The order by the federal high court in Abuja requesting the federal government to account for the $5 billion dollar Abacha loot and for the details of the spending to be made public has generated reactions.
In a judgment delivered on July 3rd, in a case filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, the presiding judge, James Omotosho ordered President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to disclose the exact amount of money stolen by General Sani Abacha from Nigeria, the total amount recovered, and all agreements signed by the governments of Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari.
The judge also ordered the government to disclose details of the projects executed with the Abacha loot locations of any such projects and the names of companies and contractors that carried out the projects since the return of democracy in 1999 till date as well as the specific roles played by the World Bank and other partners in the execution of any projects funded with the Abacha loot.
In another development, The Department of State Services on Sunday, dismissed reports claiming that Abdulaziz Yari, senator representing Zamfara West, was invited by the secret police over alleged refusal to respond to telephone calls from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The spokesperson for the DSS Peter Afunanya, in a statement said that Yari knows why he was invited by the secret police adding that the online report about the former governor’s arrest is laughable and petty The report had alleged that Yari was arrested and detained by the DSS over claims that he shunned Tinubu’s telephone calls in June.
The telephone call was said to have been made to pressure the former Zamfara governor to drop his ambition to become Nigeria’s senate president.
The DSS also denied reports that it’s operatives carted away all incriminating files relating to Tinubu and his close aides from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and Code of Conduct Bureau.
The Oba of lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu has waded into the controversy surrounding the movie, ‘Gangs of Lagos’, which depicted the Eyo a group of masquerades that celebrates the life of an Oba as criminal gangs that commit grotesque murder and terrorise innocent citizens in lagos.
The Oba in a three page letter, addressed to the management of Amazon Prime Nigeria and Greoh Ltd, demanded that the producers of the movie submit within 14 days a draft of an appropriately worded apology to him and the indigenous people of Lagos, noting that the depiction of the Eyo in the film is defamatory and sacrilegious.
The Oba went further to list four conditions that the producers and promoters should meet within the stipulated time including a proposal for consideration for the restitution of the sanctity of the Eyo brand and compensatory proposal for the infringement of the indigenous people’s intellectual property rights which has been exploited commercially without licence.
Gangs of Lagos, since its release has been a subject of controversies among the indigenous people of Lagos State, with the Isale Eko Descendants Union instituting a suit seeking N10 billion Naira damages against Amazon and other producers over what they described as huge reputational damage that the film inflicted on the Eyo brand.
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