Four worshippers have reportedly died after a section of the Zaria central mosque in Kaduna state collapsed on Friday.

Seven other people were also said to have sustained injuries in the accident.

The incident occurred when the worshippers were observing prayers around 4 pm.

Ahmed Bamalli, Emir of Zazzau, confirmed the incident.

The emir said the walls of the mosque had developed cracks, noting that there were plans to repair them before the incident.

“We had earlier observed a crack on the wall of the mosque yesterday, and were planning to deploy a team of civil engineers to effect repairs when this unfortunate incident happened,” he said.

Bamali directed that prayers be held outside the mosque until the repairs are done.

He also instructed that the funeral prayer for the four victims be observed at 8.30 pm at the emir’s palace.

Shehu Nagari, a survivor, who narrowly escaped from being trapped said the worshippers were in the second “sujud of Asr prayer” when a portion of the mosque collapsed.

Nagari said the building collapsed on those seated directly at the section, killing the four victims.

He added that the collapsed section of the mosque, which was built with mud, had existed for over 150 years

Airtel Africa Plc’s Chief Executive Officer, Olusegun Ogunsanya, has offloaded shares worth £757 440 an equivalent of N720.59m to buy property in the UK.

The number of shares sold by the Nigeria is 666,174 .760 units at the London Stock Exchange on August 4, 2023.

A regulatory filing dated August 11 and seen by THE WHISTLER reveals that the CEO’s shares in Airtel has reduced to 4,325,282 Ordinary Shares.

Airtel said, “This sale of Ordinary Shares is to be used to fund a property purchase by Mr Ogunsanya. Following this transaction Mr Ogunsanya holds 4,325,282 Ordinary Shares in Airtel Africa.”

Ogunsanya who was appointed as CEO of the company sold the share at £1.137 per unit at the London bourse.

Before joining Airtel in 2013, Segun held top roles at Coca-Cola’s bottling operations in Ghana, Kenya and the CEO in Nigeria.

The Airtel CEO was also a managing director of Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd (Coca-Cola Hellenic owned) and head of retail banking operations at Ecobank Transnational Inc, covering 28 countries in Africa.

He is a chartered accountant and an engineer.

… FDI Drops Drastically To $399.9m In 2022

The cost of operating in the Nigerian economy took a toll on telecommunication operators as they spent more than half of their N3.85trn revenue on operating costs.

The players in the industry spent N2.1trn on operating costs according to the 2022 end-of-year performance report released by the Nigerian Communications Commission.

This operating cost represent a surge from the N1.72trn they spent in 2021. Their revenue in 2021 was N3.24trn.

The report seen by THE WHISTLER showed that the players in the telecommunication industry spent N785.7bn on capital expenditure.

The big names in the Nigeria telecommunication industry are MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, Airtel Africa Plc, Globacom Ltd, EMTS (formerly Etisalat), NTEL and Smile.

The report categorised the licenses by GSM, Fixed Wire, Internet Service Providers, Value Added Services, Collocation and Infrastructure Sharing, and other telecom operators.

During the period telecom operators generated N3.33trn revenue from GSM revenue services and spent N1.99trn of the earnings on operation cost. CAPEX for GSM services was N718.3m.

Revenue generated from fixed wire services was N385.1m while telecom service providers spent N841.7m on operating cost for the service. They spent N61.3m on capital expenditure.

Internet Service Providers generated N92.1bn and spent N71.2bn of the revenue on operating cost.

Operators providing Value Added Services earned N40.7bn revenue. They however spent N14.9bn on operating cost. Their CAPEX was N417.3m.

The total revenue generated from collocation and infrastructure Sharing by all the service providers was N3.2bn while N3.18bn was operating cost incurred in the course of providing the service.

Operators in the industry categorized as others generated N5.85bn revenue and spent N6bn. They also spent N524m on capital expenditure.

The report revealed that in 2022, Foreign Direct Investment dropped to $399.9m from $753m FDI recorded in 2021.

The NCC said, “Capital Inflow (Foreign Direct Investment) into the Nigerian Telecoms Industry in Year 2022 was approximately $399,905,531.38 against ,$753,044,446.35.

 Oluwatobi Seton, 28, of Bloomington, Indiana, has been sentenced to nearly 5.5 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

According to court documents, Seton conspired with partners in Nigeria to obtain unemployment and other benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic from state and federal governments by falsely applying for such benefits using the stolen identities of others.  Seton and her co-conspirators obtained personal identifiable information of their victims, which they used to open GoBank accounts and obtain debit cards. The conspirators then submitted false and fraudulent employment applications to unemployment agencies throughout the United States in the victims’ names and had the stolen benefits monies deposited into their fraudulent GoBank accounts and onto debit cards. Seton then used fake driver’s licenses in the victims’ names to access the proceeds of the fraud scheme. At the time of her arrest, Seton had over 1,400 GoBank cards and ten driver’s licenses with different names in her possession.

In total, the conspiracy resulted in at least $5,475,459.00 in actual and attempted losses to state unemployment offices and other state and federal agencies: Seton kept a portion of the proceeds for herself and sent the remainder to her conspirators, including her business partners in Nigeria. Investigators seized over $550,000 in cash and GoBank accounts linked to the scheme during the investigation.

“This international criminal enterprise conspired to steal millions of dollars meant to help our citizens as we fought through the unprecedented pandemic,” said United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Zachary A. Myers. “Fraudsters like this defendant who sought to exploit the urgent need to provide pandemic relief must be held accountable. I commend the work of our partners at the FBI, Bloomington Police Department, and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, along with our federal prosecutors, to identify criminals like this defendant and ensure that they pay the price for their crimes.”

“Profiting from programs meant to help those in need is a despicable and unacceptable crime in and of itself. But this defendant took it a step further and stole identities to perpetrate this fraud and caused those victims immeasurable time in an effort to clear their names,” said FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Herbert J. Stapleton. “The FBI and our local law enforcement partners will continue to identify and aggressively pursue those who commit fraud and ensure they are held accountable for their actions.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bloomington Police Department, and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office investigated this case. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Court Chief Judge, Tanya Walton Pratt. Judge Pratt also ordered that Seton be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for 1 year following her release from federal prison and pay restitution in the amount of $4,309,027.00.

U.S. Attorney Myers thanked Assistant United States Attorney MaryAnn T. Mindrum, who prosecuted this case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID‑19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID‑19  can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form

[https://www.justice.gov/]