Insecurity: President Buhari has failed woefully – Northern group alleges

 

The Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, says President Muhammadu Buhari has failed woefully to protect lives and property of Nigerians.

The forum also observed that the president has failed to convene a security review to consider what it called ‘regulated self-protection’.

This observation is coming after the recent killings of the rice farmers in Zabarmari, Borno State.

Recall that the Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, had said that the victims failed to get military clearance to go out to the fields.

The forum, through its spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, in a statement, described the remarks as “callous and insensitive, unacceptable and condemnable.”

The group demands all northerners to dwell on state governors and the federal government to see that the country’s security architecture is reframed and reorganized in ways that would bring an end to the incessant banditry, insurgency, kidnapping and other vices that are dragging the region into socio-economic abyss.

It also demanded a thorough review and interrogation of the commercialization of the conflicts by different actors, up and down the ranks and constituencies, defence corruption, as well as what the group called persistent attitude of touting success in the face of failure.

The group noted that leaders have become a liability, stressing that it has increased the conviction that the only remaining option is for the people to mobilise for a regulated self protection.

- DAILY POST

DPO shot, four policemen abducted by Ogun villagers

 

Hoodlums in Ogun village have shot a Divisional of Police Officer, DPO, abducted four policemen and carted away two AK 47 rifles.

The incident took place at Aba Tuntun village, Ijebu-Igbo in the Ijebu -North Local Government Area of Ogun State.

Spokesman, Ogun State Police Command, Abimbola Oyeyemi confirmed the abduction, but said three of the policemen had been rescued.

Asides the policemen, three vigilante men were also kidnapped by the hoodlums.

The police reportedly visited the village to disarmed some hoodlums following a complaint by the village head that some hoodlums were in possession of firearms.

Acting on a petition by the Baale of the village, a team of 15 policemen and 35 local vigilantes stormed the village on Thursday.

They successfully raided the village and seized six single-barreled guns, 16 dane guns, and 16 cartridges were from the hoodlums.

According to The Punch, their colleagues ambushed the security operatives, launched attacks on them as they were leaving the community.

They reportedly fired gunshots at the police and attacked them with other dangerous weapons.

The DPO was reportedly shot in the arm while some others sustained various gunshot injuries, while four policemen and three vigilantes were kidnapped.

- PM NEWS

FIFA approves maternity leave for women players

 

FIFA, the world football governing body, has approved 14 weeks maternity leave for women players.

The new development, which was proposed in November, was given approval by the FIFA council on Friday.

According to the council, a player’s club will be “obliged to reintegrate her after returning from maternity leave” and as well provide adequate medical support.

In a video shared on the governing body’s Twitter handle, Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, said the landmark measures are meant to protect women footballers.

“The players are the protagonist of the game, they are the most important part of the game and we have to make sure that we set the stage for them to shine,” he said.

“When it comes to female players, we should bring more stability to their careers. For example, if they need to take a maternity leave, then they don’t have to worry.

 “If we are serious about boosting the women’s game, we have to look at all these aspects.”

The mandatory 14-week maternity leave would see players guaranteed a minimum of two-thirds of their salary by their clubs.

- THECABLE

ELECTION WAR !!! Lagos bye-election: Hoodlums attack INEC officials at Mile 12

 

Some hoodlums on Saturday attacked INEC officials as they prepared to commence voting during Saturday’s by-election at Unit 13, Kosofe council area of Lagos State.

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, who was at the centre reported that the hoodlums insisted on collecting money from INEC officials before voting could commence.

An INEC ad-hoc staff, Mrs Monsurat Aladeloba, told NAN that they packed up their materials so as to relocate from the area in the midst of the chaos between some electorate and the hoodlums.

“The boys were about fighting themselves when more police officers were drafted here,” she said.

NAN reports that the the situation was brought under control later after some community leaders intervened in the area.

One of the community leaders, Alhaji Gbenga Mola, told NAN that the hoodlums had been taken care of and assured the INEC officials of their safety.

- DAILY POST

CONFUSED NATION !! REVEALED: Defence Intelligence Agency acquired equipment to spy on calls, text messages by Nigerians

 

The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) acquired equipment to spy on calls and text messages by Nigerians, according to a new report by CitizensLab.

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto in Canada. The lab focuses on investigating digital espionage against civil society.

According to its latest report “Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles,” Nigeria’s foremost military intelligence agency, which reports directly to President Muhammadu Buhari, may have been spying on your calls.

The lab found that DIA and another body in Nigeria had acquired Signaling System 7 (SS7), a protocol suite developed for exchanging information and routing phone calls between different wireline telecommunications companies.

DIA is reported to have bought the system from Circles, a surveillance firm that reportedly exploits weaknesses in the global mobile phone system to snoop on calls, texts, and the location of phones.

“Our scanning identified two Circles systems in Nigeria. One system may be operated by the same entity as one of the Nigerian customers of the FinFisher spyware that we detected in December 2014,” the report read.

“The other client appears to be the Nigerian Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), as its firewall IPs are in AS37258, a block of IP addresses registered to ‘HQ Defence Intelligence Agency Asokoro, Nigeria, Abuja.'”

DIA’s public address is at the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase II, Shehu Shagari Way, Three Arms Zone, Abuja, but the IP trace shows the agency’s location in Asokoro, about 15 minutes drive from the secretariat.

The spy equipment has been active under the leadership of President Buhari as the trace showed their activities from June 2015 — just after the president took office.

In 2019, the president also inaugurated the National Command and Control Centre as well as the first phase of the Nigeria Police Crime and Incident Database Centre, and electronic surveillance vehicles to maintain order in the country.

Members of civil society in Nigeria have faced a wide range of digital threats in the past.

A recent report by Front Line Defenders, a human rights group, concluded that Nigeria’s government “has conducted mass surveillance of citizens’ telecommunications.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also reported multiple cases of the Nigerian government abusing phone surveillance.

All calls by TheCable to the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) were neither taken nor returned.

An investigation by Premium Times had previously found that former governors of Bayelsa and Delta states purchased systems from the same surveillance firm employed by DIA.

The Circles system was reported to have been used to spy on political opponents in past elections in the country.

The CitizensLab report did not state instances where the Circles’ SS7 were used to spy on citizens and politicians, but this was the use case in some other countries employing the same systems.

Other governments who may have acquired this equipment are Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

- THECABLE

MAD MAN !!! End SARS: No one was killed at Lekki toll gate – Gen Buratai

 The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, has argued that nobody was killed during the End SARS protest at Lekki toll gate in Lagos State.

Buratai maintained that there was no corpse during the protest at Lekki toll gate.

The Army chief spoke at the decoration of 39 newly promoted Major Generals, yesterday in Abuja.

He stressed that those claiming protesters were killed were seeing double.

Buratai said: “I am glad that we held the Spiritual Warfare Seminar on Wednesday and most of the decorated Generals today are graduates of the Spiritual Warfare Seminar.

“I must say that the Spiritual Warfare Seminar we had last time, helped us during the last #EndSARS protest to the extent that there was no single corpse, but some persons were seeing double at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos State.”

Several protesters demonstrating against bad governance were reported killed by soldiers at the Lekki toll gate.

Popular Nigerian Disc Jockey, Obianuju Catherine Udeh, also known as DJ Switch, had alleged that soldiers shot and killed some of the people protesting at Lekki toll gate.

However, the 81 Division of the Nigerian Army had maintained that soldiers drafted to the scene didn’t kill any protester.

The Army, however, admitted that soldiers were at the venue of the protest but did not kill anybody.

- DAILY POST

US removes Reciprocity Visa Fees for Nigerians

 The United States of America has removed all visa reciprocity fees for Nigerians seeking visas to the US.

The federal government announced on Saturday that the United States has removed all visa reciprocity fees for Nigerians seeking visas to the country with effect from December 3.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed that the development was sequel to the removal of excess visa application, processing and biometric fees for American citizens applying for Nigerian visas.

The Donald Trump administration had in 2019 imposed the reciprocity fee for all approved non-immigrant visa applications by Nigerians.

The fee was charged in addition to visa application fees for only applicants who are issued visas.

The additional reciprocity fees which ranged from $80 to $303 depending on the class of visa, took effect from August 29 last year.

The US Embassy in Nigeria said the reciprocity fees were in response to unsuccessful talks with Nigeria to adjust the fees it charges American applicants.

It argued that the total cost for a US citizen to obtain a visa to Nigeria was higher than the total cost for a Nigerian to obtain a comparable visa to the United States.

The Mission insisted that the reciprocity fee was meant to eliminate the cost difference as required by US laws.

Announcing the removal of the reciprocity fee in a statement, the MFA spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye, said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to inform that the United States Government has removed all visa reciprocity fees for Nigerian citizens seeking visas to the United States.

“The positive development is in line with the removal of excess visa application, processing and biometric fees for United States citizens applying for Nigerian visas by the Nigerian Government.

“The United States Government has, therefore, eliminated reciprocity fees for Nigerian citizens with effect from December 3, 2020.”

The statement titled, ‘Update on removal of visa fees for Nigerian citizens by the US Government,’ advised prospective travellers to the US to visit www.travel.state.gov for details.”

- PM NEWS