The International Centre for Investigative Reporting, on Thursday, expressed concerns over an invitation letter addressed to one of its journalists, Nurudeen Akewushola, and the organisation’s “managing directors” by the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre. The organisation said the letter from the police, which it received on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, was dated April 16, 2024, and the journalist was expected to report to the cybercrime centre on April 24, 2024, about three weeks before the organisation got the letter. According to the ICIR, the police said they were investigating a case of cyberstalking and defamation of character in which the journalist “featured prominently.” The organisation said the invitation lacked details, urging the police to rewrite its letter and provide adequate details. It also raised the alarm about “the growing trend of the crackdown on journalists by security operatives using the Cybercrimes Act, despite a recent amendment to the legislation following public outcry that it was being manipulated to stifle free speech and harass journalists.” According to ICIR, the police invitation to the journalist read: “You are requested to interview the Director of the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) plot 625 Mission Road, Diplomatic Zone, Central Business District, Abuja through CSP Omaka Udodinma Chukwu on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Call 08067854241 on your arrival. Your cooperation in this regard will be highly appreciated, please.” When Punch contacted on Thursday evening, the Director of the Nigeria Police Force-National Cyber Crime Centre, Uche Ifeanyi, defended the invitation of the journalist, saying there was a petition against the media house. “There is a case against them that they have to come and answer,” Ifeanyi said. When asked why the invitation got to the organisation late, he said the ICIR was in the best position to answer that. “They should be able to answer that question,” he told The PUNCH in a telephone interview. “Since there is a police invitation, they should honour the invitation,” he added, noting that there was no law stating that journalists should not be invited. “There is no how they will know the details if they don’t come. If there is an invitation, it means it’s official,” he insisted without providing further details. Meanwhile, in its statement, the ICIR said there were no details of the petition that led to the investigations for cyberstalking and defamation of character, as this would have helped the reporter better prepare for the interview with the police. The organisation, however, said it suspected the invitation was related to an investigative report done by the journalist in question, Akewushola. “The report indicted two former Inspectors-General of Police of corruption. One of the two former IGPs threatened The ICIR with a lawsuit and was rebuffed. We believe that the same person is now using the police, which should be interested in holding him to account on the basis of our reporting, to harass our reporter,” the ICIR said. The media organisation, therefore, requested that a new letter be provided by the police addressing the concerns raised. “As a law-abiding organisation that holds power to account, we are always willing to submit to accountability and would honour lawful invitations from law enforcement agencies but we have written to the police to provide details of the petition against The ICIR and its reporter and write a new invitation letter before we honour the invitation,” the statement concluded. The latest development borders on the growing concerns of journalists’ intimidation and harassment by the police using the Cyber Crime Act. The PUNCH reports that on May 1, a journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, Daniel Ojukwu, was abducted by police officers in Lagos and detained by the NPF-NCCC for 10 days. According to FIJ, the petition is in relation to its coverage of alleged financial mismanagement in the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire. Ojukwu regained his freedom after sustained media pressure and protests by colleagues, activists and concerned Nigerians. Before Ojukwu’s abduction, a former editor of First News, Segun Olatunji, was also abducted in March and detained for two weeks by military officials before he was later released.   Source: Punch 

  Atedo Peterside, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and Anap Foundation, has faulted the payment of N90 billion to subsidise the cost of the 2024 hajj pilgrimage by the federal government. Speaking in an interview on Channels Television on Thursday, Peterside said he has no personal issue with pilgrimage, noting that the religious tradition is a “privilege”. On Wednesday, Vice-President Kashim Shettima announced that President Bola Tinubu had approved N90 billion to subsidise the cost of the 2024 hajj pilgrimage. Shettima spoke during the 2024 inaugural hajj airlift at the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Airport in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi capital. Reacting to the development, Peterside said the federal government continues to make the mistakes of past administrations in terms of spending public funds. He said the federal government keeps saying it inherited a “difficult economy,” while its expenditure does not show the seriousness required to rescue the economy. “I have nothing against pilgrimage. Our economy is in big trouble. The government is trying to convince people that it inherited a difficult economy, and that is trying to correct the mistakes of the past,” he said. “It gets very worrying when you say you are trying to correct the mistakes of the past, and every now and then, you repeat another mistake of the past, thereby sending a conflicting signal. “That perhaps you are not serious about trying to correct all past mistakes. As soon as investors and everybody is about to take them very seriously they do something else that causes everybody to worry. “This is not the first item. It is one in a series. You remember the luxury SUV cars, jamboree trip to New York and Dubai, and supplementary budget that came out with items nobody understood why they were priority. It is part of the trend. “It is not about religious pilgrimage; it is a setback for the economy by sending the wrong signal. It is an own goal.”

  The federation account allocation committee (FAAC) says the three tiers of government shared N1.2 trillion in April. This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the FAAC meeting for May 2024 by Bawa Mokwa, director of press and public relations in the office of the accountant-general of the federation (OAGF), on Thursday. The figure represents an increase of N85 billion compared to the N1.12 trillion shared in March. FAAC said the allocation comprises distributable statutory revenue of N284 billion, distributable value-added tax (VAT) revenue of N466 billion, electronic money transfer levy (ETML) revenue of N18 billion, and exchange difference revenue of N438 billion. The committee said the total revenue of N2.1 trillion was available in the month of April 2024, adding that the total deduction for the cost of collection was N80 billion; total transfers, interventions and refunds was N903 billion. A gross statutory revenue of N1.2 trillion was received for April, representing N216 billion higher than the sum of N1.01 billion received in March. For VAT, the gross revenue was put at N500 billion, compared to N549 billion available in March — a difference of N48 billion. The communiqué confirmed that from the N1.2 trillion total distributable revenue, the federal government received N390 billion, states got N403 billion and the local governments received N293 billion. A total sum of N120 billion was shared with the benefiting states as 13 percent derivation revenue. From the distributable statutory revenue of N284 billion, the communiqué stated that the federal government received N112 billion, states got N56 billion and the local governments received N43 billion., while N71 billion was given to the benefiting states as derivation revenue. FAAC further said from the N466 billion distributable VAT revenue, the federal government received N69 billion, states received N233 billion and local governments got N163 billion. A total sum of N2.704 billion was received by the federal government from the N18 billion EMTL, states received N9 billion and local governments received N6 billion. According to the committee, out of the exchange difference revenue of N438 billion, the federal government got N205 billion, states got N104 billion, and N80 billion was handed to local governments. The sum of N48 billion was shared with the benefiting states as 13 percent derivation revenue. In addition, FAAC said oil and gas royalties, companies’ income tax (CIT), excise duty, petroleum profit tax (PPT), EMTL and CET Levies increased significantly in April. However, import duty and VAT recorded considerable decreases. FAAC also said the balance in the excess crude account (ECA) for April was $473,754.

  The speakers of Nigeria’s 36 state houses of assembly have supported the ongoing process by the national assembly to create state police. The speakers made their resolution known at the end of a meeting in Abuja on Thursday. The two chambers of the national assembly are working to amend some provisions of the 1999 constitution to include items such as state police. Last month, Kayode Egbetokun, inspector-general of police (IGP), said Nigeria is not “mature” for state police.   On February 15, the federal government set up a committee to explore the creation of state police in the country. Mohammed Idris, minister of information and national orientation, said President Bola Tinubu and governors have agreed on modalities for the concept. The minister added that a series of meetings would take place to determine the workability of a decentralised police force.

  Ola Olukoyede, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says some youths who trade in cryptocurrencies do not know that they are being used to fund terrorism in Nigeria. Olukoyede spoke on Wednesday during a multi-stakeholders’ national dialogue on preventing terrorism financing and violent extremism. The EFCC chair said some of the people who receive money to trade in cryptocurrencies do not know that their financiers are sponsors of terrorism. He added that some of the 1,146 bank accounts recently frozen by the anti-graft agency were conduits for terrorism funding. Advertisement “Some of you are aware of our activities in the area of investigating virtual currency trading and the likes of cryptocurrencies,” he said. “They are potential platforms to fund terrorism. A lot of us don’t understand that. Some of our discoveries during investigation of some of these platforms were mind boggling. “We thought Binance was a major one. Yes, it was. We are prosecuting them. But there are other platforms we have discovered. “They used some of these young men. Some of them don’t know that the people who gave them money to trade are people who fund terrorism.” The EFCC boss said there is a need to adopt technology in tracking money used to fund terrorism in the country. Olukoyede narrated how he was informed by a friend in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that dollar bills across the world can be tracked with technology. “It is important for us to adopt the use of technology,” he said. “I was comparing notes with an assistant director in the FBI — a friend of mine. He said: ‘My brother, from our systems in the US, we can track every printed dollar anywhere in the world’.” The EFCC boss added that Nigeria must get to that stage where technology can be deployed to track naira notes used for terrorism financing.

  The United Kingdom Home Office has told a retired 74-year-old Ghanaian man, Nelson Shardey who has lived in the UK for 42 years that he is not British. According to BBC, the Home Office asked him to wait another 10 years before he could stay permanently. Shardey, from Wallasey in Wirral, had for many years assumed he was officially seen as British, until he discovered otherwise in 2019.   He said he had paid taxes all his adult life, now faces paying thousands of pounds to stay and use the National Health Service (NHS). The 74-year-old is a retired newsagent who first arrived in the UK in 1977 to study accountancy, on a student visa that also allowed him to work. He said after a coup in his native Ghana, his family could no longer send him money for the fees. He took on a series of jobs, making Mother’s Pride bread and Kipling’s Cakes near Southampton, and Bendick’s Chocolate in Winchester, and said no-one ever queried his right to live or work in the UK. Shardey married a British woman and moved to Wallasey to run his own business, a newsagent called Nelson’s News. When that marriage ended, he married another British woman and they had two sons Jacob and Aaron. “I tried my utmost to educate them the best way I could, so that neither of them would depend on social or anything,” Shardey said. He told his sons to “learn hard, get a good job, and work for themselves”, and both went on to university and then careers as a research scientist and a public relations executive. Shardey said he had never left the UK, as he saw no need to and regarded it as his home. “Nobody questioned me. I bought all my things on credit, even the house. I got a mortgage. And nobody questioned me about anything,” he said. Shardey has performed jury service, and in 2007 was given a police award for bravery after tackling a robber who was attacking a delivery man with a baseball bat. But in 2019, when he applied for a passport so he could go back to Ghana following the death of his mother, he was told he was not British.