Prince Harry and Meghan to visit Nigeria

Prince Harry will return to Britain to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his Invictus Games in May, before joining his wife Meghan on a visit to Nigeria, his spokesperson said on Sunday.


Harry, the youngest son of King Charles, lives in the United States with Meghan and their two children after he gave up working as a member of the royal family in 2020.


He has only returned to Britain on a few occasions since his departure from royal life, arriving for major events such as the funeral of Queen Elizabeth in 2022 and his father's coronation in May 2023.


His spokesperson said Harry would attend a service at St Paul's Cathedral in London on May 8 to celebrate the Invictus Games, the international sporting event that he founded for military personnel wounded in action.

Harry served as a military helicopter pilot in Afghanistan and Invictus organisers said the service was designed to mark "a decade of changing lives and saving lives through sport".

It will include readings by Harry and the British actor Damian Lewis. Wounded veterans and members of the Invictus community will also attend.

Harry will then be joined in Nigeria by Meghan, a former American actress who is known as the Duchess of Sussex. Harry's spokesperson said the couple had been invited by the country's chief of defence staff, its highest ranking military official.No further details were given about the trip.

Harry was last seen in Britain in February this year for a brief meeting with his father after the monarch announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer.

The palace said on Friday that Charles would return to public duties after he made good progress following treatment and a period of recuperation.

By Michael Holden, Reuters

At least 23 civilian force members killed in northern Nigeria

At least 23 members of Nigeria’s civilian joint task force were killed on Saturday in separate attacks by militants and an armed kidnapping gang in the north, two officials from the force said on Sunday.

In northeast Borno state, the heartland of an Islamist insurgency, suspected Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters used an improvised explosive device (IED) to blow up a vehicle carrying the Civilian Joint Tast Force (CJTF) team, a local force chairman said.

The CJTF was first formed in 2013 to protect communities in the northeast and help the military fight Boko Haram and later its offshoot ISWAP. The force has since been extended to other northern states that are grappling with armed kidnapping gangs.

Tijjanima Umar, CJTF chairman for Gamboru Ngala area near the border with Cameroon, said his team was travelling to Borno state capital Maiduguri when they drove over the IED.

“As the mine blew up, nine of them died instantly … while two other people had severe injuries and were immediately taken to hospital for treatment,” Umar told Reuters by phone.

The Nigerian military was not immediately available to comment.

Although severely curtailed by Nigerian security forces, Boko Haram and ISWAP still carry out deadly attacks against civilians and the military.

In northwestern Soko state, 14 CJTF members were killed and several were missing following an ambush by gunmen on Saturday, task force sector commandant Ismail Haruna told Reuters.

Haruna said the CJTF members were killed in Sokoto’s Isa local government area, where they had raided and destroyed a bush camp belonging to a known armed kidnapping gang leader.

The gang quickly regrouped and ambushed the CJTF as they drove back to Sokoto state capital, he added.

By Ahmed Kingimi, Reuters

Fire breaks out at Airport in Lagos, Nigeria - Flights diverted

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has diverted all flight operations from the E wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) following a fire outbreak at the terminal.

According to a statement by FAAN’s Director of Public Affairs, Obiageli Orah, the smoke was noticed on Thursday morning at about 05:29.

“At 05:29 hrs, smoke was detected billowing from the T54 Bridge, leading electrical engineers to immediately cut off power to the entire E Wing.


“The Airport Rescue and Firefighting Services (ARFFS) team was quick to respond, arriving at the scene by 5:30 hrs,” the statement read.

Mrs Orah stated that initial suspicions pointed to sparks from an electrical unit as the cause, but that a thorough investigation was ongoing to ascertain the cause of the fire.

She disclosed that the incident, which escalated into a fire, was later brought under control by 06:41 hrs.

Mrs Orah said efforts to ventilate the smoke from the building were in progress, adding that all flight operations in Terminal 1 of MMA had been diverted to the D Wing in the meantime.

By Oluwakemi Adelagun, Premium Times

Related story: Former aviation minister of Nigeria arrested for money laundering

 

Nigeria launches first multilingual LLM trained in local languages

The Nigerian government has launched the country’s first multilingual large language model (LLM) that will reflect its diversity and play a major role in its national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy.

Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Minister Bosun Tijani announced the new LLM at the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Workshop.

The new LLM will be trained in five “low-resource local languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing datasets for the development of artificial intelligence solutions.”

The language model is the product of a partnership between the government and the private sector. Awarritech, a local AI firm, and Data.org, a global data democratization initiative by Mastercard (NASDAQ: MA) and the Rockefeller Foundation, represent the private sector. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) represented Nigeria’s government in the development of LLM.

Additionally, the government relied on over 7,000 fellows from its 3MTT Nigeria program, which targets 3 million graduates who are fully proficient in technical courses, from AI and cybersecurity to cloud computing and machine learning.

One of the greatest challenges facing AI is bias. While policies can help reshape AI to be more inclusive, diversity in AI input will have a greater impact. One key solution is to develop localized LLMs that incorporate language and cultural nuances, resulting in AI that promotes connections globally.

In addition to the new LLM, Tijani announced the launch of the Nigeria AI Collective, a community of industry players pushing for AI development.

“We are inviting AI researchers, practitioners, academia, government, civil society organisations, startups, entrepreneurs, students and AI enthusiasts in general to join the collective to harness the power of artificial intelligence,” the minister said.

Tijani further relaunched the NCAIR, a subsidiary of NITDA focused on developing the two sectors.

By Steve Kaaru, CoinGeek

Former aviation minister of Nigeria arrested for money laundering

Nigeria's former aviation minister, Hadi Sirika, is expected to be arraigned in an Abuja court next week after being arrested earlier this week by the country's corruption watchdog in connection with fraud and money laundering allegations involving NGN8 billion naira (USD6.4 million). He was reportedly also questioned about the controversial Nigeria Air (NWB, Lagos) project.

According to local news reports, Sirika was detained on April 23 and remained in custody while being questioned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja, which was preparing charges against him.

As first reported by the newspaper The Punch, the investigation focuses on contracts Sirika allegedly approved during his tenure as aviation minister for Engirios Nigeria Limited, owned by his brother Abubakar Sirika, also a deputy director at the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

The contracts included the construction of a terminal building at Katsina Airport in August 2022 for NGN1.35 billion (USD1.1 million); a fire-truck maintenance centre at the same airport in November 2022 for NGN3.8 billion (USD3.1 million); the procurement of lifts and other equipment for the Abuja office of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in February 2023 for NGN615 million (USD498,000); and procurement of Magnus Aircraft for pilot training and a simulator for the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology in the city of Zaria in May 2023 for NGN2.2 billion (USD1.8 million).

It is alleged that at least NGN3.2 billion (USD2.6 million) was paid to Engirios Nigeria Limited, which then transferred the funds to various entities.

The EFCC started investigating Sirika in February 2024 concerning allegations of conspiracy, abuse of office, diversion of public funds, and contract inflation during his time in office between August 22, 2019 and May 29, 2023. The Punch revealed that Abubakar Sirika was arrested on February 4 and has been assisting the commission in its probe.

An unnamed source close to the investigation told the newspaper that Hadi Sirika was also being questioned about the controversial Nigeria Air project but gave no further insight. The EFCC is probing the proposed joint venture between a consortium led by Ethiopian Airlines and the previous government of Muhammadu Buhari. The consortium won a tender process run by the state-owned Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). However, Nigeria Air's certification process was suspended in November 2022 after private airlines under the mantle of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) lobby group won an interim court interdict against its further establishment, followed by legal to-and-fros about the jurisdiction of the case.

Sirika in particular came under public fire after he approved a publicity charter flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines bearing Nigeria Air branding shortly before the government left office. After taking office in August 2023, new Aviation and Aerospace Development Minister Festus Keyamo suspended the Nigeria Air venture pending the outcome of the EFCC investigation.

By Hilka Birns, chi-aviation