The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday successfully blocked an attempt by embattled former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to return to Nigeria from London to face trial. Mrs. Alison-Madueke had fled to London shortly after she left office in May 2015, and has stayed away from the country since…

The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has reacted to the controversy surrounding the hike in this year's hajj fare. The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) had put this year's fare at $4,805 (about N1.5m), compared to the $4,003 pilgrims paid in 2016. NAHCON's announcement sparked nationwide outrage…

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has arrived Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, a city troubled by repeated Boko Haram attacks in the past days. Mr. Osinbajo was met on arrival by Governor Kashim Shettima and other officials of the state government as well as top military commanders in the city. Scores…

Nigeria’s internal secret service, the State Security Service (SSS), is enmeshed in a recruitment scandal following the exposure of a shocking lopsidedness in the composition of the new officers recently absorbed into the agency. The agency commissioned 479 cadet officers after their passing-out parade in Lagos on March 5, at…

Messaging giant, Whatsapp announced some weeks ago that it would start sharing some user data including phone numbers with parent company Facebook. WhatsApp updated its terms and privacy policy for the first time in four years which it claimed is part of its plans to test ways for people to…

PREMIUM TIMES has uncovered another budget padding scheme Nigerian lawmakers and cohorts in businesses and the executive arm of the government have deployed to steal billions of public funds through annual budgets. People familiar with this second strategy have been briefing PREMIUM TIMES since the first story was published. This…

The public row between the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and his erstwhile ally and former chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has provided a glimpse into how lawmakers routinely make billions of naira by inserting fictitious projects into the national budget each year. Nigerians…

At least 110 Nigerian individuals and companies have so far been identified by PREMIUM TIMES in the leaked internal data of Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonsecca, as operators of offshore shell companies in tax havens. Prominent among the new names being revealed today, in addition to the several that were…

Members of the Public Accounts Committees in the 7th Senate and House of Representatives, statutorily responsible for ensuring probity and accountability in the nation’s financial system, compromised the Money Laundering Act during their tenure, documents in the possession of PREMIUM TIMES have shown. Members of the committee as well as…

The office of the National Security Adviser has invited 241 companies and organisations in relation with receipt of payments from the agency during the tenure of Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel. Mr. Dasuki is currently being prosecuted for allegedly distributing over $2.1billion meant for arms procurement to relatives, friends, political…

Nigeria’s lawmaking body, the National Assembly, is entangled in horrid abuse of the nation’s financial regulations, especially in its banking transactions, in the last six years, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report. Investigation by this newspaper, spanning weeks, revealed that between 2009 and 2015, the management arm of the federal legislature…

Fresh details have emerged on how members of the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution withdrew N7.75 billion purportedly to amend Nigerian constitution. PREMIUM TIMES had last week exposed how the federal lawmakers collected the money in tranches to purportedly alter the document between 2011 and…

Nigerian federal lawmakers, led by incumbent Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, and former Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha, withdrew a princely N7.75 billion of public funds in four years to purportedly review sections of the 1999 Constitution, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report today. In an investigation lasting months, this…

A former minister, Oby Ezekwesili, on Friday said the attempts by the Nigerian legislators to muzzle free speech through an anti-social law would be futile. In her reaction via Twitter, Ms. Ezekwesili scoffed at the proposed law and said it would be impossible to enact. "I laughed in Wazobia as…

Nigeria has recorded more deaths from insurgency and violent crimes in the last four years than before, despite spending an unprecedented N1.488 trillion on armaments between 2011 and 2014, a PREMIUM TIMES analysis has shown. While N369 billion was spent in 2011, N365 billion, N381 billion and N374 billion were spent…

The President of the Nigerian Senate, Bukola Saraki, currently facing corruption charges, was worth N10 billion (by current exchange rate) at the time he assumed office as governor of Kwara State in 2003. While his entire assets, including cash, landed properties and shares in Nigeria and abroad stood at about…

Going by the remuneration approved for them by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the annual take-home (excluding estacode, Duty Tour Allowance (DTA) and some sundry allowances which they are paid as necessary), of each of the 360 members of the House of Representatives is estimated at N18.26…

The Kano state Government on Thursday announced that it would be shelling out N180million to renovate the official residence of Deputy Governor Hafiz Abubakar. The state government said the renovation became necessary to raise the property to a level befitting of Mr. Abubakar’s “status”. The planned expenditure triggered widespread condemnation…

If one third of the Nigerian population were to queue up for a bonus pay cheque, no fewer than 53 million citizens will smile home with N18,000 every month for a full year from the unaccounted N11.56 trillion Excess Crude Accounts now subject of national accountability scandal. PREMIUM TIMES exclusive…

Finally, the anticipated Windows 10 which Microsoft has advertised on Windows 7 and 8.1 for several months will be released July 29, 2015. Windows 10 will be a free upgrade, assuming your computer runs Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1. And as long as you upgrade to Windows 10 within…

At least N11.55 trillion or $84.52 billion expected revenue into the coffers of the nation’s Excess Crude Account for the eight-year period from 2007 to 2014 are unaccounted for, according to findings by PREMIUM TIMES based on data from multiple government agencies not made public, in violation of the laws…

Nigeria’s eighth National Assembly was inaugurated on Tuesday, June 9. At the chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives, 109 Senators and 360 Representatives were sworn in to office for a four-year term. Section 66(1a-i) the 1999 Constitution bars certain categories of Nigerians from being members of the…

The whopping N150 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2015 Appropriation Act, can fund capital votes for 20 Ministries, Departments and Parastatals [MDAs], a PREMIUM TIMES analysis of the budget has shown. The budget of the 469-member National Assembly consisting of 109 senators, 360 members of the House…

Nigerian lawmakers managed to approve only 106 new laws out of 1,063 brought before them in the last four years, despite spending more than half a trillion naira within the period, earning the notorious title as the world’s highest paid legislators. The figures mean for the National Assembly, with a…

The seventh National Assembly will most likely end its tenure in early June without resolving majority of the huge misgovernance and corruption issues that characterised the outgoing administration. Under the present dispensation, the oversight power of the legislature was not judiciously exercised to guarantee Nigerians the dividends for electing their…