NGE warns Police: Stop spate of journalists' abduction - ITREALMS

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*Say Cyber Crimes Act not enacted to persecute journalists

The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has condemned the spate of abduction and arrest of journalists in the country by security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force, under the guise of enforcing the Cyber Security Act, and warned of the consequence of such illegal actions on press freedom, reports ITREALMS.

The professional body of media executives and senior editors also warned of the dangers of allowing certain territories of the Nigerian states falling into the hands of terrorists and bandits, and expressed optimism that the federal government has all it takes to flush out these enemies of the country, and guarantee peace and security of the country and its people.

SIM card deactivation, not total withdrawal - NCC

ITRealms:

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reacted to a spate of complaints following the deactivation of unregistered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards by operators, as directed recently by the regulator, reports ITRealms.

NCC also said that only those subscribers who registered their SIM cards properly will have them reactivated.

NCC Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo made this clarification, saying that the Commission has been saturated with inquiries, some of which alluded to the impression that their SIM cards have been withdrawn permanently. 

“This is not the situation,” he declared, adding that “the deactivation exercise and decision was a result of a meeting with the office of National Security Adviser (NSA), the Department of State Service (DSS), the NCC and operators “after which the operators were given one-week to deactivate those unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards.”

The operators were specifically told that those subscribers whose lines were not registered and have not made any effort to register them should be communicated before deactivation.

“So the deactivation of these SIM cards is in line with that meeting. Subscribers who fail to register properly will have their lines deactivated but those who comply will have them reactivated,”Ojobo said.

“Proper registration means a subscriber’s facial pictures properly captured, biometrics/finger prints, valid means of identification, address, among others,” he explained.

Further, Ojobo said that these are part of the security measures to check incessant cases of crimes with the use of the telephone.

“People hide under anonymity to commit crimes because their lines are not registered, but all that has to change as the network operators have been told what to do,” he emphasized.

ITRealms reports that the ultimatum to deactivate unregistered SIM card expired on Tuesday this week.

The operators, he said, were told among others to ensure compliance of all registration with the Data Dictionary, Technical Specifications on Finger prints and facial images and the business rules agreed by all stakeholder.

ITRealms +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +ITRealms DSA  
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Misappropriation of campaign funds: Ex-PDP governor, Presidency official fingered

ePolitics@ITRealms:

The latest in our newsroom indicates that a former governor has been fingered in the spate of embezzlement going on in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation, reports ITRealms.

The former governor has been seen with President Goodluck Jonathan at several rallies and functions of recent.

The former governor, who has an interest in a new generation bank where he was chairman at some point, attended a meeting with the President and a few others in January, where Jonathan ordered one of the prominent female ministers in his cabinet to release "some billions of naira to him" to oil the machinery of the campaign team, a source said.

The source said the money was "cornered" from some "big" government contractors.

The strategy is what is called "decoy" in government circles, where money to finance rallies, campaigns and advertisements will come from private individuals and not government officials.

The former governor has some people working with him to disburse the fund but he and a principal officer in the Presidency are alleged to have cornered a substantial part of the fund running into billions of naira. 

The money was said to have been first lodged in the bank where the former governor has interest.

The idea is to get commission on the fund and, if possible, "seize" or sit on the money till after election with the hope that once election is over, the money "expires".

Part of the money was meant to settle some opinion leaders critical of President Jonathan in the six geopolitical zones.

But it was learnt this was yet to be done. 

It was gathered that this was why Jonathan himself had to come to the South West to personally "settle some people" because he does not trust any of his aides brokering negotiations for him as most of such money allegedly ended in private pockets.

The lid on the misappropriation of the fund was blown open by a governorship aspirant in one of the South West states, who was part of the team but felt shortchanged. 

A livid Jonathan was said to have summoned a meeting where an outspoken Presidency official was shouted down by the President for being part of the scam. 

“He (the outspoken official) would have been fired immediately, but the President was advised not to do it now that election is just a few days away,” the source said.

Jonathan was said to have asked how the money was spent and "all sorts of names and companies were reeled out as having benefited from the money. Full page advert money for newspapers was doubled and tripled just to cover their tracks. 

"For example, they told the President that full page advert for Punch, ThisDay, Guardian is now N2 million 'political special rate', centrespread is N6 million and wrap around N70 million because of the election.

"But some media people like a woman managing a magazine at the meeting knew they were lying but surprisingly kept sealed lips. Cost of television commercials was also increased.

"But the problem is that when the money spent was totalled, it was not even up to one quarter of what was released to the team. It is like all of them know that Jonathan may lose the election. So, they are just trying to take whatever they can take before election day."

The embezzlement tale has also affected the media team as millions of naira have allegedly been stolen.

The over N150 million said to have been budgeted for online advertisement remains unaccounted for as earlier reported.

The source added: "The major problem is that nobody can really discipline the affected officers because the sleaze cuts across all the teams in the campaign organisation – procurement, media, logistics, mobilisation, security, etc. They are all helping themselves."

 

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