The Nation Newspaper

Tag: security

  • Security guard remanded for ‘raping’ housewife

    Security guard remanded for ‘raping’ housewife

    A 35-year-old night watchman, Mr. Niyi Ayoola, has been remanded in prison custody by an Osogbo Magistrate’s Court for allegedly raping a housewife, Mrs. Bola Osunlana.

    The accused on Friday appeared before the court, presided over by Magistrate Adewumi Makanjuola.

    The charge sheet said the accused forcefully slept with Mrs. Osunlana when she was going home on Iloro Market Road in Ile-Ife.

    Ayoola, who was the security guard attached to Iloro Market, allegedly committed the offence on August 29 at 10.20pm.

    Police Prosecutor Elisha Olusegun told the court that it was odd that Ayoola, who was employed to obey the law, was caught breaking it.

    According to him, the offence is contrary to Section 357 and punishable under Section 358 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 34, Vol. II, Laws of Osun State, Nigeria 2003.

    However, the accused pleaded not guilty of the one-count charge.

    The defence counsel, Mrs. O. Nnenna, prayed the court to grant him bail, adding that the accused should be presumed innocent until proved guilty.

    Nnenna said Ayoola would provide the court with credible sureties, if he was granted a bail.

    She assured that the accused would also not jump bail, if granted one.

    Makanjuola ordered that the accused be remanded in Ilesha Prisons and adjourned the matter till September 20.

  • Technology, politics  and  global security

    Technology, politics  and  global security

    The  killing of the US  Ambassador in Benghazi, Libya this week over the  alleged blasphemy on Islam in the film – Desert Warriors – said to be about life 2000 years ago, bring to the fore the good, the bad and ugly side of the internet as a fast and speedy generator of information and ideas. The presence of objectionable scenes on the Holy Prophet and Islam sparked off murderous protests in the Middle East with protesters looking for Americans to kill  maim or skin alive. In Cairo the situation was similar to that in Benghazi . Just as  in Senaa the Yemeni  capital where protesters besieged the US embassy and tried to enter it.
    The US has reacted in a tough way and has sent war ships to the area but it has to respect and use diplomacy first and has asked that the governments of Egypt and Libya cooperate with it in securing the lives  and property of diplomatic staff. Libya on its own has apologized to the US  government for the killing of the US  ambassador and four other Americans in the embassy. In  a tribute to the fallen ambassador who reportedly died of suffocation  the wife of the US president said it was particularly painful because the Ambassador was one of those who saved Benghazi during the uprising against the Muammar Gaddafi regime. Which shows clearly that the use of information in the internet  age can be particularly dangerous especially with  the speed with which bad or good news spreads without giving time  for clarifications, authentication or verification.
    Today,  we discuss the dangerous use and misuse of information generally  especially with regard to the younger generation and the use of information technology in securing our environment  as well as its potential for doing just the opposite. We  do this without  any pretences whatever and acknowledge that Nigeria is in the same boat as any of the North African or Middle East nations- involved in street revolutions – but are now biting the finger that fed them in staging successful revolutions against dictatorship – which is information technology and the internet featuring social networks like facebook and twitter.
    This is because the Boko Haram strategy of attacks  in Nigeria have been to use  home made bombs and we have been shown armories of the sect and the implements used in making bombs from knowledge and skills acquired from the internet to bomb churches  and other targets in Nigeria. Yet, the internet was created to germinate and spread information and knowledge in a form of democratization that breaks the monopoly or hoarding of information and brings data and hitherto protected information within reach of the masses  in terms of spontaineous availability and accessibility. Given the horror and  the speed of the killing of the US ambassador and the rising profile of Boko Haram bombings in Nigeria, one is tempted to ask if there has not been a mistake somewhere on the expected use of information on an unfettered internet and totally free social networks and  on – line information sharing systems.
    Again, we stress that   the essence of information is in its sharing and usage to promote causes and events. As events this week show this can be a double edged sword. This  is because just as a phone call or information on facebook can lead a suya seller to make bumper sales by moving his wares to a different location based on information  received, the same telephone can tell a bomber the location to detonate his bomb for maximum effect.
    In Tahrir Square  in Egypt, the demonstrators that gathered to oust Housni Mubarak were aided by IT gadgets which were seized and were to be tendrered as evidence against them by Mubaraks agents and they would have been sentenced by the Egyptian authorities still pro Mubarak then. But the US government intervened and the IT gadgets were released and some of the trials stopped. Now Egypt   has an elected President who was elected by a revolution that rode on the back of mass mobilisation  through IT but the US embassy was under siege this week in Cairo  and American lives were  on the line because of information from the internet on a blasphemy on Islam  in a film.
    The same can be said of Libya and Yemen where the same people the US supported against their oppressors  turned their anger  on the same US. Which really shows in violently pragmatic ways that it is not only in diplomacy that we say that there are no permanent friends but permanent interests. In social networking too whilst the essence of sharing information is to galvanise interest in causes and events there are no permanent friends in the subsequent flow and direction of information. That is the bitter truth the death of the US Ambassador has revealed in Benghazi, Libya this week.
    This throws up again the issue of Wiki Leaks and its founder now holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London whilst the British government struggles not to break international law – especially the sanctity and sovereignty of  resident embassies, in seeking to arrest and send him to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. I  have never been an admirer of the Wiki Leak founder because I think he violated privacy and security bounds and laws in revealing information on governments and  diplomacy online just because a frustrated and wayward US soldier was willing to get paid for such information. Yet the Wiki Leak founder was made a Man of the Year by a leading Nigerian newspaper sometime ago – which I found repugnant. Just as I feel bad that some people have revealed information in Nigeria  on leading SSS officials on line thus  blowing their cover  and jeorpadising their security.
    This to me is like  giving jailed convicts unfettered access to the judges that jailed them. The result is predictable – sheer murder and mayhem fuelled by a mad  urge for retaliation and vengeance  against public officials who have just done their legitimate functions and duties. Which certainly is most unfair.
    This brings to mind again the optimism of the CEO of Facebook  Sheryl Sandberg at  the beginning of this year in an article in the publication – The World In 2012  – from The Economist stable. In  the article titled –Sharing the Power of 2012 – the Facebook boss, a lady noted that after the earthquake in New Zealand in 2011 which destroyed property worth over $10bn in Christchurch  – social media connected people to the resources they needed to begin rebuilding their lives.  On Egypt she wrote that   in 2011   the Egyptian  people confronted a government that was not listening to them and used social technologies to amplify their voices.
    Technology she said  gives  ‘a name and a face – a true identity – to those who were previously invisible and it turns up the volume  on voices that may have otherwise been too soft to hear’. She ended gleefully that in 2012 greater  sharing of information around the world is inevitable and that deeper and richer caring will be profound. Definitely the Facebook boss never thought of the sort of Information backlash that turned technologies that created freedom into weapons of destruction  this week in the Middle East. Which also brings to mind bitter memories of the beautiful daughter  – of a Nigerian general -who made friends on the internet who lured her to her death in Lagos from Abuja on the fraudulent pretext of being business experts.
    In essence then  and quite ominously the Americans must prepare for events like the murder in Benghazi this week and the reason is not far fetched. Technology – spawned democracies are prone to religious backlashes simply because they are not immune to religious sentiments  and the Middle East  is a hotbed of religion and Islam is the major religion.
    In addition whilst the nations  and citizens of the Middle East may thank the US for aiding the advent of  democracy they hate the Americans with the same vigor with which they hated the dictators that the US has helped them to  depose. Indeed   in deposing  the dictators the masses of the Middle East have not forgotten that it was US foreign policy that kept the deposed tyrants in power for so long  in the first instance. So  they reason that if the US can abandon its friends so easily it is better not to be too cosy with a nation  that really has no permanent friends  in their region but only  permanent interests this time woven around technology. More importantly, technology and its usefulness and power capabilities aside, there is no way the people of the Middle East can be true friends of the US as long as the support for the state of Israel remains the corner stone of the US Middle East Foreign Policy . That really is the true import of the deadly  information backlash that claimed the ambassador’s life in Benghazi, Libya this week.
  • Nigeria tightens security after US Embassy attacks

    Nigeria tightens security after US Embassy attacks

    Obama: justice will be done

    NIGERIA rose yesterday to the likely security challenges thrown up by violent demonstrations in some parts of the world sparked by a United States film believed to have been religiously offensive.

    The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, ordered tight security around police formations, embassies and foreign missions.

    Deputy Force Public Relations Officer Frank Mba said yesterday in a statement: “Consequently, the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, has placed all police formations across the federation on red alert. In this regard, the IGP has directed all zonal AIGs and Command Commissioners of Police to ensure a 24-hour water-tight security in and around all Embassies and Foreign Missions in Nigeria as well as other vulnerable targets.

    “In addition, the AIG in charge of Intelligence and Commissioners of Police in charge of the various Police Special Squads, such as the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), Police Mobile Force (PMF) and Special Protection Unit (SPU) have been directed to ensure that their personnel are strategically deployed to prevent and nip all potential crises in the bud.

    “While assuring law abiding citizens of the readiness and capacity of the Nigeria Police to provide adequate security for life and property, the IGP warned potential trouble makers to stay off the streets of Nigeria as the nation’s security agencies will bring to bear the full weight of the law on all laws breakers.

    “The IGP also advised parents and guardians to monitor their wards closely to protect them from negative influences of mischief makers who may want to lure them into criminal and unwholesome acts.”

    The UN Security Council condemned the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff.

    Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the others were killed in an attack by unidentified armed men.

    The Security Council’s condemnation was read by Ambassador Peter Wittig, the President of the Security Council during the Council session at the UN Headquarters in New York.

    “I am sure that I speak for all of us in strongly condemning the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff and expressing our heartfelt condolences to our U.S. colleagues here and to the families and loved ones of the victims,” he said.

    The attackers stormed the grounds of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi overnight, angered by a video produced in the U.S., which was said to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

    The United States said it was taking measures to protect its citizens worldwide.

    In Libya, witnesses say members of a radical Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia, protested near the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where NATO jets established no-fly zones last year to halt ground attacks from then-Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

    The group then clashed with security forces in the city, blocking roads leading to the consulate, witnesses said.

    The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said in a statement.

    “Our hearts go out to all their families and colleagues,” Clinton said.

    “All the Americans we lost in yesterday’s attacks made the ultimate sacrifice. We condemn this vicious and violent attack that took their lives, which they had committed to helping the Libyan people reach for a better future,” she added.

    In an earlier statement, Clinton said she condemned the attack on the U.S. facilities “in the strongest terms” and that following Tuesday’s events, the U.S. government was “working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions and American citizens worldwide.”

    Libya’s General National Congress also condemned the attack in Benghazi, saying it “led to the regrettable injury and death of a number of individuals.” Lawmakers said in a statement Tuesday night that they were investigating.

    President Barack Obama, delivering a statement in the Rose Garden, with Mrs Clinton at his side, said: “The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack.” He said the US was working with the Libyan government to bring the attackers to justice.”Make no mistake, justice will be done,” Obama said, pausing slightly to underscore the declaration.

    The President said Ambassador Stevens had played a crucial role in the liberation of Libya and that he was an indispensable source of knowledge about what was happening in Benghazi, where he had been posted during the overthrow of Gaddafi.

    The President repeats a line from Clinton’s address: “There is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence. None.”

    United States officials say some 50 Marines are being sent to Libya to reinforce security at U.S. diplomatic facilities.

    The Marines are members of an elite group known as a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, whose role is to respond on short notice to terrorism threats and to reinforce security at U.S. embassies. They operate worldwide.

    The officials, who disclosed the plan to send the Marines, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.