Warren Buffett, one of the richest men on the planet, once said: “Money has no utility to me. Time has utility to me.”

In a 2016 interview on Bloomberg’s The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman said if there were anything on his bucket list, he would have done it already.

“Money in terms of making trips or owning more houses or having a boat or something — it has no utility to me whatsoever.”

That's quite a statement coming from a man whose net worth, at last check, was sitting at more than $100 billion.

But Buffett insisted that what he truly values is the time he has left.

Aged 86 and still working hard at the time of the interview, Buffett chuckled at the idea of doing things many people his age did such as relax, play shuffleboard and enjoy retirement.

“They spend all week planning their haircut, usually,” he laughed. “I get to do, everyday, what I love with people that I love. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

The business juggernaut admitted his greatest pleasures in life are running his business, making winning investments and, of course, spending time with his family.

He said he views his life-long enterprise Berkshire Hathaway “like a painter regards a painting — the difference being that the canvas is unlimited. There’s no finish line at Berkshire and it’s a game that you can continue to play.”

Winning at the game of life doesn't necessarily mean you have to earn billions and run a business empire like Buffett. Here are some other ways you can turn time to your advantage.

Money can buy you time

Buffett said “money has no utility” for him, but he understands how it does for the average American who might not want to work until they’re 93 years old like him.

If you save and invest your money wisely during your working life — by making the most of high-interest saving accounts, tax-advantaged investment accounts, like a 401(k) or an individual retirement account (IRA), and diversifying your investment portfolio with traditional stocks and bonds and real estate — you can set yourself up for success in retirement.

Ideally, that means you can enjoy free time in your golden years to do the things you love with the people you love.

Buffett said he wasn’t interested in owning multiple houses or a boat, but if that’s how you enjoy spending your free time — chilling at a lake house and taking your grandkids out for a spin on the water — money can make that possible. Likewise, it can help you to retire early and give you confidence that you have the means to live comfortably in your later years.

What’s more, if you’ve planned your finances so that you can retire early and live off your savings and any dividends, that may also mean you can delay taking Social Security, which means that you’ll receive higher monthly payments when you do eventually start claiming benefits — with the maximum amount available to those who start age 70 or older.

It’s easier said than done to set yourself up for a long, successful and financially fruitful retirement, but there are ways you can put your money to work so that you don’t have to in later life.

Give your investments time to grow

During the 2016 interview with Rubenstein, Buffett also said: “My life has been a product of compound interest.”

Simply put, the earlier you can start investing, the better off you’ll be, because you can reap the benefits of compound interest. Essentially, it gives you interest on top of interest, so your deposits pile up interest, and the interest piles up interest, too.

Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say you invest $100,000 in a fund or account that delivered an average annual growth rate of 10.15% over a certain period of time.

Using that 10.15% figure, your $100,000 investment would grow to $110,150 in one year. The year after that, your shares would be worth $110,150 X 1.1015 = $121,330. The year after that, $133,645 and so on. As you can see, when you earn interest on your interest, that can lead to exponential growth over time — and you can speed up that process even further by reinvesting any dividends that you earn.

Keep in mind, however, that the market fluctuates and you will not get the same rate of return every year.

Buffett is a true advocate of the power of compound interest. As a renowned value investor, he’s known for his buy-and-hold strategy — often holding onto stocks for decades and watching them grow.

You don’t have to be an investing mastermind like Buffett to make the most of compound interest, and you don’t have to invest large sums of money to reap the benefits.

Moneywise

Central Bank of Nigeria, on Wednesday, dissolved the boards and managements of Polaris, Union and Keystone Banks.

CBN, in a statement signed by Hakama Sidi Ali, its acting director, corporate communications, said the action became necessary due to the non-compliance of the banks and their respective boards with “provisions of Section 12 (c), (f), (g), (h) of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, 2020”.

“The Bank’s infractions vary from regulatory non-compliance, corporate governance failure, disregarding the conditions under which their licenses were granted, and involvement in activities
that pose a threat to financial stability, among others,” CBN said.

The financial regulator assured the public of the safety and security of depositors’ funds, adding that it remains resolute in fulfilling its mandate to uphold a safe, sound, and robust financial system in Nigeria.

CBN said Nigeria’s banking system remains strong and resilient.

The decision comes weeks after the special investigator panel probing the CBN and related entities disclosed how Godwin Emefiele, the former central bank governor, allegedly used two Dubai-based companies (Luxis International and Magna International) to set up Titan Trust Bank (TTB) as proxies for the acquisition of UBN.

The panel, led by Jim Obazee, had in their findings also shown the transactions behind the acquisition of Keystone Bank.

The panel’s report revealed other unapproved activities of the former CBN governor, directors and some government officials.

Meanwhile, on December 24, 2023, the special panel had in a letter summoned Babatunde Lemo, chairman of TTB over the institution’s acquisition of Union Bank.

The Cable

Market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange Limited depreciated for the first time in the New Year.

At the close of trading on Wednesday, the eight-day rally in the market was halted as the market cap dipped by about N638bn to close at N44.885tn. This is coming a day after the market cap crossed the N45tn milestone.

Although the benchmark index of the exchange, the All-Share Index remained above 80,000 points, it shed 1,167.46 points or 1.40 per cent to close at 82,024.38 on Wednesday.

Impacted by the depreciation were banking stocks, most of which suffered losses except for Jaiz Bank which defied the trend to appreciate by 5.40 per cent to N2.93 and Stanbic IBTC Holdings which closed flat.

Meanwhile, market capitalisation of Access Holdings Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Holdings dropped below N1tn, a day after the lenders crossed the milestone. They closed the market with a capitalisation of N989bn and N926bn, respectively.

The downturn in the equity market comes a day after the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, questioned some banks’ Managing Directors over a fraud that was uncovered at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

The major drivers of the day’s market were the stocks of indigenous conglomerate, Transnational Corporation Plc, AccessCorp, United Bank for Africa, Jaiz Bank and Zenith Bank.

Market Breadth which is the measure of investors’ sentiment was negative resulting in 13 gainers and 61 losers.

The gainers were led primarily by stocks of Cadbury Plc which gained 9.92 per cent to N19.95 per unit. On Tuesday, the consumer goods company revealed plans to seek shareholders’ approval to convert a N7.036bn loan from its parent company, Cadbury Schweppes Overseas Limited, to equity.

In an explanatory statement on the proposed debt-to-equity conversion filed with the NGX, the company revealed that between February 2021 and September 2023, Cadbury Schweppes Overseas, loaned $23m to Cadbury Nigeria to help settle outstanding third-party loans which the company had obtained to fund its raw material imports and other input costs.

However, due to the foreign exchange challenges in the country, it was unable to meet its debt obligations, which led the board to propose the debt-to-equity conversion plan.

Other gainers include VeritasKap which gained 9.76 per cent to close at N0.45, Linkage Assurance gained 8.70 per cent to close at N1.50, Transcorp Hotel gained 7.24 per cent to close at N100 per unit and Prestige Assurance gained six per cent to close at N0.53 per unit.

The losers’ chart was led by Chams Holdings, Cornerstone Insurance, FTN Cocoa, May & Baker, Caverton and Consolidated Hallmark Holding Plc, which lost 10 per cent each to close at N2.16, N1.80, N1.98, N5.49, N2.07 and N1.35 per unit, respectively.

The volume and value drivers of the day’s market trend were led by stocks of Transcorp, AccessCorp and Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc.

Despite the downturn in the market, the transaction volume for the day rose to 1,641.28 million, from the previous day’s volume of 1,409.85 million units of shares valued at N25.37bn from 20,223 deals executed. The number of stocks traded on Wednesday was 123.

Punch

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, the nation’s capital, has ordered that a former minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye, be remanded in Kuje prison pending the perfection of his bail conditions.

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned Agunloye over allegations of fraud to the tune of $6 billion in the Mambilla hydropower contract.

The anti-graft agency brought the ex-minister before Donatus Okorowo, Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to the charges read against him.

On December 13, 2023, EFCC declared Agunloye wanted over alleged corruption. It was later reported that he surrendered himself to the commission for investigation.

Agunloye’s predicament began after former President Olusegun Obasanjo challenged him to tell Nigerians where he received the authority to award a $6 billion contract to Sunrise for the Mambilla hydropower project in 2003.

Reacting to his former boss’ statement, Agunloye said the government was not compelled to pay any amount to Sunrise under the build, operate, and transfer (BOT) agreement.

He said the arrangement remained as it was to be fully funded by the newly registered company, whose declared assets were worth less than $2,000 at the time.

Daily Trust

Israeli military says it found traces of hostages in an underground tunnel in Gaza

The Israeli military said Wednesday it has found evidence that hostages were present in an underground tunnel in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, which has become the focus of Israel’s ground offensive.

The military showed the tunnel to journalists who were escorted into a neighborhood near the ruins of destroyed homes and streets. A corrugated tin hut covered the tunnel’s entrance in a residential yard.

A makeshift ladder led to the narrow underground pathway, about 2.5 meters (8 feet) below. The tunnel was hot and humid, with walls lined with concrete and electrical wires. Farther inside was a bathroom, where the military said it found evidence that hostages had been there, including their DNA.

“Hostages were held here in this tunnel system,” said Daniel Hagari, the army’s chief spokesman.

Hagari offered no details on what exactly was found in the tunnel, nor did he say when the hostages were there or identify them. He did not say if they were known to be dead or alive.

In a later statement to the media, he said the captives were held in “difficult conditions,” without elaborating.

Several hostages freed in a cease-fire deal in late November described being held inside tunnels, which Hamas has laid throughout the Gaza Strip and which Israel says have long been used to smuggle weapons and fighters throughout the blockaded territory.

The tunnel was found in a part of the city that appears to have endured heavy fighting. The nearby residence was badly damaged.

In another building, the walls were blasted out of several apartments. Large mounds of dirt surrounded the area, apparently from Israeli bulldozers searching for buried explosives. A tank was parked outside an empty school, where an Israeli flag was hung from the exterior walls. The sound of what appeared to be a drone buzzed overhead, and gunfire could be heard in the distance.

The military says Hamas is operating from inside the tunnels, and military officials have made the destruction of the tunnel system a top goal.

Dan Goldfus, commander of the military’s 98th Division, described the tunnels as posing “a 720-degree threat.”

“It’s not 360, but it’s 720, underground and over ground,” Goldfus said.

Israel also believes that Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar is hiding in a tunnel somewhere in Khan Younis.

The beleaguered city, Gaza’s second-largest, has become the focus of Israel’s war on Hamas in recent weeks. On Wednesday’s tour for journalists, no residents appeared to be in the area. Israel has ordered residents to evacuate portions of the city as it proceeds with the offensive.

In its fierce Oct. 7 attack, Hamas and other militants killed 1,200 people and took hostage roughly 250, according to Israeli authorities.

The attack sparked the war. More than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. More than 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and vast swaths of the territory have been leveled.

About 110 hostages have been released. Some 110 remain with their captors, along with the bodies of about 20 people killed in captivity, according to Israel. Several other bodies of captives were retrieved by Israeli forces, and three hostages were killed mistakenly by the military.

The plight of the hostages has gripped Israelis, who see them as an enduring symbol of the state’s failure to protect its citizens on Oct. 7.

Israel has made freeing the hostages part of its war aims, along with crushing Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Number of heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers up by 30% — ABC

The number of heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers grew by 30% over the past few weeks, the ABC television reported citing a Ukrainian doctor.

Sergey Ryzhenko, a chief doctor of a hospital in the city of Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk), said between 40 and 100 heavily wounded soldiers are admitted to the facility daily, with between 50 and 100 surgical operations performed every day. He added that the majority of surgeries are amputations.

The channel quoted doctors as saying that, according to their information, around 30,000 Ukrainian servicemen are either killed or heavily wounded every month.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a conference call with the top brass of the Russian armed forces on Tuesday that "upon the instructions of western sponsors, the Kiev regime continues to send its soldiers to slaughter and looks for every possibility to replenish the Ukrainian army." "Naturally, it will not change the situation on the line of contact, but will only drag the military conflict," the minister added.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missiles hit hotel in Ukraine's Kharkiv, 11 injured -regional governor

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel late on Wednesday in the centre of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, injuring 11 people, one person seriously, the regional governor said.

Pictures posted online showed many of the windows blown out and balconies destroyed with large piles of rubble in the street below. Emergency teams made their way through gaping holes in the facade to sift through rubble inside.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov, writing on Telegram, said the strike at about 10.30 p.m. local time involved S-300 missiles in the city's Kyiv district.

"Nine of those injured have been taken to medical facilities," Synehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "One of them, a 35-year-old man, is in serious condition." Visiting Turkish journalists were among the injured, he wrote.

"One missile hit next to the hotel, right by a fence. The other one hit a nearby annex," Kharkiv Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoshko told public broadcaster Suspilne.

"Servicemen never stayed in this hotel and just about everyone in Kharkiv knows this. It was used by journalists."

Psychiatrist Mykhailo Bebeshko, a hotel guest, told Suspilne that he had heard no air raid alert before the missile struck.

"I was in the bathroom and that was what saved me. I fell, hit my head and then lay on the floor," he said.

"With a second explosion, all the doors were blown out and it was fortunate that I had been on the floor. And I shouted out to my colleagues: Everyone ok? Everyone still alive?"

Oleksandr Filchakov, head of the Kharkiv prosecutor's office, said in a video posted on Telegram, that 23 guests and eight staff were in the hotel when the missiles struck.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said several homes in the district had been damaged as well as a manufacturing plant and a car showroom.

The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tass/Reuters

For those of you who watched the BBC Africa documentary, Disciples: The Cult of TB Joshua (three episodes), an expose on the Synagogue Church of All Nations’ late founder Temitope Joshua and still insist on defending him, I have four words: you are not serious. Yes, the whole lot of you. Your faces are looking funny in the light. Some defenders—understandably—grapple with the contradictions of a man who artfully constructed his public image as a good yet profoundly misunderstood man. The rest of you, still bonded into Joshua’s cult of personality, are being obtuse.

You query, why now that he is dead? Some of these stories have been in the public domain for a while. Was your reaction any different then? Since there is no statute of limitations on when victims can talk about their experiences, and it likely took Joshua’s death for them to finally shake themselves out of their nightmarish reverie to seek closure, there is nothing suspect about the timing.

Some also asked why people would willingly subject themselves to such gross abuse. If they had ever studied the nature of cults, they would have understood how and why people become victims. And so what if the ‘disciples’ speaking up now are bitter because of the succession battles that followed Joshua’s demise, as some speculated? The crucial point is whether the accounts are credible.

To some extent, the documentary’s revelations are not shocking to those of us who have known about Joshua’s SCOAN as far back as the 1990s when radio broadcaster Kola Olawuyi did an expose on him. What Olawuyi revealed at that time gave away the Synagogue as a mix of cultic and occultic practices.

Watching Disciples, I could not help but wonder if the scandal-ridden nature of his ministry was also not part of the problem. Could it be that the man’s infractions were so sensational(ised) that reports stopped mattering? Sometimes, the best way to get away with a crime is to overcommit it so that the sheer scale would petrify those who would otherwise lead the outrage against you. Or could it be that the people who should have spoken up recognised themselves in him and did not want their own hypocrisy called out? Because, when you dissect it, his sins were not unique; it is the extent that is outrageous.

They said his miracles were staged, but that would also be true for about 99 per cent of all miracles, especially televised ones. Miracles are supposed to be irruptive of reality. Once you train a camera on a set scene, whatever actions you record are no longer ‘miraculous’ but calculated dramatic actions. That is why performed miracles are studied as theatre. They said Joshua was abusive, but physical and sexual abuses are endemic to religion. Making people ‘disciples’ involves grooming, indoctrination, and disciplining them in ways that too quickly devolve into abuse. They said Joshua’s methods were fetish, but was he any more paganistic than the popular Nigerian church that buried 15 Bibles in the church foundation? He did what many ministers did, but he also superseded them.

Yes, I am also aware that the Synagogue leadership has denied the ‘characters’ that appeared in that video (an ironic use of metaphor for a church accused of staging miracles), but the reflexive defence is to be expected. The Catholic Church also defended the paedophilic priests among its rank before finally confronting the truth. It took years, and a mounting pile of evidence before the church started making some changes. If they had maintained their defiant stand, they would have eventually crumbled under the weight of their hypocrisies.

That is the historical lesson that eludes Joshua’s defenders who are approaching this with blind defensiveness. Coming to terms with the fact that your religious system bred a cult of personality that destroyed the people who sought life in the church is no “attack on Joshua’s legacies” as some of you have been parroting like hand-wound dolls. It is accountability. There is no religious organisation in the world run directly by God; they are all administered by fallible humans. If you cannot accept that they sometimes need correcting, you have fallen into the sin of idolatry.

While watching Disciples, what was topmost on my mind was what justice would look like now that the alleged main culprit was dead. Unfortunately, a charismatic denomination like the SCOAN church is its own leadership; there is no recourse to a higher bureaucratic authority to act on behalf of the survivors. From the disciples’ narration, Joshua had a God complex. How do you censure a man who was not accountable to anyone? It does not help that he is now dead. It is also uncertain that the Nigerian government will take any action on this. While he was alive, they let him escape the consequences for his church building that collapsed and killed 116 people. The blood had not dried at the site before President Goodluck Jonathan flew to Lagos to condole with him, a man who was not even hurt by his own actions. Will they also let him escape reckoning even in death? The survivors should collectively sue his estate for billions of naira in damages.

Overall, kudos to BBC Africa for Disciples. While we have had several cases of religious cult leaders whose house of lies unravelled after their respective deaths (think Jesu Oyingbo, Olumba Olumba etc.), this is about the first time a media house would embark on a transnational expose. This must have been a challenge for them to pull off. I know because I tried to write an academic essay on the Joshua phenomenon after his demise. For a man who was barely literate, his evolution from an uncouth illiterate preacher to a respected one—and that was probably the only credible miracle he ever performed—was intriguing.

By the time he died, he had become one of the most intriguing figures in contemporary Christianity and a highly influential African. During visits to some African countries, each time I was introduced as a Nigerian, someone would ask me about “TB Joshua.” There was no denying his influence. He was also quite innovative, constantly evolving methods that other pastors—within the competitive Nigerian religious space—had to copy. I wanted to understand how that happened.

Even though we met some people who were at his church at the inception and had some very interesting things to say, they did not want to go on record probably because of the likely blowback. I had to set the work aside. Disciples answered some of those questions for me, but it still left me with questions of how he became that monster. How exactly did an unlettered man from a provincial Nigerian town become so powerful that even presidents submitted before him? Without some clarity on his methods and how he acquired his tactics, people (including the survivors) still believe he had spiritual power. Unfortunately, what they took as diabolism and supernatural power on the part of Joshua were symbolic manipulation, classic psychological conditioning, and time-tested techniques of torture, manipulation, and coercion.

While he preyed on his disciples in private, he managed to maintain a genial public front. He was a man who understood what society considered authentic and engineered it accordingly. For the white people that thronged his church and turned Nigeria into a religious tourism hotspot, his rawness signified an unvarnished religious truth that the well-educated and smooth-speaking Nigerian pastors in tailored suits could not muster. As also a black man—which, in the white imagination has a natural animistic predisposition and closer supernatural contacts—his crudity symbolised a departure from their over-polished modern life. Joshua saw their neediness, and he used it to subjectify them.

For Nigerians, he also understood our colomental tendency to associate the white skin with superiority, rationality, and elevated consciousness and took advantage of that cultural attitude. From his vantage point between the races and their respective cultural psychologies, he mediated and manipulated all sides’ assumptions of him with the theatrics that allowed him escape justice.

Punch

In the early 1950s, the pioneering motivation researcher Ernest Dichter told General Mills to stop using powdered eggs in their Betty Crocker cake mixes and have homemakers use fresh eggs instead.

Why? Taste mattered, but so did the underlying psychology. Cracking a few eggs and spooning in a little vegetable oil made the cake maker feel more engaged. More skilled. More invested in the process. 

And therefore the outcome.

The result is what a 2011 study published by Harvard Business School called the Ikea Effect: The idea that "labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one's labor." That people assign "significantly more value to objects they imagined, created, or assembled." That people view what they create or build as "similar in value to the creations of experts, and expect other people to share their opinions."

In simple terms, that if I am part of the process, I'll think the end result is better -- regardless of the objective quality of that end result.

That Malm dresser I assembled? Objectively, it's just slabs of press wood and veneer held together by dowels and bolt locks.

But I put it together: So even though the drawers are a little wobbly and I have to lift one slightly to make it close all the way, my dresser kicks ass.

Plenty of businesses hope to harness the Ikea Effect, and for good reason. Avoid the time and cost of providing a turnkey solution by having me finish the job -- yet somehow leave me feeling like I received even greater value for my money? 

That's a pretty cool trick. 

But, as with employing many other cognitive biases to your own ends, this one feels a little manipulative.

Fortunately, there's a better use of the Ikea Effect.

Oddly enough, one that involves your employees.

I Care When It's "Mine"

When I was a machine operator, a consultant watched us for a few hours, took a bunch of notes, and gave us step-by-step instructions to more quickly change machine setups from one job to the next.

Some of his ideas weren't bad. Some sounded great in theory but were terrible in practice. Others didn't work because they created more rather than fewer bottlenecks. 

But mostly? We didn't want someone to telling us what to do -- and we didn't really care about the outcome. (OK, we did care: Because he wasn't one of us, we kind of hoped his ideas would suck.) 

And, just as important, we didn't want a "just add water" job changeover mix. We wanted to crack some eggs. We wanted to add some oil. 

We wanted to put the process together ourselves.

So our boss got us together and told us he had been tasked with cutting job changeover times by 30 percent. Clearly the consultant didn't have all the answers. He didn't have all the answers. 

Two weeks later, we had cut changeover times by 40 percent. Sure, we incorporated some of the consultant's ideas, as well as our boss's. And then we added the fruits of our labor: our ideas. Our experiments. Our trials and our errors. We valued our ideas and efforts more because they were ours. 

We felt more engaged. More skilled.

And a lot more invested in the outcome.

Want your employees to do more and yet somehow feel good about it -- and, just as important, feel good about themselves?

Embrace the power of the Ikea Effect by letting them contribute in a meaningful way. By letting them imagine, create, or assemble new strategies or processes.

By turning an instant cake mix into a more general recipe that then allows for creativity, innovation, and modification.

Because we all care the most when something is "ours." We care the most when we feel we have the responsibility and authority to not just do what we're told, but to do what is right.

Good leaders establish standards and guidelines 

and then give their employees the autonomy and independence to work the way they work best within those guidelines.

Great leaders allow their employees to turn "have to" into "want to," because that transforms a job into something much more meaningful: an outward expression of each person's unique skills, talents, and experiences.

If that's not harnessing the power of the Ikea Effect in a positive way, nothing is.

Inc

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Zenith, Providus, and Jaiz banks on Tuesday were invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

This is amid a sweeping investigation into an embezzlement scheme linked to current and former Ministers of Humanitarian Affairs, Betta Edu and Sadiya Umar-Farouq.

According to sources, the bank chiefs handed over documents of accounts operated by the humanitarian affairs ministry to the EFCC to strengthen the ongoing investigation.

The bank chiefs invited are are Ebenezer Onyeagwu (Zenith Bank), Haruna Musa (Jaiz Bank), and Walter Akpani (Providus Bank).

Sources, who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said the bank chiefs were at EFCC headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to the sources, the banking executives were quizzed over the improper diversion of public funds into private accounts.

Our correspondent gathered that the bank chiefs were released after meeting with EFCC interrogators.

The EFCC is dissecting a web of suspicious transactions involving hefty sums of public money funnelled into private accounts, allegedly approved by Edu and Farouq leveraging their ministerial positions.

Farouq, who led the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs under the previous administration of Muhammadu Buhari, is additionally accused of mismanagement of N37 billion earmarked for the conditional cash transfer program during Buhari’s tenure.

The source revealed that a potential deliberate lapse in flagging suspicious activity by the banks – a crucial responsibility mandated by anti-financial crime laws and Central Bank directives – played a critical role in the brazen misappropriation of public funds.

EFCC Spokesperson, Dele Oyewale was not reachable to confirm the development as at press time.

The Guardian

Federal government on Tuesday destroyed 2.5 tonnes of seized elephant tusks valued at over N9.9 billion ($11.2 million) in a push to protect its dwindling elephant population from rampant wildlife traffickers.

Over the past three decades, Nigeria's elephant population

has declined drastically from an estimated 1,500 to less than 400 due to poaching for ivory, habitat loss and human-elephant conflict, according to conservationists.

Minister of State for Environment Iziaq Salako said the government crushed the tusks and will use the powder to build a symbolic national park monument as a reminder of the importance of elephants in the ecosystem.

The pulverization of the tusk in the capital Abuja follows a similar event in October where officials destroyed four tonnes of seized pangolin scales valued at $1.4 million.

Thousands of elephants are killed each year for their tusks despite a 1989 ban on the trade of ivory by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Despite being a signatory to CITES, Nigeria is considered a hub for gangs sending illegal African wildlife parts including tusks and pangolin scales to Asia, according to law enforcement and wildlife experts.

But the large West African nation has stepped up counter-smuggling efforts in recent years, partnering with British, U.S. and German officials as well as international organizations to make its biggest seizure of illegal wildlife parts in August 2021.

Last month, officials began an investigation after a video posted on social media showed a soldier shooting two elephants that strayed into farmlands, sparking outrage among citizens.

In 2022, Nigeria customs officials seized 1,613 tonnes of pangolin scales and arrested 14 people.

Reuters