@LSE: Nwankwo advises African countries on economic transformation via debt financing

ITREALMS:

The immediate past Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO) in Nigeria, Dr Abraham Nwankwo, has admonished African leaders to initiate robust macroeconomic, transformation plans to drive debt-financed sustainable economic growth and prosperity, reports ITRealms.

Speaking on the topic “Sapping Africa’s Debt Financing Strategy: Removing Some Mental Cobwebs”, at the Fourth London Stock Exchange LSEG Africa Advisory Group (LAAG) Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, Nwankwo said such a transformation plan is needed as a formal policy document, “narrating how debt financing will be applied to launch economy unto a trajectory of self-sustaining prosperity; with credible macroeconomic figures at the beginning, intermediate and concluding stages: GDP figures, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, reserve position, etc.”

Nwankwo, who holds a PhD in economics, said Debt Financing, particularly external debt financing from the international capital market, appears to be the most predictable source for financing and refinancing Africa’s economic and social transformation over the next decade.

However, he stated that the real job for governments, particularly officials in charge of planning, finance and central banking is “to demonstrate with detailed credible macroeconomic plan, how this prospect can be safely actualized.”

He stressed that many African countries have failed to initiate credible transformation plan thereby squandering the opportunity to grow their economies through debt financing. “The government may be keen on debt financing but lazy to articulate a credible implementation plan, with macroeconomic deliverables, around debt financing.”

Added to this intellectual laziness on the part of economic planners is also what he called the “Rigid, non-imaginative advice from the IMF in particular, which encourages policy timidity, instead of planned boldness.”

He said the IMF usually relies on past and present deficiencies to preach against the possibility of future progress instead of focusing on how to cage or degrade those deficiencies to create a new trajectory of efficiency and prosperity.

He said: “Much of IMF advice on Africa’s debt financing misleads countries to commit what I first referred to in a 2017 publication as the “sin-of-avoiding-a-sin’(SAS)”

He further stressed that African countries would continue to rely on debt financing from the international capital market due to acute fiscal constraints, huge infrastructure deficit and huge reserves of exploitable opportunities in agriculture and agro-processing, manufacturing, solid minerals, tourism and other sectors.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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National Assembly passes Digital Rights & Freedom Bill

BreakingNews @ITREALMS:

The Nigerian Senate has finally passed the Digital Rights and Freedom Bill, following in the footsteps of the Nigerian House of Representatives which passed the Bill on December 19, 2018, reports ITRealms.

The bill, ITRealms gathered was passed at about 1:09 pm Tuesday, and is a product of civil society efforts led by Paradigm Initiative beginning at the 2014 Internet Freedom Forum in Abuja, “provides for the protection of human rights online, to protect Internet users in Nigeria from infringement of their fundamental freedoms and to guarantee application of human rights for users of digital platforms and/or digital media.”

ITRealms also gathered that in 2016, Hon Chukwuemeka Ujam sponsored the Bill at the House of Representatives where it underwent rigorous legislative process before eventual passage last December.

The Bill was first tabled before the Senate for concurrence on January 16 2018, and was finally passed Tuesday, March 13, 2018. 

Notable of the Digital Rights bill, ITRealms reports provides progressive legislative backing to online speech in the country.

For instance, ITRealms reports that Clause 14 of the bill reads, “Every person shall have the right to freely express opinion online without interference, this right includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of digital frontiers”.

In addition, ITRealms gathered that under this Bill, freedom of expression further includes the freedom to express and impart information and ideas of all kinds that could be transmitted to others, in whatever form, and regardless of media.

Further, the Bill also made provisions towards the protection of data and right to privacy online as contained in Section 5 of the Bill, which reads in part “(1) Every person is guaranteed the confidentiality of his personal data.

“(2) The integrity and confidentiality of personal data and information of citizens is inviolable and therefore guaranteed... (6) All entities that collect, store and/or process personal data in the course of their activities shall have data privacy policies that are readily and easily accessible to the public.”

The Bill will now be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari for the presidential assent to transform the bill to a law, making it Nigeria’s first law on human rights online.

Chuks Egbune and Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Pix: Senate President, Bukola Saraki

Tillerson sacked after visit to Africa, Pompeo takes over

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Barely 48 hours after reportedly rushing back home from his official visit to Africa including Nigeria and Kenya, the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Rex Tillerson has been sacked by President Donald Trump with immediate effect, reports ITRealms.

Mr. Tillerson is invariably the first official appointee of Mr. Trump to be replaced with immediate effect and only one to be sack formally amidst avalanche of resignation of government officials since Trump became the President.

Mr. Tillerson has since been replaced with Mike Pompeo, the director of the Central Investigation Agency (CIA).

As at the time of going to the press by ITRealms, there was no precise reason given for Mr. Tillerson’s prompt removal, but fears abound that it may not be distanced from Russia alleged hacking of the United States elections in 2016, and disagreement over the Iran’s nuclear deal with the United States.

ITRealms reports that while thanking Tillerson for his service via his Twitter handle, Trump expressed confidence in the new state secretary, declaring he (Pompeo) would do “a fantastic job.”

ITRealms recalls that Tillerson was a former chief executive of ExxonMobil, and was appointed barely over a year ago.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pompeo has been replaced at the CIA by a nominee, Gina Haspel, who becomes the first female director of the agency.

Nenye Dom/GEE

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Africa & Middle East: Slingshot malware on spy rampage

ITREALMS:

The Kaspersky Lab researchers have uncovered a sophisticated threat across 11 countries, used for cyber-espionage in the Middle East and Africa from at least 2012 until February 2018, reports ITRealms.

The malware, ITRealms gathered is called ‘Slingshot’, which attacks and infects victims through compromised routers and can run in kernel mode, giving it complete control over victim devices.

These countries, ITRealms also gathered  included Kenya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Congo, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Tanzania have been listed among the 100 victims worldwide.

According to researchers, many of the techniques used by this threat actor are unique and it is extremely effective at stealthy information gathering, hiding its traffic in marked data packets that it can intercept without trace from everyday communications.

The Slingshot operation was discovered after researchers found a suspicious keylogger program and created a behavioural detection signature to see if that code appeared anywhere else. This triggered a detection that turned out to be an infected computer with a suspicious file inside the system folder named scesrv.dll.

In addition, the researchers decided to investigate this further, just as analysts are of the view that the file showed that despite appearing legitimate, the scesrv.dll module had malicious code embedded into it. Since this library is loaded by ‘services.exe’, a process that has system privileges, the poisoned library gained the same rights. The researchers realised that a highly advanced intruder had found its way into the very core of the computer.

The most remarkable thing about Slingshot is probably its unusual attack vector. As researchers uncovered more victims, they found that many seemed to have been initially infected through hacked routers. During these attacks, the group behind Slingshot appears to compromise the routers and place a malicious dynamic link library inside it that is in fact a downloader for other malicious components.

When an administrator logs in to configure the router, the router’s management software downloads and runs the malicious module on the administrator’s computer. The method used to hack the routers in the first place remains unknown.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Gambari urges FG to reactivate Nigerian Press Council

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The Federal Government (FG) has been enjoined to reactivate the Nigerian Press Council and review its Code of Conduct so as to enable requisite discharge of its duties effectively as enshrined in the Constitution, reports ITRealms.

Chairman of Savannah Centre, Professor Ibrahim Gambari made the call while delivering the inaugural PSN Confab lecture on the topic "Towards 2019 Elections: Hate Speech and Implications For Ethnic Relations" in Abuja on Monday.

The Confab themed, "Hate Speech Vs Free Speech" was organised by the Peace and SecurityNetwork, PSN, in collaboration with the Centre for Information Technology andDevelopment, CITAD.

Prof Gambari, a former Nigeria's permanent representative to the United Nations, who was represented said Savanna Centre attaches great importance to the issue of Hate Speech, which he insisted is not Free Speech.

The Guest Speaker lamented that the level of hate and inflammatory speeches seen in recent times were the worst since the return to democratic rule in 1999.

According to him, "Freedom of Speech cannot be absolute, freedom of speech as its limit," adding that there was an urgent need for National Law to "redress hate speech now not later."

On the road to 2019 general elections, Savannah Centre enjoined media managers to demonstrate absolute patriotism by not promoting any individual or group above the nation.

While stressing the important roles that the media and civil society organisations must play in curbing hate speech, Prof Gambari, warned that "a major dislocation of Nigeria is a dislocation of the African continent."

He therefore, called on the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission and the Nigerian Press Council to work together to deal with hate speech ahead of 2019 elections while CSOs must redouble their advocacy.

Contributing, President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Mrs Funke Egbemode, who was a panelist, expressed concern about promulgating new law to deal with hate speech when there are existing laws that have not been enforced.

Mrs Egbemode posited that rather than making new law, government should be more interested in getting to the root cause of hate speech so as to guide against it.

She said many people are unhappy and would always find a way of expressing their feelings, insisting that "the laws won't fix it."

Another panelist, President of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers, GOCOP, Mr. Dotun Oladipo, said making new laws to regulate the social media gives the impression that the federal government "is out to gag the media."

Mr Oladipo, noted that enlightened and well-informed people are not that active on the social media especially on Twitter.

Pix: GOCOP President, Dotun Oladipo with Prof Eyinla of INEC and
NGE President Mrs Funke Egbemode at PSN talk on hate speech in Abuja.

He therefore, enjoined media managers in Ministries, Agencies and Departments, MDAs, to be more proactive by ensuring timely release of genuine information to the public via the Twitter.

Also speaking, the President of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Mr Waheed Odusile, said the issue of hate speech must be looked at holistically.

He said politicians must be mindful of their utterances ahead of elections, adding that media has a responsibility not to report hate speech.

Prof Bolade Eyinla, who represented the INEC chairman, said the citizens must recognise the importance of respecting the rights of others.

According to him, social media platforms have become instruments for propagating hate speech, saying that all conscious citizens must condemn inciting the population through hate speech.

The Executive Director CITAD, Mr Y.Z Yau, also lamented that hate speech is increasing as we approach 2019 elections, calling on all hands to be on deck. 

According to him, there should be clear understanding about what is hate speech and free speech, steesing "it is important that we amplify that."

Earlier, the Manager of Peace and Security Network Nigeria, PSN, Mr. Adeolu Adewumi, said the Network was established in 2013, to support better coordination of conflict prevention, response and resolution in Nigeria.

He said the PSN Confab series gathers policy makers, government officials, community leaders, experts and development partners for the purpose of discussing and reinforcing a common narrative around mitigating Hate Speeches towards 2019 and ensuring the continued presence of peace and stability.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Pix: GOCOP President, Dotun Oladipo with Prof Eyinla of INEC and NGE President Mrs Funke Egbemode at PSN talk on hate speech in Abuja.

GTBank gets simple with 737 App

ITREALMS:

The Guaranty Trust Bank plc, also known as GTBank plc has gotten simple with its banking escapades by requesting customers to download the 737 App, reports ITRealms.

GTBank in the latest update shared with customers of the bank, it says the 737 App works with any bank card issued in Nigeria.

In addition, ITRealms gathered that the app could be used to buy airtime from any network at anytime, just as it eases means of transferring money.

“Its simple banking designed for every Nigerian,” the bank enthused.

GTB is a Nigerian multinational financial institution, that offers Online/Internet Banking, Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Investment Banking among others.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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FOI hall of shame inducts NAICOM

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The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has named the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) as the latest inductee into its “Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall of Shame” reports ITRealms.

This is coming as MRA warned that the pervasive culture of lack of compliance with the FOI Act is eroding public trust in the government and its agencies.

MRA’s Programme Officer, Mr. John Gbadamosi, told ITRealms that NAICOM’s selection by MRA’s Programme Team, was based on the Commission’s failure to live by its core values which include transparency, integrity and efficiency, having also failed to implement and comply with most of its obligations under the FOI Act while denying citizens the right to obtain information from it.

Mr. Gbadamosi said: “We are extremely concerned that there appears to be an endless stream of public institutions just waiting to be inducted into the Freedom of Information Hall Shame, a recognition that no self-respecting institution should desire.”

He noted that “It is particularly worrisome that a public institution like NAICOM, established to foster public trust and confidence in the insurance system, prefers to operate in secrecy and disregard a fundamental law of the land aimed at enabling the public to access information about government and its agencies.”

Mr. Gbadamosi argued that in the face of such a pervasive attitude among so many public institutions, it is difficult for citizens to believe that government bodies are actually conducting their business in the interest of the public and that citizens can trust them.

He said: “It is apparent the public cynicism towards the government is on the increase as public trust and confidence in the government is being eroded at an alarming rate. There is no doubt that the lack of transparency and accountability is largely responsible for this situation as many agencies of government are decidedly but unnecessarily being secretive about their affairs.”

NAICOM is an agency of the Federal Government established by the National Insurance Commission Act of 1997 andtasked with responsibility for ensuring the effective administration, supervision, regulation and control of insurance business in Nigeria.

Itemizing NAICOM’s breaches of the FOI Act and its transparency obligations, Mr. Gbadamosi noted that: “Although the Commission has published some of its operational guidelines along with other financial reports, it has not fulfilled the rest of its proactive disclosure obligations under Section 2 of the FOI Act as it has not published either on its website or anywhere else, other categories of information that are part of the 16 classes of information that the Act requires all public institutions to proactively publish and disseminate widely to members of the public through various means, including print, electronic and online sources”.

In particular, he pointed out that the Commission has not designated an officer to whom requests for information should be sent, and has also not proactively published the title and address of the officer either on its website or anywhere else, as required by Section 2(3)(f) of the Act and the FOI Implementation Guidelines issued by the Attorney-General of the Federation.

Mr. Gbadamosi also accused the Commission of failing to comply with its obligation under Section 29 of the Act by failing to submit any of the seven reports it ought to have submitted as of February 1, 2018 to the Attorney- General of the Federation on its implementation of the FOI Act since the enactment of the Law in 2011.

He cited information from the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), an Abuja-based non-governmental organisation, indicating that NAICOM has not consistently responded to requests for information.

For instance, Mr. Gbadamosi said, NAICOM did not respond to a request for information dated January 30, 2015, made by PPDC under the FOI Act in which the organization asked for details of the sums approved for the Commission as capital warrants in the first, second, third and fourth quarters of 2014.

He recounted that NAICOM also failed to respond to an FOI request made to it on August 16, 2016 by PPDC, which asked for the list of contracts awarded by it in the year 2015 and the procurement plan within its approval threshold for the year 2016.

He added that although PPDC sent a reminder about the request to NAICOM on September 5, 2016, there has been no response till date.

Mr. Gbadamosi said NAICOM also refused to respond to another application for information made on January 25, 2017 by PPDC, requesting records of payment for capital projects released to it in 2016, the list of contracts awarded by NAICOM in 2016 and the procurement plan within its approval threshold for the year 2017.

He contended that since the requested information did not fall under any of the exemptions in the Act, it can be deduced that the only logical reason why the Commission refused to provide the information or respond to the request is its total disregard for the FOI Act and other laws of Nigeria, adding that “the information should ordinarily have been proactively published both under the Public Procurement Act, 2007 and Section 2 of the FOI Act”

Mr. Gbadamosi noted that NAICOM has also failed to comply with Section 13 of the FOI Act, which requires all public institutions to train their officials on the public’s right of access to information and to equip relevant officials with the skills to ensure the effective implementation of the Act.

MRA called on the management of NAICOM to take urgent measures to improve the image of the Commission by putting systems in place to ensure that it complies with all its obligations under the FOI Act and the guidelines issued by the Attorney-General of the Federation.

It also urged the Attorney-General of the Federation to step up his efforts at ensuring the effective implementation of the FOI Act by ensuring that NAICOM and other public institutions to which the Act applies comply with and implement its provisions.

Launched on July 3, 2017, the FOI Hall of Shame focuses attention on public officials and institutions that are undermining the effectiveness of the FOI Act through their actions, inactions, utterances and decisions.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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mCoin to launch first cryptocurrency @World BlockChain Forum

ITREALMS:

The United Kingdom-based mCoin is set for a global launch, even as it prides self as the world's first cryptocurrency accessible to 3 billion people without Internet, reports ITRealms. The official mCoin ICO launch, ITRealms gathered, will be on April 16th at the World Blockchain Forum in Dubai. The ongoing pre-ICO sale has already attracted participants from over 30 countries, touted as a very good sign for success in the upcoming ICO. mCoin works with ONEm services making blockchain technology available on any mobile. ITRealms recalls that ONEm, founded in 2012 had developed and deployed a revolutionary mobile platform which allows mobiles without the internet to enjoy internet-like services. These applications, ITRealms further gathered, solved everyday problems facing individuals and businesses, hence creating a new opportunity to reach an untapped market with billions of people. mCoin, on the other hand is acclaimed unique platform that has reached over 5.8 billion people on mobiles of whom 3 billion people do not have internet access, yet mCoin is secure because, they company, “it is not on the internet creating an extra layer of security.” Nonye Dom/GEE

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LinkedIn updates ToS, warns on hate speech

ITREALMS: LinkedIn has proclaimed an updates on its Terms of Service (ToS) to every individual user of its services, warns of harassment and hate speech attracting permanent restriction, reports ITRealms. This follows the proposed European Commission new regulation on data, otherwise known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to take effect from May 8, 2018. ITRealms reports that Sara Harrington, Vice President of Legal at LinkedIn was quoted as saying that the ToS was to afford LinkedIn users an overview of some of what’s new. These changes, Harrington said, impact the User Agreement, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Professional Community Policies and are effective May 8, 2018. “Anytime we make updates, we hope to make it easy for you to understand your choices and the control you have over your data and content on LinkedIn,” Harrington said. She outlined some of the details worthy of note to include that they are making it even easier to understand the data we have about you, how you can correct it and how you can ask us to stop using it. “Our new settings give you more control over ads you see and more transparency about the data shared with advertisers,” she said. Harrington cited for example, that harassment and hate speech are not welcome on our platform and could result in permanent restriction from LinkedIn. “If you are being paid to share or endorse a product or service, you need to disclose that you’re being paid for your opinions or actions,” she advised. According to her, refreshed community policies make sure LinkedIn stays a platform where people act professionally. “Built from our well-established community guidelines, these policies encourage discussions that can help our members be more productive and successful, and outline what activity may be stopped by LinkedIn,” she said. LinkedIn maintained that users privacy comes first in all of these updates. “We now meet the high standard for data privacy introduced by the new European data protection law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect later in May. LinkedIn members around the world will benefit from many of these changes,” Harrington declared. Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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Mo Abudu, Chimamanda and Omotola are great ambassadors - FG

ITREALMS:

The Federal Government has congratulated Mo Abudu, Chimamanda Adichie and Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, over the honours recently bestowed on them on the global stage, calling them great ambassadors of Nigeria, reports ITRealms.

In a statement issued in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the three honorees are iconic women in the Creative Industry who have brought great honour not only to themselves, their families and their industry, but also to the country.

He described as well deserved the listing of Mo Abudu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EbonyLife TV, and Nollywood star Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde among the top 50 women ''who are doing extraordinary things on the worldwide stage'' by Variety magazine, a weekly American entertainment magazine.

Alhaji Mohammed also said the already well-adorned cap of Chimamanda Adichie has been further festooned after her novel, Americanah, was listed in the New York Times’ list of 15 remarkable books by women that are ''shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century''.

He said the women are role models whose achievements will inspire a generation of young Nigerians to also do extraordinary things.

''Of more importance is the fact that these women's achievements have transcended gender, nationality or race, placing them on the rarefied class of global, timeless achievers,'' the Minister said.

He said the great honours bestowed on the women will further focus world attention on the nation's burgeoning Creative Industry, thus placing it on the right pedestal to take the world by storm.

Uj. N. Dominic/ED, Ops

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