Former British Prime Minister, Mr Boris Johnson, has expressed optimism that banditry and terrorism will be defeated in Nigeria, and eventually, law and order will prevail in the country.

The former UK Prime Minister gave this assurance while speaking at the 16th Anyiam-Osigwe lecture series titled ‘Rehumanising human experience: A synopsis of Anyiam-Osigwe’s treaties.

The event, organised by the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation in collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, was held at the Marriot Hotel, in Ikeja, Lagos.

His words, “The first and most important thing that makes a country thrive is that it has to be safe. You have got to have equality under the law because that is the foundation for freedom.

“I know some of the problems that are faced in this part of the country but I know that these bandits and terrorists must and will be defeated and eventually, law and order will prevail. I also want you to know that the UK stands ever-ready to help.

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“We, in the UK, have had our issues with terrorists in the past and I am proud to say that London is one of the safest cities in the world.

“Whoever you are, you will receive the same scrutiny and protection in the UK and this is the most important thing. It is a precaution for economic growth.

“The next freedom is the right to choose those who govern you and the right to remove them from office. It is called democracy and it is precious and under attack the whole time.”

“Why did Vladimir Putin launch his evil attack on Ukraine? It is because he could see that the Ukrainians were choosing a different path. They were going through a different democratic system that he was permitted to the Russian people. By the way, I believe the Ukrainians will win. By the way, why did Putin underestimate the Ukrainian people?

“It is because he does not practice a democratic system and he surrounds himself with sycophants. He had no democratic checks and balances.

The third and crucial condition for releasing human potential is that you need a society that is an open system.”

Johnson further stated, “The UK has a population of about 66 million and Nigeria has over 200 million and still growing, how many of our people have reached their full potentials? The job of politicians is to create opportunities for people to reach their potential because not only is that morally right, but it is also the right way for the economy

“What we are seeing in both our countries is a colossal waste of human potential and all my years as Mayor of London or British Prime Minister, it has been ways to unleash the talents.”

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He lamented a colossal waste of human resources in Nigeria despite its huge potential.

Johnson said credible elections, equality before the law, education, and a good transport system are ways Nigeria can unleash its potential.

He also called on Nigeria and the United Kingdom to deepen their partnership saying the two nations share some similarities.

The former UK Prime Minister highlighted equality, under the law, as the foundation that guarantees human potential just as he urged governments, at all levels, to ensure enforcement of the law without fear or favour.

He also called on politicians to allow the people to freely elect those that will govern them just as he harped on an effective transport system.

Elon Musk has put the current value of Twitter at $20 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform just five months ago, according to an internal email seen by American news media.

The email to employees referred to a new stock compensation program in the San Francisco-based company and the allocation of shares to employees of X Holdings, Twitter’s umbrella company since Musk purchased it in late October.

The compensation plan values the platform at $20 billion, slightly more than Snapchat’s parent company Snap ($18.2 billion) or Pinterest ($18.7 billion), both of which are publicly traded, unlike Twitter.

Musk, who is also the chief executive of Tesla Inc. and aerospace group SpaceX, said that Twitter would allow its employees to cash in shares every six months.

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A query from AFP emailed to Twitter’s communications department generated an automatic response in the form of a poop emoji.

In the internal email, Musk describes the brutal contraction in Twitter’s value. He says the platform faced such grave financial difficulties that at one point it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

“Twitter was trending to lose ~$3B/year,” Musk said in a message posted Saturday on the platform.

He cited a revenue drop of $1.5 billion a year and a debt-servicing burden of the same amount — leaving it with “only 4 months of money.”

Musk, Twitter’s majority shareholder, added simply: “Extremely dire situation.”

But he then said that “It looks like we will break even” in the second quarter of the year, with advertisers — many of whom fled the platform after the mercurial billionaire bought it — now beginning to return.

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Since taking control, Musk has sharply cut the group’s payroll from 7,500 employees to fewer than 2,000.

He said in the email that he sees a “clear but difficult path” to a valuation of $250 billion, without specifying how long that might take.

However, in another setback for the company, fragments of Twitter’s source code were published on the development platform GitHub, the latter told AFP on Sunday, confirming a report by the New York Times.

GitHub removed the files from its site at Twitter’s request, but their brief exposure could allow hackers to identify flaws in Twitter’s original software.

AFP

Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has expressed the belief that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s father might not be a Yoruba man.

Fani-Kayode said Obasanjo’s ‘silence’ over a recent comment by Igbo businessman Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu that Yoruba people are “political rascals,” was an indication that the former president’s father was an Igbo man, not Yoruba.

Iwuanyanwu said Igbo people had invested so much in Nigeria and were not going to yield to the pressure of people asking them to leave.

Speaking in Awka, Anambra State, on Saturday, Iwuanyanwu berated Yoruba people.

However, Fani-Kayode said he was disappointed that Obasanjo was silent over Iwuanyanwu’s anti-Yoruba comments.

Taking to his Twitter handle, Fani-Kayode wrote: “The fact that our revered leader and one of the fathers of our nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, can sit there and say nothing when Emmanuel Iwanyanwu, who I have always respected, describes the entire Yoruba race as “rascals” that the Igbo “will DEAL with” tells me that the rumour that he is NOT a fully-fledged Yoruba man and that his father was an Igbo may well be true.

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“Whatever the case, this is not the OBJ I once knew, loved, defended and worked so hard for. Something has gone wrong. No one could have made a statement against ANY tribe in the presence of the old OBJ that we all knew and respected and got away with it.”

Following the outcome of the presidential election, there was a face-off between Yorubas and Igbos in Lagos.

The fallout was due to the victory of the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in Lagos State.

Against the backdrop of Obi’s victory, Igbos were warned against voting during the governorship election in Lagos.