DEPUTY Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari has failed to respond to the allegation that he sent his account details and personally collected money from the arrested internet fraudster Ramon Abbas, popularly known Hushpuppi, in order to arrest and jail an associate, Chibuzo Vincent.

The ICIR contacted Kyari on his known telephone number, official and verified Facebook and verified Instagram at 8:58am on Thursday, July 29, to verify the allegation of bribery collection, but he gave no response.

He later issued a statement exonerating himself and other security personnel involved in the operation stating that, “nobody demanded for a kobo from Abbas Hushpuppi. Our focus was to save people’s lives, that were purported to have been threatened.”

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The press statement was made public through his verified social media account. He did not personally exonerate himself, rather he emphasised that “nobody demanded any money from Abbas Hushpuppi and nobody collected any money from him.


“We responded to a distress call he made on threat to his family and released the suspect when we discovered there was no life threat from the suspect…”

But, at about 1:13pm, The ICIR reached out, for the second time, to the telephone number, official and verified Facebook and verified Instagram to ask whether he collected any cash gift from the accused person. He never responded.

The allegation against Kyari was contained in a statement released on Wednesday by the United States Department of Justice titled, ‘Six Indicted in International Scheme to Defraud Qatari School Founder and then Launder over $1 Million in Illicit Proceeds.’

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/hushpuppi-kyari-sidesteps-questions-on-allegation-of-bribe-collection/

NEW findings on the indictment of Abba Kyari over the ongoing trial of a Nigerian fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi, on Thursday, revealed how the police officer allegedly received N8 million from the suspect.

According to a 69-page document sighted by The ICIR, the payment was for two different transactions paid into GT Bank and Zenith Bank accounts, presumed to facilitate the arrest of Vincent Chibuzo, an accomplice of Hushpuppi.

Chibuzo had attempted to outsmart Hushpuppi in a fraudulent $575,000 deal that later led to his arrest by Kyari’s team.

“This was not the only time that Abbas [Hushpuppi] arranged payments with Kyari,” a charged sheet signed by Andrew John Innocenti, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Patricia Donahue, a U.S Magistrate Judge read.

It is titled Criminal Complaint by Telephone or other Reliable Electronic Means.

The dollar equivalent of the deposited sum was pegged at $20,600, as of then.

In a declared affidavit sworn before the U.S District Court for the Central District of California, Innocenti said “On May 20, 2020, Abbas sent Kyari transaction receipts for two transactions from accounts at Nigerian banks (GTBank and Zenith Bank) of a person Abbas knew in the UAE – a person also arrested with Abbas in Abbas apartment in the UAE by the Dubai Police on June 9, 2020, to the Nigerian bank accounts of another person in Nigeria.

“The amounts on the transaction totalled 8 million Nigerian naira, which approximately $20,600 based on publicly available exchange rate information.”

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-kyari-allegedly-received-n8million-bribe-from-hushpuppi/

SINCE the outbreak of COVID-19 in Nigeria, many herbal solutions have been recommended for the prevention and treatment of the infection.

However, fact-checks have shown that many of these solutions neither prevent nor treat COVID-19.

Some of the recommended herbal solutions include: consumptions of raw onions and garlic, raw onions mixed with salt, lemon drops and onions, neem leaf (locally known as ‘dongoyaro’ leaf), and Christmas melon (locally known as ‘tagiri’), among others.

In January 2021, while on fieldwork in Ibadan, this reporter encountered a herb seller claiming she had a concoction that could prevent and cure COVID-19. The herb seller at Bode market, a popular herbs market in Ibadan, mentioned tagiri, dongoyaro, cocoa leaf, among other things that she claimed could cure or prevent COVID-19.

“Christmas melon, neem leaf, cocoa leaf, alligator pepper can prevent COVID-19 infection very well. In fact, we had many people who come to buy them daily,” the herbs seller Afobaje Alagbo claimed in the local dialect (Yoruba).

She also narrated how people were constantly coming daily to get these concoctions. She went on to say that the price of herb had gone up.

“Since COVID-19 broke out in Nigeria, the price of Christmas Melon had increased. We used to sell one for N80 ($0.19), but now, one Christmas melon goes for N200 ($0.49),” she said.

When asked about the prescription and how to administer the concoction, Afobaje could not specifically tell the reporter how it could be used. She said in Yoruba: “o depend lori ti eyan ba se mo ise si”, meaning, “it depends on how good one is with herbs.”

Does Christmas Melon have any medicinal importance?

Christmas Melon, a variety of melon family, has its origin from Spain and has been reported in research papers to have medicinal uses, but only to poultry.

According to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) report on Newcastle disease control, Christmas Melon extract could be used to cure the deadly and contagious Newcastle disease (ND) that attacks poultry birds. The ILRI also said Christmas Melon could be used to ward off viral infections in poultry.

No report or research work shows that Christmas Melon can prevent or cure a human viral infection.

Neem leaf as a cure for COVID-19

Another claim in the chain of herbal solutions for COVID-19 is the use of neem leaf to cure the infection and its symptoms. A TweetDeck advance search, which makes it easy to re-run searches that have previously been completed, was used to track the purveyor of this claim on Twitter in Nigeria.

Keying the phrase ‘COVID Nigeria neem leaf’ into the search button, the query result shows that a Twitter user with handle @godsgrace7353 on May 6, 2020, had linked the Madagascar cure COVID-19 with the neem leaf.

“So I saw the Ingredients used to create the Madagascar COVID-19 remedy, and the neem leaf which is called dongoyaro leaf in the native part of Nigeria is also a leaf used to cure malaria! And other illness, there is nothing harmful in giving this remedy a try,” the user had said without evidence to show that the Madagascar cure was effective.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/fact-checking-claims-that-herbal-solutions-prevent-cure-covid-19/

NIGERIAN government attempted to stop the release of leader of the proscribed Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and wife, Zeenat, by filing fresh charges against the duo on July 27, checks by The ICIR have revealed.

A Kaduna High Court presided by Justice Gideon Kurada discharged and acquitted El-Zakzaky and Zeenat on July 28 while ruling on the no-case submission application filed by the couple.

El-Zakzaky and his wife were subsequently released after about five years in detention. They were arrested since December 2015 following clashes between IMN members and soldiers in Zaria, Kaduna State.

However The ICIR learnt that the government made a last-minute attempt to continue to keep El-Zakzaky in detention.

A source close to the El-Zakzaky family informed The ICIR that the government filed fresh charges against El-Zakzaky on July 27 ahead of the scheduled July 28 ruling on the no-case-submission.

But the government didn’t succeed in serving the charges on El-Zakzaky because the prison authorities did not agree to collect the charges and instead asked the prosecution to serve the process on El-Zakzaky’s lawyers.

The source, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, disclosed that El-Zakzaky’s lawyers also refused to be served with the fresh charges.

The content of the fresh charges is not yet known but El-Zakzaky has not been served.

El-Zakzaky’s lawyers rushed to file a release warrant to ensure he was released after the court discharged and acquitted him.

“After today’s acquittal, his lawyers immediately filed a release warrant which they served on the prison authorities, who at that point had no legal reason to continue to hold him,” the source said.

The ICIR further learnt that El-Zakzaky’s family is afraid that the government could still move to re-arrest him with the fresh charges filed on July 27.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/revealed-nigerian-government-tried-to-prevent-el-zakzakys-release-with-fresh-charges/

NO fewer than 300 briefcase non-governmental organisations (NGOs)have been activated since 2015 when President Muhammadu took office in 2015, ostensibly to launder the image of the then new administration.

Many of the fake NGOs are controlled by individuals with connections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a report published today by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an American think-tank, has revealed.

The list includes Coalition of Buhari Friends and Supporters, Network of Friends and Supporters of
Buhari, Buhari Youth Organization, Defence of National Security, Coalition of Concerned Nigerian Students and others.

The report titled Fake Civil Society: The Rise of Pro-Government NGOs in Nigeria is authored by Mathew Page, an associate fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House, United Kingdom.

Mr. Page is also a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.

According to the report, the job description of many of the pro-government NGOs is to praise the Buhari administration to the high heaven and defend the Nigerian government from criticism at home and abroad, deflecting allegations of corruption, underperformance, and human rights abuses.

And to keep the Buhari administration out of the picture, the pro-government NGOs are funded secretly through off-budget payments or contracts for consulting services, the report disclosed.

To date, a total of 360 state-sponsored organisations were identified in the report, and the majority of them exist in name only. In fact, fewer than 7 per cent are listed on Corporate Affairs Commission as legally required while many operate for only a short time before closing shop with barely one or two press conferences held for their entire life span.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/over-300-fake-ngos-working-for-buhari-government-since-2015-says-report/

“I heard that COVID-19 vaccine affect the fertility of unmarried women and is something to really worry about especially for some of us who still want to give birth to children”.

Titi Akosa, is asking the question, at a training workshop for people involved in the vaccine rollout in Lagos. She got the information from a women’s group on social media.

Even though she works as a frontline worker for the Lagos health ministry, a false claim she fears would lead to vaccine hesitancy among unmarried women in the state.

The Workshop focused on the First Phase of Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccination programme and was put together for civil societies and media practitioners by the Lagos Civil Society Coalition Against COVID-19.

Records from the Lagos State the Ministry of Health COVID-19 Vaccine Analysis show that as at 22nd May, 2021, over 318, 000 people have been vaccinated so far, according to estimates. The number of female who came out to receive the vaccines are 158, 279 with males constituting 159, 637.

To combat the novel COVID-19 virus that has ravaged the world in the last 16 months, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in December 2020 rolled out its first set of approved vaccines in parts of the world. As laudable and timely as the emergence of COVID-19 vaccines is, it has equally been undermined by so much misinformation among which is that it effects conception in women which is a concern for both unmarried women and married women who don’t yet have or plan to have more children.

How then did this misinformation originate and how widespread has it become?
YANDEX fact-checking tool shows different articles and pictures about the effect of the vaccines on women’s health. Different sources wrote for and against the claims with various pieces of evidence to buttress their positions.

Wikepedia.com, noted that false claims have also been made that a vaccinated person can “shed” spike proteins, which allegedly causes menstrual irregularities or other harmful effects on the reproductive health of unvaccinated women who are in proximity to them. These claims have been cited by the Centner Academy, a private pre-school in Miami, Florida, USA which removed vaccinated teachers from its classrooms and has refused to hire vaccinated teachers in the future. It was also on the basis of this false claim that some businesses in the United States of America have banned customers who are vaccinated from entering their facilities.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/fact-check-do-covid-19-vaccines-hamper-fertility-in-unmarried-women/

An Investigation by The ICIR shows how fire stations built by former governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, are rotting away for lack of fire officers and equipment.

ON OCTOBER 15 and November 13, 2018, few days to the end of his administration, former Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who is now Nigeria’s Interior Minister, awarded 11 contracts to 9 firms at the cost of N223.2 million. They were for the construction of 11 fire stations in various locations in the state.

Over two years down the line, The ICIR’s investigation, however, revealed that many of the contracts were awarded as political patronage to APC chieftains in the state. What is more, although 10 of the fire stations have been completed, seven of them are rotting away. Work has not been completed on one while the remaining three which are currently in use are sparsely furnished.

The investigation also shows that there was no compelling reason for building the fire stations as there were no firemen or equipment to be used in them.

A document obtained by The ICIR from the official website of the Osun State government made available by the Public Procurement Agency (PPA) in the state revealed that a total sum of N223,244,143.87 was paid for the contractors for the construction of the 11 fire stations at N20.3 million each.

The document confirmed the completion of 10 fire stations, with the last one at 75 per cent completion stage. When this reporter visited the locations of the fire stations, ten of them have, indeed, been completed but not furnished, while the last one has remained uncompleted for over two years.

Findings revealed that the fire stations were constructed in Ede, Ilesa, Ile-Ife, Erin-Osun, Iwo, Ila Orangun, Ikirun, Ikire, Ipetu-Ijesha, Ejigbo and Esa-Oke but are in disuse.

Project awarded to party faithful

The ICIR findings have revealed that some of the contractors that were awarded the contract for the construction of the fire stations are faithful of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party in the state.

For instance, the number one name on the list of the contractors is Dekfam Nigeria Limited, a company that has siblings and relatives of Adegboyega Famodun, the APC chairman in the state as its directors.

According to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) dashboard, Dekfam Nigeria Limited was registered barely six months after Aregbesola was inaugurated as governor. The date was April 6, 2011, with Registration Number: 946326.

It has No.12c, Obafemi Awolowo way, Aiyetoro, Osogbo, Osun State as its registered address, and is owned by Prince David Adekunle Famodun, Prince Janet Adebola Famodun, Prince Adedotun Babajide Famodun, Prince Joseph Adeyeye Famodun– all directors of the company.

The company, apart from being a private unlimited one, has no clear objective as to the kind of service it provides if it is construction, information technology-related, or general supplier.

When contacted, Adekunle Famodun, younger brother to the APC chairman in the state, whose mobile number was used for the registration of the company, told The ICIR that he is only on the board of the company but not the owner or fully involved in the activities of the company.

He, however, refused to disclose the owner of the company and also declined to speak on the contract.

“I am just a member of the board of directors of the company but not the owner. I am not aware of all the contracts being executed by the company,“ he said.

Dekfam, like every other company that got the contract, was awarded N20.3 million. It was saddled with the responsibility of constructing a fire station in Ede town.

Also on the list of the companies that got the contract was Al-Baqee Nigeria Limited, a company that has Hassan Oladepo Adedapo, an APC chieftain in Ejigbo Local Government of the state has its major director.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/job-for-the-boys-aregbesolas-n223-million-fire-station-project-built-by-politicians-rot-away-in-osun/

AMIDST inflation, insecurity and the dwindling value of the naira, the hike in prices of food has made life increasingly difficult for the average Nigerian.

Abuja resident and businessman Victor Akome, who has struggled with stagnant income, now has to deal with the huge financial strain caused by the rising prices demanded by food vendors across the city.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2POntOmlUI

Speaking with The ICIR at Utako Market on Tuesday, Akome described the rise in food prices as a difficult situation.

“A tuber of yam is N1700. I have a large family, we cannot eat this money raw. Now that I cannot afford N1700 for one tuber of yam, I’ll look for alternatives,” he said.

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Akome’s sentiments are shared by many other Nigerians resident within the city.

Victoria Okale, a retiree who depends on her daughter for survival, said it had been a hard time for her family.

While purchasing some frozen chickens at the Kado Fish Market in Life Camp, Okale said there had been an obvious increase in the price of a kilogram of chicken and other food items recently.

“It has been very hard. There is an increase in prices. There has been no support from anywhere, only my daughter,” she said.

As consumers express anxiety over the relentless increase, food vendors say the price hike has led to a decline in business.

In an interview with The ICIR, a trader at Utako market Ibrahim Bulama said a crate of eggs, which was sold for N900 a few months ago, now cost N1600.

Bulama also said the price of a basket of pepper increased from N1000 in April to N2500 in July and attributed the upsurge in food prices to the farmer-herder crises across the country.

“We no dey get customers. If you tell them the price, they go just go. We are suffering,” he said in pidgin, an informal type of English language spoken in Nigeria and West Africa..

For Christy Chikodi, a trader in Wuse Market, food had become a commodity affordable only to the rich.

“A mudu of beans is beyond the common man’s reach. It is N1000 now. About four or five months ago, it was N350 or N400 at most. Groundnut oil is even worse. A bottle is N900 now, from N650 or N700 three months ago,” she said.

Sharing his struggles with low sales, Onyekachi Ogbuh, who owns a stall in Wuse Market, told The ICIR that the increase in the cost of transportation and logistics had contributed to the upsurge in the prices of food.

“Transportation mostly is the problem. Before now, we bring in these goods at the rate of N60, 000 to N70,000. Now it is N150,000,” he said.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/soaring-food-prices-deepen-nigerias-rising-poverty-rate/

Profiting from illegality: Lagos govt watches as local councils, touts exploit proscribed cyclists

IN Lagos, local government chairmen and ticket touts rake in tens of millions of naira in road or transport taxes collected from proscribed commercial motorcyclists, known as Okada riders, and tricyclists, otherwise called Keke Marwas.

In January 2020, the Lagos State government banned operations of Okada and Keke Marwas in six local governments (LGs)and nine local council development areas (LCDAs) of the state.

Commissioner for Information and Strategy Gbenga Omotosho said enforcement of the ban would start from February 1, 2020, in line with Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law 2018, warning the cyclists not to ply 10 major highways as well as 40 bridges and flyovers across the state.

The proscribed areas were: Apapa LGA, Apapa Iganmu LCDA, Lagos Mainland LGA, Yaba LCDA, Surulere LGA, Itire-Ikate LCDA, and Coker-Aguda LCDA.

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Others were: Ikeja LGA, Onigbongbo LCDA, Ojodu LCDA, Eti-Osa LGA, Ikoyi-Obalende LCDA, Iru-Victoria Island LCDA, Lagos Island LGA and Lagos Island East LCDA.

Since then, there has not been any invalidation or repeal of the traffic law, which was passed by the House of Assembly in 2018, but the rules have been observed in the breach as local governments and ticket touts are exploiting the situation to make money.

Today, Okada riders and Keke Marwas ply all these restricted local governments and LCDAs as local governments and ticket touts issue tickets to them in exchange for cash, thereby making a lot of money in the process while the cyclists break the state traffic laws.

Evidence of traffic violation

In spite of ban on tricycles in Ikeja Local Government by the state government, the local government has a specialised ticket for tricycles, which is valid for only one day. The sum of N150 is written on the ticket, though tricyclists told the reporter that they often paid more.

Chairman of Ikeja Local Government Area Mojeed Alabi Balogun confirmed to the reporter that his local government collects N200 from tricycle operators each day, and not N150 as written on the ticket.

He also said transport revenue collection was being handeld by a contractor.

In Onigbongo LCDA, also in Ikeja, a company known as Goodwill Destiny Ventures collects transport revenue from tricycles, which were earlier banned in the area by the state government. Phone calls to Chairman of the LCDA Babatunde Oke to explain the rationale behind that were ignored, and text messages to his official phone number were not replied.

“I am surprised that these two local governments housing Alausa (state headquarters) and government ministries disobey Lagos traffic law without any word from the government. Was that pronouncement meant for a certain group of people?” A senior resident of Lagos Charles Akinjide asked.

Well, it was not meant for a certain group of people as all the restricted local governments and LCDAs visited by the reporter broke these laws without compunction.

In Ikeja and Onigbongbo, ticket touts or agberos issue the same type of ticket to tricylists and motorcyclists, collecting between N2,200- N3,000 from them.

Touts, who are mostly members of the National Road Transport Workers ( NURTW), issue tickets of N100 face value but collect 20 times that amount from tricyclists and motorcyclists, the reporter found.

In Coker/ Aguda LCDA, the NURTW issues tickets of N200 face value to motorcyclists but collects N600 to N700 from them each day. One ticket is for N100 and it is issued by Abiday Ande Ventures, the contractor collecting transport/ road taxes on behalf of Onigbongbo LCDA.

The N20 ticket is from the Motorcycle Operators’ Association of Lagos State (MOALS).

On the other hand, tricycles are issued three tickets: One from the LCDA, one from the NURTW and another from Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN), which is under the NURTW. This is despite that commercial motorcycles and tricycles are prohibited in the local council area.

Calls to Chairman of the LCDA Akinyemi-Obe Omobolanle were also ignored. He also did not reply to three WhatsApp messages sent to him, even though he read them.

This is also the case in Lagos Island East LCDA, made up of CMS and other areas in high-brow Lagos Island.

In the area, the local council also issues a ticket valued at N200 to tricycles despite state ban on them in the area.

Each tricyclist pays as much as N2,200 in the LCDA per day.

The ICIR found that motorcyclists, who plied everywhere in the local council, paid as much as N900 each day.

They are also issued with two tickets of N100 face value. One of the two is the regular NURTW ticket spoken about earlier. Hence, the state government’s traffic pronouncement does not hold water in the area.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/profiting-from-illegality-lagos-govt-watches-as-local-councils-touts-exploit-proscribed-cyclists/

EFFORTS by government officials in Nigeria to widen the COVID-19 vaccine coverage is meeting formidable obstacles as a vast population of young people are resisting official entreaties.

The growing cases of vaccine hesitancy among young people in Nigeria have been traced to aggravating spread of disinformation concerning the COVID-19 vaccine. This is largely occasioned by trending disinformation on social media platforms often sponsored by influencers who leverage their popularity to spread misleading information.

Disinformation stories are often in videos and shared majorly on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

Notably was the video posted by former Senator Dino Melaye on Twitter, in which he asked, “How is it possible on earth that in one year, we find vaccine for COVID-19? An intelligent gathering has reviewed that some of those who took that vaccine died within three days.”

Treading on the same misleading claims is Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello who, in a viral video said, “They want to use the COVID-19 vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill you and us. God forbid!”

Members of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Nigeria recently identified the upsurge of disinformation on social media platforms as a major challenge.

In a telephone interview with Femi Akinpeloye of the infectious diseases’ unit of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, the medical expert disclosed that peddling of misleading information about COVID 19 posed great danger to every member of the public.

According to him, the striking point remained that vaccination would not work in isolation. It would rather work better when a greater proportion of the population got vaccinated. The safety of one is the safety for all, he said.

He noted that though several young people did not believe in the existence of COVID-19, they had been largely spared even in the height of the surge of the disease, thereby strengthening that feeling of false safety among them.

According to him, producing a vaccine against diseases with no cure had never really been a problem. Once the organism causing the problem could be identified, then vaccine would be produced, he explained, noting that this was how antibiotics were produced. For him, it involved getting the micro-organism causing the problem to produce vaccine that man could use.

He further disclosed that it took approximately six months to one year to safely provide vaccine for human use. From the moment COVID-19 became a pandemic, he said, lot of laboratories started working on it.

Research started going on and because it was ravaging the world, people began to share information. For this reason, developing the vaccine was easier. Data were available for everybody to access, and pharmaceutical companies around the world that were into vaccine production stepped up to savage the situation, he explained.

He noted that the majority of the vaccines assumed over 75 per cent provision of antibodies against the disease. “What vaccine does is that it ensures the body is able to produce immunity against that particular virus. So much vaccine is not protecting you completely, there is still a margin to contact the virus. But even if you contact the virus, it is not expected to hit you like somebody who has not taken the vaccine. The person who did not get the vaccine is likely to fall sick that the person who got the vaccine already.”

With regard to availability of supporting data, he said data could not be gathered in a day, week, when it came to situations like this. Data gathering on vaccination, according to him, was not something that could be done within a very short time.

“You have to give it time so that the data will be reliable,” he said.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/widespread-scepticism-trails-administration-of-covid-19-vaccination/

A musician-turned-preacher Chris Okotie misled Nigerians in July 2020 on the side effects of COVID-19 vaccine, saying that those who received it would acquire the blood-sucking attributes of a vampire.

In a video interview published on July 12, 2020 on YouTube, which has been viewed over 375,000 times, Okotie described COVID-19 vaccine as satanic. Okotie, a former presidential aspirant in Nigeria, has made several false claims and comments since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

He said, “What Bill Gates is doing under the auspices of the United Nations is to make sure that you receive the Food, the GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). When you eat that Genetically Modified Food that you eat and you take the vaccine, you have entered into communion with Satan, Lucifer. And that communion involves blood.

“Now, since the blood of Jesus is not what he is talking about, or what he has to offer, he will require you to seek blood somewhere else. And the only place where you can find blood is in another human being. So one of the things that the vaccine will make you do is to become a vampire who needs to drink blood for sustenance.

“But we, as Christians, we don’t drink the blood, we drink wine; which is an emblem of the blood and that sustains us spiritually. But his communion will require you drinking blood consistently so that you are a vampire for your sustenance.”

In August 2020 via WhatsApp broadcast, he instructed his members not to wear face masks, arguing thus: “When a man is standing before God in church wearing a shield or mask, he is denying the finished work of the cross.” This WhatsApp broadcast was a major news story in several newspapers. His instruction came before the COVID-19 vaccine was available in Nigeria.

More preachers peddle similar misleading ‘spiritual’ falsehood about COVID-19 vaccine

David Oyedepo, a bishop who presides over the Living Faith Church Worldwide, while delivering a sermon during the church’s 40th-anniversary service, joined in propagating conspiracy theories around COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. He said, “Let me warn you against this deadly thing (COVID-19 vaccine) circulated around the country because it has not been duly tested. An elder of this church, who works with the World Health Organisation, confirmed this, thanking me for always speaking the truth about the authenticity of the COVID-19 vaccine. Nobody has the right to enforce vaccination on you, and anybody cannot terminate your employment because you refuse to take the vaccine, my God will show up (for you).

“They wanted Africa dead. I heard them say it. When we did not die as they proposed, they brought out this vaccination scheme. You need to hear their proclamation that Africa will lack spaces to bury corpses. But, today, the reverse is the case. Africa has the least casualty among all the other continents of the world.”

Before the vaccine was made available, the bishop had criticised the government for closing down churches in order to contain the deadly virus, saying that “the voice of darkness is influencing people at various levels, targeting the church because the growth and expansion of the church is the greatest headache of the devil. But the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The devil and all his agents shall surely pay for this. I don’t know what hospital that records the kind of healing that the church of God records. And now hospitals, where people die every day, are open, but the church is closed because the oppression of the devil has no medical cure.”

Also, Senior Pastor of the Lagos-based LoveWorld Incorporated (also known as Christ Embassy), with an estimated 13 million followers globally, Chris Oyakhilome, has made false claims since the beginning of the pandemic in Nigeria. In a sermon streamed on YouTube with over 12,000 views, he claimed that the introduction of 5G technology was responsible for COVID-19. He also alleged that the COVID-19 vaccine would be used as a vehicle to introduce a ‘new world order’ led by the anti-Christ. This video, which was streamed on April 8th, 2020, has been deleted by YouTube.

The 5G network is a fifth-generation wireless communications technology supporting cellular data networks.

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome sanctioned by British regulator over false COVID-19 claim

The Office of Communications (OFCOM), the British broadcast regulator, sanctioned and prevented LoveWorld Television Network, a television channel founded by Oyakhilome in May 2020, from airing, as a result of the crime of spreading ‘potentially harmful statements’ about the COVID-19 pandemic. The sanction was linked to the 5G network conspiracy which was broadcasted by the LoveWorld’s Television Ministry on Satellite TV around the world.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/nigerian-preachers-chris-okotie-david-oyedepo-wrong-on-negative-side-effects-of-covid-19-vaccine/

AS vaccines continue to be rolled out to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, several false claims are being spread to misinform and discourage people from taking them.

In Nigeria, about 166, 000 people have been infected with the virus and over 2, 000 deaths reported by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC). However, the increasing spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation has become a stumbling block to the fight against the virus, thereby discouraging people, especially those in the rural areas, from taking the vaccine doses.

Social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter have become tools that are being used to spread misinformation about the virus and the vaccines that have been developed to combat it.

READ ALSO:

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Claim of vaccine leading to death

Top among COVID-19 misinformation is the claim that vaccines reduce the lifespan of people who take them. For example, a Whatsapp message which went viral in March 2021 claimed that people below 50 years of age who took the vaccine were expected to die within five to 10 years while those above 70 would die within two to three years.

The viral message attributed to one Irish Professor Dolores Cahill also claimed the vaccine had the capacity to make people impotent.

Verification

Keyword search of the claim was carried out and the researcher did not find the claims shared elsewhere online apart from WhatsApp. However, the researcher found several claims made by the same professor, which were fact-checked by The Journal and found to be untrue and misleading.

Dr. Cahil is a professor of Translational Science at the University College Dublin’s School of Medicine, who chaired the Eurosceptic Irish Freedom Party, a political party that advocates Irish withdrawal from the European Union. She has, however, resigned as the chair of the Irish freedom.

Vaccine is a weapon to depopulate Africa claim

Yet another COVID-19 misinformation which is widespread is the claim that the vaccine is a weapon to depopulate Africa. This originated via a six-minute video clip, where Robert Young, an American naturopathic practitioner, stressed the need to reduce the global population starting from Africa.

In the video that went viral, Young, who was answering questions from a group of panelists, said there was a need to reduce the growing global population, starting from Africa.

“For the purpose of sterilisation and population control, there are too many people on the planet we need to get rid of in the words of Bill Gates, at least three billion people need to die. So we will just start off in Africa. We will start doing our research there and we will eliminate most of the Africans because they are deplorable, they are worthless, they are not part of this world economy so they have their rights taken away and they are suppressed and experimented,” he said in the video.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-misinformation-may-slow-the-fight-against-the-deadly-covid-19-in-nigeria/

IN Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, agberos fleece the state of billions of naira in transport taxes collected from drivers of commercial buses, tricycles and motorcycles.

There are 75,000 commercial buses (danfos) in Lagos, according to the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) estimates.

Each commercial vehicle driver pays at least N3,000 to agberos, also known as ticket touts, every day, according to oral testimonies obtained by this reporter from more than 50 commercial bus drivers in 21 out of 37 local council development authorities (LCDAs) in Lagos.

This means that these drivers pay N225 million each day, N6.75 billion each month, and N82.125 billion each year to agberos in Lagos.

That is not all. There are at least 50,000 tricycles (Keke Marwas) in Lagos, according to a 2020 report by Techcabal – Never mind the Lagos State government’s recent ban, which is just a mere pronouncement.

The reporter had earlier done a story on how local government officials steal government taxes/levies.

Read Also:
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More than 60 tricycle drivers in 21 LCDAs in the commercial city told this reporter that they paid at least N1,800 to agberos each day. This is just a conservative estimate.

This, therefore, means that each day, agberos walk off with N90 million from transport taxes collected from tricycle drivers. Every month, their pay reaches N2.7 billion, rising further to N32.85 billion every year.

The average collection, however, is higher in Mushin (N2,500 – N3300), Isolo (N1,900-N2,200), Oshodi (N1800-N2,300), Coker/Aguda (N2200-N3,000) Itire/ Ikate (N2,200 -N3,200), Iru-Victoria(N2,300-N3,200), Ikeja (N2200- N2500), and Onigbongbo (N2200-N3,000) LCDAs, among others, the investigation showed.

But Danfos and Keke Marwas are not the only means of land transportation in Lagos. Never mind the Lagos State government’s pretense on motorcycle (Okada) ban, members of the Motorcycle Operators’ Association of Lagos State (MOALS) told this reporter that there were no fewer than 1000 motorcycles in each LCDA in the state.

During interviews with motorcycle riders in Lagos that spanned two months, the reporter was told that each motorcyclist must hand out N400 and N800 each day to agberos. Based on interviews with tricycle riders in 21 LCDAs in Lagos, this reporter arrived at an average spend of N600 per day.

Commercial motorcyclists or Okadas ply all the roads in the state except areas where there are some restrictions such as some parts of Eti Osa East LCDA and Ikoyi area of Ikoyi/Obalende LCDA. To avoid duplication, the reporter only considered 37 LCDAs in Lagos.

For clarity, there are 37 LCDAs and 20 local government areas in Lagos. The LCDAs are part of the larger local government areas. For instance, Isolo is an LCDA under Oshodi Local Government Area.

Going by the figure provided by MOALS members to the reporter, there are 37,000 commercial motorcycles in Nigeria’s commercial hub. By implication, motorcycle riders pay N22.2 million to agberos each day, N666 million each month, and N8.103 billion each year.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/money-for-the-boys-how-agberos-pocket-billions-of-lagos-transport-revenue/

Trending video showing a boy being tortured with electric current, not from Nigeria but Mali

THE scene in a video shared multiple times online, showing a boy being tortured with an electric current, was alleged to have taken place in Nigeria.

The video circulated on social media in June 2021, showing a boy tied to a makeshift metal cross by a man who held an exposed electric wire.

The man in the video used the electric wire on the metal the boy was tied to, leading to convulsion as electricity passed through the metal.

The viral video has been shared multiple times on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and reported on Linda Ikeji Blog.

The video was shared by a Nigerian Twitter user, Tosin Opeoluwa @CoachTosin, on June 17, 2021, and has had more than 27000 views, with 667 retweets, 167 quoted tweets and 301 likes.

Multiple comments under the post alleged the torture incident might have happened in Nigeria.

Findings
The claim that the location in the video is Nigeria is false.

The ICIR found out that the incident happened in Mali.

Before the video began to trend in Nigeria, The ICIR had also found that a Kenyan, Nelson Mimi Mung’asia, based in Doha, the capital of Qatar, shared the 1t on June 10, 2021, on his Facebook account.

The ICIR subjected the video to verification by using the Invid video verifier, which directed its reporter to Facebook pages, Mali Focus and Mali-Sadio TV, which published a post in French on the incident on June 8, 2021, using a screengrab of the tortured video from a TikTok account, benskshy.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/trending-video-showing-a-boy-being-tortured-with-electric-current-not-from-nigeria-but-mali/

FG’s ban on Twitter, cryptocurrency points to poor understanding of global shift to ICT-led economy

THE Nigerian government’s ban on cryptocurrency and the recent suspension of Twitter’s operations in the country have been described by analysts as a sign of poor understanding of the global economic shift to ICT-led economy.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had, in memo issued on February 5, 2020, signed by Head of Banking Supervision Bello Hassan, placed a ban on the trading of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ethereum, dogecoin, among others, in the country.

The CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele noted that the inability of the government to effectively track the movement of cryptocurrency trading made regulatory functions difficult for the apex bank.

Most young people in the country, amid concerns over rising poverty, were already exploiting the economic advantages associated with Twitter as the platform offered an enabling environment for small-scale businesses in the country by linking them to global market.

The platform also played a strategic role in campaigning for good governance in the country, with its visible stance against police brutality during the #EndSARS protests in 2020.

“Twitter ban is a gross violation of Nigeria’s human rights and economic obligations to respect already accrued economic and social rights and refrain from taking steps that will prevent Nigerians from accessing services provided by third parties which do not violate laws enacted by the respective legislatures,” Lead Partner Centre for Social Justice Eze Onyekpere said in a statement mailed to The ICIR.

It would be noted that the contribution to the aggregate real gross domestic product as at Quarter 1 of 2021 by the Information and Communications Technology sector, where Twitter and other social media platforms belong, was valued at 14.9 per cent. This makes the sector one of the largest contributors to the country’s GDP.

The Nigerian economy grew by less than one per cent, specifically by 0.51 per cent, in Quarter 1 of 2021 and the contributions of the major sectors to aggregate real GDP were as follows: The oil sector accounted for 9.25 per cent; the agriculture sector accounted for 22.3 per cent; manufacturing was 9.93 per cent; trade contributed 15.61 per cent while construction contributed 4.12 per cent.

The overall growth pattern of the economy in the first quarter of 2021 was tepid and did not match population growth. It failed to respond to stagflation – high unemployment, slow growth, inflation, and other macroeconomic challenges facing the nation.

An economist with the Centre for the Studies of Economies of Africa (CSEA) Mma Ekereuche expressed concern that small-scale businesses in the country were among the worst-hit by the ban on Twitter.

“Given that a majority of businesses sell to customers on Twitter, the ban has reduced the demand of their commodities and also has a negative impact on brand building.”

Speaking on the effect of the ban on the ease of doing business, she said, “The ban is counter-intuitive as it makes it harder for those that leverage on Twitter to gain access to larger markets, build their brands, and make both local and international connections.”

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/nigerian-governments-ban-on-twitter-cryptocurrency-point-to-poor-understanding-of-global-shift-to-ict-led-economy/

IN Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, thousands of business owners are on the brink of financial failure owing to illegal and arbitrary taxes demanded by officials of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), The ICIR investigation reveals.

Russell Ogbonna’s current job is to take care of real estate property on behalf of their owners for a fee. One of his key specialties is remodelling vacant buildings for their owners, which he puts up for sale or rent at higher prices.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNtcRgRjdc

He manages two blocks of six-unit office spaces located in Wuse, Abuja, which he leases out to renters, while four rooms serve as his office building. The commission he gets from the facilities he supervises helps to cover his 15-member staff salaries, tax payments, and other personnel costs.

But over time, Ogbonna has watched profits fall, though renters in his buildings pay conformably. He cannot figure out why he is losing money.

His financial statements have shown that the tax payments he has made to AMAC over four years have put holes in the firm’s coffers.

Between 2019 to 2021, he has been charged a total of N1.2 million on yearly basis to get a certificate of fitness for continual habitation from AMAC on the property in Wuse. A breakdown of the tax payments shows he was charged N500,000 in 2019, N250,000 in 2020, and N450,000 in 2021.

A certificate of fitness for continual habitation is issued by AMAC revenue officials yearly to commercial buildings in the area council as part of its periodic assessment of the sanitation of landed properties.

The Abuja Bye-Laws does not recognise a ‘certificate of fitness for continual habitation’ as a yearly tax payment, but AMAC revenue officials demand it. In Lagos State, the certificate of completion and fitness for habitation is issued once by the Lagos State Building Control Agency after completing a new building to ensure it complies with the state’s safety provisions.

There is no flat rate on the ‘certificate of fitness for continual habitation’ taxes charged by AMAC officials, but overtime, they indiscriminately assign figures without proper assessment. Ogbonna resorts to negotiating with AMAC officials who would cut down the tax fee in exchange for a bribe as a form of compensation.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/extortion-economy-how-amac-officials-frustrate-businesses-in-abuja-through-shady-tax-deals/

In this report, Arinze Chijioke looks at how sustained herder-farmer crisis in Benue State is threatening food production in Nigeria.

Inside Tse Yandev, one of the unofficial Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Benue State, which is ‘home’ to over 5,000 people, Rebecca Atonka sits on a wooden chair with her hand resting on her chin, her eyes weary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEZy1dVBMs

In January, 2018, Atonka fled her home with her children after herdsmen attacked her communtaity, Torkula in Guma Local Government Area of the state.

A day before the attack, she had been working with her husband and children in the farm when a group of herdsmen carrying guns walked past them. They did not say anything.

Unknown to her, the herdsmen were making plans to attack Torkula. Like others in Torkula, with a predominantly farming population, Atonka’s family returned home from the farm tired and exhausted.

“We were asleep when we started hearing gunshots everywhere in the middle of the night. They came to our house and started shooting everywhere. Some of us escaped. But some were killed,” she explains.

In the aftermath of the attack, Atonka lost her husband. Their house, along with everything inside, was burnt. She also lost her farm and all the crops she planted. She only ran away with her children.

The family of farmers never had any issues feeding before, but now it is hard for them to feed themselves inside the camp. Each time any of them falls sick due to mosquito bites and exposure to rain, she is helpless and just resigns herself to fate. The only time she gets to buy food is when she does chores for families living close to the camp.

“What was most hurtful for me was the killing of my husband,” she says. “I never imagined I would live without him because we were happy that night before we went to sleep.”

Before Atonka fled to the camp, she and her children ate whatever they wanted. She worked tirelessly with her husband on their farm, which was the only business they had. But now, everything has changed.

Atomka is just one of many who have lost family members and everything they owned and are taking refuge in several IDP camps, including Tse Yandev, which houses 847 households, located in the North Bank area of Makurdi, the Benue State capital.

Wave of attacks in Benue

Since 2013, attacks by herdsmen over land and grazing areas have escalated in Benue State. The state has an economy that is driven by agriculture and it produces large quantities of yam, rice, bean, cassava, sweet-potato, maize, soybean, sorghum, millet, sesame, and cocoyam.

In January 2018, Benue held a mass burial for over 80 people killed in different attacks in the state between December and January.

Data from the National Security Tracker shows that between 2013 and June 2021, nearly 1,500 persons were killed in the state from 148 attacks by suspected herdsmen, leading to the massive destruction of property, including farmlands in 15 out of the 23 local government areas of the state.

The year 2018 had both the highest number of attacks, 54 and the highest number of deaths, 450. Between January and June 4, 2021, at least 122 persons were killed from 17 attacks in the state.

Executive Secretary of Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Emmanuel Shior, a doctor, says over 600,000 persons have been displaced within this period. In 2018, there were 400,000 IDPs in the state.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-herder-farmer-crisis-in-benue-threatens-food-production-in-nigeria/

POLICIES initiated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have led to worsening poverty, food inflation and foreign exchange (FX) scarcity in Africa’s most populous nation, The ICIR analysis has shown.

In the last six years, the CBN under Godwin Emefiele has excluded certain items from the official market. This means that importers of those items cannot get dollars from the official market, which is often cheaper. The items include tomatoes, milk, roofing sheets, textiles, soaps and cosmetics, among others.

In 2015, the CBN began with 41 items, but the number has since reached 45.

“For the avoidance of doubt, please note that these items are not banned, thus importers desirous of importing these items shall do so using their own funds without any recourse to the Nigerian foreign exchange markets,” said Director of Trade and Exchange Department Olakanmi Gbadamosi on June 23, 2015, when the FX restriction began as the apex bank’s policy.

But the reality on ground has been different from the CBN’s claim. Once the apex bank restricts any item from the FX market, banks stop issuing FX form known as ‘Form M’ to importers – a signal that the only way they can bring in the commodity is by seeking FX from the unpredictable and expensive parallel market. Also, the Nigeria Customs Service sometimes follows it up with either a tariff increase or other forms of restriction.

This explains why economists refer to the CBN’s FX restriction as a technical ban.

In the last two years, CBN has added milk, maize, and textiles to the growing list. Experts say the CBN’s FX restrictions have forced up prices of food items and created artificial scarcity in the economy. As of the week of July 13, 2020 when the CBN restricted maize from the FX market, a ton of the commodity was sold for N160,000, according to Afex Commodities, which provides pricing updates on food items. On June 21, 2021, a ton of maize stood at N222,690, according to Afex, representing 39 per cent increase in the price of maize in a space of 11 months.

FX restrictions and impact


Nigeria is Africa’s second largest maize producer after South Africa. The country produces 10.5 million metric tons of maize per annum with a demand of 15 million metric tons (MT), leaving a supply-demand gap of 4.5 million MT annually, according to data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, a Nigerian government’s ministry.

Analysts explain that apart from insecurity which has raised maize price, the FX restriction by the CBN has led to the scarcity of the commodity as a result of huge demand. Maize has since become more expensive as local production is not enough to satisfy demand, and importers have had to get dollars at over N400-N500/$ to bring the commodity into Nigeria. Many of the importers have been manufacturers using the commodity as a raw material.

Maize is an essential raw material that is used by the production of noodles, starch, cornflakes, sweeteners, oil, beverages, glue, industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol. It also serves as feed for the poultry industry and for consumption.

“The rising cost of maize is threatening livelihoods of small businesses in Nigeria. It is not only poultry farmers’ investments that are threatened; the investments of other players in the value chain are also under threat, thus plunging the economy into deeper crisis,” Chairman of Poultry Association of Nigeria in Delta State Alfred Mrakpor said while talking about the impact of the restriction on the local poultry industry.

Due to this policy, maize price has risen and manufacturers have responded by increasing the price of finished products. Major noodles manufacturers have raised prices by N400 to N700 per carton since the FX restriction in 2020, according to The ICIR‘s findings.

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has explained that when prices rise and income remains stable, more people would be unable to afford essential goods – and could be forced into extreme poverty.

Few weeks after, when the CBN discovered that it had shot itself in the foot, it granted waivers to four firms – Wacot Limited, Chi Farms Limited, Crown Flour Mills Limited and Premier Feeds Company Limited – for the importation of 262,000 metric tons of maize. By so doing, the bank excluded other players from getting foreign exchange at the official market to import the product. Despite CBN’s waivers to the companies, demand for maize is still far higher than supply.

The apex bank is now extending Anchor Borrowers funds to 120,000 maize farmers, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Unity Bank Tomi Somefun said last month. One manufacturer explained that this decision was informed by growing scarcity and price increase of the product.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-cbn-policies-contribute-to-nigerias-rising-poverty-food-inflation-fx-scarcity/

Plans to stave off hunger in Niger State by increasing crop yields are in jeopardy as the hectares of land used in planting across the state are gradually losing nutrients due to the inability of farmers to replenish the soil. Justina Asishana speaks with smallholder women farmers in the state regarding their challenges in assessing inputs, including fertiliser, to improve their yield.

Amina Garba has been farming groundnut and yam in Tayi B in Bosso Local Government Area of Niger State for over 20 years. But in all these years, she has not got any form of fertilizer, either for free or at a subsidized rate from the Niger State government.

Her yearly yield is thus very poor as she makes barely half of the expectation she aims to meet, a reason she attributes to lack of fertilizer and other inputs used in farming.

“Our lands are old and tired. Every year, we farm on these land and we do not have fertilizers or other chemicals to put into the land to make it fertile and healthy. We have not got any fertilizer from the government. Even the one said to be at a reduced rate, we do not get it. And we do not have money to buy fertilizer because of how high it costs,” Garba says.

Fertilizers are substances that add nutrients to the soil to promote soil fertility and increase plant growth. The three most important fertilizers include nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The latter two have been available for centuries, but getting nitrogen in a form that plants could absorb is scarce, and the lack of nitrogen has led to low crop yields for centuries.

Fertilizers replace the nutrients that crops remove from the soil. Without the addition of fertilizers, crop yields and agricultural productivity would be significantly reduced. To grow healthy crops full of nutrients, farmers need to ensure they have healthy soil.

Without fertilizers, nature struggles to replenish the nutrients in the soil. When crops are harvested, important nutrients are removed from the soil, because they follow the crop and end up at the dinner table. If the soil is not replenished with nutrients through fertilizing, crop yields will deteriorate over time.

The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) estimates that 85 per cent of the soils globally are deficient in nitrogen, 73 per cent are deficient in phosphorus, while 55 per cent lack potassium.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where hunger and starvation have long been a threat, lack of fertilizer is a primary reason agricultural yields lag the rest of the world, especially as the combination of high prices and shortages forces some farmers to revert to older methods of fertilization.

Amina is not alone in the difficulty women farmers face to get fertilizers across the state despite the huge sum of money budgeted and expended for fertilizer procurement and distribution in Niger State.

In Bosso Local Government Area, Rose Joseph explains that whilst groundnut does not need much fertilizer, yam does. She also bewails to the reporter how her yams, when harvested, come out below the average size. This does not allow her to sell at a price she can make a profit.

“Last year, I did 500 heaps of yams but could only get back 300 heaps of good yams, making me lose 200 heaps. The yam got spoilt because there was no fertilizer. We do not get fertilizer here because the government does not give it to us and we do not have money to buy it. What we do when we plant is that we just put our seeds on the ground and hope it comes out good.”

She says that because of poor yield, she cannot send her child to a good school inside the city because her husband is also a farmer and they face the same difficulty in the farming business.

Rabiatu Abdulmalik, who is also in Bosso Local Government Area, says she has been farming for about 25 years, noting that their hectares of land have gone old as there is no fertilizer or money to buy fertilizer.

“We do but use fertilizer, we plant our crops like that. If we plant it, God will bring it out well for us.”

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/shortage-of-fertile-land-fertilizer-hurting-women-farmers-in-niger-state/

By Ikechukwu AMAECHI

I have received a lot of response to my article titled “Is another war for ‘Biafra’ inevitable?” where I argued that President Muhammadu Buhari is baiting Ndigbo for war and that it is unwise to give him a reason for another genocide.

Igbos are genuinely aggrieved but they unanimously reject war. They also unequivocally condemn the senseless violence and avoidable loss of lives in the South-East.

One response stood out in its toxicity. A Yoruba friend, who is also a professional colleague and a fervent supporter of Buhari, fired off almost immediately.

He wrote: “Ikechukwu Amaechi! Your conclusions are great but based on a faulty premise. Buhari is not Igbo problem. The Igbo that radiate uncritical hate, but insist being repaid by love, are the delusional one.

“I would have thought that a people who had gone through avoidable catastrophe in the past would be doubly wary. But everyone played the ostrich until that lunatic Nnamdi Kanu is again pushing them to the brink – a hardworking people that have assets, baiting war!

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“But my pitch is not really for the Igbo. It’s for my peacocky Yoruba folks tolerating another IPOB Yoruba variant, Sunday Igboho, an idiot who doesn’t even know what the problem is and is insistent on solving it!

“PMB is not the Igbo problem. The Igbo penchant to play the ostrich, when they should promptly act, is it. But I hope good sense would prevail.”

I knew where he was coming from. I had tolerated his incendiary comments against Ndigbo for too long. This time, I decided not to suffer fools gladly.

“Kunle, ordinarily, I don’t respond to comments such as yours. I don’t know what issues you have with Ndigbo. I know that left for you, you would wish all of them be killed for whatever reason. You wouldn’t mind another holocaust,” I riposted.

“My friend, the joke is on you and your unreasonable type who see Ndigbo as Nigeria’s problem and want them exterminated.

“But have you asked yourself why Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna people are all crying? They also hate Buhari? Soyinka hates Buhari? Ayo Adebanjo hates Buhari? Even the Northern governors that are now crying over banditry hate Buhari? The reasonable Yoruba clamouring for change hate Buhari?

“Ndigbo radiate uncritical hate, insist being repaid with love and they are delusional. Really? I wish you luck. What goes around comes around. Those who helped to massacre Ndigbo in the past are today being massacred. It is called karma. It never fails. When you support evil, you reap bountifully from it.

“But let me tell you something. Ndigbo don’t reckon with your like. Like them, hate them, they are here to stay. You can stew in your animosity for all they care. Your insult is inconsequential.

“You can join hands with the likes of your soul mate, Adeyinka Grandson, to masturbate in your evil fantasy, but you are the one hurting, not Ndigbo. So, find a way of dealing with your hate before it consumes you.”

He scurried away!

It is surprising that anyone can accuse the Igbo of uncritical hatred against other Nigerians, when in fact they are the cord that binds the disparate tendencies in the country together.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/the-premeditated-killings-in-alaigbo-must-stop/

REDUCED rainfall and herders’ invasion of farms, both directly or indirectly linked to climate change, are forcing women farmers to adopt changes in Nasarawa.

One night in 2014, Victoria Alkali’s husband was killed and their house set on fire following a clash between herders and farmers in Obi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, North-Central Nigeria.

The widow and her four children immediately took shelter with a group of women who were also survivors of the crisis.

Alkali’s guinea corn farm was her family’s only asset but frequent cattle grazing on the farm meant she struggled to provide food for the children, and could barely pay their school fees. Unknown to her, an even bigger challenge was looming — the effect of climate change on farming communities in her area was becoming more rampant.

In May 2020, with the onset of rain, Alkali planted guinea corn, hoping to harvest before the herders arrived. But the rains stopped in August instead of November in what was becoming a norm, a deviation from the past. The poor harvest forced her to stop the construction of the new house she had started.

To improve the yields, she started using poultry droppings as fertiliser. She had bought 10 bags of the droppings from a neighbouring community at N5,000 per bag. To her delight, it increased the yields from 10 to 15 bags of guinea corn.

Research has shown that cow dung and chicken droppings can improve the soil structure to hold more nutrients and water and therefore become more fertile.
Smallholder women farmers in Nasarawa State like Alkali are using such means to protect their farms from the effect of desertification.

In 2017, a maize farmer in Toto Local Government Area of the state Murna Bitrus had also suffered declining yields from her farm due to the shortage of rainfall. Unfortunately, this was at a time a section of her house collapsed and frequent herders’ invasion stopped her from working her five-hectare farm located an hour from her home.

She eventually found two hectares close to the local government area which she rented at N230,000 per annum.

Cow dung fertiliser
Being her only source of revenue, Bitrus sought several means to increase the farm’s yields. Later in the year, one of her friends residing in Oyo State in South-West Nigeria introduced her to the dung of a cow specie for use on her newly secured land.

The friend connected her to an abattoir in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and they arranged frequent transportation of cow dung across over 600 kilometres to Nasarawa in the North-Central region of the country.

READ ALSO:

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She paid about N27,000 for a 50-kilogramme bag of cow dung and used two bags on the farm every month.

Before she adopted cow dung as fertiliser, since the reduction in rainfall, she had harvested about 30 bags of maize. But in 2020, her harvest was 85 bags, almost triple her old yield from the same farm.

However, she lamented spending so much on the cow dung, citing it as the reason she could not renovate the collapsed section of her house, as she strove to keep up with other rising expenses in the house.

“Cow dung increased my farm output, but the cost of the dung strained my finances. For example in 2020, I didn’t make any profit. I put all the proceeds back into the business,” she said.

Irrigation
In Awe Local Government Area, many farmers channel water from a dam in the area to irrigate their farms, particularly during the dry season and sometimes to supplement reduced rainfall.

For instance, Sarah Albert, a rice farmer in Awe, considered going into irrigation in 2019 after successive failed harvests. She said rainfall usually started in March and ended in November but in recent years it had been between April and October.

She paid up to N20,000 to local transporters for about 35 jerry cans of water every month to irrigate her farm.

While this is an alternative means to solve the problem of reduced rainfall that affected the growth of her crops, she realised fewer proceeds using this method than during the rainy season. She harvested about 60 bags of rice when rainfall was adequate but with irrigation, she hardly got 10 bags, causing her revenue to drop from N300,000 to N30,000.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/special-report-women-farmers-respond-to-climate-change-using-alternative-cultivation-methods/

THE audited financial statements of Akwa Ibom State in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 have revealed questionable spending by the Governor’s Office.

 Scrutiny of the reports from the office of the state's accountant-general,  Pastor Uwem Andrew Essien, for four years showed that an item under the budget for the Governor's Office tagged "Government Special Development Project" has been a conduit pipe for siphoning public funds by corrupt officials. 

Although public funds have been voted and retired through this subhead, no known project on the ground show evidence and value for the billions of naira reported to have been spent. 

Billions spent on ghost projects.

In 2015, ₦2.708b was spent on project unknown to anyone, including those in government. In 2016, ₦1.842b was allegedly spent on the same item. Although this newspaper could not access the financial statement for the 2017 fiscal year, findings showed that ₦3 billion was budgeted for the item. In 2018, the ₦3b, which was the approved budget, was spent. In 2019, there was 100 per cent project implementation, as the entire ₦3.06 billion appropriated for the project was expended. With the exclusion of the financial statement for 2017, the project gulped the sum of ₦10.61 billion in four years (2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019). 

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Efforts to know how much was expended on the project in 2017 through a Freedom of Information (FOIA) application to the Office of the Governor, Commissioner for Finance, and Accountant General were unsuccessful as they all did not respond. However, a source in the Government House who cannot be named due to safety concerns said the exact amount appropriated in 2017 for the project was retired at the end of the fiscal year. However, if the state government spent N3b on the item in 2017, it implies that between 2015 and 2019, ₦13.61 billion was expended on the project.

Akwa Ibom State Government fails to present evidence of project spending.

Surprisingly, the Office of the Governor, Accountant General and finance ministry could not explain and provide evidence on how the money for the project was spent. The FOI request, which was ignored, specifically asked for detailed information and documents on titles and locations of the project called "government special development project", the list of bidders for the project, the contractors' names, and approval letters for the project contracts.

The project was captured in the state’s Appropriation Act under the governor’s office budget, with the Accountant General disbursing the required funds under the supervision of the finance ministry. The accountant general is responsible for safekeeping account books and ensures internal control procedures are maintained to safeguard the assets, detect and prevent fraud and other irregularities. A follow-up reminder sent to these offices at the expiration of seven working days provided for in the FOI Act was ignored to date. 

The failure of the governor’s office, accountant general and finance ministry to respond to the FOI request is a familiar behaviour of public institution in Akwa Ibom State. The governor’s office and the finance ministry, especially, are notorious for ignoring FOI requests.

This trend caused the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Akwa Ibom State Council, to issue a communiqué on September 30, 2020, calling on the state government to stop disregarding FOI requests. The communiqué noted: "Congress notes the consistent refusal of MDAs in Akwa Ibom State to provide certain information requested by journalists, thereby flouting the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, and called on the MDAs to do the needful to avoid a resort to legal action to get the required information".

Meanwhile, sources within the government who craved anonymity disclosed that the funds for the project have, over the years, been diverted. The source claims that the state government has chosen to use hazy description for this item to bleed state funds without raising suspicions.

More so, checks into state government executed project booklets show no project executed in the state under such budget line item. This newspaper went further to find out why the spurious item found its way into the budget. When the Mail Newspaper contacted the Head of Budget Office, Mr. Otu Asuquo, whose office is tasked with preparing, coordinating, monitoring and facilitating the execution of the state’s budget policies, he declined to comment. 

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-akwa-ibom-state-government-spent-n10-billion-on-ghost-project/

EVERY Nigerian currently owes about N157,906.30 in terms of debt per capita as the country’s total public debt hits N33.1 trillion at the end of March 2021, analysis of Nigeria's latest total public debt stock has shown.

Debt per capita is calculated as the total public debt of a country divided by the country's population. Nigeria’s population is estimated to be 209 million, according to the World Poverty Clock.

Data from the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Wednesday, June 9, showed that Africa biggest economy’s debt increased to N33.1 trillion in March 2021, from N32.91 trillion in December 2020. This means Nigeria grew its debt burden by N191 billion in the first three months of the year.

The DMO said in its press release that the country’s external debt, however, reduced due to the redemption by Nigeria of the $500 million Eurobond in January 2021.

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“External Debt Stock declined from $33.348 billion as at December 31, 2020, to $32.86 billion due to the redemption by Nigeria of the $500 million Eurobond in January 2021,” it said.

The DMO said, “Total public debt stock, which comprises the debt stock of the Federal Government of Nigeria, 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory, stood at N33.107tn or USD87.239 billion.

“The debt stock also includes promissory notes in the sum of N940.22 billion issued to settle the inherited arrears of the FGN to state governments, oil marketing companies, exporters, and local contractors.




“Compared to the total public debt stock of N32.92 trillion as at December 31, 2020, the increase in the debt stock was marginal at 0.58 percent.”

Further analysis of the public debt stock shows that the domestic debt stock grew by 2.11 per cent, from N20.21 trillion in December 2020 to N20.637 trillion as at the end of March 31, 2021.

The Federal Government's share of the domestic debt included: FGN bonds, Sukuk and green bonds used to finance infrastructure and other capital projects, and the N940.22bn promissory notes, according to the DMO.

In January, the DMO said that the 6.75 per cent $500 million 2021 Eurobond was Nigeria’s first foray into the international capital market.

It said the Eurobond issuance enabled Nigeria to diversify its sources of funding as it successfully raised a total of $10.67 billion from the market thereafter to finance the implementation of the federal budgets.

The debt office said this also contributed to the country’s external reserves.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/each-nigerian-owes-n157906-as-debt-stock-rises-to-n33-1trn/

ON June 2, Twitter deleted a post by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari where he referred to the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War as the way to treat ‘those misbehaving today,’ saying it was the ‘language they will understand.’

The tweet, according to Twitter, violated the platform’s safety rule.

Twitter also deleted a video posted on the official handle of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, @NGRPresident, where Buhari made the threat.

President Buhari had, in a series of tweets on Tuesday, threatened Biafra agitators, saying those responsible for the destructions of INEC properties would be treated the way a secessionist group, Biafra, was treated during the Nigerian Civil War.

“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” Buhari said.

Twitter said a “user can violate its rule if he violates the safety rules of the platform, under the safety rules, the platform listed violence, terrorism/violent extremism, child sexual exploitation, abuse/harassment, hateful conduct, suicide or self-harm, sensitive media, including graphic violence and adult content, among others.”

The Twitter violence rule states that a user must not threaten an individual or a group of people. The rule also states that a user must not glorify violence.

“Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence. Learn more about our violent threat and glorification of violence policies,” the rule states.

Apart from Buhari, other world leaders whose tweets have been deleted include: former United States President Donald Trump; Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro; Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Venezuela President Nicola Maduro.

Before his account was permanently suspended on January 8, some tweets from Trump’s account had been deleted in relation to US November presidential election.

A Trump post deleted by Twitter on January 6, 2021, reiterated the false claim that the election he lost was stolen and encouraged his supporters to remember that day going forward.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/buhari-joins-trump-other-world-leaders-whose-tweets-have-been-deleted-by-twitter/

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari tried to undertake some major reforms in the power sector, but his intervention is marred by inconsistencies, overwhelming subsidy payments and recurring grid collapse.

Nigeria's power sector was unbundled and privatised in 2013 to establish a competitive market to improve management and efficiency, attract private investment, increase generation, and provide a reliable and cost-efficient power supply.

However, the dream to deliver a cost-efficient power supply to Nigerians remains a pipe dream, due to poor leadership and weak regulatory intervention.

For instance,  many public institutions default to pay for power, with debts surging in billions even as government pays subsidies for liquidity shortfall. Also, the pricing for power has been the bane of the sector.

Another key problem is operation deficiencies and non-alignment of various power sector value chains consisting of generation, transmission and distribution, with each constantly trading blames.

The sector, despite privatisation, is weak due largely to underpayment of power costs by consumers which makes subsidy in the power sector thrive despite privatisation.

"Many Nigerians bypass power lines to access power without payment. This is hugely affecting cost recovery. There is also low electricity pricing because people are yet to pay the appropriate price for power. Most often we get directive from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC not to effect the appropriate price, which contradicts the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act of 2005 on multi-year tariff Order. It also affects cost recovery efficiency." President of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors,(ANED) Sunday Oduntan told The ICIR.

President Buhari's interventions to bridge various shortfalls:

Despite being privatised, the Buhari administration has continued closing various gaps in the power sector value chains, including paying over N50bn for subsidy for the sector.

Ahmed Zakari, the Presidential Adviser on Power and Infrastructure revealed that the President is keen and focused on using numerous avenues to close infrastructural gaps in the power sector. He said $3 to $5billion  have been committed to upscale various power infrastructure in the country.

" Through support from the World Bank, we now have $1.6 billion has been devoted for the Transmission expansion programme. We signed another 500 million dollars for the development of the distribution sector. The Central Bank of Nigeria has also put out. Emergency funds for the distribution sector as well as transmission sector in various phases to the tune of 500 million dollars."

" We also have the SIEMENS presidential power initiative that we've signed the engineering agreement. We are also looking at the performance improvement plans of the Discos to enable us to hold them accountable as they receive these support funds. This performance agreement will enable them to align their projects with funds that are available.

"We also have the national mass metering programme which is helping us to improve the revenue and sustainability of the sector while addressing the liquidity concerns in the sector."

"With this enhanced metering on the service-based tariff, we can see the Nigerian Electricity supply industry generating over N100 billion in the near to mid-term. This is very impressive. The hypothesis that we have is that if you enhance payment discipline through the metering population, revenue will go up. We have proven that, "the presidential adviser said.

READ HERE: https:///3pjKkZL

AS President Muhammadu Buhari marks six years in office, The ICIR, in this Special Report, takes a look at events and activities that have shaped the country’s foreign relations, including trade promotion, economic relations and bilateral security cooperation. Section 19 of the 1999 Constitution places Africa at the centre of Nigerian’s foreign policy.

Nigeria, with an estimated population of 200 million people, is Africa’s most populous country and the 7th most populous in the world. It is a regional power in Africa and a middle power in international affairs.

Bilateral economic relations

Nigeria partially closed its borders in August 2019 owing to lack of compliance by its neighbouring countries to the rules governing cross-border trade, but the country began reopening them in December 2020.

International trade between Nigeria and the neighbouring countries has always been beneficial. Nigeria’s signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), projected to become world’s second largest free trade area, is set to expand this, analysts say.

Nigeria earned $823.06 million from export to ECOWAS countries and $2.72 billion from shipping out products to Africa in the first quarter of 2020. In the second quarter of 2020, export to the whole of Africa was estimated at N401.4 billion, while goods worth N149.3billion were exported to ECOWAS. This, according to analysts, is set to expand owing to the AfCFTA.

Besides AfCFTA, Nigeria has signed a number of bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding aimed at strengthening its relations with other countries and driving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country to accelerate development and improve the lives of citizens.

Some bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria have also been addressed by the unveiling of the Nigerian Visa Policy (NVP 2020) by the Nigeria Immigration Service. It began on February 4, 2020, in line with reform activities of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) and AfCTA.

To further promote international trade and attract FDIs, the Nigerian government recently declared four international airports Special Economic Zones (SEZs), bringing the total number of such designated areas within the country to 38.

The Visa on Arrival Application Process is open to all business travelers and African Union countries for short visits, except ECOWAS member countries who do not require visas to visit Nigeria and other countries which Nigeria has entered into visa abolition agreements with.

Citizen Diplomacy

Nigeria has become one of the most sought-after markets for student recruiters in major destination countries, including Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, the US, and the UK. Nearly 100, 000 Nigerian students were enrolled abroad in 2020 and the number of professionals migrating from Nigeria in search of greener pastures abroad is on the increase.

President Muhammadu Buhari shortly after a reelection in 2019 approved the establishment of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) to encourage diaspora Nigerians to be good ambassadors of the country and mediate relations between the Nigerian government and Nigerians in the diaspora for mutual developmental benefits.

The commission has, through this time, shown commitment towards the welfare and well-being of the estimated 17 million diaspora Nigerians, by organising town-hall meetings, interventions during xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in Ghana and South Africa, evacuation of thousands of stranded citizens back home and response to petitions from Nigerians abroad.

The commission is working with the National Assembly and other stakeholders towards an amendment of the Electoral Act, just as it is partnering with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for diaspora mapping and has commenced the data capturing of Nigerians in parts of West Africa, Europe, Asia and Americas for effective planning purposes, especially in view of the much-anticipated diaspora voting.

READ ALSO: https://www.icirnigeria.org/special-report-how-nigerias-foreign-relations-have-fared-under-president-buhari/

THE administration of President Muhammadu Buhari met a decaying health sector after his election in 2015. And most Nigerians believed his government would help fix the sector. The emergence of COVID-19 further re-echoed the necessity for prioritising the health sector, but it appears only a little has changed in a country that parades some of the world’s worst health indices, The ICIR reports.

Emergence of COVID-19

In April 2020, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, expressed shock at what he saw in Nigerian public hospitals, having inspected some of the facilities.

As the Chairman, Presidential Taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19, he travelled across the country to monitor the nation’s preparedness for tackling the pandemic.

Mustapha saw hospitals without beds, emergency wards without ambulances, intensive care units without power supply and health facilities in shortage of human resources and infrastructures needed for services.

He saw dilapidated hospital buildings occupied by reptiles and other pests. He would not conceal his feelings, and told the leadership of the National Assembly: “I never knew that our entire healthcare infrastructure was in the state in which it is. Until I was appointed to do this work.”

Mustapha has been in office since October 2017.

His admission is symbolic of the neglect which the country’s health systems have suffered over the years and the hopelessness of many citizens in seeking care in health facilities.


Political office holders like him are fond of seeking healthcare abroad.

But in 2020, coronavirus forced everyone to remain in their countries, at least for some months.

Challenges of Nigeria health sector include underfunding, corruption, poor remuneration, brain drain, inadequate infrastructures, poor leadership, insufficient human resources and poor health insurance coverage that has remained at a single percentage of the population since its launch in 2005.

These challenges promote self-medication, out-of-pocket spending for health; low morale for health professionals; preventable diseases and death.

Fears over failings of Nigeria health systems peaked at the onset of COVID-19 in Nigeria in March 2020.

READ ALSO: Special Report: How Nigeria’s foreign relations have fared under Buhari
First, most citizens believed that despite the lack of immediate pharmaceutical solutions to the disease, the country’s health infrastructures would not match the responses given to the virus in other parts of the world.

To prevent the disease from spreading in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a lockdown in key states on March 30. Some state governors also took similar measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Following the rollout of measures to combat the disease, Nigeria began to have lockdowns in phases, effective May 4, 2020.

According to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), as of Thursday, May 27, the country had 166,098 cases, 2,071 deaths, and 156,528 recoveries from the virus.

Global cases on that day were 169,093,368, deaths were 3,512,497, while there were 150,835,753 recoveries, as shown by The ICIR dashboard.

Nigeria confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on February 27, 2020. The case involved an Italian who returned from Italy to Lagos on February 25 2020.

Though the index case recovered, the virus infected more people in Nigeria, resulting in deaths.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/analysis-nigeria-health-sector-after-buharis-six-years-in-office/

DELTA State government has denied receiving £4.2 million recovered by the British Government from the ex-governor of the state James Ibori as claimed by the Accountant General of the Federation Ahmed Idris.

Idris had claimed during his appearance before the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on the assessment and status of all recovered loots on Tuesday that the much contended funds had been reimbursed to the state’s coffers.

While stating that funds looted from the treasury of a state were always returned to it when recovered, Idris added that states could also sue the Federal Government to recover the funds if paid to the account of the Federal Government.

“It was paid to Delta State,” he said.

“Such recoveries go specifically to those states. Honourable Chairman, any recovery arising from the looted funds from a particular state goes to the state. The state governors will not even allow this to fly.”

He added that “some recoveries are for some state governments, specific state governments. I know there was a time recovery was made on behalf of Plateau State, there was one for Bayelsa, there is one for Delta,”

However, Chief Press Secretary to the state government Olisa Ifejika, on Wednesday, countered the accountant general’s claim, insisting the oil-rich state was yet to receive the money.

“We appreciate the efforts of the Federal Government to return the recovered loot to Delta State where it rightly belongs. But the truth is that the money has not hit the Delta State government’s account.

READ ALSO: https://www.icirnigeria.org/4-2-ibori-loot-delta-state-counters-accountant-generals-claims/

COAS death: Nigeria, China record fatalities as Beechcraft reports 23 accidents in five months

THE death of Chief of Army Ibrahim Attahiru in the ill-fated Beechcraft KingAir B350i plane crash in Kaduna, alongside 10 others aboard, shocked the nation, but two crashes in three months reveal a disturbing trend associated with the aircraft purchased by Nigeria.

Data obtained from the US-based Aviation Safety Network, an air accident tracking database, show that in the first five months of 2021 globally, there were 23 recorded incidents of air accidents involving the Beechcraft King Air 350i aeroplane series.

Only three of the accidents were fatal, resulting in 23 deaths that involved two Nigeria Air Force -NAF Beechcraft KingAir military B350i jets and a 350i jet belonging to China's Metrological Agency, CMA.

While the fatalities in Nigeria led to the loss of 18 lives, the air mishap in China involved the death of five people.

Of all the other incidents recorded, there were no fatalities apart from the damage to the Beechcraft aircraft involved in the crash.

The Beechcraft King Air 350i is a twin-propeller aircraft made by Textron Aviation, a unit of the U.S.-based Textron Inc conglomerate and the model was first released around 2009.

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According to a report, analysis of recent and past Beechcraft King Air accidents since October 2014 shows that the air crashes occurred mostly during takeoff and the initial climb. 

On February 21, NAF 202 Beechcraft KingAir B350i aircraft crashed while returning to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport after reporting engine failure en route Minna, according to preliminary findings.

The crash led to the death of seven crew members on board, who were deployed to the North-West for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

Information released by the NAFshortly after the crash indicated that the accident was caused by engine failure.

The NAF spokesperson Edward Gabkwet, in an interview, said NAF would be meticulous in carrying its investigation jointly with the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB.

“In the meantime, we are not rushing into taking a certain decision that would hamper our own operations...We should not take our eyes off the ball, we must remain focused on whatever we are doing, not take rash decisions just to please few critics on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. No, we won’t do that,” he said.

Chief of Army Staff Ibrahim Attahiru was among the military officers who died last week when a NAF 203 Beechcraft KingAir B350i scheduled to land at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Mando, Kaduna, was diverted and crashed at the Kaduna International Airport.

The military officers were supposed to be on their way to Kaduna ahead of the passing-put- parade of soldiers from the Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria before the incident occurred.

However, Gabkwet revealed that the two crashed Beechcraft aircraft had different designations, saying the one that crashed in February was configured for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance while the aircraft in last Friday’s crash in Kaduna was a passenger aircraft.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/coas-death-nigeria-china-record-fatalities-as-beechcraft-reports-23-accidents-in-five-months/

When Hunters Become Hunted: How attacks on Police Stations in the Southeast leave Officers at risk and communities vulnerable

By Olanrewaju OYEDEJI

THE Southeastern part of Nigeria has witnessed many attacks on police stations in recent months. Many of the attacks have led to the loss of lives, destruction of properties and weakening of the security system in the region. In this report, The ICIR tracks the attacks on police facilities in five Southeastern states – Imo, Anambra, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi. Olanrewaju OYEDEJI who visited the states reports.

ABOH Mbaise in Imo State is no longer a community that anyone can freely visit. Motorists would not dare to take any passengers to the village, nor would the commercial motorcyclists venture that far.

“That place no safe. Going there na risk,” a motorcyclist told this reporter, explaining the tensed atmosphere in the area and how everyone, including police personnel, was avoiding the community.

On arrival, the building serving as the police station was desolate. Only the charred remains of the structure was left standing. Police officers numbering five sat in groups of twos under a tree inside the premises. Another policeman sat inside one of the abandoned vehicles, all of them looking dispirited.

The station was fenced in the front but the other sides were surrounded by tall bushes, trees and abandoned vehicles, which now have been converted to a makeshift office.

The officers were all dressed in mufti. It was part of the safety measure adopted in response to recent attacks. One of the police officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity expressed the frustration of his colleagues.

“As you can see, nothing is happening here; we are just here doing nothing,” he said. To drive home his point, he recounted the experience of a colleague, a policewoman, who was hospitalised for two months after the police station was attacked. His colleagues, who were reticent most of the time, confirmed the account of the attack against their station.


The police officers were not the only victims. The attack also had a telling effect on the residents of Aboh Mbaise, who now live at the mercy of criminals and can no longer sleep with both eyes closed. Police officers have stopped patrolling the streets.

A resident of Mbaise, who identified himself as Onyenachi, expressed shock at the burning down of the station that has now left the community vulnerable to attacks.

“The incident was so painful and disappointing because the police are our friend here; they perform the duty of ensuring safety. We are unhappy with the station’s destruction because when the stations are destroyed, our lives and (properties) are not safe,” he said.

Recalling the incident, a local trader, Chibuzor, told The ICIR that they (traders) were all seated in their shops on the day of the attack before gunshots rang out.

“We all started running away in different directions,” he said, adding that since then things have not remained the same again.

Locked up in their own safe space

Another police station located at Umulowo community in Obowo, Imo State, was attacked on February 5. Two police officers died in the attack.

READ AMORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/when-hunters-become-hunted-how-attacks-on-police-stations-in-the-southeast-leave-officers-at-greater-risk-and-communities-vulnerable/

TWO separatist movements pushing for secession in Nigeria and Cameroon have formed an alliance towards actualising their plan to force the breakup of the two countries.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is agitating for the creation of an independent Biafran nation out of Nigeria, has joined forces with Ambazonia Governing Council, an armed separatist group fighting for the secession of Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West and South-West regions.

IPOB spokesman Emma Powerful confirmed the development on May 25 in an interview with The ICIR.

Powerful disclosed that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu and leader of the Ambazonia Governing Council Cho Ayaba in 2020.

The alliance will push IPOB to another level, Powerful told The ICIR.

The IPOB spokesman noted that the alliance had already gone far in so many things, but he did not provide details.

"Yes, it is true. The alliance will push us to another level, IPOB and Ambazonia signed MOU in October last year and this year, our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Ambazonia leader Dr Cho Ayaba had a joint press briefing and since then, the alliance has gone far in so many things," he said in response to inquiries by The ICIR.

Further checks showed that the alliance was announced at a press conference by Kanu and Ayaba in April, 2021. The press briefing was live-streamed on the social media.

READ AMORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/ipob-ambazonia-join-forces-to-push-breakup-of-nigeria-cameroon/

AFTER his arrest, Eze Ebuka insisted he was not a cultist, so SARS tortured him into admitting he was.

I’m Eze Ebuka, a welder, and the first in a family of three.

This is my SARS story.

Around 1 am on Saturday, May 23, 2020, my sleep was disturbed by loud knocking on the door of the main entrance of my home in Ekwulobia, a town in Anambra state.

Five officers of the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria police had come in over the fence, with guns and machetes, screaming my name.

My mother opened our door, asking why they were calling me at that hour. They said they had a message for me. My mother asked why they did not wait till daybreak. They did not answer, and instead forced their way past my mother, and into our house. They barged into my room – meeting me in my shorts. The officers asked me to throw on some clothes, then scattered my room, looking for something.

I did not know what they were looking for but it was clear they didn’t find it. They then handcuffed me, told my mother they had come from the Central Police Station (CPS) in Nnewi, 25 kilometers west of Ekwulobia. The officers said my mother would have to go to CPS if she wanted to know why I was being arrested.

On the way to the station, the officers asked me to provide names of five cult members if I wanted to be released. I told them I wasn’t a cultist and did not know any cult members. But they accused me of lying and said they would make me confess at the station.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/mysarsstory-framed-into-a-cultist/