Headline

State Pardon: Anti-corruption Crusade Has Collapsed In Nigeria Under APC – Media Watch Group

Published

3 years ago

April 18, 2022

The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, MMWG, has condemned in strong terms the state pardon given to former Governors Joshua Dariye of Plateau Stare and Jolly Nyame of Taraba State, saying it’s a sign that the anti-corruption crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has collapsed.

This was even as it called on the President to rescind his decision on the two former governors and let them complete their jail terms before being considered for any state pardon, recalling that after all, they were not political prisoners but convicts serving different jail terms for criminal and economic crimes.

The group, reacting to the freedom granted the convicted former governors, said it was the worst precedence ever set by any administration in the anti-corruption fight in Nigeria.

MMWG, in a statement signed and released on its behalf by a leading member, Sheikh Abu Sheriff, stated it was a wrong step to grant pardon to those convicted of economic crimes involving billions of naira of taxpayers’ money; noting that such action would give an opportunity to others to commit similar crimes.

It said “by the federal government decision, the anti-corruption fight of this administration has crumbled and corruption has been endorsed as being part of the governing process”, adding that “it would amount to injustice to keep in our Correctional Centres all those who have been jailed for corruption and serving various jail terms but who are not former governors.”

“The fact that these citizens are not elites and political heavy-weights does not mean that they should be kept in prisons all over the country.

“By this singular action of Buhari administration, corruption has been legalised and bad precedence that would encourage corruption has been set. No wonder that bad governance pervades all the 36 states in Nigeria except Borno State where Professor Umara Zulum remains tall as the ‘Best Governor ‘ for his outstanding performance,” the group stated.

According to MMWG, “the past and present governors in Nigeria today believe that there would not be any consequence for their economic crimes against the masses while in office and after they have left, that is why they commit economic crimes while in office”, adding that “now that the two former governors have been released unconditionally without completing their jail terms, the coast is clear for the looting spree to continue.”

The group maintained that the bandwagon effect of the state pardon: “is that justices of the nation’s judiciary would be demoralised as their due judicial processes meant to curb crimes especially corruption are been quashed through political consideration.”

It added that the anti-corruption agencies like the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC would no longer pursue cases of corruption and other economic crimes with much seriousness as they would fear political intervention of this nature.

“Nigeria’s position in the Comity of Nations is gradually descending fastly into anti-peoples governance in which the ruling class past and present are now ‘sacred cows’; while the poor people are punished even for offences they have not committed.

“The repercussions of this bad decision include the slowing down of actions on corruption cases by security agencies in terms of arrest and prosecution of offenders of economic crimes, a situation that would increase the agony of suffering masses as criminal activities can never be abated in such a circumstance,” MMWG further stressed.

Headline

Trouble Looms As Trump Gives Iran Two Weeks To Avoid US Airstrikes

Published

10 minutes ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could make a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that he was not inclined to stop Israel attacking Iran because it was “winning,” and was dismissive of European efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump meanwhile dismissed talks that European powers Britain, France, Germany and the EU had with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on Friday.

Europe ‘didn’t help’

“They didn’t help,” he said as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey, ahead of a fundraising dinner at his nearby golf club.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the talks in Geneva that Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks.

But Trump was reluctant.

“It’s very hard to make that request right now,” Trump said.

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”

Trump meanwhile doubled down on his claims that Iran is weeks away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb, despite divisions in his own administration about the intelligence behind his assessment.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, said in a report in March that Iran was not close to having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said of Gabbard, a longtime opponent of US foreign intervention whom Trump tapped to coordinate the sprawling US spy community.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

AFP

Headline

Trump Orders Mass Layoffs At Voice Of America, Other US-funded Media

Published

10 minutes ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday ordered mass layoffs at Voice of America and other government-funded media, moving ahead with gutting the outlets despite legal disputes and criticism that US adversaries will benefit.

Kari Lake, a fervent Trump supporter named to a senior role at the US Agency for Global Media, said the notices were a “long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

Lake said in a statement that she would work with the State Department and Congress to “make sure the telling of America’s story is modernized, effective and aligned with America’s foreign policy.”

Trump issued an order in March that froze Voice of America (VOA) for the first time since it was founded in 1942.

Termination notices were sent to 639 employees on Friday, after previous offers of voluntary departures and dismissals of contractors.

Some 1,400 positions have been eliminated, with only 250 remaining, Lake said.

Voice of America layoffs included journalists from its Persian service who had briefly been brought back to work after Israel attacked Iran a week ago.

Employees have filed a lawsuit challenging Lake’s actions, which come even though Congress had already appropriated funding.

The mass firing decision “spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds the US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” the three plaintiffs wrote in a statement.

“Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the information space with anti-American propaganda. Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice,” said the three complainants, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the “decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of the law and congressional intent.”

“It is a dark day for the truth,” she wrote on X.

Trump frequently attacks media outlets and has scoffed at the so-called editorial firewall at VOA which prevents the government from intervening in its coverage, something he at times has considered too critical of his administration.

One outlet preserved by the mass cuts has been Radio Marti, which broadcasts into Cuba and enjoys support from anti-communist Cuban-American Republican lawmakers.

Other outlets funded by the US government have included Radio Free Asia, which was set up to provide news to Asian countries without a free press and is now operating in a limited capacity.

Radio Free Europe, formed with a similar mission for Soviet bloc nations during the Cold War, has survived thanks to support from the Czech government.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Protest In Tehran Against Israel

Published

5 hours ago

June 20, 2025

Editor

Thousands of people joined a protest against Israel in the Iranian capital on Friday after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of their leaders, images on state television showed.

“This is the Friday of the Iranian nation’s solidarity and resistance across the country,” the news anchor said.

Footage showed protesters in Tehran holding up photographs of commanders killed since the start of the war with Israel, while others waved the flags of Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“I will sacrifice my life for my leader,” read a protester’s banner, a reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to state television, protests took place in other cities around the country, including in Tabriz in northwestern Iran and Shiraz in the south.

AFP