NEWS
Reps Summon ITF Boss over Four-year Unapproved Spending

By Joseph Amah, Abuja
The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts has summoned the Acting Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund, Mrs Adesola Taiwo, over the operation of the agency’s budgets between 2018 and 2021 without the approval of the National Assembly.
At its investigative hearing on Wednesday, the committee vowed to probe into how the ITF operated over the years without a budget appropriated by the National Assembly, contrary to Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution.
The Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, ordered an immediate probe, directing the panel’s clerk to write and request evidence of how the ITF conveyed its annual budgets for the years under review, from the Clerk to the National Assembly and the Clerk to the House of Representatives.
The ITF, in its written submission to the committee, said it spent N37,592,730,753 in 2018; N43,133,753,661 in 2019; N43,468,030,400 in 2020; and N43,947,801,437 in 2021.
The committee discovered the extra-budgetary spending while grilling the management of the ITF, which was placed on status inquiry by the committee.
The lawmakers also expressed their displeasure with the non-appearance of the acting DG, who was represented by Director of Finance and Administration, Yusuf Abdulmajid.
Oke had asked the leader of the ITF team of the whereabouts of Taiwo, who was supposed to appear before the committee to speak on various infractions levelled against Fund.
The DFA replied that she was on annual leave, which prompted him to represent her.
The committee, however, insisted that the acting DG must appear in person unfailingly on Tuesday along with a copy of letter showing approval of the leave.
Oke also ruled that the ITF should show evidence that the budget of the Fund was actually conveyed to the National Assembly by the President and was thereafter considered and approved.
Furthermore, the chairman ordered ITF to also present the reports of its budget performance from January 2020 to date, records of donations, grants, and other interventions, a detailed breakdown of the amount disbursed, and a comprehensive list of beneficiaries.
The Acting DG is also to come along with the Director of Human Resources, Director of Finance, and Director of Procurement.
US Appeal Court Permits Nigeria to Request Documents from P&ID Stakeholders
By Joseph Amah, Abuja
A US court of appeals for the second circuit has overturned orders which blocked Nigeria from obtaining documents to support its appeal against a $10 billion judgement awarded against it in a case against Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID).
In 2019, a British court gave P&ID the go-ahead to seize Nigerian assets worth $9 billion over a 2010 contract.
The company claimed it agreed with Nigeria to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, but that the deal collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfill its end of the bargain.
The award, which has been accruing interest since 2013, is now worth $10 billion.
Nigeria had alleged that the gas deal was a scam designed to defraud the country.
Lawyers representing the federal government told the court that P&ID officials paid bribes to get the contract.
But P&ID denied the allegation and accused the Nigerian government of “false allegations and wild conspiracy theories”.
In a move to overturn the judgement, Nigeria got court clearance to request documents from P&ID stakeholders. The stakeholders include VR Capital, four subsidiaries and three of its directors — and review bank statements of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Diezani Alison-Madueke and Rilwanu Lukman, former ministers of petroleum.
However, the New York district court vacated its order in November 2020, on the grounds that Nigeria had not “provided a good reason” for bypassing the procedures set out in a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) between the US and Nigeria.
community
Court Remands Septuagenarian in Kirikiri Correctional Centre For Alleged Defilement

An Ikeja Chief Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday remanded a 74- year-old man, Aderinsola Addiths, in Kirikiri Correctional Centre for allegedly defiling his neighbours ‘s teenage daughter.
Addiths a retiree, who resides at No. 1, Rafatu St., Balogun area, Iju Ishaga, Lagos is standing trial for defilement.
The Chief Magistrate, Mrs O.
O Kushanu refused to listen to the accused plea, and ordered him to be remanded in the Kirikiri Correctional Centre until May 20 pending advice from the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).The Prosecutor, ASP Adegoke Ademigbuji told the court that the offence was committed sometimes in 2024 and February 2025 at the accused residence.
Ademigbuji said that the victim, a 13-year-old girl was sent to buy sachet water by the accused and upon her arrival, he shut the door after her.
The prosecutor said that the septuagenarian defiled the girl.
The offence according to the prosecutor contravened section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
Foreign News
WHO: Social Factors Outweigh Genetics In Shaping Global Health

Housing, income, education, and other social conditions have a greater impact on health than genetics or the quality of health-care systems, according to a new World Health Organisation (WHO) study.
The research, set to be presented and live-streamed from Geneva on Tuesday, found that social determinants such as poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to resources account for more than 50 per cent of health outcomes.
These “social determinants of health equity” include the environments in which people are born, live, work, and age, as well as their access to power, money, and opportunity.
“These factors create unjust and avoidable health gaps,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Billions of people face higher risks of illness and death simply because of the conditions they’re born into or the social groups they belong to.”
Tedros emphasised that much of the global disease and mortality burden was preventable, calling health inequity a result of political and social decisions that global leaders had the power to change
CRIME
NDLEA Arrests 62,595 Drug Suspects, Convicts 11,628 Offenders Nationwide

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA), has arrested 62,595 drug suspects and convicted 11,628 offenders between January 2021 to March 2025 across the 36 states and the FCT.
The NDLEA Chairman, retired, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa said this during the opening ceremony of a conference for Nigeria Governors Spouses on Tuesday in Abuja.
The event was organized by the NDLEA in collaboration with the Nigeria Governors Spouses’ Forum.
The theme is “Advanced Training on Drug Prevention Treatment and Care (DPTC) Stage 3 and Effective Management of the State Drug Control Committee.
Marwa said that over the past four years, the NDLEA had pursued this mission with renewed and unwavering zeal.
This, he said, was ensuring that Nigeria’s hard-won global and regional drug control successes were not merely preserved but expanded.
“Permit me to inform this distinguished gathering that over the four years, the NDLEA has deployed substantial resources towards a comprehensive assault on the drug problem, yielding significant outcomes.
“Under the drug supply reduction mandate, encompassing drug seizures, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions, we recorded the arrest of 62,595 drug suspects (Including 68 drug barons).
“We have seized 10,317,137.55 kilograms of assorted drugs, and secured the conviction of 11,628 offenders. Furthermore, 1,330.56553 hectares of cannabis farms were identified and destroyed,” he said.
Marwa said that equal emphasis had been placed on drug demand reduction to ensure a balanced approach in accordance with international best practices.
“Between January 2021 and March 2025, a total of 24,375 drug users received counselling and treatment at NDLEA facilities, primarily through brief interventions.
“Concurrently, 10,501 drug sensitisation programmes were conducted nationwide under the auspices of the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) social advocacy campaign, reaching diverse target groups within communities.
“In parallel, a remarkable 3, 843, 789 participants were mobilised to partake in these enlightenment initiatives undertaken across the nation,” he said.
The NDLEA boss said that the agency had made intentional investments in the implementation of Drug Use Prevention strategies in recognising that prevention was invariably better than cure.
He said that those targeted interventions were vital in reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors against substance abuse especially amongst vulnerable and marginalised populations, including our youth.
“However dark the hour, we must not surrender to despair.
“As patriots and vanguards of our nation’s well-being, it falls on us to strengthen our resolve, to move with deliberate speed towards practical and lasting resolutions that will, God willing, break the vicious cycle of drug abuse.
“This capacity building event represents a stride, small though it may seem, in the proper direction.
“Since it is at the community level that the burden of the drug menace is most acutely felt, it is vital that stakeholders, including all of us gathered here today, address the different dimensions of the problem from a community-centred perspective.
“This gathering must strive for common ground, developing indigenous and pragmatic solutions that go beyond mere statistics and harrowing headlines, addressing instead the real and harrowing human toll of drug abuse, ” he said