By Temisan Amoye – Lagos The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programme, Mrs Maryam Uwais, while delivering an address at a training for illicit funds on Monday, said the President Buhari-led administration has released the Abacha loot and other credits and grants by International Development Association towards the Social Investment Programme, designed […]

The top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine testified on Tuesday he was told that President Donald Trump made the release of security aid to Ukraine contingent on Kiev publicly declaring it would carry out politically motivated investigations that he sought, according to a copy of his statement to lawmakers. William Taylor, who as the charge d’affaires […]

Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Tuesday denounced Turkey’s leader as a thief for attacking the northeast of his country and reiterated a pledge to retake all areas lost to Damascus in years of civil war, state media reported. Assad made the remarks as he made a rare visit to a frontline of Syria’s conflict, […]

In recent times, there has been an increase in the arrest and arraignment of persons alleged to have published false and misleading information against public figures. The first of these was that of a blogger who was arrested, arraigned and subsequently remanded in prison in connection to publication relating to a cleric. Since then there have been more of such incidents, including journalists of main stream media outlets. Understandably, these arrests have attracted scrutiny from the public. While some have condemned what they see as highhandedness on the part of the complainants who in most cases are elected government officials, some have argued that the right to freedom of speech comes with a responsibility to keep within the law and that anyone who fails to keep within accepted boundaries must be subjected to the law. However, most notably has been the perspective that the complainants should simply have filed civil actions against those they claim to have peddled wrong and injurious information concerning them. Those who hold this view argue, albeit wrongly, that such false and injurious publications give rise only to a right of action in a civil claim. It is for this reason that I intend to briefly highlight the fact that the publication of false and misleading information can give rise to criminal prosecution. In doing so, it is not my intention to validate the various prosecutions that are ongoing or to suggest that such prosecutions are always the best way of dealing with wrongful and misleading publications. Rather, it is my aim to draw the attention of stakeholders, particularly members of the fourth estate of the realm, to the fact that certain actions may bring them on a collision course with the law so that they may accordingly be guided in the exercise of their profession. 

THE ongoing feud between the Musiliu Smith-led Police Service Commission, PSC and Muhammed Adamu, the Inspector General of Police, over the recruitment of police personnel reflects how high and deep the culture of corruption, driven by self-interest, has permeated all sections of the Nigerian society, with or without the roof-top anti-corruption crusade of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.