₦airaland Forum

President Muhammadu Buhari says his administration has lifted five million Nigerians out of extreme poverty in three years.

Speaking at the opening of the global youth employment forum of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Abuja on Thursday, Buhari said this was achieved through the National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP).

He said N-SIP has produced positive outcome in the enrollment of children in schools.

Represented by Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), Buhari said the government understands the need to focus on youth empowerment to create employment.

A new report by The World Poverty Clock shows Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world. India has a population seven times larger than Nigeria’s.

The struggle to lift more citizens out of extreme poverty is an indictment on successive Nigerian governments including Buhari which have mismanaged the country’s vast oil riches through incompetence and corruption.

The 86.9 million Nigerians now living in extreme poverty represents nearly 50% of its estimated 180 million population. As Nigeria faces a major population boom—it will become the world’s third largest country by 2050—it’s a problem will likely worsen. But having large swathes of people still living in extreme poverty is an Africa-wide problem.

As a consequence, the mission to end extreme poverty globally through the SDG is already at risk. By July 2019, 83 million people would have been lifted out of extreme poverty since January 2016.

Buhari on His part failed to prove any fact how his N-SIP have helped in lifting Nigerians from poverty, rather; there are indications that his strategy are not effective as his wife have come out to complain about seeing no remarkable impact despite huge investment. Buhari’s claim is simply lies!

https://pinnaclenews.com.ng/2019/08/02/buharis-5-million-out-of-poverty-lies-fact-check/

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It was reported earlier today that about 10 members of the Senate have staged a walk-out in protest against the adoption of the report by the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on the Amendment to the Electoral Act.

The protesters say despite the adoption of the report by the Senate, they would insist on its reversal. They alleged that the amendment was targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari.

This is the real red flag ahead of the 2019 election based on the following facts:

First, the lawmakers know as of fact that President Buhari has lost his goodwill and stands a very slim chance in 2019 election hence the need to avoid what happened in 2015. They cannot allow Presidential Election to come first and affect their chances of return to National Assembly.

Secondly, There is need to protect themselves against any planned political manipulation by way of rigging or any event. By making the presidential election come last, they are sure to retain the support of the President and his INEC to avoid any bitter payback.

So why are there lawmakers protesting this wonderful move to protect every members? This is why it’s a political game and every move gains reward after some times.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/02/14/2019-election-big-game-buhari-nass/

Oh. Meanwhile, I have found this amaxing website that gives deep insights into news making headlines in Nigeria. visit www.thepinnacle.com.ng for the best coverage

It’s so strange that the Main-Stream media are refusing to bring certain facts to limelight. We must all have the mindset to always connect the dots especially in this era of uncertainty.

It was exactly Tuesday, 19th September, 2017 when Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Tin Can Island Command intercepted another container suspected to contain yet another cache of arms imported from Turkey. The interception came barely one week after the command intercepted a 20-foot container load of 1,100 pump action rifles.

Its over three months now and no one has been arrest as the main figure importing this gun, then we have generations of Fulani Herdsmen running through our villages killing citizens for fun sometimes using replicas of guns intercepted by customs. This call for questions!
Why has the investigation surrounding these two intercepted vessels been so shrouded in secrecy? Details of importation papers and findings from interrogation have all been kept secret from the public while the matter died a natural death.
Then we have attacks and more threats of attack. Who is not telling the truth? Check the pictures here:


http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/01/13/pinnacle-question-benue-killings-and-intercepted-arms/

ophia the Citizen Robot Is Learning to Walk

Sophia, the famous humanoid robot which had been ridiculed since getting the Saudi Arabian citizenship has now another update to sweep everyone off their feet.

Sophia took her first few steps. It is a big revolution in the domain of AI and robotics.

And of course, this happened in CES 2018, the annual Tech Trade show happening this year in Las Vegas.

A Hong Kong based company, Hanson robotics, founded by David Hanson announced its partnership with Rainbow Robotics and Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab at the same event to help Sophia become a fully-fledged humanoid by integrating with DRC-HUBO body which possseses mechanical legs and ability to walk like a human. In 2015, this DRC-HUBO body has won the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

Dr. Ben Goertzel, Chief scientist of Hanson Robotics said in a statement, “Giving Sophia a more complete and robust embodiment is a key part of our ongoing, rapidly accelerating quest to supply her and our other Hanson robots with general intelligence at the human level and ultimately beyond.”

In March 2016, Sophia was first showcased at South by Southwest by Hanson. He says, “Integrating Sophia with a (robotics) body that can allow her to walk completes her physical form, so she can access the full range of human experiences, which will help her learn to live and walk among us.”

Sophia is able to create over sixty facial expressions, actions of looking straight into people’s eyes, holding human-like conversations. With the kind of material used to create Sophia, she looks real human-like with real skin and skin movements changing like human showcasing different expressions.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/01/10/sophia-the-citizen-robot-is-training-to-walk-a-big-revolution-in-ai/

The Board of Trustees, BOT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said it has commenced the search for its presidential candidate in 2019.

The BOT also said prominent members of the party who left will soon return.

The BOT chairman, Walid Jibrin, said this on Tuesday in Abuja while receiving members of PDP Ward-Ward group, at the Legacy House located at the Maitama District of Abuja.

Mr. Jibrin also said those who left the party in the build up to the 2015 general elections would soon return.

Describing the return of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to the PDP as a good omen for the party, he said the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sokoto State Governor, Waziri Tambuwal, and others would return to the party in no distant time.

“All of us as a party, we agreed that the president of Nigeria should come from the North. I enjoin you to support the North to give you a very capable president, not a no-do-well president but a good and qualitative president.

“We are all doing what we can in the North with all the leaders to identify who is the best candidate to rule this country; the best person that will take away power from the ruling party because 2019 is our own, 2019 is for the PDP.

“The bad omen we have experienced in the past through artificial tsunami will not repeat itself. Those who were moved by that tsunami have already gone. The coming of Atiku back to this party, whether we like it or not, is a good omen for the party.

“When Atiku left the APC, he did it peacefully unlike some others, when they left our party, they tore our party card (in veiled reference to former President Olusegun Obasanjo). Atiku didn’t do that and that was why I congratulate the APC because Atiku left their party without tearing their card.

“…We are therefore calling on the Senate President Saraki, Kwankwaso and all our former legislators who have left this party to come back quickly,” the party chieftain said.

The chairman also said that the BOT has set up a nine-member committee led by a former senate president, David Mark, to reconcile members of the board over the outcome of its December 9 national convention. He said the reconciliation committee led by Governor Seriake Dickson was the “main reconciliation team.”

The group, led by Ada Okwori, said it had come to introduce itself to the BOT chairman. It said its members across states are working to ensure power returns to the party in 2019.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/01/10/pdp-bot-want-saraki-tambuwal-kwankwaso-back/

The Kaduna State Government and the police have warned against the mass protest scheduled for the state capital on Thursday.

However, the Nigeria Labour Congress has vowed to proceed with the rally called over the sack of workers by the state government.

The President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, on Tuesday said the union will begin a series of actions with the first phase of protests in Kaduna on Thursday to defend the rights of the affected workers.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/01/11/crisis-looms-in-kaduna/

One of Government’s most important responsibility is to protect lives and property among others. It is believed that every individual by virtue of their birth to the society entered into a social contract to give up self defense inorder for the state or government to protect him. This is the idea of responsibility and obligation in every state.

Despite the above, Nigeria as a country has largely failed to live up to it’s billing and often times, questions are been asked as to what is the value of a Nigerian life? From Boko-Haram to Herdsmen, Kidnappers et cetera, Nigerians are been killed everyday.

In the wake of recent killing in Benue State, there have been several conspiracy theory and Governor Ortom’s meeting with Buhari yesterday (9th January, 2018) resulted in nothing but insult on Benue indigenes and lost of respect to the victims. The meeting was also attended by Minister for Agriculture who co-incidentally is from Benue State.

Addressing State House correspondents later, Ortom said he could not agree to the creation of cattle colonies proposed by the Federal Government until he understands what it means. He insisted that ranching remained the way forward, saying: “I’m waiting to be briefed about what colonies mean, I don’t understand it and until I understand it…but like I keep saying, for us the way forward is ranching and up till this time, I am talking to you, the way forward is ranching because is global best practice.

On suggestion that full blown military operations be set up in Benue like other places, he said he would support anything that could stop killings.
“Any policy or any directive, anything that will helped stop the killing of these innocent people who are not armed because this can not continue. We know that the continuity of this will create greater challenges. I don’t want it to continue. We are struggling with economic issues, we are struggling with political issues and we are struggling with several other issues in this country, security issues and all that, Benue State should not be part of this there is no need for it.”
Where is Benue State Security Votes?

The passion and decisiveness in the Governors words cannot be misconstrued, however, other factors suggest he could have done more to have averted this very drama. First is the issuance of security vote to states in Nigeria from the Federal Government.

Security vote in Nigeria is a monthly allowance that is allocated to the 36 states within the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the sole purpose of funding security services within such states. The monthly fund run into billions of naira and vary based on the level of security required by the individual state. For Benue State, this fund raised astronomically under former Governor Gabriel Torwua Suswam amidst speculation that he was sponsoring attack on local communities to use as bargain for increased security votes. Today we know this speculation was not true.

Benue State receive N32 Billion annually as security vote. a sharp countdown proves the state gets over N2.6 billion from the federal government. Now, the usual practice is for the governor to allocate N25,000,000.00 to Office of Special Adviser on Security, N10,000,000.00 to the police because of the sizes and operation, then N5,000,000.00 each to Army, Airforce, Civil Defense. Previously, Local Government Chairmen gets N5,000,000.00 each as security votes.

The Truth here is that Benue State Government could have effective utilized this fund to protect itself instead of waiting for Federal Government. Now that the attack has happened in Tivland part of the State and full attention has been drawn there, their next target would be Agatu Axis. The Federal Government may never do enough for the state if the state cannot raise it’s security team to contest for these security issue.
The Governor must do more than show extreme passion on camera. He must find a way to utilize security vote allocation to his state every year. The state has vigilantee who have been working for free for a long time, what stops the Governor to train and upgrade their service for this purpose? besides, it won’t cost up to a N1,000,000.00 monthly.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2018/01/10/insecurity-amids-insincerity-of-governance-in-nigeria/

Confucius a Chinese philosopher once told his disciple Tsze-Kung that, “three things are needed for government: Weapons, food, and trust. If a ruler can’t hold on to all three he should give up weapons first and food next. Trust should be guarded to the end. He concludes that, without trust we cannot stand”.

The above saying though centuries old is more relevant and more contemporaneous now than ever, and more applicable to Nigeria than any other country, given its recent rating amongst corrupt nations of the world and the on-going tirade of distrust and allegations of fraud between some of it’s most important citizens, Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Jonathan and Buhari.

The central point which trust holds in our daily activities is very profound. Its profundity is such that, denouncing it will imply being islands unto ourselves, which is utterly impossible. Each individual on daily basis trust, or is entrusted with some responsibilities. There is therefore, the need for some amount of reciprocity of trust in the conduct of our activities. We need to trust the security of our societies before venturing out of our homes to our work places. To trust a bus driver an Okada rider, before joining them. To trust the safety of that pure water we buy, to trust your messenger, or your house help to carry out your daily domestic chores, in short, to trust everything that you would not afford to do yourself, but delegate somebody on your behalf.

President Buhari came to power as the most upright Nigerian ever know but then, reality steps in. A political campaign sponsored by treasury looters must pay back somehow. They gained some of the biggest appointments to compensate for their investment and the result is obvious: abandoned campaign promises, fraudulent budgetary system, lack of any reform and more made the masses to loose their trust in the President.

Then after two years of media propaganda, suppression of truth, the presidency suddenly see the need to use Boko-Haram as tool to divert a whole $1 Billion from excess crude account. Recall that the President promised that Boko-Haram will be defeated in December of 2015 and went ahead to declare victory in 2017. Unlike Jonathan’s regime, this time, the News Media were completely blocked from everything Boko-Haram and could only report news as presented by the Army.

Of all things, the President has completely lost the trust of the masses hence people no-longer think of the imaginary “body language” or see him differently from other corrupt leaders. this is the root for question Buhari’s intention over withdrawal of $ 1 Billion dollar. It’s technically too much for fight against defeated Boko-Haram or foreign Herdsmen that kill people constantly in several places.

This go to show that the masses may not trust President Buhari for 2019 or any other major political move ever again.




This Article was written by Torbem Chile for Pinnacle Magazine.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2017/12/20/president-buhari-and-the-1-billion-dollar-question/

Just when Nigerians were asking questions about the controversial $1 Billion cut from Excess Crude Account to fight Terrorism, the Federal Government quickly brought an issue to distract the masses from continuous media abuse of proper implementation of money. This is one strategy the Federal Government have been relying on since the inception of this administration.

Senator David Mark was among the three most influential politicians in Nigeria between 2007 to 2015 and remains one of the most influential Senator despite being quiet most time in the National Assembly.

Flash back to May, 29, 2015 when David Mark made that move to visit Buhari over an impending impeachment saga. Though in PDP, He was able to calm the tension in the Senate by neutralizing the threat. Political analyst then were shocked by his unrivaled loyalty to President Buhari.

Now there is news of illegal purchase of Government Property by Mark and the Presidential Committee for Recovery of Public Asset finds an Opposition in the circle and he is supposed to come as big news. For a committee set-up to recover Government Property, ordering suspect to vacate the premises within 21 days is definitely not a legal way to recover assets.

Politically, David Mark is too good with playing the loyal game to become an object of such controversy. President Buhari or his advisers’s attention will be drawn to his role on 29th May, 2015 and like most anti-corruption cases in both Jonathans’ and Buhari’s administration, the case will die a natural death.

Logically, cases as this cannot be followed to it’s natural end. Almost, most sitting and former Senators purchased these properties at the various legislative quarters including present Senate President; Saraki, Former Speaker; Dimeji Bankole, Senator George Akume now of APC among others. This is not the kind of Fight the Presidency would want to get involved with. Not now, not ever.

http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2017/12/20/between-president-buhari-and-senator-david-mark-recovery-of-government-property/

I like Daddy Freeze and his passion for transparency. I wish most Nigerians could be like him in several other ways.

The only thing I don't get about him is his relentless push for cheap publicity with no true or quality argument that's brings out-of-the-box perspective.

On tithe. Daddy Freeze has completely failed to establish he is an authority in discussing such topic. He is relying to much on public opinion instead of tackling the topic from the root cause like having analysis of tithes paid during the apostle's era and other great men of God outside Nigeria. You can't successfully argue a spiritual topic without going spiritual. He failed.

Back in 5 April, 2017 when the new Commissioner of Police, C. P. Chris Ezike was posted to Imo State, nothing much was known about him and about his personal record.

Report reaching The Pinnacle shows he has been involved in case indian hemb smuggling and has used his position and office to smuggle indian hemb in and out of Imo State very often.

It was on 8th day of December – last week friday that he ran out of luck when some Police Men were stopped by men of the Nigerian Air Force at about 11pm at a check-point. When asked where they were coming from, they said some something about patrol but the Air men were not convinced so they collected their gun and upon searching the police van, they found indian hemb which the police rated to be worth N 3 million.

At the time of writing this post, the indian hemb and police van are still with the Air Force as every effort to coerce the Air Force Commander to release tthem failed. According to Our Source, the Police Men arrested that night would only regain their freedom through court after the Police CP threatened to fight back using any means.

C.P Chris Ezike joined the Nigerian Police as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent He has served the force in various capacities and in different commands and formations including:- Deputy Commissioner of Police, Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Abuja and Lagos Annex, respectively, Commissioner of Police, Rivers and Edo State Commands.


http://thepinnacle.com.ng/2017/12/15/imo-state-police-commissioner-caught-smuggling-indian-hemb/

While a television news crew was gathering footage for a story about crime in the Albuquerque downtown area, a thief drove off in the station’s SUV.

The Albuquerque Journal reported the story Friday about the KOB-TV truck.

KOB News Director Michelle Donaldson says the vehicle was recovered within a half hour without police assistance by following the GPS tracking device that was on board.

She says the thief had fled the scene and the SUV was locked with the keys missing.

The crew was in the area reporting on recent concerns about crime and safety.

Donaldson says it’s ironic that KOB became victims of a crime in exactly the area they were reporting about.

She says that violates the rule of never being the lead story of your own newscast.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/06/24/usa-tv-news-truck-stolen-crew-reporting-crime-concerns-area/

visit www.nbslaw.com.ng for quality news

Omotayor123:
Who could have imagine!!!

Wicked soul

Lol. read a similar news on www.nbslaw.com.ng

Although as at last week when we brought you the news on major shake up in the Nigeria Army that affected several Generals, details were not available until yesterday when NBSLaw found out through a reliable source that the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, has given a stern warning to army officials to stay off politics and politically related activities.

Mr. Buratai gave the order on Tuesday via a statement issued by the Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, a brigadier general.

“This is to inform the public that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Nigerian Army, has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts”.

Although Mr. Usman did not disclose the “political reasons”, military sources said Army hierarchy was disturbed by rumours of a coup being planned by officers.

A top military official said Mr. Buratai, a lieutenant general, had even raised the issue with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and promised to nip it in the bud.

The concern may have informed Mr. Buratai’s decision to reshuffle the postings of top military generals last week.

The rumours worsened following President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent sickness that saw him travelling to London for further treatment, weeks after he spent over 50 days in London for medical reasons. Like in his previous trip, the president wrote the National Assembly transferring powers to his deputy, Mr. Osinbajo.

On Tuesday, the army chief warned all officers and soldiers interested in politics to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith.

“Any officer or soldier of Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conducts such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame,” the army spokesperson said.

Nigeria has witnessed 18 years of interrupted democracy after the last military government relinquished power in 1999. The country in 2015 also witnessed its first ever opposition victory which saw the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party losing presidential and parliamentary elections to the incumbent All Progressives Congress.
Mr. Usman on Tuesday reiterated that the Nigerian Army will remain apolitical and respect the Nigerian constitution at all times.

What is not clear from this development is Northern ambition to retain the highest position in the country through any means. It was reported here last week and in several other blogs that some Northern Elders vowed to protect President Buhari’s office with everything; This could mean retaining Aso Rock through coup.

Irrespective of the Army Chief’s public move declaring loyalty to Acting President

Facebook wants computers to better understand what people say.

The social networking giant unveiled a research project on Monday that is aimed at jump starting the development of more powerful voice-recognition software used in things like Apple’s (AAPL) Siri, Amazon’s (AMZN) Alexa, and Google’s (GOOG)Assistant. And the company asking outsiders for help.

Facebook’s goal is for computers to eventually have meaningful conversations with humans. If successful, it would be a major step forward from current technology, which is still in its early stages.

People can currently do some basics like using their voices to ask Amazon’s Echo home speaker to play the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night or navigate automated phone trees when talking to your cable company. But these technologies are incapable of understanding or correctly responding to more complex conversations, like debating what’s the best Beatles album or arguing over a cable bill.

“If you go out off of the script they don’t perform very well,” Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of artificial intelligence research, or AI.

Advances in AI technologies like deep learning have been useful in teaching computers to recognize cats in photos. But language is more complicated for computers to parse than simply identifying objects in pictures, LeCun explained.

For instance, LeCun said that computers are often stumped by the following two sentences: “The trophy doesn’t fit in your suitcase because it is too large” and “The trophy doesn’t fit in your suitcase because it is too small.”

Understanding both phrases requires deciphering that the “it” refers to either the trophy or the suitcase based on clues from the adjectives “large” and “small.” Humans typically understand that a trophy that is too large would be unable to fit in a suitcase and that a suitcase that is too small would be unable to accommodate a trophy.

Seeb on http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/15/facebooks-plan-create-computers-talk-like-humans/

Facebook wants computers to better understand what people say.

The social networking giant unveiled a research project on Monday that is aimed at jump starting the development of more powerful voice-recognition software used in things like Apple’s (AAPL) Siri, Amazon’s (AMZN) Alexa, and Google’s (GOOG)Assistant. And the company asking outsiders for help.

Facebook’s goal is for computers to eventually have meaningful conversations with humans. If successful, it would be a major step forward from current technology, which is still in its early stages.

People can currently do some basics like using their voices to ask Amazon’s Echo home speaker to play the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night or navigate automated phone trees when talking to your cable company. But these technologies are incapable of understanding or correctly responding to more complex conversations, like debating what’s the best Beatles album or arguing over a cable bill.

“If you go out off of the script they don’t perform very well,” Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of artificial intelligence research, or AI.

Advances in AI technologies like deep learning have been useful in teaching computers to recognize cats in photos. But language is more complicated for computers to parse than simply identifying objects in pictures, LeCun explained.

For instance, LeCun said that computers are often stumped by the following two sentences: “The trophy doesn’t fit in your suitcase because it is too large” and “The trophy doesn’t fit in your suitcase because it is too small.”

Understanding both phrases requires deciphering that the “it” refers to either the trophy or the suitcase based on clues from the adjectives “large” and “small.” Humans typically understand that a trophy that is too large would be unable to fit in a suitcase and that a suitcase that is too small would be unable to accommodate a trophy.

Seeb on http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/15/facebooks-plan-create-computers-talk-like-humans/

The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) recently launched the Savings Bond, which is being issued by the Debt Management Office on behalf of the FGN. This is part of Federal Government’s programme to encourage small savers earn more income (interest) when compared to their savings accounts with banks.

Depending on the terms of the bond, the issuer, which is the federal government, is obliged to pay interest (the coupon) and to repay the principal at a later date, termed the maturity. Interest is usually payable at fixed intervals (semi annual, annual, and sometimes monthly).

The savings bond has a minimum subscription of N5, 000 and a maximum of N50 million. The benefit of this bond is that the interest income from the Savings Bond is tax-free.

Since the bondholder enjoys interest every quarter, it makes it possible for individuals to plan and save towards personal projects. The savings bond is considered liquid as it would be tradable on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It can also be used as collateral for loans, offers guaranteed returns and encourages financial inclusion among low-income households. It enables individuals to enjoy those benefits which accrue to high-net-worth investors in the capital market.

While addressing leaders of market unions and leaders of middle income earner organisations in an advocacy/sensitisation workshop on the FGN Savings Bond in Onitsha, the Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Mr Abraham Nwankwo, said the initiative, “FGNSB” is designed purposefully to favour the poor and give them a stake in government.

He said that over the years, the federal government had issued bonds, but it remained elitist bonds, which were sold as wholesale bonds to privileged individuals, corporate companies and organisations.

“All these super rich individuals bought it as wholesale bond, but the difference we have in the FGNSB is that we are making these bond available to ordinary Nigerians.”

Bond is a long term investment. Experts and shareholders believe it pays more to invest in savings bond than equity at the moment because of the high coupon, since equity prices on the NSE is becoming too volatile.

Nwankwo said the bond will be “good for savings towards retirement, marriage, school fees, and house projects. It will provide opportunity for all citizens, irrespective of income level, to contribute to National Development, enable all citizens participate in and benefit from the favourable returns available in the capital market.

Experts were quick to caution however that for one to invest in bond, one needs to have surplus or extra money which is not in immediate need.

Prince Nnamdi, an independent shareholder, while expressing his delight about the bond said: “13 per cent on savings bond is a better offer when compared to 2 or 4 per cent interest from commercial banks in Nigeria. I will rather invest in the savings bond than keep the money in a savings account.”

The savings bond works in such a way that your interest is paid into your account once every three months until after maturity, according to the DMO.

“As an investor, I can spend the interest as I like once it is paid to me. But the principal is still intact until after maturity,” Nnamdi added.

It is pertinent to also note that inflation could encroach on the return a subscriber makes from the bond. When inflation rate is high, it eats up whatever returns the investor makes and when inflation drops, the investor higher benefits from the bonds in terms of yield. In other words, the government bond should always be considered when you don’t have a better profit yielding venture.

While some analysts commended the savings bond issuance, others are concerned that it will be another beginning of trouble for the deposit money banks.

Ahmed Yusuf, CEO of Coral Spring Group, said the idea of the savings bond is ill-conceived as many of the banks in the country are suffering from the negative impact of the recession and poor liquidity.

Yusuf said the emergence of the savings bond is a serious competition for banks, and “there is no way banks can compete with 13 per cent offer by government.”

He said with the savings bond, the banks now receive the bashing both from the lending and the deposit sides. From lending side, government is now the largest borrower in the system through securities and from the deposit side, no serious investors will ignore the savings bond offer that has 100 per cent guarantee.

Ahmed said it will be a difficult time for the banks as the aftermath of the TSA which mops up liquidity from the banks is not yet over.

The Managing Director of Agusto & Co, Vivian Shobo, while commenting on the initiative said, if well implemented, “I see savings deposits gradually migrating from the banking sector to these bonds. Everybody wants an enhanced return.”

“Remember, savings deposits are the cheapest and most stable form of deposits in the Nigerian banking system. A new savings bond with a coupon rate of 13.5 per cent could make banks to increase their savings rate to prevent these deposits from leaving banks, which will impact margins that are already under threat. The new savings bond is almost like running a parallel savings bank,” Shobo said.

A shareholder and former national coordinator, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Sir Sunny Nwosu, warned that the introduction of the FGN savings bond is a mopping exercise to remove the entire saveable funds from the banking system.

“They forget that every bank pays tax on every savings income. How do they expect the banks to survive?”

Ugo Nwaghodoh, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of UBA Group, in an interview with Daily Trust, however, reflected the thinking of the commercial banks when he said: “The size of the savings bond cannot take banks out, even if they start investing for the next 20 years. It is a big space for us to play; the savings bond will not go anywhere to satisfy investible funds.”

Copied from http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/14/fgs-savings-bond-means-nigerians/

The Senate yesterday declared that Professor Yemi Osinbajo should function as Acting President pending the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from medical vacation. The upper legislative chamber insisted that it would fully adopt and apply Section 145 of the constitution, which clearly spells out what should happen when the president proceeds on vacation.

It overruled Buhari’s statement that Osinbajo would only “coordinate the affairs of government as vice president.”

The position of the Senate now confers enormous powers, akin to those of a substantive president, on Osinbajo, with liberty to effect sweeping changes in policy. The president’s letter as transmitted to the Senate would have left actions of the acting president almost ineffective.

The Senate’s action followed a protest on the floor by Senator Mao Ohuanbunwa (PDP, Abia North) against what he called suspicious ambiguity in the contents of the president’s letter.

Buhari’s letter which was read to the Senate by Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki upon the commencement of the chamber’s session yesterday reads: “In compliance with section 145 {1) of the 1999 constitution as amended, I wish to inform the distinguished Senate that I will be away for a scheduled medical follow-up with my doctors in London. The length of my stay will be determined by the doctor’s advice. While I am away the vice president will coordinate the activities of the government.”

But Section 145 of the constitution reads: “Whenever the president transmits to the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the vice president as acting president.”

Ohuanbunwa had drawn attention of his colleagues to the danger in the president’s letter particularly in the suggestion that Osinbajo could not act as president in his absence and could only coordinate as vice president.

The lawmaker said: “I don’t think in our constitution we have anything like coordinating president or coordinating vice president. It is either you are vice president or you are acting president and any letter should be unambiguous and very clear. So, I am saying that this letter really does not convey anything because coordinating has no space or any place in our constitution. We have been having letters like this, you tell us who is the acting president and we know who to deal with as a Senate. This is the highest legislative body of any country and if you are sending us a letter it should be direct, unambiguous. So, I am saying that this letter for me is not right and maybe should be sent back.”

In a swift response, the Senate majority leader, Ahmed Lawan said that whatever messages were contained in the president’s letter that were in conflict with the provisions of the constitution would be ignored by the Senate. He said that “Àny other word in this letter or indeed anywhere else is irrelevant.”

Ruling on the matter, Saraki said: “I think it is a very clear issue and what we should be guided by is the constitution and I think that it is clear.”

Former Minority Leader in the Senate, Dr. Olorunimbe Mamora said the word ‘coordinating’ was foreign to the nation’s constitution.

According to him, “There is no need to create unnecessary ambiguity. The constitution is clear. It makes no provision for coordinating president but acting, we should leave it at that.”

Calling on the Senate to commence impeachment procedure against President Buhari, a constitutional lawyer, Ebu Adegoruwa said the decision to write the Senate that his deputy should coordinate was a breach of Section 145 of the Nigeria Constitution.

According to him, “What he has tactically told us is that he has no confidence in his deputy but that his confidence is in the secret cabal, whom he handed over to because a coordinator is not a leader, he has no constitutional power and is also alien to the constitution.

“Another implication is that as we are there is no leader in Nigeria. Buhari, from the tone of the letter has undermined the position of the vice president, therefore we have a vacuum in the leadership at present.”

He added that Buhari could not continue to rule the country indefinitely from his sick bed in London since he didn’t hand over power to anybody. I therefore urged the Senate to return the letter and commence a process of impeachment.”

But a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (AP), Prince Tony Momoh pleaded that Nigerians should not read an ambiguous meaning to the letter since this was not the first time President Buhari would be handing over power to his deputy.

A non-governmental organisation, Advocacy for Integrity and Economic Development (AIED) described the designation of Osinbajo as a coordinator as a desecration of the office of the president and a complete aberration.

In a statement yesterday by its Director of Research and Publicity, Comrade O’Seun John, the group accused the ‘cabal’ within the presidency of plotting to create confusion in the country by its continuous interference with the decision of the president.

“ We are extremely saddened with the content of President Buhari’s letter where he neglected tradition and voice of sanity to dance to the tune of political vampires by importing a lexicon alien to our constitution. While we are aware of the unambiguous provision of section 145, we are frightened by signals such as this on the peace and unity of our country.

“The new designation of Professor Osinbajo can only be interpreted to mean that President Buhari does not trust him enough to act as the President in his absence. With this reality, we are now forced to ask: who does President Buhari truly recognise as the acting president?

“This act has put paid to any form of doubt that the powers controlling the affairs of the country have greater influence and perhaps, control than the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo,” the statement read.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/10/osinbajo-will-not-coordinate-will-also-act-president-senate/

September 17th changed everything.

On that day in 2013, Oxford University published an innocuously titled academic paper by two mostly unknown economists. But “The Future of Employment” wasn’t just another number-crunching exercise in opacity by a couple of dreary scientists. No, their bombshell report portended a coming robot apocalypse that could change the nature of human civilization, and perhaps even human beings themselves.

Thankfully, the forthcoming carnage described by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne isn’t a doomsday scenario where Skynet systematically wipes out humankind, or a darkly lit near-future where attractive Replicants violently struggle to make sense of their emerging emotions in a perpetually damp Los Angeles.

Instead, the economists previewed an all-too-real world where the second-richest man on the planet — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — gleefully parades around like Sigourney Weaver in a massive robotic exoskeleton built by Hankook Mirae Technology.

They presaged the impending doom from robots like Handle, the Michael Jordan-esque robot built by Boston Dynamics. Handle can leap like a superhero, can run a marathon in under three hours and, if Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is right, will probably be smarter than you in just a few decades.

They foresaw a future with the likes of Gordon, the “first robotic barista in the U.S.” Gordon can serve “about 120 coffees in an hour.” They also predicted the likes of Otto, the self-driving big-rig designated by Uber to deliver truckloads of beer to thirsty consumers. And then there’s Pepper, the empathic, “day-to-day” companion that is not just working in airports and banks, but being “adopted” into Japanese homes … and even “enrolling” in school.

The Future Is Now

This is the “next economy,” and, ready or not, it is coming at the double-time speed of Moore’s Law. This rapid acceleration of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming “The Future of Employment’s” apocalyptic premonition — that 47 percent of all jobs in the United States may be lost to automation over the next two decades — into a solemn epitaph for the rapidly fading era of manufacturing-based, consumption-driven economics.

Dire warnings have come from Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and, most dauntingly, from cybersecurity experts who recently warned of the threat of hacked robots violently turning against people and their pets in a souped-up scenario reminiscent of The Purge. However, long before a haywire Roomba or a disgruntled Pepper comes calling, millions of workers will struggle to fend off the brutal reality of unplanned obsolescence.

This is an economy where manufacturing jobs require a college degree, artificial intelligence replaces administrative workers, automated kiosks dislodge food service workers and driverless vehicles threaten the livelihoods of up to 10 million Americans who take the wheel for a living.

This is “Industry 4.0.” It’s an economy where Amazon’s dirigible-based distribution center perpetually floats over cities, effortlessly deploying drones to deliver stuff built by robots or 3-D printers or both. F rankly, it’s Amazon’s jungle out there. Its plan to “disrupt ” the grocery business with almost human-free stores is just the next phase of an ongoing, Amazon-led “retail apocalypse ” that’s driving human-staffed brick and mortar stores into extinction. Amazon also dominates the AI-assistant market with its self-teaching, suspiciously spooky personal assistant Alexa. And now Amazon’s poised to pair its increasingly automated warehouses with a move to become the leader in the self-driving future of trucking and overland shipping.

Even low-paying farming jobs could be completely upended by robotic fruit pickers with the deft touch needed to harvest food in American and European fields. Robots are already replacing cheap migrant workers shut out by anti-immigrant policies. And new robot-staffed factories are producing modular houses, while robotic bricklayers promise to do to the construction trades what automation did to coal mining.

This is an economy where there’s “an 83% chance that workers who earn $20 an hour or less could have their jobs replaced by robots in the next five years” and “those in the $40 an hour pay range face a 31% chance of having their jobs taken over by the machines,” according to a 2016 report by then-President Obama’s White House.

And it’s not coincidental that this robot apocalypse comes at the very moment the epic economic growth we’ve enjoyed throughout the post-World War II era seems to be coming to an end. Peak demand in oil and “peak stuff” for consumer products may signal more than just growing energy efficiency and market saturation for cheap stuff. This may signal the spread of Japan-style economic stagnation around the developed world. This could be the end of the ecologically untenable assumption of limitless growth.

The End of the American Century

The post-war idea of never-ending growth emerged from the manufacturing boom that came with the “American Century.” Perpetual government investment in the military-industrial complex created a baseline of well-paying, low and high-skilled jobs that helped raise the floor — and consumer expectations — for workers, while also sustaining huge corporations like Boeing, Westinghouse and General Electric. Military Keynesian was a reliable tide that lifted a lot of boats moored to an American dream of endless economic expansion. Sadly, it also conjured up a series of costly, nightmarish wars for those who paid the ultimate price both at home and abroad.

An often overlooked element, though, is the way automation helped maintain continued growth in productivity, even as wages lagged. As the Guardian recently noted, “As of 2015, a typical production worker in the US earned about 9% less than a comparable worker in 1973. Over the same 42 years, the American economy grew by more than 200%, or a staggering $11tn.” This divergence between wages and productivity drove wealth inequality. But it also presented a problem for producers facing the declining purchasing power of their customers — a.k.a. the workers not getting the wages they needed to drive, or at least sustain, continued growth in consumption.

To keep up, the manufacturing economy needed 1) a massive flood of consumer credit to create artificial purchasing power; 2) ever-lower prices on ever-more mass-produced goods so wage-stagnant workers could afford to consume the way they did when one good job per family made for a middle-class life.

To get there, jobs went to places like China. But one of the underappreciated drivers of this move to cheap labor was the coming of automation, which made American humans a far less efficient way to make things. BuzzFeed reported on a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that since 1990, each new robot installed in an American factory “reduced employment in the surrounding area by 6.2 workers.” The only thing cheaper than replacing American humans with better technology was exploiting cheap labor markets in China and the developing world. But that’s no longer true.

To wit, Oxford paired with Citibank in 2015 to produce a fuller picture of the global threat to jobs. In “Technology at Work,” researchers found that 75 percent of the world’s robots are “geographically concentrated” in just five countries — “China, Germany, Japan, Korea, and the US.” Of those, China is by far “the fastest growing market” with the “most significant room for future growth.” In fact, they determined that “on average 57% of jobs are susceptible to automation,” but the “number rises to 69% in India and 77% in China.”

As if on cue, China’s new “five-year plan” to be a global leader in robotics has already produced results. China leads the world in production of industrial robots, and robots are becoming a cheaper, more productive option to Chinese labor. That’s the simple, 21st-century reality undermining the hollow promise to “Make America Great Again” by bringing back jobs from China. It’s a great plan for growth … if you’ve got a time machine big enough for 320 million people.

Not only is China automating jobs at an ever-faster pace, but 3-D printing technology is radically altering the way everything gets made. Even as we begin to wrap our heads around a future filled with 3-D printed guns, researchers are moving on to 4-D printing techniques with evolving materials that can self-assemble, repair and even remake themselves at will.

Perhaps most tellingly, artificial intelligence is starting to lay waste to college-educated workers in non-manual jobs previously thought to be exempt from automation. Here are just some of white-collar casualties of the robot apocalypse:

* Goldman Sachs “employs” Marcus — a fully automated lending platform that’s part of an industry-wide AI-makeover displacing humans in equities “sales, trading, and research.”

* Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is turning over policy payouts to IBM’s Watson Supercomputer, which has 6,000 corporate clients ranging from Hilton Hotels to Whirlpool and Visa.

* Coca-Cola’s global senior digital director plans on using AI bots to crank out ads with “automated narratives” and AI is already creating commercial music and jingles.

* Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post used Heliograf to pump out stories about the 2016 Rio Olympics before tweaking it to “cover” the 2016 Election campaign.

* The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) recently “outperformed” a human surgeon in a test of skill. This breakthrough augurs a near-future world where robots assist and perform a variety of surgical procedures.

Just like elsewhere, medical robots will ultimately prove they can do the job quickly, efficiently and without human burnout. The high price of doctors will be weighed against robots that perform thousands of surgeries without complaint or error, particularly since “self-taught” AI already outperforms humans in predicting heart attacks and matches them in diagnosing skin cancer. Like it is doing in manufacturing, this could mean a wholesale revolution in health care that lowers costs and increases access to highly specialized care. It’s that level of relentless, Terminator-like efficiency that is disrupting the existing economic model of everything from retail and restaurants, to education and warfare.

What’s Next?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution may be an era of human obsolescence for which the previous three Industrial Revolutions may not be a guide. That’s because artificially created, human-modeled deep learning neural networks already generate cognitive processes so complex that even the scientists who created those networks cannot determine how, for instance, an autodidactic self-driving car makes the decisions it does when driving itself around New Jersey. In other words, we’re not talking about industrial looms, steam engines or punch-cards. We’re talking about cheaper, efficient, tireless and infinitely upgradeable workers that (or who?) are ready to take on nearly every human endeavor.

That’s why tech leaders increasingly talk about the “New Collar” economy, where human beings not only work with intelligent machines, but also begin physically merging with machines in an effort to keep pace. While some see this coming singularity as a metaphysical event horizon for human consciousness, Elon Musk sees it as the only way we’ll will be able to keep up with what is, in effect, a whole new class of forced labor … and he’s got the start-up to prove it.

Sadly, forced labor may be the economic model most applicable to the next economy. As more and more jobs are turned over to AI, robots and algorithms, more and more wealth will accumulate in the hands of those already at the top of a steep pyramid. Like the pharaohs of old, these masters of the universe will profit as the cost of labor declines precipitously thanks to the robots they “employ.”

As MIT Technology Review recently pointed out, this will generate windfalls for firms like Goldman Sachs where “pay of the average managing director … will probably get even bigger, as there are fewer lower-level people to share the profits with.” Since they are in the business of leveraging money to make more money, they can thrive — at least for a while — in the whiz-bang, highly financialized world of high-speed, algorithmic market trades.

But it will also be an era when inequality hits not only human beings, but also companies. The tech world is filled with hi-tech unicorns like Uber that gallop to higher and higher valuation with just a fraction of the workforce (6,700) supported by Ford (201,000), Hertz (30,000) or one of the nation’s leading trucking firms (18,000). Successful companies with the fewest employees and the most robots will complete the long process of “de-industrialization” often blamed on globalization. On the surface, outsourcing and offshoring look like the main disruptive forces opening up the income and wealth gaps. But they’re really just the logical outcome of driving growth through increased productivity, instead of driving growth (and consumption) through increased wages and broader employment. Robots are simply the cheapest, most efficient and most productive phase of all.

However, the next economy doesn’t have to be a doomsday scenario. It could be a sustainable economy where technology drives a stake into the heart of the hydrocarbons, drives down the cost on heath care and expands banking to underserved communities. The next economy could also see the “gig economy” transition to open-source, peer-to-peer, micro-entrepreneurial and microgrid-powered networks that eliminate economic middlemen. And the “Maker Movement” could inspire a “curated economy” of artisans, urban farmers and hyperlocal bartering that runs parallel to the robot-run, mass-produced economy. These human-made goods and services may be worth far more in a world where every mass-produced need is only a click and a hovering Amazon blimp away.

As our needs are increasingly met by hyper-efficient, AI-driven systems, the only acquisition that will truly matter is knowledge. And knowledge must become more than just a “means” to the end of getting that coveted or expected job out of high school or college — because the means of production will no longer require human hands, human sweat or human tears. Perhaps that’s why Alibaba’s Jack Ma not only lamented a coming world of “pain” as the tech-driven economic disruption lays waste to the global economy, but also said education must be reformed to “raise children to be more creative and curious or they will be ill-prepared for the future.” It’s a future where knowledge — and the creativity it sparks — may have to be an end unto itself.

And while Musk is plotting for the day when augmented humans rise up to stop his vision of a Terminator-filled future, the true test will be how we as a society choose to manage — or whether we simply continue to ignore — the widening pain of displacement as we move from this economy to the next one. Either way, it’s not only coming … it’s already here.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/08/robot-economy-ready-not-comes/

A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.

Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century. This newspaper has argued against such drastic action in the past. Size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without Google’s search engine, Amazon’s one-day delivery or Facebook’s newsfeed. Nor do these firms raise the alarm when standard antitrust tests are applied. Far from gouging consumers, many of their services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). Take account of offline rivals, and their market shares look less worrying. And the emergence of upstarts like Snapchat suggests that new entrants can still make waves.

But there is cause for concern. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the “data economy” (see Briefing). A new approach is needed.

Quantity has a quality all its own

What has changed? Smartphones and the internet have made data abundant, ubiquitous and far more valuable. Whether you are going for a run, watching TV or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace—more raw material for the data distilleries. As devices from watches to cars connect to the internet, the volume is increasing: some estimate that a self-driving car will generate 100 gigabytes per second. Meanwhile, artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning extract more value from data. Algorithms can predict when a customer is ready to buy, a jet-engine needs servicing or a person is at risk of a disease. Industrial giants such as GE and Siemens now sell themselves as data firms.

This abundance of data changes the nature of competition. Technology giants have always benefited from network effects: the more users Facebook signs up, the more attractive signing up becomes for others. With data there are extra network effects. By collecting more data, a firm has more scope to improve its products, which attracts more users, generating even more data, and so on. The more data Tesla gathers from its self-driving cars, the better it can make them at driving themselves—part of the reason the firm, which sold only 25,000 cars in the first quarter, is now worth more than GM, which sold 2.3m. Vast pools of data can thus act as protective moats.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/06/worlds-valuable-resource-no-longer-oil-data/

A Colombian woman who reportedly swallowed more than $7,000 during an argument with her husband had $5,700 in U.S. $100 bills removed from her stomach in surgery.

The woman into the Hospital Universitario de Santander in Bucaramanga complaining of severe stomach pain before telling doctors that she had swallowed between $7,000 and $9,000 to keep her husband from getting his hands on the cash, according to UPI.

She said she had been saving the money — which she had earned by selling household electronics — for a vacation to Panama, but had swallowed it after getting in a dispute with her husband over the funds.

“Fifty-seven 100-dollar bills were found and extracted by the orifice opened in the stomach in the gastronomy, through which some extra rolls (of money) were found in the intestine, which advanced to the colon, the lower part of the intestine, in order to be evacuated by normal means through the patient’s intestinal movements,” Chief of Surgery Dr. Juan Pablo Serrano told Global News.

Serrano added that the unwrapped rolls indicated the woman wasn’t attempting to smuggle the money illegally. “She ate rolls of bills, they were not wrapped up for any form of illicit transport,” he explained. “It seems it was an act of desperation by this woman, due to the problem she was facing.”

As reported in http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/05/06/woman-swallows-7000-keep-cash-husband/

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BREAKING: Buhari absent at FEC meeting again
President Muhammadu Buhari is today conspicuously absent at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.


The meeting is being presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The cabinet had awaited the president’s arrival until the State House Chief of Protocols suddenly stepped in at 11.00am and whispered to Osinbajo.

A security officer had also stood anxiously behind the president’s official seat in expectation of Buhari’s attendance.

The Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa are scanty as only about 20 ministers were seated as of the time journalists were leaving.

Osinbajo kick-started the meeting with a call for the recitation of the national anthem as well as prayers by the Ministers of Education and Health, Adamu Adamu and Isaac Adewole respectively.

Immediately the meeting commenced, ministers were sighted curiously whispering.

A fortnight ago, Buhari was also absent at the weekly council meeting.

The meeting did not hold last week with the Presidency citing the Easter break.

The acting Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Dr Habibat Lawan, is in attendance.

Lawan became acting SGF last Wednesday following the suspension of Babachir David Lawal who is being investigated for alleged mismanagement of funds meant for the development of the northeast.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/04/26/breaking-buhari-absent-fec-meeting/

BREAKING: Buhari absent at FEC meeting again
President Muhammadu Buhari is today conspicuously absent at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.


The meeting is being presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The cabinet had awaited the president’s arrival until the State House Chief of Protocols suddenly stepped in at 11.00am and whispered to Osinbajo.

A security officer had also stood anxiously behind the president’s official seat in expectation of Buhari’s attendance.

The Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa are scanty as only about 20 ministers were seated as of the time journalists were leaving.

Osinbajo kick-started the meeting with a call for the recitation of the national anthem as well as prayers by the Ministers of Education and Health, Adamu Adamu and Isaac Adewole respectively.

Immediately the meeting commenced, ministers were sighted curiously whispering.

A fortnight ago, Buhari was also absent at the weekly council meeting.

The meeting did not hold last week with the Presidency citing the Easter break.

The acting Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Dr Habibat Lawan, is in attendance.

Lawan became acting SGF last Wednesday following the suspension of Babachir David Lawal who is being investigated for alleged mismanagement of funds meant for the development of the northeast.

http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/04/26/breaking-buhari-absent-fec-meeting/

A prosecution witness in the trial of former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode Tuesday the Federal High Court, Abuja how he collected N26m on behalf of Fani-Kayode from the office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

The witness, Mr. Victor Ehiabhi told Justice John Tsoho how he was sent by the ex-Aviation minister to accompany his gardner named Francis and a domestic staff named Esther to NSA’s office.

Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Johnson Ojugbane, the witness said he was a police office in force Criminal Investigative Department (CID) before he was deployed as Fani-Kayode’s security aide.

He stated that his schedule of duty includes protecting the defendant’s household and his properties.

Ehiabhi testified that on Nov. 21, 2014 one of the gardner named Francis called him on phone and told him that the defendant directed them to go NSA’s office at the villa.

He said that on reaching there as instructed he was given a document to endorse on behalf of the defendant who was absent.

“In the document I endorsed the sum of N26m which was indicated for the defendant by the NSA.

“I initially refused to endorse the document on behalf of the defendant but the man insisted that hence I was a police officer, I was to endorse the document.

“He brought the N26m cash which was in a bag, gave to me I then took it to the defendant’s house whom I later called.

He added that the defendant later called him asking him to ensure maximum security I am the house until his arrival.

The witness further stated that on the arrival of the defendant, he handed over the N26m to him .

Responding to the prosecution’s question on why he was invited by the EFCC, the witness said he was invited because he was the defendant’s security aide.

He said when he was invited to EFCC’s office, an EFCC personnel brought the document he signed at NSA’s office on Nov. 21, 2014.

He said he was asked of his participation in the money and he told them how the defendant sent him to get it.

The defence counsel, Wale Balogun who represented Ahmed Raji (SAN), pleaded with the court to adjourn the matter to enable Raji cross examine the witness.

Balogun had earlier told the court that Raji was absent due to his missed flight to Abuja.

Justice John Tsoho, adjourned the matter till June 6 for cross examination of the witness.

The ex-aviation minister was accused of allegedly collecting N26 million from the office of the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and using same for media campaign.

Copied from http://nbslaw.com.ng/2017/04/25/picked-26m-fani-kayode-witness/

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

The Petition here is very simple. The Director of finance wants to punish his boss for probing his financial misappropriation. Now he is paying part of the loot to Sahara Reporters to cover up his evil act and to punish his boss. Shift happen.