Dominik Szoboszlai, 22, stood out ever since his childhood days in Hungary. In training, young Dominik and the other kids wore colored headbands rather than bibs to encourage them to look up and to blindly control the ball at their feet. “When you have the technical skillset it’s a lot more enjoyable to just play”, said Szoboszlai’s father Szolt in First Time Finish, a soccer site.

Liverpool triggered Szoboszlai’s release clause of $76 million (€ 70 m, £ 60m) hours before its June 30 expiration date to bring the RB Leipzig man to Anfield. The signing is a statement of intent from Jurgen Klopp. The 22-year-old, who will wear the coveted number 8 shirt, could be the missing jigsaw piece in Liverpool’s game.

Klopp urges caution: "Szoboszlai still very young"

At RB Leipzig, Szoboszlai contributed 20 goals and 22 assists in 91 matches. At sister club RB Salzburg, where he played before, the then teenager managed 26 goals and 34 assists in 83 outings.

“Szoboszlai is probably one of the most intensive pressing attacking midfielders I’ve seen in the last few years”, said Jasmine Baba, a soccer scout who works for several Europa League and Champions League clubs. She added: “He’s explosive, dynamic, very fast and all of these attributes have helped him be a vital creator for RB Leipzig. Szoboslai is also good in possession and offers a bridge between midfield and attack in either the central areas or the halfspaces."

Previous Bundesliga have struggled to adapt to the speed and robustness of the PremierPINC +0.8% League and to the culture in England. “There is no pressure, though. Dominik is still a very young player,” said Klopp on Liverpool’s website. The coach urged fans of the Reds to “give him the time and space to allow his talent to come through within our team.”

From Red Bull to Liverpool like Mane and Keita

It bodes well that the young Hungarian already made the jump from his homeland to Austria and then Germany. Like Sadio Mane, Naby Keita and Takumi Minamino before him, Szoboszlai comes to Anfield from the Red Bull clubs’ talent pipeline. That’s no accident, because the Bundesliga’s RB Leipzig and Austrian sister clubs RB Salzburg and FC Liefering employ a high-pressing, fast and technical approach that closely resembles Liverpool’s own.

The Szoboszlai signing is a statement of intent from Liverpool. After a mediocre season, the transfer “signals that the Liverpool head coach is going back to more high-intensity pressing football”, said Baba, noting that Klopp lately lacked the players to use that style. Baba sees Szoboszlai as an inverted winger, a number 10 or a number 8 but warns that the 6′1 ft tall midfielder should “not play out wide like Mo Salah.”

Moulded by his father at Fonix Gold in Hungary, chances are good Szoboslai will rise like a phoenix from the ashes at Liverpool, too.

[Forbes]

Approaching a pivotal pre-season period, FC Barcelona have begun making preparations as Xavi has already shortlisted the players he plans to take with him. Among the players shortlisted for the upcoming US tour is young talent Aleix Garrido, who has gallantly risen to a prominent role in the youth ranks.

The teenage sensation was handed opportunities to showcase his talents among the senior team in the past season, with his €400 million release clause a testament to the potential Barcelona see in him. Xavi Hernandez has also spoken highly of him, especially recognizing his instrumental final ball, capable of dismantling defenses.

Aleix Garrido recently gave an interview to ‘Tot gira’ on Catalunya Ràdio, where he expressed his contentment with continuing at Barcelona and clarified that he does not feel upset about the massive release clause that hangs over his head.

When asked about the whopping €400 million release clause, he lightheartedly responded: “Scary, scary… This way nobody will sign me, that’s fine. I have no complaints, it’s a way to ensure that I will stay here for these two years.”

Residing with the Spanish under-19 team for the European Championship, he said: “I’m very happy, the debut with the first team has been the best, but there have been many other things, gaining experience with the reserve team has been great, and now it will be amazing to play the European Championship with the national team.”

He will be called up by Xavi Hernandez on the 19th of July to join FC Barcelona on their pre-season US tour. Understanding the privilege of sharing a dressing room with many stars, he commented: “It’s one thing to be called one day, but it’s another thing to spend weeks with your idols, getting to know them and fighting with them in training and matches to earn a place for yourself.”

Garrido will be one to watch out for in the upcoming USA tour, but competition will inevitably be high and brief spurts of promise will have to be capitalized.

[barcanewsnetwork]

After an underwhelming season at Manchester United, Jadon Sancho may worry his future could be away from Old Trafford but the winger can reignite his career by heeding some historic advice.

Sancho has struggled with a number of injuries since his £73million arrival from Borussia Dortmund two years ago, and his fitness was a concern again during Erik ten Hag's first year in charge. The 23-year-old was absent from the first-team picture for two months part-way through the campaign, undergoing an individual training programme in the Netherlands.

His return in the new year was hoped to signal a fresh start, and despite a promising first few weeks back - he scored against Leeds United in his first Premier League game back - impact was limited. Dortmund reportedly tabled a loan offer over the weekend, and while that is also said to have been rejected by United, they are claimed to be open to a permanent sale.

Like so many around Old Trafford, Sancho's future is up in the air as Ten Hag sanctions a major clearout. But the England international will have the chance to stake his claim for a place in next season's plans, and he has already been told how to do so.

"I think it's in his own hands," Ten Hag said after Sancho scored against Leeds in February. "So if he wants, he can do [it] and this team is great to play in and will give you joy.

"I really enjoy seeing him playing the way he did, with so much confidence, so much belief, really direct. It was great to see him play in this attack.

"He's in the right direction and I hope he can keep this momentum going. I'm sure it'll strengthen him and motivate him to do even more.

"As you see, he's a brilliant footballer and if he invests and he is in the right levels then he can perform outstandingly. I think we now have a team that can dictate games more in the opponent's half - he likes that.

"He can play in tight areas and he can make the difference. The second goal shows it but also when he came on last week we saw that as well."

United's need to prioritise strengthening other areas - namely a goalkeeper and striker - means a new winger is unlikely, therefore improving Sancho's chances of being retained. He may well be handed another chance to fulfil his potential at Old Trafford, with the hope of a full and productive pre-season under his belt.

Should the winger still be at United come August and the start of the next campaign, then it is vital he remembers Ten Hag's advice.

[manchestereveningnews]

Veteran forward Kyah Simon has made the cut for the Matildas' final 23-player squad for the 2023 Women's World Cup after recovering from a knee injury that kept her out for the past nine months.

Simon is one of the few surprise inclusions in Tony Gustavsson's roster, which will once again be led by captain Sam Kerr and vice-captain Steph Catley, who will each be appearing at their third consecutive World Cup.

They'll be joined by a number of other experienced players under injury clouds including Caitlin Foord, Alanna Kennedy, Tameka Yallop, Katrina Gorry, Aivi Luik, Mackenzie Arnold, Hayley Raso, and Emily Van Egmond, while goalkeeper Lydia Williams and centre-back Clare Polkinghorne will become the first two Australians to participate in five World Cups.

In total, 15 of the players who took part in the 2019 tournament in France will return for their home tournament, while seven will be making their debuts.

Courtney Nevin, Alex Chidiac, Clare Wheeler, Cortnee Vine, Clare Hunt, Charlotte Grant and Kyra Cooney-Cross — all of whom have been folded into the Matildas squad over the past two years — have all been selected, with Hunt a particular stand-out having played just five times for Australia since the start of the year.

Simon looked almost certain to miss her home World Cup after tearing her ACL while playing for Tottenham Hotspur in the English Women's Super League last October, but Gustavsson confirmed she had recovered enough to be a "game-changing" substitute off the bench over the course of the tournament.

"She's not selected based on where she is right now, she's selected based on where we're thinking she comes in a month from now," he said during the squad announcement media conference on Monday.

"She has a phenomenal connection with not just Sam [Kerr], but all the players. There's an understanding and a history there on the pitch that we've seen multiple times.

"The last time I saw it was in the Olympics when she was behind a lot of our goals. So she's based on being a game changer.

"I've been very clear to Kyah, I don't expect her to start the game, I don't think she's going to be ready for that, but the game changer off the bench."

There was no room for Chloe Logarzo, Larissa Crummer, Emily Gielnik, Amy Sayer, Remy Siemsen or Jada Whyman, but Gustavsson confirmed the players will continue to train with the squad as potential injury replacements, which can occur up to 24 hours before the opening match day on July 20.

The Matildas will face the Republic of Ireland in their first match at a sold-out Stadium Australia in Sydney on July 20 before taking on Nigeria in Brisbane on July 27 and Canada in Melbourne on July 31.

They'll face European heavyweights France in their final send-off match in Melbourne on July 14.

FULL MATILDAS SQUAD:

Goalkeepers: Mackenzie Arnold, Teagan Micah, Lydia Williams

Defenders: Ellie Carpenter, Steph Catley, Charlotte Grant, Clare Hunt, Alanna Kennedy, Aivi Luik, Courtney Nevin, Clare Polkinghorne

Midfielders: Alex Chidiac, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Katrina Gorry, Emily van Egmond, Clare Wheeler, Tameka Yallop

Forwards: Caitlin Foord, Mary Fowler, Sam Kerr, Hayley Raso, Kyah Simon, Cortnee Vine.

[ABC.net]

In partial response to the perennial crises of inadequate funding and ASUU strikes in federal universities, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the Students’ Loan Bill into law. Under this law, indigent Nigerian students will get interest-free loans to see them through their stay in government-owned higher institutions. Beneficiaries are expected to repay the borrowed sum once they start working, that is, two years after the mandatory national service. Potential beneficiaries will be expected to apply to the Chairman of the Bank through the Chief Executives of their respective institutions having a secured a place in the school. The law states that any student whose parents earn more than 500k per annum will not qualify for the loan. Certainly, this aspect of the law would need to be reviewed.

As is usual with such loan facility, beneficiaries will be expected to provide two guarantors with the requisite qualifications – a civil servant on level 12 and above or a clergy man! Also, a student whose parents had defaulted in loan repayments will not be eligible for the interest-free loan. Furthermore, students who had been convicted of a felony of any offence involving dishonesty or fraud, or who had been convicted of drug offences are ineligible for the loan. Repayment of the loan, as stated earlier, is designed to commence two years after completing the National Youth Service Corps. What is not clear to me is what will happen if after completing a first degree the beneficiary migrates from Nigeria to seek for greener pasture! But that is for the government to worry about!

No doubt, this is a welcome development. And the President should be commended for hitting the ground running because some background work was done even before he was elected to office. Some of the President’s actions suggest he came prepared for the job after many years of waiting. The model of funding tertiary education which we currently operate has failed woefully. We can see this with half an eye! It does not need a patch work. It needs a total overhaul. There is no where in the world where education is free. Somebody pays for it. If the federal government has decided to give loans to students to enable them to pay for tuition, no sensible person, union, or group should join issues with the government. What we should be bothered about are the conditions and how the process should net be hijacked by a cabal in the traditional Nigerian style.

Should there be a bank created for this purpose or we should adopt three to five big banks to warehouse and administer the funds on the condition that they donate a percentage to the funds? What will be the implications of creating a fresh bureaucracy to manage students’ loans? What guarantee is there that the students would repay the loans? What happens if a beneficiary is unemployed two or three years after graduation? In case of default, like if a beneficiary relocates abroad, what will the state do? Will beneficiaries be expected to deposit their certificates with the operators before NYSC? These are questions in the mouths of observers and compatriots. My response is that the government must have ready answers because they operate within the Nigerian geographical space and are familiar with our shenanigans.

The university system needs to be properly overhauled – from teaching methods to curriculum and learning outcomes. The wages of university professors must be reviewed immediately. An Assistant Lecturer, the entry point not academia, goes home with one hundred and ten thousand naira monthly. This salary has been so fixed since 2009. Students live in squalor, a far cry from the relative comfort of the university environment of the 1980s. If the universities charge the appropriate fees added to some grants from the government, academic staff should earn more. Laboratories will have more equipment. The libraries will have more books and journals. The students are more likely to take education seriously. Students will be more comfortable on the campuses. Besides, students will be more interested in their studies because they will be paying for their education.

President Tinubu is preparing the nation therefore for a new approach to education policy formulation and implementation. Our dear ASUU has been virtually emasculated by the courts after the last battle over payment of salaries after a protracted strike. The federal government used the court to deal a blow on the union and killed morale. Even within the university system, there are doubts whether ASUU still has the strategy to lead academics to the Promised Land. This is why the union must reinvent itself and restore confidence in the followership. In my view, ASUU’s objection to a Students Loan Board amounts to being a busybody! Interestingly, NANS officials paid a solidarity visit to the President to thank him for the initiative and requested that ASUU should be removed from the Board! Are these the students ASUU is fighting for? Let the welfare of academics be the primary and only focus of university unions. ASUU, kindly return to the drawing board while listening to your members!

President Tinubu should adopt other measures to reinvent tertiary education. For starters, he should direct that the gentleman’s agreement which then Speaker House of Representatives reached with ASUU be respected and implemented. Academics have been on the same salary provisions since 2009, and indeed, the take home pay of academics cannot take them home! The withheld salaries of ASUU members should be paid to show good faith. The funds which accrue from TETFUND should be given to universities as grants without apron strings from Abuja to meet their needs. That way, he would win over most academics to his side. Furthermore, the universities need full autonomy in managing its affairs. In my view, there should be no central body dictating academic programmes to the universities, thereby usurping senate functions.

The government must remember that school/tuition fees alone will not be sufficient to meet the obligations of the universities. In other words, government must not hand off funding education through grants and other forms of interventions. Education is too important a service to be commercialized.

Globally, subsidies, whether for food, transportation, energy or housing, are part of good governance. So, the issue is not subsidies but who benefits from them. In Nigeria, subsidies are primarily of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. I will highlight a few, how they are being manipulated and how huge sums of money can be recovered not just to subsidize fuel but also provide funds for development.

1. Diversion of N40 billion from Federation Account

A company, Continental Transfert Technique, had been hired by the Ministry of Interior to collect the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Alien Card (CERPAC) Fee of $2,000 per annum from every expatriate in Nigeria. The revenue from 2019 comes to an average of N40 billion per annum.

This collection, which violates Section 162 of the Constitution and provisions of the Immigration Act 2015, is then shared on percentages of Federal Government, 30, Interior Ministry, 7, Immigration Service, and Continental Transfert Technique, 58 per-cent.

We challenged this illegality at the Federal High Court and won the cases. The court directed the NIS to collect the funds henceforth and remit the same to the Federation Account. But the contractor and the federal government appealed against the judgment and have continued to share the N40 billion per annum.

2. Additional Revenue of $1.5 billion payable to Federation Account

In July 2015, I drew the attention of the Federal Government to the fact that the 15-year fiscal incentives given to the oil and gas companies operating under the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act had expired in June 2014.

When the Federal Government ignored our request, we drafted a Bill for the amendment of the law. The Bill which was adopted and sponsored by Senator T. Orji scaled the first reading in the Senate but was not passed before the dissolution of the 8th National Assembly.

However, the same Bill was modified and passed by both houses of the 9th National Assembly and assented to by President Buhari on November 4, 2019. In justifying the passage of this Bill, Senate President Ahmed Lawan announced that the new law would increase the revenue of the nation by not less than $1.5 billion per annum.

3. Outstanding royalties of $62 billion

In campaigning for the amendment of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act, I requested the Federal Government to collect outstanding royalties’ payable by the International Oil Companies under the Act. The Federal Government admitted that the country had lost a whopping sum of $60 billion. But my demand for the collection of the huge fund was ignored.

The governments of Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States then approached the Supreme Court which on October 20, 2018 ordered the Federal Government to collect the royalties for the past 18 years. The Federal Government confirmed that the outstanding royalty withheld by the IOCs is $62 billion but has refused to collect it.

4. FG denied revenue of $500 million by a group of corrupt public officers

The international Cargo Tracking Note Scheme to protect international shipping and prevent the movement of dangerous cargo and arms shipments was introduced into Nigeria in 2010 via an agreement between the Nigerian Port Authority and TPMS, a private company.

Barely a year later, the agreement was suspended. When our attention was drawn to the illegal suspension of the Cargo Tracking Note system, we protested and the suspension was lifted on May 28, 2015 only to be suspended again in 2016.

In 2022, President Buhari issued an executive order which authorized a company to operate the Cargo Tracking Note. But 5 companies sponsored by top government functionaries overruled the President and hijacked the contract. The company that won the contract has since sued the federal government at the Federal High Court. Meanwhile, Nigeria has lost at least $500 million while the security of the nation has been compromised by a bunch of corrupt public officers.

5. Sale of public assets and enterprises

Successive regimes have been selling assets and enterprises owned by the Federal Government to members of the ruling class in the name of privatisation. The buyers turned round to engage in asset stripping.  According to the Bureau of Public Enterprises, between 2004 and 2002, the federal government sold 142 public enterprises to members of the ruling class.

The 10 per cent shares reserved for the staff of every privatised enterprise have been cornered by the so called “core investors” contrary to the provision of section 5(3) òf the Privatization and Commercialization Act.

6. $7 billion fixed in 14 banks

Sometime in 2006, the CBN yanked off $7 billion from the nation’s foreign reserves and fixed it in 14 commercial banks in Nigeria. The deposit and the accrued interests were not recovered from the banks. When I reported the matter to one of the anti-graft agencies, the CBN claimed that it had forgiven “the forbearance”.

7. Sale of Heritage Bank, Keystone Bank, Union Bank and Polaris Bank by CBN

The CBN took over Heritage Bank, Keystone Bank, Union Bank and Polaris Bank, spent trillions of Naira to revitalise them only to turn round to sell them under the table. For instance, CBN invested N1.3 trillion in Polaris Bank but sold it for N50 billion!

8. Theft of Crude oil

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at N16.25 trillion ($46.16 billion) to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020. Immediate past National Security Adviser, General Babagana said that Nigeria might lose $23 billion in 2023 to crude oil theft.

9. Theft of gold and other solid minerals

The theft of the nation’s mineral resources is not limited to crude as solid minerals are equally smuggled out of the country by highly placed criminal elements. Former Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Dr Uche Ogah recently disclosed that private jets are being used by the rich for gold smuggling in Nigeria.

He stated this at an investigative hearing on $9 billion annual loss to illegal mining and smuggling of gold organised by the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, Mines, Steel Development and Metallurgy. During his contribution at the hearing, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu disclosed that Nigeria lost close to $54b from 2012-2018 due to illegal smuggling of gold.

10. AMCON is owed N5.4 trillion by the rich

A few years ago, commercial banks were going to collapse due to toxic loans taken by members of the ruling class. To prevent the impending economic doom, the Federal Government set up the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to buy off the loans with trillions of Naira provided by the CBN. AMCON has not been able to recover the loans of N5.4 trillion from about 370 corporate bodies.

11. Indiscriminate import duty waivers

A few privileged members of the business community buy dollars at an official rate while they are allowed to import all manners of goods into the country. In the last 5 years, import duties worth N16 trillion were waived for them.

12. Effort to track and monitor tankers conveying fuel sabotage by NNPC

On August 8, 2018, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the installation of technology monitoring schemes and structures under the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) for N17 billion.

The technology which was designed to track and monitor tankers conveying fuel and other petroleum products was not acquired while the N17 billion approved for it was diverted.

13. N10 trillion diverted by CEOs of Government enterprises

The Buhari government revealed on December 19, 2018 that government enterprises including the CBN owed about N10 trillion in unremitted operating surplus as at August 2018. The details were provided. The said sum of N10 trillion remains unpaid.

14. N6 trillion unpaid ground rents by buyers of Government properties

On March 29, 2023, the Senate noted that since 1992, over two million houses across the 36 states and the FCT had been built and allocated to beneficiaries by the federal government without evidence of payment of ground rent on the properties. Consequently, the Senate set up an Ad Hoc Committee to recover over N6 trillion unpaid ground rents from property owners in the country.

15. Stolen crude oil valued at $29.17 billion

A group of lawyers engaged by NIMASA confirmed that 60.2 million barrels of crude oil valued at $12.7 billion of crude oil was stolen and illegally exported to the United States of America between January 2011 and 2014. This has not been recovered. Also, the House of Representatives investigated and confirmed that undeclared crude oil worth $17 billion was exported to global destinations during the same period. The affected companies are known but the government seems to lack the will to bring them to book and recover the sum of $29.7 billion being the value of the stolen crude.

16. Oil theft of N16.25 trillion

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) revealed that between 2009 and 2020 Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at N16.25 trillion ($46.16 billion) to oil theft. The security forces have not been able to stop the stealing and smuggling of crude oil from Nigeria.

However, Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd (TSSNL), a private company discovered pipelines through which crude oil was being diverted from a 40,000 barrel per day Forcados pipeline to the high seas for export. The indicted oil companies including an IOC involved in this grand theft are yet to be prosecuted.

17. Deduction of collection costs by FIRS & NCS

The Federal Inland Revenue Service and Nigeria Customs Service are allowed by their enabling laws to deduct percentages of the taxes and duties collected by them as collection costs. Thus, the FIRS between 2016 and 2020 made N533.39 billion deductions while Nigeria Customs Service withdrew N128.64 billion as cost of collection in 2022.

The laws which allow agencies of the Federal Government to deduct collection costs are contrary and inconsistent with section 162 of the Constitution which provides that all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation shall be paid into the Federation Account.

18. Diversion of $6.065 billion approved for turn-around maintenance of refineries

Between 1993 and 2016, successive regimes spent, through the NNPC, about $6.065 billion on the so-called turn around maintenance and rehabilitation of the four refineries at various times.

It is public knowledge that the turn-around maintenance of the refineries was not carried out. Therefore, the contractors should be invited by the EFCC and compelled to refund the said sum of $6.025 billion.

19. Investment in Dangote refinery and rehabilitation of 4 refineries

The Federal Government has invested $2.7 billion in Dangote Refinery while the NNPCL will supply the refinery with 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Furthermore, the Government has awarded the contracts for the rehabilitation of the two refineries in Port Harcourt for $1.5 billion, as well as Kaduna and Warri refineries for $1.4 billion.

We are compelled to call on the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress to monitor the ongoing rehabilitation and upgrade of the 4 refineries.

20. Special salaries for top public officers, security votes, and pension for governors

Top public officers have illegally taken themselves out of the general salary structure. For instance, contrary to section 70 of the Constitution which provides that the salaries and allowances of legislators shall be fixed by the Revenue  Allocation Mobilization and Fiscal Commission the members of the National Assembly are paid emoluments ranging from N13 million to N15 million per month.

In addition to their salaries the 36 State Governors are paid security votes running into hundreds of millions per month. The largesse has since been extended to all senior public officers, including   heads of ministries, departments, and agencies of the federal and state governments, as well as local government chairmen. The security votes paid to senior public officers are about N241 billion per annum.

As if such subsidy is not enough, state governors have been placed on scandalous pensions of billions of Naira. But due to public criticisms, the Lagos State Government has halved the pension for ex-governors while the Governments of Kwara, Imo, and Zamfara States have abolished the payment of the outrageous pension to former governors and deputies. We call on all other state governments to emulate the example of the aforementioned 3 state governments.

21. Diversion of dividend and feed gas of $33 billion by NNPCL

Nigeria LNG Limited is jointly owned by Nigeria and the OICs. The 49% shares of Nigeria in the joint venture were paid for from the Federation Account in 1989. On March 29, 2021, former President Buhari disclosed that the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) had generated $114 billion in revenues, paid $9 billion in taxes, $18 billion as dividend and $15 billion in Feed Gas Purchase to the Federal Government. However, rather than pay the fund into the federation account as constitutionally directed, the $33.9 billion dividend and feed gas was diverted by the NNPCL.

22. Diversion of trillions of Naira through fuel subsidy fund

Notwithstanding the allocation of 445,000 barrels of crude oil to NNPC per day for domestic consumption, it has been confirmed that the figures for fuel importation in Nigeria between 1999 and 2023 are as follows:

1. 1999-2006 =N813 billion;
2. 2007-2009= N794 billion;
3. 2010-2014= N3.9 trillion;
4. 2015-2023= N11 trillion.

Last week, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mr. Mele Kyari stunned the nation when he said that the federal government still owes the company N2.8 trillion in fuel subsidy payments. But the monumental fraud that has characterized the fuel subsidy scam has been confirmed by the Buhari regime.

Thus, on March 27, 2022, former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Timipre Sylva publicly lamented the controversies surrounding the amount of petrol that the nation consumes daily, said the subsidy regime encouraged criminal activities like smuggling, which in turn impact negatively on the nation’s oil resources. He said that, “I am told the figure sometimes rise to as high as 90 or over 100 million litres. I don’t know how that happens. At this rate, I have said if anyone is looking at a criminal enterprise, look no further than the fuel subsidy.” The criminal enterprise ought to be probed by the Bola Tinubu administration.

Conclusion

It is crystal clear from the foregoing that members of the ruling class are heavily subsidized by the peripheral capitalist system while the masses are subjected to excruciating economic pains.

We are therefore compelled to call on the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress as well as the progressive extraction of the civil society to mount pressure on the federal government to stop the dollarisation of the national economy, indiscriminate grant of duty waivers, theft of crude oil, gold, and other mineral resources and recover the nation’s looted wealth. In other words, these ‘subsidies’ should be recovered while the nation’s refineries are fixed so that the country can provide genuine subsidies that can make life livable in Nigeria

Since well before Nigeria’s return to elective governance in 1999, the country has been overtaken by a progressive escalation of what Hannah Arendt in her classic ‘On Violence’ called “a massive intrusion of criminal violence into politics.” In contemporary Nigerianism, the word for this is “banditry”.

“Bandits” is a conveniently capacious bogeyman for insecurity in Nigeria that precludes necessary questions as to the provenance of the descent into lawlessness. It captures diverse elements that may include terrorists, cultists, herdsmen, kidnappers, criminal gangs, and militants.

Originally applied to the motorcycle gangs who perpetrate carnage in different parts of Nigeria’s north-west, bandits have now become the trope for an intolerable toll of destruction by mostly non-state entities as well as the inexplicable haplessness of Nigeria’s federal government that has never been known to cringe at the thought of exterminating significant numbers of its citizens. This lamentable situation compels a retrospective on how what the country now calls banditry evolved.

Since independence, successive governments in Nigeria have confronted variants of banditry. The evidence over time suggests a link between governance, its failures, and what is now called banditry. As a usage, it conflates two underlying crises – a government without consequences and ungoverned spaces.

In This Present Darkness, his history of organised crime in Nigeria, Stephen Ellis traces post-independence banditry in Nigeria to “shortly before the civil war, when government broke down in some parts of the Western Region and there was a blurred line between political violence, crime, and organized insurgency.” When the war ended in 1970, the military regime failed to manage demobilisation.

In Southern Nigeria, which comprises a mere 29% of Nigeria’s nearly 924,000 km² of landmass, urban banditry ensued. Armed robbery in built-up areas of the country was an early manifestation. An early exponent of this was Ishola Oyenusi, a high-school dropout who chose to be called “the Doctor” and terrorised Lagos at the end of the Civil War. In response, the military government introduced mandatory death by firing squad for convicted armed robbers. The first public executions took place in front of Bar Beach, Victoria Island, Lagos on April 26, 1971. Less than four and a half months later, on September 8, 1971, Oyenusi was executed at the same location.

The pace of public executions quickly escalated. By 1979, Nigeria had publicly executed over 500 armed robbers by firing squad. In 1984 alone, the regime of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari shot at least 355. In 1985, it killed another 301 by firing squad. In 12 years between 1984 and 1996, over 1,200 such executions took place.

In 1984, the response of General Muhammadu Buhari to the emergence of drug trafficking as a new dimension to outlawry in Nigeria was also the firing squad. Far from being mitigated, however, drug trafficking by Nigerians became more organised, more lucrative, and more violent.

In a little-noticed release on December 21, 2018, Nigeria’s then-defence minister, Mansur Dan-Ali, a retired one-Star General from Zamfara state, complained: “The issue of (sic) drug abuse, unemployment and governance amongst others contributes to the deplorable security situation in Zamfara state”. In the same month, the Buhari administration launched a presidential advisory committee on the elimination of drug abuse chaired by retired Brigadier Buba Marwa. The membership included the wives of both the president and the vice president. In the four decades that separated the beginning and end of Buhari’s two tours of duty as head of state, Nigeria’s response to organised drug cartels had evolved from firing squad to pillow talk.

It appeared that each succeeding decade saw an intensification of urban outlawry in different parts of southern Nigeria. In the 1980s, the poster boy was Lawrence Anini, another school dropout who concatenated indiscriminate violence with a touch of Robin-Hood in a peculiar form of advocacy for the downtrodden.

Anini’s reign of terror in the then Bendel and surrounding states was facilitated by the complicity of some senior police personnel who helped to provide his gang with intelligence and disappeared evidence against them. When two members of his gang were convicted in mid-1986 following effective police work, Anini turned his guns against the police in an intense rampage of mass killing, during which 10 police officers in Bendel state died between August and October 1986. That would prove to be his undoing.

Military President, Ibrahim Babangida, turned up the heat on then Inspector-General of Police, Etim Inyang, famously asking him during a meeting of the then-ruling military council in October 1986: “Where is Anini?” Two months later, in December 1986, the police arrested Anini and dismantled his gang, which included George Iyamu, a police superintendent. In March 1987, they were executed.

In the 1990s, Shina Rambo terrorised parts of south-west Nigeria with similar escapades. In south-east Nigeria, the Otokoto case in Owerri, Imo state, in 1996 revealed a netherworld of ritualised human sacrifice.

By the 2000s, political violence and assassinations would emerge as dominant forms of outlawry. With the introduction of online banking to minimise cash-in-transit, armed robbers began stealing human beings in order to get their money. Commercial kidnapping boomed. In Osisikankwu (Obioma Nwankwo) in Abia state and resource militants in the Niger Delta traded in this. In parts of south-east Nigeria, politicians and these organised crime gangs made common cause leading government to break down. In response, a bandit, vigilante horde, known as Bakassi Boys took over the streets.

Three additional factors collaborated in launching this new phase. First, public universities incredibly became fertile breeding grounds for outlaws. The story originated in competition among university-based confraternities, which forced the Pyrates’ Confraternity, the oldest of these confraternities in Nigeria, to leave the universities about 1986. The Supreme Eiye Confraternity (National Association of Airlords) emerged in Lagos around 1965 as a rival to the Pyrates. In Ibadan, the National Association of Sealords, better known as the Buccaneers, followed by 1972. The University of Calabar produced the Klansmen Confraternity and in the University of Port Harcourt, the Vikings emerged. These university cults “pursue their cause with brazen audacity and outright disregard for the laws of the country”.

The growth of these groups coincided with the emergence of articulate civic activism in the universities led by the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), later known as the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). Military rulers co-opted these cults to disrupt official student activism. Competing groups in the politics of university administration also found them useful. In the Niger Delta, Stephen Ellis recalls, they “became a factor in the region’s politics”.

Second, the mismanagement of natural resources exploitation in the country energised the transition from urban to rural banditry. Southern Kaduna, for instance, had always been rich in gemstones, including diamond, sapphire, quartz, ruby, tourmaline, and aquamarine. In the early-to-mid 1980s, this set off a mad rush of artisanal gemstone rustlers who invaded communities in Jema’a. The rustlers came from as far as Mali, Senegal and Sudan in search of shiny gemstones that the locals called “devil stones”.

In 1986, Newswatch Magazine’s Aniete Usen reported “cases of eliminating by kidnapping, the sudden disappearance of dealers and diggers and a whole range of other blood-chilling tales. The barons, agents and diggers became fanatically…. fully armed with automatic weapons”. The weapons they brought into Southern Kaduna would feature prominently in the first Kafanchan crisis in 1987. Their methods have been evident in the descent from artisanal mining to organized banditry in Birnin-Gwari and Zamfara three decades later.

Third, Babangida’s transition to a civil rule programme created a mutual support network between politicians, robbers and cults. In the Niger Delta, the military regime of General Abacha introduced guns to quell civic advocacy for resource justice. In 1994, they deployed the Joint (Military) Task Force. Three decades later, the guns are everywhere and the JTF is mired in an interminable mission.

By 2008, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, asked how the armed youths in the Niger Delta who traded in violence acquired their weapons, answered the Rivers State Truth and Reconciliation Commission presided over by former Supreme Court Justice, Kayode Eso, that “the guns were purchased with money disbursed by politicians”.

Quite clearly, successive regimes in Nigeria have found pockets of banditry useful in the enterprise of taking and keeping power. Unsurprisingly, politicians are mostly half-hearted in fighting it. During elections in 2023, for instance, banditry nearly vanished remarkably. Immediately after the vote, it resumed with full force. It seems rather evident that in Nigeria now, the bandits and the politicians are in bed with one another.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. A version of this article first appeared in December 2018 as “Banditry in Nigeria: A Brief History of A Long War”.

Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan claimed her first Diamond League win of the season in the women’s 100m hurdles on Sunday night.

Amusan won the hurdles — which took place at the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm — with an impressive time of 12.52 seconds.

The Nigerian athlete defeated Sarah Avalanche of Ireland, who finished second in 12.73 seconds, while Pia Skrzyszowska of Poland claimed the third spot in 12.78 seconds.

On Friday, Amusan came second behind Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn at the Lausanne Diamond League.

The reigning world champion and record holder finished the 100m hurdles with a season-best matching time of 12.47 seconds.

The 26-year-old Commonwealth Games champion will defend her title at the World Athletics Championship later this year in Budapest.

Amusan had a stellar 2022 where she delivered brilliant performances at the Diamond League, Commonwealth Games, and World Athletics Championships.

She became the first Nigerian world champion after she clocked a wind-aided 12.06 seconds — ineligible as a world record because of +2.5 meters per second strong wind.

The sprinter consolidated her feat with a gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games before retaining her Diamond League title to put a brilliant wrap on her season.

She was nominated for the 2023 Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year award in February.

The award recognises individuals and teams from the world of sports along with sporting achievements throughout the year under review.

[TheCable]

The immediate past Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has landed a World Bank job as an Alternate Executive Director.

Baring hitches, she will resume at the bank’s headquarters in Washington on July 10.

 However, there appears to be pushback from some interests who alleged that the former  minister did not follow due process.

An online medium, today, quoted Washington sources as saying that Mrs. Ahmed circumvented appointment procedures by nominating herself .

The report also had it that the World Bank had requested for the nominations of three economists for an AED position, several months before the end of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, but that the minister kept the letter to herself.

It was also alleged that the minister neither obtained President Buhari’s approval of her self-nomination nor the approval of the new President, Sen. Bola Tinubu.

 However, a highly placed federal government source who is familiar with the World Bank system told Vanguard that Mrs. Ahmed did nothing wrong in the appointment.

According to the source, “It’s impossible (for her to nominate herself). And she didn’t.  She was validly nominated by the Ministry (of Finance) and President Buhari approved her nomination before he left.

“This type of nomination is routine as a former DG Budget was nominated at the twilight of the Jonathan administration and nobody made any noise about it. It’s truly unfair.

“The former DG Budget was nominated as Executive Director, African Development Bank.”

The source explained that the AED position is usually occupied by former Ministers of Finance (Governors of World Bank) or Permanent Secretaries in the Federal Ministries of Finance (Alternative Governor of World Bank).

He said, “Also, please note that the ED from South Africa was a former South African Minister. The position is meant for either former Minister of Finance ( Governor World Bank) or Permanent Secretary Finance( Alternate Governor World Bank) ,i.e. those familiar with the development policy issues and transfer of real resources to developing countries.

“And those who understand World Bank Executive Board issues and have helped in shaping World Bank decision making from the viewpoint of Authorities/member countries in recent times.

“It’s not a position for theoretical Economists who have not had any dealings with the Ministry of Finance in Sovereign member countries.”

Mrs. Ahmed is expected to work under Ayanda Dlondlo, a former South African Minister who is the Executive Director.

[Vanguard]

First Caveat: This piece might appear to be controversial or dumb but I invite you to read it with an open mind; if you have a superior or counterargument, I welcome you to bring it forward with an open mind as well. 

Second Caveat: I am not homophobic neither is this piece; I have no problem with people being gay, you can choose to have sex with whatever tickles your fancy; be it with a tree, dog, water, fire or same-sex human, it is your body, (mind you, you may just be possessed by a demon and never born that way). What I have a problem with is you as a gay foisting yourself and your sexual orientation on other persons who ain’t gay and expecting everyone to relate with you, accept you and accommodate you even when you are acting nasty around the people; then playing the victim card by railroading anyone who dares resist you by accusing that person of being homophobic.

Just like the way you have the right to validly exercise your legal rights to being gay, someone else who is not gay and whose belief is against homosexuality also has the right to resist you or refuse to be associated with you. Both rights can exist, and stand side by side concurrently and they are both valid.

You cannot force a business owner whose belief system is against homosexuality to attend to you or service you; this was the crux of the recent Supreme Court judgment in the case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. You cannot force a priest whose belief is against homosexualism to officiate your wedding as a gay couple. You so-called gays doing that in the guise of gay activism are not just being gay, you are bullies and nuisance that you deserve no place in the modern society. 

                    ***********
The cliche “gay by birth” is a made up nonsense. People that use that phrase are either ignorant or just living in self-deception. There is no scientific proof wherever that proves that there is anybody that is born gay or born homosexual. In fact, a series of reputable scientific and medical publications/ journals have clearly stated that there is no genetic link or biological link to prove that any human is born to have sexual attraction towards the same sex; if you are not born that way then you must have learnt, acquired or adopted it from your immediate environment after birth or you are just possessed by demons. Either or all can be true.

Therefore, what causes homosexualism or gayness is all sociological and never biological; it is what you experienced, developed and fantasised, it was never innate or inbuilt. 

Let’s ask ourselves, are animals gay or can they be gay? I have yet to see research that shows that an animal is displaying a sexual relationship towards the same sex, so animals ain’t gay because they have not been exposed or learnt to be gay unlike humans and humans are just higher animals. If animals can not be gay by birth then humans are not gay by birth. 

Most of the world’s religions; Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and even Traditional religion etc frowns on being gay and sees homosexualism as an abomination. Each of these religions has principles or rules in their holy books that forbid humans from having sexual relationships with same-sex pairs. Enough of the religious principles? Even as a natural principle or natural law, the male sex is to pair with the female pair both for the purpose of pleasure and procreation and that is how nature has ordained it. 

Since people are not born gay, these are some of the known ways a person can turn into homosexual after birth; 

1. Learnt through the media; either the mainstream media or social media
2. Learnt from the immediate environment ie from a member of the family or friend who is a gay
3. Sexual abuse of a child by a same-sex adult
4. The urge to explore different sexual fantasies and yielding to the urge
5. Possessed by demons etc. 

Parents owe it as a duty to their children and to society to pay attention to their children; it may sound harsh but true that if your child turns gay you have failed as a parent and it is a shame.

Stan Alieke is a legal practitioner.