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You might want to buy some masks. The NCDC says that they recorded 880 new COVID infections between the 2nd and 8th of July. 90% of the recorded cases were in Lagos, 10% in Rivers and Abuja. The report from NCDC says there are now 258,517 reported cases across the country.
In this edition:
Inflation and other conditions affecting businesses
ASUU vs Buhari
INEC sets new voter registration deadline
Political aspirants: fraud, terrorism and bigotry
Prisoners still at large
Everyone is broke, yo
Inflation in Nigeria has made everything so expensive that bakers are now using sweet potato paste to bake bread because wheat is now too pricy.
So crap that businesses are switching to solar power to bypass the increasing cost of petrol and electricity.
If you’ve been outside recently, you’ve most likely seen petrol lines everywhere. Yep, we are once again in a fuel scarcity. So far, scarcity has driven prices up everywhere. In Kano, the price of fuel per litre is now N220 (previously N165-173)
Reuters reports that solar companies are currently benefiting from this surge in demand for their product, but possibly not for long because the economy is messing with their supply channels.
In essence, it’s crap for even businesses that could potentially benefit.
ASUU vs Buhari
President Buhari “appealed” to university lecturers— who have been on strike for 4 months protesting unfair working conditions and delayed salaries—to stop their protest immediately.
Buhari says the strike has “taken a toll” on the psychology of parents, students and other stakeholders.
In his speech, Buhari noted that the country's future rests on educational institutions and education quality.
He expects the lecturers to return to the classrooms and continue teaching while negotiations to meet their needs continue.
Recall that lecturers have repeatedly paused their strikes in the past to give state and federal governments time to meet their demands, but the ASUU members insist that these demands were not met.
The present strike is protesting the government going back on previous agreements.
The Federal Government also claimed that to meet the lecturers' demands, they would need N1.2tn.
The ASUU National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, says the union is unaware of this amount. He says when the union calculated how much they’re demanding, this isn’t it.
“We didn’t calculate the quantum of what we would need. We calculated what each member of our union will earn”, he said.
He says he’s not saying they’re lying o, but they have before, so he wouldn’t put it past them.
Insecurity
Kuje prison escape
Premium Times reports that almost 800 apprehended Boko Haram members and members of other terrorist groups are among those who escaped from Kuje prison on the 5th of June. The Nigerian Correctional Service says they have caught 421, while 454 prisoners are still roaming the streets.
The Controller General of Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Haliru Nababa, shared with Premium Times that before the Kuje attack, they received a tip that a prison would be attacked.
But the controller general admitted that the prisons where they keep terrorists are not built to withstand terrorist attacks.
Reports indicate that the prisons tried to manage the threat by stationing over 30 armed officials on the ground at the time of the attack, but obviously, that wasn’t much help.
There’s also the thing where they’re hiring ex-Boko Haram members as prison guards(?).
There are processes, training and background checks meant to be undergone to become a guard. But, insiders told Premium Times that sometimes, people pay bribes to bypass the vetting process.
Kaduna train attack updates
The publisher of the Desert Herald newspaper, a Kaduna-based newspaper, Tukur Mamu, is the negotiator for the terrorists who attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train in March and kidnapped 65 people.
This week, Mamu negotiated the release of 7 more hostages, revealing that they paid 800 million Naira to regain their freedom.
Mamu was also the negotiator when 11 people were released in June.
One of the released victims said on Twitter that 43 people are still in captivity— last week, the terrorists threatened to kill all the people still in their possession because the government wasn’t doing anything to get them out.
If you’re wondering how we have well-known terrorist negotiators and the FG still claims not to know where kidnap victims are, same.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised since our current president was once a terrorist negotiator.
It was in 2012. The Nation reported that Boko Haram handpicked the military man to be their moderator with the government, and since then, he has pretty much been a terrorist sympathiser.
On the road to 2023
“Lost” PVCs
A group of people in Imo state claim to have discovered thousands of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) buried in a gutter after INEC staff in the state told them theirs weren’t ready.
After an uproar on social media, INEC National Commissioner for Chairman Information & Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, released a statement saying the commission will “commence immediate investigations”.
Okoye said the claim that the PVCs were not ready was definitely not true as “PVCs have been printed for all valid registrants in Nigeria up to 14th January 2022 and delivered to all the States for collection by voters”.
Enugu INEC attack
Following an attack on officials stationed in Igboeze North Local Government Area in Enugu by shooters, the INEC has suspended voter registration in the state.
While no one died, Okoye said staff were injured and had personal belongings stolen. He said the commission also lost registration machines.
This attack was the second of its kind in Igboeze North LGA this month. (we reported last week that attackers at the same location destroyed voting equipment & office property).
Voting registration ends 31st July
INEC released a statement affirming that the last day of voters registration is the 31st of July.
We reported previously that INEC had extended until the 31st of August. Okoye said this was just per the court’s order in favour of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) while they appealed it.
SERAP filed a lawsuit against INEC, which asked the court to order INEC to extend voter registration to August 31st. They said that the constant disruptions have made it tough for people to vote.
Presidents, Vice Presidents
Tinubu has chosen his (final?) presidency running mate: Kashim Shettima
There has been quite a bit of disarray in Tinubu’s camp recently; one of the bigger debates has been Tinubu’s vice presidential candidate.
The initial contender was Ibrahim Masari, who, shortly before Shettima assented, withdrew his hat from the race.
Shettima, who currently represents Borno Central in the Senate, served as governor of Borno from 2011 to 2019.
Opposition party, PDP, is not having Tinubu’s decision to replace his running mate (or Peter Obi’s to replace his— formally Doyin Okupe— with Datti Baba-Ahmed), so they’re suing APC and Labour Party (Peter Obi’s camp).
PDP asked INEC to compel the aspirants to run with their initial chosen candidates or disqualify them. — Punch
Sen. Rabiu Kwankwaso, Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has chosen Bishop Isaac Idahosa as his running mate. Kwankwaso says the quality that sealed the deal was Idahosa’s “impeccable integrity”— Vanguard.
Political aspirants: fraud, terrorism and bigotry
Kashim Shettima’s alleged role in Chibok mass abduction
Foundation of Investigative Journalism (FIJ) speculates that Tinubu’s new running mate, Kashim Shettima is somewhat complicit in the disappearance of the students who were kidnapped in Chibok, Borno, in 2014. At they were kidnapped, Shettima was the state governor.
According to a letter FIJ got their hands on, about a month before the attack, Nyesom Wike (then Supervising Minister of Education and current governor of Rivers) sent a letter asking Shettima to relocate the students at the all-girls school.
In the letter, Wike said he, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO) were concerned about their safety.
Wike said— after over 200 female students were kidnapped from the school— that WAEC and NECO officials had told him that there had been security problems at the particular school, hence the letter.
He said the governor never responded to him, and no action was taken.
In response, however, APC said it wasn’t their fault. They said that the president (Jonathan at the time) had declared an emergency rule in Borno, so it was the FG’s responsibility.
So I guess if Shettima was VP at the time, he would have flown to Borno to relocate them.
Read FIJ’s full report here.
Atiku is accused of $40 million in corruption and possibly banned from the US?
In 2010, the US senate accused PDP presidential aspirant and former vice president Atiku Abubakar of illegally wiring $40Million into the US between the years 2000 and 2008 while he was VP.
The US report said that with the help of one of his wives, Jennifer Douglas, Atiku received over $2 million in bribe payments in 2001 and 2002 from Siemens AG, a major German corporation.
Douglas tried to deny it, but Siemens pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges, settled civil charges related to bribery, and told the Subcommittee that it sent the payments to one of her U.S. accounts.
Additionally, of the $40 million, $25 million was wire transferred by offshore corporations into more than 30 U.S. bank accounts owned by Douglas. The majority of the money came from Sima Holding Ltd (British Virgin Islands), Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd. and LetsGo Ltd. Inc. (Panama)
The president during his run, Olusegun Obasanjo, sort of confirmed the claims— he said in an interview that while he was president, he received a list of names of people suspected of fraud in the US, and Atiku’s was one of them (he also said he didn’t let EFCC investigate Atiku “in good conscience” because of his position. lol)
Trigger warning: homophobia
Last week, we shared news that Peter Obi’s VP, Datti Baba-Ahmed, once suggested in the senate that the legal penalty for being gay should be death. When asked his thought on this revelation, Peter Obi said that Baba-Ahmed’s conviction is “just his opinion”. Obi said he is “tolerant of however anyone wants to live their life”, but that there are “more pressing issues” than LGBT+ rights.
In response, activist Bisi Alimi said if there were more “pressing issues”, the Senate won’t “spend 7 years discussing the criminalisation of LGBTQI people”
Tinubu’s past and present
We know Tinubu probably does not have a school certificate, and we know he possibly is banned from the U.S., but other skeletons is “The Jagaban” harbouring? David Hundeyin claims to have uncovered them all. Read Hundeyin’s load down here.
Still on the road to 2023 🌚
Is this a hint? 🌚
After Sri Lankan protesters occupied the president’s home amid mass protest, the president left the country in a military jet. Soon after, he resigned.
The Guardian reports that the people were protesting unfavourable living conditions, corruption and the Rajapaksa family— they’ve been in power since 2005.
The article says corruption became a problem in the country when the recently ousted president’s brother took power in 2005.
They see this not only as a successful removal of an unfit president but as the end of the reign of a family that has held the country’s political and economic health in a chokehold for almost 2 decades.
Other news
Court sentences Yoruba actor Olanrewaju James (baba Ijesha) to 16 years in prison for sexual assault of a 14-year-old - Premium Times.
On Wednesday, the Lagos State House of Assembly debunked reports that the lawmakers secretly passed a Sharia law in the state. The House said claims on social media that the lawmakers passed a Sharia law in a deal to get Northern support for APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, were false - Punch
Lagos governor Sanwo Olu says Yoruba people to “unite” and make Tinubu president- People’s Gazette. As a Yoruba person, I disrespectfully decline.
APC senator Elisha Abbo, who was caught in a video assaulting a woman, says Tinubu’s Muslim Muslim ticket is “irresponsible” - Premium Times