Catherine Angai

Democracy | Accountability | Security | Behavioural Insights | Public Policy

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

@stirrrcrazy @Naijavote Granny!!! Let's enter whatsapp 🤭

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

@Naijavote I asked them a few questions. I just peeped at the ballot paper. I was like, where are all the security features? Lol. It looked like it was printed/photocopied in one business center in Gwarinpa.

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

@Naijavote I walked into a polling station yesterday just out of curiosity. It was around 9pm. The two polling staff were just sitted with their tea and coffee on a table behind them. I just laughed because I couldn't cry. They are still unhappy with their system.

[Ishaya @_ishayabako]

Up NEPA! is now streaming on YouTube - https://t.co/ZO3dQf4Sqh

This documentary explores Nigeria's electricity supply challenges and simplifies the complexities of electricity generation, transmission and distribution in Nigeria.

[Dr Joe Abah, OON @DrJoeAbah]

@ejiro_andrew @macfound I now feel that we don’t have Power because our leaders don’t want us to have Power.

[Bukky Shonibare @BukkyShonibare]

RELEASE DANIEL NOW!

#FreeDanielOjukwu
#FreeDanielOjukwu
#FreeDanielOjukwuNow

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

Spot-on from @EiENigeria's @_yemia on the continued illegal detention of @Mazi_OJD : "What is the incentive to obey the law when there are no consequences for people who break the law?"

#FreeDanielOjukwu
#JournalismNotCybercrime

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

#FreeDanielOjukwu
#JournalismNotCybercrime

Anger as @fijnigeria reporter @Mazi_OJD spends seventh day in police cell https://t.co/joxFTGuv6r

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

In the last six weeks, I’ve fielded numerous questions about why I took on Customs every day, bar weekends. One person inboxed me to ask: “Why do you still tag Customs even though they won't eventually reply to your claim?”

On the timeline, some accounts with links to smugglers and Customs officers believed they were deriding me by saying Customs would not respond to me. But I wrote it here early on: I wasn’t trying to trigger a response from Customs. Why should I, when Customs spokesman Abdullahi Maiwada was belligerent and would have slapped me on the phone if possible when I contacted him to respond to my investigation before going to press?

A few days after publishing the story, I got wind of Customs’ response strategy. It was to wait it out. “Give Nigerians a few days and they will move on to the next story.” Well, I was determined to elongate the shelf life of the story beyond “a few days”.

It started with Twitter spaces, something I rarely did because, if given a choice, I’d limit the exposure of my voice and face to the public. I must have held three Twitter spaces in two weeks — that’s a first. Then the multiple interviews, something else I seldom did (I’ve always turned down more interviews than I’ve granted.). Then the ‘good morning’ greetings, which worked to solid effect. With the ‘good morning’ tweets, I managed to keep the smuggling and Customs stench conversation going for a whopping six weeks, as against their prediction of just “a few days”. As I would later understand from my multiple sources in Customs and smuggling, this irritated the rank and file of NCS. The proof was ‘that’ WhatsApp message seeking to raise 17,000 NCS staff to tweet against me.

So what have I gained from the extended conversation? A lot. And this explains my second, and more important, reason for the campaign: the right of the public to know. Anyone who has followed the conversation these past weeks surely must now appreciate the role of Customs in Nigeria’s insecurity and economic woes. You now understand that when Customs announces the seizure of rice or white meat or cars, the smugglers of those imports did not bribe the right people in Customs or they tried to outright outsmart Customs; and that when Customs declares the seizure of hundreds of rice bags, several thousands have been privately diverted in most cases. You now understand why Customs declares the seizure of arms and ammunition from time to time without ever revealing the identities of the smugglers. You now know the origin of some of those bicycles used by bandits and insurgents in northern Nigeria, or some of the arms that have been used to stir civic unrest in the south-east. You now know that not all the tramadol damaging the youth in the north came in from that axis; some indeed originated from the south-west. You now know that citizens get killed for feeding the Customs with anti-smuggling information; you even know the names of some victims. You understand that smuggling is an economic and insecurity crime against the state that is ironically state-backed, that the biggest smugglers are backed by nation’s highest security appointees and loftiest political office holders. You now know that border closure and prohibited/restricted imports list are sham policies that benefit nobody but state-backed smugglers and shady businessmen profiteering from the contrived black market.

All these and more you now know in tweets carefully spread out over a period of six weeks. That knowledge is something nobody can take away from me or you. And it will be useful someday. The very foundation for the revolutionary dismantling of the status quo is the knowledge of everything ‘they’ do not want you to know!

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

@Nwankpa_A Amara!!🤣🤣🤣

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

It's been such a pleasure engaging with the Policy Innovation Centre and working with the BINTA fellows

[Olúṣeun Onìgbìndé @seunonigbinde]

North East Devt Commission, which was just created in last adminstration, already has a personnel cost allocation of N126bn, six times the personnel cost of an average Federal University.

Is this how we want to bring development to North East?

[Catherine Angai @AngaiCK]

Looking forward to this dialogue on Wednesday with @BridgetGildea What does behavioural science look like in non-WEIRD contexts like Nigeria. Should we have a vision for it? What can we learn from its application to address corruption in Nigeria? Join us!

[Intellectual Forum @IntellForum]

Behavioural science is too WEIRD.

Most participants in behavioural science studies are from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic backgrounds. How do we widen participation?

Join the IF, @AngaiCK, and @BridgetGildea on 6 March to find out! https://t.co/Rp4C90JKTu

[Intellectual Forum @IntellForum]

Behavioural science is too WEIRD.

Most participants in behavioural science studies are from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic backgrounds. How do we widen participation?

Join the IF, @AngaiCK, and @BridgetGildea on 6 March to find out! https://t.co/Rp4C90JKTu

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

I'll be on Channels TV at 8:30pm today to discuss corruption and sundry issues in the Nigeria Customs Service, including my latest investigation for @fijnigeria 'Undercover As a Smuggler'.

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

LIFE AFTER APOCALYPSE: Empty Villages, Abandoned Farmlands... Plateau Residents on Edge After Christmas Eve Attack https://t.co/KKsfzHK2C1

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

Last month, @fijnigeria's @StupendousUti spent time in Plateau investigating the recent killings.

His findings👇

ANNALS OF HORROR: Names, Photos, Videos... How Bloodthirsty Fulani Herders Brought the Apocalypse to the Plateau on Christmas Eve https://t.co/adxGtQCjv7

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

The documentary is out!

WATCH

1. How smuggling is aided by Customs bosses who betray their colleagues after taking bribes from smugglers.

2. The criminal business history of President Bola Tinubu's friend and Ilaro’s biggest smuggler Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun.

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

Some of the shocking discoveries I’ve made during undercover investigations:

If you want to tackle smuggling, clean Nigeria Customs up. There is no smuggling without the cooperation of Customs. Piercing.

To end crime, reform the police. Crime cannot thrive without police involvement. While I was in prison for my undercover investigation in 2019, one inmate told me that back then in Akure, Ondo State, Yahoo boys fended off police harassment by formally introducing themselves to the Officer-in-Charge of SARS, and periodically 'settling' him! The audacity!

Whenever the government is serious about ending insecurity, the work needs to start from the military. I found this out in 2013 in the villages of Plateau while investigating the brutality of their unending killings. Yes, T. Y. Danjuma was correct when, six years later, he said of the army: “they collude”.

Not yet personally confirmed but I am sure: If you want to end dollar round tripping, look no further than the CBN and banks. How is the dollar so hard to obtain in banks but is always free-flowing in the parallel market?

For almost every intractable Nigerian problem, look no further than the agency established to prevent it. The irony.

['Fisayo Soyombo @fisayosoyombo]

For @fijnigeria, I smuggled 100 bags of rice from Benin Republic into Nigeria.

I found out Customs bosses took bribes from smugglers, then betrayed their colleagues by updating smugglers on the itinerary of patrol officers.

Undercover as a Smuggler https://t.co/iqCZwWdJCa