Responding to former Senate President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Senator Adolphus Wabara’s vow that any attempt by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, would be vigorously resisted.

In response, Mr Osita Okechukwu foundation member of APC, stated unequivocally that the blame game dished out to APC by Distinguished Senator Adolphus Wabara and Co who dug the grave of the PDP is misplaced in all materials particular.

He maintained that as long as the nemesis of Wabara and Co’s deliberate crass breach of presidential rotation convention between north and south, albeit PDP’s Constitution; namely Obi’s Labour Party, Kwankwaso’s NNPP and Wike’s Masquerade are alive and breathing, with open arms admitting defector-exits from PDP, there is no valid fear of one party state in Nigeria.

Wabara’s statement is coming as a former Governor of Imo State, Rt.Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Chuka Odom, and myriads of others resigned their membership from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Okechukwu maintained that blame game from BOT Chairman is no solution provider, therefore PDP should earnestly introspect on how best to pick the pieces of the party that is dangerously sinking.

He said that instead of careful introspection of its bleeding ailments and how to fix Obi and Kwankwaso’s exit and its troubled Wike’s Masquerade, plus imbibing the best tenets of internal democracy devoid of breach of the zoning convention, extant laws, planlessness and squandermania; the PDP most times arrogantly hauled unnecessary blame game on the APC.

“My understanding from our elder statesman’s vituperation is that PDP may not even recover in August after the ward, LGA, and State congresses and national convention; when they failed abinitio to embark on careful introspection to examine the root causes of Obi and Kwankwaso’s exit, especially Wike’s Masquerade which led a party that boasted of 60 years uninterrupted reign to woeful failure in 2023 presidential election. Truly PDP needs soul searching to make amends, rather than sweeping its troubled faction under the carpet.” Okechukwu quipped.

It could be recalled that the PDP after its much publicised NWC, National Caucus, BOT, Governors Forum and National Executive Council meetings at Abuja on Wednesday, 18 April, 2024, issued a blank communiqué and had been lambasting the APC.

The decision of President Bola Tinubu to inflict a census on the Nigerian school system is a welcome one. Education planning and development of a nation’s human capital industry without reliable data is like heading into battle armed with guesswork about your enemy’s military capabilities. Until a few years ago, the nation paraded the claim that Nigeria had 10 million children out of school. Development partners, the National Assembly, education planners and the Federal Ministry of Education swore by this data.

Then, without any basis in logic, study of demographic trends, or commonsense whatsoever, a new figure of 13 million out of school children was announced by everyone – and by no one in particular. Just like that! And that was after bandying around the 10 million out of school children figure for about 11 years. Pathetic, is it not?

Let us do a little math and, perhaps up-end the spurious statistics about out-of-school children in Nigeria, generally. Let us suppose that 19 states of the North each has one million children out of school. Let us also suppose that 17 southern states each has half a million children out of school. That will give you nearly 30 million out of school children in Nigeria. If you, however, decide to move from guesswork to actual calculations, knowing the contribution of states like Kano, Sokoto and a few others to the number of out of school children, then you must conclude that we have been cheerfully kidding ourselves; perhaps for too long, about statistics, national planning and national development.

That is why the presidential directive, calling for a census that would provide reliable and real-time data for meaningful planning, is a development that would enable the detection and better understanding and management of the number and specific needs of all schools in Nigeria, from primary to tertiary level. This is really more of an audit, to determine their present conditions and live-in facilities, their proximity to each other, and their infrastructural needs.

Beyond the foregoing, part of the expected outcomes includes reliable data on the number of teachers in the country, their qualifications, training support received, the self-development initiatives they can explore, as well as the number of pupils and students in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Not to be left out in the gamut of data to be gathered are the gender, academic performance and other indices that would give a holistic picture for meaningful interventions in the sector.

Looking at the government’s Data Repository, Out-of-School Children Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Skill Development and Acquisition (DOTS) policy initiative, the only conclusion one can draw is that the aim is to completely and comprehensively transform the education sector and upgrade overall human capital development. This would mean bringing about different, and improved, learning outcomes, skill acquisition and overall academic security of the nation’s learning demographics.

Because the information to be derived will aid federal and state interventions in teacher training, provision of teaching aids, etc., it is expected that the resulting data on gender-specific learning at various levels of the educational system, drop-out rates, indigency, and more will be monitored through dedicated portals/dashboards in the Federal Ministry of Education, offices of state governors, and local government chairpersons.

At least that is the idea and intendment. The hope is that the implied gain that is presupposed by this drive, which should help the government track the progress of students and use evidence-based, data-driven machinery to guide its interventions are realized. This should be very useful when you consider the problem of planning for out-of-school children, the girl child and others with specific learning disabilities.

In contrast to the foregoing, there was a lot of idle pretensions about educational development under the immediate past President, Muhhamadu Buhari. He left on a rather questionable note on education matters. Recall that his last Federal Executive Council (FEC) proved the sum of 4.7 billion for the construction of seven Model Schools in the six geo-political zones of the country, and Abuja. That decision prompted an article on this page on May 31, 2019, titled “Objection Mr. President”.

The article under reference, in objecting to the initiative, said: “The federal government can choose one Unity School from each of the geo-political zones and upgrade it to a Model School, or school of reference of some sort, instead of starting fresh school projects. A simple costs-benefits analysis shows that 4.7 billion Naira will go a very long way in rescuing the schools. To build new model schools is to award building contracts to “reliable” contractors. Construction of the schools will probably take some two years, or more, to be followed by the provision of state-of-the-art amenities; which essentially boils down to a series of procurement contracts”.

The article continued: “The seven Model Schools will not make any impact whatsoever on human capital development, or contribute to the growth of education, one way or another in Nigeria in the next five years. But upgrading some Unity School will do just that within the same timeframe. So, the proposed new schools will be nothing but a major capital project, resting on the mistaken assumption that the provision of learning infrastructure is the same thing as sustainable investment in education”.

On the matter of the unwisdom of  the move, the article continued thus: “It is not right that we should have a huge budgetary provision that will go down on record as proof of government commitment to education when it is not. We should not be content to celebrate cash evidence of massive government investment in education, when in fact the name of the Nigerian child is being taken in vain by contractors and government jobbers. Who builds models schools without simultaneously training Models Teachers? Should part of this freshly budgeted sum of 4.7 billion not perhaps go into strengthening the National Teachers Institute (NTI), the Teachers Registration Council (TRC) and probably reinvigorating the academic content and quality of various faculties of education nationwide/ do our teacher-producing facilities not need specialized short courses on contemporary teaching and learning paradigms and much more?

My take today, regarding the current move of the Tinubu government on school census, is that the Presidency must note and emphasize the difference between investment in physical infrastructure for education, and/ or learning environment, and investment in learning, teacher education, teacher knowledge upgrade, up-scaling of learning outcomes and other measures that would impact the quality of the products of our school system.

That article pointed out that “The expenditure of most states of the federation on education over the last twenty years of our democracy shows huge budgetary allocations to education, at the same time that we also show a precipitous decline in educational standards and learning outcomes. Some states with very high records of expenditure for classroom rehabilitation, the supply of desks, books, etc., also have the worst teacher training, school enrolment and retention records. Check the investment of the federal and state governments on the training of teachers, provision of teaching aids and more in the last 20 years. So, let us pull the blinkers off our eyes and get real”.

Besides the above objectionable intervention of FEC under Buhari, referenced above, this column had also cause to pick on the government of Kebbi State, on June 14, 2021; for the same blunder of mistaking investment in physical infrastructure for realistic investment in education. That was after the state government pulled the sum of N4.5billion for the construction and renovation of schools; with other reports suggesting that the state government was also to build brand new schools in every local government of the state.

Though the case of Kebbi was almost made less offensive by the fact that no fewer than 758 primary school teachers were said to be undergoing training on methodologies to impart more knowledge on students at the same time that the construction work was going on makes, the following questions were still addressed to the Kebbi State Government by the article, at the time: “(1) Is there a difference between expenditure on education infrastructure and actual investment in education and human capital development? (2) How many candidates enrolled for SSCE and related examinations in the last 10 years, and why? (3) Are your secondary teachers so versed in their respective teaching subjects that what they need now is “methodologies to impact more knowledge on students.” (4) Can you say, in all good conscience, that less than seventy per cent of your state’s education budget of the last 20 years have not been more of procurement contracts? And (5) Has there been an improvement in enrolment, retention and education outcomes?

As the Tinubu government zooms off with a commendable data-sensitive focus in education, for better planning, let us all bear in mind that this must not turn into another case of investment in education census for the records, as distinct from census for better national human resource development. The results should help the nation with measurable, and sustainable, outcomes.

If the expenditure of most states of the federation on education over the last twenty years of our democracy shows huge budgetary allocations to education, but with very embarrassing decline in educational standards and learning outcomes, it means that the problem of education in Nigeria goes beyond mere funding. Several states with recorded high expenditure in classroom rehabilitation, procurement of desks and supply of books, do not have wonderful teacher training, school enrolment and retention records. What is the level of the investment in the training of teachers in moder teaching methods in the last 20 years, nationwide?

All states of the federation need more schools, better equipped schools, better qualified, teachers and verifiable statistics for sustainable planning and development. More than that, they need authentic data, for meaningful planning. The planned school census is better late than never; and should leverage  new era of education administration in Nigeria – if properly carried out and its deliverables fully implemented.

In the last six months of 2023, the Federal Government of Nigeria received an additional N3.8 trillion in what appeared to be a fresh Ways and Means borrowing, according to a provisional data published in the latest statistics bulletin for the fourth quarter of the year recently released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

This is despite claims by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, that the President Bola Tinubu government had not borrowed money from the CBN. 

The CBN’s provisional data showed that the total figure rose from N4.4 trillion at the end of June 2023, meaning that the cumulative Ways and Means balances due by the government grew to N8.2 trillion as at December 2023. 

Total Ways and Means balances as at May 2023 when the Tinubu administration took over was N26.95 trillion. However, the balances were securitised as included as part of the federal government’s domestic debt profile. 

A breakdown of the data shows that the balance at the end of June 2023 was N4.36 trillion, indicating that the prior month balances may have been moved to the Debt Management Office.  

However, from July 2023, the balances increase every month, first to N4.5 trillion in July, then N5.1 trillion in August, crossing the N5.1 trillion mark for the first time.  

By September, the total was N6.4 trillion, representing the single largest additional borrowing for a month with about N1.3 trillion. It then climbed to N7.2 trillion in October before rising marginally to N7.6 trillion in November. 

At the end of the year, in December, the total hit N8.21 trillion, suggesting that Ways and Means increased by 88 per cent in six months. 

[DailyTrust]

The United States President, Joe Biden, has disclosed that he contemplated suicide after the death of his first wife and 13-month-old daughter in a car accident.

Biden disclosed this during an interview with radio journalist Howard Stern on Stern’s SiriusXM show.

The president’s first wife, Nelia, and one-year-old daughter, Naomi, died in a car crash in Delaware on December 18, 1972.

Recounting the pains of the past, Biden told Stern: ‘’You don’t have to be crazy to commit suicide if you’ve been to the top of the mountain and you think you’ll never be there again.

“For a brief moment I thought maybe I’ll just go to Delaware Memorial Bridge and just jump, but I had two kids.”

The President also said after his wife’s death, he used to take out a bottle of scotch and plan to get drunk, but could never make himself do it.

“I don’t drink, that’s not a virtue. I just never drank. And, I used to sit there and think to myself, I’m just gonna take out a bottle of scotch.

“We always had liquor in the house, and I was gonna just drink it and get drunk, and I can never bring myself to do it,” he said.

Biden has repeatedly talked about his reasons for abstaining from alcohol, once claiming ‘there are enough drunks’ in his family history.

Also, the US President expressed willingness to debate his Republican rival, Donald Trump, saying: ‘’I am, somewhere, I don’t know when, but I am happy to debate him.”

[DailyPost]

Afrobeats singer Davido has recalled how billionaire father, Adedeji Adeleke, gave him the stage name. 

Davido, in an interview with Business Untitled, said his father initially hesitated before supporting his music career.

The Grammy-nominated singer said when his song played on the radio, his father heard it and started calling him “Davido”.

“I do not think my dad is tough. I blew up when I was 17. Imagine a 17-year-old child and you could not reach him, my dad is the sole parent,” he said.

“Like I told you, I am the first generation entertainer. I don’t think he did not want me to do music, he just want me to be successful.

“So when I moved back to Nigeria, he did not know. Then he heard my voice on the radio, shouting Davido and he gave me that name. My dad gave me Davido….. He just wanted me to go to school which I eventually did.”

In 2023, Davido revealed his father became overprotective of him after his mother’s death.

He also opened up about his father’s influence on his financial decisions.

Davido rose to fame with his 2012 hit ‘Dami Duro’.

He has received several awards and recognitions for his talent.

A High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has discharged and acquitted a traditional ruler, Kelvin Anugwo, and 42 others standing trial for the murder of the late divisional police officer of the Ahoada East Division, Bako Angbashim.

The accused persons were standing trial on a four-count charge of cultism, armed robbery, murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.

Recall that over 50 persons were arrested and arraigned after SP Angbashim was abducted, killed and his body dismembered by a notorious cult leader, the late David Okpara, and his gang members in the Oduemude community in Ahoada East in September 2023.

When the matter came up in court on Friday, the Director of Public Prosecution, C.F. Amadi, told the court that the accused persons had no prima facie case established against them and therefore had no case to answer.

The trial judge, Justice Sika Aprioku, relying on the advice from the office of the DPP, discharged and acquitted the accused persons.

Speaking with journalists outside the courtroom, counsel to the 37th defendant, Ekashie Emehi, said the ruling shows the accused were innocent and could go about their normal duties, expressing dismay that his client was arrested in the guise of an invitation.

Emehi stated, “He was arrested in the guise of an invitation that the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of operations wanted to see him and he was arrested.

“Now, as far as this matter is concerned, what it means by a prima face case not being established is that the persons are not connected to that case. So on that note, he is free and he has his full liberty to handle his affairs and would no more come back to this matter.”

Also speaking, Anugwo, who is the Eze Ekpeye Logbo III of Ahoada Kingdom, described the ruling as justice for the people of the area.

He said, “All the allegations leveled against us have been thrown out today. So we give God all the glory. Our victory today is hinged on the hands of God, not human beings.

“What it means is that the kingdom should be happy that today God has vindicated us, and as such they can be proud that they have a king that stands by the truth.”

 Okpara, popularly known as 2baba, who was the prime suspect in the murder of the late DPO, was killed during a joint security raid in one of his hideouts in Idu-Ekpeye community in Ahoada East.

The wanted cult leader’s body was later exhumed from a shallow grave in a forest where his gang buried him and was paraded before newsmen at the state police command headquarters along Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, by the Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu, on February 23, 2024.

[Punch]

•Over newly set-up IDP mgt. c’ttee, army

The lead lawyer for Okuama-Ewu community, Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State, in the N200 billion suit against the Nigerian Army, Chief Malcolm Omirhobo, has raised 17 posers for the governor of Delta State, Rt. Hon Sheriff Oborevwori.

He posed the puzzles in a statement, “Okuama: Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Management Committee; Before the Jamboree Begins,” yesterday.

The statement read, “Before members of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Management Committee start cashing out and smiling to the bank; Before they start catching the cruise, and before the jamboree begins, it is imperative for the following questions to be answered.”

“Why has the Delta State governor not addressed Deltans, Nigerians, and the International Community on the Nigerian Army invasion, violation of the fundamental rights of the residents of Okuama, and the Nigerian Army’s continued occupation of the Okuama community, which started on March 14, 2024?

“Why did the Delta State government not set up an inquiry to find out what happened in the Okuama community?

“Why did it take the Delta State government over 44 days to inaugurate an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) management committee knowing the plight of residents of the Okuama community since March 14, 2024?

“Why was the Delta State governor, his commissioners, and the commissioner of police of Delta State, unable to enter into Okuama immediately after the Nigerian Army invasion of the Okuama community on March 14 to assess the level of the hideous crime against humanity committed by the Nigerian Army against the residents of the Okuama community until after 40 days?
“Why has the Nigerian Army cordoned off Okuama from the public, the press, and its residents until today?

“Why did the Delta State government fail, refuse, or neglect to act until some residents of the Okuama community went to court to seek redress for the enforcement of their fundamental rights?

“Why has the Delta state government up to date, failed, refused, and neglected to visit the residents of Okuama community in the bushes and forest where they fled to for safety from the Nigerian Army invasion?

“Why has the Delta State government failed and refused to provide food, water, medication, clothes, blankets, and other relief materials to the residents of the Okuama community living in the bushes and forest under inhuman degrading, and excruciating conditions?

“Why did the Delta state government fail and refuse to respond to the Okuama community letter of February 2, 2024, to the governor, asking the government to intervene in the crisis between it and the Okoloba community, which snowballed into the Nigerian Army’s invasion of the Okuama community?

“Who will pay residents of the Okuama community for the damages and losses they suffered because of the illegal, unlawful, and unconstitutional Nigerian Army invasion of their community?

“Why has the Delta state government failed to stand up for the residents of the Okuama community?

“Where is the culpability of the Nigerian Army in all these?

“Why must Delta State government pay for the wrongs of the Nigerian Army?

“Why is the Delta state government shielding the Nigerian Army and shying away from ensuring that the Nigerian Army is held accountable for her illegal, unlawful, and unconstitutional actions to serve as a deterrent to her?

“What is the faith of the cases filed by the residents of the Okuama community at the Federal High Court, Warri, since the cases are subjudices?

“Is the inauguration of the IDP management committee not prejudicial to the cases filed by the residents of the Okuama community at the Federal High Court, Warri?

“What are the terms of reference of the IDP management committee for the displaced people of the Okuama community?

“It is imperative, in the interest of justice and posterity, that the above questions are answered before politicians turn the IDP management committee for displaced people of the Okuama community to a jamboree and money-making exercise.”

[Vanguard]

A persistent but entirely illogical and factually inaccurate response to my column on former Kogi State governor Yahaya Bello revolves around the notion that his terrible, thuggish, thieving record as a governor somehow delegitimizes youth participation in government and undermines the “Not Too Young to Run” bill.  

First of all, Yahaya Bello became a governor at 41 in 2016. There's no country in the world where 41 is regarded as "youth." He is a full-grown adult. 

The UN defines youth as people between the ages of 15 and 24. In the United States, it’s between 15 and 24 years. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, it encompasses individuals aged 15 to 25.

 The Commonwealth limits it to the ages of 15 through 29. But the African Youth Charter, which has perhaps the most elastic definitional compass of youth in the world, defines it as “any individual between 15-35 years of age.” 

The Nigerian National Youth Policy obviously derives inspirational strength for its conception of youth from the African Youth Charter because it also officially refers to people between the ages of 18 and 35 as belonging to the “youth.”

This is all a giant irony, of course. Nigeria, which has an average life expectancy of 55 years, regards 35 years as “youth” (which means, on average, Nigerians spend only 20 years as “adults”) while industrialized societies with higher average life expectancies (it’s 77 for the United States and 81 for the European Union) have a lower age threshold for youth.

It’s even worse in the general Nigerian population, which regards a 48-year-old man (who has already lived more than half of his life) as a “youth” and uses his indiscretions, ineptitude, infantilism, and larceny as justifications to shut out young people from governance.

Yahaha Bello didn’t need the “Not Too Young to Run” legislation to be a governor. The minimum age required to be a governor in the 1999 constitution—before the "Not Too Young to Run" bill was signed into law on May 31, 2018—was and still is 35. The bill did not change the age requirement for governorship positions.

That was why we had many people who were elected governors in their 30s in 1999. For example, Ibrahim Saminu Turaki was elected governor of Jigawa State at the age of 36. Donald Duke was 38 years old when he was elected governor of Cross River State in 1999. Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia was 39. Ahmad Sani Yerima of Zamfara was 39. Enugu State’s Chimaroke Nnamani was 39. 

With a few exceptions, the rest of the governors in 1999 were in their 40s (Delta State’s James Ibori was exactly 40), which is consistent with Yahaya Bello’s age. Why didn’t critics of youth participation in government invoke the failures of much younger governors than Bello at the incipience of the Fourth Republic to delegitimize “youth” participation in government?

The obsession with the youth of people in government in Nigeria is particularly strange because we have had Yakubu Gowon, a then 31-year-old unmarried man, as Head of State. Olusegun Obasanjo was 38 when he first became the head of state. Muhammadu Buhari and Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi were 41. IBB was 44.

In fact, most of the early leaders we venerate today were elected/appointed into their positions when they were in the same age group as Yahaya Bello. For example, Sir Ahmadu Bello assumed office as the Premier of the Northern Region on October 1, 1954, at the age of 44.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the Premier of the Western Region in 1952 at the age of 44. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was 47/48 when he became the Prime Minister of Nigeria in 1960.  Murtala Muhammed was only 36 when he became the Head of State of Nigeria on July 29, 1975. 

The examples are legion, but the point is that there is nothing unusual about someone of Yahaya Bello’s age being a governor. That’s why I find the focus on his age both ignorant and ahistorical.

Of course, more than anything, all that this points to is that people who got into government in their 30s and 40s two or three decades ago are still in power or hanging around the corridors of power, which leaves only a little space for new entrants from that age bracket. 

So, the few people in their 30s and 40s who make it to the circles of political power in contemporary Nigeria come across as novel, as marvels of young people in government, and as generational curiosities whose missteps are exteriorized to all people within their age range who are outside the orbit of power and who might want to get into it.

That’s unfair. Just like the incompetence, callousness, and venality of older politicians shouldn’t be used against all older people, Yahaya Bello’s villainy and corruption should not be used against people in his age bracket— or younger. 

This attitude implies that had Yahaya Bello been a geriatric fuddy-duddy, and not a 48-year-old man, he would not have been the debauched, profligate thug that he is, which is absolute flapdoodle. 

After all, Abdullahi “Gandollar” Ganduje was 69 years old in 2018 when he was secretly filmed stuffing wads of dollars into the morally stained pockets of his babban riga while grinning sheepishly from ear to ear like a clown. His advanced age didn’t insulate him from moral putrefaction. 

Age has no effect on integrity and probity. It is defeatist and evinces low self-worth for young people to beat themselves up because a 48-year-old man who became a governor at 41 turned out to be a rotten, incurable crook who pillaged his state without the slightest tinge of compunction and then installed a slavish, empty-headed puppet as his successor.  

It’s mostly young people—in the peculiar way Nigerians understand young people—who are saying Yahaya Bello’s spectacular incompetence and depravity symbolize the failure of “youth” in governance and that the older generation is justified in its reluctance to share power with young people.

In other words, if a few “youths” in government mess up, all youth should take the blame for it, accept that the failure of one of them is the failure of all of them, and then step back for the older order to continue to misrule exclusively. 

Notice that no one, certainly no older person I know of, says older people shouldn’t be allowed to govern because they’ve been messing up all these years. Only the “youth” are delegitimized on account of their age when they mess up. That is reverse ageism, that is, the idea that only old age, not youth or knowledge, should confer authority or respect on people. 

We are more than our ages. We embody a totality of multiple influences. The fact that Yahaya Bello was a grasping, primitive bandit in government doesn’t mean every 41-year-old who becomes a governor will be like him. That’s ridiculously reductionist. 

In any case, youth or old age are not permanent states. They are in perpetual flux. It is yesterday’s youth that become today’s older people. 

Nigeria is one of the world’s youngest countries with a median age of 16. Yet, when we look at the corridors of power, the vibrancy of youth is conspicuously absent. This gap between our young population and their representation in governance is not just a gap in numbers, but a gap in fresh ideas, innovation, and the spirit of our nation.

Yahaya Bello did not fail because he was young. He failed because he never prepared to succeed, and that wasn’t a function of his “youth.” Donald Duke was the second youngest governor in 1999, and he is credited with making tremendous marks in governing Cross River State.

Yes, age and experience have their place. But so does youth. An Igbo proverb, after all, says “If a child washes his hands, he could eat with Kings.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says 34 suspected currency speculators have been arrested for foreign exchange (FX) fraud.

The EFCC, in a statement on Friday, said the arrest was carried out by its operatives attached to its task force on currency mutilation, dollarisation of the economy, and FX malpractice.

The anti-graft agency said the suspects were arrested in Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, on April 26, in a sting operation following credible intelligence about illegal sales of dollars.

“Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, attached to the Taskforce on Currency mutilation, Dollarization of the Economy and Forex Malpractice, have arrested 34 suspected currency speculators for alleged foreign exchange fraud,” the EFCC said.

“The suspects are: Usman Mohammed, Abdullahi Nasir, Abubakar Saleh, Mohammed Kabir Ibrahim, Abubakar Ghadafi, Muktar Usman, Umar Abubakar Abba, Yakubu Sani, Aminu Abubakar, Muhammed Suleman Abara, Yusuf Tahir, Usman Lawal, Usman Lawal.”

The agency also arrested Usman Umar, Amina Garba Rola, Muhammed Aliyu, Murtala Haruna, Sani Mohammed, Umar Farouk, Muhammed Sagiuru, Aminu Salisu, Lawal Bello, and Munzali Hashim.

Other include: Jamilu Suleiman, Mustapha Umar, Mubarak Tanimu, Adamu Garba, Mohammed Usman, Bello Musa, Saleh Mohammed Naseer, Zaharadeen Yau, Musa Umaru Adamu, Usman Machido, and Abdulaziz Abubakar Abba.

The EFCC said the arrest occurred following its ongoing efforts to clean up and stabilise the FX market, adding that the suspects will soon be arraigned in court upon conclusion of investigations.

On February 24, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the office of the national security adviser (ONSA) sealed a partnership to investigate and penalise those involved in illicit activities within the foreign exchange market.

The decision was on the backdrop of the unending depreciation of the naira and its accompanying negative impact on inflation and economic instability.

Following the partnership, which also involved the EFCC, the commission froze over 300 accounts linked to illicit FX trading.

The EFCC had, on January 24, launched a probe on 52 companies over forex transactions.

[TheCable]