AFR Business

Justice Babatunde Quadri of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday, May 30, 2018 admitted in evidence documents tendered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, against a Chinese national, Li Ya Ping, who is facing trial for allegedly concealing the sum of $300,000 (equivalent of N108million), while attempting to board a flight to Dubai.
The offence contravenes Section 2 (3) (5) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) which states that: “Transportation of cash or negotiable instruments in excess of $10,000 or its equivalent by individuals in or out of the country shall be declared to the Nigeria Customs Service”.
At the resumed hearing, counsel to EFCC, P. K. Latona presented the fourth witness, Hassan Mohammed Misau.
Misau, a detective with the Advance Fraud Unit of the EFCC, in his testimony told the court that, “on March 15, 2018 at about 13Hours, my team received a phone call from the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, FCT Command, informing us of the arrest of the defendant, who they said concealed a sum of $300,000 and was intercepted at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja while trying to board an Emirate Airline to Dubai”.
He stated that the anti-graft agency dispatched a team of investigators to follow up on the report, and on arrival they met with the officers – Yahaya Ishaq and Helen Ajibero, who gave statements on how the incident happened.
The witness said that his team, thereafter, received handover notes, statements from the customs officials, 2 Business boarding pass, a Chinese international passport, a mobile handset belonging to the defendant alongside the sum of $300,000 and brought same to the Commission.
He added that the defendant was handed over to the EFCC on March 16, 2018 by the NCS.
According to the witness, investigations were extended to the Chinese Embassy, Abuja, the Cross River State Government which the defendant claimed he was doing business with, UBA, Bank of Agriculture and Heritage Bank (the banks he claimed the sum were withdrawn from). He added that the defendant’s mobile handset was also subjected to forensic analysis.
Going further, Misau said investigations revealed that the defendant failed to make currency declaration despite the fact that he was a frequent flyer from Nigeria to various foreign destinations via Abuja and Lagos International Airports. He also told the court that their findings revealed that the defendant understand and can speak English language.
With no objection from the Defence counsel, P. I. N Ikwueto SAN, the prosecution tendered the handover notes from Customs, the statements from Yahaya Ishaq and Helen Ajibero, the boarding pass, the exhibit registration form for the sum of $300,000 and were all admitted as “Exhibits B: B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5” respectively.
Also tendered were the mobile phone, Hawaii 10 and People’s Republic of China Passport of the defendant, which were admitted as “Exhibits C, and D” respectively.
The PW4 further explained that the said sum was registered with the exhibit keeper of the EFCC with a registration form and the certified exhibit form was also tendered and admitted as Exhibit ‘E’.
The statement of defendant dated March 16, 2018 at the EFCC was tendered and admitted as Exhibit ‘F’. The additional statement made by the Immigration officers, Murtar Abdullahi and Hauwa on March 19, 2018 was admitted as “Exhibit G and H”.
Other documents admitted included letter to the Cross River State, Calabar as “Exhibit I”; Letter to the Managing Director, United Bank for Africa Plc; Letter to the Head of Forensic Unit, EFCC and Letter to the Chinese Embassy as Exhibits ‘K’, ‘L’ and ‘J’ respectively.
The case has been adjourned to May 31, 2018 for continuation of trial.
In another development, EFCC, Lagos zonal office, has arrested three suspected Internet fraudsters for conspiracy and possession of fraudulent documents.
The suspects-Sylvester Osolase,30; Seyi Ajayi, 36 and Monday Mayaki, 37- were arrested on Sunday, May 27, 2018 at River View Estate, Isheri North, Lagos State, following intelligence report received by the Commission about their activities.
The suspects, who were dealing in romance and classified scams, confessed to have defrauded several unsuspecting victims around the world.
They also confessed to have used proceeds of their illicit deals to buy cars, paid their rents and travel around the world.
Items found on the suspects include laptops, cars, mobile phones and incriminating documents that were printed from their emails.
The suspects will soon be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.

One would expect that those alive in 2023 enjoy the unique advantage of access to records history. We are after all, aware of the Jewish pogroms, slavery, the holocaust and the notorious civil wars of African countries. These and other avoidable ills, should give us a unique perspective into the inevitable outcome of identity politics.

There is ample data for even the mildly curious in our age of superfluously available information. This makes it irresponsible for us to consciously follow the course that will inevitably bring us to the same avoidable ills that befell previous generations

Tt is clear to the discerning, that politicians want power at all costs. Thuggery, rigging and even assassinations are sufficient indications for how far they are willing to go to achieve their objectives.

I believe implicitly that the most reliable tool in their arsenal is the “divide and rule” doctrine. People are divided into groups and fed with exaggerated half truths about marginalization and unfair treatment. The members of the group that best serve the agenda of a political entity are canonized while those excluded from the commonwealth for their lack of utilitarian values, are demonized. Ideas are carefully disseminated to appeal to instinctual nativism in the populace and rally their support for a candidate that promises to prevent the erosion of non-existent privileges and to protect against made up threats.

When this ploy is successfully executed, politicians need not campaign on competence or integrity. They merely need to consistently send out intentional dog-whistles to sustain the loyalty of their created political niche. Tribal identity is constantly weaponized by politicians as a carefully cultivated tool of mass control.

This tactic is especially effective amongst the uneducated.

The amazing aspect of this power play is that there is no real ideological divisions amongst the political elite. They recognize that in truth, identity politics is merely a tool for control. A tool that becomes unnecessary when the desired end has been established. The desired end is usually the attainment of power; power in perpetuity.

At the conclusion of each political cycle, while the people continue to kill and maim each other over the manufactured divisions, the politicians sit back in their protected, luxurious cocoons, eating, drinking and making merry.

Watch carefully and you’ll marvel at the similarities of the recent happenings in Nigeria with the political climate in Nazi Germany.

A group of people are identified as evil, and labelled as the cause of all the ills in the land. They are given dehumanizing labels and are hated for failing to meet the political expectations of the indigenes. At the end of such sustained hate-filled rhetoric, it is easy to bully, maim and ultimately kill the described purveyors of evil. It is in fact not unusual for such actions to be done in the name of god.

It is still a marvel that the Nazis managed to get nearly the entire German population to go along with their anti- semitic propaganda. For the attainment of political ends, Nigerians are currently being programmed by politicians and their agents, to hate and despise a particular tribe in the country.

I have belonged to this group for approximately 29 monhts, I can report that I have never witnessed anywhere else, the type of open bigotry and dark tribalism that exists on this platform.

On a daily basis, soulless humanoids flock in and vomit words of unimaginable hate.

What is shocking is that this has become normalized. People know it happens, but they have normalized it, they have adapted to it. They have come to accept it as part of what to expect as being part of this group.

I have received a significant number of messages from people who are either trying to calm me down or who themselves have been burnt by the actions of people who might just as well have travelled from the stone age.

I’ve just scanned the group for something vile. Ladies and gentlemen, the following is what was written by an admin in this group: “They have instilled into every Igbo man to hate the Yoruba man. The reasons stem from personal jealousy, hatred and ultimate plan for dominance of Yorubas.”

Then there is an ominous warning at the end of the message:
“….Yorubas are warm and welcoming,but …the other side of midnight is horrific”

This text did not draw a single reaction on the platform. This type of rhetoric could have been lifted word for word from Goebbels’ notebook. This is textbook hate mongering. This is advanced bigotry. This is an outright warning of a genocide.

NO ONE REACTED.

The same person watched a video that was undisguisedly designed to inspire hatred for a tribe and decided to share on the group. Who knows where else this agent has shared such materials. Who knows what hatred is nurtured by and has been inspired in others by this agent

It is impossible for a day to pass without this particular agent and his cohorts vomiting tribally charged and openly bigoted texts and videos on the group. Yet, we all sit calmly and smile.

It is nearly impossible, especially among illeterates, for a non-igbo to watch that video and several similar videos that have been shared on this platform and not hate igbos.

This means that the videos are so potent that it can radicalize people. I wonder what effect it has had on other members of this group. I wonder what dark clouds loom over our country as these vile actors share their poison on this group and undoubtedly, several other groups.

This group has become a nest of vipers in which no one is actually safe. It is a toxic mixture of unhinged and controlled hate. This is a group of people who believe in the superioriry of a person by the virtue of their tribe. Occupation, academic achievemnets, family,..none of these matter. What matters is the identification one has based on where his/her great great great grand fathers/mothers were born.

In my time in this group with these illiterate mouth breathers , not one day has passed without the mention of one tribe or the other. Not one day passes without the demonization of one tribe. Not one day passes without the particular tribe enduring insults and humiliation meted out by group members who may never match the levels of success and recognition of those they malign.

These people who get insulted daily, are hard working and upstanding citizens who discharge their civic duties including paying taxes and being law abiding. They are demonized because of the political choices they make. They are demonized because they are considered subhuman and therefore should not exercise a right to participate in the democratic processes of electing leaders. They are demonized because they refuse to adapt to the expectations of “the indigenes” to become subservient

In all civilized societies, it is understood that individuals make political choices based on self-interest. In fact, it is one of the purest expressions of freedom and equality, that a citizen has a right to make political choices.

Humanity as a whole decry societies like pre construction-era America, the Jim Crow south of America, Apartheid South Africa, where human beings, on the basis of identity, were denied the right to participate in democratic processes; including and especially voting.

It is worth noting that politicians have always failed when they expected individuals in the populace to vote outside self interest. The reenactment of the serf -era system of voting in line with the expectations of the “rightful owners of the land” will fail in 2023. Or, at least, I hope it does.

There are numerous people in this group who make their living in societies where there is a genuine pursuit of equality by the government and the political elites. They live in societies that advocate Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity; they benefit immensely from these ideals. Yet, these people who are mostly dead inside, these people who are incapable of clear thinking, advocate a return to caveman years. They are the ones that parrot the sick ideologies of power hungry politicians. Im not sure how they benefit, but I suspect that this is the way they can fill the emptiness they feel inside them. This is the only way they can feel any power; by claiming that the fact that one’s parents were born on a piece of land is a privilege.

It is curious that several people who utilize the dog whistle: “Lagos is for the Yorubas”, are themselves not Indigenes of Lagos. Like everyone else, they migrated to the centre of excellence in search of opportunities. They left their less infrastructurally developed places of birth and made Lagos their homes. Aware of the attendant hypocrisy, they have expanded the meaning of the “owners of Lagos” to include all people of Yoruba extract.

I am informed by Lagosians in this group that true Lagosians do not share in the hate and vitriol of the non indigenous Yorubas. But this is not a topic for this document. It also should never be discussed because this type of talk is useless, and nonsensical.

Millions of people who are Nigerian born people and their descendants, live in diaspora. In these countries, as long as they work, pay their taxes and don’t break laws, they are able to participate in the democratic processes

Very recently, a second generation Kenyan became the president of the United States of America. This man was born by a father who was raised in Kenya. But he became president of the most powerful country on earth. I remember how the same people who now spew tribal garbage are the same people that hated DJT for challenging the nationality of Obama

Hillary Rodham Clinton was famously born in rural Arkansas. She moved to New York and became a senator. The bush family is famously Texan, yet, John Ellis Bush became governor of Florida. Each state in the US is almost as big (in land mass) as Nigeria. Yet, cramped into the tiny spaces we share, we engage in bronze age cavemen wars about who owns a land.

Listing these facts should be condescending, but after reading the ideas of several on this platform, I reckon it is important to state these verifiable facts.

In decent society, only rural backwater people make such despicable utterances in whispers. Usually, it is the people who are deprived, unsuccessful and angry with life. They go on social media and rant about how their grand fathers inhabited a land four or five hundred years ago. They have no business, they have no other motivation to life asides from a desperate clinging to the lies told to them by a power-hungry political elite. They cling to the bedtime tales of a return to good old days of “tribal purity”. They lustfully salivate about a beautiful time when they would simple inherit the wealth of the “non indigenes” after they have sent them away; or perhaps, killed.

What other reasons could anyone have for such vitriol? Which successful non partisan business person sits and discusses tribalism. I dare say that tribalism only rears its ugly head in politics and among illeterates. It is unfortunate that this platform is filled with illiterates who are allowed to bully well meaning nigerians of hausa, efik, Ibibio, ibira, igbo, Yoruba and other extracts.

It is an unfortunate thing that the most vile in our societies, are usually the loudest. It is an unfortunate thing that education in Nigeria, does not quite adapt Nigerian societies and citizens to the norms of modernity. It is unfortunate that rabid dogs flood the minds of the feeble with poisonous ideologies. It is unfortunate, that in 2023, people who live in Nigeria could wade into another civil war, or worse still, ethnic cleansing.

It is important to learn from societies that have been bathed in the bloody consequences that awaits us- should we continue on this dark path. Anyone who has any reasonable level of education, is at least vaguely aware of the carnage caused by the machinations of tribalism in Rwanda. Over one million people were killed in the most barbaric fashion. People were hacked to death and then eaten by dogs as they clung to life. Tribalism is currently a serious crime in Rwanda. In 1994, the recognition of any tribe was banned by the Rwandan government. Nobody is allowed to identify people based on their tribes. It is rude, and can even be deemed criminally “divisionist” to use the labels Hutu and Tutsi in public. “we are all Ugandans”is a mantra strictly enforced by the government.

Maybe we can build a small Rwanda on this platform.

Maybe the mention of tribes should be outrightly banned.

Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t a bad idea to discuss politics on the basis of competence, experience and integrity.

Dr. K. R