Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, is currently being detained in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The PUNCH can confirm that Emefiele, who is currently being interrogated at the National Headquarters of the anti-graft agency, Jabi, Abuja, was picked up by EFCC operatives Thursday night, less than an hour after he regained his freedom from the dungeon of the Department of State Services.

An impeccable source revealed the development to our correspondent Friday morning, noting that the EFCC is probing Emefiele over alleged impropriety during his term as the head of the apex bank.

“Yes, Emefiele is currently in our (EFCC) custody; he was arrested last night less than an hour after the DSS freed him. He’s currently being interrogated at the headquarters, as he’s being investigated for alleged misappropriation of funds amongst other things during his term as CBN governor,” the source noted.

Our correspondent further gathered that fresh charges may be filed against Emefiele by the EFCC.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the EFCC, Dele Oyewale, could not be reached for official confirmation when contacted by our correspondent on Friday.

The PUNCH reports that Emefiele had been in the custody of the Department of State Services since June after President Bola Tinubu suspended him from office.

He was thereafter asked to hand over his responsibilities to Folashodun Shonubi, the then Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate at the apex bank.

A day after, the DSS announced that Emefiele was in its custody for ‘some investigative reasons’.

On July 25, he was arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on “illegal possession” of firearms at a federal high court in Lagos and was granted bail in the sum of N20 million.

The two-count charge was later struck out on August 17 after the Federal Government withdrew the same.

However, a fresh 20-count charge was instituted against him over an alleged conspiracy to carry out procurement fraud, among others.

The arraignment has been stalled twice, and Emefiele was reported to have proposed a plea bargain agreement with the Federal Government.

The proposed agreement required Emefiele to resign as CBN governor and ‘disgorge’ some assets.

However, on September 22, the CBN officially confirmed Emefiele’s resignation after Olayemi Cardoso was appointed as substantive governor of the apex bank.

[Punch]

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez said he could start some key players against Real Madrid on Saturday who have been out injured in recent weeks, if they arrive 100 percent fit.

The Spanish champions have been without forwards Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha, midfielders Pedri and Frenkie de Jong and defenders Jules Kounde and Sergi Roberto in the lead-up to the match.

However all those players took part in training on Friday except for the latter, with Xavi saying he was surprised by their recoveries and determination to play against Real Madrid.

“I was surprised to see them in training too,” Xavi told reporters on Friday.

“Players that we had almost ruled out and they want to be there, they all want to play.

“They all feel very good and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the squad list.”

Barcelona’s only out-and-out striker Lewandowski has not played since going off injured against Porto in the Champions League on October 4 with an ankle problem.

“Evidently I won’t tell you the line-up or give clues, (but he’s) feeling very good, he’s well,” said the coach.

“They all feel good and want to be there — it’s a very important game.”

De Jong last played in September before he suffered an ankle sprain, while a hamstring injury has ruled Pedri out since August.

Winger Raphinha has been out with a thigh problem since September, while Kounde suffered a knee sprain against Granada on October 10.

Xavi said he would have no hesitance to start any of the returning players if they are fully fit.

“If they are 100 percent, I’ll play them, there’s no problem,” added the coach.

Barcelona have been forced to lean heavily on youngsters from their La Masia youth academy, with Fermin Lopez, Lamine Yamal and Marc Guiu all scoring important goals.

Xavi had some advice for the younger players who may feature against league leaders Real Madrid.

“Having homegrown players is a boost, it’s fantastic to have players from La Masia, they know about the rivalry, they know the importance of the game, it’s always fundamental,” said Xavi.

“(In the Clasico) there are always more nerves, more tension, controlling those nerves, controlling your character, the tempo of the game, it’s hard, because the heart is hot, but (you need) a cold head, I think that’s the key to these games.

“There is more emotion and desire than normal, but control is key.”

The coach noted Jude Bellingham’s impressive impact since arriving at Real Madrid from Borussia Dortmund this summer.

The England international has netted eight goals and is the division’s leading scorer.

“Bellingham is very important for Madrid with their change of system, he has freedom, and attacks well from deep,” added Xavi.

[Vanguard]

The judgment in Nigeria v P&ID is a fascinating read. There is +$10 billion at stake; findings of bribery in the procurement of the underlying contract and during the arbitration process; untruthful/misleading witness evidence regarding that bribery; the improper receipt and use of privileged documents of one party by the other; and the censure of participating lawyers.

As such the conclusion (i.e. that the challenge to the awards under s.68 of the Arbitration Act was successful in there being a ‘serious irregularity’ affecting the awards because they ‘were obtained by fraud and … the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy’) should not be surprising.

However, many readers will focus on the four pages of reflections by Justice Knowles on the agreement, the arbitration process and the awards. Here he invokes the hope that ‘the facts and circumstances of this case may provoke debate and reflection among the arbitration community, and also among state users of arbitration, and among other courts with responsibility to supervise or oversee arbitration. The facts and circumstances of this case, which are remarkable but very real, provide an opportunity to consider whether the arbitration process, which is of outstanding importance and value in the world, needs further attention where the value involved is so large and where a state is involved’.

Such calls for the arbitration community to pause and reflect are welcomed. And indeed (at least in my experience) those involved in the practice of arbitration (both commercial and investor state arbitration) are working hard to improve and standardise practice and procedure and address concerns around transparency and legitimacy of process. Institutions are regularly promulgating new rules and guidelines and most days somewhere in the world there is an arbitration conference addressing such issues.

That said, there is always ground to be made and without such reflection and work there is real ‘risk … that arbitration as a process becomes less reliable, less able to find difficult but important new legal ground, and more vulnerable to fraud’. We must continue to evolve.

However, the calls for reflection need to be considered against the several unfortunate observations regarding the performance of Nigeria and its lawyers in the underlying arbitration (i.e., not those representing it in the English proceedings). While he found that they were not corrupt (as was alleged by Nigeria of its own lawyers), Justice Knowles also observed that:

‘the case has shown examples where legal representatives did not do their work to the standard needed, where experts failed to do their work, and where politicians and civil servants failed to ensure that Nigeria as a state participated properly in the arbitration. The result was that the tribunal did not have the assistance that it was entitled to expect, and which makes the arbitration process work. And Nigeria did not in the event properly consider, select and attempt admittedly difficult legal and factual arguments that the circumstances likely required. Even without the dishonest behaviour of P&ID, Nigeria was compromised.’

Justice Knowles also suggests there was an imbalance ‘in the contributions of the parties’ that lead to form of the agreement at the centre of the dispute. Inherent in these observations is the suggestion that Nigeria was, at least in part, the author of its own problems – Nigeria was compromised by its own inaction and inattention.

As a neutral observer, I however strongly agree with the observations made by Lord Wolfson KC (counsel to the defendant in the English proceedings) in submission during the case:

‘Section 68 [the provision of the Arbitration Act relied upon by Nigeria to challenge the awards] is not there to give you a remedy if you instruct an honest lawyer who makes a mess of it or doesn’t take an available point. That is just tough. You have made your arbitration bed and you lie on it’.

As Justice Knowles acknowledged, Lord Wolfson’s comment is ‘blunt and correct.’ In other words, we, the arbitration community, should be careful in attempting to build mechanisms into the arbitration process that protect against the negligence of one party in the pursuit of their case. Arbitration is a consensual process and once the rules of engagement are set in the arbitration agreement it is for the parties to participate in the manner they agreed. To provide protections in the event of inattention or neglect from one party or the other would be to ignore this fundamental premise.

You are being healed now! You are being located, rescued and restored. I said that you will not nurse those wounds again. You will no more pine away in that pain, hopelessness and regret. Our God specializes in turning wounds and pains into sweetness and greatness. Yes, pains, wounds and scars make generals. True. Show me a general and I will show you a man with scars and near-death experiences from battles.  Do you want to be great? Then you must be ready to accumulate scars, wounds, enemies, deprivations, betrayals and battle stars. Even Jesus went through them all. God gave him a name that is above all names in heaven, on earth and under the earth (the waters), but that was not without scars. He went through robbing, wounding, abandoning and ultimately was killed.  But he came back, rose again to become the sovereign, the indestructible, the immortal King of Kings and the Lord of lords. And today when you mention his name all things – principalities, powers, dominions, thrones, Satan, demons, situations, diseases, occult masters, and satanic agents bow. No scars no authority! In fact, the bible said that his wounds brought us healing – spiritually, emotionally and physically. And by his death, we have received life and victory! If he was not robbed, disgraced, bruised, betrayed and abandoned to die we would not have been saved and empowered today.

Now, there are many in the bible that went through this experience, but we will just pick one or two because of time and space. Look at the hopelessness of the paralyzed man that was abandoned at the Pool of Bethesda. His good health was taken away. He could not walk or help himself and he did not have anybody to help. Even when he lay near the solution, there was nobody to rush him into the water when it was stirred by the visiting angel. And he was in this situation for 38 years. He was virtually left there to die. So he also had no friends or relations?  My God! Yes, friends and relations have a limit to what they can do for you at the time of trial. Don’t put your hope on people, trust God. Don’t trust things, rely on the creator. He is the one that will stay with you when everything has failed. He will stand with you when everyone is gone. The main problem of this man was that he had nobody to help him. As his situation got worse and complicated, everybody deserted him. Nobody unless God-sent will stand with you in such condition for 38 years. Nobody! Just few weeks every sympathizer is gone. And few months, your relations and best friends will gradually start distancing from you. Only your children and a godly spouse, I repeat, a godly spouse will hang on with you when it gets too tough and too long. But I doubt if our friend here had kids and wife. Or they also abandoned him and vamoosed because it happens. It’s possible. Haven’t you seen such before? Human beings are unreliable and unpredictable. May you not over stay in that trial in the name of Jesus!

He had no healing, no help and no hope until Jesus met him. He was abandoned to die and had accepted his fate. Just listen to him, “Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”  John 5:7. Did you hear that? He had accepted his condition. He had enough excuses why he could not be healed. And I know you also have. He had enough and valid medical, social, environmental and historical facts why he should remain in that condition, but Jesus altered them all and healed him. I don’t care what your medical reports are, I don’t care how ‘damaged’ and how long you have been in that situation, I don’t care how powerful your enemies are, all I want to tell you is that the power in the name of Jesus is setting you free today! You will not die. You will not be destroyed and disgraced in this. I release you from that situation now! Be free in the mighty name of Jesus! Please, share this message with others.  We will continue.

No fewer than 20 people sustained various degrees of injuries following a tanker explosion at a petrol station in Rigasa area of Kaduna.

Paul Aboi, Director, Kaduna State Fire Service, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.

In the interview on Thursday in Kaduna, Aboi said among those injured were five federal firefighters, some personnel of Kaduna Vigilance Service and passersby.

The Director said the injured fire service personnel are currently receiving treatment at Barau Dikko Specialist Hospital, Kaduna.

According to him, the tanker was offloading petrol at the station on Wednesday when the incident occurred.

Aboi blamed the incident on negligence on the part of the filling station, saying the offloading of the petrol should not have been done in the afternoon.

[EagleOnline]

SHEIKH Ahmed Gumi, an Islamic cleric, has described the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Nyesom Wike, as “satanic” for allowing the Israeli ambassador to pay him a courtesy visit.

Gumi also accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government of pursuing an anti-Muslim agenda, then said that Christians cannot be trusted with power, then urged Tinubu to sack Wike, then declared that Muslims would rise up against the President and truncate his tenure.

I am seriously disappointed in Gumi. I’ve interviewed him and found him to be pleasant, intelligent and reflective. This type of bigoted talk is, in my opinion, completely beneath an educated man who should have a more enlightened world-view.

Gumi should remember that Israel has quite a few supporters in Nigeria and that quite a few Christians stood by Tinubu despite Tinubu’s choice of Shettima, a fellow Muslim, as his running mate.

Even I – and I’m Obidient, so no fan of Tinubu’s – said on this page, during the election campaign, that I wasn’t bothered about Tinubu’s choice because he is a liberal Muslim.

A lot of Christians told me off for being so relaxed about the Muslim-Muslim ticket issue. And I understood their annoyance because Muslim Northerners had made it clear that they would totally reject Tinubu if he chose a Northern Christian running mate.

And we all know that the average Northern Muslim would have gone absolutely ballistic if a Christian presidential candidate had dared to select a Christian running mate.

Meanwhile, Yoruba friends who don’t warm to Tinubu and hoped that he’d lose at the Supreme Court are telling me that their relatives are pressuring them to warmly embrace Tinubu on tribal grounds.

I wonder whether a day will come when the majority of Nigerians will have matured, both morally and intellectually, to the point at which they judge individuals purely on the basis of their characters rather than on the basis of their ethnic and religious affiliations.

And, by the way, Gumi is not alone in being upset because Wike got the FCT cabinet slot – which has hitherto gone to Northerners.

Such complainants should ask themselves whether FCT would be a gleaming jewel in Nigeria’s crown if billions of petrodollars from Wike’s native Niger Delta region had not been pumped into Abuja and environs for nearly half a century.

The oil-producing part of this country is nowhere near as infrastructurally developed as Abuja; and most of its long-suffering indigenes are drowning in poverty and pollution caused by oil exploration and production. And if we are going to make decisions about who deserves what job on purely geopolitical grounds, I think it is fair to say that the Minister for FCT should ALWAYS be from South-South states like Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta and Akwa Ibom!

For a more secure Nigeria

I SOMETIMES share this page with other writers whose opinions I respect. Please find below an article by my uncle, Jonas Odocha.

The basic tenet attributable to good governance is the security of life and property. When this is attained in any society or nation, it manifests in obvious peaceful coexistence and development. This pathway to national development and growth is guarded so jealously that nations go to extreme lengths to ensure secured borders and the maintenance of internal peace and harmony. Insecurity is, therefore, not an option; it is dreaded, because it has dire consequences, not only on the life and physical assets of the citizenry, but also on the overall growth and development of a society or nation.

It is sad to observe that in Nigeria, in the past couple of decades, insecurity has continued to assume incremental forms, shapes and dimensions. These include the untoward activities of terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, agitators, resource thieves, cultists and drug abusers, which have inflicted unprecedented tolls on loss of life, damage to assets and safety of our highways and institutions. 

All these anti-social activities we must individually and collectively condemn, and the government and its security agencies should be proactive enough to ensure that they are eliminated to the barest minimum.

In as much as evil machinations cannot all be detected a priori, science and technology have become credible tools in enhancing actionable intelligence gathering, to forestall or eliminate the perpetration and or perpetrators of these unwholesome activities. In the recent past, technology-assisted intelligence gathering was employed to rescue a trans-border kidnap victim, here in Nigeria, which confirms that security agencies, determined to track terrorists or criminals, should have modern tools at their disposal which can readily facilitate their operations. The crux of the matter is sincerity of purpose.

It is quite disturbing to observe the ugly incidents of attacks and ambush of security personnel, in their efforts to control insecurity. It is not only demoralising to their colleagues but also painful to the bereaved families. Our thoughts and prayers must reach out to these gallant patriots and their families.

The government and our security agencies should also consider and review their response to the activities of these miscreants, particularly in the neighbouring communities where these activities are carried out. A recent incident in which eight security personnel were ambushed and eliminated in Ehime Mbano, in Imo State, degenerated to the random and wanton destruction of physical assets and harassment of the villagers, who fled into the bushes. Last night, it was announced that air strikes were carried out in Anambara and Imo states, targeted at IPOB/ESN hideouts. I would want to suggest that extreme caution be taken when it comes to air raids and air strikes, realising the collateral damage that is usually associated with such missions. But again, tongues have continued to wag. 

Why? In Niger State, a few weeks ago, 38 officers and men were eliminated and an NAF helicopter also downed by bandits, but there was no air strike reprisal in the neighbouring communities, and one wonders. Again, a Zamfara State lawmaker narrated how bandits shot and killed six security personnel in their community, and as in Niger State, there was no reprisal strike by security agencies, and again you begin to wonder.

As we condemn the attacks and ambush of security agencies while carrying out their assigned duties, particularly their mission to flush out and eliminate the perpetrators, it must be such that innocent citizens are not unduly impacted. 

The impression should also not be created that some areas are treated with kid gloves, whereas some others must be taught very bitter punitive lessons. Such glaring discriminatory approach will never help in eliminating insecurity in Nigeria.

Supremely predictable

THE Supreme Court has just affirmed Tinubu’s presidency.

Nobody is surprised. Such is life in the so-called Giant Of Africa.

Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and Presidential Candidate, Professor Kingsley Moghalu, has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors of the Africa Private Sector Summit, APSS.

The body is a pan-African, private sector-led non-profit organization that promotes trade and investment in Africa and is headquartered in Accra, Ghana.

Announcing Moghalu’s appointment, Mr Judson Wendell Addy, founder and outgoing Chairman of APSS, said Moghalu’s “international leadership experience, credibility, and networks will help advance the goals of APSS, as we proceed with the roll-out of the draft charter on private sector development, rights and protection of the environment in Africa [Private Sector Bill of Rights], across all of Africa’s five geographic regions plus diaspora.”

He said the objective is “to strengthen the private sector in African countries, attract increased business investment to the continent, and make strong contributions to enable the private sector to actively drive implementation of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs] and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) protocols in collaboration with the Pan Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PACCI), the Africa Busines Council (AfBC) and other stakeholders.”

Accepting his appointment, Moghalu said he is honoured to have been invited to chair the Board of APSS, promising that he would “work hard with African companies, and other stakeholders including governments and international organizations to advance the critical role of the private sector in the structural transformation of African economies in the context of Africa’s economic integration and African Union’s Agenda 2063, our collective journey to the Africa we want.”

[Vanguard]

OBVIOUSLY, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakabu, must be in love with the sound of his own voice. That is why he keeps blabbing even when no one is listening. 

He is, once again, playing the game he knows how best – lying to himself and taking Nigerians for a ride. In doing that, he probably thinks he is fooling the people. 

But he never reckons with the admonition of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, who once said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” 

The mistake Yakubu is making is to be so presumptuous in thinking that he can fool all Nigerians all the time simply because he tried it in 2019 and succeeded. And he did an encore in the 2023 elections, and while the country’s apex court is set to legitimise his chicanery once again, truth is, this time around, the people are not fooled. 

The joke is on him. He will go down in history as the man who conducted Nigeria’s worst election, a man who took billions of his country’s scarce resources, promising free, fair and credible elections but delivered sham polls. 

He will be remembered as the man who staged a bloody coup against Nigeria’s democracy and it remains to be seen if the system will survive it. 

But why am I still writing about this democracy undertaker called Mahmoud Yakubu? Well, I had made up my mind that the INEC chairman is not worth my while because it takes a certain level of numbness to shame for anyone to do what he did and still doing. But the man has started talking again. He has

refused to leave Nigerians alone to mourn in silence, having murdered their democracy. He is all over the place, once again, making promises he does not intend to keep. As you read this, it will be exactly 16 days to the offseason governorship elections in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states on Saturday, November 11. And Yakubu is once again giving assurances. 

On October 14, he was in Kogi State where he vowed that the polling unit results of the upcoming elections will be uploaded on INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, IreV. IReV is an online platform where photographic pictures of polling unit results are meant to be uploaded using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines as soon as voting and collation end at the various voting units. Yakubu touted the technology as the game-changer in the 2023 elections. 

Giving the assurances in October last year during the Commission’s quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja, the INEC boss said: “On this note, let me once again reassure Nigerians that there is no going back on the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, for voter accreditation. There is no going back on the transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IreV, in real time on Election Day… We are committed to ensuring that the 2023 general election is transparent and credible, reflecting the will of the Nigerian people.” 

He failed woefully to keep his own promise. Rather than real time uploading of results as promised, the results took days, weeks and even months to be uploaded to the IReV for the public to access. That is even where they were uploaded at all. As I write, eight months after the February 25 presidential election, the full result is yet to be uploaded to the IreV. The Commission blamed the delay on an unforeseen system glitch. Till date, it failed to tell Nigerians whether it was human or technical glitch. Meanwhile, the Presidential Election Petitions Court, PEPC, in September, ruled that IReV had no place in the legal process of counting and collation of results, thereby giving a seal of authority to INEC’s tomfooleries. 

The Supreme Court is set to travel the same judicial route today. So, if IReV has no place in the legal process of counting and collation of results and INEC agreed totally with the courts, what is Yakubu still talking about? Speaking with journalists at Ward 009, LEA School, Ganaja Village, Ajaokuta LGA, Kogi, penultimate Saturday where he claimed to have monitored the mock accreditation exercise ahead of the November 11 governorship elections, he said the uploading of result to the IReV is a matter of legal provision.

“The method is as provided by law – electronic accreditation, electronic upload of results on the IREV portal – and that is why we are doing this mock,” he said. “That’s going to be the procedure and it’s for that reason that I will advise you also, for those who are registered on the IREV portal, that in the next two hours or so, go to the IREV portal and you will see the result of the mock accreditation from all the three states. We are uploading, as we have done in previous elections.” Shouldn’t there be an end to fibbing? Why is the INEC chairman taking Nigerians for granted, treating them in such a cavalier manner?

Truth be told, it is presumptuous of him to believe that anyone is still listening because no one is. Nigerians are too busy these days to waste their time listening to a man that no one can place any stock on any word that comes out of his mouth. Maybe, he is yet to realise that but that is the reality. And worse, he brought the calamity upon himself. 

Perhaps, the question to ask is: if anyone is still interested in any election conducted by INEC superintended by Mahmoud Yakubu? Maybe the political thugs whose ranks are multiplying by the day are. Other than those, I doubt if any self-respecting Nigerian is. In the last general elections, Nigerians travelled from all over the world – Europe, America, Australia, Asia – to the country to vote, believing that their votes will count and be counted as promised by Mahmoud Yakubu, INEC and Muhammadu Buhari. 

They were sold a dummy. As you read this, seven Justices of the Supreme Court, none of whom voted in the last presidential election are set to make a final pronouncement on who won. The winner is not determined by the votes of the people, leaving many to ask why they bothered. When these off-season governorship elections are held on November 11, I doubt if any electorate from Imo who is living in Abia State, for instance, will bother going home to vote.

Same applies to the two other states. In any case, none of the combatants is hoping to be returned elected based on the votes of the people. Ours is a democracy where the votes of the people don’t count in elections. I foresee voter apathy. Many Nigerians, and I am one of them, have vowed never to have anything to do with elections in Nigeria for as long as Mahmoud Yakubu remains INEC chairman.

Even after him, it will take nothing short of a revolution to change people’s mindsets. Some will argue that such attitude is selfdefeating. And I ask: what does it matter if it is? On February 25 and March 18, Nigerians trooped out in their numbers to vote. What difference did it make? Nothing. Instead, they were insulted, bullied, maimed and some killed. And INEC went ahead to dance to the tunes dictated by the pipers. As long as Mahmoud Yakubu remains INEC chairman, no self-respecting Nigerian will have confidence in elections, not to talk of going out to vote.

CARLOS Trejo Sosa was perhaps the friendliest Cuban Ambassador I ever knew. He was a wise, widely travelled man with deep knowledge of Cuban sayings and proverbs which he said mainly emanated from Africa. When in 2016, he received the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, he told him: “We are the same family. I am an African. Do not mind my colour. When you go into my gene, you will know that I am an African.” 

A personal friend of  many of us who identified with Cuba, Carlos  told jokes and loved a good laugh. He loved teasing one of us, Abdulkareem Motajo who had studied in Cuba. One day, as we stood discussing, Motajo switched to Spanish. However, Carlos insisted he spoke in English, but Motajo persisted. A laughing Carlos told me Motajo does not want me to hear what he was saying. With that, he dragged me away to tell me what Motajo was trying to hide.

When after the 2019 Afro-Cuban Conference in Abuja, Carlos told me he was leaving Nigeria, I felt sad and told him he was the friendliest and best Cuban ambassador we have ever had. He smiled and said, the ambassador  replacing him, was even better. Then came Clara Margarita Pulido Escandell. It seemed Cuba had deliberately trained her to be Ambassador to Nigeria. She had attended University of Ghana, Legon for her Masters and her thesis was on Nigeria politics.

So she was quite knowledgeable on Nigerian politics from colonial times. She had been ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, with concurrent accreditation to Djibouti and South Sudan before becoming Ambassador to Algeria with concurrent accreditation to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara). When I met her and she learnt I had been Secretary General of the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, OATUU, in Ghana, she exclaimed: “Where is my father?” “Your father?” “Yes, Hassan Sunmonu!” “You know him?” “I was his adopted daughter in Ghana.” With Alhaji Sunmonu being my father in unionism, our relationship took off on a flying start. Coincidentally, she shared the same January 7 birthday with Hussein and Hassan  Sunmonu.

Pulido read my twice-weekly columns almost religiously, and after each, she would call to discuss them or send a message. Soon, she started calling me her professor. If in a week or two we were not in contact, she asks for a meeting. When we meet, she would usually say: “Professor, have you ever seen where a teacher abandons his pupil?” She teased the more, my comrade, Abiodun Aremu, the Secretary General of the Joint Action Forum, JAF, who is also a recipient of the Cuban Friendship Medal. Sometimes when Aremu visited from Lagos and we had arguments, she would give a mock salute and say: “Owei, our commander is right”, and we would all laugh. She doted over her Nigerian comrades like a mother hen; keeping in constant touch and even linking them up. I could get a phone call from her, and she would say: “You know Mambissa (Tar Ukoh) is sick? Call him.”

Pulido believed she was Nigerian and emphasised that her political father, the Commandante Fidel Castro repeated in the ears of Cubans that they are over 90 per cent African. She cherished a photograph she took with Fidel when she was Cuba youth leader. Pulido believed that in all likelihood, she was Yoruba. Therefore, despite the security situation in the country, she felt quite free to move around. She took serious, invitations her Nigerian comrades extended to her, including visiting their families in their homes. She once flew to Lagos to attend a concert at the Afrika Shrine organised by the Amilcar Cabral Ideological School. She also visited the leadership of the Alimosho Local Government as well as some institutions in Lagos. She explained her visits as acts of solidarity which is: “In our gene, our blood and our hearts.”

Pulido worked round the clock and would sometimes call me late in the night to seek clarification on issues. Needless to say, when I started a weekly radio programme in Abuja, ‘Diplomatic Hour With Owei Lakemfa’, she was my first guest. She also went out of her way to speak to her fellow ambassadors on my behalf, urging them to honour my invitation. She was a very effective ambassador of the Cuban people. I recall in a report I wrote that when she met journalists in Abuja on Thursday, February 18, 2021 mainly on the then 60-year American blockage of her country, the elegant Pulido “walked in wearing half boots, a knee-length overall jacket and  confidence; the message and the messenger rhymed”.

Later that  year, there were protests and counter-protests in Cuba as a result of COVID-19 resurgence which, with the American blockade that had cost the country a cumulative loss of $1,098,008,000,000 in six decades, had led to shortages of food and medicines. She analysed the  situation as being essentially a struggle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces and added as a matter of fact that if things degenerated into street fights, she was prepared to return home to pick up the gun in defence of the Cuban Revolution.

However, there was no need for her to make a quick return as the huge pro-revolution  rallies easily swallowed those of  the counter- revolutionaries. In May 2023, having ended her tour of duty, she returned to Havana. We kept in touch through her Cuban number. Then for a few weeks, there was silence from her. But on July 29, she sent a message. She had not been in good health: “But I hope to recover in August. All the best in the world to you and our comrades.”

Then on August 14, I got a message from her: “Today I will be back at the hospital and tomorrow, I will go into surgery. This is the main reason for my silence, I am not feeling too well, but I hope that things will be better. Take care. Solidarity  forever.” When I got home on October 9,  I found there had been three missed calls within minutes from Cuban Ambassador Miriam Morales Palmero. I thought it must be quite urgent.

But before I could call, I got a message from one of my comrades: “Clara is dead.” Numbness. Dizziness. Emptiness. One of the greatest Afro-Cubans, gone at 63! Cultural Ambassador Tar Ukoh, sent  an ancestral chant for Clarita: “Do we cry? Why should we cry CLARITA? Our Beautiful Daughter. Our Red Rose Sister. Our  Afro-Cuban Shield and Spear. From the Womb of our Struggles. Our Cuban gift to Africa! Always with us!” It was quite difficult writing this; how do you say goodbye to a living  ancestor?

The Defence Headquarters said on Thursday that troops in the last two weeks intercepted stolen crude worth N1.2 billion as Nigeria’s oil production capacity increased in September.

The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba said this on Thursday in Abuja while briefing journalists on the activities of the Military in the past two weeks.

The Defence spokesperson vowed to incapacitate terrorists from conducting small-scale attacks on soft targets.

He also said troops, during their operations, killed 73 terrorists, arrested 182, and rescued 68 hostages in one week.

He said, “The ongoing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations have prevented these evil elements from accomplishing their strategic objectives.

“The Military will continue to degrade their ability to carry out small-scale attacks which are intended to create panic in localities.”

The director noted that the troops identified and destroyed 63 illegal refining sites containing 15 dugout pits, 45 boats, 87 storage tanks, 128 cooking ovens, one pumping machine, four outboard engines and arrested 14 suspected oil thieves.

Buba added that the troops recovered 962,500 litres of stolen crude oil, 35,420 litres of illegally refined AGO, 38,450 litres of DPK, and 45,000 litres of PMS with an estimated value of N1, ,212,046,140.

DAILY POST recalls that oil theft had been a major challenge, depleting the country’s oil production capacity.

Meanwhile, the improved fight against oil theft had increased Nigeria’s production capacity in September to 1.7 million barrels per day, up from the 1.1mbpd recorded in August.

[DailyPost]