Headline

Nigeria’s Public Officials Received ₦721bn Bribe In 2023 – UN, NBS

Published

1 year ago

July 12, 2024

IYC Commends INEC For Delineation Of Warri Fed. Constituency, Warns Saboteurs To Steer Clear

A newly released report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), has said Nigerian public officials received nothing less than ₦721bn as bribes in 2023.

The result was based on a survey conducted with the UNODC.

According to the report “Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends”, published by the NBS on Thursday, the ₦721bn paid in bribes amounted to about 0.35 per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to the survey, the average cash bribe was ₦8,284, an increase from an average of ₦5,754 in 2019.

“According to the 2023 survey, the average cash bribe paid was 8,284 Nigerian Naira. While the nominal average cash bribe size increased since 2019 (from NGN 5,754), this does not account for inflation. The inflation-adjusted average cash bribe in 2023 was 29 per cent smaller than in 2019 in terms of what could be bought with the money.

“Overall, it is estimated that a total of roughly NGN 721 billion (US$1.26 billion) was paid in cash bribes to public officials in Nigeria in 2023, corresponding to 0.35 per cent of the entire Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria,” the report read in part.

The report indicates that 56 per cent of Nigerians interacted with a public official in 2023, down from 63 per cent in 2019.

Despite this reduction, bribery remains widespread, with an average of 5.1 bribes paid per bribe payer, totalling approximately 87 million bribes nationwide. This is a decrease from the 117 million bribes estimated in 2019.

On payment mode, the report noted that over 95 per cent of bribes were paid in monetary form (cash or money transfer) in 2023.

It said public officials were more likely to demand bribes while private sector actors included doctors in private hospitals, which increased from 6 per cent in 2019 to 14 per cent in 2023.

Despite this rise, bribery in the public sector remains about twice as high, with public sector contact rates also being twice as high as those in the private sector.

In 2023, 27 per cent of Nigerians who interacted with a public official paid a bribe, a slight decrease from 29 per cent in 2019. Including instances where bribes were requested but refused, over one-third of interactions between citizens and public officials involved bribery.

Similarly, the report shows a growing trend of Nigerians refusing to pay bribes. In 2023, 70 per cent of those asked to pay a bribe refused at least once, with the highest refusal rates in the North-West zone at 76 per cent. All regions recorded refusal rates above 60 per cent. This indicates that Nigerians are increasingly standing against corruption.

According to the report, bribery is becoming less accepted in Nigeria. The percentage of citizens who view bribery requests as acceptable to expedite administrative procedures decreased from 29 per cent in 2019 to 23 per cent in 2023.

Fewer citizens reported suffering negative consequences after refusing bribe requests in 2023 compared to 2019. This suggests a growing empowerment among Nigerians to confront corrupt officials without fear of repercussions.

In 2023, 21 per cent of bribe refusers indicated they refused because they had other options. Normative concerns (42 per cent) and cost of living pressures (23 per cent) also played significant roles in their refusal to pay bribes.

Furthermore, not less than 60 per cent of public sector workers were hired due to nepotism, bribery or both between 2020 and 2023.

The report noted that six out of 10 successful candidates admitted to using either nepotism, bribery, or both to improve their chances of being recruited.

Specifically, 27 per cent of these candidates admitted to using only bribery, 13 per cent to only nepotism, and 19 per cent to both bribery and nepotism. On the other hand, 40 per cent of the candidates claimed to have secured their positions without resorting to any such means, based on data collected between November 2020 and October 2023.

The report read, “The selection process used to recruit public officials plays a crucial role in shaping the culture of integrity that should drive the civil service as well as ensure that recruits have the highest standards of professionalism and merit.”

However, the 2023 survey findings indicate that the public sector recruitment process requires closer monitoring, as almost half (46 per cent) of people who secured a job in the public sector in the last three years before the survey admitted that they paid a bribe to facilitate their recruitment – about 1.5 times the share found in the 2019 survey (31 per cent).

Headline

Nigerian Man Jailed In US For $1.3m COVID-19 Fraud

Published

3 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

A Nigerian man living in the San Gabriel Valley, Abiola Femi Quadri, was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for defrauding California and Nevada out of $1.3m in COVID-19 pandemic unemployment and disability insurance benefits.

Quadri, 43, was caught submitting more than 100 fraudulent applications using stolen identities and using the money to build a nightclub and mall in Nigeria.

He was sentenced by United States District Judge George H. Wu, who also ordered him to pay $1,356,229 in restitution and a $35,000 fine.

This was contained in a press statement issued by the Public Information Officer, United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Ciaran McEvoy, on Thursday, July 10, 2025.

Headline

Palestinian-American Beaten To Death By Israeli Settlers In Occupied West Bank

Published

9 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

…another man shot dead

Israeli settlers killed a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and an eyewitness, as settler violence against Palestinians ramps up in the occupied territory.

The twenty-year-old Sayfollah Musallet “was martyred after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah,” the health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The municipality of Sinjel said that Musallet died following a “barbaric attack” carried out by settlers as part of “daily assaults” on local residents. It alleged Israeli forces stormed the area at the same time as the settlers’ attack, obstructing the work of paramedics and volunteers.

A friend of the deceased man’s family told CNN he was with Musallet and took him to a hospital in Ramallah, adding the young man was an American citizen born in Tampa, Florida.

Israel’s military said it was “aware of reports regarding a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of injured Palestinians as a result of the confrontation, and they are being looked into by the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] and Israel Police.”

Musallet’s family is demanding the US State Department lead an investigation into the incident.

“We are devastated that our beloved Sayfollah Musallet (nicknamed Saif) was brutally beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it,” the family said in a statement.

“We demand justice.”

The US State Department said in a statement to CNN that it is aware of reports of the death of an American in the West Bank, without providing a name.

“Out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones during this difficult time, we have no further comment,” a department spokesperson said.

Musallet ran a business in Tampa and had been in the West Bank since June 4 to visit family and friends, the family statement said.

A second Palestinian man died in the attack in Sinjel after he was shot in the chest by settlers, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Ten others were wounded in the same attack, it added.

Following the attacks, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised what it called Israel’s expanding settlement projects in the occupied territory and called for urgent action to hold the perpetrators of settler violence accountable.

Israel has recently ramped up military operations in the West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians and razing entire communities as it targets what it says are militants operating in the territory.

Multiple American citizens have been killed in the West Bank in the past few years, according to Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses, including a 14-year-old boy whom the Israeli military shot dead last April in what they described as a “counterterrorism operation.”

Israeli soldiers also shot dead a 26-year-old woman during a protest against an Israeli settlement in September 2024.
(CNN)

Headline

Japan’s Petabit: What To Know About Internet Speed That Can Download 67 Million Songs In A second

Published

13 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

Researchers in Japan have broken the record for the fastest internet speed ever recorded: 1.02 petabits per second. That’s fast enough to “download 67 million songs in a second.”

Contents
How Fast is 1.02 Petabits Per Second?How Did Japan Make This Happen?
When Can the World Expect to Use This?

According to FirstPost, this new speed could let someone download the entire Netflix library almost instantly—or stream millions of 8K videos at once without any buffering.

To give some perspective, Japan’s new speed is around 16 million times faster than India’s average internet speed of 63.55 Mbps and 3.5 million times faster than the U.S. average.

How Fast is 1.02 Petabits Per Second?

A petabit is one million gigabits. So when researchers say they hit 1.02 petabits per second, they’re talking about a connection fast enough to transfer more than 100,000 HD movies in just one second.

This speed could technically download the full Netflix catalog in less than a second. Big game downloads, like the 150GB Call of Duty: Warzone, would finish in a flash.

According to Gagadget, the full English Wikipedia is about 100GB. At this speed, you could download it “10,000 times in just one second.”

Music platforms can’t even match the scale. Spotify says a minute of audio uses about 1MB. That means, “with Japan’s new speed, you could theoretically download 67 million songs in a second—that’s more than 1,27,000 years of continuous music.”

While these examples help show how fast this is, the real impact will likely be on emerging technology.

Things like cloud computing, AI, autonomous vehicles, and real-time translation depend on large volumes of data moving quickly. With speeds like this, data centers in different parts of the world could work together almost as if they were on the same local network. That would allow global AI systems to run with almost no delay.

How Did Japan Make This Happen?

The breakthrough came from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), working with Sumitomo Electric and European partners.

The team sent data over 1,800 kilometers—about the distance from Delhi to Goa—using a specially built fiber-optic cable.

Typical fiber cables send data down a single path of light. This new design packs 19 separate cores into a standard-sized fiber, which researchers describe as “a 19-lane superhighway” for internet traffic. It increases capacity without requiring totally new infrastructure.

Sumitomo Electric developed the cable, while NICT and international researchers built the transmission system.

To deal with long-distance signal loss, they used advanced amplification and signal processing. The setup involved 19 loops of fiber, each 86.1 km long, with the signal passed 21 times. That totaled 1,808 km, and during the test, “180 individual data streams were sent at record-breaking speed and stability.”

When Can the World Expect to Use This?

Most home internet is still measured in megabits per second, not terabits, much less talking about petabits. We’re far from seeing these speeds in everyday life. That means using this speed is not anytime soon.

Still, the breakthrough is getting attention from telecom companies, infrastructure providers, and governments. This could help shape the future of undersea cables, national internet backbones, and next-generation networks like 6G.

It may take years to reach consumers, but the progress points toward a future where fast, high-capacity internet becomes standard—not something rare.

(FirstPost/Tribune)