The Lagos State Police Command, on Tuesday, arrested popular musician, Habeeb Okikiola, popularly known as Portable, for refusing to pay the debt he incurred when he purchased G-Wagon from a car dealer in the state.   Portable, during the purchase of the vehicle worth N27m, paid only N13m and had refused to pay the N14m balance. It was learnt that whenever the car dealer contacted him to pay the balance, he usually claimed that the vehicle was bad. When efforts to get Portable to pay the balance proved abortive, our correspondent gathered that the car dealer reported the matter to the police and policemen detailed to investigate the case arrested Portable. When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed that Portable had been arrested. He said, “Yes, Portable has been arrested. He bought G-Wagon for N27m, paid N13m and refused to pay the rest, claiming the vehicle was bad. We arrested him today

  The federal executive council (FEC) has approved the establishment of a tripartite committee to review the visa approval process for foreign investors and tourists. Speaking at the end of the extended FEC meeting on Tuesday, Mohammed Idris, minister of information and national orientation, said President Bola Tinubu approved the setting up of the committee to accelerate visa processes and acquisition for foreigners interested in investing in Nigeria. Idris said the government envisages reducing the approval time for visas to 48 hours, adding that the development will attract more investors and tourists into the country. “Our visa processes are becoming cumbersome…The ease of doing business is also tied to our visa processes,” the minister said.   “Going forward, those investors, and tourists will find it easy to acquire a visa within the next 48 hours. “The new visa processing time will now be ready within 48 hours and will eliminate human contacts. “The issue is to ensure that the government fast-track the ease of doing business.”

  The lawyer to six Cameroonian professors teaching in Nigerian universities and four others, Barr Joseph Fru, on Tuesday said his clients were illegally imprisoned by the Cameroonian authorities. The family members of the detained professors had petitioned the House of Representatives to help secure their release after being allegedly abducted from Nigeria and imprisoned in Cameroon since January 2018. The petitioners, all of Cameroonian nationality, of which the others include refugees and asylum seekers, said they were all legally resident in Nigeria. They stated that they were illegally abducted and deported from Nigeria on January 5th 2018 to Cameroon, on “frivolous allegations of plotting to destabilize the government of La Republique du Cameroon (LRC) President Mr. Paul Biya.” They petitioned that they were unfairly tried and incarcerated. In their petition submitted to the House Committee on Public Petitions by their lawyers, they said two separate judgments in Nigeria had been ruled in their favour connection with the matter. They stated that despite the judgement by Nigerian courts that their arrest and deportation were illegal hence they should be released and compensated financially, they were still being held at the Kondengui Security Detention facility in Cameroon. They also added that in October 2022, the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN-HRC-WGAD) in Communication 59/2022 of 14th October 2022, found their arrest and detention by Nigeria and Cameroun arbitrary and illegal and it had asked both countries to unconditionally free the victims and pay them appropriate compensation. At the penultimate hearing of the matter before the House Committee on Public Petitions a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Manu, had said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no record if this petition. He had said their findings revealed the matter was handled by the government as a security and legal matter. Briefing reporters after another hearing on the matter on Tuesday, Fru said said they were optimistic by the intervention of the legislature in resolving the matter. Fru, who was in the company of family members of those affected, said however rued that the representative of the United Nations and relevant agencies of the Nigerian government were missing at the hearing. He said those who failed to turn up included the Attorney General of the Federation, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, UN High Commission Country Representative, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Intelligence Agency and the Department of State Services (DSS) He said, “There is a clarification that we need to make that is fundamental and cardinal. They were abducted. They were not arrested. When you say someone is arrested, there is a legal course for them to be picked up by the forces of law and order. And in a normal arrest situation, you have probable cause that you are being suspected of committing a crime and before you get to that point, there has to be a procedure you follow to get either an arrest warrant or search warrant that may lead to their apprehension. “But when someone arbitrarily without any legal course is picked up and then held for as long as they were held in Nigeria before being sent to Cameron that is called an abduction. “An abduction does not end when we know where they are. That illegal act continues and abides with them until that illegality is cured. And to this point that illegality has not been cured and that is why we are still in prison. “The second thing is that they were not repatriated. You repatriate someone when you go through a legal channel and you exhaust all the legal processes and the court decides that they go back to where they came from to answer in that jurisdiction. Before you repatriate someone there has to be bilateral treaty that is observed. None of that in this case. “We adjourned for 11 June 2024 because the committee is not happy with the fact that the last time they were elements of the government of the executive arm that were required to be at the hearing but none of them showed up. “So motions were moved and it was adopted that these entities should necessarily appear in the next hearing so that resolution to this can be taken. In the event they do not show up, the committee is ready to move forward. How they move forward depends on their deliberation and that is above my pay grade. “The Chairman said they were going to give these entities a last chance to appear so they can have enough information to go by and come up with a resolution.”

  A London based Nigerian-British boxer, Sherif Lawal, has died of head injury sustained during his professional debut. The 29-year-old was knocked down by a blow to the head from Portuguese opponent Malam Varela in the fourth round of a scheduled six-round middleweight fight on Sunday at Harrow Leisure Centre, London, the UK. According to CBS, the referee waved it off to allow paramedics to attend to Lawal, and was rushed to hospital but died. The British Boxing Board of Control commiserates with Lawal’s family, adding that his demise was tragic. “The British Boxing Board of Control sends their condolences to the family of Sherifdeen Lawal following his tragic passing after his Boxing contest on Sunday,” the board posted on social media on Monday. “The thoughts of all those involved in Boxing in Great Britain are with them at this difficult time,” the BBBC added. Also, Warren Boxing Management wrote on social media: “We would like to send our condolences to all of Sherif’s family, friends, coaches and all those close to him at this tragic time.”

  Google on Tuesday said it would introduce AI-generated answers to online queries made by users in the United States, in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years. “I’m excited to announce that we will begin launching this fully revamped experience, ‘AI overviews,’ to everyone in the US this week,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said at an event in California.

  The Federal Government has suspended the controversial cybersecurity levy on electronic banking transactions. Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation Mohammed Idris disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday. He said the policy is undergoing a review. “The position of the government is that that policy has been suspended. It has been put on hold. That is the position of the government for now. It is undergoing some form of review. It was reiterated in council (FEC meeting) yesterday. You know that today’s council (meeting) is a continuation of the council meeting of yesterday,” the minister said. “So, I can tell you that the cybersecurity levy has been put on hold. It is being reviewed by the government.” The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on May 6 mandated banks, mobile money operators, and payment service providers to implement the levy as contained in the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) (Amendment) Act 2024. With the development, all electronic transactions were expected to attract a levy of 0.5 per cent. The money was to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund overseen by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA). But the move was greeted with outrage, prompting calls for its suspension. Last week, the House of Representatives asked the CBN to withdraw the circular directing financial institutions to commence implementation of the 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy, describing it as “ambiguous”. The development was in response to a motion on the urgent need to halt and modify the implementation of the cybersecurity levy moved by Kingsley Chinda. According to the Green House, the CBN is to withdraw the initial circular, and “issue a more understandable one”.

  Residents of Atiku Abubakar Way in Uyo metropolis, Akwa Ibom, woke up early Tuesday morning to behold the tragic incident involving the alleged murder of a girl (name withheld ) by her lover simply identified as Elisha, a 25-year-old man. It was gathered that the incident happened at about 7 am in a residential compound near the popular Beaulah International Nursery and Primary Schools along Atiku Abubakar Way in the Uyo metropolis. Though the reason for the dastardly act could not be ascertained at press time, our correspondent reports that the tragic incident took residents of the environs by surprise as a crowd of sympathizers thronged the scene blocking the double lanes and impeding the free flow of traffic. When this reporter visited the scene, it was observed that the corpse of the victim and the suspected killer had already been taken to the police headquarters at Ikot Akpan Abia, while armed policemen were seen trying to calm down the situation. A source, who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent that the unfortunate incident happened when the suspect who lives in the compound came home with his girlfriend said to be a nurse. The source added that they got into the room and a few minutes later they were heard beating each other as both of them were struggling. The source said, “An aged woman in the compound on hearing the shouts went and advised the boy to stop the beating but he refused. Since we couldn’t do anything, we called the father who lived away from the area to come and control the situation. “The boy, on sighting the father in the compound jammed the door against them and they raised the alarm to invite other people for rescue. “Before others could arrive at the compound, the boy had already killed the girl and cut her into pieces and went into hiding in the ceiling of the room, where the police came to bring him down for arrest.” Meanwhile, the Akwa Ibom State Police Command said it had commenced investigation into the alleged murder. The Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Timfon John, who confirmed the incident said the suspect has been arrested. “The suspect has been arrested and the command has commenced investigation into the murder already and in the next couple of days we will unravel the matter,” the command’s spokesperson told our correspondent on Tuesday.

  Justice Abiodun Akinyemi of Ogun State High Court, Abeokuta, on Monday, sentenced 47-year-old secondary school teacher, Ojo Ezekiel, to life imprisonment after being convicted of raping a seven-year-old minor in the Ogun State capital. Ojo Ezekiel, who was first arraigned on July 1, 2022, was convicted on a sole count of rape contrary to section 3 (1) and punishable under section 3 (2) of the violence against persons (prohibition) law of Ogun State 2017. Ezekiel is said to be a teacher in the secondary school, which shares the same compound as the primary school that the seven-year-old attended. The prosecuting counsel, Mr Olusegun Olaotan, had told the court that while the victim’s mother was bathing her seven-year-old daughter, she observed that something was wrong with her private part. THE ROUND TABLE: Cybersecurity Levy And The Tinubu’s Many Polocies0.00 / 0.00 The seven-year-old, however, after persistent questioning, revealed to her mother how she was sexually abused by the convict Olaotan, in his final submission, said, “While giving her evidence in court, the second prosecution witness (PW2), who is the victim, said that the defendant used to pull aside her pant before inserting his finger into her vagina. “Evidence of the third prosecution witness (PW3) (medical doctor) corroborates that of the second prosecution witness. She testified that in the course of examining the (PW2), she discovered that the hymen of the PW2 was not intact. it was opened by 2cm.” He said that PW2 evidence is corroborative of the fact that she was sexually abused indeed, and the same was further corroborated by exhibits two and three as well as the evidence of (PW1), the mother of the child who noticed while bathing her that something was wrong with her private part. Olaotan further revealed that the victim mentioned the name of the defendant as the only person who repeatedly four times inserted his finger into the private part of the under-age girl The victim reportedly told the court that the defendant usually carried out this heinous crime inside his car, parked under a tree after school hours, after which he would instruct the victim not to tell anyone, or else she would be beaten. Olaotan thereafter urged the court to go ahead and punish the defendant for his misdeeds as evidence before the court was quite overwhelming and weighty enough to hold that the defendant was guilty of rape and should be convicted accordingly. Justice Abiodun Akinyemi said the prosecuting counsel had established the case of rape against the accused and thereafter sentenced him to life imprisonment.