How to Protect Your Nigerian Bank Card From Fraud

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September 14, 2019

Debit card fraud is increasing on a daily basis because it is one of the easiest ways to get your hands on cash and at the same pay for online transactions.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Automated Teller Machine from selected banks across the country recorded transactions valued at N39.15 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2018.

It said that the N39.15 trillion was derived from 616,528,697 transactions recorded as data on “Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigeria Banking Sector” during the period.

Regardless of this seamlessness and due to increased dependence on debit cards, you have to be circumspect as there are online and offline thieves desperately wanting to steal your information.

They will have unauthorised access to your account if you are careless and you will lose your hard-earned money.

With this understanding, here are ways to protect your debit card from fraud.

Be careful when you use your debit card online

Many pay for their online transactions with their debit cards. However, before you punch in the numbers on your card and make a payment, ensure that the website is safe and secure. If you suspect anything, simply do not use your card. If what you are buying is important, contact the customer service team of the platform you are buying from.

Use ATM at a bank’s premises

Today, you will find ATMs at different locations that are not at the bank’s premises. For whatever reason, you should not use such an ATM. It is advisable to visit the one at the bank. In case of anything, you can easily walk into the banking hall to resolve any issues or lay a complaint.

Protect Your PIN

The way you handle your Personal Identity Number (PIN) can go a long way in determining the degree of your account security. Whenever you perform a transaction, guard your debit card PIN jealously as exposure can be fatal. Be warned.

Check your card activities regularly

No matter how thorough and protective you are with your debit card and your PIN, you should always check your account activities. There is a tendency for you not to check because nothing has happened to your card. Be proactive and always check your account activities.

Report suspicious activities to your bank

If you notice any suspicious activities with your account or card, do not hesitate to report to your bank as soon as possible. You can reach your bank by calling them, sending them a direct message on social media and chatting them live on their website.

The Most Dangerous Man in Nigeria – Alfa Belgore

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Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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September 14, 2019

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He was a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, an enviable position that made him the high priest of the Nigerian Constitution. A seer who took oath to serve Nigeria and his fellow citizens by helping all aggrieved to understand the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

But he was dangerous. Yes, Alfa Belgore has been allegedly identified as the man who helped a foreign company(P&ID) to win an award of $9.6 billion against Nigeria.

They paid, and he dissected loopholes in the Constitution as a legal expert to P&ID: “Acting as a legal consultant, Mr Belgore, head of the Supreme Court between 2006 and 2008, painstakingly analysed Nigeria’s laws, exploited its shortcomings and cited case laws for the benefit of the firm.”

He is the most dangerous man in Nigeria. Yes, we have Yahoo Boys, 419ers, corporate raiders, and their cousins, but that a former Chief Justice can use his knowledge of Nigerian law in this way is despicable. Nigeria trained him to master those laws; today, he has paid us this way. I hope this is fake news – but Premium Times is never known for one.

Unfortunately, Justice Belgore is not alone – people sign contracts to defraud Nigeria in London, California and Beijing because of personal gains. That remains the Nigerian demon – no patriotism.

I am not a lawyer but this man should be excommunicated in the club of learned gentlemen even if he has not broken any written code. He is unworthy to serve.

For the former Chief Justice, it was all business.

It did not matter that he was providing an expert legal opinion against his country whose judiciary he once headed. It did not matter that Nigeria stood to lose the case on account of his testimony, neither did it matter that offering such service to a foreign company was illegal.

All that mattered, it seems, was money.

PREMIUM TIMES can today confirm that a key legal argument the British firm, P&ID Limited, used in securing the humongous arbitral award of $9.6 billion (N3.2 trillion) against Nigeria was provided by former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Alfa Belgore.

Acting as a legal consultant, Mr Belgore, head of the Supreme Court between 2006 and 2008, painstakingly analysed Nigeria’s laws, exploited its shortcomings and cited case laws for the benefit of the firm.

And he did break a written law, according to the Constitution. He is the most dangerous man in Nigeria and should be arrested and tried! I hope he has enough money to defend himself – stupid man.

Section 5 of the Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution prohibits former presidents, vice presidents, Chief Justice of Nigeria, governors and deputy governors from working for foreign companies or enterprises.

[…]

PREMIUM TIMES has obtained full details of the advice provided by Mr Belgore to rubbish the Nigerian government’s defence in the suit.

In the written legal advice offered to P&ID, Mr Belgore, who is still a member of the National Council of State, a key advisory body to Nigerian presidents, specifically admitted that he was working for a foreign company.

“I have been instructed on behalf of Process and Industrial Developments Limited (“P&ID”), a company incorporated in the territory of the Virgins Island (“BVI”), to prepare a statement addressed to the Arbitral tribunal in answer to the questions put to me by P&ID in connection with this arbitration,” he wrote

[…]

He then presented extensive legal arguments to puncture the defence by Nigerian government lawyers.

Read the full statement offered by Alfa

The Israel’s Netanyahu’s Speech [Video]

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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September 14, 2019

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Nations are built by men and women. Every Nigerian has a responsibility for Nigeria. Watching this speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will challenge you on what nations can achieve if they pursue a mission as a team. I studied with many Israelis. They were not the top in the class. But they were top in having structures and systems that enable them to thrive. Israel knew where they were, and was always available to provide support.

On the efficiency of the utilization of the factors of production and human imagination, Israel rules the world. The Israeli process, interestingly, is an advanced form of pockets of things I see in some African communities. Unfortunately, those communities remained caged due to lack of visioning systems at higher levels of leadership.

We must invent a new Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77GdJHRQC4Q

Interviewing is a Skill

By

Ibukun Igbinosa

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September 13, 2019

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Earlier this week, social media was agog with the news of a hiring manager who decided to keep a candidate waiting for over two hours just to test the ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, and ‘depth’ of the candidate’s patience or should I say long suffering.

Am sure most incidences such as this go unreported as they are not ‘lucky’ enough to be caught in the effulgent headlights of social media.

This story brought to the fore one of the misconceptions about interviewing that is rife across organisations. There is this misconception about the ‘ease’ of interviewing, and a lot of times hiring managers/teams are not trained to interview. Interviewing is a skill! There is a strategy and methodology to it.

I was once in an interview where a hiring manager asked a candidate how many kids she wanted to have. Another was whether the candidate was Christian? It was utterly shocking! I had to have a sit down the person afterwards. There are some questions that should NEVER be asked in an interview!

To overturn this unwholesome narrative, HR leaders across several organisations should begin to intentionally design effective interview training plan for hiring managers and teams. Particular attention should be paid to training in areas such as using structured interviews to ensure same questions are posed to different candidates thus ensuring fairness, legal and appropriate questions to ask, combating biases, understanding and knowing how to appropriately test for relevant skills and competencies required for the role.

As you plan to train, do keep it in mind that a candidate’s interview experience goes a long way in shaping and informing his/her perception of your Employer branding and employee value proposition. Remember, people may forget what you said, forget what you did, but will never forget how you made them feel. Let’s get this right!

Preparing The Young African Generation for the Future of Work

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Nnamdi Odumody

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September 13, 2019

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The current generation of kids are not to be raised with the command and control tactics which you were raised. The mechanics of parenting in your era which was not confronted by exposure to digital realism is different from what your children see and hear on a daily basis. If you try to hide any piece of information from them, Google is there to their rescue.

When you try to ground them from visiting their schoolmates Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can bail them out from boredom. They won’t read the hard copies of your favorite books which you decide to pass to them, if there are no Amazon Kindle or Google Chromebook versions. Some will prefer them in a gamified manner as they will be fun and easy for them to learn.

When they are done with secondary schools, please don’t force them to study medicine or law as their career choices or you might risk them being jobless after graduation despite massive investment made in their tertiary education. Instead encourage them to learn emotional intelligence, critical thinking, design thinking, agility, collaboration, data science and artificial intelligence, digital marketing, industrial design and product development.

Even if you want them to study medicine, let them do bioinformatics which is the application of computing to solve biological issues. We are now in an era where robots are capable of executing routine office tasks and the worst thing that can behalf any parent is to continue feeding your children after they have graduated due to lack of jobs. Doctors can now use robots to perform complex surgical operations on patients even remotely.

For parents who want their wards to study law just be informed that not just smart machines which are capable of drafting legal briefs and searching for landmark judgements faster than human lawyers will ever do but that smart contracts which run on the blockchain will make many lawyers who are not looking to the future to lose jobs because who needs a lawyer to draft a Sales and Purchase Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding when technology has made it possible to be automated and execute terms between only the two parties in the agreement.

China will not solve your unemployment problem. She has a 2025 target which is to make the nation the world’s no 1 manufacturing power with different capabilities. The nation’s investments in artificial intelligence to solve the problem of rising wage costs from industry workers will make it difficult for developing countries like in Africa who are looking eastwards for industrial support.

Deploy massive social investments to prepare your youths for the future because their competition is not local or global. That is the only way to unlock prosperity because all the security crisis plaguing different African states is as a result of neglect by those in power towards their citizens causing the continent to have the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the world. Give scholarships to deserving youths not on nepotic basis to study and gain skills of the future which they will deploy to transform the continent. Massive empowerment of youths in agriculture without exposing them to cutting edge technologies will not help in the continental competitiveness.

How to Protect Your Nigerian Bank Card From Fraud