By FESTUS ADEDAYO

"The most mis-recommending criterion against a Tinubu presidency is that, in mental depth, the Lagos Landlord is just a whiff higher than Muhammadu Buhari. Remove the cockney accent he feebly mimics, you will find out that most times, his extempore speeches lack coherence, logic and verve".

I was at the Alausa Governor’s Office in Lagos. Accessing the governor was like seeking a needle in a haystack. His Press Secretary had sent word up that an irritant interloper had come to ferret a response to a news magazine’s damming exposé on the governor. After hours of waiting, a commissioner (name withheld) sauntered in and met me where I sat immovably like Mount Kilimanjaro. “You can’t write that story,” he began in a steely voice laced with a veiled threat. “Go back to Ibadan. We will talk to your boss.” That was how the story never saw the light of the day.

The Nigerian Tribune, of which I was the Features Editor during this period, had sent me in pursuit of the facts or fiction surrounding the news magazine’s report. The principal of that ancient school, Government College Ibadan (GCI), had suddenly gone AWOL then, becoming as incommunicado and inaccessible as the proverbial excrement of the masquerade.

Through the grapevine, there was an allegation that Alhaji Lam Adesina, the governor of Oyo State at the time, had ordered that all data of the school’s attendees during the period of Governor Bola Tinubu’s supposed attendance of GCI be brought to him in the Government House, where they were then placed under lock and key. The media that were seeking the corroboration or converse  of those claims, went after the Principal of GCI. He had disappeared into thin air. Perhaps, a one-on-one interview with the governor would do?

In 1999, one Dr Waliu Balogun wrote a petition against Tinubu, leveling a number of damning allegations that bordered on fraudulent claims of educational attainments. Among other things, he accused Tinubu of lying in an affidavit attached to his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) form that he lost his degree certificates while he was on exile between 1994 and 1998. The news magazine later published those details in a gripping exposé which left sour tastes in the mouth.

One after the other, all of Tinubu’s claims, sworn to under oath in the Form CF001 he filled with INEC, were shredded to smithereens by the magazine’s story. St. Paul’s School, Aroloya, Lagos, which he claimed to have attended, was found never to have existed, in the investigative reporting of the magazine, just as his name was conspicuously missing from the records of the Government College, Ibadan, which he claimed to have attended between 1965 and 1968. Indeed, GCI’s alumni association, the Old Boys of the school, debunked the claim of having him as a member. So also was Tinubu’s claim to have attended Richard Daley College, Chicago, between 1969 and 1971. Punctured also were the governor’s claims of being a student of the University of Chicago in the U.S. between 1972 and 1976, as well as obtaining a B.Sc degree in Economics from the university. A request to those institutions for affirmation of Tinubu’s studentship by the magazine came up with a resounding ‘No.’

Till date, in spite of his having vanquished the legal principalities spearheaded by Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), with the Supreme Court voiding Fawehinmi on technical grounds, none of Tinubu’s classmates, schoolmates or even teachers, has come out in public to counter the facts of the legal behemoth erected against him.

Four years later, in 2003, it was time for Tinubu to fill the Form CF001 again, in pursuit of his second term bid. His enemies who were waiting for him to make those claims again were dazed when they saw what the governor filled. In all the columns, the gentleman simply filled NOT APPLICABLE – Primary School: Not Applicable; Secondary School: Not Applicable and; University: Not Applicable! Could that have meant that the man never attended any school?

Tinubu was not alone. Rife as expectations were from the new-found Nigerian republic in 1999, like alligators, renowned for the incredible nasal power of smelling a drop of blood, even in ten gallons of water, Nigerians smelt crises in the cache of scandals that involved newly elected office holders of the republic. Less than three months after commencement of the Fourth Republic, Nigeria began to manifest noticeable cracks. It took political scientists and students of Marxian dialectics to allay our fears and tell us that those cracks were curative, self-correcting and akin to the Marxist postulation of thesis and antithesis which, when they jam, produce a synthesis.

In a quick succession of messy, damming scandals, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari; Senate President, Evan(s) Enwerem and Bola Tinubu got entangled in seismic, roiling scandals of identity misappropriation, subversion of their oaths of office and perversion of truth. While the earlier two were swept away by the typhoon of the crises, Tinubu not only survived the ignominy, to spite the allegations, he is today one of the top three most consequential and powerful Nigerians alive, and a presidential office aspirant to boot.

Salisu Buhari, the affable and young Speaker of the lower parliament had just then been unraveled by the media as an age inflator and certificate forger.

Hitherto a Kano-based businessman, Buhari had made an entry into politics, but barely two weeks after being sworn into office, the now rested news magazine, TheNews, in its February 16, 1999 edition, published details of his age and certificate forgery. The magazine wrote that he was actually born in 1970 and not in 1963 as he had claimed.

Again, TheNews put a lie to Buhari’s claim of having graduated from the University of Toronto, stating that he not only did attend the school, the mandatory youth service he claimed to have undergone at Standard Construction in Kano was equally fiction. On July 23, 1999, like a rain-soaked squirrel, Buhari was contrite, disgraced and admitted all the allegations. “I apologise to you. I apologise to the nation. I apologise to my family and friends for all the distress I have caused them. I was misled in error by a zeal to serve the nation. I hope the nation will forgive me and give me the opportunity to serve again,” he murmured as he resigned from the House. He was subsequently convicted of certificate forgery, sentenced to two years in prison but was pardoned by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Senate President, Evan Enwerem, was to kiss the canvass a little while after. In the race for the Senate presidency, he had sidestepped his closest sprinter rival, Chuba Okadigbo, for the office by 66 to 43 votes. Shortly after his ascension in 1999, Enwerem was shoved into the sieve, and scrutinised on the allegation of an identity opacity. He was held up on the fire-spitting wire gauze for the falsification of his name. A ball-fire of controversy erupted on whether Enwerem’s real name was Evan or Evans. In the melee, on November 18, 1999, his ouster, spearheaded by Okadigbo and his allies, became a fait accompli.

Between his consequential emergence on the political turf of Nigeria in 1999 and now, only an armchair, analytical yokel will underrate or belittle Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s awesome and colonising genius in Nigerian politics. He became so consequential that some translucent analyses compare him to the sage, Obafemi Awolowo. It appears that immediately he got away from the drowning tidal waves of that identity theft legal tango and the lacerating fisticuffs of his numerous political adversaries, Tinubu tightened his muscles on the political levers of Lagos, a State which had always been the microcosm of Nigeria since it became the federal capital of independent Nigeria in 1960. He saw how the almighty power of the media, like a mammoth whale, almost succeeded in capsizing his ship of state and political career.

Rising from the ashes of the crises, Tinubu encircled his claw-like fists on the media, meandering himself into its total corpus and essentialising himself in its operations. While English crime thriller writer, René Lodge Brabazon Raymond, popularly known as James Hadley Chase, says that fear opens the wallets of the rich, Tinubu’s street chemistry, which he deploys, says that licit and illicit favours, prebends and perks, imprison consciences and arrest captives faster than the glue gum traps mice. Unconscionably, Tinubu waves these aces with the magisterial clinicality of a professional executioner, succeeding in the process in harvesting a huge cache of political, media, government, judicial, corporate, etcetera clienteles inside his massive pouch.

The truth is that since 1960, seldom has Nigeria had a political aficionado who has deployed the genius of the streets in the service of politics, as Bola Tinubu has done. Scarcely can anybody have the mis/fortune of encountering him without becoming a captive of his cash influence. Someone once said that even the god of Mammon would be envious of Tinubu’s sagacity in deploying its essence as a weapon.

Within the span of his Lagos governorship of eight years, from someone who those who knew him said was passably well-to-do, Tinubu grew a monstrous wealth, such that a 2015 back page opinion piece in The Sun newspaper claimed he owned almost half of Lagos and urged Buhari to clone the Vladimir Putin method with which the Russian president neutralised drug czars who funded his presidential emergence. Within this period, Tinubu also acquired a humongous political influence within Lagos and outside, that could rank aside those of the Pharaohs and emperors of old. In 2007, an ex-governor, who witnessed the miasma of power flakes encircling him as he arrived the Lagos airport, jealously told me that it was godlike.

Superficial analyses of Tinubu claim that his vice-hold grip on Lagos can be found in his ability to “build” and plant people in state and national offices, while sustaining a linear pattern of succession. This, such analysts claim, reflects his sagacity. Those who know the modus operandi of this power retention system however put a lie to it. To them, deep beneath it is an opaque, yet fastidiously maintained and pervasively sustained system of mega corruption and the perpetuation of self hegemony, through a carefully mastered mind-coercion, which is promoted by a cultic abidance to an oath of allegiance.

Those who see Tinubu’s strength in his fluid recruitment of aides, should also be able to answer why he suffers the huge casualty of his investment in such persons? Could it be that he uses them as indentured viceroys? Or that the rebellion we see from them is an attempt to set themselves free of his hold? From Babatunde Fashola, Muiz Banire, Akinwumi Ambode to Rauf Aregbesola, and many others, there must be a single thread that unifies Tinubu’s foot soldiers’ rebellion against him. Unfortunately for Tinubu, this same set of soldiers, knowing the secrets of the sustenance of their power machine, are today against his emergence as Nigeria’s president and will willingly supply the fire that will incinerate his ambition. In Yorubaland today, apart from Lagos and Osun States, which APC governor can Tinubu claim to be under him?

If nothing else, the controversy provoked by Chief Bisi Akande’s My Participations unraveled the mythic notion that Tinubu promotes his aides to the top for the love of country. Back and forth arguments, especially about Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s nomination in 2015, revealed that not only is the Lagos landlord obsessed with the self alone, the ascension of others in his loop is secondary and subordinated to the personal interest. The world saw that Tinubu grudgingly acceded to Osinbajo’s candidacy, only when his personal interest hit the rocks.

Last week, however, Bola Tinubu paid a visit to President Buhari, a few hours after the latter granted an incoherent interview where he claimed that if he named his successor, the fellow could be assassinated. A content analysis of the president’s statement must have revealed to Tinubu that he could never have been the one Buhari was referring to. Tinubu must know that Buhari knows that a plan to murder Death would be easier done than assassinating Nigeria’s Mafia don, the Capo dei capi himself.

Yoruba will totally support Tinubu in his presidency dream if he agrees to fill in the INEC forms all those claims he made of his roots in 1999. He must fill in the 2023 Form CF001 St. Paul’s School, Aroloya, Lagos, as his primary school; Government College, Ibadan; Richard Daley College, Chicago and the University of Chicago as his alma maters, without Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi swearing on oath that he filled them for him by proxy.

Counter-arguments have been proffered against the school of thought that says Tinubu’s ultra-stupendous wealth should recommend him against vying for the Nigerian presidency. You will recollect that the military apparatchik argued along this line against an MKO Abiola presidency. Abiola, they said, was as wealthy as to grant Nigeria loans. Weak as the argument was, it is strong in Tinubu’s disfavour, for its moral and deleterious implications. While the world knew that Abiola’s wealth was procured from international dealings, especially in ITT, Tinubu is said to own a pie in virtually every sector of the Nigerian economy, ranging from oil, steel, finance (tax), airline, real estate, to the media, and you name it. These are all operated in names of shells and proxies. In all these, as the Americans say, we can see the bucks but not the shop. What morality will Nigeria be preaching by having a president of such opaque composition and disposition?

Either real or imagined, it is said that the only thing that is real about Tinubu is his person and that every other ascription on him is a borrowed robe. He has not come in the open to effectively disclaim the allegation that his name is not his name; that the parents he claimed were not his; that the certificates he claimed to be his are not and that the schools he claimed to have attended, didn’t know him. I don’t know a baggage bigger than this for a country like Nigeria that is struggling to sell herself to the world, to now have its president burdened by this pernicious pedigree.

With the calamity that the Buhari presidency has posed to Nigeria, it will be more calamitous to have a Tinubu as his successor. Governing Nigeria is not all about identifying surrogates who will man critical political offices for future political gains. Nigeria needs a cerebral, healthy, comparatively morally overboard president, a man – borrowing from Oscar Wilde’s description of his gay partner friend, Sir Alfred Douglas in De Profundis – who is not a man for whom the gutter and all that is in it fascinates.

One would have expected Tinubu to heed the counsel of Apala music icon, Ayinla Omowura. Omowura must have had in mind leaders who are heavy-laden, burdened by baggage of their past, when he counseled that, as all shrubs and leaves in the forest should not be the predilection of a herbalist seeking curative herbs; not all palm trees in the forest should excite the palm-wine tapper either. In Yoruba, he expressed this as, “gbogbo ewe ko l’ojawe nja; gbogbo ope ko l’onigba ngun.” Sagacious leaders who carry stupendous moral baggage of the Tinubu hue should know the forests they ought to venture into.

The forests of presidential contest that the Lagos Landlord is about to venture into is what same Omowura, in his vinyl, referred to as “igbo odaju” – the forest of the heartless, the hard carapace-hearted hunters. At least not anyone who does not have the benefit of a real mother – a real mother’s prayers are like magic, steeped in mystical and metaphysical powers. Anyone, said Omowura, who does not have a real mother who can provide the protection of witchcraft for them, should not venture into igbo odaju. Never! Abraham Lincoln, father of the American nation, also alluded to this when he said, “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

Some Yoruba lament what they call the predilection of the Yoruba for pulling themselves down. This piece would be their perfect example. It is thinking like this that has condemned Nigeria to stagnation. The truth is, the Yoruba are very proud of their pedigree and wear it like a lapel on their sleeves. So how can the same Yoruba who have preached moral uprightness to the rest of the world for centuries, now queue behind a man who cannot point his right hand at his father’s homestead? Let the rest of Nigeria be rotten eggs. The Yoruba will still underscore the societal purity. It should gladden us that the Yoruba are the ones revealing the maggots in their home so that when they expose the maggots in others, they will occupy a higher moral ground. It is better for the Yoruba not to lift a presidential leg forward than lift one that is riddled with a festering and putrid sore. In any case, what Nigeria needs is a president that is a leader who is not crippled by ill health and is adequately schooled in the nuances of 21st century solutions to our self-inflicted, existential challenges.

Since independence in 1960, six ‘major’ Yoruba sons have attempted a shot at Nigeria’s civilian presidency (excluding fringe aspirants of Babangida’s political guinea-pig era). They are Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Chiefs Abiola, Bola Ige, Olu Falae and Olusegun Obasanjo. If Tinubu carries through his recent declaration, he will be joining this pantheon. Of this lot, Tinubu would be the only one whose pedigree is shrouded in a miasma of dubiety.

Yoruba will totally support Tinubu in his presidency dream if he agrees to fill in the INEC forms all those claims he made of his roots in 1999. He must fill in the 2023 Form CF001 St. Paul’s School, Aroloya, Lagos, as his primary school; Government College, Ibadan; Richard Daley College, Chicago and the University of Chicago as his alma maters, without Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi swearing on oath that he filled them for him by proxy.

Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.

There is a new twist in the alleged child organ harvesting case involving Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy senate president.

On Thursday the London Metropolitan Police charged Ekweremadu and Beatrice, his wife, to court over the allegation of bringing a child to the UK for organ harvesting.

The investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential offences under modern slavery legislation in May 2022.

The UK authorities said the “child” had “been safeguarded”, while the police added that its operatives “are working closely with partners on continued support”.

As widely reported, Ekweremadu had written to the UK High Commission to support a visa application of a “donor” listed as Ukpo Nwamini David.

In the letter, Ekweremadu said Ukpo was undergoing “medical investigations for a kidney donation to Ms Sonia Ekweremadu”.

Although the police had said the donor was 15, data from his international passport indicate that he is 21 years old.

According to information on the passport data page of Ukpo, he was born on October 12, 2000.

The date of issuance of the passport was listed as November 4, 2021, which is a few weeks before Ekweremadu wrote to the UK high commission in respect of the medical visa application.

A check on the Bank Verification Number (BVN) portal also showed Ukpo’s date of birth as October 12, 2000.

The case against the former senator and his wife has been adjourned till July 7.

After appearing before Uxbridge magistrates’ court on Thursday, they were denied bail and remanded in custody.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has confirmed Bashir Machina as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Yobe north senatorial district.

Machina, at a primary organised by the party in May, had won unopposed.

However, there were speculations that he was being asked to step down for Senate President Ahmad Lawan, who currently represents the district.

But Machina had insisted that he would not withdraw for Lawan — the senate president had contested the APC presidential ticket but lost.

Amid the controversy, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC as its senatorial candidate for Yobe north, and Abdullahi Adamu, APC national chairman, had said the senate president contested a senatorial primary organised by the party.

Adamu had also warned Machina over his comments on the party’s senatorial ticket for the district.

However, on Friday, an INEC report surfaced online, in which Machina was confirmed as having won the APC senatorial primary for Yobe north after he polled 289 votes unopposed.

The document was signed and stamped with the date, June 23, 2022.

Confirming the genuineness of the document, Rotimi Oyekanmi, chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, said the document is from the commission.

“It’s our document,” he said.

According to the document, the primary, which held on May 28, was monitored by INEC officials and security agents and was done via open-secret ballot.

The result of the exercise was also said to have been “generally acccepted”.

At least five persons, including two policemen, were feared killed by armed bandits in two communities of Guma and Ukum Local Government Areas of Benue State on Thursday night. 

It was gathered from local sources that some gunmen suspected to be herdsmen attacked Yelwata community of Guma LGA, killed two policemen and took away their guns on Thursday night. 

Meanwhile, on the same night, three other persons, including a lecturer with the Federal University, Wukari were said to have been gunned down by armed bandits at Jootar, Mbaterem, in Mbayenge Council Ward, the Ukum Local Government Area of the state. 

The three deceased victims, all friends, were said to have sat at a drinking joint close to a Federal Quarantine Check Point in the community at about 7pm when the unknown gunmen stormed the border town and shot them point blank, killing them on the spot. 

Eyewitnesses said the attackers, two young men and a lady, rode on a Bajaj Motorcycle to the area. One of them allegedly pointed the gun at their targets, shot and killed them after which he jumped back on the motorcycle and they rode away unchallenged. 

When contacted, Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) Catherine Anene, a Superintendent of Police, confirmed the killing of the policemen in Yelwata community of Guma but said she was yet to receive information about the Ukum killing.

Gunmen early Friday bombed a Police Area Command office at Eika-Ohizenyi in Okehi Local Government Area of Kogi State, killing one Inspector Jibril on duty.

A resident of the area, Momoh Abubakar, disclosed that the attackers invaded the station around 12:15am with explosives and other weapons.

He stated that the first bomb they threw into the station made a heavy sound that woke up many residents, adding the explosives brought down part of the police station.

Abubakar added that the attackers had a field day as they operated for more than two hours without any interference from security agents or the people of the community.

The resident revealed further that the only police officer on duty, Jibril popularly known as Yellow, was killed during the attack while the only operational vehicle in the police station was destroyed.

He added that the gunmen shattered windows of Eika Community Central Mosque and a Catholic church near the police station.

Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Edward Egbuka, said he has “ordered the deployment of additional operational assets, consisting of operatives of the Police Mobile Force, Counter Terrorism Unit, Quick Response Unit, State Intelligence Bureau in synergy with other security agencies to restore normalcy in the area.”

According to the state Command Police Public Relations Officer , William Aya, part of the Area Command Office was razed by dynamite used by the attackers.

“A police inspector died in the exchange of fire with the hoodlums, before the Area Commander and a detachment of military in the area reinforced to the scene of incident, and the attackers fled,” he said.

Meanwhile, the commissioner of police assured that the Command is committed to working in synergy with other security agencies to make the state safe.

Bandits have abducted 22 farmers and burnt tractors during a coordinated attack on farmers at Rafin-Daji community, Gurdi ward of Abaji Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Rafin-Daji shares boundary with Zago community in Niger State through River Gurara.

A farmer who narrowly escaped the attack, Saidu Yakubu, said the incident happened around 2pm on Thursday when the bandits in their large numbers, wielding AK-47 rifles, attacked farmers that were cultivating in the community.

He said the bandits, who went on rampage shooting sporadically into the air before whisking away the farmers, burnt down two tractors that were being used to cultivate a large farmland in the community before the attack.

He also said 13 members of the same family were among the 22 abducted victims.

He gave the names of the abducted 13 family members as Ismaila Barde, Mustapha Barde, Nasiru Barde, Abdulkarim Barde, Sanusi Barde, Usman, Barde.

Others are Nura Barde, Abdullahi Barde, Babawo Barde, Farida Ayuba, Hauwa Ayuba and Hussaini Abdullahi.

He said the 13 family members, including two females, were working in their separate farmlands when the bandits swooped on them.  

“It was only God that saved me as I managed to escape when the bandits came in their large number, shooting into the air. Some of them set fire on two tractors working on the farm,” he said.  

The district head of Gurdi chiefdom, Bala Mohammed, confirmed the abduction of farmers and burning of tractors by bandits while speaking with our reporter through telephone on Friday.

He said he was yet to ascertain the exact number of the abducted farmers, adding that his people were under siege.

“It was even the district head of Gulida, Abubakar Sadauna, that alerted me that bandits had abducted some farmers who were working on their farms and also burnt down two tractors. But I am yet to get the actual number of those involved,” he said.

Bala said he had reported the kidnap incident at the Yaba police division and the authorities of Abaji Area Council.

Spokesperson of FCT police command, Oduniyi Omotayo, confirmed the kidnap incident, saying the farmers were working when gunmen kidnapped them.

“And upon receipt of the information, a combined team of police officers from various tactical and intelligence units of the command, vigilantes and local hunters stormed the forest, combing the place aggressively,” he said.

He said efforts were ongoing to rescue the victims and bring perpetrators to book while monitoring and surveillance of the community continue.

Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, charged with alleged conspiracy to harvest the organs of a child in the United Kingdom, face life imprisonment if found guilty and convicted to maximum sentence under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA 2015).

The couple, who were arrested following an investigation by the London Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime team, were arraigned before Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court.

The court denied them bail, but ordered that they be remanded till July 7.

The police had said the investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential offences under modern slavery legislation in May 2022.

“[A] Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55 (10.9.66) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.

“[B] Ike Ekweremadu, 60 (12.05.62) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting,” the police said in a statement.

The police added that the child had been safeguarded.

Meanwhile, there was a letter in circulation purporting that Ekweremadu had, in December 2021, written a letter to the British High Commission about a kidney donation for his daughter.

He was said to have stated in the letter that he was writing in support of a visa applicant scheduled for “medical investigations for a kidney donation to his daughter.

Couple arrested en route Turkey– Prosecutors

Prosecutors said the couple were arrested at Heathrow Airport on their way to Istanbul, Turkey, ARISE TV reported.

The prosecutors at the court said the Ekweremadu and his wife were being charged for bringing a 15-year-old boy from Nigeria to the UK with the claim that he was to be given a better life, but they were actually meant to harvest his organ.

The prosecutors told the court that Ekweremadu procured a passport for the boy and claimed he was 21 years old, but discovered that he was 15.

The prosecutors were also said to have told the court that the couple had a daughter with a kidney-related disease and had been on dialysis for quite some time.

They told the court that it was believed that the plan was to use an organ from the boy on their daughter who appeared to need a kidney transplant.

According to the prosecutors, it is believed that the couple were on their way to procure another organ as they were unable to harvest the organ of the boy.

Ekweremadu and his wife had separate legal representations and prayed the court to release them on bail, but the prayer was dismissed by the Magistrate.

Punishment for organ harvesting under UK law

The United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 frowns at human trafficking under which organ harvesting falls and is punishable with maximum sentence of life imprisonment upon conviction.

The Act partly reads: “Under S. 2, an individual commits an offence if they arrange or facilitate the travel of another with a view to that person being exploited. It is irrelevant whether that person consents to the travel, or whether they are a child or an adult.

“Under S. 3 of MSA 2015, exploitation includes: slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour; sexual exploitation (which involves the commission of an offence under s 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Children’s Act 1978 (indecent photographs of children), or Pt 1 of SOA 2003 (eg, rape or sexual assault); removal of organs where a person is encouraged required or expected to do anything which involves the commission of an offence under ss 32 or 33 of the Human Tissue Act 2004 (prohibition of commercial dealings in organs and restrictions on use of live donors); securing services etc by force, threats or deception; securing services etc from children and vulnerable persons (eg, physically or mentally ill or disabled).”

It further stated that anyone found guilty of “human trafficking is liable on summary conviction to 12 months’ imprisonment and/or unlimited fine,” adding that “on conviction on indictment, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.”

Ekweremadu and his wife have surrendered their passports to the British Government.

Ekweremadu’s spokesman, Uche Anichukwu, was not available for comment yesterday.

Ekweremadu, a politician and lawyer, who was recently made a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln, had served three terms as deputy president of the Senate between 2007 and 2019.

The BBC reports that the magistrates were told that Ekweremadu and his wife live in Nigeria, but have family in London.

The BBC quoted the spokesman of the University of Lincoln, to have said: “Visiting professors are often, as is in this case, non-resident at the university, unpaid and advisory.

“We are deeply concerned about the nature of these allegations but as this is an active police investigation, we cannot comment further at this stage.”

The World Bank says inflation is likely to push an additional one million Nigerians into poverty by the end of 2022.

The international financial organisation made the projection in its latest Nigeria Development Update (NDU), released on Tuesday.

The report, titled ‘The continuing urgency of business unusual’, said inflation in Nigeria, already one of the highest in the world before the war in Ukraine, is expected to increase further as a result of the rise in global fuel and food prices caused by the war.

“And that, the World Bank estimates, is likely to push an additional one million Nigerians into poverty by the end of 2022, on top of the 6 million Nigerians that were already predicted to fall into poverty this year because of the rise in prices, particularly food prices,” the report reads.

According to the bank, Nigeria is in a paradoxical situation where growth prospects have improved but inflationary and fiscal pressures have also increased considerably, leaving the economy much more vulnerable.

The situation, it said, is because of the ballooning cost of gasoline subsidies at a time when oil production continues to decline.

“Hence, Nigeria, for the first time since its return to democracy, and alone amongst major oil exporters, is unlikely to benefit fiscally from the windfall opportunity created by higher global oil prices,” the World Bank warned.

Speaking on the report, Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank country director for Nigeria, said:

“When we launched our previous Nigeria Development Update in November 2021, we estimated that Nigeria could stand to lose more than three trillion naira in revenues in 2022 because the proceeds from crude oil sales, instead of going to the federation account, would be used to cover the rising cost of gasoline subsidies that mostly benefit the rich. Sadly, that projection turned out to be optimistic.

“With oil prices going up significantly, and with it, the price of imported gasoline, we now estimate that the foregone revenues as a result of gasoline subsidies will be closer to five trillion naira in 2022.

“And that five trillion is urgently needed to cushion ordinary Nigerians from the crushing effect of double-digit increases in the cost of basic commodities, to invest in Nigeria’s children and youth, and in the infrastructure needed for private businesses small and large to flourish, grow and create jobs.”

The World Bank said Nigeria’s growing macroeconomic challenges in 2022 has shown the need for the continuing urgency of a departure from business as usual, and the need for consensus around a package of robust reforms.

To reduce inflation, lessen fiscal pressures, and attract investment for jobs, the bank recommended three policy priorities for the Nigerian government.

“Reducing inflation through a sequenced and coordinated mix of exchange rate, trade, monetary, and fiscal policies including the adoption of a single, market-responsive exchange rate,” the bank said.

“Addressing mounting fiscal pressures at the federal and sub-national levels by phasing out the petrol subsidy (estimated to cost up to five trillion naira in 2022) and redirecting fiscal resources to investments in infrastructure, education, and health services; increasing ‘pro-health taxes’ and improving tax compliance.

“Catalyzing private investment to boost job creation by improving the transparency of key government-to-business services and eliminating trade restrictions.”

Some gunmen have invaded the Celestial Church of Christ, SBJ Oshofa at Wasimi in Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State, and abducted two worshippers.  

The victims are, an Assistant Shepherd of the parish, Oluwaseun Ajose and a Sunday school teacher, Dagunro Ayobami.

It was gathered that the hoodlums numbering four, stormed the church around 11pm on Monday, and took away the two worshippers.

A source said the church is located at an isolated area, which allowed the hoodlums operated unhindered.

It was gathered that a joint security team of the police and local vigilantes  have been combing the forest in area in search of the abductees.

Shepherd of the parish, Oluwatomisin Ehuwaojomo on Tuesday confirmed the incident.

He also confirmed the kidnappers have reached out to the church  and demanded N50 million ransom.

Ehuwaojomo said, “When my assistant called me almost two hours after they left, the kidnappers initially refused to speak with me but on his third attempt, they spoke with me and requested for N50 million ransom.

“I told them that, I am a servant of God and I don’t receive salary. I have spoken to the commissioner of police and they are on it.”

The State Police Spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said he had not been briefed on the incident.

He, however, promised  to get back

There was palpable tension in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), Tuesday, following an alleged attack by hoodlums on innocent drivers, passengers and residents around the Area one in Garki.

The hoodlums were said to have gone berserk and attacking vehicles using dangerous weapons around Area 1 and Area 3 axis in the nations capital.

The action of the hoodlums which was contained in a WhatsApp message circulated to individuals and groups, sent fears to residents especially those who have their businesses and children schooling in the area.

A media crew from the African Independent Television(AIT), deployed to cover the protest escaped death by the whiskers as the protesters upon sighing the crew pounced on them forcing them to abandon their vehicle and run for their lives. One of the journalists is said to be missing at the time of filing this report as efforts to reach him on his mobile phone has proved abortive.

The WhatsApp message which began to circulate at about four o’clock reads; “Avoid Area 1. Now classes damaging cars slashing through skins”.

But in a swift response, FCT police command, described what happened at area one as “brief unrest”, at the Internally Displaced Persons(IDP), camp in Durumi, and warned rumors mongers to stop peddling fake news.

Acting public relations officer for the command Oduniyi Omotayo, who made this known while responding to the journalists question over the unrest on the command media platform, said the police has since restored law and order to the area.

Oduniyi who promised to issue a statement in the matter said “Brief unrest erupted at the IDP camp at Durumi, the police responded swiftly to restore normalcy. An investigation is ongoing to ascertain the cause and effect of the unrest.

“While members of the public are urged to go about their lawful duties without fear and molestation from any quarters, we strongly advise rumor mongers to stop exaggerating the incident to a degree putting the territory in apprehension. Monitoring and surveillance continue on the scene”.