Daily Watch – Suspected informants nabbed in FCT crackdown, Peacekeepers arrested after DR Congo shooting

Four informants suspected to be leaking information to terrorists about troops’ locations and movements around the outskirts of Abuja have been arrested. The criminals are already in the custody of a security agency. Multiple news outlets cited unnamed intelligence operatives as saying that the suspects were arrested with sophisticated equipment including Walkie-Talkies, revolvers, knives, amulets, and old Chinese-made phones that are not Internet enabled. One of the sources, said to be part of the raid that led to the arrest of the informants, said discreet investigations are ongoing to confirm their leaders and financiers. Activities of the terrorist collaborators were responsible for the recent attacks around the vicinity of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, the source was quoted as saying. “The suspects are currently being interrogated to determine if they are working for terrorist groups or armed bandits or other elements with ulterior motives. “I can authoritatively inform you that, while the military has deliberately refused to provide updates since the attack on Kuje Prison, to last attacks on troops at the Bwari and Zuma Rock axis, the joint security task force has so far killed more than 70 armed criminals, including dangerous Kuje prison escapees and terrorists,” the source added.

Emirates Airlines says it will reduce the number of flights to Nigeria from 15 August due to its failure to repatriate revenue from the country. The airline disclosed this in a letter dated 22 July addressed to Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, and signed by its DSVP International Affairs, Majid Al Mualla. “With effect from 15 August 2022, Emirates will be forced to reduce flights from Dubai to Lagos from 11 per week to 7 per week. We have had no choice but to take this action, to mitigate the continued losses Emirates is experiencing as a result of funds being blocked in Nigeria,” the letter partly read. The letter noted that as of July, Emirates had $85 million of funds awaiting repatriation from Nigeria. It said the figure has been rising by more than $10 million every month, while operational costs of 11 weekly flights to Lagos and five to Abuja continue to accumulate. The airline said these funds are urgently needed for them to meet their operational costs and maintain the commercial viability of our services to Nigeria. “We simply cannot continue to operate at the current level in the face of mounting losses, especially in the challenging post-COVID-19 climate,” the airline noted. According to the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) with countries, airline tickets are mostly sold in naira while the airlines would repatriate the funds in dollars through the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will deploy over 200,000 bimodal voter accreditation systems (BVAS) for the 2023 general election. Festus Okoye, the commission’s national commissioner on information and voter education, said this in a statement on Saturday. Okoye said the BVAS would be deployed in the 176,000 polling units across the country, while the excess would be kept as reserve. “We will have one BVAS reserve in every registration area centre (RAC) to ensure immediate intervention in case of any failure,” he said. He added that technical officers would be on standby at every RAC to attend to any technical issues that could arise during the polls. The INEC commissioner said about 7.8 million of the 11 million Nigerians that had completed their registration were between 18 and 34 years old. Okoye added that as of July 25, INEC’s record showed that about 28.5 million prospective voters registered online. He said the figure included fresh registrants and those for transfers, destroyed, defaced and lost voter cards. He also said the commission had integrated persons with disabilities (PWDs) into the electoral process.

Soldiers returning from leave to a United Nations intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo opened fire at a border post, leading to an unknown number of deaths, the U.N. peacekeeping force said on Sunday. The incident at the Congo – Uganda border post in Kasindi in the restive eastern part of the country is the latest involving the peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, which has come under pressure from days of protests. It was not clear why the soldiers opened fire. “This serious incident has caused loss of life and serious injuries,” Bintou Keita, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Congo said. Keita said an investigation had begun and the suspected perpetrators were arrested. “Faced with this unspeakable and irresponsible behaviour, the perpetrators of the shooting were identified and arrested pending the conclusions of the investigation which has already started in collaboration with the Congolese authorities,” she said. She added that contact had been made with the country of origin of the soldiers so that legal proceedings can be initiated urgently. She did not name the country.