Nigeria could save N3.2trn by switching govt payments from cash to digital - Lagarde

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says Nigeria could save as much as $9 billion (N3.24 trillion) by shifting government payments from cash to digital systems.

Speaking in Ethiopia on Friday, Lagarde said 1.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) could be saved via the digitisation of the country’s payment systems.

Lagarde also said she was very excited to meet the head of Andela, a tech company domiciled in Nigeria, and solving problems across the world.

“IMF analysis in our recently published book, Digital Revolutions in Public Finance, shows that across the developing world, countries could save around one percent of GDP by updating their government payment systems from cash to digital,” she said.

“In some places in Africa the potential is even higher. In Nigeria, for example, we estimate that a government move to digital payments could save between 5 to 9 billion U.S. dollars, or about 1.7 percent of GDP.

“When governments put technology into practice millions of people can be helped. Think of Sierra Leone. During the Ebola outbreak, some emergency responders had to leave their patients for days to go and collect payments from a regional office.

“By introducing a mobile wallet system, the government was able to save lives and better allocate resources where they were needed the most.”

She said “the potential to help reduce corruption, increase revenues, and generate investments in health and education means digital tools could be a decisive factor in meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The voice of the IMF will be part of that process”.

Speaking of Andela, she said: “In October at our Annual Meetings, I was excited to meet the head of a company called Andela that considers Africa ‘home to the largest untapped talent pool’ and is training and matching African workers to help U.S. companies fill shortages in tech jobs such as programming.”

“When I travel in Africa, I never worry that the dreams of the next generation are not big enough. They are. The only question is how can we help create the environment where those dreams will have a chance to come true.” - Cable Nigeria

PL title race not over - Nemanja Matic

Matic says Manchester United are not out of the title race, but admits they must win almost every game for the rest of the season to catch Manchester City.

Man Utd's 2-1 defeat by rivals City on Sunday left them 11 points behind the Premier League leaders with just 16 games played.

Many have been writing City's rivals off, such is the dominance of Pep Guardiola's unbeaten side, but Matic says there is a long way to go yet.

He told Soccer Saturday: "The gap is big, obviously 11 points is a lot, but the league is not finished. I'm sure there will be very interesting games until the end, and of course that they will drop some points. We will see what will happen.

"As I say there are still many games to play and I think that we are not out of the title race. If we want to catch them, we have to win almost every game.

"But as we know, and as everyone knows, in the Premier League it is not always possible to win every game, but we will try to do that.

"Obviously we are still in the title race. We also have the cups, we are in the knockout stages of the Champions League, so Manchester United is going game by game to be in there."

Midfielder Matic, who signed for United from Chelsea in the summer, says United can do big things in the near future, with many young players still improving.

"I think we have a good team, we are second in the table, which is not bad. Obviously we are 11 points from first but we are improving.

"We will see. It's difficult to say anything more because I am only four months in the club, and I am happy with how the team is doing.

"We have many young players, playing and improving with the team, and I'm sure in the future we can do big things."

Matic's midfielder partner Paul Pogba has been missed in parts this season due to injury, and the Serbian admits that while he gives them something special, there are worthy replacements for the Frenchman.

"He's a very important player for us, he always brings some extra quality to our team. So of course we miss him, but we also have some very important players to substitute him.

"Obviously when he comes back, for sure we are going to be stronger because as you know he has a lot of quality and he is very important to the club." - Sky

As migrants flee for Canada, fears are rising over the perils of frigid illegal crossings

Chad Cosley tracks them as if they were deer.

He looks for footprints and frequently checks his network of trail cameras, which had been documenting wildlife along the U.S.-Canada border but now also capture would-be refugees fleeing the United States under President Trump.
"I was up there hunting just on November 4, and we had fresh snow," said Cosley, 45, who owns a parcel delivery service. "The following morning, we had four sets of footprints walking all the way up to the border with Canada, and there was a glove laying there on the ground — brand new, with perfume on it — so it was definitely a gal."

Since the start of the year, more than 1,000 people have made similar journeys through this tiny community in far northwestern Minnesota in an attempt to enter Canada by avoiding official border crossings,part of a nationwide surge as Trump advances his campaign pledge to make life uninviting for undocumented immigrants and some aspiring refugees. The exodus, also playing out in border towns in the Northeast that lead to Quebec and Ontario, is rattling local officials on both sides of the border who are now angry about being shoved onto the front lines of America's divisive immigration debate.

A Ghanaian woman's body was found in a ditch near this small Minnesota town in May. She was an asylum seeker who succumbed to hypothermia while trying to cross the border. Residents fear there will be calamities in coming months as travelers encounter winter here, when a frigid northwestern wind scours barren fields separating Minnesota from Canada's Manitoba province, making the traverse through blizzards and across frozen swamps a harrowing and life-threatening trip.

The concern has intensified, with county officials publicly calling on the Trump administrationand Canada to waive a policy that prevents would-be refugees from passing through official border crossings. That plea has been met with silence.
Although rural Minnesota overwhelmingly supported Trump in last year's election, some residents are troubled by his hard-line immigration policies, given the impact on their towns.

"For us, it's a shocker to see these people wandering around," said Leroy Clow, 73, a retired farmer and electrician. "It's nice-dressed families — like they could be your neighbor — but they are scared and don't know what else to do."
According to the Canadian government, 9,335 people made asylum claims at land ports of entry between January and October, including those picked up after crossing the border from the United States at unauthorized locations. That is more than double the average of annual claims made from 2011 through 2016.

Counting asylum requests at airports, marine terminals and immigration offices, the Canadian government processed more than 41,000 applications this year through Oct. 31, nearly double the total processed in all of 2016.
The influx overwhelmed Canadian immigration authorities, who scrambled to open temporary shelters during the summer, including briefly converting part of Montreal's Olympic Stadium into temporary housing.

By hiking through rural communities, the migrants to Canada are largely bypassing a 2002 agreement between the United States and Canada that was designed to manage movement between the countries.
The Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement requires migrants to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, unless they are minors or have family ties at their next destination. The agreement means those who try to cross from the United States into Canada at official border posts are turned away; a loophole permits asylum claims to be made by individuals who enter Canada covertly.

The journey to Canada

For many migrants fleeing the Midwest, the fields here in Kittson County, Minn., have become the favored entry into Canada. Just west of the county line, Interstate 29 in North Dakota leads to an official border crossing.
After arriving by car from cities across the Midwest, asylum seekers drive on the highway to the last exit before the Canadian border, Pembina, N.D.

From there, some follow the twisting Red River on foot about five miles north into Canada. Others wander through Kittson County farms and marshes until they arrive near St. Vincent, which has a population of just 64, or here in Noyes.
Noyes has a railroad yard but is largely abandoned. There are just three inhabited houses — two of which are owned by one family, according to local residents. But the town abuts Emerson, Canada, once a bustling entryway to the Canadian frontier but now home to just 700 residents.

Crossing the border illegally here is perilous, especially at night and during the winter. If migrants do not align their planned route to lead directly into Emerson, a city of just eight square miles, they could wander for days in vast, desolate stretches of the Canadian prairie, authorities said.
The Ghanaian woman who died near Noyes this year apparently became disoriented in a field and stumbled into a drainage ditch, according to the Kittson County Sheriff's Office. The 57-year-old woman had been living illegally in the United States and was trying to reunite with relatives in Toronto, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

In December 2016, a truck driver in Manitoba province found two men from Ghana wandering along a highway and suffering from frostbite. The men, each of whom had to have several fingers amputated, told Canadian media that their U.S. visas had expired and that they feared the Trump presidency.

Doug Johnston, a council member and firefighter in the combined Canadian municipality of Emerson-Franklin, said local rescue squads now are called out several times a month after receiving emergency calls from lost or disoriented asylum seekers.
"It seems the worse the weather, the more people we can get," said Johnston, noting that temperatures can drop to minus-20 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. "They are calling 911, but it can get so cold their phones go dead."
He said that families sometimes become separated as they cross the border.

"We are not always finding them together, but we seem to eventually catch up and find them," Johnston said, pausing to look out over a snowy field extending beyond the line of sight. "At least to my knowledge."
Many of those fleeing to Canada are Africans or Haitians, according to local officials.
The outflow of Haitians began late last year, when community concerns first surfaced that Trump was going to rescind temporary residency permits issued in the wake of Haiti's 2010 earthquake.
The Department of Homeland Security this month finalized the policy change ending temporary protected status for an estimated 60,000 Haitians but set an 18-month window for them to depart voluntarily.

Temporary protected status for more than 370,000 people from Honduras, Nepal, El Salvador, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen remains in place, although the Department of Homeland Security has signaled that those groups' protected status is under aggressive review. Temporary protection for 263,000 citizens of El Salvador could expire as soon as March.

U.S. and Canadian officials say the rate of asylum seekers crossing the border into Canada appears to have slowed in November and so far this month. But local officials in this sparsely populated area and activists from immigrant-heavy communities say they fear the slowdown might be temporary.
Abdullah Kiatamba, executive director of African Immigrant Services in suburban Minneapolis, said such worries are well founded as U.S. policy shifts.

"A lot of people are concerned and think that it's better in Canada, and they can create a new life instead of waiting hopelessly and endlessly that something will change here," Kiatamba said. "There are three layers to this — a new anti-immigrant bias, unpredictably and the trauma of waiting to see if there will be more cancellations" of protected status.
Jacques LeBlanc, president of the Haitian American Community Association in Chicago, said thousands of Haitians now live "day by day."
"Everyone is leaving their options open . . . like a bird," LeBlanc said. "What does a bird do? When it's cold, they migrate someplace warmer."

One 48-year-old woman crossed the border into Quebec this spring with her husband, son and brother after they said local police and federal immigration agents began harassing undocumented immigrants in suburban Atlanta. She had been living in the United States for 13 years.
"When Trump first got elected, all the police would go around to the apartments and say, 'Come over here,' banging on the doors," said the woman, who is Honduran and asked not to be identified while her case for protected status in Canada is pending. "I got scared and scared for my son."
So she paid someone $600 to drive her to the Canadian border, she said.

" I am hoping here in Canada, I can live without fear, and in peace, and nobody is going to look for me," she said.
'I didn't vote for Trump for this'
Worried about the safety of the migrants, local officials in Kittson County and Emerson-Franklin sent a joint letter in August asking Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Minnesota's congressional delegation and U.S. and Canadian immigration and border patrol agencies to address the matter.

The letter said the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement should be suspended so that migrants can claim asylum at official border crossings.
"Our woods have large populations of wolves and bears, which could present a danger to those wandering around," the letter said. "Correcting this problem should easily be within the power of both federal governments."
Officials in both municipalities said they have not received a response.

"We don't know why they ­haven't gotten back to us," said Betty Younggren, chair of the Kittson County Board of Commissioners. "This is a whole new subject for us, and it was very surprising for us . . . and we just don't want these people to suffer."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to address the letter directly but said in a statement that it advises that all border crossings occur at official ports of entry, suggesting that all other travelers will be stopped.

"If it is determined that the subject being questioned has valid immigration status, the subject is released and is allowed to continue with their travels," the agency statement said.
But Eric Christensen, Kittson County's administrator, worries that tens of thousands of people could decide to flee north if the Trump administration starts deporting Haitians or removes protected status from others.

"I don't think there is enough of Haiti left to suddenly hold 60,000 people, so Canada is the only option for the people pushed off," Christensen said. "And if he ever pulls the protection for Honduras or El Salvador, we would have a flood."

Tom Denton, executive director of Hospitality House Refugee Ministry in Winnipeg, Canada, which has mentored and cared for some of the asylum seekers crossing the border from Minnesota, said that forecasting future arrivals "all depends on what's happening in the United States."

American "politics is so volatile right now, every day we wonder what is going to happen next," Denton said, adding that he thinks the Canadian government ultimately will grant asylum to about half of the refu­gee claimants who recently fled the United States.
Here in northwestern Minnesota, the prospect of even more-heated debates over immigration policy is dividing local residents.

Once a Democratic-leaning county, Kittson went for Trump in last year's election by more than 20 points after voters here concluded that he was more attuned to rural American concerns about population loss and stagnant local economies, residents said. Kittson County has lost half of its population since 1960; it now has 4,300 residents.
But at the Chale's Oil service station, where locals gather to socialize while buying gas for farm equipment and waiting to have tires replaced on trucks and tractors, some residents wondered whether Trump's immigration crackdown has gone too far.

"Some of them have been here so long, and they have families," said Matt Chale, 27, whose father owns the century-old service station. "Why would you take the dad away from kids and send him to Mexico? That is just wrong, and I didn't vote for Trump for this."

Shane Stewart, who owns a 500-acre farm nearby and also voted for Trump, is not as sympathetic.
"I can't even figure out why we have all of these refugees, or whatever you call them, and I am not in favor of them being here," Stewart said.
Johnston said Canadians want to be neighborly but worry that unpredictable policy in Washington will keep manifesting itself in migrant flows through their sugar beet and wheat fields.

"Is it going to stop tomorrow? Is it going to stop five years from now?" said Johnston, noting that various studies estimate 11 million to 12.5 million undocumented immigrants are living in the United States. "Are they all coming to Canada? What if even 1 percent comes?" - The Washington Post

Mousa Dembele hits the jackpot after finding £1million worth of TREASURE in his hotel cellar

Tottenham star Mousa Dembele has hit the jackpot after discovering £1million worth of treasure in his new hotel cellar.

The Belgian ace is set to open the accommodation called De Gulde Schoen - The Golden Shoe - in Antwerp, the city of his birth.

Dembele instructed archaeologists to give the 700-year-old premises a check before the rebuild.

And the 30-year-old is quids in after they found 18th-century porcelain, glass, pottery and tableware.

The Spurs star's sister Assita co-owns the property.

She said: "This is something unique, and it fits perfectly with the building's historic past."

Some of the items are expected to be put on display at the hotel, with the rest given to local museums.

"We found the items in a closed-off area in the cellar. It was pure chance, as the space did not match the building plan," added Antwerp city archaeologist Tim Bellens.

"The Dembele family want to build a spa and swimming pool in the basement, and invited us to look at it first.

"It is unclear why and how the items got there, but maybe it was stuff the owners wanted to get rid of.

"The building seems to have been a high-class tavern or hotel in the past."  - Mirror UK

PENGASSAN begins strike Monday as peace parley ends in stalemate

The Petroleum  and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is set to embark on indefinite strike beginning from Monday, following a stalemate in the peace meeting the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr Emmanuel Kachikwu, brokered between the union and Neconde Energy Limited.

PENGASSAN and Neconde have been embroiled in crisis over allegation of anti-worker practices.

PENGASSAN, the umbrella body of senior workers in the oil and gas sector, alleged that the management of Neconde wrongly terminated the employment of some of its workers, threatening to go on strike if the sacked workers were not recalled within 72 hours.

The matter caused Kachikwu to initiate a meeting between the two warring bodies in Abuja during the week, but the meeting ended in a deadlock.

In a release signed by PENGASSAN Public Relation Office, Fortune Obi, and made available to The Nation yesterday, PENGASSAN said it would embark on industrial action on Monday.

Obi said: “Following the failure of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, to settle the rift between this body (PENGASSAN) and Neconde, the management of PENGASSAN has agreed to start the strike on Monday night (December 18th, 2017).

“Prior to the strike, PENGASSAN will hold an emergency Central Working  Committee (CWC) meeting on Monday morning, which will be followed with announcement of strike on the night of Monday.’’

The union said it has put its workers across the country on standby for the strike, adding that nothing whatsoever would stop the body from starting the strike by midnight on Monday.

PENGASSAN’s Lagos Zonal Chairman, Abel Agarin, had in a communiqué said it would not tolerate any act of victimization against any of its members.

He said the union’s position was that the termination of employment of some workers by Neconde was unlawful, as it was not in line with equity, good conscience and industrial relations best practices and extant labour laws. - The Nation

Soldiers killed Fela, not AIDS – Laide, ex-wife

Laide Anikulapo-Kuti, one of the estranged wives of late afrobeat legend, Fela Anipolakuti has revealed what actually killed the iconic singer.

Laide, also known as Nee Babayale, made this revelation while speaking at an event ‘Fela and The Kalakuta Queens’, held at Terra culture in Lagos during the week.

She refuted reports that the icon died of AIDS in 1977.

According to her, Fela died from several beatings of soldiers not from AIDS as reported.

She said “Fela did not die of AIDS. I still wonder what gave them that impression.

“What killed Fela was the beating he received from soldiers for many years. He was always in pain because of the beatings and that affected his health seriously.

“I totally disagree that Fela died of AIDS.

She further disclosed that not much is being done to immortalize Fela.

“It is only Bolanle Austin Peters that is doing anything to honour him and his wives. Apart from her, there is no other person doing that.

“It is only the children that are doing Felabration and they are just doing it for their own pocket; it is not for us. Bolanle is honouring Fela today because she knows and appreciates what Fela stood for. I don’t know how old she was when Fela was alive, but she is still celebrating Fela after 20 years, a time when everybody has forgotten about us.

“When Bolanle called me and said she wanted to celebrate us, I was like ‘why, who are we?’ May God bless her soul for remembering the women that stood and fought with Fela? Since Fela died we have been completely forgotten. Bolanle really gave us honour.” - Daily Post

Man arrested for flogging 65-year-old neighbour to death

Niger State Police Command on Thursday arrested one Garba Tukura, 49, for allegedly murdering his neighbor, Musa Wassa, 65.

The man, who hails from Zazzaga Village in Munya Local Government Area of Niger State, was said to have allegedly killed Wassa during a heated argument.

The Public Relations Officer for the police command, Peter Sunday, who confirmed the incident to reporters, said Tukura in the heat of an argument, flogged Wassa with an engine belt.

“Wassa slumped and was immediately rushed to a hospital, where he was discovered to be comatose and later died.

“Following a report of the incident, operatives attached to the Sarkin Pawa division of the command arrested Tukura,” said Sunday.

However the Police PRO said the suspect confessed to the crime and had been charged to court.

Jungle republic : How policemen barged into Lagos home after midnight and whisked away father of two

At a time of an ongoing outrage to stop police brutality in Nigeria, policemen attached to the anti-kidnapping/cultism squad of Lagos police command, barged into some houses on Ogati street in  Fadeyi area of Lagos in the early hours of Thursday.  

TheCable learnt that the policemen forced their way into at least five houses, while people were arrested from their sleeping beds.
A woman whose husband was picked up in the raid narrated the encounter
“At about 4:30am on Thursday, my husband, Rauf Yusuf and my two sons were asleep when heavy knocks hit our door,” Tayo Yusuf, a mother of two whose husband was arrested told TheCable when the newspaper visited the area Thursday afternoon.

“We had thought it was an armed robbery attack, but a voice shouted behind the door that they were policemen and they would blow the door open if we did not open that moment.
“The policemen had jumped over the fence to get access to our building because at the time, 4:30am, our gate was still under lock.”
The family panicked, but Yusuf pulled the courage to open the door.

“About six heavily armed policemen entered, with their bodies reeking of alcohol and cigarette. My two sons were up, crying and one of the policemen hit the youngest, a boy of 5, with the door. I attempted to protest this, but one of them threatened to shoot me, aiming his muzzle at me.”
The policemen reportedly demanded to search the house and they were not obstructed even when a warrant to search the Yusufs’ home was not shown them.

“They searched every corner and they found nothing,” Yusuf explained to TheCable.
The woman said one of the policemen who appeared to be the team leader asked who Lukman was. She said her husband told them he is not the one answering Lukman, giving them his name as Rauf Yusuf.
The husband then told his wife to help him get his ID card from the bedroom for the policemen to confirm his name but before his wife returned to the scene, he had been whisked away.
“He was in boxers, and I had my night wrapper on,” she said.

By 7am, Yusuf ran to the anti-kidnapping/cultism squad’s office in Surulere where her husband has been detained. She was not allowed to go beyond the gate as she was continually harassed by policemen stationed at the gate.
“Tell me why my husband was picked in the middle of the night in such an inhumane manner,” Yusuf cried.
The policemen, however, shrugged, telling her that her cry was meaningless if she did not ‘know the right thing to do.’

With a family member who had joined her, they were threatened with arrest should they continue asking the police why her husband was arrested.
Yusuf who had submitted a petition to the Lagos state office of the public defender had demanded that her husband be released.
“Rauf Yusuf, my husband, 34 years old, has never been involved in any criminal activity since I know him, more than a decade now,” she wrote in the petition seen by TheCable.
“He works at a private company around Surulere.”

When TheCable visited the police anti-kidnapping/cultism squad where Yusuf was being held, the investigating police officer (IPO) and the officer in charge (OC) of the squad were not available.
“Go and meet the force PRO now,” one of the policemen stationed at the gate, with a furious tone, told TheCable’s correspondent.

Sources around the police station explained that what the police need is money, and those arrested will be freed. “One of those guys brought here has been freed with just N10, 000,” a source said.
When contacted through his telephone line, Okosun Odion, a chief superintendent of police who is the squad’s OC could not make any comment.
“Please, come to my office and see something,” he repeatedly said over the phone.
Chike Oti, a superintendent of police and the force public relations officer for Lagos command told TheCable that people do not understand how the police operate.

“It is very easy to smear law enforcement officers,” he began. “When you come to enforce law, the tendencies are that people will see you as employing brute force, unknown to them that what you might be employing is what we call minimum force, and this is to make the suspect follow you.”
Police investigations, according to Oti, led the policemen to Ogati street. “The owner of the riffle was apprehended.”
Oti described the scene as that of a crime in which policemen wouldn’t have handled with softer hands. “If they ask you to go to lions’ den, how do you approach it? The approach will be different from when you are going to pastor or imam’s place.”

TheCable gathered that the police had first alleged that Yusuf and others arrested were picked at armed robbery scenes but changed the narrative that Yusuf and others are members of a notorious cult who attacked people last Saturday in Fadeyi area.

Shortly after TheCable had reached the police spokesman for comments over the matter, our correspondent was notified that Yusuf had been released. He was freed around 4pm, Friday.
“I was beaten inside that cell,” Yusuf said when TheCable reached him over the telephone. “It was inside that cell that those policemen themselves said that the riffle was found on Ogunjobi street, a street on the other side far from ours. They just came to our side to pick innocent people because they want money.”
Yusuf confirmed to TheCable that N10, 000 was paid the police to secure his freedom Friday evening.

“That’s apart from the money they collected on me while inside the cell,” he said. “It was the officer who brought the bail bond that collected the N10, 000,” he added.
Between October and December, 2016, a report released by the police public complaint rapid response unit (PPCRRU) showed that policemen in Lagos were involved in about 153 cases of professional misconduct making them top the chart of bad-behaved policemen in Nigeria.

In November, 2017, the World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI)— a report measuring police ability— had rated the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) worst in the world. - Cable Nigeria

Baddest looter !!! EFCC Quiz Former Senate President David Mark Over Billions Stolen From The National Assembly During His Tenure

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) detectives a probing former Senate President David Mark over allegedly billions stolen by him and other leaders of the National Assembly during his tenure.

EFCC sources said Mr. Mark, a former military general was invited yesterday to make statements to the commission on how several billions meant for projects at the national assembly were shared between him and a few others. He was released to go home after the interrogation, expected to return after the holidays. - Sahara Reporters

Queen of corruption !!! Hearing stalled in Diezani’s $4.760m property forfeiture case

The hearing of an application to forfeit two penthouses valued at $4.760m allegedly belonging to former Petroleum Resources Minister Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke was stalled at the Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday.

Neither the applicant, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), nor the respondents were represented when the case called for hearing before Justice Mojisola Olatoregun.

A new date, February 12 next year, has been fixed for the hearing.

The court, on December 5, ordered the temporary forfeiture of Penthouse 21, Building 5, Block C, 11th floor (Bella Vista Estate) Banana Island, Ikoyi, and Penthouse 22, Block B (Admiralty Estate) also in Ikoyi, Lagos.

EFCC said the properties were reasonably suspected to have been acquired with “proceeds or crime”.

Mrs Alison-Madueke, Donald Amangbo, Schillenburg LLC and Sequoyah Property Limited are the respondents.

The commission said the companies in whose names the companies were acquired belong to the former minister.

An investigator, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who deposed to a supporting affidavit to the ex-parte motion, said sometime in 2016, a search warrant was executed at Amangbo’s premises.

He said Amangbo was “an acquaintance of former Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs Alison Madueke.”

The investigator said one of the documents recovered from Amamgbo led the operatives to the Deputy Managing Director YF Construction Development and Real Estate Limited, Mr. Fadi Basbous.

The deponent said Basbous made a statement where he stated that the two properties were sold at $3.570million and $1.194 million and are owned by Sequoyah Properties Limited and Schillenburg LLC.

Bawa said the properties were paid for by Mrs Angela Jide-Jones and Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited.

According to him, Mrs  Jide-Jone was married to Mrs Alison-Madueke’s associate, Jide Omokore, who registered and promoted Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept.

The EFCC investigator said Omokore paid for the properties through his wife, Angela.

According to the operative, Omokore allegedly directed the developer (seller) to sign the agreements with Schillenburg LLC and Sequoyah Properties.

The deponent said Schillenburg LLC was registered in Hongkong and was transferred on March 30, 2012, to Amamgbo as sole owner.

According to the EFCC investigator, Amamgbo stated in his statement that he incorporated Schillenburg LLC and handed it over to Mrs. Alison-Madueke “for a transaction”.

The deponent added that Sequoyah Properties “is among 18 companies registered by Donald Chid Amangbo for holding the properties of Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke”. - The Nation

Pentecostal pastors are fraudsters -Charlyboy

Popular musician-turned-activist, Chukwuemeka Charles Oputa, popularly known as CharlyBoy, has criticized Pentecostalism in Nigeria, stating that their preaching is solely based on systematic fraud.

The convener of OurMumuDonDo movement took to his Instagram account on Friday to slam pastors who preach for money.

The AreaFada, who shared a photos of himself with a Buddhist monk, said the system practiced by the preachers is fraud and deception.

“Pentecostalism na modern-day commercial enterprise garnished in the cloak of religion with deception and exploitation as its foundation.

“Their goal na the complete monetisation of peoples ignorance. It remains the only legally and politically accepted movement completely based upon systematic fraud, deception and cheating.

“Fck the con men of God, dem crooked theology is all for the Naira. Na so AreaFada Talk,” Charly Boy wrote.