In this series we shall be presenting potential contenders to us in no particular order, please, STAY TUNED.

HON.  DANIEL EFFIONG ASUQUO (DANSUKI)

Daniel Effiong Asuquo A.K.A  Dansuki is one young, talented, intelligent man that has defied all negative perception that Nigerian Youths are lazy and cannot hold leadership positions if given one. At his 20ties, he became a council chairman of Akamkpa Local Government Area, one of the biggest local government areas in Cross River State and Nigeria, democratically elected under the umbrella of the All Peoples Party(APP). Yours truly witnessed his reign as a local government chairman as a young man that grew up too within the Akamkpa axis of Cross River State.

Dansuki as a council chairman in an opposition party in cross River State then, made deft moves that made him so popular, politically grounded in grassroots politics and he immediately became a threat to the then governor of Cross River State, His Excellency Donald Duke. One of such moves of Danuski was setting out to immediately complete certain developmental projects within his first 100 days in office. Some of these projects were construction and renovations of primary and secondary school blocks in primary and secondary schools within the local government area, where yours truly witnessed the reconstruction and comissioning of a dilapidated PRIMARY 3 hall in St. Paul Primary School, Uyanga, Akamkpa Local Government Area, Any young person that grew up within the Uyanga community will bear witness to this which was around July, 1999.

Dansuki also immediately within his 100 days in office went into human empowerment by immediately empowering the local government councilors and supervisory councillors with car gifts of a Mercedes flat boot which was then big boys car. Remember, as at 1999, some of this councillors where secondary schools certificate holders and very young men still looking for where to put their feet. He also empowered most of them within his first year in office to own their own houses making most of them till today what they are.

The Political capacity and sagacity of Dansuki, a young man in his twenties, caused all the local government councilors elected under the platform of PDP  in the council to become APP members. His style of inclusive leadership caused him to be so loved by the councillors, the staff and indigenous people of the council area and this could be seen in how they stood by him when his problems with the then governor led to violent confrontations between their supporters.

His confrontation with Donald Duke led to a little set back in 2003 where he could not contest and win any elective position. He bounced back in 2007 after series of reconciliation between him and Donald Duke  and he contested and won to represent the people of Akamkpa/Biase Federal House of Representative under the Peoples Democratic Party. Dansuki has since then remained a representative of Akamkpa/Biase people in the Federal House of Representatives, so loved by his people such that even when there were little attempts to deny him ticket in 2019, he conquered it. His phillantropic records is also very outstanding.

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He has made subtled declaration to contest for the 2023 governorship elections in Cross River State, to take over from Prof. Ben Ayade. He is from Akamkpa Local Government Area, paternally an Ejagham man and maternally related to the Efiks. His governorship can assuage this two dorminant ethnic groups in southern Cross River State.  He is eminently qualified to rule Cross River State.

OUR ISSUES WITH HIM
As an Efik/Ejagham son, we are concern that he has not been representing us through his attires, as he is always seen wearing either an English dress or adorning the Yoruba attire. The Efik or Ejagham people are culturally unique with unique mode of dressing when it matters most. We want to see him show us more that he is one of us, or, is he ashamed of his origin? Time will tell.

Hon. Daniel Effiong Asuquo (DANSUKI)

Ekpenyong Isaiah
Commander, Infantry Pen Battallion.
isacool4real@yahoo.com

By Eje Peter

West Africa's infamous Internet scammers have evolved, dropping their impersonations of online love interests, princes and United States soldiers in favour of hijacking corporate emails, costing businesses hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

It is a much more lucrative venture that works by gaining access to corporate email login details or passing off almost-identical addresses as the real deal, a scam known as Business Email Compromise, according to a report by cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, issued on Thursday.

These Nigerian rackets now dwarf other types of online criminal theft, amounting to at least $5.3bn of losses between October 2013 and the end of 2016, according to the CrowdStrike and the US FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.

"There's a disproportionate amount of criminal gains they get from it," the Vice-President of Intelligence at the California-based CrowdStrike, Adam Meyers, told Reuters.

"The lion's share of ill-gotten, fraudulent money is around these business email compromise attacks. It's a huge problem for our customer set," he added.

Nigeria has become one of the hubs of BEC. Nigerian online fraudsters, known as "Yahoo boys", became notorious for trying to pass themselves off as people in financial need or Nigerian princes offering an outstanding return on an investment.

The capers became known as "419 scams" after the section of the national penal code that dealt – ineffectively – with fraud.

"Yahoo boys" even impersonated a US forces commander in Afghanistan to defraud people by asking for help in recovering the assets of deceased soldiers.

It forced the commander to issue a Facebook statement saying he would never try to contact anyone asking for financial help.

Now the scammers have bigger fish to fry, with the potential gains amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to CrowdStrike.

Behind the fraudsters is an organised crime network with its hands in human trafficking, drugs, prostitution, money laundering and email fraud and cybercrime, according to the CrowdStrike report.

"The magnitude of this criminal threat has only recently begun to be understood," it said.

The Black Axe gang sprang from Nigerian universities and now extends from Africa to North America, Europe and Asia.

Its targets have ranged from semiconductor makers to schools in the US states including Connecticut and Minnesota, passing themselves off as executives and lawyers to trick employees into wiring sometimes millions of dollars a day into bank accounts.

From there, the money is quickly laundered through a series of bank accounts that can be traced to Hong Kong and China, where the trail often goes cold because diverging regulations foil monitoring, CrowdStrike's Meyers said.

With that money, the Nigerian scammers are often enjoying the high life, according to Meyers, noting that social media accounts are filled with pictures of them posing with luxury Mercedes cars, gold watches, jewellery and champagne.

"It's really hard to stop; you can't stop it with anti-virus or any kind of software, it's really kind of a human problem