News — accused

After the widely publicized video of a white woman falsely accusing a Black teenager of stealing her iPhone, went viral, the Manhattan District Attorney office is reportedly “thoroughly investigating” the incident. According to CNN, the white woman who is seen on video as the aggressor is claiming she was the one who was assaulted, and, after her rambling account, says she is willing to speak to police, however, has not done so as of yet.

Jazz musician Keyon Harrold posted the video clip of the incident on his Instagram account. Harrold and his son are now being represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who posted a message on Twitter calling for the district attorney to bring charges against the unnamed white woman.

“As this year of racial awareness is drawing to a close, it’s deeply troubling that incidents like this one, in which a Black child is viewed as and treated like a criminal, continue to happen. Compounding the injustice, the hotel manager defaulted to calling on 14-year-old Keyon to prove his innocence, documenting that we have two justice systems in America and that Black people are treated as guilty until proven innocent. We strongly urge Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. to bring assault and battery charges against this woman to send the message that hateful, racially motivated behavior is unacceptable. This is what it will take to drive change. We also call for a civil rights investigation into the Arlo Hotel for its implicit bias in its treatment of Keyon.”

The New York Police Department told CNN that a complaint about harassment at the Arlo SoHo hotel has been filed. They stated that after viewing a surveillance video of the incident at Arlo SoHo Hotel, investigators are prepared to consider charging the white woman with assault and possibly grand larceny or attempted robbery, according to Rodney Harrison, chief of detectives for the NYPD.

CNN reported that the white woman, who says she is 22, spoke to them by phone and has disputed Harrold’s description of what took place. She claimed that she requested to see the surveillance video from hotel staff to try to figure out who took her phone, which, by the way, was left in an Uber returned to her shortly after this incident.

She then claims she approached someone else in the hotel lobby to “empty their pocket,” before she falsely accused Keyon Harrold Jr. “That’s when everything got a little bit more serious,” the woman said referring to the interaction.

The unnamed white woman claims she is willing to speak to investigators but has yet to do so. She stated she had evidence to present but when asked to provide it, she didn’t respond to numerous follow-up calls.

A member of the United Kingdom Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, on Monday accused former Nigerian head of state Lt Col Yakubu Gowon of “stealing half of Nigeria’s Central Bank”, a claim the latter has denied.

Tugendhat was speaking during a parliamentary debate on EndSARS, which centered on whether the UK government should impose sanctions on Nigeria following the protests against police brutality that reportedly resulted in the deaths of some participants.

The Conservative MP Tugendhat while accusing Nigerian leaders of corruption said: “Some people will remember when General Gowon left Nigeria with half the Central Bank of Nigeria, so it is said, and moved to London.”

“We know that today, even now, in this great city of ours, there are, sadly, some people who have taken from the Nigerian people and hidden their ill-gotten gains here.”

“We know that our banks, sadly, have been used for that profit and for that illegal transfer of assets. And that means the UK is in enormous unique position in being able to do actually something to really exert pressure on those who have robbed the Nigerian people,” the MP said in the UK parliament.

But in an interview with the BBC, Gowon said the UK MP’s claims are baseless. “I don’t know where he got that rubbish from, I served Nigeria diligently and my records are there for all to see,” he said.

Gowon was Nigeria’s Head of State from 1966 to 1975. He was attending an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Kampala, Uganda, when he was told he had been overthrown in a coup back home by a group of army officers on July 29, 1975.

Gowon, who also came to power via a coup and played a key role in preventing the Biafran secession, fled into exile in the United Kingdom afterward.

Poor African countries have trillions of dollars stacked up in European banks and in United States’ institutions by African despots with limited knowledge of their existence. These monies were stolen by leaders whose greed got them to deny their people the basic necessities of life while they enrich themselves and their families.

One of such leaders is Nigerian despot, Sani Abacha, who is believed to have stolen over $5 billion and kept them in banks abroad. His criminal ways were uncovered after his death in 1998 and the country is fighting to recover the few monies they are aware of.

In 2004, Abacha was ranked as the fourth most corrupt leader in history. Together with his National Security Adviser Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo, they made false funding requests which they approved. The funds would then be transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria before laundering them to offshore accounts.

With a little less than three weeks until Ghanaians vote in another presidential and presidential elections, the country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has been put under pressure by the resignation of a Special Prosecutor he appointed in 2018 as part of the government’s anti-corruption agenda.

Martin Amidu, a popular anti-graft campaigner, submitted his resignation letter to the Jubilee House, Ghana’s seat of government, on Monday evening. He cited among other things that he felt he was “not intended to exercise any independence as the Special Prosecutor” after publicizing his corruption risk analyses of a deal involving an offshore company with ties to members of the ruling party.

Amidu’s letter also hinted that he had received threats on his life after his conclusions on the deal were published a few weeks ago. However, sources say in a meeting with President Akufo-Addo on November 12, Amidu was asked to shelve his reservations on the deal for a while.

“The events of 12th November 2020 removed the only protection I had from the threats and plans directed at me for undertaking the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions anti-corruption assessment report and dictates that I resign as the Special Prosecutor immediately,” the letter said.

The said transactions involve a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) set up by the Ghanaian government in order to raise money against collateralized gold proceeds. The SPV, known as Agyapa Royalties Limited, was set up as an offshore limited liability on the island of Jersey with a subsidiary, ARG Royalties, in Ghana.

Per the agreement on the process, Ghana is expected to sell 49% of its shares in Agyapa to raise around $500 million on the London Stock Exchange. But critics have slammed what they call the “secrecy” and rushed manner in which the bill was put together and passed in parliament.

Questions have also been raised by sections of the Ghanaian public with regards to some of the names pushing to make the deal possible. The interim boss of Agyapa, Kofi Osafo-Maafo, is a son of Ghana’s Senior Minister, a portfolio likened to a Prime Minister.

One of the three law firms too which acted as transaction advisers for the Agyapa deal belongs to Gabby Otchere-Darko, a cousin of President Akufo-Addo.

Meanwhile, the presidency has denied any wrongdoing as implied in the resignation letter offered by Amidu. A statement on Tuesday, signed by the secretary to the president, said it was “regrettable” that the former Special Prosecutor believed the government stood in his way of fighting corruption.

President Akufo-Addo won the presidential race on his third attempt against then-President John Mahama in 2016, on the promise of fighting corruption and accelerating industrialization in Ghana. The two men are the frontrunners for this year’s elections on December 7.

However, unlike four years ago, the issue of corruption is not expected to drive Ghanaians to the polls in 2020, according to a survey by the country’s Center for Democratic Development.