance, in 2020, 16 per cent of the migrants came from Romania, 7.6 per cent from Albania, 7.1 per cent from Morocco; Ukrainians accounted for 4 per cent and China for 3.7 per cent. This means that of the bulk 38.4 per cent of migrants only 7.1 per cent came from Africa and the Middle East.

In 2022, 90 per cent of the 105,000 migrants who arrived in Italy did not come through the vessels; they were migrants mainly from Eastern Europe. Only 10 per cent came over the seas.

So, the new Italian law is primarily designed to make the rescue of human lives in the seas very difficult, expensive and criminal.

The Italian government is already putting its new anti-human law into practice. A German rescue ship, Sea-Eye 4 was heading to the port of Ortona, in the central region of Abruzzo after rescuing 17 persons in the Libyan search-and-rescue zone when it got a distress call. It was from a boat carrying over 400 people. It decided to turn back go to its rescue. The Italian government on June 2, 2023, found the ship guilty of violating the new law, and clamped a 20-day detention on it.

A similar sanction was imposed on a sister rescue vessel, Mare*Go. The 104-year-old, four-metre-long pleasure craft with 36 rescued persons on board, was directed by the Italian authorities to head to the port of Trapani, on the west coast of Sicily to dock. But the vessel warned that it could not cover that distance. So it was sanctioned. The Mare*Go in a reaction said: “This current new law is another tool to let more people on the move drown at sea.”

The Italian government also accused the Geo Barents vessel, owned by the Doctors Without Borders ,MSF, of withholding some information after it rescued 48 migrants and ferried them to the Adriatic port of Ancona. For this alleged criminal act, Geo Barents was blocked for 20 days and MSF fined 10,000 euros.

The Italian authorities had apparently been on the lookout for the MSF vessel which had on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 rescued 61 persons. However, as it headed for the La Spezia port as instructed by the Italian authorities, it received a distress call and turned back. Then, it received a third distress call from another vessel, thus engaging in three rescue operations and saving 237, including 73, unaccompanied minors, UAMs. It is such spectacular rescues, the new law wants to stop. The Italian state would rather the lives perish at sea than be rescued.

In human history and practice, when a distress ‘Mayday’ call which indicates that that a vessel is in grave danger and needs immediate assistance, goes out, all vessels and humans within the area rush to its rescue as it may be sinking or there is fire on board. It is this sense of oneness and value for human life the Italian government is trying to obliterate.

The new Italian law violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS, which makes it obligatory for a ship captain to render immediate assistance to people in distress. Also, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, OLAS, imposes on countries a legal obligation to provide assistance to those in distress, including, if necessary, carrying out multiple rescue operations. This is also part of the European Union law – REGULATION, EU, No 656/2014) – which binds Italy. But who can call Italy to order? It is not listening to the UN, EU, international organisations or the Vatican.

Italy prefers to be lawless and treat human life with the type of levity it does not treat even its animals.

“The man is in the hands of the authorities. Something is being done about that. They will sort themselves out.The financial system was rotten. Few people were making away with our money…that is gone now; the man (Emefiele) is in the hands of the authorities,”-President Bola Ahmed Tinubu 

The extant grooming of the Nigerian public to focus its angst on the former central bank, CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, serves the purpose of making the banker a scapegoat for the bigger culprit, former President Muhammadu Buhari, on whose desk, the buck stops. Moreso, in this specific instance, when the bank was effectively reduced to the status of an Aso rock villa annex. At the level of generalisation, this is a universal political phenomenon in which deniability is a strategic component of reducing the vulnerability of presidents to hostile inquiry in and out of office. Deniability is plausible and effective when it is minimally deployed, not when it becomes the raison d’etre of the totality of a benighted presidency. 

In the instant, we are led to believe that Buhari is a daft empty minded sovereign who sees no evil, hears no evil and does no evil.That his minions and proxies, from top to bottom, are the ones exploiting the leadership vacuum, to wreak havoc on Nigeria. A misrepresentation is all but summed up in the frivolous exculpation that Buhari is not personally corrupt. What are the parameters for making the determination that a president is not personally corrupt? Would a president be deemed personally corrupt or not corrupt if he, by omission and commission, set up his family and friends to serve as fronts? What would be the implicit utility of the billions allegedly accumulated by the likes of Tunde Sabiu and the eighty two years old nephew of the president, Maman Daura? 

If a president’s cronies took a cue from their principal’s body language to gorge themselves senseless with public resources, would this exculpate Buhari from being judged personally corrupt? How much was his security vote and how was it expended? For what reason would a president resolutely retain so called juicy appointments for ethno regional confederates, if not a dog whistle of a tacit acquiescence to plunder as they wish. 

Hobbled by a number of circumstances, the regret is that his successor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, cannot be realistically expected to avail the Nigerian public of the extent to which his predecessor is personally not corrupt. There is the constraining intervening variable of intra-party succession made worse by the fact that the party itself is corruption personified. It is the rule globally, much more so in Africa, that the inclination to probe a predecessor positively corresponds to the degree of the ‘hostile takeover’ by a successor. Were Jonathan to have been succeeded by a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, president, it is improbable, his government would have been subjected to the public show trial conducted by his All Progressives Congress, APC, successor. 

This partisan abetment is reinforced by the implication of Tinubu in the story of institutional corruption in Nigeria. As such he is not expected to readily don the toga of anti-corruption crusader, were he to be otherwise persuaded, in the first place. There is the additional hamstring of anticipatory or aspirational corruption in which a government turns a blind eye to prior acts of corruption and tamps down on anti-corruption rhetoric (in the interest of its own potential fignalling with the public till). 

President Tinubu bore witness to this scenario when he publicly identified a personal opportunity for corrupt enrichment in the legacy of the hitherto two tier window of dealing in foreign currency. “I could afford to share the benefit by participating in the arbitrage, but God forbid! That’s not why you voted for me,” he said. There are, even now, reports of incoming public officials swearing to ownership of fictitious trillions in their declaration of assets as alibi for what they intend to steal from public coffers, going forward. 

There is a morality tale for the president here. In the Nigerian corruption perception index at the inception of their presidency, Tinubu is the opposite of Buhari. At that stage, the latter enjoyed national and international acclaim as an anti-corruption crusader. At the time, this seemed a fair albeit generous assessment 

Eight years of his presidency to the bargain, the man had launched a grenade to explode the myth of his abstemious integrity. Never call a man great until the end of his life, cautions the bard. To the contrary, Tinubu is coming to office with the baggage of a deserved reputation as ‘a corrupt political fixer’. Now, he has an opportunity to make amends and poked the middle fingers at the sceptics. Personally my prayer is that like Buhari, he would undo this earned reputation. 

Beyond the unravelling of Buhari’s reputation as a man of integrity, the myth of his naive innocence is controverted by his freudian slip declaration of intent he let loose in faraway Washington at the early days of his presidency. He solemnly swore to adopt parochial discrimination in favour of those who gave him ninety-seven of their votes. He then proceeded to double down on this policy with his request from the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim. “In my very first meeting with President Buhari the president specifically said that he would like us to shift our focus to the northern regions of Nigeria and we’ve done that,” said Mr. Kim. 

On his penchant for literally zoning the office of the chief of army staff position to the pan Islamic North, this was his revealing rationalisation. “People who have been there for 18 years or even for 10 years, they trained in Zaria or in Abeokuta, they come through the ranks.“And because they served under all the circumstances, the crises and everything and they gradually rise to that status and you think you just pick somebody just to balance up? These positions have to be earned”. 

So here was Nigeria’s commander in chief making the dubious claim that, of the lot of Nigerian army officers of Christian North and Southern Nigeria origins, none merits appointment as chief of army staff. It did not occur to him that were this truly the case, the Nigerian army will willy lilly stand accused of the practice of apartheid in the upward mobility of officers. This is not the language and logic of a man blissfully unaware of the world around him. It is the mindset of a cunning mischief maker set on an ulterior agenda. If this segment of the Nigerian army were so lacking in qualification, where, then, did his successor find the newly appointed chief of army staff. 

To further prove the point of his malicious capacity for full engagement with selective policy issues was his ideological agitation over IPOB and Biafra. “IPOB (said the purportedly empty minded simpleton) is just like a dot in a circle. Even if they want to exit, they will have no access to anywhere. And the way they are spread all over the country, having businesses and properties, I don’t think IPOB knows what they are talking about. In any case, we say we’ll talk to them in the language that they understand. We’ll organise the police and the military to pursue them.”

From what we know of Nigeria’s power politics and how it impacts the tenure of appointees from outside the ranks of the exclusive favoured captive enclave, Emefiele should be reckoned to have compensated for his retention in office with a sworn oath of servitude to the Buhari writ large cabal. He remained in office at the sufferance of a president loath to tolerate any strategic office holder not bearing a pan arabic northern identity. Thus sworn to mindless sycophancy to the Buhari cabal, it was how high he would jump whenever self-enrichment requests to compromise his office were made from the Villa. 

There is absolutely no reason to doubt that pervasive corruption was the order of the day during the pendency of Emefiele at the CBN but such comitance was coterminous and coextensive with the agenda of his principal. With specific regards to the monetary policy that got the goat of then candidate Tinubu, (the currency redesign policy), the vested interest fingerprints of Buhari are boldly implanted all over the policy instrument. Such indicators are ‘”President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Ahmed Halilu as the Managing Director of Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, NSPMC Plc, DAILY NIGERIAN reports. Halilu, an elder brother of First Lady Aisha Buhari”. “I am aware that this new monetary policy has also contributed immensely to the minimization of the influence of money in politics,” 

Former governor and former minister of aviation, Isa Yuguda, may not have had Buhari in mind when he went public with his committee report on the Nigerian national petroleum corporation, NNPC. Inter alia he said “I am sad to let Nigerians know what I saw; we came across situations where subsidy was claimed on pipelines that never existed. They (NNPC and Marketers) just claim that they have pumped X amount of either finished products or crude”

“Those that claimed to pump the products and those that are in the subsidy scam, they just fill papers, invoices and they claim subsidy on it” When asked again if it was indeed the NNPC that was making these claims, Yuguda replied in the affirmative. “Who else is doing it,”. Yet, Buhari was the minister of petroleum. 

And in the spirit of the Bulkachuwa confession culture, the former president pointedly unveiled his culpability in the subsidy scam a week ago. Playing dubious politics with the lives of Nigeria, he confessed “Finally we must be politically honest with ourselves. My administration in its last days could not have gone the whole way in removing the subsidy because the APC had an election to win. And that would have been the case with any political party that was seeking election for another term with a new principal at its head. Poll after poll showed that the party would have been thrown out of office if the decision as envisaged by the new Petroleum Industry Act was made”.

From our standpoint, the sum of the Buhari personae is his mastery of the art of hypocrisy, convenient memory lapse and looking the other way pretending to be unaware of the Nigerian fire he relentlessly stoked. This, for me, is his primary DNA to which incompetence, incapacity and ignorance of arrogance are adjunct genetics.

President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of a Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms.

The committee according to a statement issued by Dele Alake, Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy on Friday will be chaired by Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Mr. Taiwo Oyedele.

The statement said that setting up the committee was in consonance with President Tinubu’s promise to remove all barriers impeding business growth in Nigeria.

It explained that the committee will comprise experts from both the private and public sectors and have responsibility for the various aspects of tax law reform, fiscal policy design and coordination, harmonization of taxes, and revenue administration.

Explaining further, the Special Adviser to the President on Revenue, Mr. Adelabu Zacch Adedeji, said that President Tinubu recognizes the importance of a sound fiscal policy environment and an effective taxation system for the functioning of the government and the economy.

He said, ”Nigeria ranks very low on the global ease of paying taxes while the country’s Tax to GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world and well below the African average.

”This has led to an overreliance on borrowing to finance public spending which in turn limits the fiscal space as debt service costs consume a greater portion of government revenue, annually resulting in a vicious cycle of inadequate funding for socio-economic development.

”While some incremental progress has been recorded over the years, the outcomes have not been transformative enough to change the narrative,” he said.

Adedeji outlined the key challenges in Nigeria’s tax system to include multiple taxes and revenue collection agencies, fragmented and complex tax system, low tax morale, high prevalence of tax evasion, high cost of revenue administration, lack of coordination between fiscal and economic policies, and poor accountability in the utilization of tax revenue.

The establishment of this committee reflects President Tinubu’s commitment to addressing these challenges and bringing about transformative reforms in fiscal policy and taxation.

The committee’s primary objective is to enhance revenue collection efficiency, ensure transparent reporting, and promote the effective utilization of tax and other revenues to boost citizens’ tax morale, foster a healthy tax culture, and drive voluntary compliance.

These efforts will not only improve Nigeria’s revenue profile but also create a more conducive and internationally-competitive business environment.

”Our aim is to transform the tax system to support sustainable development and achieve a minimum of 18% Tax to GDP ratio within the next 3 years without stifling investment or economic growth.

”It should be noted that this committee will not only advise the government on necessary reforms, but will also drive the implementation of such recommendations in support of the comprehensive fiscal policy and tax reform agenda of the current administration,” the SA on Revenue added.

Mr. Oyedele is said to be a highly accomplished professional with extensive expertise in fiscal policy, taxation, and economic matters. He currently serves as PWC Africa tax leader.

He is the Thematic Lead for the Fiscal Policy & Planning Commission and serves as the Chairman of the West Africa Debt Management Roundtable of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).

He chairs the Taxation & Fiscal Policy Faculty Board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and is a member of the Nigerian Taxation Standards Board.

He also serves as a member of the Ministerial Committee on the implementation of Nigeria’s National Tax Policy.

He is a member of the Global Tax Forum and has previously served as a member of the Global Governing Council of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

As an educator, Oyedele holds the position of Associate Professor at the Babcock University Business School.

He is an alumnus of the London School of Economics & Political Science, Yale University and Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education. He is a guest lecturer at the Lagos Business School and the Founder and President of Impact Africa Foundation.

The 25-year-old suspect who stole a Mercedes Benz GLB 250, worth N55 million, during a test drive in Abuja has opened up on why he committed the act.

On Thursday, the police successfully captured the suspect after stealing the luxury car on June 30 in Abuja. He was discovered in a bush near Oteriroad, close to Doctors Quarters in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State on July 3.

The apprehended person, Meshach Siunuphro, was taken into custody in Benin City, Edo State.

Siunuphro, who claimed to be a 300-level Business Administration student in Turkey, attributed his actions to being hypnotized.

Additionally, he revealed his involvement in forex trading fueled his intention to acquire the car for personal use.

During the suspect’s public presentation, the Delta Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Bright Edafe, took the opportunity to caution car dealers and owners about a new method employed by criminals to steal vehicles from unsuspecting individuals.

He specifically advised against entrusting car keys to attendants at car wash centres.

French football star Kylian Mbappe on Thursday arrived his home country Cameroon.

He was met by jubilant fans as he visited his father’s village and the school for deaf children while in the country.

Mbappe, 24, was met by hundreds of admirers, many of whom were wearing Paris Saint-Germain’s jerseys as he commenced his three days stay in Cameroon on Thursday, July 6.

A troupe of roughly 100 traditional dancers performed in his honor. Afterward, the police escorted him off in an SUV with tinted windows as the footballer waved to the crowd.

Kylian Mbappe is expected to stay in the hotel complex run by the Yaounde-based family of former French tennis champion Yannick Noah.

The France national team captain and Joakim Noah, a former NBA player, are expected to play in a basketball game. Later, they will participate in a match against second-tier FC Vent d’Etoudi of Cameroon.

Fans trying to touch Kylian Mbappe as he visits Cameroon on Thursday.

Mbappe will then visit a school in Douala, the financial hub of the country, on Saturday before heading to Djebale, the village where his father Wilfried Mbappe was born.

His father left the village for France when he was a young man. While in France, he worked as a football coach and developed Mbappe’s football career.

Mbappe will get the opportunity to visit two schools in Yaounde and Douala that are funded by his charitable foundation, Inspired by KM.

The French footballer will also meet with many government officials, including Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, to discuss initiatives he wants to launch in Cameroon, according to a statement from his management team.