Daily Watch – Kanu alleges govt complicity in S’East insecurity, Sudan violence surges

The Senate Ad-hoc Committee probing the ₦30 trillion Ways and Means loans to the Federal Government has discovered 13 infractions in the loan obtainment process. The Senate also disclosed that it would summon the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Olayemi Cardoso. This surfaced when the Committee Chairman, Senator Isah Jibrin (Kogi East), and other members met with CBN officials at the National Assembly. The CBN officials were led by Bala Bello. The ad-hoc committee is probing the disbursement and usage of the ₦30 trillion Ways and Means loan obtained during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari from the CBN. Jibrin said the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, unilaterally signed billions of naira in the approval of different tranches of the loan without following due process.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, has alleged that certain government officials are benefiting from the widespread insecurity in the Southeast region after he was denied bail by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja. The IPOB leader also said peace will be restored in the Southeast if he is released from the Department of State Services (DSS) custody. “I suspect that some people in government are complicit. They are making money with this insecurity. They know if Nnamdi Kanu is outside, in two minutes, this nonsense will stop,” Kanu told reporters. Kanu, detained by the DSS since June 2021, told the court that he is being treated poorly by the secret police, and that there is a conspiracy for him to die in custody. In the last three years, the Southeast has suffered unprecedented attacks by “unknown gunmen.”

A helicopter belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces crashed at Bonsukrom in Agona Nkwanta, in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region. Reports say there were about 14 passengers aboard. Amateur footage shows a side view of the helicopter trapped among the shrubs. An eyewitness told Myjoyonline that some of them sustained injuries, but no casualty had been recorded. This incident is said to have attracted many of the townsfolk to troop to the site, leading to a huge crowd. But security personnel on site tried to keep the crowd at bay while the passengers were conveyed to the hospital for healthcare.

The people affected by violence in South Sudan surged by 35 percent in the last three months of 2023 due to inter-communal conflict, the United Nations (UN) has said. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in a report documented 233 incidents of violence affecting 862 people: 406 people were killed, 293 were injured, 100 were abducted and 63 were subjected to sexual violence. There was a 35 percent increase in the number of victims reported from the previous quarter. The report also said that inter-communal violence by community-based militias or civil defence groups accounted for 86 percent of all civilians affected. More than half of those affected by the violence were caught up in retaliatory attacks between rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group: the Twic Dinka from Warrap state and the Ngok Dinka from the oil-rich Abyei region.