Fadi Chehade to join WEF as senior advisor

ITRealms:

The outgoing President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Fadi Chehadé, will by end of his tenure in March 2016, join the World Economic Forum (WEF), as senior advisor to the Executive Chairman, reports ITRealms.

Confirming this, the Head, Media and Public Engagement at WEF, Fon Mathuros, noted that as the driving force behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Internet is a catalyst for economic progress and social development, he they see the Forum’s future of the Internet initiative aimed at helping to strengthen trust in the digital world and to expand concrete cooperation on global challenges and opportunities.

Reacting to his latest migration step, Chehade expressed gratefulness for the opportunity to contribute to the World Economic Forum’s work, by way of advising the Global Challenge Initiative on the Future of the Internet. 

“I am deeply committed to doing everything I can to help ensure a trusted digital world, advancing global economic development and social progress for all. The Forum is uniquely positioned as an enabling platform to coalesce public, private and civic leaders and experts to form networks addressing the many economic and societal issues requiring global cooperation,” he said.

Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF pointed out that the Internet is a catalyst for the deep transformation of the global economy and society, stressing that the Forum’s work in this area will greatly benefit from Fadi Chehadé’s vision, counsel and drive in its efforts to advance progress through multistakeholder cooperation on some of the practical economic, social and security issues facing the international community.

ITRealms gathered that the Future of the Internet Initiative seeks to help shape the Internet as the trusted driver of human progress, safeguarding its open, globally integrated, highly distributed, and multistakeholder nature. Focused on enabling networks of multistakeholder cooperation, it will actively address economic and societal topics including digital trade, cybercrime and policies facilitating access for all. 

Before joining ICANN as its President and CEO in late 2012, Fadi Chehadé served as IBM’s General Manager for technology services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He also built several successful cloud-based companies in California and is expected to assume office on 1 April 2016.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +ITRealms DSA  

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Metuh received N400m from Dasuki – EFCC chairman, Magu

ITRealms:

The acting Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu, has revealed that the detained spokesman of the People Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh received an estimated N400 million from the office of the National Security Adviser, otherwise known as DasukiGate, reports ITRealms.

Speaking in Lagos at an interface with members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) on Monday, Mr. Magu disclosed this while responding to questions and solicited media partnership especially with GOCOP.

He also said that EFCC has powers to detain any suspect beyond 24 hours before charging such suspect to court, especially if such a suspect could influence the cause of investigation, adding that those being re-arrested have fresh cases against them which may not be in the initial charge, hence EFCC action of rearresting some suspects after court granted them bail in the initial charges.

According to him, EFCC does not arraign anybody without mountain of evidence, stressing that every Nigerian is concerned about the damage that corruption has done to this country, pointing out that the nation is grappling with the problem of underdevelopment in spite of enormous natural resources is largely due to corruption.

He described his appointment as a divine opportunity to change the narrative as far as the fight against corruption in Nigeria is concerned, admitting however, that Ibrahim Magu does not have the monopoly of ideas to effectively tackle corruption alone in Nigeria.

“This, in fact is the reason why I have called you here today. This is an opportune moment for me to meet minds with some of the most fertile brains in the media,” asserting his resolve to benefit from engagement of today and in the future.

Since assuming office, he said, a lot has happened in terms of investigations of high profile corruption cases, citing for instance, the case involving the national security adviser, former ministers, former governors, serving and retired military men, a media mogul and several others.

No one, Magu said, no matter how highly placed, shall be spared if he or she infringes on the laws of the land.

He, therefore, called on the media to assist EFCC to achieve this by making any information that could assist investigation of acts of corruption available to the Commission, emphasizing that such media intelligence will definitely compliment the efforts of the commission.

Magu assured that as part of the EFCC strategies, there would be even more penetration investigations and commitment to rid Nigeria of all forms of corruption and economic and financial crimes, which is evident in most of the cases the Commission has taken to court for trial lately.

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Why Buhari named Fowler FIRS chairman, Yahaya DG Budget Office

ITRealms:

Reasons have emerged on why President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Dr. William Babatunde Fowler as the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in replacement of Mr. Sunday Ogungbesan, ITRealms reports.

Also, ITRealms gathered that Dr. Fowler who was the Chief Executive Officer/Executive Chairman of the Lagos State Board of Internal Revenue from 2005 to 2014, is expected to replicate the Lagos success at FIRS.

Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina told ITRealms that Fowler who had his higher education in the United States where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Business Administration degree from the California State University.
 
Before joining the service of the Lagos State Government, Dr. Fowler worked in the banking sector for about 20 years with long stints at Credit Lyonnais Nigeria Limited and Chartered Bank.
 
Under his leadership, the Lagos State Board of Internal Revenue reportedly achieved a sharp increase in internally generated revenue from an average of N3.6. billion per month in January 2006, to an average of about N20.5 billion per month in 2013.
 
Fowler, who holds an Honorary Doctorate Degree of the Irish International University, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria and the Business Management Association of the United Kingdom.
 
He will serve as Acting Executive Chairman of FIRS until his appointment is confirmed by the Senate.
President Buhari has also appointed Mr. Aliyu Yahaya Gusau as Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation.
 
Mr. Gusau's appointment is with effect from August 18, 2015 and is for a term of four years, renewable for another four years, unless he attains the retirement age of 60 years or completes 35 years of pensionable service.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)  
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Oracle adds 24 new cloud services

ITRealms:

The Executive Chairman, Oracle’s Board and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Larry Ellison has proclaimed new additions to the Oracle Cloud Platform, reports ITRealms.

The Oracle Cloud Platform, ITRealms also reports is a comprehensive, integrated suite of services that make it easier for developers, Information Technology (IT) professionals, business users and analysts to build, extend and integrate cloud applications.

“With more than 24 newcloud services, the Oracle Cloud Platform extends Oracle’s leadership with the world’s broadest and deepest portfolio of SaaS – Software As A Service; Platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),” he said.

The newly available Oracle Cloud services, he said, include Oracle Database Cloud - Exadata, Oracle Archive Storage Cloud, Oracle Big Data Cloud,Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle Mobile Cloud, and Oracle Process Cloud.

Ellison explained that the Oracle Cloud Platform helps customers build new applications, extend existing ones, and easily move existing on-premises workloads to the cloud with no application changes. 

In addition, he said, these services are designed to maximize end user experience and productivity which enable developers to manage and analyze data, rapidly develop, test and deploy applications; enable architects to quickly integrate across on-premises and cloud applications; and enable business users to drive rich business insights and enterprise collaboration.

“With the Oracle Cloud Platform, customers and partners are able to take advantage of the industry-leading Oracle middleware and database software that thousands of global organizations already use to run their own businesses, all delivered via cloud. The extensive level of automation that has been engineered into the Oracle Cloud,results in faster time-to-value, greater innovation, and lower cost for customers,” he said, even as Oracle is growing really fast. 

“We sold $426M worth of business in SaaS and PaaS last quarter, a 200 percent increase over the same quarter last year. That's an industry record, no company has ever sold that much in just one quarter,” said Ellison. “Oracle is the only company on the planet that can deliver a complete, integrated, standards-based suite of services at every layer of the cloud. Those technology advantages enable us to be much more cost-effective than our competitors. Our new Archive Storage service goes head-to-head with Amazon Glacier and it’s one-tenth their price,” he said. 

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)
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