THE presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adebayo Adewole, has described his unwillingness to address the Chatham House in the United Kingdom as a move towards responsible leadership.
To Adewole, travelling to western countries to speak on issues affecting Nigeria cannot pass a message that would resonate with the citizens.
The candidate, who spoke in a Twitter space organised by The ICIR, said the policies and ideas of those seeking to hold political positions should be discussed in Nigerian institutions.
He said, “Chatham House is the British Royal Institute of International Affairs. I am not trying to be a member of the British parliament. Instead, I am trying to be the president of Nigeria.
“Let’s be responsible for how we aspire to leadership; our message will resonate with Nigerians.
“I won’t go to a foreign land to discuss poverty in Nigeria and corruption in Nigeria. The British people did not come here during their election.”
Adewole said one of his leadership roles is to stir the people in the right direction.
“I have been to the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs and the Nigeria Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies to speak to Nigerians.
“Those are where our ideas and policies are to be studied, and that is where I am going,” he said.
THE Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has arrested officials of some commercial banks for alleged sabotage.
The ICPC, in a statement signed by its spokesperson Azuka Ogugua on Friday, February 3, said the arrest was in continuation of its clampdown on elements frustrating the efforts in making the redesigned naira notes available to members of the public.
According to the ICPC, one of the bank officials, said to be the Service Head of Stanbic IBTC, Deidei branch, Abuja, was taken into custody for her deliberate refusal to upload cash into the branch’s automated teller machines (ATM) even when the cash was available, and people were queuing at the ATMs.
“When the ICPC monitoring team stormed the bank at about 1:30pm to ensure compliance and demanded an explanation as to why all the ATMs were not dispensing cash, it was informed by the branch’s Head of Operations that the bank just got delivery of the cash.
“However, facts available to the ICPC operatives indicated that the branch took delivery of the cash around 11:58am and either wilfully or maliciously refused to feed the ATMs with the cash.
“Against this backdrop, the ICPC team compelled the bank to load the ATMs with the redesigned Naira notes and ensured that they were all dispensing before arresting the culprit,” the statement said.
The Commission said investigations were ongoing, and the ICPC would take appropriate action as soon as they are concluded.
In a related development, the ICPC said its Compliance Team in Oshogbo has busted an FCMB branch in Osogbo, Osun State, where some ATMs were loaded with cash with their wrappers unremoved, thus preventing the cash from being dispensed.
The anti-graft agency said the team directed that the wrappers be removed and the cash appropriately loaded.
“However, when a follow-up visit was undertaken the following day to ascertain the level of compliance, the Team discovered that one of the ATMs was still loaded with the wrappers unremoved.
“The Operation Manager of the bank was arrested and taken in for questioning,” the ICPC added.
The ICPC said that in a similar event, seven point-of-sale (POS) operators and a security guard were arrested in Osun State for charging exorbitant commissions for cash.
The Commission’s investigations revealed that the suspects got the money from filling stations that collected new notes from fuel buyers and resold the cash to the public at exorbitant rates.
The agency said the arrested persons were helping the Commission with information to assist in investigation and bust syndicates involved in the hoarding or sale of the redesigned notes.
PROTESTS have erupted in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, amid the growing frustration and anger among the population over the scarcity of cash and petrol, which is affecting daily life and business operations in the country.
The ICIR understands that the unrest began at Agodi gate and spread to other parts of the state capital, including Iwo road, Gate bus stop, and Idi Ape, on Friday, February 2023.
Some of the protesters were seen attacking banks, specifically Access and Wema banks’ branches in the Dugbe and Queen Cinema areas of the city.
The state police spokesperson, Adewale Osifeso, who confirmed the incidents, said that police were able to prevent the vandalization of a Wema Bank automated teller machine (ATM).
Osifeso had warned about a potential for violence during the protests.
He stated that an intelligence report had suggested that certain unscrupulous elements were planning to escalate the situation into chaos by shutting down and attacking various places of interest, including banks, media houses, schools, correctional centres, facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and other critical infrastructure in the state.
He assured that the police command was fully prepared to mobilize and prevent criminal elements from turning the state into their playground, especially as the 2023 general elections approach.
He advised the public, particularly the youth, to avoid being used by agents of violence seeking to enrich themselves through criminal means.
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has asked for seven days to tackle problems arising from the naira redesign, especially scarcity of the new notes which has become a major problem across the country.
Buhari made this known to the public through an official Twitter handle after meeting with the incumbent state governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja.
The President maintained that the currency redesign would enhance sustainable growth and boost the nation’s economy.
“The currency redesign will give a boost to the economy and provide long-term benefits,” he said.
Expressing doubts about the commitment of banks to the success of the policy, Buhari said some banks were inefficient and avaricious in the way they had handled the situation.
He said, “Some banks are inefficient and only concerned about themselves. Even if a year is added, problems associated with selfishness and greed won’t go away.”
He admitted that he had seen television reports about cash shortages and hardship to local businesses and the ordinary people.
The president, however, gave assurances that the balance of seven days of the 10-day extension would be used to address whatever could be hindering the successful implementation of the policy.
“I will revert to the CBN and the Minting Company. There will be a decision one way or the other in the remaining seven days of the 10-day extension,” the president stated.
The governors, expressing their concerns on the issue of cash scarcity, acknowledged the decision of the president on the redesign of some naira notes, but pointed out that the execution had caused a lot of uproar in their various states.
“They told the President that as leaders of the government and party in their different states, they were becoming anxious about a slump in the economy and the series of elections that are coming.
“They requested the President to use his powers to direct the concurrent flourish of the new and old notes till the end of the year,” the tweet said.
Buhari explained that when he considered giving approval to the policy, he demanded an undertaking from the CBN that no new notes would be printed in a foreign country, and they in turn gave him assurances that there was enough capacity, manpower and equipment to print the currency for local needs. He said he needed to go back to find out what was actually happening.
NIGERIANS on Twitter have been expressing their feelings over the recent clash between students of the University of Benin and men of the Nigerian Army.
The incident, according to a viral video, started when a soldier was manhandled and beaten by angry students and school security personnel on Thursday, February 2.
The students had been provoked when the military officers refused to queue, and they forcefully withdrew money from an ATM machine in the school premises.
According to a tweep who shared the video of the incident, the soldier was alleged to have asked his female colleague to beat a female student for video-recording them.
“Soldiers came into Uniben to withdraw (money) from ATM. They forcefully used the machines and at one point asked a female soldier to beat up a female student because they thought she was recording them. The students did not take the harassment lightly as they retaliated.”
However, in an alleged reprisal, the soldier stormed the school in the early hours of today and injured scores of school security guards, students and passers-by.
According to a viral video, the military men also damaged cars and some other school properties during the attack.
Meanwhile, students of the university have blocked the Benin-Lagos expressway over the alleged oppression by military personnel.
“The conflict between UNIBEN students & the Nigerian Army is alarming, both sides were wrong, but the soldiers retaliating by assaulting people while vandalising properties is beyond shameful. This is an abuse of power. @HQNigerianArmy address this issue, & punish the culprits.”
Another tweep with user handle @iSlimfit also wrote,
“Imagine the fact that it’s ATM withdrawal that caused the whole UNIBEN chaos. Most of the problems in Nigeria are avoidable if we had sane people in government and of course if the Nigerian Army started behaving like humans and not animals.”
UNIBEN management reacts
The university’s Vice Chancellor Professor Lilian Salami, in a statement released earlier today, said the management was in discussion with the hierarchy of the Nigerian Army for an amicable resolution.
“The Management acknowledges that these are challenging times for everyone and enjoins all to remain calm while efforts are being made to avert a re-occurrence,” Salami said.
She called on the students to engage dialogue in resolving issues that concern them rather than taking to protests at any provocation, “thereby causing more injury and damage to themselves and other citizens.”
The ICIR efforts to confirm and get an update of the situation from the Edo State police public relations officer proved abortive as calls were not picked and an message was not returned.
Also, the Nigerian Army has not released any press statement on the incident as of the time of filing this report.
ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI and released in November last year, is capable of writing logical essays and solving mathematical puzzles, as well as producing computer codes.
But this new artificial intelligence tool has been opposed by many academic institutions around the world for ethical reasons like plagiarism and misinformation.
For instance, the Sciences Po school in Paris, one of the most prestigious universities in France, has banned the use of ChatGPT for oral or written assignments.
It said anyone found to have used the chatbot for assignment would face “sanctions which can go as far as expulsion from the establishment, or even from higher learning.”
Officials in New York and other jurisdictions have also forbidden its use in schools, according to several reports.
On the contrary, a Twitter user, Mushtaq Bilal, believes that the potential of ChatGPT as an educational tool outweighs its risks if used “intelligently and ethically for academic purposes.”
Bilal, in a Twitter post on Friday, February 3, said, “ChatGPT is everywhere and everyone is using it, but most academics don’t know how to use it smartly.”
He outlined five ways academics can use ChatGPT to create what he described as “structure”.
“Combine ChatGBT’s artificial intelligence with your own natural intelligence and you will be unstoppable – Porsche with no brakes,” said Bilal in one of the Twitter threads.
Mushtaq Bilal. Credit: Twitter
With examples, Bilal explained how academics can use the tool to outline research or seminar paper, brainstorm research questions and draft personal statement for scholarship.
He added interview and presentation preparations as other ways academics can use the tool.
Endorsed by Microsoft, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that can conduct meaningful a two-way conversational text interface that is inspired by data gathered on the internet.
INSPECTOR-GENERAL of Police (IGP) Usman Alkali Baba has ordered the arrest and prosecution of Nigerians selling, spraying or generally abusing naira notes in the country.
Disclosing this in a statement he issued today, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Nigerian Police, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said Baba has ordered that officers of the Force Intelligence Bureau be stationed across the country to enforce the directive.
“The IGP has similarly charged all supervisory Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and Commissioners of Police in charge of Police Commands and Formations to carry out full enforcement of the provisions of Sections 20 and 21 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007, which criminalizes, among other things, the hawking, selling or otherwise trading, spraying of, dancing or matching on the Naira notes, falsifying or counterfeiting of bank notes, refusal to accept the Naira as a means of payment, and tampering with the coin or note issued by the CBN,” Adejobi noted.
He urged residents to cooperate with the police in apprehending violators of naira notes.
Some Nigerians have been engaging in selling the naira, following the current scarcity of notes in the country.
The ICIRreported that currency hawkers were making fast cash from trading the redesigned notes.
In Abuja, a wrap of the new N200 note, amounting to N20,000, was being sold for N29,000 at the Dei-Dei area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) up till last week.
LILU Specialist Hospital, operating illegally at the Wuse Zone 2 Abuja, has shut down, The ICIR found out on Friday.
The facility, run by a North Korean, Jongsu Kim, who claimed to be Chinese, had run for four years in the nation’s capital.
The ICIR reported how the high and mighty in the country, including presidency officials and senior advocates, were patronising the hospital.
The Private Health Establishments Registration and Monitoring Committee (PHERMC), the private hospital registration and monitoring department in the nation’s capital, visited the hospital on Friday February 3, 2023 and met it locked.
Efforts by its officials who came to the premises – in the company of security personnel and officials wearing reflective jackets – to get into the hospital failed as no one opened the door for them.
The PHERMC had confirmed to The ICIR in its during the investigation that Lilu Hospital never applied for registration in the city and was operating illegally.
The ICIR confirmed that expatriates working with Kim were always inside the three-bedroom apartment the hospital occupied and would not come out in the daytime.
The Korean, whose nationality The ICIR discovered after a rigorous investigation spanning months, drives an SUV with a diplomatic number plate, a privilege enjoyed only by diplomats.
As of September 2022, when The ICIR was investigating the facility, Kim received payment of bills by patients into his personal account, rather than the hospital’s. The facility treated each patient for between N150,000 and N500,000, and had attended to many patients.
PHERMC’s bus conveyed the Department’s officials to Lilu Specialist Hospital on Friday but the hospital was locked
The hospital did not have a signpost, further confirming its secret operations.
In the course of the investigation, The ICIR contacted Bartholomew Chigozie Awugozi, one of the hospital’s three directors. He is based in Awka, Anambra State, where he manages his hotels.
Awugozi’s reaction gave the investigation a new twist. He claimed he was the hospital’s legal owner.
The businessman was shocked that the hospital he opened in Port-Harcourt some years ago and had shut down because it was not yielding returns was running in Abuja by people he claimed not to know.
When contacted, the hospital’s lawyer, Matthias Adeyemi, said the investigation was needless. He countered The ICIR findings.
When contacted again, after Awugozi claimed he owned the hospital and had run it in Port Harcourt, Adeyemi agreed that “some” of the findings were true.
Another striking part of the investigation is that while the Chinese Embassy responded to The ICIR request and said it did not know Kim and his hospital, the Korean Embassy in Abuja failed to speak on the issue after multiple enquiries and a visit to the embassy.
During the investigation, The ICIR contacted several government agencies, including the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), FCT Internal Revenue Service (FCT IRS), Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), and the Chinese and Korean embassies.
The ICIR was also at the Lilu community in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, where the hospital initially registered to operate. Lilu community bears the same name as the hospital.
The ICIR tagged the Federal Ministry of Health, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), and the Minister of Health when the first story was published. Only the NMA promised to look into the findings.
The publication shared the report with the country’s secret police – the Directorate of State Services (DSS) – but has not received any feedback from the Service.
The ICIR reports that the first report has attracted wide reactions from Nigeria and beyond the country’s shores, including the NMA (FCT chapter), which promised to investigate the hospital’s activities.
The ICIR learnt today from a reliable source that the report was causing some storms within the highest level of power in the country.
While many Nigerians commended The ICIR for exposing the hospital, some others, especially relations of those who were receiving treatment at the facility did not share the same sentiment.
THE presidential candidate of Accord Party (AP), Christopher Imumolen, sees the redesign of the naira as a good policy that is being wrongly implemented.
Speaking on Arise TV on Friday, February 3, Imumolen described the policy as a viable way to address electoral malpractices and vote buying.
But he feared that the implementation of the policy would have adverse economic implications.
“Naira redesign is good but it will have a wrong impact on the economy, especially at this time,” he said.
The presidential candidate expressed his displeasure with the challenges Nigerians are experiencing to access the redesigned notes.
He said, “Look at what is happening in the city, let alone in rural communities where the level of digital transactions has gotten nowhere. I receive calls from villages telling us of their daily plights and stress.
“I believe that the policy is an APC policy to checkmate APC by themselves. That is why we hear uproar up and down. I now have more confidence that vote buying and other tools they use to manipulate election will be reduced.”
Imumolen stated the need to adopt Artificial Intelligence to address the insecurity challenges in the country.
“We must begin to run Nigeria’s security with Artificial Intelligence. We have so much human intelligence but the world has gone digital. Government must address the commission of crimes. Also, our security men must be trained and retrained and given all that it takes to fight insecurity.”
He identified illegal border entry as one of the factors causing the insecurity menace in the country.
He said, “I have made my research and visited a lot of borders in Katsina and other places. I have noticed that we have over 1,400 illegal routes in Nigeria. This puts our national sovereignty and safety in question.”
THE Chairman of Ejemekwuru Customary Court in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State, Nnaemeka Ugboma, was reportedly killed by yet-to-be-identified gunmen on Thursday, February 2.
It was gathered that the gunmen, who were driving motorcycles, shot and killed Ugboma while he was presiding over a court session.
The incident affected the court sitting as lawyers, court staff, and claimants fled.
According to Punch Newspaper, the late judge hailed from the Nnebukwu community in Oguta LGA.
Spokesperson of the Imo State Police Command, Henry Okoye, did not take his calls when contacted, and he had yet to respond to a text message sent to his mobile number as of the time of filing this report.
The ICIRreportedthat gunmen beheaded the Sole Administrator of Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo State, Chris Ohizu.
The council boss was butchered on Sunday, January 22, after his abductors allegedly received N6 million as a ransom for his release.
