A Nigerian Masters student at the Dundee University in Scotland, Somtochukwu Okwuoha faces jail and deportation after a jury found him guilty of making terrorist threats against the school. According to the BBC, Okwuoha claimed he had enlisted Isis to help bomb the university and told staff he planned to target the city in a chemical attack. The international energy studies student was found guilty of seven charges and was remanded in custody.   The 26-year-old will be sentenced next month. Sheriff William Wood will also consider the Crown’s motion for an order to deport Okwuoha to Nigeria. A trial heard that Okwuoha told university staff he planned to carry out mass murder on the Dundee University campus. Witnesses described how Okwuoha claimed he had a military background and was capable of making bombs and unleashing a deadly virus on the city. Keith Mackle, 58, now retired director of student services, told Perth Sheriff Court he became aware of “serious concerns” in the autumn of 2021. He said staff members received emails making terrorist threats. One said: “Expect a massive bomb explosion at the University of Dundee. I have contacted Isis terrorists to plant bombs on campus. “I can assure you staff and students will die in great numbers. 9/11 will be a joke compared to what will happen. “Blood will spill and flesh will be scattered.” Accommodation officer Shane Taylor told the court Okwuoha accused him of being racist and said he planned to wipe out Scottish people as revenge. Okwuoha, a prisoner at Perth, was found guilty of threatening to murder staff at the university and commit terrorist crime between December 2021 and June 2022. He was found guilty of threatening to commit mass murder, using biological weapons, revealing staff details to international authorities, and claiming to have planted bombs. He was also found guilty of threatening to behead police officers and detonate bombs he had planted at Dundee University.

  The Chairman of the Presidential Committee, Tax and Fiscal Policy Reform, Taiwo Oyedele, on Friday, expressed concern over the implications of the country incurring losses of up to N6 trillion annually in tax waivers, around the same amount it generates in revenue. Appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Oyedele confirmed the figure recently quoted by the Senate as tax waivers, saying, “Yes, as a matter of fact, we are giving away about N6 trillion annually.” Asked to comment on the economic viability of the enormous tax waivers, the financial expert admitted that the country had failed to measure their impact on the economy. “This is really the part that makes it painful because it would then appear like you just wasted the money you didn’t even have in the first place, and those numbers are huge compared to our revenue base. “If we were a country where we’re making N60, N70 trillion and we gave away, maybe we would say, ‘We can live with it.’ But the revenue generated by the FIRS in 2021 — the year before the last — was just barely N6 trillion. And then you give that away in tax waivers and incentives.” The tax reform committee chairman however noted the importance of exemptions from value-added tax (VAT) on essentials, including basic food items and medical expenses. “Like now, I’ve requested that government suspend VAT on diesel for very obvious reasons as well as suspend VAT on import duties [and] CNG. There are things you have to do par time because, at the end of the day, governance is about the people,” he said. “You may not be able to immediately measure the economic impact on those ones, but you, of course, can tell the social impact.” Oyedele argued that without such interventions, the country would “go up in flames,” adding that people could find themselves on the streets if they find life “completely impossible” and they believe that government is being insensitive. “Having said that, the other waivers, whether those waivers are to do with income tax exemptions, duty and VAT waivers for some businesses, even the Free Trade Zone Area, where people can operate physically within Nigeria but, by law, we would assume that they are not within Nigeria and then they get all manner of waivers from duties to VAT and income tax,” he said. According to him, the tax reform committee considers this an important area of focus and is going through these incentives individually, interrogating them. “[We are] asking ourselves, ‘If we were going to design a new incentive regime for Nigeria today, will this qualify? On what basis? How can you ensure that it’s targeted? How can you measure the impact on the economy?’ he noted. Oyedele said as much as possible, the committee is building “sunset provisions” into those incentives, explaining that one might find that a policy that is beneficial to the nation’s economic circumstances in 2023 could be irrelevant in two years or less. “But it could also be maybe another five or 10 years. But whatever it is, we will be using data and engagement with stakeholders to decide and design, ‘How long do we need the incentive for?’ and put those subset clauses in the law, so that it wouldn’t be another 20 years before we realise that we’ve been losing money for so many years in the past, as we have seen historically,” he said.

  The naira fell, on Thursday, to N956/$ on the official Investor and Exporter forex window as dollar supply declined by 46.77 per cent. This is a 13.78 per cent decline from the N840.53/$ the naira closed trading on Wednesday according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange. Also, the turnover of dollars traded in the market fell to $105.50m from $198.21m on Wednesday. The naira began trading at N800.90/$ for the day before hitting a high of N1136/$ and N615/$ within the day. It eventually closed trading at N956.33/$. The instability of the naira has persisted despite recent moves by the Central Bank to clear the backlog of foreign exchange forward contracts. The naira is one of the worst-performing currencies in the world, losing about 40 per cent of its value since June, the World Bank recently disclosed. Recently, the Economic Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, disclosed that the CBN does not have the required firepower to clear the backlog of foreign exchange orders. This is expected to continue to put pressure on the naira. It stated, “In Nigeria, an unsupportive monetary policy implies that the naira will remain under pressure, while the central bank lacks the firepower to adequately supply the market or clear a backlog of foreign exchange orders, which will keep foreign investors unnerved. High inflation and a continued spread with the parallel market will leave the exchange rate regime unstable and result in periodic devaluations.”

  A four-day pause in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza will begin this morning and an exchange of hostages will follow hours later, the mediator, Qatar, has confirmed. The ceasefire deal, facilitated by Qatar with help of Egypt and the United States, was due to take effect Thursday, but was delayed after a last-minute hitch.   The ceasefire deal followed weeks of war in the Gaza Strip after Hamas fighters broke through the militarised Gaza border with Israel on October 7 in an attack. Israeli airstrikes and ground invasions had since then reportedly killed over 14,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and forced about 1.7 million Gazans to flee their homes.   The Israeli government had said about 1,200 of its nationals, mostly civilians, were killed and around 240 taken hostage. The “surprise operation” from Gaza came on the heels of the killing of four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, widespread Israeli settler attacks, especially in Huwara, near Nablus and increased tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Hamas, the group running the besieged enclave, had explained that its surprise, large-scale operation was in response to the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence. Confirming the four-day ceasefire at a press conference in Doha yesterday, Qatari Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Majed Al Ansari: “The pause will begin at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) on Friday… and the first batch of civilian hostages will be handed over at approximately 4:00 pm (1400 GMT).” He stated that 13 people would be freed initially, all women and children from the same families. He said Palestinians held in Israeli jails would also be released today, noting that a list of unspecified number of inmate names had been approved. Ansari said: “The skies will be clear” of drones for a period of time to “allow for the hostage release to happen in a safe environment”. “Obviously every day will include a number of civilians as agreed to total 50 within the four days,” the Qatari spokesperson said. “During these four days, information will be collected about the rest of the hostages to consider the possibility of more releases and thus extending the pause,” he added. Asari said the pause entailed “a complete ceasefire… with no attacks from the air or the ground,” adding that he hoped “there will be no violations”. “The ceasefire deal is to take effect in stages that can be extended and broadened. It is also intended to provide aid to Gaza’s 2.4 million residents. “The agreement, it still… stands and as was agreed upon,” Ansari said. The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also confirmed yesterday that a truce would begin today, “accompanied by the cessation of all military actions from the Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian resistance”. It said during the ceasefire, 50 hostages, including women and males aged 18 or under, would be freed, with three Palestinians to be released for each of them. Hamas official, Bassem Naim, said: “Marathon negotiations” were behind the agreement, which “represents an important step towards alleviating the suffering of our people”. The release of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails would start with those who have been detained the longest, Naim said. The Israeli prime minister’s office also said yesterday that authorities were in contact with the families of all the hostages being held in Gaza after receiving “a first list of names”.   Israeli forces launch fresh attack ahead ceasefire Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians were yesterday killed and hundreds wounded as Israeli forces stepped up attacks in Gaza ahead of the truce coming into effect today, Al Jazeera reported. Israeli fighter jets reportedly struck Sheikh Nasser neighbourhood in eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least five people and wounding dozens. Among those injured is a photojournalist, Wafa State News Agency reported. Nigeria, 7 others reject selectivity in application of intl’ laws Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, according to a statement yesterday by his spokesperson, Abdulkadir Alkasim, joined other members of the ministerial committee constituted by the Joint Arab-Islamic Summit to find a lasting solution to the war in Gaza, to call on the United Kingdom to reject selectivity in applying international laws. The call had been made in London on Tuesday when the committee met with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. The committee had urged the international community to fulfil its responsibility by rejecting all forms of selectivity in applying international legal and moral standards and turning a blind eye to the “heinous crimes” committed by the Israeli occupation forces against “defenceless Palestinian civilians”, and the trend of the occupation’s violations against the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The meeting touched on efforts to revive the peace process in the Palestinian issue, as members of the ministerial committee stressed the importance of ensuring a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace, through the implementation of international laws related to the two-state solution to enable the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem. The meeting discussed the need to secure safe passages to deliver humanitarian aid, food, water, fuel and electricity to Gaza and allow international organisations to carry out their tasks in the Gaza Strip and its surroundings. The members of the ministerial committee stressed the importance of members of the Security Council and the international community to take effective and urgent measures for a complete ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, stressing that “this is a priority for all Arab and Islamic countries.” The statement said Tuggar once again condemned the disproportionate use of force against civilians in Gaza, stating, “At the centre of this crisis is the disproportionality of the use of force. It does not add up for us to sit by while homes in Gaza are destroyed, thousands are killed, we have to give peace

  The Rivers state government has redeployed Emeka Amadi, clerk of the house of assembly. In a circular dated November 20 and issued by the office of the head of civil service, Amadi was redeployed to the state scholarship board. The head of service did not name a replacement to succeed Amadi. The state government also redeployed Calistus Ojirika, the deputy clerk/ head of department (HOD) legislative department, to the readers project. Georgewill Otto, an assistant director at the ministry of physical planning and urban development, was redeployed to Rivers State Small Town and Rural Water Supply Agency. Amadi and Ojirika were asked to hand over to the most senior officers in the house of assembly. According to the circular, the posting takes effect immediately.   The development comes about three weeks after an attempted impeachment of Siminalayi Fubara, governor of Rivers. Rivers has been grappling with a political crisis linked to the rumoured rift between Fubara and Nyesom Wike, the immediate former governor of the state and current minister of the federal capital territory (FCT). Despite President Bola Tinubu’s reported intervention to restore peace in the state, there are speculations that the political crisis is far from being resolved.

  The Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has urged Nigerians travelling abroad to go legitimately, and with proper documentation to avoid unpleasant consequences. Abdur-Rahman Balogun, the spokesman of NIDCOM, in a statement on Thursday, said Dabiri-Erewa stated this when she visited some Nigerians in one of the shelters in Brampton, Canada. The NIDCOM boss sympathised with them and urged others planning to travel without proper documentation to desist as the situation is getting tougher in many countries. “It is just not worth it, more often than not,” she was quoted as saying. The statement said Vivian Eruka, who runs the Bethel food bank and works with those in Shelters, informed that the Mayor of Brampton had promised to make 800 more beds and shelter available for the asylum seekers. Mr Wale Rabiu, owner of Matlock bakery donated hundreds of loaves of bread to the shelter inmates, the statement added. In a phone conversation with Daily Trust, the spokesman of NIDCOM said Dabiri-Erewa visited only one of the asylum shelters in Canada, adding that there were many of them scattered across the country

  Barely a few days after berating his aides over what he described as poor misrepresentation of his administration, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has directed the freezing of all state and local government accounts with immediate effect. In a statement on Thursday, the Commissioner for Finance, Asiru Idris, said no imprest or any form of payment should be made to anyone from Government Account henceforth. According to the statement, all “standing orders and investment instructions are hereby cancelled forthwith”. “All Kogi State and Local Government Accounts are hereby frozen with effect from today, Thursday 22nd November 2003.” Bello, who is at the end of his eight-year double tenure, is expected to hand over power to the Governor-Elect, Usman Ododo, in January 2024. Ododo, an ex-Auditor General of Local Government in Kogi under Bello, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate had won the November 11, 2023 Kogi State Governorship Election.

  Governor of Anambra State, Prof Charles Soludo, has stated that the President Bola Tinubu administration inherited a dead economy from its predecessors.   Soludo made this assertion on Thursday while commenting on policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme. “This economy inherited a dead economy. From a macroeconomic point of view, this government inherited a dead horse that was still standing and people didn’t know it was dead,” the former CBN governor stressed.   “Because you can’t pour water on a rock and not expect the rock not to be wet, there are humungous challenges and I think it is important that Nigerians understand this and it is not a tea party.”   Soludo, while explaining his role in putting curbs on monetary structures when he headed the apex bank between 2004 and 2009, accused the CBN of illegally printing money. “We must realise where we are coming from,” he said. “We sat here in this country and saw the monetary authorities literally printing money, illegally I must say, because I superintended the development of drafting of the 2007 Bank Act.” “And to prevent us from where we are today, that is why we had an explicit clause there that prevents Central Bank from lending recklessly to the Federal Government. “That you can not grant to the Federal Government more than 5 per cent of the previous year’s actual revenue.” He maintained that the CBN failed to comply with the 2007 CBN Act, adding that the current monetary trajectory was avoidable in the first place. “We all sat here and saw how the CBN brazenly, illegally violated that law year after year and kept on printing money,” the governor said. “When you continue to credit the account of government, one trillion people shouted, two trillion,10 trillion, 15 trillion and 20 trillion and we kept going.”

  Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court Abuja has dismissed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC)’s motion seeking an order setting aside its judgement restraining the commission from imposing fines on broadcast stations in the country. Delivering Judgement, Justice Omotosho dismissed all the grounds put forward by the NBC, describing same as an afterthought. Justice Omotosho held that despite being served with the originating process and hearing notices in the case leading to the judgment, the commission failed to file its defence. The judge said contrary to the NBC’s argument that it was not served with court processes that led to the judgement, the court file showed that services were effected on NBC but failed to file and refused to entered appearance. He said there was affidavit of facts deposed to by the court bailif that confirmed that court processes were served on the commission on different occasions. “The respondent applicant cannot claim it was not serve. The objection is hereby overruled,” he said. Justice Omotosho had on May 10 gave an order of perpetual injunction restraining NBC from imposing fines on broadcast stations. The judge also set aside the N500,000 fines imposed by the commission on March 1, 2019 on each of the 45 broadcast stations alleged to have violated its code. He held that NBC, not being a court of law, had no power to impose sanctions as punishment on broadcast stations. He further held that the NBC Code, which gives the commission the power to impose sanctions, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution which vested judicial power in the court of law.

  The National Economic Council on Thursday announced plans to channel at least $1.52bn donor funds into 36 special agro-industrial processing zones across the nation, aiming to create over 18.1 million jobs, including 100,000 farmers nationwide. The first phase, which now runs in Kano, Kaduna, Kwara, Ogun, Oyo, Imo, Cross River states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, will gulp over $520m and is set to conclude by 2028. Twenty-six states have expressed interest in joining Phase II of the programme, where the $1bn funding from the AfDB and other partners will be channelled. The states will begin documentation for the second phase in early 2024. Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, revealed this to State House Correspondents after the conclusion of the 137th National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Kashim Shettima at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, on Thursday. Kyari said the funds were earlier pledges by the African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, who voted $1bn to deliver SAPZs in 24 states at the Norman Borlaug International Dialogue, World Food Prize 202, in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, in late October. This is aside from an initial $520m voted by the development partners for the same purpose. “The Vice President who attended the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, met with the president of the African Development Bank. Dr Adesina has already pledged $1bn to the second phase,” said the minister. He noted that his ministry made a presentation to the council outlining the collaborative program with the African Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Islamic Development Bank, various state governments, and private investors. He explained, “The seven states are Kano, Kaduna, Kwara, Ogun, Oyo, Imo, and Cross River, and like I said, with the FCT being the eighth partner in this programme. “The quick wins here are that even in the stage of construction, you will have the opportunity for over 3,000 jobs. “And at the end of the construction, opportunities will be for almost 500,000 jobs on each zone that is for each state and then also to support about 100,000 farmers.” The minister described the SAPZs as a cross-cutting initiative and platform to attract private sector investment, add value to Nigeria’s agro-processing, and unlock opportunities for improved food security and job creation. He revealed that the programme, which commenced in 2022, saw the active participation of seven states and the Federal Capital Territory, even as the zones would not only serve as production sites “but also hubs for aggregation and processing of agricultural produce.” The programme has earmarked approximately $530m for the first phase, aiming to establish clusters of agricultural production and significantly reduce post-harvest losses, the former lawmaker noted. “For instance, Kano has keyed in to do a lot of tomatoes in this zone. And we know that tomato losses run to almost 50 to 60 per cent. It is unacceptable in today’s agricultural sector,” the minister pointed out. On Phase II, Kyari said, “We have already received expressions of interest from about 26 states so far. The second phase is supposed to start next year. This first phase will last for five years. And the documentation for Phase Two will begin by next year. “There are only three states (Abia, Adamawa, and Yobe) that have not expressed interest. But as we were leaving here, one (Abia State) had already signified and are working on sending the expression of interest.” The council also acknowledged the leading role of Ogun State in the development of these zones. Kyari said despite Ogun’s delay in signing the Subsidiary Loan Agreement, a commitment was recently secured from the state government to sign it promptly. To further expedite the initiative, the council approved “the accelerated transmission of the official documents to funders by the Federal Ministry of Finance” and granted a waiver from the same ministry for the payment of performance allowance to project staff by the funders as requested by the executing agency to “avoid project implementation risks.” The NEC called for “a lot of enthusiasm from state governors to participate and key into” the project, which it said would drive significant economic growth through job creation and modernised agricultural practices.