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Full Text of Dr. Adewunmi Adesina’s Speech at Bowen University’s Convocation Ceremony

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Vice Chancellor, Registrar, Members of the University Council, Members of the Senate, Deans of Faculties, Senior Officers of the university, lecturers, parents, families and friends of the students, and most importantly, the great students of Bowen University!

Congratulations to you all on the 13th convocation ceremony of the Bowen University.

I am delighted to be here today to deliver the convocation lecture. I’d like to congratulate the university on graduating another set of students that will shape the future of Nigeria, Africa and the world.

You prepare leaders through scholarship, knowledge and biblical principles. You set up your students on solid foundations. The storms and the waves may come, as they face life, but Bowen has prepared them to stand. Their anchors will hold in the storms of life.

I am a believer in Baptist education. I attended high school at Ejigbo Baptist High school. We sang from the Baptist Hymnal. I remember so well one of my favourite songs “I am pressing on the upward way, new heights I am gaining everyday… a higher plane than I have found, Lord plant my feet on higher ground”.

Oh, how I always cherished the words of that hymn, its call for us to reach for glory land. It always inspired me as well to reach out to higher ground here in life, by pressing on. Today, I ask you to press on to higher ground.

That is the kind of higher ground by the Nigerian Baptist Convention when it established Bowen University in 2001. Then, it had only 500 students. By 2017, it had 5,000 students. And all its programs are accredited by the Nigerian University Commission.

One of my favourite scriptures is the parable of talents. One had 5 and invested and doubled to 10. Another had 2 talents and doubled to 4. One had one talent but buried it. When the master came he praised the first two and gave them more. He berated the third one for not investing his talents.

So today, let’s talk about investing your talents through entrepreneurship.

Universities are known as citadels of leaning. They are reservoirs that nourish the mind, sharpen a sense of inquiry, unlock intellectual curiosity. You are taught to question things, to always ask why and why not, to find alternative pathways and solutions.

In my days at the university, you got a job immediately after you graduated. Your future was set.

No longer. The graduate today is graduating into a world of uncertainty. Over 13 million young people enter the job markets each year but only 3 million get jobs. Africa will have the largest number of youths joining the labour market by 2030 than all the world taken together.

I took a look at your website and noticed that according to the Stutern Nigerian Graduate Report, 2018, 60 per cent of Bowen graduates are employed. Two things stood out to me. The probability of getting employed is 60 per cent. Second, your graduates are working for others, though it did not say what kinds of jobs they have.

But one thing is missing: it did not talk about how many of the students were entrepreneurs, who created businesses, employing others: Job creators, not job hunters.

This is the time to remember the song above, and press on to higher ground. That higher ground is not to depend on others to employ you. The higher ground is for you to be job creators. The key to that is entrepreneurship.

Scott Belsky, the Founder of Behance said: “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen”.

How true! How pertinent! Indeed, it is entrepreneurship that makes ideas happen.

To be a successful entrepreneur you need some attributes that you were not taught in school. The key one is perseverance. Perseverance is defined as “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success”.

Steve Jobs said, “I am convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones is pure perseverance”.

The university system does not teach you to make mistakes. You are to be perfect. You got an F, your future was finished. Really? Maybe not. Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating failure. But to be an entrepreneur get used to failures.

You will not succeed at your first idea. Indeed your idea may lead you many times to want to quit. But don’t.

Think about Thomas Edison who developed the light bulb. He was said to have failed 1,000 times when trying to develop the light bulb. He had a different view: he said no, I did not fail 1,000 times, the development of the light bulb required 1,000 steps”. What a perspective.

Albert Einstein said, “Anyone that has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”.

Universities should shift away from rote teaching into allowing students to experiment, try things, put ideas to work, and innovate.

To do this, universities need to have structured institutional arrangements for supporting innovations. In the US universities set up offices for innovation development and commercialisation of innovations developed by universities.

Developing patents is not enough. Patents must lead to business and that can only happen through supportive environments for them to thrive. Setting up university foundries is a good way to achieving this.

Take Purdue university; it runs a foundry that supports its students to turn their ideas into businesses.

Stanford university has programs in entrepreneurship for students, start-up garages where ideas are tested and venture studios that it uses to connect graduate students to a world of ideas, other innovators, community of entrepreneurs, including its own alumni.

How many students here have taken courses on entrepreneurship? How many even know about venture capital or angel investors?

By the way these are not angels in the Bible, just so we are on the same page!

I read a book while I was a student in the Christian union fellowship in the university undergraduate days called “Angels on Assignment”. It talks about how God sends angels to help us in difficult situations.

In the world of business, for your ideas to be turned into a business generating money, as a start-up you will need angel investors. They size up your ideas, your business, value your business and provide financing, usually convertible debt or debt they convert to shareholding.

While God has angels watching over billions of people without knowing, angel investors watch over business ideas, looking for what may work. Where there are no ideas that can thrive into viable businesses, you will not find angel investors.

Now, how many angel investors have you seen on your campus? You can measure the likelihood of a university generating wealth by whether you see angel investors hanging around your campus. If you don’t find them, check yourself: you may not be driving and nurturing entrepreneurship and innovation. You may not thriving. You may be missing great opportunities to turn the university into a hub of innovations that will lead to successful big businesses.

And women are great entrepreneurs. Just take a look at women in Nigeria. They are very enterprising. Everywhere you look you see them hard at work. Women run Nigeria!

Young female students deserve special entrepreneurship programs to unleash their potential.

Think about the case of We@Yale that was created to specifically support women entrepreneurs at Yale University to launch 500 business ventures in five years.

No bird can fly with one wing. When women’s potential is fully unlocked, Nigeria will fly with two wings.

The African Development Bank is supporting entrepreneurship programs in African universities. One example is the Rwanda Institute of Science and Technology, a collaborative program on Masters in ICT, jointly with Carnegie Mellon University in the US. With $40 million support from the Bank, the school is world class. And 100 per cent of their students get jobs even before they graduate, with many setting up their own ventures.

Such is the case of Clarisse Irigabiza, a student who set up her own IT business, and sold it for $21 million at the age of 27. What did the university do to help her? World class education, yes. But much more: exposure to entrepreneurship.

Rwanda has set up with our support the Rwanda Innovation Fund to support its young entrepreneurs. The university is linked to the Kigali Innovation City, a modern tech enabling hub linked to universities to help ideas grow, to turn ideas into innovations, and turn innovations into thriving businesses.

One of the important areas ripe for entrepreneurship is the agriculture sector.

One of the young people in Nigeria I am very proud of is Dr.Tope Aroge. I met him when I was Minister of Agriculture and provided him a grant of $5 million Naira. He is a medical doctor, now farmer. You may say wow! Yes, go ahead.

You are wondering why did he change from being a medical doctor to farming? That’s because you do not know that the size of food and agribusiness in Africa by 2030 will be worth $1 trillion. Yes, you heard me right: $1 Trillion dollars.

I did not say Naira. Today, Tope has a 300 ha farm, and he has set up a high quality cassava flour/ industrial starch processing factory which has a 6,000 tonnes capacity. He is an agricultural entrepreneur. Some of you should be like him. Here is why: The future millionaires and billionaires of Africa will not come from oil and gas, but from agriculture sector. So, universities should move beyond agricultural science, to agriculture as a business.

That is exactly what the Wageningen University in Netherlands is doing. It has food-manufacturing companies, including Nestle, the world’s largest food manufacturing company; research and innovation centres located on its campus, investing tens of millions of dollars. No wonder it is ranked number one in the world for agriculture.

The ranking of the 100 most innovative universities is instructive. US universities have 45; African universities have none. Stanford University for the past several years have consistently ranked number one. Others in top ranks are Yale, Harvard and MIT. In the UK you have Imperial College.

Listen to a quote on Stanford by David M. Ewalt published just few days ago: “Located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, Stanford University has played a key role in the development of our networked world. In the early 1970s, Stanford professor Vint Cerf co-designed the TCP/IP protocols that became the basic communication standard for the Internet; and in 1991, physicists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center deployed the first world wide web server outside of Europe. The university’s faculty and alumni have founded major tech companies including Google, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems.

A 2012 study by the university estimated that companies formed by Stanford entrepreneurs generate so much revenue that if they formed an independent nation, it would rank among the 10 largest economies in the world.[1]

The lesson is clear: universities must understand the needs of the private sector and look for how to drive technologies, innovation and entrepreneurship to meet those opportunities. That’s the kind of win-win partnerships that the private sector is looking for from universities.

The world today and more so in the future is and will be dominated by science, technology and innovations. With the fourth industrial revolution, there is rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, automation and quantum data analytics.

It is not data that will control the world, it is those who control data. Think of it: every time you use Google, WhatsApp a friend, post on Instagram or Facebook your data has been collected.

While they offer you nice networking social media they are mining your data. Chinese universities are surging forward in the field of artificial intelligence, with rapid research in medical sciences, neurosciences, machine learning and big data analytics. Listen to a recent piece by Sawahel and Sharma: “Chinese universities make up 17 out of top 20 academic players in artificial intelligence”.[2]

Africa is getting itself positioned to improve its relevance in this space. The African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is becoming a significant platform to strengthen science, technology and mathematical sciences.

Start-ups are emerging in Africa. In 2015, Africa had 3,500 new tech-related ventures and $1 billion in venture capital. By 2019, 6,500 tech start-ups have been established, with $2.27 billion investments in tech start-ups.

The continent’s Internet of Things (IOT) is estimated to be $12.6 billion by 2021 in Africa and Middle East. By 2019 financing for Big Data start-ups inched to $9.8 million.

So what does it all mean. Let me start with the lesson from the Bible. It says to your faith add… My question you is: what are you adding to your education?

Today, I ask you to add new skills, entrepreneurship, and make the university not just about knowledge, but about transformative knowledge, one that is enabled to create the next great businesses for the world.

Transformative knowledge is best captured by the World Economic Forum on human capital: “the knowledge and skills people possess that enable them to create value in the global economic system”.

This is quite instructive! We must not look at knowledge in terms of local environments. Knowledge, to be transformative, must also have global relevance.

You can measure the extent of progress of nations by how much they spend on research and development. The most innovating country in Africa is South Africa. Not surprisingly its universities are doing much better on innovations. A report about to be released by the African Development Bank found that of 24 universities surveyed, 23 have technology transfer offices.

Today, South Africa has developed the largest 3D printer in the world. This is already positioning it to be able to be competitive in industrial use, such as to develop parts for airplanes and shape aeronautics.

Despite this, our review of the readiness of countries for the use of innovations as drivers of growth showed a pattern: of 16 African countries looked at, on a score of 0-100, they all scored between 3.28 to 5.37. On a scale of 0-100, Nigeria is at 3.68.

What this tells us is clear: Nigeria needs to urgently spend a lot more on research and development. That’s what others are doing.

Take for example the case of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They have just set up the Mohamed bin Zayed University for Artificial Intelligence; the world’s first University dedicated only to Artificial Intelligence. It will train masters and PhD students. And they already have over 3,000 applicants, drawing the best professors and innovators from across the world.

And guess why? They recognise that the size of the Artificial Intelligence market will be worth $15.7 trillion by 2030; just eleven years from now. Dubai, which Nigerians flock to today, as consumers, is already building itself to the AI hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in the world.

Only those that see the future will invest for the future. Only those who see the future can move to higher grounds. My favourite Baptist hymnal echoes in my mind. Lord, please set our feet on higher ground. O Lord, please set our nation, Nigeria, on higher ground.

This is not just a prayer. It is something I believe in very strongly. This is what led me to donate $1.1 million, representing the combined prize monies and matching funds from my 2017 World Food Prize Award and my 2019 SunHak Peace Prize to create the World Hunger Fighters Foundation, to support the youth entrepreneurs in food and agriculture.

And how excited my wife, Grace and I, were two weeks ago to unveil our first set of 10 Fellows – called Borlaug-Adesina Fellows – at the World Food Prize in Iowa, in the United States of America.

They are great talents, just like those I see in front of me here today.

The youth are not the future. They are the present. Our collective responsibility is to prepare the youth to thrive today to drive the future, through entrepreneurship.

So, what is the path to the future for entrepreneurship and universities. Let me offer seven short suggestions.

First, all students in universities must be supported to become entrepreneurs. Not only grades should matter. All must pass the entrepreneurship requirement. That way, universities become knowledge transmitters, as well as entrepreneur developers.

Second, universities should set up technology business incubator and innovation hubs. They should be connected to venture capital and angel investors.

Third, governments should set up financial systems that support young people. Instead of talking about youth empowerment, we should focus on youth investment, for the future. Governments should set up Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks. They will be banks that support hope, not those that hinder hope. Banks by the youth, run by the youth, for the youth.

Fourth, private sector should be encouraged to locate research, technology and innovation centres on university campuses. Students should be supported to have internships in these centres. Universities should set up endowed funds to invest in ventures of their students.

Fifth, what is not measured does not get done. The measure of the growth of countries should not just be GDP. Nobody eats GDP. Rather, we must begin to measure the contribution of the youth to the GDP – what I call Y-GDP. And that can only happen when we support small and medium sized enterprises of the youth.

Six, Nigeria needs to set up a National Science and Innovation Fund, devoting about 20 per cent of its oil earnings to driving innovation for the faster tech-enabled growth of Nigeria to power the Nigeria of the future.

Finally, we must believe in the youth. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the substance of things not yet seen. Our hope must be in the youth. And that hope must be brought quickly from the future into the present. For hope delayed, is promise denied.

As I look around here today, I see hope. I see a generation destined for success. I see a cohort of graduates, prepared to be global change makers.

Go ahead and become entrepreneurs! Take on the future from today. Reach for the stars. Or better still, become the stars yourselves!

Lift your eyes to the hills, for your help comes from God, the maker of heavens and earth. He will not suffer your feet to be moved.

Instead he will set your feet on higher ground!

Thank you all very much.

Speech By AfDB President Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina

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Okuama Massacre: Military Declares Eight Persons Wanted

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The Defence Headquarters has declared eight persons wanted over their roles in the recent killing of 17 military personnel in Delta State.

The military released the list on Thursday at a briefing in Abuja.

Those declared wanted are Prof. Ekpekpo Arthur, Andaowei Dennis Bakriri, Akevwru Daniel Omotegbo (Aka Amagben), Akata Malawa David, Sinclear Oliki, Clement Ikolo Oghenerukeywe, Reuben Baru, and Igoli Ebi.

During the briefing, the Director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, called on Nigerians especially residents of Delta and adjoining states to assist the military with credible information that would lead to the arrest of eight persons allegedly responsible for the killing of seventeen soldiers in Okuama community in Delta State.

General Buba says the military remains determined to fish out the perpetrators of the heinous act in Delta State, reaffirming its commitment to rescue all kidnapped and abducted victims in Nigeria.

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How CJMR Has Championed Restoration of Justice to Unjustly Incarcerated, Condemned – Founder, Olujobi

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By Eric Elezuo

“At CJMR, we stand firm on our scriptural foundation: ‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice…,” Pastor Olujobi 

Most citizens of the world are endowed with milk of human kindness, and are ever ready to lend a helping hand to folks in need, either for cash or kind. One of these citizens is a Nigerian of special breed, filled with compassion and zeal to assist wrongfully detained persons to regain their freedom. He is Mr. Hezekiah Olujobi, who is leading the fight against wrongful detention and elongated detention without trial with his Non-Governmental Organization, the Centre for Justice, Mercy and Reconciliation (CJMR).

The CJMR as stated, is NGO dedicated to promoting human rights and advocacy within the Nigeria Correctional Service and strengthening the rule of law in Nigeria Criminal Justice System, according to the Founder, Mr. Olujobi.

“Our area of focus are Advocacy, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Investigation, Cases review, Rehabilitation of individual upon freedom and Restorative Justice in Criminal Matter,” he added.

The CJMR as an organization, was established in 1999, and was officially registered in 2009. It has since then accumulated an enviable and proven track record of facilitating the release of individuals from death row, some of whom had been unjustly incarcerated for 18 to 28 years.

“Additionally, over 600 inmates have been freed from illegal detention after 4 to 12 years without trial. The organization has also established a Halfway Home that has benefited over 300 individuals.

“Our activities cut across the Correctional service in South West: Oyo, Odun , Ogun and Lagos States. We still have over 100 cases for intervention including 10 people on death row whom we strongly believed they are victims of wrongful conviction,” Olujobi stressed.

Hezekiah Olujobi, also known as a Pastor, for his vocation as a preacher of the gospel, who is the founder of CJMR, is currently working on two books to project the work of the organization so far.

The first, “Their Stories Behind Bars,” is a collection of narratives from individuals wrongfully sentenced to death and how the organization helped secure their rrlease, while the second book, “Their Hurts and Unforgettable Memories,” delves into the stories of victims and offenders, exploring their deep hurts and the healing process through restorative justice.

The following stories below as told by Pastor Olujobi, carefully epitomizes how far the NGO has gone to put smiles on the faces of individuals, who have otherwise lost hope of ever living their lives among free people again

Olaniyi Emiola’s Wrongful Conviction: My Belief in His Innocence

Olaniyi Emiola was sentenced to death based on witness testimony that was a case of mistaken identity. The armed robber apprehended at the crime scene insisted he was not the person being referred to and claimed he did not know Emiola at all. However, one of the victims, who recognized Emiola by the name “Abija,” insisted that he was the culprit. Emiola was known in the streets as “Abija,” not “Niyi,” yet the robber mentioned a “Femi Niyi,” not “Abija.” The man in question is Olaniyi Emiola, not Femi Niyi. During the trial, it was claimed that the robber identified the house of their leader to them, who is known as Abija,

In this controversial case, the conclusion of judgment of my noble lord, Hon Justice Jimoh of the Tribunal Court, was as follows:

“It is our considered judgment that the discovery of the second accused in the house pointed out by the first accused to the prosecution, and the discovery of the stolen items in the house shown to the police by the first accused, are admissible and well taken. Referencing R. v. Garbett (1847) 2 C & K 474 and R. v. Treacy (1945) 30 CAR 93, with these authorities in view, the second accused has been properly identified and linked with the commission of the crime charged.

Since the prosecution has adduced sufficient evidence to place the second accused at the scene at the material time, his alibi defense is logically and physically demolished.

This was established by the Supreme Court in the cases of Patrick Njovens vs. The State (1973) 5 SC 17 at 65 and Christian Nwosisi v. The State (1976) 6 SC 109 at 112.

It is my considered judgment that since the defense of the second accused has failed and, by the acceptable evidence of the prosecution witnesses, the accused has fallen into the warm embrace of the law, and I so hold.

SENTENCE: OLANIYI EMIOLA – The sentence of the Tribunal upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead or suffer death by firing squad, as the Administrator of this State may direct. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

This was the judgment that sent a man to darkness and anguish, leaving him to await execution in a solitary cell for 11 years without the right to appeal, luckily for him, the abolition of execution was announced in Nigeria.

Reprieve came when we visited Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison in 2007. We investigated the matter by analyzing the entire judgment and all the contents of the case file. We took up his case, amplified his voice of innocence, and refuted all the arguments in light of the existing facts recorded in the judgement.

Olaniyi Emiola was finally set free in January 2011, after 17 years had been wrongfully taken from his life.

One can only imagine what would have happened if execution had not been abolished in Nigeria.

CJMR’s Advocacy visit to the Oyo State Attorney General

The organisation has also taken its advocacy to the Attorney General’s office in Oyo State, and achieved certain parameters as represented in the narrative below:

“On Wednesday, March 20, 2024, the Committee for Centre for Justice Mercy and Reconciliation (CJMR) conducted an advocacy visit to the office of the Oyo State Attorney General. The purpose of the visit was to highlight the plight of numerous inmates who have been denied justice and are enduring the prolonged anguish of indefinite trials for capital offenses.

The primary goal of the visit was to bring to the Attorney General’s attention specific cases of individuals who appear to have been wrongfully accused of capital offenses and have been languishing in detention since 2015 without legal advice. Additionally, there are those who have been repeatedly taken to the High Court since 2017 without the prosecution presenting a single witness.

In a recent development on March 18 and 19, 2024, the Oyo State Chief Judge, Honorable Justice Iyabo Yerima, visited the custodial centers in Ibadan and Oyo. She firmly resolved not to address any capital offense cases, maintaining her stance throughout the jail delivery exercise. Consequently, 32 inmates were released from Agodi and 38 from Oyo, totaling 70 releases from facilities that house 1,250 and 827 inmates, respectively. The data clearly indicates that a significant proportion of detainees charged with capital offenses remain unaddressed.

Pastor Olujobi further noted that “During the CJMR’s visit, seven recommendations were proposed to enhance the efficiency of justice delivery by the Attorney General’s office, and a list of 32 individuals awaiting legal advice was submitted.”

The Attorney General, known for his humility and activism, pledged to collaborate with the CJMR.

He further acknowledged that “It is a profound injustice for individuals, even those apprehended with substantial evidence, to be detained indefinitely, risking the degradation of evidence and waning interest or resolve of witnesses. The slow turn of the justice system’s wheels can erode its very foundation.

“Similarly, it is an injustice for an innocent person to endure punishment due to procedural delays or inefficiencies.

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of democratic societies, yet it is undermined when the process to establish innocence is plagued by excessive delays. The time for change is now.

Olujobi is also of the view that “The judiciary must move beyond a confessionary-based approach to prison decongestion and focus on those unjustly detained for capital offenses.”

From Darkness to Light: The Unraveling of Injustice and the Triumph of Freedom for Olusola Adepetu after 26 years behind bar

In this scenario, the police conducted a comprehensive investigation, and the defense attorney performed admirably. However, despite these efforts, the judge appeared to succumb to public pressure, reminiscent of Pontius Pilate’s historical decision, resulting in Olusola Adepetu being wrongfully sentenced to death.

Tragically, this miscarriage of justice led to the loss of 26 years of Adepetu’s life.

The appellant, a native of Ondo state was 34 years old at the time of his arrest, a father of 4 children with a broken home.

He was the owner of Olusola Naturalist Hospital. He was a Guru in herbal traditional-medicine, very popular with radio and television advertisements.

He cures all manner of ailment, he was a highlife socialite, he was a member of special marshal of Federal Road Safety Commission, due to the nature of his work as herbal traditional medicine healer he was highly connected with people in high places who always patronized him and in the world ravaged with deceases people always throng his office to seek healing for their ailments.

He is not a medical doctor but always referred to as Doctor Olusola.

All of a sudden, the light of his fame and popularity went off, he was enveloped with thick darkness. For a good 26 years he never walks under the moon nor is beaten by rain.

What happened?

His girlfriend was murdered in a mysterious way, three days later, her dead body was recovered by the police at the Express way, Sanyo, Ibadan and deposited at mortuary in Adeoyo state Hospital. Who must have done this?

Nobody knows till today. The relations who were in the shop of the father of his girlfriend who saw him when he came to pick the deceased and the bar man who saw him the previous day with the deceased pointed touch light on him.

Upon his arrest, rumors went round the whole city like wildfire and consumed the heart of men, same Radio and Television stations where his advertisements were being jingled, announced his arrest, all kinds of rumors went round the city, his case became a celebrated case.

He was consumed by the public adverse opinion.

With all kinds of rumors, the death of the lady was attributed to ritual killing, some said he cut the breast of the lady, some said he cut her private part for the ritual purpose.

At every court adjournment the whole court room and the premises will always be filled up with people. The case attracted the public interest. Like Pontius Pilate, the judge has no choice than to deliver the innocent man as a sacrificial lamb not for the world but for his likely hidden sin.

Light shines on his path again, when we unravel the case file documents with the dissenting judgement and the man regains his freedom after 26 years.

The critical question is: Who will advocate for the poor and helpless? It is us;
The Chief Judge, Attorney General, Commissioner of Police, and all stakeholders must be involved. And this where CJMR comes in, and the organization are doing it.

“We therefore call for wholesome assistance from all and sundry to sustain the tempo, and help our people, who graciously need the assistance,” Olujobi concluded.

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Binance Executive Detained in Nigeria Escapes from Custody

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One of the two Binance executives detained in Nigeria for alleged tax evasion and other offences, Nadeem Anjarwalla, has escaped from lawful custody, according to PREMIUM TIMES report.

Our sources said Mr Anjarwalla, 38, escaped on Friday, 22 March, from the Abuja guest house where he and his colleague were detained after guards on duty led him to a nearby mosque for prayers in the spirit of the ongoing Ramadan fast.

The Briton, who also has Kenyan citizenship, is believed to have flown out of Abuja using a Middle East airliner.

It remains unclear how Mr Anjarwalla got on an international flight despite his British passport, with which he entered Nigeria, remaining in the custody of the Nigerian authorities.

Authorities are also said to be working to unravel his intended destination in a bid to get him back into custody.

An Immigration official said the Binance executive fled Nigeria on a Kenyan passport. He, however, said authorities were trying to determine how he obtained the passport, given that he had no other travel document (apart from the British passport) on him when he was taken into custody.

Another source said the two officials were held at a “comfortable guest house” and allowed many rights, including the use of telephones, a privilege Mr Anjarwalla is believed to have exploited to plot an escape.

When contacted Sunday night on the escape of the Binance executive from detention, the Head of Strategic Communication at the Office of the National Security Adviser, Zakari Mijinyawa, said he would enquire and revert. He has yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.

Mr Anjarwalla, Binance’s Africa regional manager, and Tigran Gambaryan, a US citizen overseeing financial crime compliance at the crypto exchange platform, were detained upon their arrival in Nigeria on 26 February 2024.

A criminal charge was filed against the two executives before a Magistrate Court in Abuja. On 28 February 2024, the court granted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) an order to remand the duo for 14 days. The court also ordered Binance to provide the Nigerian government with the data/information of Nigerians trading on its platform.

Following Binance’s refusal to comply with the order, the court extended the remand of the officials for an additional 14 days to prevent them from tampering with evidence. The court then adjourned the case till 4 April 2024.

Also on 22 March, the Nigerian government approached the Federal High Court in Abuja and slammed another four-count charge on Binance Holdings Limited, Mr Anjarwalla and Mr Gambaryan, accusing them of offering services to subscribers on their platform while failing to register with the Federal Inland Revenue Service to pay all relevant taxes administered by the Service and in so doing, committed an offence, contrary to and punishable under Section 8 of the Value Added Tax Act of 1993 (as Amended).

The defendants were also accused of offering taxable services to subscribers on their trading platform while failing to issue invoices to those subscribers to determine and pay their value-added taxes and, in so doing, committed an offence contrary to and punishable under S.29 of the Value Added Tax Act of 1993 (as amended).

Count Three of the charges accused the three defendants of offering services to subscribers on their Binance trading platform for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies and the remittance and transfer of those assets while failing to deduct the necessary Value Added Taxes arising from their operations and thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 40 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service Establishment Act 2007 (as amended).

The last count of the charges wants the defendants punished for allegedly aiding and abetting subscribers on their Binance trading platform to unlawfully refuse to pay taxes or neglect to pay those taxes and, in so doing, committing an offence contrary to and punishable under the provisions of S.94 of the Companies Income Tax Act (as amended).

The Nigerian government had, in the past three months, been cracking down on suspected money launderers and terrorism financiers, some of whom it alleged are using the Binance platform for criminal activities

The Nigerian government said over $21.6 billion was traded by Nigerians whose identities were concealed by Binance.

Source: Premium Times

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