Editorial: FG’s ‘No Work, No Pay’ Threat to ASUU: Misguided Fix To Deep-rooted Problem - ITREALMS

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The recent warning by the Federal Government to invoke the “No Work, No Pay” policy against the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has once again exposed the government’s recurring failure to engage meaningfully with one of its most strategic partners in national development, the education sector.

ASUU’s two-week warning strike, declared over unresolved issues such as unpaid allowances, poor welfare, and unfulfilled agreements, reflects the union’s growing frustration with the government’s inconsistency. Yet, instead of addressing these long-standing grievances, the government has chosen confrontation over conversation.

Marginalization of Ndigbo: Perilous threat to Nigeria's unity and stability - ITREALMS

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The digital petition by Chief Ben Ogbonna, now reverberating across the nation, is more than just a document of grievances, it is a critical system alert for Nigeria's leadership. 

From our vantage point at ITREALMS, we see this as an urgent test of our federation's commitment to equity and fairness. 

NITDA DG: AI Is collaborative partner, not threat to jobs - ITREALMS

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The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has urged business leaders to view artificial intelligence (AI) as a partner in driving innovation and economic growth, rather than a threat to human jobs, reports ITREALMS.

Speaking at the BusinessDay CEO Forum Nigeria in Lagos, Inuwa encouraged CEOs to integrate AI into their operations as a thought partner and strategic ally, rather than a replacement for human input.

Asthma: Silent threat behind sudden deaths in young athletes - ITREALMS

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In the high-stakes world of competitive sports, where strength, endurance, and resilience are celebrated, a silent killer lurks among young athletes as asthma.

Often dismissed as a manageable condition, asthma has emerged as the fourth leading cause of sudden death in young athletes, claiming lives when symptoms spiral out of control.

'No impeachment threat against Akpabio' - ITREALMS

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The President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has advised Nigerians to disregard stories of his planned impeachment, describing it as fake news and a figment of the reporters imagination and ethical deficit, reports ITREALMS.

He recalled that an online publication, OrderPaper Nigeria on Wednesday, authored a mischievous story titled "DSS Takes Over National Assembly Amid Impeachment Speculations Against Senate President Akpabio", which has been disseminated by other media outlets.

African elections under rising threat from online disinformation - ITREALMS

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In an unprecedented year for elections in Africa, the increasing use of digital disinformation poses a rising threat to democracy across the continent, researchers warn today.

New evidence shows that politicians have been undertaking increasingly sophisticated digital disinformation campaigns. Designed to intentionally disseminate false information on platforms such as Facebook and X, the campaigns are increasingly using tactics such as trolls, cyborgs and bots to disrupt debate and drown-out dissent.

NCC-CSIRT issues advisories to protect Nigerians against threat actors - ITREALMS

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The Nigerian Communications Commission's Computer Security Incident Response Team (NCC-CSIRT), in line with its mandate, has rolled out some advisories in the first few weeks of the year 2023 as cyber threat actors continue to devise means of compromising their targets.

The latest of such advisories urged users to be mindful after attackers use Microsoft OneNote attachments in phishing emails that infect victims with remote access malware, which may allow hackers to remotely access vital information on victims' devices.

FG says threat of mass action will not deter course of justice - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Federal Government (FG) has declared that the threat of mass action will not deter it or undermine the course of justice over the impromptu sack of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen at the weekend, reports ITREALMS.

FG made this position known through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed during a press conference in Abuja, Monday.

ITREALMS recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari last Friday purported complied with the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, directing the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen, pending the determination of the cases against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and several fora relating to his alleged breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.

Reacting to the outcry over the suspension, FG said the threat of mass action by some groups cannot undermine the course of justice, stressing that more Nigerians are with them than are with the opposition on this issue, going by the feelers that they are getting from across the country.

“Those who want to protest against the suspension of the CJN should feel free to exercise their rights, within the limits of the law,” he said.

According to him, contrary to the cacophony of voices that have been muddying the waters, the CCT was acting within its powers in ordering the suspension of Justice Onnoghen as Chief Justice of Nigeria, and President Muhammadu Buhari was right in carrying out the order.

“The suspension of Justice Onnoghen is a consequence of his breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers and has nothing to do with the forthcoming elections, neither does it signify the onset of dictatorship or tyranny as some have insinuated. It amounts to irresponsible extrapolation to say that the suspension of Justice Onnoghen is the onset of dictatorship,” he said.

The minister blamed the media, alleging “a section of the media shirked their agenda-setting role by failing to objectively lead the discourse on the issue of the allegation facing Justice Onnoghen and his subsequent suspension.”

He pointed out that certain editorials crossed the acceptable limit of decent discourse, and did little or nothing to enlighten the public on the issue at stake.

Uboshe Uboshe/Editor

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FG launches campaign against fake news, its threat to democracy - ITREALMS Online

ITREALMS:

The Federal Government (FG) has launched campaign against what it tagged as ‘fake news’ in the nation’s capital, Abuja, and declared it as threat to democracy, reports ITRealms.

Disclosing this to ITRealms, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said Wednesday that the campaign has become imperative to avoid the dangerous dimensions of fake news, which includes threat to peace and security.

“There is an epidemic sweeping the world. If left unchecked, it could be worse than all the plagues that the world has recorded put together. It is a clear and present danger to global peace and security. It is a threat to democracy. It is the epidemic of Fake News. Mixed with hate speech, it is a disaster waiting to happen,” he lamented.

Lai Mohammed cited an instance with the nation’s media, saying epidemic is even worse because fake news, in most cases are designed to misinform, undermine confidence in the media, stressing that once the people lose confidence in the media, the society is in trouble.

“For the record, the free online encyclopaedia defines fake news as 'a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. This false information is mainly distributed by social media, but is periodically circulated through mainstream media,” he said.

The Minister also noted that fakes news is not new, but pointed out that what has made it an issue of concern is the means and speed at which it is now spreading around the world, via social media.

“Anyone with a phone and internet access can author and make fake news go viral in minutes. With the number of mobile phone users in the world expected to pass the 5 billion mark by 2019, you can see the kind of crisis we face,” he warned.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Pix 1: Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed (second right); Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Deaconess Grace Isu Gekpe (Extreme right); Special Assistant to the President on Information and Culture 1, Mr. Segun Adeyemi (second left) and the Special Assistant to the President on Information and Culture 2, Mr. Williams Adeleye (Extreme right) at a World Press Conference to launch the National Campaign Against Fake News in Abuja on Wednesday.

Artificial intelligence technologies boost capabilities of cyber threat actors

ITREALMS:

In response to cyber defenders’ increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, malicious actors started discussing their potential application for criminal use, report ITRealms

Research from Control Risks, the specialist global risk consultancy, shows that the development of techniques to use these technologies and tools to enhance their capabilities is now increasingly on the agenda of cyber threat actors, report ITRealms.

Associate Director and head of Control Risks’ cyber threat intelligence team, Nicolas Reys, explained that more organisations are beginning to employ machine learning and artificial intelligence as part of their defences against cyber threats.

“Cyber threat actors are recognising the need to advance their skills to keep up with this development. One application could be to use deep learning algorithms to improve the effectiveness of their attacks. This shows that AI and its subsets will play a larger role in facilitating cyber attacks in the near future,” he said.

Although there are currently no known attacks using AI, but these technologies, he said, could assist threat actors in a number of ways.

This includes spear phishing campaigns, dubbed hivenets, extensive, customized attacks, and advanced obfuscation techniques.

He explained that the spearphishing campaigns: In the targeting of a criminal campaign, threat actors could use algorithms to generate spearphishing campaigns in victims’ native languages, expanding the reach of mass campaigns. Similarly, larger amounts of data could be automatically gathered and analysed to improve social engineering techniques, and with it the effectiveness of spearphishing campaigns.

Dubbed ‘hivenets’: In the post-infection phase, clusters of compromised devices that have the ability to self-learn, so-called dubbed ‘hivenets’, could be used to automatically identify and target additional vulnerable systems.

Extensive, customised attacks: Based on its assessment of the target environment, AI technology could tailor the actual malware or attack in order to be unique to each system it encounters along the way. This would enable threat actors to conduct vast numbers of attacks that are uniquely tailored to each victim. Only bespoke mitigation or responses would be effective for each infection, rendering traditional signature or behaviour-based defence systems obsolete.

Advanced obfuscation techniques: Threat actors could evade detection by developing and implementing advanced obfuscation techniques, using data from past campaigns and the analysis of security tools. Attackers may even be able to launch targeted misdirection or ‘noise generation’ attacks to disrupt intelligence gathering and mitigation efforts by automated defence systems.

“The use of AI is not likely to become widespread soon, given the financial investment that is currently needed. However, as more research is produced and AI technologies become more mature and more accessible to threat actors, this threat will evolve. Organisations should be aware of the potential for these types of attacks to emerge in the course of 2018. Staying informed and being able to identify relevant emerging attacks, technologies and vulnerabilities is therefore just as important as being prepared in the event of an attack,” Reys said.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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INTERPOL, Kaspersky enter deal to strengthen threat intelligence exchange

ITRealms:

The Kaspersky Lab has reiterated commitment to global collaboration in the fight against cybercrime by signing a threat intelligence sharing agreement with INTERPOL, reports ITRealms.

The legal framework, ITRealms gathered has been designed to facilitate and develop cooperation between Kaspersky Lab and INTERPOL by sharing threat intelligence data on the latest cybercriminal activities, wherever they appear.

ITRealms reports that with cyber threats often borderless in nature, Kaspersky Lab, a leading proponent of the importance of industry collaboration, says its experts have regularly cooperated with INTERPOL to share fresh cyberthreat discoveries with police in its member countries.

For example, Kaspersky Lab participated in a groundbreaking INTERPOL-led cybercrime operation that identified nearly 9,000 botnet command and control (C2) servers and hundreds of compromised websites, including government portals, across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.

Equally, ITRealms  reports that Kaspersky Lab had previously assisted in a global operation coordinated by the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore to disrupt the Simda criminal botnet – a network of over 770,000 infected PCs around the world.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Whistle blowers under threat - AFRICMIL

ITRealms:

A media inclined civil society organization working on building support for the whistle-blower policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Africa Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has raised alarm that whistle blowers in the country are now threat, reports ITRealms.

 The Co-ordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy, Chido Onumah, revealed that at least, two whistle blowers in the recent past have been sacked.

As said by him, the group expressed worries over recent news of the sack of another whistle blower by yet another agency of the federal government, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN.

“The sack of Murtala Ibrahim, an auditor in the bank, for blowing the whistle and refusing to cover up a contract scam and manufactured financial report of the bank, is yet another slap on the government’s whistle blower policy,” AFRICMIL said in a press statement made available to ITRealms.

The sack of Mr. Ibrahim, the group said, “is one case too many coming at a time when another whistle blower, Mr. Ntia Thompson, is still battling for reinstatement several months after his sack and over two months since his recommended reinstatement by the Head of Service of the Federation”. 

AFRICMIL frowned at what it called obvious witch-hunt of the whistle blower by transferring him from the headquarters to a branch in one of the States and then following up with a query “which cautioned him for doing his official work, and when they couldn’t fault his explanation the bank went on to dismiss Mr. Ibrahim for the ridiculous reason that his service was no longer needed”.

AFRICMIL demands immediate reinstatement of the whistle blower while urging Mr. Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works, Power and Housing, whose Ministry oversees the bank, to order a thorough investigation of the scandal. 

On the case of Mr. Thompson, AFRICMIL noted that two separate letters from the Office of the Head of Civil of the Federation (OHCSF) signed by Mrs. Nuratu Batagarawa, Permanent Secretary, Service Policies and Strategies Office, were addressed to Ambassador Sola Enikanolaye, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking him to take urgent action on the whistle blower’s case.

The organization expressed regret over failure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comply with the directive of the OHCSF requesting that Mr. Thompson be recalled and all disciplinary procedures suspended pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation of the case of fraud at the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA) by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).

“The last letter, dated April 5, 2017,” Onumah observed, “made it clear to Ambassador Enikanolaye that by the provisions of the Public Service Rules (PSR), the offences alleged to have been committed by Mr. Thompson were not punishable by retirement from service.”

AFRICMIL unreservedly extends gratitude to the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation for promptly wading into the matter by calling for the immediate reinstatement of Mr. Thompson and reiterating its commitment to safeguarding the policy of government on the protection of whistleblowers by directing its full implementation by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.

“We hereby call on the federal government to take decisive action on safety of whistle blowers. If government cannot protect internal whistle blowers what more can be expected for outsiders and other Nigerians? “Instead of persecution or victimization, whistle blowers like Mr. Thompson and Ibrahim ought to be rewarded for their acts of patriotism,” Onumah asserted.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE 

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Curse on Igbos: Catholic Church cautions Oba Akiolu, insists Nigeria a Republic, not Monarchy

ITRealms:

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has cautioned Oba of Lagos, His Royal Majesty, Oba Rilwanu Akiolu, over the threat he handed down to Igbos in Lagos, insisting that Nigeria is a republic and not a monarchy, reports ITRealms.

The Catholics through the office of the Executive Secretary Caritas Foundation Nigeria and Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), Rev. Fr. Evaristus Bassey, gave this note of warning in a press statement made available to ITRealms, raising credibility of the Oba for acting god.

While condemning the threat handed down by the Oba of Lagos to the Igbos in Lagos that they should vote for the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, or else perish in the lagoon, Catholic Church advised the Monarch to withdraw his curse with immediate effect.

They noted that the Royal Father is "missing the point that Nigeria is a Republic and a Democracy and not a Monarchy."

According to Rev. Fr. Bassey, denounced Akiolu's comments which, saying such amounted to threat and intimidation of bonafide citizens of this country, Nigeria. Stressing that Lagos has grown into one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Africa for decades, and "any citizen contributing to its economy and politics can be a bonafide resident."

Further the Catholic Church wonder “why single out a particular ethnic group for this curse? Does it mean a Yoruba or Hausa person living in Lagos who votes for Jimi Agbaje will go scot-free but any Igbo who votes for Agbaje will drown in the Lagoon? Does it mean that people should vote out of fear and not their consciences? Would such an election be free and fair, where people have to vote out of intimidation?

This, Catholic Church said amounts to voters intimidation.

Listen to the hate speech threatening Igbos in Lagos by Oba Akiolu:

Chuks Egbuna +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)
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