Article: COVID-19 And Artificial Intelligence: Where Is Nigeria?

By Mfonobong Chelly 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the use of digital intelligent networks to perform tasks which require human intelligence. It is the use of data networks, systems and machine learning to perform cognitive and problem-solving functions. The application of AI in medicine is not unheard of. It has been used in medical robotics, diagnostics, image-guided surgery, gene sequencing, and analysis. But the Covid-19 pandemic has boosted innovation exploring the use of AI in flattening the curve. 

Perhaps the most basic role AI plays is in the spread of information pertaining to the pandemic. Covid-19 advisory chat bots are used to provide basic information on the coronavirus and ways to curb its spread. This helps serves to reduce misinformation and the undue panic that comes with it. It reduces the traffic on healthcare phone lines such that people with more urgent enquiries can get the help they need. Also, apps and virtual assistants have been fitted to track symptoms and provide useful information examples include Apple health check app, Siri give me guidance, and the Alexa daily check which provide virtual Covid-19 screening based on questionnaires.

Article: Further Notes To The Nigerian Left

Madunagu

By Edwin Madunagu

The Nigerian Left has largely neglected, if not deliberately avoided a renewed ideological struggle which has become a strong factor in both the general turbulence and violence enveloping the whole country and the associated power struggle within the ruling class. The neglected or badly engaged ideological struggle may simply be described as argument over the birth of Nigeria,” that is, argument over how Nigeria came into being and what would have happened if Britain, an imperial colonial power, had not invaded our lands, defeated or deceived our ancestors, gathered them together and imposed itself on them. The argument then proceeds to the desirability or otherwise of returning to the status quo-ante 1900, 1906, 1914, 1935, 1945, 1952, 1960, or 1966, that is, returning to the situation existing before one of the major pre-1966 landmarks of our collective history.

News Release: Details Of Assassination Attempt By Suspected Government Assassins On Int’l Human Rights Lawyer (Barr Okoroafor)

Okoroafor's bullet riddled car

The conduct atrocities of the present central Government of Nigeria using the Nigerian Army and its immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Retired Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai took another shameless and cowardly dimension in the afternoon of Thursday being yesterday, 25th Feb 2021 along Suleja-Bida Road in Niger State when Barrister Richie Ebuka Okoroafor, a British citizen of Igbo nativity and international human rights lawyer narrowly but divinely escaped assassination by suspected Government assassins. The Nigerian Government conduct atrocity perpetrators now seem to have shifted from hiring “human rights contractors” and paid ‘columnists’ and ‘writers’ to attempts at violently taking away the precious lives of critics and activists justly, pricelessly and conscientiously exposing their atrocities perpetrated in service.

News Release: Nigerian Army’s Booklet Of Illegalities In Obigbo

The methodologies used by Nigerian Army under Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai (as he then was) in its current field operations are filled with illegalities and nothing to write home about. They are, to say the least, crude, unprofessional, hateful, unconstitutional, locally and internationally unlawful, non human rights compliant, un-secular and ethnically and religiously discriminatory and cleansing. In arresting citizens wrongly or rightly suspected to have offended punishable laws bordering on Crimes against Persons or Crimes against the State or Crimes against Properties-all categorized globally into “mala inse” and “mala prohibita”; soldiering and policing authorities in any democratic Member-State of UN including Nigeria are inexcusably prohibited and barred from abducting citizens outside public knowledge and records, hatefully and criminally labeling them, taking them into custody and torturing, shooting and raping them to death (if females); disappearing the corpses of those openly or secretly shot and killed or raped to death, detaining the arrested ad infinitum and beyond the limits prescribed in written laws and totally blocking access of the arrested and detained to  their families, physicians and lawyers. Totality of these was the case in Obigbo Army massacre and abductions.

Article: ANLCA’s Fugitives & Constitution Forgers, Their Waterloo Beckons

By Adumaza Joe Sanni

The so-called lawyer amongst the group of serial court-orders violators – Onyimba Enekwechi, yesterday came out with a self-indicting statement, where he is now expressing acknowledgement of the Badagry High court order (16/2/2021) stopping any form of elections into chapters in Western Zone, and all other orders before it, after brazenly and knowingly with impunity violating same. Good enough.

What the so called minister in the temple of Justice failed to let the World know is that, in his 17th February 2021 statement, he had conducted a midnight “selection-election” in Ozo Felix Chukwura's Systems Place Hotel in Satellite Town, despite the warnings of the Area Commander of Area 'E' Command of the Nigeria Police on the 16th February 2021 around 1700 hours after signing an undertaking to ensure obedience to all court orders and maintain the peace. That agreement was attested to by Mukaila, Obicee and Francis on the side of the court-orders violators. Of course, on the side of the peacemakers were the Secretary of BOT – Prince Taiye Oyeniyi, Alhaji Bayo Liasu Oyekangu and Joe Sanni.

Photonews: Location Of The Crashed Nigeria Military Aeroplane

 

Special Report: The Role Of The Church In The Fight Against Corruption

 

By Otive Igbuzor, PhD

(General Overseer, Palace of Priests Assembly, Abuja.)

(Speech By Dr. Otive Igbuzor At The Public Presentation Of Year One And Year Two Report Of The Shun Corruption Project Implemented By Priests Peace And Justice Initiative (PPJ), The Social Arm Of Palace Of Priests Assembly On 17^TH February 2021)

News Release: "53 Obigbo Young Women Were Abducted & Serially Raped At Mogadishu Barracks"-Intersociety

Retired Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai as immediate past Chief of Army Staff chillingly left a legacy of monstrosity and barbarism in the Nigerian Army. This is to the extent that few weeks after he was named as Nigerian Army Chief of Staff in July 2015, the secularity and professional tradition and culture of the Nigerian Army got changed and irreparably bastardized. Today, apart from Nigerian Army clearly running a hateful agenda on ethnic and religious grounds; particularly targeted at Christians and defenseless members of Igbo Ethnic Nationality-the largest Christian Ethnic Group in Nigeria, the Nigerian Army has also become an abominable army and key perpetrator of internationally classified and defined ‘prohibited acts’ including abominable sexual and other gender-based violence.

Speech: Late Lateef Jakande's Inaugural Speech As Governor Of Lagos State

Jakande 

Fellow Citizens of Lagos State,

On Saturday, 28th, July 1979, you elected me, by 559,070 votes to 126,805, the first Executive Governor of Lagos State. Today, as a result of that election, the Chief Judge of this State, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of Nigeria, has invested me with the office. This is an inestimable honour of which I am very conscious. It is a call to Service I take very seriously in all humility. And I want to assure you that I shall spare no effort to justify the confidence which you, the good people of Lagos State, have demonstrably reposed in me.

Article: Mad Cows And Even Madder Narratives

Soyinka 

By Wole Soyinka

The most distressful aspect of my recent interaction with cows and herders is that it has created a most unwanted distraction from the ongoing life and death Nigerian narrative. One has to take time off to deal with distortions and Fake versions, while students are being reportedly waylaid and killed and/or kidnapped in Ondo and farmers are being slaughtered in my own state. In short, the killings continue even as panels are being launched to enquire into immediate past human violations.

Special Report: Eastern Rights & Intelligentsia Coalition Drags Buratai & 20 Others To 31 Foreign Missions In Nigeria

Buratai

In line with our core formative objective and firm promise of getting justice for thousands of the victims of the Army and Police conduct atrocities in Nigeria since 2015, involving: crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other internationally prohibited acts-clearly defined in various regional and international instruments acceded to by Nigeria; the Eastern Nigerian Rights and Intelligentsia Coalition has dragged the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai and over 20 other serving and retired Army or Military and Police chiefs including the newly appointed Chief of Army Staff, Major Gen Ibrahim Attihiru to 31 foreign missions in Nigeria. The respected foreign missions petitioned through their Ambassadors and High Commissioners are the Head of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS and Ambassadors of its 18 Member-States; and the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of 13 key Member-States of the United Nations spread across Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania.

News Release: H. E. President Tshisekedi Assumes The Chair Of The African Union

Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilomb

H.E. Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will assume the Chairship of the African Union (AU), on the first day of the 34th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

During a partially virtual, partially in-person ceremony, H.E. President Tshisekedi will succeed his South African counterpart, President Cyril Ramaphosa, as the organization’s rotating chairperson. 

While the official theme of the year 2021 is “Arts, Culture, and Heritage: Levers for Building the Africa We Want,” the focus of the AU will also be on addressing the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent, which has disproportionately affected the lives and livelihoods of the African people.

Article: Dialectics Of "Revolution" And "Democratic Evolution'’

Madunagu 

By  Edwin Madunagu  

At the height of the armed insurrection against the American State in Washington on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, one of the armed rebels was recorded by the BBC as saying: “This country was founded on revolutionary principles. But it became civil when they got what they wanted.” The particular insurrectionary act was the armed attack, by a mob, on that country’s central parliament while in full session at the parliamentary building called Capitol. The Congress, as America’s central parliament is called, was in full session to confirm the election of the incumbent president’s successor. The incumbent president was Donald Trump of the Republican Party; the successor was Joe Biden of the Democratic Party; and the insurrection was officially alleged to have been “instigated” by the incumbent president to prevent the confirmation of his successor.  

News Release: President Buhari Nominates Immediate Past Army Chief, Others As Non Career Ambassadors

Brutai: Immediate Past Army Chief 

President Muhammadu Buhari has forwarded the names of the immediate past Service Chiefs to the Senate as non-career Ambassadors-Designate.

Article: Addressing The Snowballing ‘Herders–Farmers Conflicts Amidst The National Development: The Urgency Of Now

By Jaye  Gaskia 

The choice of the title for this piece is deliberate, and it is the outcome of relentless, and agitated, even if cautious reflection over the issue and phenomenon of what has transitioned from a perennial anomaly to an endemic crisis, of increasingly existential dimension for the country.

The window of opportunity for resolving this crisis in a manner that augurs well for the nation and het peoples and that mitigates the present and clear danger of a potential descent into the anomie of fratricidal conflict is fast closing; and thence the urgency of now, occasioned by the immediacy of the existential threat.

Disclaimer: Tony Nwabunike's Public Notice Published On The Sun Of 1/2/2021 On Page 9

The attention of this member of ANLCA has been drawn to the misleading, ill-advised and unvetted publication for indemnity by the SUN newspapers, on the purported Board of Trustees elections held in Owerri Concord Hotel on the 16th of December 2020.

Apart from the fact that the activity was glaringly subjudice, because of lots of pending cases involving the association in various courts, there are lots of misinformation intentionally published in the advert with a view to deceiving the public into believing that the event was legally constituted.

Aside the fact that ANLCA has been embroiled in an unnecessary crisis since April 2018, sustained wickedly by certain persons who do not mean well for ANLCA, those who Justice Aikawa in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/921/2020 told in unmistakable terms that they should stop parading themselves as National officers of ANLCA since August 26th 2020, have carried on disrespecting the order with impunity, as if they are above the law.

News Release: Ibori Mourns Prince Tony Momoh

Momoh 

Chief James Onanefe Ibori said that with the passing of Prince Tony Momoh on Monday 1 February 2021, aged 80, Nigeria has lost a remarkable elder statesman – a renowned journalist, the first Chairman, Board of Directors of the Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL), an eminent public servant, a totally detrabilised Nigerian, and a pillar of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who nevertheless, had a rewarding relationship with members of the other political parties.