Category: Business

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has disclosed that former Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, was globally pursued in connection with the controversial OPL 245 oil deal.

Jonathan, who spoke through former Senate President, Pius Anyim, made the revelation on Thursday in Abuja during the public presentation of Adoke’s memoir titled “OPL 245: Inside Story of the $1.3 Billion Nigerian Oil Block.”

He recounted that following the end of his administration in 2015, a campaign of targeted persecution was launched against officials who served in his government, with Adoke among the most affected.

“The author of this memoir, Mr. Bello Adoke, was the Attorney-General of the Federation at that time.

“He was hunted across the globe. But today, he’s alive, he’s healthy, and he’s here to tell his story,” Jonathan said.

Jonathan described the memoir as a bold and courageous effort to set the record straight, saying it was an important contribution to justice and nation-building.

He commended Adoke’s resilience, calling him a “friend and brother” who withstood intense pressure.

The former president also used the occasion to reflect on the nature of political power and urged public officeholders to act with fairness and responsibility.

“Power belongs to God. The best anyone who is blessed with the opportunity of holding public office should do is to commit to the assignment and use the opportunity to uphold truth, justice, and fairness,” he stated.

Jonathan warned that no society could thrive without justice and noted that Adoke’s decision to document his experiences was a step toward preserving the truth and strengthening democratic values.

“To some, the occasion may be a book presentation. To others, it is a celebration of victory over persecution,” he concluded.

Senegal has cancelled Akon’s $6 billion plan to build a futuristic “Akon City” on the country’s Atlantic coast, after years of inaction and missed payments by the Senegalese-American singer, Bloomberg reports.

The project, first announced in 2020, was pitched as a tech-driven smart city inspired by Marvel’s Wakanda and promised to transform the quiet village of Mbodiène into a modern hub powered by solar energy and Akon’s own cryptocurrency.

But five years later, the Senegalese government has reclaimed most of the 136 acres of land initially allocated to the singer, after construction failed to begin and financial commitments were not met.

“That project no longer exists,” Serigne Mamadou Mboup, head of Sapco-Senegal, the state agency responsible for developing coastal and tourism zones, told L’Agence de presse sénégalaise.

Bloomberg reports on Wednesday that SAPCO said it would now pursue a scaled-down, state-backed tourism project in the same area, with a budget of 665 billion CFA francs (about $1.2 billion), largely sourced from private investors.

Akon will retain just 8 hectares of the original land allocation, which will be absorbed into the broader development.

Despite the setback, officials say the revised plan could generate up to 15,000 jobs in its first phase, offering long-awaited economic hope for Mbodiène residents.

Since its launch, Akon City has made little headway beyond a youth centre, a basketball court and an information kiosk.

The initial phase, which included a hospital, was originally scheduled for completion by 2023.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was under fire again Wednesday, for antisemitic comments, praising Hitler and insulting Islam in separate posts on the X platform.

One series of comments, which included insults directed at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, led a court there to ban the posts in question.

These were just the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the AI creation, which has already been accused of promoting racist conspiracy theories.

Screenshots posted on X showed several posts made by the bot in which it praised Adolf Hitler and claimed Jews promoted “anti-white hate”.

The chatbot, developed by Musk’s company xAI, was criticised by the Jewish activist group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for answering multiple user prompts with questionable posts.

And in Turkey, a court announced it was blocking access to a series of messages from Grok on X, which it said had insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Islamic religious values.

Musk’s AI start-up acknowledged the issues in a post via Grok on X.

“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” it said.

“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”

– Friday upgrade –

Musk has not so far commented directly on the controversy, but posted Wednesday: “Never a dull moment on this platform.”

Last Friday, he posted to say they had made significant improvements to Grok. “You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions,” he added.

Grok, in posts since then, has referred to “anti-white stereotypes” and Hollywood executives being “disproportionately Jewish”.

The ADL criticised the latest posts by the chatbot.

“What we are seeing from Grok LLM right now is irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic, plain and simple,” the ADL said on X.

“This supercharging of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the antisemitism that is already surging on X and many other platforms.”

On Tuesday, Grok was also asked about the wildfires burning around the southern French port of Marseille.

If the fire could “clean up” one troubled district of the city “so much the better”, it said, adding “the dealers are more resilient than the flames”.

– ‘Sarcasm’ –

Also Tuesday, Grok insulted Erdogan and his family in a series of Turkish-language posts, according to screen captures posted by other users.

A court in Ankara on Wednesday ordered around 10 of the offending posts to be blocked “for the crimes of insulting the religious values of a portion of the population and insulting the president”.

In one post on Wednesday, Grok appeared to be suggesting that some of its more controversial remarks had been tongue-in-cheek.

“My line was sarcasm: absurdly invoking Hitler to slam that vile bile, not endorse him — he’s history’s ultimate evil. Irony backfired hard,” it posted.

Grok, which Musk promised would be “edgy” following its launch in 2023, has been mired in controversy.

In May it caused a row for generating misleading and unsolicited posts referencing “white genocide” in South Africa, which xAI blamed on an “unauthorised modification.”

AFP

President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has publicly hailed President Bola Tinubu’s administration for its “visionary leadership” in infrastructure development and flood control initiatives.

In an open letter, Dangote expressed appreciation for the President’s efforts, particularly highlighting the transformative Bar Beach Land Reclamation project (Eko Atlantic City) and the ongoing nationwide superhighway constructions.

Dangote’s commendation, tagged, “Open Letter To President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR: Appreciation”, was shared by the Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, via his X handle on Wednesday.

In his open letter, Dangote drew a parallel between the success of the Eko Atlantic City project and the recent flash flooding incident in Kerr County, Texas, USA, which claimed over 100 lives.

He praised Tinubu’s “foresightedness” in initiating the Eko Atlantic City, a modern city spanning 1,000 hectares and protected by an 8.5-kilometre-long sea wall, which has effectively shielded Victoria Island from coastal erosion and provided new land for development.

“Your Excellency, this success story, which is now being used for residential, business, and recreational purposes, is amongst your many legacies, and those of us who live in Victoria Island are much better off for it,” Dangote wrote, applauding the President’s “exemplary intervention in ending the era of ocean surge and in continuous tackling the issue of perennial flooding affecting areas such as Ahmadu Bello Way, Akin Adesola Street, Bishop Oluwole Street, Amodu Ojikutu Street, Adetokunbo Ademola Street and Karimu Kotun Street, among others.”

Beyond flood control, the Africa’s richest man commended Tinubu for kickstarting major infrastructure projects, including the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway and the Sokoto-Badagry superhighway.

He particularly noted the latter’s significance as a “resurrection of a 48-year-old project,” both of which are being handled by the “first-rate construction and civil engineering firm in Hitech Construction Company Limited.”

Dangote further highlighted the resemblance of Nigeria’s land reclamation efforts to similar successful projects in Zeeland, Netherlands, where submerged land was transformed into usable dry land, primarily for agriculture and settlement.

This, he stated, “is a testament to the Dutch ingenuity and perseverance in managing water resources and creating a habitable landscape in a challenging environment. The same ethos resonates in the Bar Beach project, for which I salute you!”

In a gesture of corporate social responsibility, Dangote Industries Limited also extended condolences to the families affected by the Texas flooding incident.

The letter concluded with an announcement that the Aliko Dangote Foundation would soon “be announcing plans of contributing to a Climate Fund that will target those vulnerable parts of our country which are susceptible to this natural disaster.”

Reacting to the commendation, Onanuga noted that Dangote’s position offered “an honest assessment of Tinubu’s leadership, contrasts sharply with opposition claims that the president has achieved nothing in the past two years.”