The Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 6, Usman Gomna, has ordered investigation into the abduction of a medical doctor, Nsidibe Umana and ex-Akwa Ibom senator, Nelson Effiong.
The AIG’s order is coming even as the command said that it had put in place a crack team to trail the abductors of the two victims.
Nelson Effiong, a former senator representing Akwa Ibom South Senatorial district, was abducted on Sunday, September 5, 2021 while relaxing in his sit-out along Oron Road; while the medical doctor was abducted in his compound in Orukaman Local Government Area of the state on Tuesday, September 14, 2021.
The AIG gave the charge on Friday while responding to a request by the chairman of the state chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association, Dr. Ime Sylvester Udoh, during a meeting with security stakeholders in the state.
Dr. Udoh had raised the alarm over the abduction of the medical doctor and had also called on the Police to rescue the victim alive.
Responding, the AIG said, “Before I came here, I have directed the CP of the command, Andrew Amiengheme, to intensify efforts to see how he can be rescued.”
He reiterated the commitment of the zone in tackling crime and criminality and called on stakeholders to continue to cooperate with the Police by revealing useful information that could help in tackling the crime rate in the states.
Speaking further on the kidnapped medical doctor, the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Police, Andrew Amiengheme, said a manhunt had already been put in place to effect the release of the doctor.
“Our men are in the field to ensure the release of that young doctor. Unfortunately, the abductors are asking for N20m and where will the family get that kind of money?
“That is part of the societal problems, and we are asking the stakeholders to quickly expose and not to give them a cover,” Amiengheme said.
On the abduction of the ex-senator, the CP said, “We’re very much on top of the situation. Care must be taken to protect his life in the first instance.
“We must not do anything that will jeopardise his life, a lot has been done, we are observing some restraints so that he is not killed and his perpetrators brought to book.”
A probe launched by the World Bank in respect of anomalies in the data used in preparing its Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports has revealed how senior staff of the lender manipulated data to favour China and Saudi Arabia and lower the ranking of Azerbaijan.
Findings by an independent investigator issued on Thursday showed Kristalina Georgieva, the then chief executive of the Washington-based multilateral lender who now heads the International Monetary Fund (IMF), heaped “undue pressure” on employees to boost China’s position on the Doing Business 2018 ranking.
Jim Yong Kim, then-President of the World Bank, also took part in the scheme, investigators found.
The World Bank’s ethics panel late August engaged a law firm WilmerHale to conduct an investigation into an alleged manipulation of the underlying data used for drafting the two contentious reports.
That has led the bank to discontinue the report, which ranked 190 economies based on ease of conducting business in them across parameters like investment laws, property rights, trading regulations and credit availability.
A 16-page report by the external investigator seen by PREMIUM TIMES spotlighted China and Saudi’s influence at the World Bank and Ms Georgieva’s judgement and that of Jim Yong Kim, then-president of the World Bank as a major cause of concern.
“In the month leading up to the publication of the report, outreach from senior Chinese officials to Bank leaders over the country’s ranking in Doing Business intensified. For example, President Kim discussed the report and China’s performance with a senior Chinese government official on September 12; the then-Executive Director (“ED”) for China met with members of the Bank’s East Asia & Pacific (“EAP”) Regional Office on September 14 to inform them that if China’s ranking improved “everyone” w[ould] be relieved” (and he made a personal plea to this effect to President Kim privately),” the document said.
“…on October 14, the same Chinese government official had dinner with CEO Georgieva, during which he emphasized CEO Georgieva’s role as “the responsible person” at the Bank to “ensure” that China’s reforms were acknowledged in the report.”
Meanwhile, the IMF chief said in a Thursday statement that she disagreed with the outcome of the inquiry, adding she had informed her organisation’s executive board.
“I disagree fundamentally with the findings and interpretations of the Investigation of Data Irregularities as it relates to my role in the World Bank’s Doing Business report of 2018. I have already had an initial briefing with the IMF’s Executive Board on this matter.”
WilmerHale noted “direct and indirect pressure” from senior employees in Kim’s office to manipulate the procedure of the report to strengthen China’s score on the ranking, stating it possibly happened at Kim’s behest.
The investigator’s report said Georgieva and Simeon Djankov, a senior staff at the bank, had mounted pressure on staff to “make specific changes to China’s data points” and shore up its ranking coming at a time when the World Bank was seeking China’s backing for a significant capital increase.
The position of China on the “Doing Business 2018” ranking issued in October 2017 climbed by seven places to 78th after the data procedure alterations were made.
Also the law firm’s investigation found Saudi Arabia’s improvement in Doing Business report 2020 was orchestrated with World Bank’s staff involvement.
The Doing Business unit in 2019 prepared a draft of its best reformers list for Doing Business 2020 with Jordan taking the lead and Saudi coming second.
Djankov, one of the founders of the Doing Business report, directed the Doing Business team to look for a means to change the data in a way that Jordan dropped from the first position on the list.
Djankov said the report would lose credibility if Jordan, which was encountering economic and social pressures at the time, stayed at the top spot.
He sent a staff to Jordan to establish whether the data that qualified Jordan for the prime position were correct confirmed they were genuine and legitimate.
Djankov would later seek a way to leapfrog Saudi Arabia over Jordan.
“In his interview, Djankov stated that the impetus for the change to Saudi Arabia’s data came from two officials in the MENA Vice Presidency, one of whom previously served as Chief of Staff to President Kim and was involved in the changes to China’s data in Doing Business 2018,” the findings document said.
“On September 30, the Doing Business team altered Saudi Arabia’s data in an effort to boost the country’s ranking past Jordan.”
Djankov would order the Doing Business team in August 2019 to examine Azerbaijan’s data on account of worries that the Azeri government improperly influenced the private sector contributors that provided the data to the team.
The Doing Business team’s scrutiny found Azerbaijan’s data accurate. But the country’s reforms were “frozen” or not counted in the final version of Doing Business 2020 at the order of Djankov.
The alterations lowered Azerbaijan’s score by almost two points, forcing it from the Top Reformers list.
“in addition to alterations made to three Azeri data points, Djankov also ordered a last-minute change to the methodology underscoring the Protecting Minority Investors (“PMI”) indicator, further damaging Azerbaijan’s score, as well as scores of numerous other countries.”
A former Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress chieftain in Lagos State, Joe Igbokwe, has lamented the defection of a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, to the APC as well as the decision of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to personally receive Fani-Kayode at the Presidential Villa.
Igbokwe said in a Facebook post that it was unfortunate that Buhari could give Fani-Kayode a hero’s welcome while those who had stood with him for years were never invited or given recharge cards.
The APC chieftain wrote, “Despite all my push for the APC, Abuja has not given me a phone call talk-less of inviting me for a coffee with c in c but here is a political charlatan and prostitute being given a red carpet in the seat of power, Abuja.
“APC reward enemies. They pamper enemies. This life no balance at all (sic).
“Please I am ok where I am today but I know countless number of APC diehards who are 100 per cent better than FFK. Nobody has remembered them. Not even a recharge card, not even a bottle of coke, not even thank you.”
Igbokwe said the party must understand the importance of ‘consequence management’.
He posted pictures of Fani-Kayode’s old posts insulting Buhari and embracing secessionists like Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra; and Sunday Igboho.
Igbokwe added, “In the APC we must learn consequence management. It takes discipline to build a nation and it takes indiscipline and impunity to crush and destroy a nation. Actions carry consequences.”
Fani-Kayode, who officially defected to the APC on Thursday, was one of the President’s fiercest critics and once described the ruling party as an evil association.
He once said he would rather die than join the party. His defection therefore came as a surprise to many Nigerians.
His defection has also not been widely received by many members of the APC.
A Political Adviser to the President, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, described Fani-Kayode’s defection as the “saddest day of my political career.”
The leadership of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has faulted the ruling of the National Industrial Court (NIC) directing its members to return to work.
A communique jointly signed by NARD President, Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, and the union’s Secretary-General, Dr Jerry Isogun, on Friday revealed that the doctors had begun the process to appeal the ruling.
“As we are all aware, especially those that were present in court today (Friday), the NIC has given a ruling on the application for interlocutory injunction filed by the Federal Government,” the statement said. “We are not satisfied with the ruling.
“After consultations with our lawyers, we have instructed our lawyers to appeal the ruling and file an application for stay of execution.”
The statement is in reaction to the ruling of Justice Bashar Alkali who ordered the resident doctors to suspend their ongoing industrial action and return to work immediately, pending the determination of the substantive suit.
Justice Alkali who ruled on an application by the government had also directed parties in the matter to return to the negotiating table, saying no amount of money could compensate for the loss of lives as a result of the impasse.
In demonstration of its displeasure with the decision of the court, NARD instructed its lawyers to file necessary processes, rather than ask members to return to their duty posts.
It also asked the doctors to remain calm and resolute, saying “everything depends on our firm resolve.”
“We are committed to protecting your rights within the confines of the law. We believe justice shall be ours ultimately,” the union told its members.
It stated that the court had reserved ruling on which application it would take first on Wednesday, and its lawyers argued that the court ought to hear and determine the Notice of Preliminary Objection (NPO) filed by the doctors to challenge the jurisdiction of the court before taking the application for an interlocutory injunction or any other application.
The union added that the court adjourned ruling on the argument on the matter until Friday, after which it ruled that it would take the government’s application for interlocutory injunction first while its NPO would be taken and determined along with the substantive suit.
“Also, our lawyers drew the attention of the court to our application for stay of execution of the ex parte order and that the court should take that application first. The court insisted that the government application would be taken first.
“On 15/9/21, the court ordered all parties to resume negotiations. The government refused to resume negotiations in line with the order of 23/8/21. Our lawyers reported this development to the court. We have demonstrated good faith and would continue to do so,” the statement said.
NARD accused the court of denial of a fair hearing by refusing to hear and determine its NPO before taking the government’s application for interlocutory injunction.
Yoruba socio-political group, the O’odua Peoples Congress, has accused a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, of being an agent of the Nigerian government among Yoruba Nation agitators.
The group made this known in a press statement by its Publicity Secretary, Yinka Oguntimehin, titled, “Defection: Be ready for more betrayers, OPC blasts Fani-Kayode says, “FG’s 4bn dollar loans have no economic value”, on Friday.
The OPC told Yoruba people to be ready to see many betrayers in the coming days, saying “more people like Femi Fani-Kayode abound within the South-West region”.
It described Fani-Kayode as a “political jobber with no ideology”, adding that he “has no measure of integrity”.
The organisation said the defection of the former aviation minister was “never a surprise because he had been romancing with All Progressive Congress stalwarts all over the country”.
Before rejoining APC, Fani-Kayode was one of the outspoken politicians in support of Yoruba Nation activist, Sunday Adeyemo, fondly called Igboho.
Also, Igboho had in a statement issued by his former media aide, Olayomi Koiki, in March 2021, said, “Chief Femi Fani Kayode is one of the stakeholders that identifies with us on the struggle of Yoruba Nation agitation. We have 100 per cent confidence in him (Fani-Kayode).”
OPC, however, urged Yoruba people not to be disappointed by the ex-minister’s move.
The statement partly reads, “You can’t trust a politician, Femi Fani-Kayode is just one out of the lot. He has no principle, and he is an agent of the government. So it is never a new thing to see him defecting from PDP to APC. Fani-Kayode has no measure of integrity and he is a political jobber with no ideology.
“Of what value is his defection to the APC? But the truth is Yoruba should be ready for more of Femi Fani Kayodes in our midst.”
The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari says it plans to appeal the judgment of an Oyo State High Court, which awarded N20 billion in damages against the Attorney-General of the Federation and the State Security Service in favour of Sunday ‘Igboho’ Adeyemo.
The AGF, Abubakar Malami, announced the regime’s decision to appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.
Yoruba Nation activist, Sunday Igboho, had sued the regime for N500 billion for violating his fundamental human rights following the SSS illegal invasion of his residence at the Soka area of the Oyo capital, Ibadan, on July 1, without an arrest warrant.
Igboho, in the suit filed by his lawyer Yomi Alliyu claimed his house and cars were damaged, and two occupants of the house killed by SSS operatives during the raid.
Malami’s lawyer had argued that there was no evidence before the court that the blood seen in the video clip tendered by Mr Alliyu belonged to a human being.
He also said nothing in the video showed the invaded house belonged to Igboho or linked the AGF with the invasion and had urged the court to disregard the exhibits and dismiss the entire suit.
Lawyer to the SSS, T. A. Nurudeen, aligned with the submission made by Malami’s lawyer. He insisted that there must be proof from a haematologist to show the blood in the video belonged to a human being.
Delivering his judgment, Ladiran Akintola, said the style and procedures adopted by the SSS during the raid was unprofessional and ruled that Mr Igboho had demonstrated his fundamental human rights were violated by the Buhari administration.
The judge also awarded N2 million as cost in favour of Igboho for instituting the case.
Malami says efforts were already in place to commence the process of appealing the judgment.
Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, said he cannot publicly mention those financing Boko Haram and other terrorism acts in Nigeria.
Earlier in the week, authorities of the United Arab Emirates listed six Nigerians among those funding terrorism. Asked about those funding terrorism in Nigeria on Channels TV, Bawa said he cannot discuss a sensitive national security issue on national television.
“If you are my adviser will you advise me to come on national television to tell the whole world regarding matters of sensitive national security issue?,” Mr Bawa asked. “Certainly, not. But what I want to assure you we are working tirelessly with other sister agencies to ensure that this country is free of terrorism.”
The Nigerian government had promised to publish names of those financing terrorism in the country. But has not kept its promise.
The Boko Haram insurgency has continued to ravage the country’s northeast corridor for more than a decade. While bandits have been deploying military-grade hardware to counter military offensive across the northwest.
Bawa, who caused a scare as he slumped while speaking at an event organised by National Identity Management Commission at the Villa earlier on Thursday, said he has returned to work after seeing his doctor.
“While giving my goodwill message during the program, I was a bit dizzy and I had to excuse myself from the stage,” Bawa told Channels TV on Thursday night. “And of course I went straight to the hospital where my doctor confirmed to me that everything about me is okay, except for the fact that I’m a bit dehydrated and I need to take a lot of water.”
He was Nigeria’s closest instance of the Renaissance Man: musician, sculptor, inventor, sportsman, architect, scholar, mythmaker, lay philosopher, folklorist, and culture ambassador/impresario. A true Jack of many trades who strove so hard to be master of all, he was a man of many capabilities , with a voice that was admirably polyphonic. His impulse was both idealistic and relentlessly pragmatic. Endowed with a vision that was acutely focused and seamlessly eclectic, he developed a practice that was proudly traditional and transgressively modern. This plural propensity, this borderless inter-connectedness are the defining characteristics of his vast artistic empire; for the rhyme and reason which power his music are but close cousins of the ones that energize his numerous undertakings, and the tempo of his countless dreams.
Victor Efosa Uwaifo was a doughty dreamer and daring doer whose operational philosophy was: do it different, do it new, do it well…. An artist of boundless curiosity and enormous energy, Uwaifo has blessed our world with works which ply the delicate interface between surrealism and realism, the doable and the done. How can one ever forget that sitting-room in his capacious Benin estate, shaped like a ‘sculpted’ airplane with its small oval windows and imaginary cockpit; or that salon car in his driveway fitted with a plane engine’s rotor blades instead of the usual automobile radiator fan – a feat which evokes telling intimations of the engineering experimentations of Professor Ayodele Awojobi, another Nigerian dreamer and doer?
From music to sculpture to engineering, and back to music again, and then you ask: where does Victor Uwaifo get his magic from? Just what is the secret behind his high-minded aspirations and multifarious achievements? Whence comes his pluck, then his pride? The answer to these questions is as clear as the Benin sky on a cloudless day: exemplary family pedigree coupled with the enabling influence of Benin culture, without doubt, one of the richest, deepest, and most resilient of its kind in the world. On every Uwaifo sculpture are fingerprints of ancient, unforgettable ancestors. In his very voice are tone-marks, reverberations, and echoes of maestros who sang when time was young and silence was golden. In the very air which sustains his being are the intimations and breaths of forebears who left but never departed. Uwaifo’s prodigious creativity had a soil to nurture its roots, a wind to spread its fame, a sky of limitless lore and sympathetic spaces to unfurl its wings. Our maestro never lost sight of his status as a vital link in this long chain of History and Culture, and his role as worthy legatee, inheritor, and propagator.
Siwo siwo siwo
Siwoooooooooooooo
Distinctively hearable in virtually every Uwaifo piece, therefore, is the riveting resonance of the Benin Song, its lungful laughter, its sorrowful tonality, its throbbing, threnodic intensity, its mythic memorability, its sombre reflectivity, the overwhelming force of its sonorous musicality that sometimes brings goose pimples to the listener’s body and/or tears to their eyes, the call-and-response rubric of the song which turns casual listeners into enthusiastic choral participants. As my father, himself an accomplished drummer and singer, used to say, you do not hear a Benin song with your ears; you hear it in your heart and your stomach, on its way to your mind.
The performative power and affective magic of this music genre took the Nigerian music scene by storm in the 1960’s, and many of us who encountered it in our early years have found it difficult to outgrow its stubborn ‘addictiveness’. There is just something in the seductive sonority of Uwaifo’s voice and riveting twang of his guitar that never leave the ears alone. Personally, a day hardly passes without my humming an Uwaifo tune, especially in the showers, or when I am at a knotty juncture in the creative process.
My first experience of Uwaifo’s magic occurred around Christmas in 1965 in that most famous of all cities, Ikere – Ekiti, at a party hosted by a fellow ‘Grammar School’ student, who happened to be a lovely princess of the reigning Oba. The party began on a happy, lively note as we teased the air with tunes by the leading highlife kings of the period: Rex Jim Lawson, Roy Chicago, Victor Olaiya, Eddy Okonta, Dele Ojo, I.K. Dairo. But just as our pleasure was heading towards a premature plateau, in came two colleagues who had just returned from Lagos where they had spent the first half of the Christmas holiday. They didn’t only come with a 45 RPM vinyl copy of a new Uwaifo record; they also came with a new way of dancing to it. As the stylus touched the glistening grooves , our overworked turntable erupted with Do Amen Amen Do. The atmosphere created by the new tune was nothing short of electric. The audience leapt to their feet, and the dance floor was filled to capacity. After three or four encores, the rave shifted to the flip side, and Eralo Gbengigialo took possession of the wind, then, the dancers.
The dance style imported from Lagos by my two colleagues was itself imported into Nigeria from Ghana. Kpanlogo, as it was called, was a drum-driven, gong-accentuated, rhythm-powered dance style thoroughly physical in its energetic joyousness and harmonious deployment of the entire body. Victor Uwaifo’s early music fitted so serendipitously into the kpanlogo dance pattern as if one had been invented for the other. To this day, I have never stopped wondering whether it was Kpanlogo which found Uwaifo, or if it was Uwaifo that went in search of Kpanlogo. But one thing is sure: with its vigorous danceability and rapturous rhythmicality, Uwaifo’s music demonstrates two of those characteristics so indigenous to Benin music in its social and spiritual realms. For over 10 years from the mid-sixties, Kpanlogo and Uwaifo’s music promoted each other in an interesting instance of mutual beneficence. Some of my colleagues still remember that bright afternoon in December 1965 when we encountered the Uwaifo magic for the first time, and how we became his lifelong fans and admirers.
Uwaifo’s music grew and developed over the years as new numbers dropped from his stable with melodious rapidity: Siwo Siwo; Oliha, Ebiss Ebiss, Sesese, Agege Ogigbo. The Maestro went from the fast-paced beats of the early days to the genteel, dancehall-like tempo of the likes of Joromi, the dramatic, myth-making narrativity of Guitar Boy, and the light, many-voiced rally of the Ekassa and Akwete series. The tribe of Uwaifo fans enjoyed an exponential increase. Gold discs (about a dozen of them) poured in as rewards of his genius. The nation welcomed a song type so modern in its traditional virtuosity.
Then, with his music career all set and steady, the man who all along had taught us so much about culture decided to go back to school himself. A fortunate University of Benin threw open its door to the Kingdom’s famous son and one of Nigeria’s most valued culture ambassadors. Student Uwaifo snapped up the B.A. with a dazzling First Class, followed up with an M.A., and topped it all up with a prestigious Ph.D. Thereafter, the University wasted no time in offering him a place as distinguished academic. Thus the life of Victor Uwaifo was a chronicle of aspirations searching, constantly searching, for fulfillment. Ever before his engagements at the University of Benin, our Melody Maestro was already a university person in sense and spirit; and his university was one with its universe securely steady and intact.
I saw Victor Uwaifo many times from a respectful distance, and he and I met only once. That was at the 1994 annual convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) which held at the University of Benin. Facilitated by the scholar-writer Asomwan Adagbonyin, that meeting, short as it was, brought me up close to the wit, charm, and easy manners of Nigeria’s Ultimate Maestro. Surprised and flattered by his open declaration before the ANA audience that he was dedicating his performance that night to me, I couldn’t help the onrush of powerful memories of that bright afternoon in December 1965 when I encountered his music for the first time. When I told him how much I admired the largeness of his soul and immensity of his gifts, his response came sharp and direct: ‘that admiration is mutual’. I was not sure if he ever knew how so deeply touched I was at his generous reply!
Siwo siwo siwo
Siwoooooooooooo
His personality was an example, his life story a parable. Here was a man with an unassailable belief that he could be whatever he chose to be. A practicing musician with a doctorate degree in Visual Arts; a practical philosopher who pondered the relationship between sound and light; a sculptor who conjured lifelike images out of clay and wood and bronze; a thinker who plumbed the deep structure of culture in tandem with its surface realities; a songmaster who deepened the mutual traffic between melody and memory; an archivist who never lost sight of the neglected Muse of the Nigerian museum; a proud man, ebulliently self-assertive, uncontainable by small spaces; a Guitar Boy who saw Mammy Water and never ran away; a Maestro who sang the endless song.
That was/is Victor Efosa Uwaifo: a culture-conscious, legacy- literate creative activist who has contributed so much to the restoration our cultural memory and propagation of our music. We hope Edo State in particular and Nigeria in general will reward his incredibly valuable life of dedication by making sure that his achievements never die, that his legacy endures. Let Nigeria banish her famous addiction to willful amnesia and ensure that the world does not forget the life and accomplishments of this remarkable man.
Rest in power, Victorious Uwaifo. Here below, that song which I sang for you many seasons ago when you were here with us on this side of the Great River:
FOR VICTOR UWAIFO
(In the background throughout, a medley of Uwaifo’s songs)
Siwo siwo siwo siwo…
Your voice nestles in the eaves of my memory,
Its red-earth vigour tremulous
Between sappy laughter and a silence
Which left its echoes in the larynx
Of throbbing legends
Wafting past the lyrical beauty of painted thresholds,
Through doors which breast the streets
Like defiant sentries, and shrines where once
Gods swayed through the portals of the sky,
Leaving their word and wand behind
Do Amen Amen dooooo
You sing of Dawn and mysty Stars
When Earth was music
And Rivers danced towards the Sea
With a chorus of capering minnows
Your melody came before the rhythm of the First Rain
Oh that haunting sonority,
That mellow magic in the elbow of a voice!
The guitar’s wailing incantations,
Rainbow drums which prompt
Every moment into an eternity of motions
Oserie….
So rivetting, the rhythm of your Red-Earth City
Rhythm of Clay, rhythm of Bronze
Rhythm of ancient hands proclaiming
Miracles of mask and meaning
Rhythm of the snail’s millennial sigh at Siloko Market
Echoing forests, pulse of the Panther
Skirted undergrowths dense with daring
And when my Hunter-Minstrel charged
His lips with a flute
Trees broke into a dance beyond recounting
Melody Maestro,
The universe glows in the melody of your magic;
Your athletic virtuosity, the prodigy of your gifts
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s information minister, has deflected blame for the poor image the country endures internationally on activities of the media.
The minister asserted “whatever image problem Nigeria is suffering from today is mostly due to the unflattering portrayal of the country by the country’s media”.
“If one picks up most newspapers, watches most television stations or listens to most radio stations in Nigeria today, he or she will be right to think Nigeria is a country at war,” Mr Mohammed said at the headquarters of the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday.
However, President Muhammadu Buhari has often drawn criticism for demarketing the country and its people before international media.
In 2018, Buhari, during an appearance with world leaders at a Commonwealth Business Forum in London, said the majority of Nigerian youth are lazy and uneducated.
In a recent interview with local broadcaster Arise News TV, Buhari doubled down on his belief that Nigerians are to be blamed for the country’s economic woes.
He told Arise interviewers that the youths should ‘behave themselves’ if they wanted jobs, as their criticism of his regime scares investors away from the country. He cited the #EndSARS protests which rocked the country in October 2020 as one of those activities that cast his regime in bad light.
In making the assertion, the president took no cognisance of his regime’s low human rights ratings and incoherent economic policy.
Mohammed said the media only gave perfunctory attention to the successes of the military in quelling separatist agitations in the South-East and South-West, and the current campaign against bandits in the North-West.
“Our security agencies have also successfully tackled the separatists in the South-East and South-West and the militants in the South-South.
“Unfortunately, these efforts have only been perfunctorily reflected in the reportage of the security challenges that we face.
“This is not only unfair, especially to those who are sacrificing their lives to keep us safe, it is unpatriotic,’’ he said.
Many of the military campaigns against self-determination groups have, however, been criticised by local and international rights bodies for blatant abuses.
Mohammed emphasised that the media must be fair in its reportage.
“We are not saying the media should not report on the security challenges we face.
“All we are saying is, be fair and report accurately the efforts being made by the State and Federal Governments to tackle the challenges,” he said.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has taken steps that appeared aimed at cracking down on AbokiFX, a popular forex publishing platform.
AbokiFX, which posts daily updates of the exchange rate on its website, was targeted in a letter CBN sent to commercial banks requesting transaction records of the website over an alleged breach of the National Intelligence Committee Act of 2004.
A spokesman for the CBN did not return requests seeking clarification about the move against AbokiFX throughout Thursday.
Nigerian media outlets have relied heavily on AbokiFX in recent weeks to publish frequent and steep crashing of the naira against American dollars at the so-called black markets.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has faced criticism perceived incompetence has led to naira’s depreciation.
The naira has depreciated considerably against the dollar over the past two weeks. From N525 per dollar on September 1, it closed at N570 on Thursday, according to AbokiFX.
