AFR Business

The publisher of Daily Nigerian, Jaafar Jaafar has revealed the names of some people allegedly believed to be the elements working against the presidential ambition of the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu.

Mr Jaafar listed some influential names, claiming that they are working for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.

He wrote, “I’ve written a lot about Mamman Daura’s influence, but to my surprise, he’s not part of the “Villa elements” against Tinubu presidency. Mallam Mamman, who is currently convalescing in London, now stays longer in the UK than in Nigeria.

“In fact when Osinbajo visited Mallam Mamman at his Dennis Osadebay Street residence in Abuja in February 2022 to seek support for his presidential ambition, the old man clearly reminded the VP about an unwritten agreement to support Tinubu after Buhari’s tenure.

“I learn the major anti-BAT elements in the Villa today are President Buhari, Sani Zangon Daura & Sabiu Tunde. While Zangon Daura, 85, is openly expressing his support for Atiku, Tunde is clandestinely pulling the Buhari strings like a skilled puppeteer.

“Zangon Daura, a former minister under Obasanjo & notable Arewa elder, had always identified with the PDP until 2015 when Buhari won the election. But Zangon Daura, a close friend of Buhari, surprised APC powerbrokers for supporting Atiku after “eating for 8 years” in the APC govt.

“It was Tunde who allegedly persuaded Buhari to give military cover to Emefiele to stave off DSS from arresting him. Insiders said DSS sought a court order to investigate Emefiele for terrorism financing after it discovered that he gave intervention loans to suspected IPOB members.

“To rein in Emefiele, BAT camp got a willing tool in DSS. As a pretext for avoiding arrest, the CBN boss left the country on “annual leave” and returned after clearing the coast. The APC governors’ outcry is not about the plight of the masses but the waning chances of their party.

“One thing is clear in this drama: Emefiele’s election eve naira swap is as politically motivated as DSS’ plan to charge him with terrorism financing. While Emefiele was licking his wounds over the botched presidential dream, he got an intel that BAT had moved “logistics” to states.

“Emefiele then remembered it was time Nigeria redesigned its currency. He sold the idea to the president, who approved posthaste without consulting the finance minister, economic team, National Assembly, etc. In 2012, people’s voices killed CBN’s plan to coin lower denominations.“

Google AI Investment, Anthropic, OpenAI, ChatGPT
With Microsoft investing heavily in ChatGPT developers OpenAI and planning to integrate the company’s conversational AI models into its products, Google has reportedly been working behind the scenes to keep pace. That work now includes a partnership with Anthropic, an AI startup focused on safety and research.

According to a Google Cloud announcement, Anthropic has selected Google Cloud as its preferred cloud partner to build “reliable and trustworthy AI systems,” while Google says it intends to build large-scale, next generation TPU and GPU clusters” that Anthropic will use to train and deploy its AI systems.

Google says Anthropic selected the cloud provider for its deep expertise in large-scale systems for machine learning, as well as their shared vision for developing “safe and beneficial” AI tools.

“By leveraging Google’s custom-developed machine learning systems designed to run computationally-intensive workloads, Anthropic will continue to conduct breakthrough AI research on the same infrastructure that powers Google Search and YouTube,” Google’s announcement says.

While the announcement didn’t include terms of the deal, Financial Times reports that Google is investing $300 million in the AI startup company in a cash-for-computing deal. According to the publication, citing anonymous sources familiar with the deal, Google is taking a stake of about 10%, and Anthropic will use the money to buy computing resources from Google’s cloud divison.

The timing is convenient, as the announcement comes shortly after Microsoft began announcing integrations with OpenAI’s tools, including an integration between Microsoft Teams and GPT-3.5, an OpenAI language model from which ChatGPT is trained.

Anthropic, meanwhile, was actually founded three years ago by the team behind GPT-3 and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), according to the announcement.

Anthropic began deploying its technology publicly this year, starting with a language model assistant named Claude. The company is now working with a broad range of early partners on deploying Claude and will be expanding access to the assistant in the coming months, per the announcement.

According to the companies, Claude pairs RLHF with a variety of safety techniques built by Anthropic to make AI systems that are predictable, steerable and easier to interpret. Claude runs on Google Cloud as will other systems developed by Anthropic.

“We’re thrilled to be able to partner with Google Cloud on training and deploying useful AI systems,” says Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. “We’ve been impressed with Google Cloud’s open and flexible infrastructure. We are excited to partner with Google to scale-up our systems in the coming months.”

“At Google, we believe it is imperative to pursue AI boldly and responsibly,” says James Manyika, senior vice president of technology and society at Google. “We are committed to developing and delivering useful and beneficial applications, applying responsible principles grounded in human values and safety, and evolving our approaches as we learn from research, experience, users, and the wider community. Our partnership with Anthropic is aligned with that philosophy.”

“AI has evolved from academic research to become one of the biggest drivers of technological change, creating new opportunities for growth and improved services across all industries,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Google Cloud is providing open infrastructure for the next generation of AI startups, and our partnership with Anthropic is a great example of how we’re helping users and businesses tap into the power of reliable and responsible AI.”

The APC Presidential Campaign Council on Friday lashed out at the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, describing him as the nation’s number one enemy after he told the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to extend deadline for naira swap.

Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council, in a statement, said the current sabotage of the Naira notes swap and fuel scarcity that had caused untold hardship to millions of Nigerians across the country revealed the true character of Atiku as public enemy number one.

“Nigerians will recall that since the Central Bank introduced its current cash-limit and new Naira notes swap policies, Atiku Abubakar and PDP maintained opportunistic silence with the hope they will benefit from the discomfort the policies will create for Nigerians and the resentment they will generate for the ruling APC.

“While Atiku and PDP were in bed with the saboteurs and fifth columnists among the operators of Money Deposit Banks and oil marketers who created the current logjam to force the outcome of the February 25 Presidential election in favour of the former Vice President, our candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu courageously pitched his tent with the poor masses who have been most negatively impacted by the antics of these evil doers,” it said.

According to the council, having realised they have lost the initiative and their antics exposed to Nigerians by Tinubu at the APC Presidential Campaign rally in Abeokuta, Atiku made a half-hearted appeal to CBN to ‘slightly’ extend the deadline for the currency swap.

“We are currently at a loss to understand what informed the current call of Atiku on CBN not to extend the February 10 deadline despite the unmitigated hardship still being faced by many Nigerians who could not meet their basic daily needs as a result of lack of cash from banks and the empty ATM machines.

“Any one who lives in Nigeria and not Dubai and visits banks and ATM locations will feel sad that the CBN is making our people suffer for its badly timed Naira swap policy.

“The bank’s latest fire brigade approach in approving payment of N20,000 at the counter is far from offering relief as queues are still long, agony and frustrations widening, an invitation to riots,” it stated.

The council said this poorly implemented policy has turned Nigerians to destitutes because they cannot access their own money in their bank accounts.

“People cannot get money to give their kids to school or pay for daily needs at corner shops, fruit shops, including buying newspapers. Transactions in market places have plummeted.

“The CBN governor gave insight into the nature of the problem when he revealed in Daura last Sunday that out of the N3.3 trillion in circulation, only N500 billion is in the bank vaults. So far only N1.9trillion had been received by the banks for swap.

“But people are not getting the new notes to spend, thus triggering the huge anger in the land against Emefiele. We thus find it ludicrous that a man who joined the call for an extension of the deadline last week is championing a new campaign against further extension because he feels the suffering of Nigerians will serve his own political end to become president at all cost.

“Atiku said callously: “There should be no further postponement of the new naira regime after the expiration of the February 10 deadline.”

“Anchoring his objection on the wrong reason, he said further: “The CBN and the Presidency should be steadfast. The merits of the new naira policy far outweigh the little inconvenience we are experiencing.”

“In passing off the suffering of our people as “Little inconvenience”, Atiku only comes across as a political leader disconnected from the Nigerian people that he is campaigning to govern. Certainly, living comfortably in Dubai for many years has drained Atiku of all empathy,” it added.

The statement said “This is a man who wants to be President and does not mind even if he presides over the graves of Nigerians as long as his inordinate ambition materialises in line with the prophecy of his marabouts.

“It is crystal clear to every Nigerian of conscience now that Atiku Abubakar and PDP do not mean well for our country. PDP and Atiku have become desperadoes who will wish calamity on the country as long as it makes them win an election they are destined to lose, spectacularly.

“Atiku is now public enemy number one in Nigeria. He is evil personified and must be rejected at the polls on 25 February.

“If Atiku Abubakar has the poor people of our country at heart like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the PDP candidate will not be advocating for adherence to a policy that has become a burden too heavy to bear for our people.”