A staff of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Lugbe, Shila Ojebola, has been reported dead three weeks after his abduction along the Kaduna-Abuja highway.
Ojebola’s promotion was announced while he was at the kidnapper’s den.
Family members told People’s Gazette that the 47-year-old victim was killed after a total of N7m ransom was collected by his captors.
The medium reported that the police and State Security Service (SSS) were involved in the ransom process.
The Kaduna-Abuja highway has come under attack in recent times, with many feared killed and kidnapped.
The appalling situation has incited fear among travelers who are torn between plying the highway or taking the train.
Recall that terrorists had detonated an explosive along the Kaduna- Abuja railway in November, but no casualty was recorded.
Former Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bisi Akande, has revealed how the ruling party derived its change slogan.
In his autobiography titled ‘My Participations’, launched in Lagos on Thursday, Akande said the slogan was coined by US media and political consultants, AKPD, for the party in 2013.
Akande said that the consultants were hired by the national leader of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to help ACP boost its new image and coin messages acceptable to Nigerians.
The former Osun governor claimed that the consultants were hired as part of strategies to remove the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from office in 2015.
He said, “As we were putting the APC together, Bola Tinubu was of the opinion that we must do everything strategically and legally possible to upend the ruling PDP. While other politicians think of their states and possibly geo-political zone, Tinubu has a more holistic view. As far as he is concerned, Nigeria is one constituency. He is always thinking ahead. He is a comprehensive political strategist who does not take anything for granted. It was his strategic mind that changed a routine journey to America into a trip of serious historic implications.
“Howard Jeter, a former Ambassador of the United States to Nigeria, must have become acquitted with Tinubu during his service in Nigeria between 2000 and 2003. Tinubu was governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, during the turbulent early days of Nigeria’s return to democracy when he had to confront the Federal Government of President Obasanjo on several constitutional issues. After Jeter retired from active diplomatic service, he and Tinubu remain friends and the two families became close. Therefore, it was normal for Tinubu to be invited to the wedding of Jeter’s daughter in Maryland slated for April 2013,
“Tinubu wanted me to come along to honour Jeter whom he described as a great friend of Africa. Howard Jeter also served as Ambassador to Botswana and later as Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs under President Bill Clinton. He said we would use the opportunity of our visit to do other things that would benefit our proposed party and our country. I have known Tinubu to be a wonderful strategic political thinker and I suspected he was thinking ahead. Indeed, he had other things on his plate beyond the wedding of Jeter’s daughter.
“To convince me, Akande wrote that Tinubu asked if he knew how it was possible for Barrack Obama, an African-American politician, to win the American Presidency twice in such a major white populated country like the USA.
“I had no idea. He convinced me that we should use the occasion of the wedding to interact with the gathering of African Americans to find out how. I conceded to him and we flew to America to honour the Jeters. We arrived in the USA on April 5, 2013 and checked into Four Seasons Hotel in Washington DC. The wedding ceremonies were on April 6. We exploited the occasion to have extensive consultations with some of our Nigerian and American friends. Among those we met were Professor Segun Gbadegesin, a brilliant teacher of philosophy at the famous Howard University in Maryland, and Ladi Delano among others. We reviewed our mission in America with them in the hotel.
“Professor Gbadegesin was not comfortable with our merger talk with the CPC and other parties and he kept on expressing his anxiety about our obstinate desire to venture into a strange partnership. We argued that every discovery that constitutes civilisations were based on experimentations. Also, many white American friends of Tinubu visited us during our stay in Washington and other cities. In the end, we accepted that the services of media and political consultants would be required. Quite a few such experts were introduced to us. Tinubu eventually invited a group called AKPD to advise us in Nigeria on how to boost the merger efforts and about the messages the new party should forward for it to be acceptable to Nigerians.”
Akande added that Tinubu single-handedly paid the consultants and also hired them to help set up a popular television station, Television Continental.
He added: “I believe it must have cost him a fortune in dollars to hire them. I know it was not funded by the party then since I was the acting National Chairman. I regarded such funding as Tinubu’s affair in party building and I always told him so. It was immediately after the same USA tour that he also took me round and introduced to me the new television complex, the TVC, as part of his preparations for the ongoing political project. I was secretly musing to myself as to what Bola Tinubu would have done if he was the one vying for the Presidency on the platform of the new party.
“Tinubu again hired and reassigned the media consultants, AKPD, to extend their findings to the rest of Nigeria. In earnest, AKPD began creating a research-based quantitative nationwide survey, organizing message summits with party leadership and stakeholders at various levels, assembling qualitative focus groups with crafted questionnaires, data modulation, party branding and message delivery strategy to the APC 12million registered members and the voters generally from sets of created ‘communication war room.’ By January 2014, AKPD came out with preliminary result forecasts and advices for improvement. The major advices were that APC must keep talking about CHANGE and JOBS.
“They stressed that the largest reason voters would support APC at that time was that they wanted change and APC should continue to say ‘APC means change’ over and over again. When talking about what that change means, they advised that the most important thing to stress is that change means more jobs. All communications on specific policies like education, infrastructure, rural development, fighting corruption, insecurity and so on, should be tied back to how fixing that policy would help to create jobs and would bring Nigerians the change they needed. AKPD stressed that in their polling, voters were telling them that they wanted to hear more of ‘change for jobs’ and APC redoubled its efforts on this message. This is something APC had done effectively and its acceptability had increased tremendously.”
UK-Based Nollywood Actress, Princess Elizabeth Onanuga also known as Prophetess Tola Ara is a year older today Tuesday, 14th of December, 2021.
As a screen goddess and diva that she is, beautiful pictures of her that could make fans lick their screens are making rounds on the social media.
On her birthdays, Princess Elizabeth Onanuga is known for always engaging in charity activities and this one won’t be an exception. She has planned to celebrate her birthday with the less privileged, orphanages whenever she returns to the country.
In the past years, Princess Elizabeth Onanuga has been recognized for her many philanthropic activities which has gone across the country. At a time, she stormed the streets of Lagos to feed beggars around Ketu-Ojota.
Apart from her kind gestures, she is also a popular face in the Nigerian movie industry with several blockbusters that include Irin Ajo Aye Mi, Morenikeji, Hadiza, Omo London, Susan, and many others produced by her.
As a multi-talented personality, she delved into music few years ago and has since then released highly spiritual songs to edify to souls of men.
UEFA was forced to declare the Champions League draw void after a series of mistakes were made during the process on Monday morning.
Manchester United had been handed a mouth-watering last-16 tie against Paris St Germain, but only after being erroneously paired with Villarreal in the first instance and then mistakenly left off the list of possible opponents to face Atletico Madrid.
After clubs sought clarification from the European governing body on what had happened, UEFA announced the ties would be redrawn at 2pm on Monday.
“Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League Round of 16,” a statement said.
“As a result of this, the draw has been declared void and will be entirely redone at 1500 CET.”
Confusion began when United were paired with Villarreal – a side they had already faced in Group F.
UEFA deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti apologised for the “technical issue our draw is experiencing” before asking former Arsenal forward Andrey Arshavin to try again, and this time it was neighbours Manchester City who were paired with the Yellow Submarine.
But the problems did not stop there.
When Atletico Madrid were the next side to be drawn, Marchetti said: “For Atletico Madrid, the possibility are all [teams] except for Liverpool, who was in the same group, and Manchester United as they were already drawn.”
But as United’s drawing was a mistake, they should still have been potential opponents for Atletico. UEFA’s head of club competitions Michael Heselschwerdt began collecting balls to put in the pot, but compounded the error by appearing to take a ball from Liverpool’s pot rather than United’s.
Atletico were ultimately paired with Bayern Munich, but given the series of errors, UEFA had no choice but to declare the draw void.
NYSC says from January 2022, only fully vaccinated Prospective Corps Members (PCMs) will be allowed to register and partake in the scheme.
“From the next orientation in the year 2022, all incoming PCMs will show evidence of vaccination before they will be allowed into the camp for registration.
“We want to ensure that we adhere strictly to the non-pharmaceutical safety protocols of COVID-19,’’ the Director-General, Brig.-Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim said on Monday in Abuja.
He was addressing the 2021 Batch “C’’ Stream II set of corps members in a virtual meeting.
Mr Emeka Mgbemena, NYSC’s spokesman said in a statement that the director-general gave the directive in the face of reported cases of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus in Nigeria.
Ibrahim said that the scheme would not let down its guard of ensuring strict adherence to the COVID-19 safety protocols.
“I commend the Federal Government, the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, the National Centre for Disease Control, and other stakeholders for the success of the 2021 Batch “C’’ Stream II orientation course,’’ Ibrahim was quoted as saying.
The director-general urged the Batch “C’’ Stream II set of corps members whose orientation course ends on Dec. 14, to continue to build on the skills learned during the orientation course.
He said this would make them to become business owners, instead of job seekers.
He assured that the scheme had partnered with the CBN, Access Bank, Bank of Industry, the NYSC Foundation, and Heritage Bank to support corps members with good business proposals with soft loans.
“Efforts are ongoing for the establishment of the NYSC Trust Fund which will make more funds available for every willing corps member to start their businesses as they exit service.
“NYSC is a platform for those that are very serious. Please take the skills acquisition seriously and ensure you register for the post-camp training.
“I can assure you that our partners are ready to support us to ensure that the start-up capitals are made available to corps members,’’ Ibrahim said.
The director-general advised corps members to choose personal projects that could be completed within the service year while also urging them not to borrow money to execute the projects.
He said that funds for personal projects should be sourced from their locality.
“Make sure you call on the traditional rulers, leaders, and youths so that they can support your project. Do not borrow money because you want to win the national honours award,’’ the director-general admonished.
The stand-out tie is undoubtedly the showdown between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, which will see a return of old enmities as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo collide once more.
first leg matches will be played in February 15/16/22/23, while the second leg matches will be played in March 8/9/15/16
Here are the ties
Benfica vs Real Madrid
Villarreal vs Manchester City
Atletico Madrid vs Bayern Munich
Salzburg vs Liverpool
Inter Milan vs Ajax
Sporting Lisbon vs Juventus
Chelsea vs Lille
Paris Saint-Germain vs Manchester United
The publisher of www.trixxng.com, Osho Oluwatosin has been honoured with the blogger of the year award at the recently concluded fifth edition of Prestige Excellence Award.
The event which held on Sunday, 28th of November, 2021 at the prestigious Presken hotel had several dignitaries that include Governor Babajide Sanwoolu, Rt Hon Mudashiru Obasa, Hon Lanre Odubote, Buba Marwa, Babajide Otitoju, captains of industry and important personalities from different walks of life in attendance.
According to Mr Wale Abiodun, the organizer of Prestige Excellence Award, Osho Oluwatosin was selected as the blogger of the year due to the sagacity, intelligence, and consistency he has used to make TRIXX NG a force to reckon within a short period of time.
Mr Wale Abiodun made special reference to TRIXX NG’s rank in Nigeria and globally, while commending Osho Oluwatosin for putting lots of efforts to attain such a huge feat.
In his reaction, Osho Oluwatosin appreciated God and the organizers of Prestige Excellence Award for counting him worthy of such a huge award.
Going down the memory lane, Osho Oluwatosin dedicated the award to his mentor, Femi Oyewale who is the publisher of Sahara Weekly Magazine/Online for putting him through in the media industry. He cited the lessons Femi Oyewale taught him as reasons behind his achievements in the media industry so far.
‘’I want to appreciate Mr Wale Abiodun for counting me worthy of this huge award. It’s not something I take for granted especially for the fact that it will be my first career award. I thank God for the progress experienced in my career so far, it has all been by his grace alone’’
‘’ I want to specially appreciate Mr Femi Oyewale, the publisher of Sahara Weekly Magazine/Online who was the first person I met when I decided to delve into journalism. I had my industrial training with his media outfit and he took me as a son. Without him, I would not have gotten to this stage of my career’’
‘’TRIXX NG is a platform I see as a calling, it’s my ministry and I have no regret starting www.trixxng.com in 2018. I appreciate our readers, supporters, friends who have been pushing for us out there, God bless every one of you, Amen’’
Osho Oluwatosin is a 25-year-old media personality who is vast in the areas of media and public relations. He is currently the media aide to Renowned Prophet, Primate Elijah Ayodele and has worked for several notable personalities that include UK-Based Nollywood Actress, Princess Elizabeth Onanuga, Film maker, Titi Jeje, Prophet Joshua Iginla, late Prophet TB Joshua, Imo PDP Chieftain, Emmanuel Okewulonu, Dr DK Olukoya, corporate organizations that include United Bank For Africa (UBA), First Bank Of Nigeria, Zenith Bank, Union Bank, Unity Bank, Polaris Bank, Fidelity Bank, Dangote Group, Guarantee Trust Bank(GTB), to mention a few.
South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has tested positive for the coronavirus after visiting four African countries.
His government tweeted on Monday that the President being “booked off for the week, there won’t be a weekly message issued today.”
In a press statement published on the government’s website, he is receiving treatment for mild COVID-19 symptoms after contracting the virus on Sunday, 12 December 2021.
“The President started feeling unwell after leaving the State Memorial Service in honour of former Deputy President FW de Klerk in Cape Town earlier today.
“The President is in good spirits but is being monitored by the South African Military Health Service of the South African National Defence Force,” the statement added on Sunday.
The South African presidency revealed that Ramaphosa had authorized his vice to deputize for him.
“The President, who is fully vaccinated, is in self-isolation in Cape Town and has delegated all responsibilities to Deputy President David Mabuza for the next week,” it added on Sunday.
The presidency explained that his covid-19 test results were negative when he visited Ghana, Nigeria and other countries.
“On his recent visit to four West African states, President Ramaphosa and the South African delegation were tested for COVID-19 in all countries.
“The President and the delegation returned to South Africa from the Republic of Senegal on Wednesday, 8 December 2021, after obtaining negative test results. The President also tested negative on his return to Johannesburg on 8 December.
“Today’s proceedings in Cape Town were undertaken in compliance with health regulations pertaining to hand hygiene, the wearing of face masks and social distancing.”
Presidency has debunked reports that there are provisions in the Finance Bill 2022 now before the National Assembly forcing Nigerians to have a Tax Identification Number (TIN) in order to operate a bank account.
Recall that the Leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi, had last week Wednesday in his lead debate on the bill, sent to the National Assembly by President General Muhammadu Buhari, had said the Finance Bill 2021 has made it mandatory for commercial banks to demand the TIN from anyone who wishes to open an account with them.
Bill, he said also empowers banks to demand TIN from existing customers if they wish to continue to operate their accounts.
But a Presidency source who pleaded for anonymity, claimed to be involved in the drafting of the bill said the news reports are “totally inaccurate, the bill has no such provisions for individuals.”
The source presenter the main changes proposed under the bill which would be further defended this week at both the Senate and the House of Representatives:
“Capital gains tax at the rate of 5% to be applicable on disposal of shares in a Nigerian company worth N500m or more in any 12 consecutive months except where the proceed is reinvested in the shares of any Nigerian company within the same year of assessment. Partial re-investment will attract tax proportionately. Transfer of shares under the regulated Security Lending Transaction is exempted.
“Lottery and Gaming business to be specifically taxable under CITA including betting, game of chance, promotional competition, gambling, wagering, video poker, roulette, craps, bingo, slot or gaming machines and the likes.
“Companies engaged in petroleum operations including Midstream and Downstream operations will not be eligible for exemption on profits in respect of goods exported from Nigeria. Downstream companies were previously eligible under the old Upstream and Downstream classification.
“FIRS to be empowered to assess CIT on the turnover of a foreign digital company involved in transmitting, emitting, or receiving signals, sounds, messages, images or data of any kind including e-commerce, app stores, and online adverts.
“Capital allowance claimable on an asset is limited to the portion used for generating taxable profits. Assets partially used to generate taxable income will be eligible for pro-rata capital allowance except where the proportion of non-taxable income does not exceed 20% of the total income of the company.
“Any capital allowance or unabsorbed allowances brought forward by a small or medium company, other than a company under pioneer status, to be treated as having been claimed and consumed in each such year of assessment.
“The reduction of minimum tax rate from 0.5% to 0.25% of turnover (less franked investment income) is to be applicable to any two accounting periods between 1 Jan 2019 and 31 Dec 2021 as may be chosen by the taxpayer.
“Disputed tax assessment to be in abeyance until determination while undisputed tax assessment is to be paid within 30 days after service of the notice of assessment on the company except otherwise extended by the FIRS. Reference to provisional tax has been deleted in recognition of the well-established self-assessment tax regime.
“Withholding tax on interest earned from a unit trust to be treated as final tax. Only WHT on dividend is currently treated as final tax for local companies.
“The deployment of technology to automate tax administration including assessment and information gathering by FIRS to now include third party technology (previously only proprietary technology may be deployed). A penalty of N50,000 to be applicable where a company fails to grant access to FIRS in addition to N25,000 for each day the failure continues.
“FIRS to be the primary agency of the Federal Government responsible for the administration, assessment, collection, accounting and enforcement of taxes and levies due to the Federation, the Federal Government and any of its agencies except otherwise authorized by the Finance Minister.
“Any person or agency of the Federal Government must refer matters requiring tax investigation, enforcement and compliance to the FIRS. Relevant officers who violate the rule to be liable to a penalty of N10m and/or 5 years imprisonment on conviction.
“Deductible life assurance premium for personal income tax purposes to exclude a contract for deferred annuity.
“The Finance Minister, subject to the approval of the National Assembly, shall make regulations for the imposition, administration, collection, remittance, including distribution of arrears of stamp duty and Electronic Money Transfer levies collected between 2015 and 2019 fiscal years.
“Tertiary Education Tax to be payable within 30 days of service of assessment (currently 60 days).
“Non-residents making taxable supplies to recipients in Nigeria to have the primary obligation to charge, collect and remit VAT to FIRS. The VAT withholding obligation of Nigerian recipients now limited to where the non-resident or its appointed agent fails to collect the VAT.
“The exemption from VAT registration and compliance obligation applicable to small companies with annual turnover less than N25m to exclude companies engaged in upstream petroleum operations regardless of turnover.
“Appointment of the FIRS to assess, collect and enforce the payment of Nigerian Police Trust Fund levy. The Act enacted in 2019 imposed a tax of 0.005% on the net profit of companies operating in Nigeria.
“Amendment of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure Act to remove the requirement for commercial companies to pay a levy of 0.25% of turnover annually to the Fund. Primary sources of fund to be limited to 1% of the Federation Account.
“Mandatory payment of gross revenue collected by federal ministries, departments or agencies to the federation account or consolidated revenue fund as the case may be except otherwise authorized by law. Any officer who violates this requirement may be liable on conviction to imprisonment of up to 5 years or a fine of N5m or both.
“Amendment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to enable government borrow for “critical reforms of significant national impact”. Currently, government at all tiers are only empowered to borrow for capital expenditure and human development. Capital expenditure is defined as spending on an asset that lasts for more than one financial year. Human development and critical reforms are not defined.”
