The Senate has summoned the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to provide a briefing on the alleged funding of Boko Haram by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Also invited are the heads of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of State Security Services (DSS).

According to the upper legislative chamber, the meeting with the heads of these security agencies will be in close session.

The senate’s resolution follows a motion sponsored by Sen. Ali Ndume (APC-Borno) during the plenary session on Wednesday in Abuja.

The motion was prompted by a trending social media video in which U.S. Congressman Scott Perry claimed that the U.S. aid agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had funded terrorist organisations, including Boko Haram.

Perry, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania, made this claim during the inaugural hearing of the Sub-committee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

The session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” focused on alleged misappropriations of taxpayer funds.

Ndume said the social media had been awash with the trending video of a United States Republican congressman, Scott Perry representing Pennsylvania alleged that USAID had been funding terrorist organisations across the world, Boko Haram inclusive.

He said that the devastation caused by Boko Haram in the North-East region of Nigeria and other parts of the country, included bombing, the UN office in Abuja and police headquarters among other attacks.

He stated that the attacks had become a major concern, causing the loss of thousands of Nigerian lives and widespread destruction of property, leading to an unprecedented level of internal displacement across the country.

Ndume noted that over the years, the Federal Government had made significant efforts to implement measures aimed at curbing the activities of terrorist groups, spending substantial resources.

However, these efforts appeared to have yielded limited results, as terrorist activities persisted.

He said that the monumental devastation caused by Boko Haram in Nigeria should be a matter of concern as it had dented the image of the country among the community of nations.

Ndume said allegations began to emerge at this point that some international organisations were behind the unwholesome acts.

He therefore added that urgent steps needed to be taken by the federal government to unravel the mystery.

Contributing Sen.Shehu Kaka (APC-Borno), who seconded the motion said the allegation was weighty, saying that banditry and other forms of criminality had affected the 109 senatorial districts.

He emphasised that efforts should be focused on uncovering the sources of funding for Boko Haram.

Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) said that it would be impossible for the senate to adequately address the matter in plenary without the input of relevant security agencies, who should be invited to brief the senate on the issue.

Ningi, therefore, urged the senate to adopt a single motion to invite the NSA, as well as the heads of the DSS, NIA, and DIA, to brief the senate on the allegation.

In his remarks, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio thanked Ningi for his contribution and emphasised that the concerned security agencies should brief the senate in a closed session.

He noted that such sensitive security matters should not be discussed in public.

…Revokes ‘nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions’ of Biden administration

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order proclaiming that there are only two biological sexes: male and female.

Trump signed the order from the White House just hours after his inauguration.

“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognise women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the order states.

“It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes – male and female.

“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The order directs that official government documents, such as passports and visas, reflect male and female as the only two sexes.

“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” the order states, referring to “gender ideology extremism.”

U.S. presidents can implement political priorities with the help of so-called executive orders without the approval of the U.S. Congress.

However, they can also be challenged in court more easily than laws.

Trump had announced during his election campaign that he would take political measures against the rights of transgender people in the United States.

He spoke of “transgender lunacy” and “child sexual mutilation,” and repeatedly made disparaging comments about those affected.

The participation of trans women in sports events was particularly made an election campaign topic by the Republicans.

Trans people or transgender individuals are those who do not feel they belong to the gender they were born as.

Trump’s statements are part of a broader societal debate in the U.S., where conservative circles are increasingly demanding measures against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) individuals.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest confidants, has also expressed criticism of medical treatments for trans young people.

His child, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who has lived openly as a trans woman since 2020, has publicly criticised him for his stance. 

In another development, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday took gigantic steps to revoke immediate past U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies by signing executive orders.

Trump signed a few other executive orders in front of the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., just a few hours after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, including the revocation of nearly 80 executive orders from the Biden administration.

“I’m revoking nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump told the crowd at the signing ceremony.

Trump signed an executive order to delay the TikTok ban imposed by the Biden administration by 75 days “to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action concerning TikTok.”

He also signed an executive order that will let the United States withdraw from the World Health Organisation.

Trump also declared a national energy emergency in an executive order with an eye on driving down energy costs.

As the first of this kind declared by the U.S. Federal Government, the emergency is expected to enable the government to crank up energy production by tapping emergency powers.

The United States is the largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas and is also the top exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) globally.

The incoming U.S. president also signed an executive order to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.

The move means the United States will pull out of the Paris climate accord for the second time.

During his inauguration speech, Trump, who has long regarded clean energy as expensive and wasteful, also vowed to redouble the efforts to extract and utilise fossil fuels.

“I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,” he said.

“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” Trump claimed. “And we are going to use it.”

Adopted in December 2015, the Paris Agreement is an international endeavour to tackle human-caused global warming and related crises, which the United States formally joined in September 2016.

The first Trump administration officially let the United States, one of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, exit the Paris climate accord in November 2020, dealing a major blow to international efforts to combat the climate crisis.

The latest executive order among many others by Trump will mark another round of back-and-forth moves regarding the U.S. commitment to dealing with climate change on the global stage.

Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump in becoming the 46th U.S. president in 2021, signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2021 — his first day in office — to bring the United States back into the Paris climate accord.  

– dpa, with additional information from Xinhua

A seminar on “Building greener and more Resilient Supply Chains” was held in Geneva as part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum 2024.

It was co-hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

The four-day public forum would feature over 130 sessions with nearly 4,400 participants from government, business, academia, and civil society.

CCPIT Chairman Ren Hongbin said that today’s globalised economy created both opportunities and challenges.

He emphasised the need to embrace openness and inclusiveness while upholding true multilateralism.

He also stressed that building greener and more resilient supply chains was crucial to addressing global challenges.

ITC Deputy Executive Director Dorothy Tembo underscored the ITC’s commitment to collaborating with partners to offer technical assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

It would offer assistance, especially to those in developing countries, to tap into the potential of cross-border e-commerce.

She said the goal was to build greener supply chains and reduce the carbon footprint of e-commerce, thereby contributing more to sustainable development.

In its Digital Economy Report 2024, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) emphasised the urgent need to adopt an environmentally sustainable and inclusive digital strategy, said UNCTAD’s head of E-Commerce and Digital Economy.

Torbjorn Frederick stressed that China had issued innovative guidelines promoting the sustainable development of the digital economy. 

– Xinhua