Kanye West’s Wife Bianca Censori Shocks by Appearing Fully Naked on Grammys Red Carpet
There’s “barely-there fashion,” and there’s the look that Kanye West’s wife, Bianca Censori, wore on the red carpet at the 2025 Grammy Awards: essentially, naked.
The couple didn’t last long at the event. They were escorted out shortly after Censori flashed the world, Page Six reports, with speculation ramping up as to whether the pair were even invited to the ceremony. West was nominated for Best Rap Song for co-writing “Carnival,” by rap duo ¥$.
West and Censori arrived about two hours before the telecast was set to begin. The couple initially posed side by side and expressionless, staring down the photographers. He wore an all-black ensemble, while she was wrapped in an oversized coat that appeared to be fur. She then coyly turned around and began to drop the coat off her shoulders.
“Let’s see the outfit one time, Bianca! Let’s see the outfit!” one photographer is heard shouting. It’s likely that he was expecting for Censori to reveal, well, an actual outfit.
Instead, she let the coat fall to the floor, exposing her buttocks.
Her “dress” was a skintight piece of completely sheer fabric. When she turned around to show photographers the front of her…“look,” there were no modesty garments underneath the transparent cloth. Her breasts, her nipples, her nether region: It was all on full display, as West side-stepped out of the shot for her his naked wife to stand for the feverishly shuttering cameras alone.
The sheer fabric is, technically, a dress. You can see a hem line crossing Censori’s upper (upper) thighs.
Dear Customers, Due To The Government New Regulation Of Banning The Use Of Nylon, Kindly Be Informed That Today 31st January, 2025 Will Be The Last Day Will Be Offering Nylon As No Charge. Starting Tomorrow February 1, 2025 There Will Be A charges Of #150 For Nylon Usage. Thank you Yor Your 'Understanding.
We’re releasing OpenAI o3-mini, the newest, most cost-efficient model in our reasoning series, available in both ChatGPT and the API today. Previewed in December 2024, this powerful and fast model advances the boundaries of what small models can achieve, delivering exceptional STEM capabilities—with particular strength in science, math, and coding—all while maintaining the low cost and reduced latency of OpenAI o1-mini.
OpenAI o3-mini is our first small reasoning model that supports highly requested developer features including function calling(opens in a new window), Structured Outputs(opens in a new window), and developer messages(opens in a new window), making it production-ready out of the gate. Like OpenAI o1-mini and OpenAI o1-preview, o3-mini will support streaming(opens in a new window). Also, developers can choose between three reasoning effort(opens in a new window) options—low, medium, and high—to optimize for their specific use cases. This flexibility allows o3-mini to “think harder” when tackling complex challenges or prioritize speed when latency is a concern. o3-mini does not support vision capabilities, so developers should continue using OpenAI o1 for visual reasoning tasks. o3-mini is rolling out in the Chat Completions API, Assistants API, and Batch API starting today to select developers in API usage tiers 3-5(opens in a new window).
ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users can access OpenAI o3-mini starting today, with Enterprise access coming in a week. o3-mini will replace OpenAI o1-mini in the model picker, offering higher rate limits and lower latency, making it a compelling choice for coding, STEM, and logical problem-solving tasks. As part of this upgrade, we’re tripling the rate limit for Plus and Team users from 50 messages per day with o1-mini to 150 messages per day with o3-mini. Additionally, o3-mini now works with search to find up-to-date answers with links to relevant web sources. This is an early prototype as we work to integrate search across our reasoning models.
Starting today, free plan users can also try OpenAI o3-mini by selecting ‘Reason’ in the message composer or by regenerating a response. This marks the first time a reasoning model has been made available to free users in ChatGPT.
While OpenAI o1 remains our broader general knowledge reasoning model, OpenAI o3-mini provides a specialized alternative for technical domains requiring precision and speed. In ChatGPT, o3-mini uses medium reasoning effort to provide a balanced trade-off between speed and accuracy. All paid users will also have the option of selecting o3-mini-high in the model picker for a higher-intelligence version that takes a little longer to generate responses. Pro users will have unlimited access to both o3-mini and o3-mini-high.
OpenAI launches o3-mini, its latest ‘reasoning’ model
OpenAI on Friday launched a new AI “reasoning” model, o3-mini, the newest in the company’s o family of reasoning models.
OpenAI first previewed the model in December alongside a more capable system called o3, but the launch comes at a pivotal moment for the company, whose ambitions — and challenges — are seemingly growing by the day.
OpenAI is battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like DeepSeek, which OpenAI alleges might have stolen its IP. Nonetheless, the ChatGPT maker has managed to win over scores of developers, and it’s been trying to shore up its relationship with Washington as it simultaneously pursues an ambitious data center project. It’s reportedly also laying the groundwork for one of the largest financing rounds by a tech company in history.
Which brings us to o3-mini. OpenAI is pitching its new model as both “powerful” and “affordable.”
“Today’s launch marks […] an important step toward broadening accessibility to advanced AI in service of our mission,” an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Sad to hear about an incident that occurred this morning around Nigerian Army Sport Centre in Yaba-Lagos while troops were taking off for a routine route march, a heavily drunk driver on an high speed hit over 15 Soldiers, death & high decree of injuries recorded💔. Smh..Its well
An unconfirmed number of soldiers from the Myoung Barracks, Yaba in Lagos State, are feared dead and others injured after a suspected drunk driver rammed his vehicle into them during a route march – a physical training exercise on Friday morning.
According to reports, the incident has thrown the military community into panic. An eyewitness quoted a soldier as saying, “There’s blood everywhere. I was spared because I was at the back.”
The soldier (name withheld) narrated that the vehicle had three young men suspected to be internet fraudsters, notoriously called ‘Yahoo Boys’.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced today on January 23 that the free tier of ChatGPT will now use the o3-mini model, marking a significant shift in how the popular AI chatbot serves its user base. In the same tweet announcing the change, Altman revealed that paid subscribers to ChatGPT Plus and Pro plans will enjoy “tons of o3-mini usage,” giving people an incentive to move to a paid account with the company.
The o3-mini model is part of OpenAI’s latest advancements in its generative AI technology. Although smaller in scale compared to the flagship GPT-4-turbo model, o3-mini promises faster response times, reduced computational requirements, and the ability to handle simpler queries with ease.
This move aims to improve the user experience for free-tier users while allocating premium resources, like GPT-4-turbo, for paid subscribers who rely on the platform for professional and intensive use cases.
This update comes shortly after ChatGPT went down on Thursday, January, 23, at a time when OpenAI is focusing on balancing resource demands. ChatGPT’s free tier has historically been powered by earlier versions of GPT models, but integrating o3-mini represents a strategic pivot toward efficiency. It’s designed to serve the needs of everyday users with lightweight tasks like casual queries, brainstorming, and conversational interaction.
Aproko Doctor writes on the implications of Trump halting HIV funding for Nigeria.
Trump cutting funds to PEPFAR, what does it mean?
Nigeria has the world's second highest number of people living with HIV.
If you don't treat HIV, almost everyone affected will develop AIDS.
To treat HIV, they need ART drugs and these drugs have become so effective that a HIV positive person can no longer transmit the virus if the level of the virus is suppressed.
These drugs are expensive, so a lot of the drugs available are donated to us.
Now that donation has been cut, what does this mean?
If Nigeria doesn't rise to the occasion and take charge:
1. Infections will rise, currently it's close to 200000 infections every year
2. People will die from AIDS, drugs are not available.
3. Our already burdened healthcare system will be burdened further which might be make or break.
These are just a snippet of the ripple effect. Let's not forget that diseases like tuberculosis and malaria are being affected also by the pause of funding.
Now is the time to take our health system seriously, the second best time was yesterday.
Nigeria can not continue to depend on donations for its own healthcare.
Speaking with Fareed in Davos, Switzerland, the World Trade Organization’s Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala urges calm amid US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
President Trump is preparing to place tariffs beyond Chinese assembled electronics to computer chips made in Taiwan, warning the tariffs could reach as high as 100%.
“In particular, in the very near future, we’re going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States,” Trump said in a speech to Republicans on Monday.
“They left us and went to Taiwan,” he then said in an apparent reference to how many of the leading US tech companies have been sourcing their processors from Taiwan’s TSMC, a top semiconductor manufacturer. TSMC has established a factory in Arizona, but much of its chip production remains in Taiwan, where it’s been serving clients including Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm and AMD, among others.
“We want them to come back,” Trump said before slamming the US’s CHIPS and Science Act, which his predecessor President Biden signed to invest over $52 billion in domestic chip manufacturing.
“And we don’t want to give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program that Biden has given everybody billions of dollars. They already have billions of dollars,” Trump said. “They’ve got nothing but money Joe. They didn’t need money. They needed an incentive. And the incentive is gonna be they’re not gonna wanna pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 % tax.”
“They’re gonna build their factory with their own money. We don’t have to give them money,” Trump added, later claiming: “They’re giving the money, they don’t even know what they’re going to do with it.”
The recipients of the funding, such as Intel, might disagree. Last year, Intel received $7.9 billion from the CHIPS Act, which will go toward expanding its factories in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Ohio, where the company is building a new chip manufacturing hub. Even so, Trump is betting his tariff threat will push more US tech companies into migrating their chip manufacturing to the US over Taiwan.
“The only way you’ll get out of this is to build your plant —if you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs— you’ll have to build your plant right here in America,” Trump added. “That’s what’s going to happen at record levels.”
There's a new player in Artificial Intelligence market, Deepseek. Deepseek is a new AI model from China, has captured the attention of the tech world, surpassing the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude AI in performance.
The DeepSeek app, which was launched last week, has overtaken rivals including ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free app in the United States. Shares in US-based and AI-related tech firms such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta were all down on Monday ahead of the US markets opening, reports BBC.
What is Deepseek, China's Game changer in AI?: Explained in 10 points
-DeepSeek is a Hangzhou-based AI research lab and the R1 is its latest AI model. The company was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an engineer and entrepreneur with a background in AI and quantitative finance, according to India Today.
-Before creating DeepSeek, he led a hedge fund known for using AI to analyse financial data. Liang’s team at DeepSeek mostly consists of fresh graduates from top Chinese universities like Tsinghua and Peking University.
-The company has now developed AI models that are open-source and helping developers across the world to improve their technologies. It is powered by the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model, which its researchers claim was developed for less than $6m (£7.5m) - significantly less than the billions spent by rivals.
-DeepSeek is an advanced open-source AI system, it surpassed OpenAI's ChatGPT to become the top-rated free app on Apple's App Store in several countries, including the US, the UK, and China. DeepSeek's rise to prominence made a splash in Silicon Valley, challenging the belief that the US held a dominant position in this space.
-DeepSeek's latest release, R1, rivals industry leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic but stands out for being cost-efficient, open source, and offering unlimited free usage. It enables high-performance AI access without the steep costs typically associated with such technologies, according to a NDTV report.
-The one thing that sets DeepSeek R1, which is said to mimic human thinking, apart from other AI models is that it also provides its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt. The company claims its performance is on par with OpenAI’s latest technology.
-DeepSeek’s AI models are developed at a fraction of the cost compared to leading products from OpenAI and Meta, raising questions about the need for huge investments in high-end AI accelerators like those from Nvidia.
-One of the key reasons why DeepSeek has managed to create a buzz is its cost to end users: it is free. In a way, this is the first extremely advanced AI system that is available for free to users. Other systems, like the OpenAI o1 and Claude Sonnet, require a paid subscription. Google Gemini, too, is available for free, but it is also limited to older models for free versions and does have usage limits.
-The key reason for the buzz around DeepSeek is that the Chinese AI assistant is celebrated for its transparency, efficiency, and ability to make AI accessible to everyone. DeepSeek's breakthrough comes at a time when the US has placed restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports to China, with the aim of limiting China's ability to advance in AI. DeepSeek has managed to work around these restrictions by developing models that require fewer resources.
-The rise of DeepSeek has had an immediate effect on stock markets. Shares of major US AI-related companies, including Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, dropped in response to DeepSeek's success. Analysts have warned that the rise of low-cost Chinese alternatives to established US AI models could disrupt the investment landscape, forcing companies to reconsider their AI strategies.
CNN— US stocks dropped sharply Monday — and chipmaker Nvidia lost nearly $600 billion in market value — after a surprise advancement from a Chinese artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek, threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry.
DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, revealed a stunning capability last week: It presented a ChatGPT-like AI model called R1, which has all the familiar abilities, operating at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s, Google’s or Meta’s popular AI models. The company said it had spent just $5.6 million on computing power for its base model, compared with the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies.
That sent shockwaves through markets, in particular the tech sector, on Monday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged by 3.1% and the broader S&P 500 fell 1.5%. The Dow, boosted by health care and consumer companies that could be hurt by AI, was up 289 points, or about 0.7% higher. Stock market losses were far deeper at the beginning of the day.
Meta last week said it would spend upward of $65 billion this year on AI development. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, last year said the AI industry would need trillions of dollars in investment to support the development of in-demand chips needed to power the electricity-hungry data centers that run the sector’s complex models.
Marc Andreessen, a supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the world’s leading tech investors, called DeepSeek “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen,” in a post on X.
The stunning achievement from a relatively unknown AI startup becomes even more shocking when considering that the United States for years has worked to restrict the supply of high-power AI chips to China, citing national security concerns. That means DeepSeek was able to achieve its low-cost model on under-powered AI chips.
Nvidia (NVDA), the leading supplier of AI chips, fell nearly 17% and lost $588.8 billion in market value — by far the most market value a stock has ever lost in a single day, more than doubling the previous record of $240 billion set by Meta nearly three years ago.
For perspective, Nvidia lost more in market value Monday than all but 13 companies are worth — period. Nvidia began the day as the most valuable publicly traded stock on the market — over $3.4 trillion — after its shares more than doubled in each of the past two years. It ended the day in third place behind Apple and Microsoft.
Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL), Google’s parent company, were also down sharply. Nvidia competitors Marvell, Broadcom, Micron and TSMC all fell sharply, too. Oracle (ORCL), Vertiv, Constellation, NuScale and other energy and data center companies tumbled.
That dragged down the broader stock market, because tech stocks make up a significant chunk of the market — tech constitutes about 45% of the S&P 500, according to Keith Lerner, analyst at Truist.
“The bottom line is the US outperformance has been driven by tech and the lead that US companies have in AI,” Lerner said. “The DeepSeek model rollout is leading investors to question the lead that US companies have and how much is being spent and whether that spending will lead to profits (or overspending).”
This week kicks off a series of tech companies reporting earnings, so their response to the DeepSeek stunner could lead to tumultuous market movements in the days and weeks to come. In the meantime, investors are taking a closer look at Chinese AI companies.
“Chinese tech companies, including new entrants like DeepSeek, are trading at significant discounts due to geopolitical concerns and weaker global demand,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo. “DeepSeek’s rise could spark renewed investor interest in undervalued Chinese AI companies, providing an alternative growth story.”
A massive rotation out of AI bets
The news also sparked a huge change in investments in non-technology companies on Wall Street.
Energy companies had been traded up significantly higher in recent years because of the massive amounts of electricity needed to power AI data centers. But they all plummeted Monday. Constellation Energy (CEG), the company behind the planned revival of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant for powering AI, fell 21% Monday. Competitors like Vistra (VST) fell 28% and GE Vernova (GEV) was down 21%.
Futures for natural gas, used to power electricity generators, tumbled 5.9%. Oil fell more than 2%.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies also tumbled.
Is this for real? One achievement, albeit a gobsmacking one, may not be enough to counter years of progress in American AI leadership. And a massive customer shift to a Chinese startup is unlikely. So the market selloff may be a bit overdone — or perhaps investors were looking for an excuse to sell.
“Time will tell if the DeepSeek threat is real — the race is on as to what technology works and how the big Western players will respond and evolve,” said Michael Block, market strategist at Third Seven Capital. “Markets had gotten too complacent on the beginning of the Trump 2.0 era and may have been looking for an excuse to pull back — and they got a great one here.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training.
In a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
The problem may not be with the historical videos themselves, but that they were used in Air Force basic military training DEI coursework. However, the lack of clearer guidance has sent the Air Force and other agencies scrambling to take the broadest approach to what content is removed to make sure they are in compliance.
The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails” were the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit and their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war.
They flew P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang and other fighters to escort American bombers on dangerous missions over Germany. Before the fighter escorts began accompanying the slow and heavy U.S. bombers, losses were catastrophic due to getting dive-bombed by German aircraft.
President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda in 2007.
In 2020, in his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump announced he had promoted one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Charles McGee, to brigadier general. McGee died in 2022 at age 102.
The WASPs contributed to World War II by learning to fly and ferry new bombers off the assembly lines to airfields where they were needed to ship off to war — freeing up male pilots to focus on combat missions overseas. They earned the right to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery just in the last decade.
The Air Force, like other branches, has recently tried to broaden the number of people they reach to consider military careers like aviation that historically have had few minority service members in their ranks.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Four female Israeli soldiers who were taken in the attack that sparked the war in Gaza returned to Israel on Saturday after Hamas militants paraded them before a crowd of thousands in Gaza City and handed them over to the Red Cross. Israel later released 200 Palestinian prisoners in the second exchange of a fragile ceasefire.
The four Israelis smiled, waved and gave the thumbs-up from a stage in Palestine Square, with armed, masked militants on either side as Hamas sought to show it remained in control in Gaza after 15 months of war. The hostages likely acted under duress. Previously released ones said they were held in brutal conditions and forced to record propaganda videos.
Israel’s Prison Service said it released 200 Palestinians, including 121 people serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis, while others were held without charge.
Thousands of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah celebrated their arrival. Wan-looking and wearing gray prison sweatsuits, some donned Hamas headbands given to them by the crowd and rode on supporters’ shoulders.
In the deal’s first major crisis, Israel said it would not allow displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza by Sunday as anticipated, because civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released as expected.
As mediators addressed that, hundreds of Palestinians gathered near the east-west Netzarim corridor dividing Gaza.
“Why are they treating us like this?” asked one man, Khalil Abd. Families huddled around bonfires against the winter cold.
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man close to the Netzarim corridor, Palestinian medical officials said. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots in response to “gatherings of dozens of suspects.” It said it was unaware of anyone harmed.
Israel insists on release of civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would not allow Palestinians into northern Gaza until Yehoud, taken from a kibbutz in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, was freed.
Hamas said it held Israel responsible for “any delay in implementing the agreement and its repercussions.”
A senior Hamas official said the group informed mediators that Yehoud will be released next week. An Egyptian official involved in negotiations called the matter a “minor issue” that mediators were working to resolve. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The U.S. National Security Council continues to push for Yehoud’s release, a spokesperson said.
The ceasefire began last weekend with the release of three hostages and 90 prisoners. It is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas. The deal has allowed for a surge of aid into tiny, devastated Gaza.
Who are the soldiers and prisoners released?
The four Israeli soldiers, Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Liri Albag, 19, were taken from Nahal Oz base near the border with Gaza when Palestinian militants overran it, killing more than 60 soldiers.
The four squealed as they hurried to embrace loved ones. Thousands of people danced and celebrated as the soldiers arrived by helicopter near a Tel Aviv hospital, which said they were in stable condition.
“I had goosebumps watching them,” said Aviv Bercovich in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. “I just want the war to end.”
Thousands of Israelis gathered there again Saturday night to call for all hostages to be freed, amid fears the war will resume.
A fifth female soldier in the unit, Agam Berger, 20, also was abducted. “Now she’s there alone,” said family friend Yoni Collins.
In Gaza City, resident Radwan Abu Rawiya also watched the handover. “This is huge,” he said. “People forgot about the war, destruction and are celebrating.”
A video released by Hamas’ armed wing showed the hostages thanking the militants in Arabic for the “good treatment,” again likely under duress.
Israel’s army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari criticized Hamas’ “cynical” display. He also said Israel is concerned about the two youngest hostages — Kfir and Ariel Bibas — and their mother, Shiri. Kfir Bibas marked his second birthday in captivity this month.
Among the Palestinian prisoners released were Mohammad Odeh, 52, and Wael Qassim, 54, accused of carrying out Hamas attacks against Israelis, including a bombing at a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002 that killed nine people, including five U.S. citizens.
“I am afraid that I will not know him when he gets out, or that he will not know me,” said Rana Raef al-Farra in Gaza, who said she was 7 when her father was sentenced 21 years ago.
Seventy released prisoners were expelled to Egypt, with Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey expressing willingness to take them in, according to Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of a Palestinian prisoner advocacy group.
How Nigerian fintech Marasoft paid salaries with suspected fraudulent funds, trigerring account freezes and employee anguish
In October 2024, employees at Marasoft Pay, a Nigerian fintech founded by Emmanuel Marakwe-Ogu, experienced what seemed like a long-awaited resolution: payment of two months of overdue salaries. But their relief was short-lived.
Within days of receiving their payments, employees were stunned to discover that their accounts—along with the accounts of those they had sent money to—were frozen.The funds, they learned, had been traced to a suspected fraudulent source, according to six former employees who spoke with TechCabal on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Marasoft Pay, which operates in Kenya and Nigeria, allows businesses and individuals to collect payments via its platform. However, because it does not hold local licenses in Kenya, it processes transactions through a Flutterwave wallet which it has used since 2022. Kenyan court documents showed that Marasoft was one of the fintechs that deposited over $55 million into Flutterwave in 2022.
“Marasoft Pay is not a partner of Flutterwave but a customer. It was a business that processed payments through Flutterwave,” Flutterwave told TechCabal. Smaller fintechs typically process payments through licensed fintechs, as banks do not onboard unlicensed fintechs.
The series of unfortunate events began on October 16, 2024, when a glitch allowed Marasoft access to more funds than it had in the wallet, enabling the company to withdraw over ₦84 million ($54,000). According to transaction records seen by TechCabal, CEO Marakwe-Ogu initiated 102 withdrawals from his Marasoft account within 12 hours, each linked to his phone number and bank verification number (BVN).
The timing of the glitch could not have been more fortuitous: it came a week after employees stopped working due to growing frustration over unpaid salaries. While the company paused operations on October 10, it continued to process transactions.
Between October 16 and 17, Marakwe-Ogu paid ₦35 million in overdue salaries directly from the Flutterwave wallet. In a WhatsApp chat with employees seen by TechCabal, Marakwe-Ogu admitted to using his company account to pay salaries after employees noticed that the payments did not come from the human resources account.
Employees were right to be worried. Days after receiving salary payments, their accounts were frozen, and over 40 workers began a legal battle to unfreeze their funds.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to lift the PND (post no debit) on the account at this time. The funds deposited into your account have been traced to a fraudulent merchant, and investigations are currently ongoing,” read an email from a senior customer experience associate at Flutterwave to a former Marasoft employee.
After paying employees from the Flutterwave wallet, Marakwe-Ogu transferred ₦49 million to various accounts through payment processors like Transact Pay, a European fintech that generates virtual accounts, to a VFD Bank account he controlled, complicating retrieval efforts, according to account statements seen by TechCabal.
A week later, on October 24, TransactPay sent a recall request for ten transactions worth ₦19.3 million, copying former Marasoft employees. By then, several Marasoft employees’ accounts were frozen, and many were left scrambling for answers.
While Marakwe-Ogu continued to tell employees that the restrictions were a mistake and would be lifted, he agreed to a five-month repayment plan with Flutterwave expiring in February 2025, a former employee with direct knowledge of the matter said. Flutterwave declined to comment on the repayment plan, citing confidentiality.
“It went from a situation where we thought the salary payment was a temporary issue to one where it was clear this was deliberate,” said one former senior employee who asked not to be named discussing an ongoing issue.
Marakwe-Ogu also requested a recall of the salaries through the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement Scheme (NIBSS) using Marasoft, an email seen by TechCabal showed. By November, it became clear that the situation was worsening, and employees began resigning. As the employees pushed for answers, he removed them from the company’s WhatsApp group and stopped taking their calls, complicating their efforts to get the restrictions lifted.
“People believed in the company’s mission and endured two months of delayed payments. But this time, it became clear that it wasn’t just a minor issue—it was deliberate,” a former senior employee who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals told TechCabal.
The fallout from the incident has been painful. One employee, whose account was blocked, was forced to borrow money from her father to refund her co-contributors in an esusu after her funds were frozen.
“I was left in a very difficult situation. It was stressful for both my father and me,” she told TechCabal, asking not to be named so she could speak freely.
Marasoft resumed operations in January and at least eight employees have returned to the fintech despite the frozen accounts and owed salaries.
Marakwe-Ogu did not respond to requests for comments.
Trump rolls back bedrock civil rights measure in sweeping anti-DEI push
President Trump issued a sweeping executive order Tuesday night revoking decades of diversity and affirmative action practices in federal government.
Why it matters: This takes the current anti-DEI activism on diversity, equity and inclusion to a new level — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crack down on the same in the private sector.
Zoom out: Trump's order revokes one that President Johnson signed on September 24, 1965, more than two years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
LBJ's order gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to ensure equal opportunity for people of color and women in federal contractors' recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices.
It required federal contractors to refrain from employment discrimination and take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity "based on race, color, religion, and national origin." The order came more than a year after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and just months after he signed the Voting Rights Act following violent attacks on voting rights advocates in Selma, Ala.
The intrigue: The reversal comes after six GOP presidents — including Trump during his first term — kept the Johnson executive order in place, while others expanded it through amendments.
Segregationists during Johnson's time opposed the executive order.
Conservatives since have voiced opposition to it, over claims it forced federal contractors to adopt a "quota system" for employees.
It also comes just as Chuck Robbins, the CEO of Cisco and head of the influential Business Roundtable, defended the value of DEI at his company in an Axios interview in Davos.
What they're saying: Civil rights advocates were anticipating this move. Rev. William Barber of the Repairers of the Breach told Axios beforehand that Johnson's executive order was needed to fight discrimination of that era and is still needed today.
"It would significantly erode a civil rights enforcement tool that has been essential, in particular for women's progress," Jocelyn Frye, president of the advocacy group National Partnership for Women & Families, told Axios before Trump's order was issued. "It sends a message and gives a green light to contractors that nobody is watching." Zoom in: Trump's order directs all "executive departments and agencies (agencies) to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements."
And it extends out to the private sector: "I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs." "The Federal Government is charged with enforcing our civil-rights laws. The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination."
It goes a step further and orders federal agencies to compile lists of public companies, universities and large foundations for investigations and possible civil action over their DEI programs. Between the lines: Close Trump allies want to dramatically change the government's interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color, Axios' Alex Thompson has reported.
The bottom line: Corporations had already been rolling back diversity programs and policies in response from attacks from conservative groups — including White House aide Stephen Miller, who filed multiple lawsuits over corporate DEI at his group America First Legal.
While some may push back, expect many to run even harder from those programs now.
As the final batch of the 2024 National Youth Service Corps three-week orientation camp begins today, PUNCH Online has gathered the addresses of orientation camps across the country from the NYSC website.
This effort aims to ease the journey for prospective corps members and help them locate their assigned camps seamlessly.
Here is a comprehensive list of NYSC orientation camp addresses by state.
Also, state codes are the abbreviated forms for each state in two letters:
Addresses of NYSC Orientation Camps. A ABIA (AB) NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp, Umunna, Bende Local Government Area, Abia State.
Y YOBE (YB) NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp Dazigau, KM 5 Potiskum-Kano Road, Nangere Local Government Area, Yobe State.
Z ZAMFARA (ZM) NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp, Beside FRSC Office, Tsafe Local Government Area, Zamfara State.
Tips for PCMs: Ensure you have your call-up letter, required documents, and survival pack ready before travelling.
Avoid travelling at night for safety reasons.
For those redirected to other states (e.g., Lagos PCMs to Ekiti, Ondo, or Osun & Abuja PCMs to Nasarawa or Kaduna), confirm your camp location before departure.
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has announced that the 2024 Batch C Stream 2 orientation camp officially opens today, Wednesday, January 22, 2025, across all states in Nigeria.
The NYSC announced this in a recent post on social media.
Additionally, the NYSC confirmed that deployment letters for Batch C Stream 2 are now available. Prospective corps members (PCMs) can access their deployment details online to prepare for the service year.
The NYSC issued a safety advisory, urging PCMs to exercise caution while travelling to their designated camps, especially avoiding night travel.
“PCMs are advised not to travel at night to the Orientation Camp,” the statement emphasised.
The scheme also reminded PCMs to complete specific registration requirements upon arrival at the camps. “Prospective corps members are advised to print and sign the addendum, which is to be submitted during registration in the orientation camp,” the NYSC stated.
Due to logistical reasons, some PCMs originally deployed to Lagos State will attend orientation camps in Ekiti, Ondo or Osun states. Similarly, some PCMs assigned to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will have their orientation courses in Nasarawa or Kaduna.
The NYSC urged all prospective corps members to comply with these directives and prepare for the mandatory three-week orientation programme. PCMs are encouraged to follow the NYSC’s official social media platforms for further updates.
cyrusmillz: This made me remember early last year , the news broke that we'd lost a church member and we were all tearing up. This man was a very active , gentle and loving father to his kids and always spoke highly of his wife anytime he's giving a testimony. We got to their home and met the two youngest kids eating and smiling 😃. when the other members of the family wanted to see us off after the visit, to shut the gate, the last born followed him and told us not to worry that his daddy had gone to heaven.
She claims that her King (boyfriend) 'mistakenly' over beat her for checking his phone. That her boyfriend initially didn't want to beat her too much, that he only wanted to beat her small but he mistakenly beat her too much.
She said:
"Na me find trouble. I go dey check his phone...."
11:45 a.m. ESTTrump walked into the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in ceremony, kissing Melania Trump and shaking hands with President Joe Biden and his father-in-law, Viktor Knavs.
11:42 a.m.Vice President-elect JD Vance enters the Capitol Rotunda.
11:41 a.m.Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris enter the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in ceremony.
11:39 a.m.Incoming First Lady Melania Trump enters the Capitol Rotunda and is seated next to her son, Barron Trump.
11:12 a.m.Trump and President Joe Biden have arrived at the Capitol for the swearing-in.
11:10 a.m.Elon Musk, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—tech leaders who have courted alliances with Trump—were given prime seats near Trump’s family and cabinet members at the ceremony.
10:50 a.m.Trump administration appointees and cabinet nominees, including Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, Department of Government Efficiency heads Vivek Ramaswamy and Musk, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, entered the Capitol Rotunda ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.
10:50 a.m.Former Vice President Mike Pence—whose relationship with Trump soured after he refused to toss out Joe Biden’s 2020 election win—arrived for the ceremony, where a number of celebrities and high-profile guests were spotted in the crowd, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, YouTubers Jake and Logan Paul and UFC fighter Conor McGregor.
10:40 a.m.Trump and President Joe Biden departed the White House in the same limousine en route to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony.
10:15 a.m.Former Republican House Speakers Kevin McCarthy, Calif., John Boehner, Ohio, and Newt Gingrich, Ga., arrive at the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in ceremony—along with Musk, Bezos and other tech industry billionaires.
10:13 a.m.Trump blasted the pre-emptive pardons Biden issued Monday for Jan. 6 committee members and witnesses, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gen. Mark Milley, as “disgraceful” in a text to NBC News.
9:56 a.m.The Trumps arrived at the White House for tea with Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, with Biden telling the Trumps “welcome home” as the exited their vehicle and were greeted by the Bidens.
9:43 a.m.Vice President-elect JD Vance and his wife Usha arrived at the White House and are greeted by outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
9:34 a.m. ESTMusk, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Cook and Bezos attended a morning church service with Trump at St. John’s to kick off the Inauguration Day activities.
8:43 a.m. ESTThe Trumps arrive at St. John’s Church, after departing Blair House—a guest house near the White House where incoming presidents traditionally stay—alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance.
8:27 a.m. ESTNew York City Mayor Eric Adams will attend the inauguration after a last-minute, same-day invitation from the Trump administration, Deputy Mayor of Communication Fabien Levy said. Adams, a Democrat, attended a dinner with the Trumps last week amid rumors Trump may pardon the mayor on charges including bribery and wire fraud.
8:00 a.m. ESTMembers of Trump's family and entourage were photographed arriving at the church, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Yomi Adetula, Key Witness for FIJ in IBD Dende’s Libel Lawsuit, Murdered by ‘Assassins’
Yomi Adetula, the Director, Anti-Arms Smuggling of the Social Orientation and Safety (So-Safe) Corps in Ogun State, has been murdered by suspected assassins in Idi-Iroko, Ipokia Local Government Area of the state.
According to multiple residents of Idi-Iroko, Adetula was in his church, located off Old Baggage Road, Idi-Iroko, when gunmen who were also bearing other dangerous weapons invaded his church minutes after 10am on Sunday, attacking him.
“They first shot him but the bullets did not penetrate him,” one resident told FIJ. “They then proceeded to inflict fatal wounds on him with their other weapons, which include hammer and machete. From the way they operated, it’s clear they were hired assassins.”
FIJ saw gory photos of Adetula’s corpse, his face disfigured, his trunk blood-stained, ostensibly from gunshot wounds.
Adetula is one of the witnesses listed by FIJ in its defence of the libel lawsuit filed by IBD Dende in response to FIJ’s undercover investigation and subsequent documentary on smuggling, and the ‘Good Morning Nigeria Customs’ tweets by its founder ‘Fisayo Soyombo.
Celebrities › Kanye West's Wife, Bianca Censori's 'Nude' Look At Grammys Red Carpet by nlfpmod(mod): 11:21am On Feb 03, 2025
