Gist Arena

Senior Special Assistant to the President, Femi Adesina, says President Buhari made three election promises before coming into office in 2015 and two years down the line, he has fulfilled all three. Speaking in a new interview with The Sun, Adesina said;  "If you are going to assess a government, or do any king of assessment at all, you often need to benchmark it against promises made. So, it is a good time to ask ourselves: what were the promises made? And how far have those promises being fulfilled? We cannot come with a definitive assessment of the government yet, because it is a four-year mandate. So, we can’t come with an assessment that is final. No! So, we ask ourselves: what are the promises the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari made before they came into power? Of course, they were three. The campaign was on three major planks: secure the country, fight corruption and restore the economy. And two years down the line, I can confidently say that those pr...

Police on Friday, June 2, arrested a Nigerian man at Delhi's Indira Gandhi Airport for 'black dollar scam' and forgery. Officials said that the man identified as Gabriel Blessing Efe, was trying to travel to Kolkata and Bhubaneswar on forged documents.  For those who don't know, a black dollar scam is a trick where con artists attempt to obtain money by duping their victim by persuading them that a bundle of banknote-sized paper are actually currency notes that have been dyed to avoid detection, and can be brought back to original dollars if treated with a particular chemical. "Last Friday a Nigerian national who arrived at the Delhi airport to fly to Kolkata via Bhuvneshwer by an Indigo flight 6E 701, was intercepted based on a tip off. According to the documents he held, he was identified as one Mike Danny Efe. On screening of his luggage, a suspicious bundle of papers which were in the size of currency notes and a bottle of chemical we...

The federal government said on Wednesday it had released about N375.8 million for payment of 20 whistleblowers who provided information that led to the recovery over N11.6 billion. The Ministry of Finance, which confirmed the release in a statement, said the payments were the first under the Whistleblower Policy. The government did not disclose the identities of the beneficiaries, apparently for security reasons. “This payment is the first under the Whistleblower Policy,” the Minister for Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said in the statement. “The payment underscores the commitment of the President Muhmmadu Buhari-led administration to meet its obligations to information providers under the Whistleblower Policy, which is an essential tool in the fight against corruption.” The minister said recent amendments to the Whistleblower Policy of the government include the introduction of a formal legal agreement between information providers and the Federal Government. The ...

A House of Representatives committee on Tuesday threatened to handover some companies involved in the procurement of pre-shipment inspection contracts, who allegedly forged tax certificates, to anti-graft agencies for prosecution. The lawmakers also resolved to invite former ministers of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Nenadi Usman, former Head of Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye; former Accountant General of the Federation, Jonah Otunla; and all permanent secretaries of the ministry of finance since 1999 till date. “They are to come and defend themselves and let us know the various roles they played within the period of their stewardship. The essence of this invitation is to enable the investigative hearing have a balance position on all issues,” the committee chairman, Oluwole Oke, said. Mr. Oke, Chairman House Committee on Public Procurement, stated this during an interactive session with Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance over alleged breach of t...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, today arraigned the trio of Onukaogu Onyinyechi Esther, Ebenuwa Chinazo Jennifer and Onukaogu Joshua before Justice A. S. Adepoju of the FCT High court sitting in Wuse, Abuja, on a 13-count charge of conspiracy and obtaining by false pretence. Esther allegedly abused her office while being a staff of Soft Alliance, consultants to the office of the Auditor  General of the Federation on IPPIS between 2012 and 2013, to input her name and two of her siblings (Jennifer and Joshua) into the IPPIS database as staff of Federal Ministry of Education and Federal Ministry of Works respectively, for the purpose of receiving salaries from the federal government.  Esther and her co-defendants were said to have drawn salaries as ghost workers from their ‘respective ministries’ for three years, to the tune of N9million before the law caught up with them. The offence breaches Section 1 (1) (a) and is punishable ...

A 22-year-old woman arrested by the Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Anambra State Police Command has confessed to having sold 20 children since she went into child trafficking business. Most of the children she sold between N150,000 - N200,000, were kidnapped on their way home from school.  The suspect, Chinaza Onwuasoanya was impregnated by her boyfriend in Lagos and returned to Anambra State to have the baby after which she sold the child to a 45-year-old woman, Goodness, who runs an orphanage, which the police allege was a cover for a baby trafficking operation. Onwuasoanya sold her newborn baby girl to Goodness, in exchange for the sum of N150,000. On realizing that she could make easy money from selling children, she moved into child-trafficking. Recounting her journey into child-trafficking, Onwuasoanya told Sunday Sun, she said: "I got into child trafficking two years ago. I have sold 20 male and female children to Madam Goodness who operates the orph...

Nigerian singer, Dammy Kane has now been granted bail. According to the latest update from the Miami-Dade County Criminal Justice Online System, Dammy Krane pleaded not guilty to the charges and demanded for a trial by jury and also chose the option of a waiver pre-trial conference. He has also met his bail condition that was set at $7,500. His defense attorney has changed from Deborah Prager to Courtney Erik. His court hearing will now come up on  June 23, 2017 at 9:15am .

Former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi, has expressed fears that Nigeria may soon collapse if the Federal government does not take stringent measure to tackle corruption in the economy. Obi expressed his fears when he spoke at the Federal University, Ndufu Alike Ikwo (FUNAI) during the grand-finale and presentation of awards to winners of a creative writing competition yesterday June 6th. “Our leaders are doing things wrong, we should not follow them to celebrate what is wrong. What we have in Nigeria is that we are celebrating what is wrong. And I am of the opinion that we should stop celebrating what is wrong and start doing things right so that this country can grow. People are hungry and we should join hands together to question our leaders to tell us what is happening in this country and making sure that the right thing are done. All of us, from 1960 when we gained independence, if we had done the right thing from then, it is not the question of PDP or A...

The National Bureau of Statistics has stated through their unemployment report that the  number of Nigerians who became unemployed rose to 11.55 million at the end of 2016 against 9.48 million at the beginning of the year meaning that extra 2.7 million became unemployed at the end of 2016. The NBS report also stated that the unemployment rate was highest for persons in the labour force between the ages of 15-24 and 25-34, which represents the youth population in Nigeria. For those within the age bracket of 15 to 24, unemployment rose from  25 per cent to 25.2 per cent. While for the  25 to 34 age group, the unemployment rate, increased from 15 per cent to 15.4 per cent. The report also showed  that unemployment and underemployment were higher for women than men in the fourth quarter of 2016. 16.3 per cent of women in the labour force were unemployed as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2016. While 12. 3 per cent of males were...

The son of a former chief of Air Staff who is currently standing trial for his alleged involvement in the misappropriation of the $2.1 billion arms deal fund, has reportedly forfeited 20 exotic cars and a house to the Federal government. According to the Nation, more than five properties and over N2billion have been seized from the former Chief of Air Staff, who served during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Three former Chief of Air Staff are currently facing trial over the arms procurement (between 2007 and 2015) scandal. They include former Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh who is alleged to have misappropriated N3.9 billion, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu accused of misappropriating N22.8 billion and Air Marshal Mohammed Dikko Umar alleged to have stolen N7.8 billion. A member of the Air Vice Marcshal JON Ode-led Presidential Special Investigative Committee investigating the alleged arms deal fraud, disclosed that the committee uncovered the 20 expensi...