Afenifere : Obasanjo is one of the problems to be solved in Nigeria.

The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has dissociated itself from former president,Olusegun Obasanjo’s movement now African Democratic Congress (ADC).

This was disclosed by Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, while speaking with Sun.

Adebanjo said the group does not believe in Obasanjo’s movement owing to the fact that the former president is one of the problems to be solved in Nigeria.

He said, “Who are the people behind the Third Force? If you are referring to Obasanjo’s Movement, I don’t believe in it because Obasanjo himself is part of the problems to be solved.

“Although he gave a good analysis of incompetence of Buhari, it does not mean he has a solution to it. Some of us are not Mumus to be deceived by any cheap language.

“What has Obasanjo accused Buhari of doing that he was not guilty of? Let us look for young, bright men with ideas to organise the country to a better system of government.

” It is his constitutional right to adopt African Democratic Congress (ADC) as a political platform,You too can form your own party. My objection to his idea does not mean that I am objected to his right to form a party. It is his constitutional right. It is left for the electorate to consider him worthy. That is the whole essence of democracy.

“Obasanjo has a right to form his own political party and Ayo Adebanjo has the right to object to it. We are all exercising our constitutional rights.

“Afenifere is not involved in anything with him. That is what I am affirming and telling you.”

Speaking on the possibility of the All Progressive Congress, APC, retaining power in 2019 election, Adebanjo added “What do you think yourself when those in government of the day are not agreeing on what to do? Does the ruling party itself agree?

“Those who want to rule us again are in violence among themselves as to who should be on their platform for election.

“They can’t decide their internal democracy and they want to decide for the country. Somebody whose household is in tatters wants to hold the country in unity.”

” I had said it before loud and clear that if Buhari loves this country and he is sincere about keeping this country together in peace (underlined), he should restructure the country and give each state its autonomy. If there is no hidden agenda about him being in office, if all these allegations against him are not correct, he should do it.” - Daily Post

Face of corruption !! N6.3bn fraud: Senator Jang to be arraigned by EFCC Monday

The immediate past governor of Plateau state and senator representing Plateau North senatorial zone, Senator Jonah Jang will be arraigned before the state high court Jos by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) for alleged N6.3 billion fraud.

Senator Jang who has been held in EFCC custody since last week will be moved by EFCC from Abuja to Jos for the arraignment on Monday.

The Nation gathered in Jos that Senator Jang will be arraigned before Justice Daniel Longji of Plateau State High Court in Jos on the 12-count charges filed against him by the EFCC.

The EFCC had preferred 12 charges against him over an alleged fraud amounting to about N6.3bn.

The ex-governor, who currently represents Plateau-North Senatorial District, allegedly embezzled some special funds released to the state by the Central Bank of Nigeria. He was said to have done so two months to the end of his tenure as governor in 2015.

A team of lawyers acting for the release of the senator had last week filed a motion on notice before a federal capital territory (FCT) high court in Abuja in an attempt to enforce his release on bail.

The team of lawyers comprising of Christopher Eichie, Yakubu Philemon and Kola Oseni have prayed that the former governor be granted bail on health ground claiming that the suspect is diabetic.

Apart from asking for his unconditional bail, the legal team is asking the federal high court to order the EFCC to pay Senator Jang the sum of N500m as damages for his detention without trial and to offer him public apology in two national newspapers.

Meanwhile youths from the state under the aegis of the Jang Support group have confirmed to The Nation that they will protest what they term “jungle justice” of the senator. They queried why the senator was detained for 1 whole week, when he has been faithful in honouring all invitations by the EFCC. - The Nation

Savers contribute N300bn to income of Nigerian banks annually, says ex-AMCON boss

Kola Ayeye, former executive director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), says savers contribute N300 billion to the income of Nigerian banks annually.

Speaking on Thursday at the opening of the Mainland office of Growth and Development Limited (GDL), Ayeye said customers of most banks do not get more than two or three percent as interest.

“The savings pool in the country is now approaching N4 trillion and our own estimate is that the N4 trillion of savings contributes N300 billion of income annually to banks so the issue is is there a way to redeploy those savings to improve living standards?,” Ayeye, GDL’s chief executive director, said.

“In most banks, the depositors don’t get interest of more than two or three percent.

“We think it’s a contradiction for social infrastructure to collapse, for middle class to remain emasculated and for banking sector profit to be approaching N1 trillion; we think there must be a way to achieve the two.

“The things we are working will allow the savers get a little more than what they were getting but a part of that N300 billion will start being invested in things that matter to the society like education.”

Ayeye said the GDL, which is licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will manage financial and non-financial assets through collective schemes and specialised vehicles. - Cable Nigeria

Europe faces a wave of freed terror convicts. Is it ready?

Over the next two years, terrorism convicts will walk free from European prisons by the dozens — more than 200 inmates who largely formed the first wave of jihadis streaming to Syria and Iraq, dreaming of an Islamic caliphate not yet established.

In all, about 12,000 Europeans left to fight with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida beginning in 2011; about a third of those are now believed to be back home, mostly living freely. Some are awaiting trial, but most never even faced serious charges due to insufficient evidence.

And many more were thwarted from traveling to the war zone entirely, left to stew and, sometimes, plot at home.

How much of a threat do these avowed extremists living throughout Europe pose, and how equipped are authorities to deal with them? The tactics thus far have been, at best, improvised.

The impending releases of jihadi veterans could be considered "a fourth wave of returnees," according to Rik Coolsaet, a scholar at Belgium's Egmont Institute who has done extensive research on violent extremism.

"There are a number of personal frustrations and motivations that have pushed the kids in their journey to ISIS that we now have to address," Coolsaet said. "If we don't address it now, the environment will remain as conducive for this kind of jihadi violence."

Farid Benyettou, a former influential crusader who has now publicly renounced extremism, fears Europe is not braced to cope with the hordes of believers roaming free.

Once nicknamed the "imam Voltaire" after the high school he left to become a backroom preacher to young Muslims in his Paris neighborhood, Benyettou has written a book detailing his descent into becoming a propagandist of Islamic extremism. He views the coming round of prison releases with an apprehension born of firsthand experience.

Benyettou, now 38, spent four years in prison on terrorism charges, alternating between recruiting fellow inmates to the cause and furiously studying for his degree. It took years for him to disavow the ideology he once spread so effectively. Now, he says extremism sows only death.

Among the group of young men he once led are Cherif and Said Kouachi, who gunned down 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Another follower blew himself up in Iraq; yet another died in Syria fighting for the Islamic State group.

The cell he once led epitomizes the urgent question Europe now faces: Are the terrorism convicts on the verge of freedom like Benyettou, the Kouachis or somewhere in between?

"These guys who are convicted today or who are awaiting trial will get out one day," Benyettou said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And that's the issue, in fact: What kind of preparations will there be for their release?"

Terrorism prison sentences in Europe until very recently averaged about six years, compared to 13 years in the United States, according to data from Europol.

Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the sentences have crept up across the continent, but still remain well below U.S. levels.

"The danger is the risk of recidivism. We should not be too quick to believe certain terrorists who say they are repentant," Catherine Champrenault, the Paris prosecutor general, said in a recent interview with the newspaper Le Monde.

France, which has been struck repeatedly by Islamic State fighters and sympathizers, will be freeing 57 inmates — about half its current population of terrorism convicts. In Britain, 25 inmates are due for release — fully three-quarters of its terrorism convicts. In Belgium, 80 acknowledged foreign fighters already are free and as many as 44 others will be joining them. In Spain, 21 of 34 returning extremists already were free as of late last year. And in Bosnia and Kosovo, every single jailed foreign fighter will go free.

In just those countries alone, the total runs to more than 200, according to the AP's count. By comparison, a Congressional Research Service report last year said 50 "homegrown violent jihadists" were to be released by the end of 2026.

And Europe's actual number is undoubtedly higher because not every country releases its data — most notably Germany, which had nearly 1,000 residents make jihadi trips but has not released any comprehensive figures on convictions or releases.

The most recent attack blamed on returning foreign fighters was in March 2016, when an Islamic State cell of jihadis set off suicide bombs at the Brussels airport and in the metro.

Made up of veterans from Islamic State in Syria — as well as friends and family recruited to the cause — the network already had attacked a Paris-to-Brussels high-speed train in August 2015 and bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium in an orchestrated assault on Paris in November 2015. In all, the cell killed 162 people.

Still, the overwhelming majority of returning jihadis have not been arrested and have caused no harm.

Many of the homegrown jihadis are young men from poor backgrounds who have limited education and feel cut off from the society that surrounds them. A startling number lack the presence of a father.

In trial after trial, few of them say they have abandoned the cause of jihadism. Rather, they say, the cause abandoned them. Most described traveling hundreds of miles only to find themselves in the midst of internecine fights for territorial control, rather than battling Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces or helping civilians.

Once they leave prison, no programs or policies govern them.

France has applied a range of post-release constraints, ranging from requiring those freed to periodically check in with authorities — as is the case for Benyettou — to perpetual home detention for former prisoners like Kamel Daoudi, who was convicted in a plot to bomb the American embassy in 2005 and has been under house arrest since his 2008 release.

House arrest has come increasingly rare since the end of France's state of emergency near the end of last year, with just 36 people consigned in the past five months, compared with 754 immediately after the November 2015 attacks.

In Bosnia, where all 23 terrorism convicts already are done with their sentences or soon will be, the Justice Ministry said local housing, social workers and employment agencies are notified of the releases, but that there's little capacity to do much else.

Britain puts forward only limited counseling and monitoring, and offers a voluntary program to help former inmates re-integrate.

"If they don't want to do that, they don't have to do that. Because of course prison terms assume that you're sentenced for a fixed time and that once you serve that time you're a free person again," said Richard Barrett, a senior adviser with the Soufan Group and expert on violent extremism.

Spain theoretically began "re-education and reinsertion" in 2016 in which terrorism inmates are evaluated by their perceived risk level and undergo the appropriate counseling. But according to the government, only 10 out of the 146 inmates jailed for ties to extremist Islamic groups actually have undergone the much-hyped deradicalization program. The Interior Ministry refused to explain why.

Expelling the extremists is not a realistic remedy: The vast majority of the continent's foreign fighters and sympathizers are purely European, which means they cannot legally be stripped of citizenship or deported.

Still, Denmark has moved to strip the citizenship of a man born and raised in the country and ship him to Turkey when he completes his six-year prison term. Hamza Cakan, a pizzeria owner who joined the Islamic State and holds dual citizenship, returned home and was arrested when he tried to leave again for Syria in 2015.

Expulsion is at least on the table for those born elsewhere. One example is the case of Djamel Beghal, a Franco-Algerian who was Daoudi's co-defendant and another mentor of the Kouachi brothers.

France has stripped Beghal of his French citizenship and plans to send him directly to Algeria, his birth country, when he is released in August, despite repeated criticism from the European Court of Human Rights.

Those who are legally judged to be dangerous are likely to remain behind bars for years to come: Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini, both linked to the Islamic State network that attacked Paris and Brussels, have not even come to trial on those charges.

And Tewffik Bouallag, an unrepentant former Islamic State fighter from France who was detained after hopping a flight from Istanbul to Berlin, was sentenced to 14 years in prison late last month.

As for Benyettou, he decided to become a nurse after leaving prison in 2009. Three years later, as he was completing his degree, extremist Mohammed Merah killed seven people, attacking French soldiers and a Jewish school.

Something in Benyettou clicked, but there was still a certain distance between him and Merah, with whom he had no personal connection. That changed with the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo.

"The people who committed those crimes, those were people who were directly linked to me," he said. "I had a certain responsibility. ... It was within these groups that people were defending death, and I had defended death."

Benyettou's dreams of becoming a nurse evaporated that day — no one would hire him after learning of his ties to the Kouachi brothers. So he now is training to be a truck driver.

He is philosophical about yet another dramatic shift in direction.

"Everyone has setbacks in life, plans that don't happen. For me, it's my past," he said. "You bounce back and try to do something besides to fall back on this logic of victimhood, to say 'They'll never want us anyway. They'll never let us dig ourselves out.'"

Having a plan — any plan — was crucial to Benyettou leaving extremism behind.

And that's where many fear not just France but all of Europe will fail the next wave of terrorism convicts.

"Sending them back to exactly the same circumstances that caused them to take up violent extremism, well, unfortunately, you're probably going to get the same result," said Barrett of the Soufan Group, a strategic consultancy firm that advises governments and corporations.

The judge made the same point at the recent trial of Erwan Guillard, a Frenchman who converted to Islam, quit the military and appeared with his battle wounds in an Islamic State propaganda video.

Guillard left Syria voluntarily, surrendered to police and provided French intelligence with information about IS and its foreign fighters, according to trial testimony. He said he left IS because he was disappointed with what he found in Syria, but he showed no sign of giving up on the ideology that inspired his journey.

"One of these days, you're going to leave prison. What will you do?" the judge asked him.

Guillard seemed momentarily puzzled, murmuring something about learning to drive a big rig. He then looked straight at the judge.

"I don't see any future in France," he responded. "We don't share the same values." - AP

PL latest : Pogba favours Champions League & World Cup over Ballon d'Or 'dream'

Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba insists that he is more focused on team accolades like the Champions League or World Cup than individual prizes such as the Ballon d'Or.

Barcelona great Lionel Messi and Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo have enjoyed a stranglehold over football's greatest individual honour for the past decade.

Pogba has been among those touted to take over the mantle when Messi and Ronaldo's reign over football's best player on the planet winds down.

But the France international recognises such an achievement can only come about by winning the greatest team trophies.

"I want to win a World Cup and Champions League and to be the best," Pogba told Canal+.

"The Ballon d'Or is more a dream than an objective.

"You can be a happy guy and win the Ballon d'Or, Ronaldinho is an example for that."

Pogba will be a key component as Didier Deschamps' France side head to Russia to try and win the World Cup for the first time since 1998, which was held on home soil.

"France will try to be the boss in and out of the pitch during the World Cup," Pogba added.

"As for me, I was the best youngster in 2014, I'll try to be the best player now."

PL news : Pep Guardiola won't stop Arteta from taking Arsenal job

Guardiola insists he will not stand in Mikel Arteta's way if the Manchester City coach is offered the Arsenal manager's job.

The former Gunners midfielder is one of the favourites to succeed Arsene Wenger at Emirates Stadium, who is to leave his post after nearly 22 years in charge.

Arteta has been backed by ex-Arsenal players including Johan Djourou as an ideal candidate to take the club into a new era, especially given his success alongside Guardiola with City this season.

And the City boss says he wants "the best" for his compatriot, even if it means he leaves the champions' coaching staff.

"If he stays, I will be the happiest guy in the world," Guardiola said after City's 1-0 win over Southampton on Sunday, which saw them set a new record of 100 points in a Premier League season. 

"If he decides to move because he has this offer, this option, I will not say 'you don't have to go'. I want the best for my friends, and he's a friend of mine, and I want the best.

"If he decides to go, I will be so sad, but I will understand his decision, because it's his career, his life, his family, and I am not the right guy to say 'you don't have to do that'.

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"But, hopefully, hopefully he can stay and finish what we have started together in the coming years." - Goal

Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard is paid £1000 a month welfare in Germany and can't be deported

A former bodyguard of mass killer Osama bin Laden is being supported to live free in Germany at a cost to taxpayers of over £1,000 per month.

Although classified as dangerous and forced to report to police every day, authorities claim Sami A. cannot be sent back to his Tunisian homeland because the risk of torture would be too high.

He has already had his asylum application rejected by Germany and handed a deportation order.

But the 42-year-old, who traveled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s to become a bodyguard for the architect of the 9/11 attacks, continues to stay in Germany after a court ruled he could face torture if deported.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia admitted it pays 1167,84 euros a month to him, his wife and their four children aged between four and 11.

The admission in the regional parliament came after a question was posed by the the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

News of the financial support he receives caused an instant storm.

Eckhardt Rehberg of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling CDU, Who is the party's budget chief, said: 'The German asylum law is being shamelessly exploited here. 

'We must finance a terrorist with tax money because we must not deport him? I have no understanding of these court rulings.'

Since no other country has shown willingness to take in the Tunisian, it now seems he will remain in Germany indefinitely - even though security services still consider Sami A. to be a dangerous and central member of the Islamist scene in the country and have had him under observation since at least 2006.

'That such a man is allowed to stay in Germany is a punch in the face to all anti-terror investigators,' a security source told local media.

'He protected the most wanted man in the world and we treat him with kid gloves.'

The ban on deportations to Tunisia was lifted two years ago. 

But officials still feel that such a close ally of bin Laden would run the risk of imprisonment, torture and death.

Sami A. came to Germany as a student in 1997 before opting to become a jihadist and traveling to Afghanistan where he trained in a terror camp before becoming a bodyguard to bin Laden.

The Supreme Court blocked his deportation despite judges in Münster branding him 'an acute and considerable danger for public security'. - Daily Mail