Image
FEATURES

FEATURES

Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, on Thursday said that the administration of President Bola Tinubu took over a “dead economy” bequeathed by its predecessors.

Soludo stated this when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday night while analysing the naira’s decline under the new government.

Soludo, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), blamed worsening indicators on past violations of the apex bank’s establishment law, which bars deficit financing above five per cent of prior year revenues.

He also accused the CBN under past management of illegally granting trillions in unbacked financing despite legal restrictions, contributing to current woes.

According to him, from a macroeconomic standpoint, the Tinubu regime inherited an economy already beyond revival before it assumed office.

He said: “We explicitly put into the law that you can’t grant the Federal Government more than five per cent of the previous year’s actual revenue. And that so granted must be retired by the end of the year in which it was granted.

“And when the Federal Government fails to retire, the Central Bank is forbidden by that law from further advancing ways and means. That was the 2007 Act of the Central Bank.

“But we sat all of us Nigerians watching the CBN illegally and brazenly violating that Act year on year and kept on printing money. That is when advance money is backed by nothing; you just credit the Federal Government with trillions, N4 trillion, N10 trillion, N15 trillion and we keep going.

“I said it before. This particular government inherited a dead economy from a microeconomic point of view, this government inherited a dead horse that was seen standing but people didn’t know that it was dead. I think it’s important for Nigerians to understand this.”

It would be recalled that earlier this month, President Tinubu, while negotiating an infrastructure loan in Saudi Arabia, had also stated that his administration took over substantial fiscal and infrastructure deficits.

[NationalDaily]

President Bola Tinubu has waded into the feud between Ondo Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and Deputy Lucky Aiyedatiwa.

A source said President Tinubu has invited members of the Ondo Assembly to Abuja Friday. 

Prominent elders and traditional rulers in the week appealed to President Tinubu to intervene in the political crisis to avert looming anarchy.

It was gathered the Ondo Assembly has been divided with 11 lawmakers now in support of Aiyedatiwa.

Sources said the 11 lawmakers were reached out to by some forces outside Ondo State.

A sitting of the lawmakers scheduled for Friday was said to have been pushed by the 11 lawmakers.

One of them, who pleaded anonymity, said the sitting was part of the plans hatched in Abuja with the 11 lawmakers to declare Governor Akeredolu incapacitated and declare Aiyedatiwa Governor.

Speaker Oladiji Olamide, who confirmed the meeting with President Tinubu, said the outcome of the meeting would determine the next line of action.

Oladiji said the scheduled Friday’s plenary was to declare Aiyedatiwa as Acting Governor and not to declare Akeredolu as incapacitated.

He said the meeting with President Tinubu would hold on Friday afternoon.

“Our sitting was to declare Aiyedatiwa as Acting Governor. The Governor is still alive,” he said. 

Details Shortly…

[Nation]

The Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has expressed readiness to confront all cartels behind land racketeering in Abuja.

 

Naija News reports that Wike made this known on Friday while addressing some journalists as he recalled how lands were fraudulently allocated to several organizations in the federal city.

Following fraudulent allocations, the former Governor of Rivers State said staff of the Federal Capital Territory Authority, FCTA, would ask those affected to institute legal actions by next week.

The Minister vowed to burst the cartels benefiting from land racketeering across FCT.

He said, “FCTA allocated land of over 300 hectares to a company in 2001, revoked it in 2022 and reallocated it to another company in 2005; they revoked it and reallocated it to the initial company without notice. In 2009, they revoked it and reallocated it to another company again.

“By next week, our legal team and external solicitors have arranged to defend FCTA on our land matters, what happens here is that even the leader of the secretariat will tell you to sue; they will sue without defending it, they won’t go to court. It’s business, it’s racketeering, and you will see judgments against FCT. This led to me demanding the files, but we are going to do it in a way that will help us.

 

“There is a cartel, and to bust it, you must be very prepared, and for me, I’m prepared and will face it.”

[NaijaNews]

iConnect, Slot, Glo World, Casper Gadgets, SPAR, Reena’s, Royalline, Doe Resources, Pointek , Finet, Kolia Angels, iMate and Rewjido , powered by Redington, now offer iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus with a gorgeous new design and a powerful 48MP Main camera with a new 2x Telephoto option.

It comes with an A16 Bionic chip, and USB-C; iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, are said to be Apple’s lightest Pro models ever, with a strong and lightweight titanium design, powerful camera upgrades including a more advanced 48MP Main camera system, A17 Pro, and USB-C.

Customers are now able to buy the iPhone 15 lineup beginning 20th of October 2023.

For complete pricing and availability details, please visit https://mea.redingtongroup.com/ng/apple/

[Nairametrics]

Former Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has urged President Bola Tinubu-administration and stakeholders in the housing sector to focus on a rent-to-own scheme to reduce the number of homeless people in the country.

 

Fashola said this on Thursday while delivering his keynote address at the ongoing 50th-anniversary celebration of the Federal Housing Authority in Abuja.

 

The theme of the event titled, “The future of housing in Nigeria and 50 years of FHA: A call to action for political leaders and policymakers from decent and affordable housing.”

The former minister stated that the majority of Nigerians cannot afford to own houses as a result of financial challenges, adding that it is pertinent for the Federal and state governments to expand their rent-to-own policies.

“Homelessness is the most undignifying experience for a human being and must be confronted with the necessary resolve by political leaders and policymakers,” Fashola said. 

“The sad but painful truth is that not everybody will be able to afford to buy a house; but I strongly believe that rental housing for all is possible, not only based on how we build but also how people pay rent.

“Therefore, our housing policy must focus on rental as it focuses on ownership. Consequently, rent-to-own initiatives that started in the last administration must not be allowed to die.”

According to the former Lagos governor, lawmakers at both federal and state levels should enact laws that allow citizens to acquire government-built homes with convenient payment plans from their wages and salaries. 

“Instead, there is scope in my view for improvement in expanding rent-to-own schemes at Federal and State levels, and also increasing advocacy for state legislators to make laws that make the payment of rent convenient and convergent with wages and salaries,” he said.

 

He emphasised the need for the country’s housing policy to channel resources into achieving rental housing for people and the FHA must be conscious of this, adding that the 50th anniversary celebration delivers new mechanisms of home ownership.

The former Lagos State Governor further gave suggestions on financing, housing types, affordability, people participation, and maintenance with a charge that, “FHA must become a proper business run on very strict corporate governance principles that conform with global best practice and this will be consistent with previous attempts to commercialise or privatise the authority.”

He said, “FHA should recognise that the market demand is probably dominated by those in the age bracket of around 25 to 35 years and it would be helpful for FHA to conduct a highly professional survey of what their needs are before designing and building.

“The other survey that I would advocate is the payment mode that this category of potential buyers will opt for and to urge FHA to factor in digital platforms for advertising, sale, and payment because this is the language of this class of buyers. 

“If FHA expects these class of buyers to come to their offices to come and collect forms to buy houses and go through some of the ancient red tape that time has tied away for FHA, then there is a risk to success.”

[Vanguard]

 

Gunmen Thursday invaded the ancient town of Zungeru in Niger State and kidnapped the former chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Wushishi LGA, Alhaji Sule Muhammad.

The gunmen stormed the town in the wee hours of Thursday and shot sporadically before whisking the victim away.

Some residents who spoke with our correspondent said the former chairman was kidnapped at his residence around 12 am on Thursday while his daughter and son were injured by the gunmen.


“When they (gunmen) came around on Thursday, they started sporadic shooting and it lasted for about an hour before they took away the former APC Chairman, Wushishi LGA, Alhaji Sule.

“They shot his daughter in the leg and one of his sons also sustained cutlass cuts. As I speak with you, they have not established contact with the family,” said a resident, who preferred not to be named.

The Niger State Police Command’s spokesperson, DSP Wasiu Abiodun could not be reached by phone. He did not, however, respond to a text message sent to him.

The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has said that the Ministry in its bid to make Nigeria a global leader in Artificial Intelligence, has identified over 6,000 AI researchers who are of Nigerian descent and based in several parts of the world.  

The Minister disclosed this at the Zenith Bank Tech Fair 2023 in Lagos. According to him, these researchers will be instrumental to the country’s new drive to deploy AI in every sector of the economy and for job creation.  

He added that the goal of the Ministry is to use AI to enhance productivity through the deployment of smart infrastructure.

The Minister had earlier in August, via a post on Twitter, asked Nigerians to recommend any AI researchers of Nigerian descent to join the country in co-creating a National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. 

How they were found 

Explaining how the Ministry was able to identify the over 6,000 Nigerian AI researchers spread all over the globe, the Minister said:  

  • “Since I’ve been in office, we’ve prioritized artificial intelligence and the first thing we did was to understand that we’ve not invested significantly in AI before. But we know for certain that there’s absolutely no top academic institution in the world where you don’t have a Nigerian so we give AI the assignments to help us find them. We downloaded all the academic publications on artificial intelligence in the world, of them. 
  • Then we use a library for Nigerian names to train the machine and say, sift through these thousands of publications and find names that look like Nigerian names. And were able to find over 6000 world-class researchers of Nigerian descent working in artificial intelligence.   
  • So, this has been the foundation for what we’re building, where we’re now reimagining the artificial intelligence strategy for Nigeria. We’re having clarity in terms of how this technology is going to help Nigeria to do better, but also how we have to protect Nigeria from the vices of AI. So that’s the first thing with it. 

Support for AI startups 

Highlighting other areas the government is driving the development of AI, the Ministry is building a global AI workforce for Nigeria. According to him, the Ministry is actively supporting any company that wants to prioritize creating AI jobs locally.  

He said the government would also be announcing 45 startups selected for empowerment under its AI Research Scheme before the end of this year. 

Through the scheme plans to award N5 million each to 45 startups and researchers focusing on AI. 

 [Nairametrics]

Nigerians travelling overseas have been advised by the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) chairman, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, to carry the appropriate documents to prevent anomalies and unfavourable outcomes.

Naija News reports that the NIDCOM boss gave this warning on a visit to several Nigerians in one of the shelters in Brampton, Canada.

“Situation is getting tougher in many countries,” Dabiri-Erewa cautioned Nigerians who intend to travel to Canada without the required papers or to seek refuge.

The Director of Media, Public Relations and Protocols Unit, NIDCOM, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, disclosed this in a statement released on Thursday via the commission’s X account.

The statement read: “The NIDCOM boss sympathised with their condition and urged others planning to travel without proper documentation, arrive in the country to seek asylum, to desist, as the situation is getting tougher in many countries, adding that “ it is just not worth it, more often than not.

“Mr. Wale Rabiu, owner of Matlock bakery donated hundreds of loaves of Agege bread to the shelter inmates, while Mr. Bayo Adedosu, a Nigerian living in Canada, and an immigration consultant also gave some words of counseling, adding that they should not talk ill about their home country, Nigeria, to avoid future repercussions,” adding that Nigerians should be patient and law-abiding.”

Nigerian chef, Damilola Adeparusi, popularly known as Chef Dammy, on Thursday, honoured an invitation from the police, on the petitions filed by Ekiti-base cleric, Prophet Adegoke Jeremiah, better known as Billion Dollars Prophet.

Naija News reports that Dammy was invited for questioning by men of the Police AIG zone 17 in Akure, Ondo state, following a lawsuit of N22 million, filed against her by her pastor, Jeremaiah.

The spokesperson of AIG Zone 17, DSP Hakeem, who spoke with LIB, said the police received a petition against Chef Dammy and she was invited for questioning.

He said Dammy honoured the invitation and was thereafter granted administrative bail after providing a surety.

He said, “She is not in our custody. She was not detained.”

Recall that Chef Dammy came to the limelight after she attempted to cook for 120 hours, days after celebrity chef, Hilda Baci broke the Guinness World Record for the Longest Cooking Hours by an individual.

The Minna Chief Magistrate Court has handed down a two-year prison sentence to dismissed Inspector Yahaya Mohammed from the Niger State Police Command.

He was found guilty of theft and the sale of an AK-47 magazine and ammunition to suspected armed bandits within the state.

Mohammed, who previously held the position of second in command at the armoury of the Niger State Police Command headquarters, was dismissed from his role.

The Court revealed that he had collaborated with Ndaman Gana, another officer in charge of the state police command’s armoury department, to carry out this illicit transaction.

Mohammed faced charges on two counts: Criminal Conspiracy and theft of an AK-47 magazine, as well as unlawful dealing in the sale of the AK-47 magazine and ammunition.

The police prosecutor, DSP Ahmed Saidu, presented the case, highlighting that the charges contravened sections 97(2), 288(1) of the penal code, and section 27(6)(111) act 28 law 2004.

The Police First Information Report (FIR), presented in Court and obtained by our reporter, disclosed that credible information from a reliable source within the Department of State Service (DSS) attached to Rafi Local Government Area, Kagara, Niger State, indicated that an unknown individual transported goods suspected to be weapon inside a ‘Ghana must go bag’ to Kagara motor park.

In response, police detectives took swift action, leading to the arrest of Inspector Yahaya Mohammed, a former police officer who was previously attached to the Department of Operation and served as the second in command in the state’s Amory in Minna.

“During police Investigation, you ex-police inspector conspired with Ndaman Gana, officer-in-charge of state armoury attached to the department of Operation OPs Minna, and both of you stole 22 magazines and 61 life ammunitions of different Calibre property of the Niger State Police Command.

“Both of you sold each magazine at the rate of N1000; each ammunition was sold at the rate of N650 to one corporal Sani Mohammed formerly attached to Mopol 12 Minna,” the First Information Report stated.

Upon the reading of the charges by the presiding Chief Magistrate Hajiya Fati Umar Hassan, Inspector Yahaya Mohammed pleaded guilty to the accusations.

The Prosecutor, DSP Ahmed Saidu, then told the chief Magistrate to invoke the provision of Section 190 of the administration of Criminal Justice Law of Niger State by convicting him summarily.

The Prosecutor also told the Court that the convict was diagnosed with cough hemoptysis and that the medical report is attached to the First Information Report.

“Your worship the disease in question is contagious, and I pray the Court will take cognizant of the medical report to see how the convict would not join other inmates in order not to infect them with the disease as it is a communicable disease. That is my humble prayer,” the Prosecutor told the Court.

In her judgment, Chief Magistrate Hajiya Fati Umar Hassan conveyed her disappointment with the conduct of the convict, particularly highlighting his role as a police officer entrusted with the responsibility of safeguarding the lives and property of citizens.

“It is quite unfortunate that as a police officer saddled with the responsibilities of Protecting the lives and property of the citizens, you now engage in selling ammunition to armed bandits that are terrorising and killing innocent citizens across the country.

“I will be lenient with you while convicting you with an option of fine as a result of the contagious disease, especially with the medical report attached to the first Information report.

“If not because of the disease, I would have convicted you without an option of fine, but for other inmates not to be infected with the disease, you are hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an option of N100,000 fine.”

The Chief Magistrate, however, issued a directive for the convict to be transferred to the Chanchaga Leprosarium Colony to serve his jail term in the event that he is unable to pay the fine.