The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has confirmed that his principal will attend the burial ceremony of 17 military personnel killed in Okuama community in Delta State.

The presidential aide stated this in a post via his official X (formerly Twitter) handle on Wednesday.

He claimed that it would be the first time in ten years that a Nigerian President has paid such homage to the gallant soldiers who died in service.

Onanuga said two other burials in 2018 and 2021 were not attended by former President Muhammadu Buhari.

The presidential aide asserted that his principal is demonstrating that he cares about all Nigerians.

He wrote, “It is confirmed that President Bola Tinubu will be attending the national burial for the Nigerian military officers and soldiers killed on 14 March by some gunmen in Okuama Community in Delta State.

“It is the first time in the last ten years that a Nigerian President will attend such a solemn event, in honour of our men of gallantry and valor. Two other burials in 2021 and 2018 were not graced by the incumbent.

“We told you then that @officialABAT cares. He is demonstrating it yet again.”

Recall that the President had said last week that there would be a befitting burial for the 16 deceased soldiers who were killed while on a peacekeeping mission in Delta State.

Tinubu had expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the slain soldiers and pledged that the sacrifices of the fallen heroes would never be in vain.

Controversial cross-dresser Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, has knocked women who are criticising him for identifying with the female gender.

Naija News recalls that social media was agog after the organisers of the Ajakaju movie premier announced Bobrisky as the winner of the female best-dressed category.

However, reacting to the outrage, the movie producer Eniola Ajao explained that the organisers decided to give the best-dressed female category award to spark controversy as a publicity strategy.

Responding to those women criticising him after he received the award, Bobrisky, in a now-viral live Instagram session, said that women have no choice but to accept him as part of them.

He said, “Some people are saying Bobrisky, are you a woman, are you a this, are you a that? I’m not here to come and argue anything. Respect people how they want to be addressed, even without just looking at my body, without just opening my body to see anything. Number one, you need to respect people how they want to be addressed.

“I can see a lot of women coming out, you know, saying different things. I’ll not insult anybody. I love women. Women are the most powerful gender in the world, so I’m not coming here to say, oh, they are this, they are that; see you guys, ehhhn, you have no choice. You have to accept me as part of the sisterhood. Do you hear me? You guys have no choice. I’m part of the sisterhood already, so deal with it.”

The son of a former president of Guinea-Bissau, Malam Bacai Sanha Jr, has been sent to prison in the United States.

Naija News learnt that the US Justice Department on Tuesday announced that the Sanha had bagged more than six and a half years in prison for involvement in a transnational heroin trafficking conspiracy.

The statement also disclosed that Sanha was a leader and organizer in the heroin trafficking conspiracy and was involved in its importation from Europe to the United States.

In July 2022, he and a co-conspirator were arrested after arriving in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and they were extradited to the United States shortly afterwards.

In September 2023, Sanha pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance for unlawful importation.

According to the statement released by the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, “Malam Bacai Sanha Jr, planned to use the proceeds to finance a coup in the West African country that would lead to his eventual presidency and establishment of a drugs regime.”

Also, the special agent in charge of the FBI Houston, Douglas Williams, said, “Malam Bacai Sanha Jr. wasn’t any ordinary international drug trafficker, he is the son of the former president of Guinea-Bissau and was trafficking drugs for a very specific reason – to fund a coup.”

Guinea-Bissau has a history of military coups interspersed with periods of democratic rule, though elected leaders have managed to serve a full term since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1974.

Sanha’s father, Malam Bacai Sanha, was initially installed by a junta as interim leader in 1999 before he lost the election the following year.

He won the presidency in a 2009 election but died while seeking medical treatment in Paris in January 2012 before completing his term.

His son, known as “Bacaizinho” in Guinea-Bissau, has served in several government roles, including his father’s economic advisor.

Julius Abure has won re-election as National Chairman of Labour Party for a second term in office.

Abure was on Wednesday re-elected by a unanimous affirmation of delegates at the party’s National Convention in Nnewi, Anambra State.

The Chairman of the National Convention and Deputy Governor of Abia State, Ikechukwu Emetu declared him the winner during the event attended by party leaders and members.

President Bola Tinubu has sent a congratulatory message to 44-year-old Bassirou Faye.

This comes after Faye won the Presidential election in Senegal.

Tinubu’s congratulatory message was contained in a statement on Wednesday by Ajuri Ngelale, a presidential Spokesperson.

President Tinubu noted that President-elect Faye comes with great promise and a sterling record, wishing him success as he takes on the critical job of leading Senegal.

The President also congratulated President Macky Sall for overseeing an election widely judged as peaceful and transparent.

President Tinubu stated that the success of the presidential election in Senegal and the successful conduct of the general election in Liberia a few months ago had affirmed his long-held conviction that the taproot of democracy is deeply established in West Africa and will only grow stronger as it is watered by good governance, justice, and fairness to all.

As the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, the President affirmed that the Senegal election was successful and boosted the sub-regional organisation’s efforts to promote peace and constitutional order and strengthen ties among member states.

President Tinubu assured the people of Senegal of Nigeria’s best wishes and support.

DAILY POST recalls Faye defeated Senegal’s ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba at the Sunday presidential election.

Kemisola Bolarinwa, a Nigerian robotics and embedded systems engineer, has created a smart bra designed to detect early-stage breast cancer before symptoms manifest.

Bolarinwa made the invention known to the world in February 2022, by designing the prototype of the smart bra. It was spurred by the death of her loved one in 2017.

She said before the death of her aunt, she rarely paid any attention to breast cancer. This was because it was just something she heard on the TV or radio.

Bolarinwa is the founder and chief executive officer of Nextwear Technologies, the first wearable technology startup in Nigeria. She said she was moved to invent the smart bra, after frequent visits to the hospital where her aunt was before she died.

According to her, seeing other women battling breast cancer was painful. She then intensified efforts on the invention.

Her invention was recognised by BBC Africa. She spent a year and a half of intense research, before the smart bra came up in 2019, Bolarinwa added.

How breast cancer bra works

To detect lumps in the breast, the smart bra repurposes ultrasound technology into a small form factor. The initiative is to shrink down an ultrasound machine to a portable size where it becomes wearable.

According to Bolarinwa, this was possible with nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a branch of science, technology, and engineering that deals with the manufacturing of tech in small sizes.

For more context, the smart bra uses an ultrasound system called the Doppler that bounces high-frequency sound waves off the body to detect blood clots, heart defects, and blocked arteries. This works differently from ultrasound machines that use sound waves to generate images of the scanned area.

More work on smart bra

After years of research and developing a prototype, she revealed there is still a lot of work before the breast cancer bra can be commercialised.

Bolarinwa said the smart bra still needs further development and extensive clinical. She gave a time frame between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 for mass production.

Aside from being an inventor, Bolarinwa is also a strong advocate for getting more women interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), something she was passionate about growing up.

Bolarinwa called for more work on research for inventions to be effective in solving the problems they are designed for. Also, she lamented that there are not adequate research organisations to help.

She said: “In four months, a fintech platform will be built and be ready for the market. This is one of the reasons why few people play in the hardware or deep tech side of technology in Africa. There aren’t enough research institutes.”

Who she is

Bolarinwa holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering from the University of Ado-Ekiti (now Ekiti State University).

She has more than 10 years of experience, exceptional tech skills and strong problem-solving skills. She is passionate about solving complex problems and staying up-to-date with the latest technologies.

Bolarinwa is an inventor, innovator, entrepreneur, and president of the Women In ICT Foundation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology education, leadership, and businesses for women and young girls to resolve problems of the under-representation of women in leadership, policy-making, and math-intensive fields of science and technology.

The Nigerian Navy, Forward Operating Base (FOB) Ibaka, Akwa Ibom, has apprehended a suspected oil thief who was en route to Cameroon with 15,500 litres of suspected Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

The Commanding Officer, Capt. Uche Aneke, made this disclosure at Ibaka while handing over the suspect and the seized product to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC.

Aneke said that the suspect was arrested with the exhibit at about 2:00 am on Friday. 

According to him, the navy received an intelligence report that a boat was conveying suspected smuggled products through FOB, Ibaka operational area, and heading towards Cameroon.

”We intercepted the boat and discovered that it was laden with 15,500 litres of products suspected PMS concealed under a tarpaulin.

”We also found a suspected smuggler onboard who was arrested immediately,” he said.

The commanding officer warned against smuggling of illegal consignments in or out of the country, saying that the navy was committed to tackling such activities.

”We are committed towards detecting every criminal move around our operational area using advanced surveillance equipment and intelligence.

”Criminals are warned, Nigeria’s water and coastal areas are not for illegal activities,” he said.

Receiving the exhibit, Mr Etefia Koko-Ette, Head, Anti Vandal Unit of the NSCDC command in Akwa Ibom, said further investigation would be conducted on the matter.

The House of Representatives has launched a probe into some officials of Federal Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies involved in alleged certificate racketeering with Nigerian students.

Rep. Abubakar Fulata, Chairman, Joint Committee on Certificate Racketeering, vowed to confront such a menace in tertiary institutions during its sitting in Abuja.

He said certificate racketeering could cripple healthcare system and various sectors of the economy if allowed to go unchecked.

Fulata said the House mandated its Committees on University Education, Interior Foreign Affairs, and Youth Development to investigate the matter and report back.

“This has been a burning issue in both public and private institutions where there are seemingly less observance of rules, regulations, processes, quality assurance, among others''.

He said there was a need to get to the root of the illicit act and proffer solutions while appealing to MDAs and relevant stakeholders to cooperate with the committee to achieve the desired result.

NAN reports that a Nigerian reporter, Umar Audu, had, in December 2022, bagged a degree from a university in Cotonou, Benin Republic, in six weeks and subsequently participated in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme.

Audu subsequently accused unnamed officials of the Ministry of Education as members of the racketeering syndicate; a development that elicited widespread criticism by well-meaning Nigerians.

Leading the debate on the motion, Fulata called on the House to “identify officials of MDAs and students who benefited from such institutions and their campuses in the last ten years.

(NAN)

The further tightening of the Monetary Interest Rate to tame elevated inflation by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may create more hurdles for the manufacturing sector and other debtors of commercial banks with a possible consequential negative growth rate effect on the economy.

Rising from its 294th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Tuesday, the central bank announced an increment in interest rate benchmark by 200 basis points to 24.75 percent from 22.75 in a continued chase to tame Nigeria’s stagflation that has seen food inflation rise to 37.92 percent in February 2024.

The decision by the MPC to increase the MPR by 200 bps makes it a total of 600 bps in just one month if one adds the 400 bps delivered in February.

The high cost of funds presents a significant challenge to businesses and the economy. For businesses, it translates to increased borrowing expenses, which can strain their financial resources and hinder investment in expansion, innovation, and hiring.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in particular, face heightened difficulty accessing affordable financing, limiting their growth potential.

The MPC also adjusted the asymmetric corridor around the MPR to +100/-300 basis points, while retaining the Cash Reserve Ratio of Deposit Money Banks at 45 percent. It also adjusted the Cash Reserve Ratio of Merchant Banks from 10.0 per cent to 14 per cent, and retained the Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent.

Governor of the central bank Olayemi Cardoso who announced the decisions of the MPC meeting yesterday in Abuja said the “considerations underscore the importance of the CBN’s commitment to the price stability mandate and the need to urgently bring inflation under control to ensure that the purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians is restored in the short to medium term.”

However, he said he doesn’t expect the tightening rates to be long-drawn.

The CBN governor also disclosed that his office refused to validate the outstanding $2.4 billion Forex forward transactions because they were ineligible for forex allocation.

Cardoso made the remark on Wednesday in reaction to airline operators who said they lied in their claim of settling all FX backlog to its members.

Cardoso said the central bank relied on the report by Deloitte Consultants to refuse approval for the applications. Deloitte Consultants had produced an audit report that revealed that most of the transactions did not qualify for payment.

“In some cases, some allocations were made without being requested. You also had some where they had no naira and they allocated foreign exchange. It was for that reason that we refused to validate those particular transactions. Because, apart from the fact that documentation was not satisfactory, many cases were outright illegal,” the CBN governor said, while responding to questions from journalists at the end of this month’s meeting of the MPC of the bank.

He said law enforcement agencies are now looking into the transactions that are not valid to be paid.

However, he said if there is any information to the contrary, the CBN management would reconsider its stand in due course.

“Other transactions have been settled. And as of today, the valid transactions – as far as the Central Bank of Nigeria is concerned – have been taken care of. We are also not unmindful of the fact that there may be some stakeholders who over some time may have had a backlog in one form or the other,” he stated.

Cardoso said his administration has done what it could to make the FX market as transparent and liquid as possible.

In reaction to the outcome of the MPC meeting, economic experts said much as tightening is necessary at this time because of the elevated inflation, MPC should tighten policy incrementally and in a measured manner that optimises the CBN’s policy tool kit without undue reliance on the monetary policy rate. 

Professor of capital market and former commissioner of finance in Imo State, Uche Uwaleke, said the development is now driving undue pressure by banks on the CBN’s Standing Lending Facility and increasing cost of funds generally.

“The CBN should recognise that the challenge currently facing the Nigerian economy is not just inflation but stagflation, and to this end should equally have regard to growth concerns in future meetings of the MPC,” he stated.

Rate Hike To Limit Banks’ Lending To Businesses —- Experts

Analysts have expressed concern that the latest hike in benchmark interest rate will see deterioration of the lending books of banks and would also have a negative impact on growth in the country.

According to analysts, the MPC is trading growth for stability with its latest moves.

In line with the expectations of analysts, the MPC had for the second consecutive time this year raised the benchmark interest rate from 18.75 per cent to 22.75 per cent, and now 24.75 per cent.

Commenting on the latest hike, managing director and chief executive of Arthur Steven Asset Management Limited, Mr Olatunde Amolegbe, noted that he had expected the committee to continue with its hawkish stance.

According to him, the MPC is reading effectiveness to its massive rate movement of last month, given that the naira had begun to strengthen and this is expected to slow the rate of growth in inflation rate in subsequent months.

“I suspect that is why they kept applying the same measures this month albeit at a relatively less hawkish level. The rate increase will, of course, continue to attract foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) at a high rate as we have seen in recent weeks, which will continue to boost supply to the forex market and ensure price stability.

“It is also possible that local investors move towards fixed income instruments rather than speculating in the forex market which could reduce inordinate demand and strengthen the Naira further,” he said.

He, however, noted that ‘the flip is that finance cost increases sharply for industries with negative impact on production, unemployment and economic growth.”

Meanwhile, Amolegbe whilst stating that the CBN is trading growth for stability at this point, said, “The point at which this needs to be reversed is anybody’s guess. As costs such as interest rates rise, the probability of default or non-performance loans (NPLs) also tends to rise. “This, also coupled with rising inflation and lower consumer purchasing power, might mean higher NPL levels in the books of banks.”

This was also the view of the chief executive of the Centre for Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr Muda Yusuf, who stressed that the hike would mean a higher cost of credit to the real sector.

He said, “The new dramatic increase in MPR means that the cost of credit to the few private sectors that have exposure to bank credits will increase, which will impact their operating costs, prices of their products and profit margins, amidst very challenging operating conditions.”

Noting that in the Nigerian context, price levels are not interest sensitive, Yusuf said supply side issues are much more profound drivers of inflation.

According to him, the hike would further pose a risk to the financial intermediation role of financial institutions in the country.

“The increase would constrain the capacity of banks to support economic growth and investment, especially in the real sector of the economy because the increases are quite significant.

“Already, bank lending has been constrained by the high CRR, with many operators in the sector claiming that effective CRR is as high as 50 per cent for many banks. The Nigerian banks are yet to live up to their financial intermediation role because of these constraining factors,” he concluded.

Legal Luminary, Femi Falana has called for the advertisement of the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman and that of the Residents Electoral Commissioners (RECs) for the sake of transparency and credibility in the system.

Falana suggested that after eligible persons apply for the office of the INEC chairman and the RECs, the National Assembly would conduct a thorough screening of the three best candidates before one of them should be announced.

The senior advocate, who is part of a movement for the Electoral and Judicial Reforms that emerged after the Haske Satumari Foundation Annual Colloquium, insisted that if a credible person emerges as INEC chairman through an open process, it will go a long way in the nation’s election credibility.

“In appointing INEC chairman and Residents Electoral Commissioners, the position should be advertised.

“The best three names should be sent to the Senate for screening before announcement,” Falana said.

Falana who said their interest is to ensure that Nigeria gets the best when it comes to election, urged the country to ensure that the Justice Uwais panel report on election should be fully adopted.

“We must go back to the Uwais panel report,” Falana said.

Speaking, the founder of Haske Satumari Foundation, Hon Kudla Satumari, said they are working to ensure that both the electoral act and the constitution provided for full transmission of election results electronically.

“We want electronic transmission of election results to be fully adopted,” Kudla said, adding that the non-transmission of election results electronically has denied many people victory.

Speaking on why many lose in court, Kudla said their movement is suggesting that once grounds of an appeal are clear and acceptable, the onus of proof should be shifted to the acclaimed winner.

“While dealing with the principles of evidence, some people only look at the technicalities. So, once you are able to prove your case in the petition, the onus of proof should be shifted to the acclaimed winner,” Kudla said.

On the issue of immunity, Kudla said it should be removed in all political offices adding that their movement is also working on how the constitution and the electoral act would be amended to ensure that only the number of people that voted for a lawmaker is required for a recall process.

“If you are recalling a member, it should be a similar percentage that voted for the person. A simple majority that elected the member should be enough for the recall of the member,” Kudla said while disclosing areas they will be pushing for amendment in the electoral act and the constitution amendment.