President Muhammadu Buhari, has dissolved the management team of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, headed by Mustapha Chike-Obi.

The president also appointed Ahmed Lawan Kuru to replace Chike-Obi as the new managing director of the corporation.

Others appointed as executive directors of AMCON are Kola Ayeye, Eberechukwu Uneze and Aminu Ismail. The trio would subsequently take over as the executive management team of the body.

According to a press statement by presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, the appointments take immediate effect.

Until his appointment, Kuru was the group managing director of Enterprise Bank Limited. He started his banking career with the Habib Bank in 1985 and rose through the ranks to become an executive director of Bank PHB, now known as Keystone Bank, in 2005.

The Yobe State government on Tuesday said it had rehabilitated over 300 classrooms and provided infrastructure in schools destroyed by insurgents across the state.

It said this was to avoid gaps in the state’s educational system.

The Director of Press to the State Governor, Abdullahi Bego, who made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Damaturu said the state government had made education and health care a priority that would receive major intervention in the next four years.

He said further that about 3,000 teachers have also been employed by the state government to enhance the quality of teaching in the schools.

“About 3,000 teachers have been recruited and posted to schools across the state to boost manpower requirement to improve the standard of education in the state. The state government has committed enormous resources in rehabilitation and provision of instructional materials  to primary and secondary schools to ensure that communities whose  schools were destroyed by insurgents get back to school,” he said.

He said the government had equally provided resources to tertiary institutions to ensure full accreditation of courses offered by them.

Bego added that 98 per cent of courses offered by the state university had been fully accredited and was now recognised and that the College of Education, Gashua, had received similar support  and was producing over 1,000 NCE and 100 degree graduates fully qualified for teaching in schools.

“The state government had diligently absorbed 15,000 university, HND,  OND and NCE graduates under the Youth Empowerment Programme, while  unskilled youths were trained in various trades and settled with working tools and take-off grants after graduation for self reliance.

The governor’s spokesman also said that the administration had completed the construction of a 200-bed capacity ultra modern hospital in Damaturu to serve as a referral hospital and that it was being provided with state-of-the-art equipment.

By Tosin Omoniyi

The United States, on Monday commenced a five-day training for Nigerian security operatives on financial intelligence gathering and tracking of illicit funding of money launderers and terrorists.

The interagency training programme tagged, ‘Cross Border Financial Investigation’ is being organized by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

The program had in attendance officers of the Nigeria Police Force, NPF; Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS; Nigeria Customs Service, NCS; National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, and the EFCC.

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, who spoke at the opening ceremony in Abuja, advocated for improved financial intelligence gathering on the part of security agencies to check the flow of illicit funds.

He said this is all the more vital if the current war on terror would be won.

Lamorde said the greatest concern for security operatives was how to determine how terrorists fund their operations. The EFCC boss said depriving terrorists of access to needed funds would certainly cripple their operations. But he was quick to add that determining the source and the movement of such funds was a major challenge for law enforcement agents.

“There is an urgent need to strengthen our financial intelligence architecture to enable us effectively monitor cash trails and check illicit cash flow to organized criminal gangs. While tremendous progress has been recorded in strengthening the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations and the Compliance Regime in Nigeria, monitoring the movement of cash outside the financial sector, remains a major challenge, because of Nigeria’s predominantly cash-based economy,” Lamorde enthused.

He applauded the commitment of the United States government in assisting Nigeria surmount its contemporary challenges through empowerment of its institutional development.

“It is gratifying that this programme is coming a few weeks after the historic visit of President Muhammadu Buhari, to the United State, where he and President Barack Obama pledged to deepen the cooperation and friendship between our two countries,” Lamorde said.

Lamorde said he had always considered the Americans, dependable allies in the fight against economic crimes and corruption in Nigeria. He explained that the record of partnership between the EFCC and US institutions, such as the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, United States Postal Inspection Service, United States Secret Service, among others was exemplary.

He added that operatives of the EFCC had benefitted from several training programmes organized by US agencies in Nigeria, Ghana, Malta, Botswana and the United States.

He described the impact of such trainings on the operations of the Commission as invaluable.

He said the focus of the current training programme was aimed at training security operatives on how to track the funding of suspected money launderers and terrorist outfits.

He said while tremendous progress had been recorded in strengthening the anti money laundering regulation and compliance regime in Nigeria, monitoring the movement of cash outside the financial sector, remains a major challenge for operatives, considering that Nigeria is still predominantly a cash-based economy.

He commended the Nigeria Customs Service and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, whom he said had assisted the EFCC to check illicit movement of funds across the nation’s borders in the recent past.

He noted that this accounted for the significant drop in currency outflow outside Nigeria in 2013, as currency declaration dropped from $9.9bn to $1.3bn.

He added that there was a further drop in 2014 as currency outflows recorded an all- time low of $807.585m.

Deputy Chief of Mission, United States Embassy, Maria Brewer, in her remarks, noted that the training programme would expose participants to new trends and techniques in combating economic and financial crimes.

“Since economic and financial crimes is a global phenomenon, the training will focus among others, on taking away the proceeds of crime, because when you take away the money, you take away why people do crime,” she said.

Dignitaries at the opening ceremony included, Acting Director, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement US Mission, Abuja, Benjamin Bryan; Attaché, Department of Homeland Security Investigation, DHSI, Steven Robinson; Deputy Comptroller General of Immigration, TA Hundeyin, and Commander of Narcotics, NDLEA , Hamisa Lawal.

The highpoint of the ceremony was the donation of a high-tech counting machine to the EFCC.

Brewer, who made the presentation on behalf of the US government, said that it was one avenue through which the Americans wanted to assist the country in fighting corruption.

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the voluntary retirement of the Comptroller General of Customs, Abubakar Inde Dikko .

In the letter conveying his acceptance of the retirement, Buhari expressed the appreciation of the government for the service which the CG had rendered to the nation in the last six years.

Dikko had earlier in the month written to the President indicating his desire to voluntarily retire.

In the letter, Dikko expressed his satisfaction at the achievements recorded through dogged implementation of his six point agenda which has modernized the  Service.

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These he listed as capacity building of officers, maximization  of the potential of  e-customs, moral rebirth for integrity,  enhanced welfare for officers and men,  collaboration with stakeholders and coordinated public relations activities used to foster mutual understanding.

Inde also urged the personnel of Customs to offer maximum support to the present government.

The United Nations on Monday in Abuja announced that it had sponsored 500 victims of Boko Haram insurgency from the three hard hit North east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe to acquire vocational  skills.

This information was disclosed by a UN Conflict Prevention and Peace Building analyst, Matthew Alao, to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

He said the project was implemented under the UNDP Livelihood Support Scheme for the ravaged zone. He explained further that an orientation programme for the 500 selected beneficiaries would commence this week at the Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre in Jos, Plateau State.

According to him, the skills acquisition programme is the first phase of intervention by the UN to ameliorate the sufferings of the displaced persons. Alao said that the training would cover hair dressing, tailoring, knitting, catering and decorations as well as GSM repair, shoe-making, leather works and computer studies.

The participants will also undertake specialized training on conflict resolution and peace building, according to the analyst.

“A total of 500 beneficiaries who are victims of Boko Haram from three North East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe will be placed in a two-week compulsory orientation programme. They are going to undergo physical exercise, training, capacity building on mediation, conflict prevention, conflict transformation, social integration, peaceful coexistence for two weeks,” he added.

He said the project could only accommodate 500 participants out of the 2,000 that applied.

Alao also said that the UN would continue to support the displaced persons until peace was restored to the region.

The Nigerian Army on Monday appointed Yusha’u Mahmood Abubakar, a Major General, as Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, a critical  component in the current fight against insurgents in the North east.

His appointment was contained in a press statement issued by the acting director, Army Public Relations, Sani Usman, a Colonel. With the appointment, the unified command headed by Abubakar, would coordinate 3 and 7 Divisions of the Nigerian Army as well as other  units of Operation Lafiya Dole.

Until his appointment, Abubakar was the Commander of the Nigerian Army Armoured Corps.

According to the release, his appointment is with immediate effect.

President Muhammadu Buhari recently gave the newly appointed service chiefs three months to bring the insurgency ravaging parts of the North east to an end.