China's top infectious disease control official said his comments on the effectiveness of his country's vaccines over the weekend were misinterpreted.
The director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said it was a "complete misunderstanding'' that he had said Chinese vaccines offer a low level of protection, in comments to state newspaper the Global Times on Monday.
He had been presenting a "scientific vision'' that adapting vaccine sequences or administering different jabs on after the other could also be options for increasing protection, he said.
"The protection rates of all vaccines in the world are sometimes high, and sometimes low. How to improve their efficacy is a question that needs to be considered by scientists around the world,'' Gao said.
Gao Fu was talking at a conference in Chengdu on Saturday on the topic of how to solve the insufficient protection of current vaccines, Chinese news outlet Pengpai Xinwen (The Paper) reported.
"It is also necessary to consider ways to address the low protection rate of existing vaccines,'' he was cited as saying.
His comments prompted a reaction because there is far less data available on Chinese vaccines than those being produced in many other countries.
Critics have complained of a lack of transparency when it comes to Chinese jabs, which have not been authorized in many European nations.
Data from the third phase of clinical studies was particularly sought after.
Because China has the Coronavirus pandemic largely under control and was reporting hardly any local infections, studies so far have only been published from other countries where vaccines were being used.
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, on Friday disclosed that 52 Nigerians have experienced moderate to severe reactions after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib disclosed this at a news conference in Abuja.
He also said 8,439 Nigerians experienced mild Adverse events following immunization (AEFI) after taking the vaccine.
Shuaib stated that the 52 Nigerians that experienced moderate to severe reactions to the vaccine were brought down with fever, vomiting, diarrhea headaches, dizziness and allergic reactions
“In Nigeria, since the vaccination program was officially rolled out on 15th of April 2021, a total of 8,439 mild Adverse events following immunization (AEFI) have been reported. These range from pain, swelling at the site of the inoculation, to body pains and nausea.
“Similarly, 52 cases of moderate to severe incidents of AEFI have been reported. These presented as fever, vomiting, diarrhea headaches, dizziness and allergic reactions.
“Five states have the highest records of the AEFI namely: Kaduna (970) Cross River (859), Yobe (541), Kebbi (511), and Lagos (448),” he disclosed.
According to Shuaib, as of today, April 16th, 1,071,346, representing 53.2% of the eligible persons targeted with the AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered their first dose in this vaccination phase.
He said the data were based on reports received from states through the Electronic Management of Immunization Data (EMID) system only and did not take into account vaccinations that were not yet captured in the system.
“What this number means is that these are the people who have their information already uploaded on our data base, while others are awaiting upload, potentially due to network problems and the high traffic of those coming in to take their shots at the same time.
“While we continue to optimize our registration and immunization data system, we also encourage the state teams to deploy the most suitable internet service for their locations in order to speed up the data entry process, so that we can have the actual number of vaccinated people at any given time,” he said.
Shuaib added that in many states, the inoculation of frontline health workers had been completed and that they had begun offering vaccination to the elderly, particularly those that were 65 years and above.
“We are glad to be able to progress quickly offer immunization to more members of the community.
“Our rollout has been marked by safety, efficiency, best practice, and speed. The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and its development partners, have a platform of Senior Supervisors that engage in daily evening review meetings to determine the status of the COVID-19 vaccine implementation in all States & the FCT.”
The National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, has called for unity and decisiveness to tackle the unabated farmer-herders’ crisis in the country.
Tinubu said in a statement on Saturday that the herder-farmer dispute had taken an acute and violent dimensions and had cost too many innocent lives while destroying the property and livelihoods of many others.
According to him, “as vital as security is to the resolution of this matter, the nation must realise security measures alone will not suffice.”
He said that enhanced security might be the necessary first step, but it could not be the only step.
“This matter is not ethnic in factual origin or actual causation although in the minds and hearts of too many it has become ethnic in recrimination and impulsive action.
“There have been sporadic disputes in the past but this one is more severe. The reasons for the greater violence of this current dispute are myriad, “Tinubu said.
According to him, farmers have a right to farm their land unmolested and herders have a right to raise their livestock without undue interference.
He, however, explained that when conflict between these groups arises to such an extent, the nation must set forth clear principles and policies to remove the tension, in order to allow both to proceed toward their stated goals, to live in harmony and according to their respective rights.
“To destroy the crops or seize the property of the innocent farmer or herder is nothing if not an act of criminality,” he said.
Tinubu noted that unoccupied public land could be fenced into grazing areas or ranches and leased to herders on a very low-cost, nominal basis.
He said the leasing was not intended to penalise herders, rather the nominal fee should be intended to ensure the herders were invested in the project and incentivized to use the land provided.
Tinubu said this aspect would also mitigate any resentment over herders being given land for free.
He urged the government to also assist farmers increase productivity by providing subvention for their acquisition of fertilizer, equipment and machinery.
He said this could be done by establishing commodity boards to guarantee minimum prices for important crops.
Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja has been awarded the Airport Services Quality Award 2020 as judged by their customers as the Best Airport by Size and Region (five million to 15 million passengers per year in Africa). This is coming barely two weeks after receipt of the accreditation of the Airport Council International (ACI) health accreditation certificate tothe Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja,the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, and the Port-Harcourt International Airport, the Abuja airport has again been given recognition for its quality service.
This time, it is for providing a superior customer experience despite the difficult circumstances occasioned by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A letter sighted by AirInsightfrom the office of the Director-General of ACI, dated Feb. 15, 2021, and directed to Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, the Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) said that the airport was bestowed with the award based on the recommendations by users of the facilities, especially the passengers. “During this most difficult and challenging of years, your customers have spoken and recognised the successful efforts of your team in providing a superior customer experience under trying circumstances.”
ACI also said that Amadeus, the global travel technology company, which it recently renewed its partnership with would deliver the ASQ Awards to the agency. It said that Amadeus supports airports in improving travel experiences for passengers all over the world and its continuing strategic partnership came at a time when it had never been more important for airports to listen to the voice of customers.
A spokeswoman for FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu said the award represents the FAAN’s commitment to continuously improving customer experience across all our airports. “The recognition comes at a time when we are geared towards ensuring seamless airport facilitation with the opening of new terminals and upgrading of our current infrastructures across the board. Despite a turbulent year plagued by COVID-19 induced financial struggles, the authority has endeavored to prioritize customer satisfaction while ensuring that health and safety remain topmost. FAAN MD/CEO Captain Rabiu Yadudu accepted the award on behalf of the Authority and restated FAAN’s commitment to ensuring the safety, security, and comfort of passengers at all airports across the country,” she added.
It would be recalled that in the penultimate week, the Abuja, Port-Harcourt, and Lagos airports were accredited by ACI on its health accredited programme, after it said the airports satisfied the safe airport environment requirements as set by ACI. This, it said, was in line with the ACI Aviation Business Restart and Recovery guidelines and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council Aviation Restart Task Force recommendations along with industry best practices.
“The Abuja Airport is judged by their customers as the Best Airport by Size and Region (5 to 15 million passengers per year in Africa)”. Yakubu also described the feat as huge and underscored the organisation’s relentlessness amid the difficult year occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic which led to financial struggle by the authority.
SpaceX's internet connectivity service has started shipping out equipment to beta testers.....
Over the weekend, participants in the "Better Than Nothing" beta test shared photos and videos of the setup box. The package is designed to get the early testers connected to SpaceX's growing collection of satellites, which will offer high speed and low latency internet access to people living in remote and underserved areas. Included in the package is a ground terminal, router, and other components to get connected.
"The router looks so clean and beautiful," wrote a Reddit user called "bigskyreleaf," who shared a photo of the new box. While many internet providers offer bland, curved wifi routers, SpaceX appears to be going for a distinctly angular white and silver design.
It bears more than a passing resemblance to the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck electric pickup truck – both firms are run by CEO Elon Musk.
Reddit-shared images also show the shiny dish – affectionately dubbed "Dishy Mcflatface" by SpaceX.
The beta test is another step toward SpaceX's goal of satellite internet at gigabit speeds, with latency fast enough to play video games. SpaceX first started launching batches of SpaceX satellites in May 2020, and has applied for permission to launch a staggering 42,000 satellites. SpaceX achieves its lower latencies by placing the craft closer to the Earth's surface, around 550 kilometers high.
The company warns beta testers that they can expect speeds of around 50 to 150 megabits per second – for context, a megabit is an eighth of a megabyte, and the measurement is common when discussing internet speeds. But Business Insider reported Monday that some users were seeing higher speeds of up to 174 megabits per second.
The beta test doesn't come free. Users are asked to pay $99 per month for the connection itself, plus $499 for the Starlink Kit containing the ground terminal. One tester on Reddit found their order came to nearly $600 after $50 shipping and Washington state taxes. They then paid a further $100 for a ridgeline mount, an alternative to the tripod mount that comes with the Starlink Kit.
Although it all sounds rather expensive and slow, it's still impressive for satellite internet. Unlike fiber optic and other technologies, satellite doesn't depend on local infrastructure to get online – just point at the sky. The United States is served by satellite operators Viasat and HughesNet, but users end up paying similar prices to Starlink for speeds in the tens of megabits. Latency also runs into the hundreds of milliseconds, around 20 times slower than wired.
SpaceX began offering services to customers in the northern United States and Canada in 2020. It plans to offer "near global coverage of the populated world" by 2021.
The company is inviting fans that are interested in Starlink to register with their name and physical address via the website.
THE INVERSE ANALYSIS – SpaceX's setup looks impressive, and the design is sleek. Company-provided routers tend to be rather drab affairs, so it's nice to see a bit of design flair from the new service's first outing.
Of course, the most technically minded may opt to switch the router for their own box when it comes to filling the house with wifi. Mesh networking setups like Google and Eero allow users to place access points in various parts of the house, ensuring there's no blind spots for service.
Fiber is likely to remain the best option where it's available, but for rural and underserved areas, flaky internet could soon be a thing of the past. As more people work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, could this ultimately change the conversation about where people can live?
Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of “pampering” Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen terrorists in Nigeria.
Kanu stated this in reaction to the graduation and reintegration of hundreds of so-called repentant Boko Haram members into the society.
Reports that the ex-Boko Haram killers reintegrated into the society included those from Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic have infuriated many Nigerians.
The Coordinator, Operation Safe Corridor, Major General Bamidele Shafa made the announcement recently.
Reacting, the IPOB leader lamented that Nigeria was rewarding terrorism.
In a tweet, Kanu wrote: “No nation ever PAMPERS terrorists. @MBuhari’s Nigeria not only pampers terrorists but it gives them scholarships and sends them to mix with those they’ve terrorized and slaughtered.
“There’s no other way of looking at this than that Nigeria is the ONLY nation that rewards TERRORISM.”
The Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram have been classified as being among the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world by the requisite global organizations, including the United Nations.
But the Buhari administration has repeatedly used the organs of power, the military and the police, to in the case of the Fulani Herdsmen, force the murderous group on the Nigerian people by way of its clandestine grazing program, especially in the Middle-Belt and Southern parts of the country which are predominantly Christian.
Buhari, a retired Army General, had campaigned on a pledge to rid the nation of the Boko Haram scourge using his military background as a talking point, as he wrested power from President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 elections.
His administration has however falling woefully short on his campaign promise as not only has Boko Haram become even more menacing, the dynamic of the Fulani Herdsmen terrorists was added under Buhari's watch and the president, who is also Fulani, has been accused of being complicit, at least through inaction, in the murderous activities of the Fulani terrorists.
Nigeria is a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and there is ample evidence of ethno-religious cleansing that has gone on since the inception of the Buhari administration.
CC™ Opinion - By John Smith Lately, there has been much fuss over the Trump administration's stringent policy regarding the H1-B visa program.Here are some hard facts about the H1-B visa program as it relates to how it actually works. A corporation will pay say $60.00 per hour for a temporary worker. The $60.00 per hour goes to a consulting firm. For an H1-B visa, it is normally an Indian consulting firm. For an American, it is maybe a local
consulting firm. If it is an Indian consulting firm, they may take 40 percent and give 60
percent to the H1-B visa consultant of that hourly pay. Or maybe there will be two
consulting firms involved, and the consultant may get 40-50 percent. For an American, the split may be a 34/66 split with 66 percent going to the consultant and 34 percent to the consulting firm. In either case, it doesn't make much difference. The big winners of the H1-B visa program are the consulting firms. For the corporations, it is also a win since they don't have to provide any benefits to the consultant(s) and they can end the contract at any time. The H1-B visa
program helps East Indians migrate to America and subsequently take control of the IT industry with
help from International Corporations. I have worked with H1-B visa consultants and for the most part, they are at best average and are definitely no better than American trained consultants. The truth is that most of these India-trained consultants can easily be replaced by American workers. The usual routine is an H1-B comes to the United States and gets a contract, thus displacing, in most cases, a better trained US worker. Then within 6 months they have to go back to India for a month and marry someone they will meet for the first time when they are face-to-face during the marriage ceremony. Then nine months after they've gotten back to the US with their new wife under their H1-B visa, they have what is known within immigration circles as an "anchor baby." You'd be surprised how many Indians who have been married in the US for ten years and have only one child. And that child is a year less than
when they first came to the US. Thus, in addition to circumventing the economic system, the process also serves to do the same to the immigration system and it is rather unfair to those folks who work hard and do it by the book, especially immigrants from other parts of the world, who come to the United States legally. It is no secret that the Indian H1-B workers have a big advantage. The international
corporations
have spent probably a quarter of a trillion dollars building Training Centers, aka Technology Centers in India. I'd say about 15 years ago,
Corporations like Intel, Microsoft and GE spent upwards of $10 billion each to build Training Centers in India. In IT, you learn by doing. Either you use it or lose it.
As soon as someone graduates from college in
India (where cheating is rampant by the way) they are hired by a Training Center and go to work.
Conversely, a US graduate, that is, a US citizen finds it harder to get a job and starts learning on the job, mainly because the jobs they would have
gotten to start their careers are being filled by an H1-B visa. When I worked for EDS as a consultant, an old timer told me how it used to be. They would train
people to be programmers. There were secretaries who the company let take programming
classes and EDS taught them. A lot of workers ended up becoming programmers and
bettering themselves.
But over time, corporations decided to purchase an Indian Consulting firm and ship jobs
to
India and also ship Indians to the US through the H1-B visa program to displace American workers for one reason alone, MONEY! It is all about cost savings or should I say, greed!
In the end, the fact remains that the India-trained consultant is no better than the US trained one. The former is however a lot cheaper and also a lot easier to get rid off, with less complications.
CC™ Opinion - By Eleanya Ndukwe Jr. The arrests of Ramoni Igbadole Abbas, commonly known as Hushpuppi; Jacob Ponle, known as Woodberry; and ten others last year by the expert combination of the FBI, INTERPOL, and the Dubai police in the United Arab Emirates has reopened the unpleasant conversation about international cybercrimes. It has equally re-centered the issue of Nigeria’s image vis-à-vis crime and the most populous African nation’s citizens. According to official news sources, at the time of the 38-year-old’s arrest, Hushpuppi had victimised over 1.9 million people, 21 laptop computers, 15 memory storage devices, 5 hard drives, 47 smartphones, and 15 flash drives. Investigators announced that he, alongside his aids, defrauded people up to the tune of $435,611,200 (N169.01 billion) based on documents recovered to indicate fraudulence “on a global scale.” Did I mention that he was the owner of 13 luxury cars worth up to $6,806,425 (N2.640 billion) too?
Hushpuppi displaying his ill-gotten wealth on his Instagram account draped in designer wear.
It is erroneous to assume that Hushpuppi’s case is isolated. The pattern and frequency prove otherwise; they show that the menace is not only endemic, but extensive. Last year, much-celebrated Forbes Africa’s 30 Under 30 2016 honoree and chairman of Invictus Group, Obinwanne Okeke was arrested and recently pleaded guilty to FBI charges for $11 million (N4.2 billion) internet fraud facing up to 20 years imprisonment sentence; in August 2019, the FBI released a list of 80 wanted Nigerian cybercriminals for an alleged $6 million cybercrime noting that “the overall conspiracy was responsible for the attempted theft of at least $40 million,” while arresting two co-conspirators: Valentine Iro and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe; 6 Nigerian nationals—Richard Izuchukwu Uzuh; Alex Afolabi Ogunshakin; Felix Osilama Okpoh; Abiola Ayorinde Kayode; Nnamdi Orson Benson; and Michael Olorunyomi—are currently on the FBI’s “Cyber’s Most Wanted” list for defrauding “over 70 different businesses in the US with a combined loss of over $6,000,000” according to its official twitter account.
Underlying all these cases is a certain measure of self-indulgence which seeks to exploit the efforts of innocent victims, capitalising on codified methods of cybercriminality frowned upon by international laws, and counterproductive to the image-building goals of Nigeria. Acts such as phishing, engaging in Business Email Compromise (BEC), ransomware, banking malware and other widely recognised cyberthreats have been at the forefront of their activities.
Following Hushpuppi’s arrest, social media platforms began witnessing a sense of distancing. But unlike the social distancing globally induced by the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), we became accustomed to social media distancing initiated by those who had once dined with the overtly brash Hushpuppi. More importantly though, the often-repeated lines of denunciation by Nigerian public officials greeted our airwaves as expected. The central message was the same as always: ALL Nigerians should not be lumped into the soiled perception of fraudulence, uncharacteristically championed by most recently arrested infamous nationals like Hushpuppi, Obinwanne, Mompha and their ilk.
“This is really denting to our image as a people, but like I always say, fraud does not represent who we are as Nigerians. Hardworking. dedicated. committed,” the Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa retweeted to a tweet detailing Hushpuppi’s fraudulent acts on June 25, 2020. Public relations messages like the one by Hon. Dabiri-Erewa are, perhaps, important in the fight to redeem Nigeria’s already battered image—somewhat reminiscent of the late Information Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili’s campaign: “Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation.” However, they reek of gross unexamined self-reflection in many forms. And I will highlight some.
First, at face value, these cybercrimes committed by Nigerian nationals portray a certain get-rich-quick syndrome which has become a deified, noticeable trend mostly exhibited—to varying degrees—across social media platforms. Exotic cars are flaunted, designer wears rocked, glittering accessories are customary looks across verified pages and profiles, as if to separate those that have “made it” from those trying to stay as legitimate and clean as the strength of their manhood and the integrity of their professional crafts entail. That these self-acclaimed “made men” have millions of followers on their social media accounts portrays the alternate universe we live in, where the disenfranchised see them as role models to aspire to become. Yet, there is a profound truth to be gleaned from this aforementioned syndrome.
On deeper observation, it epitomises the present spirit of Nigeria’s younger generation. In terms of age structure according to the 2019 CIA World Factbook, Nigeria’s “early working age” and “mature working age” boast a population pyramid combination of 15-24 years (19.81%) and 25-54 years (30.44%). That equals a combined 50.25%. To put it differently, a 2020 pew research notes that only 5% of Nigeria’s population is 60 or older with a median age of just 18. In other words, 95% (or 195,700.000) of Nigeria’s 206 million population is under the age of 60—a rather astronomical figure that has been failed by the Nigerian experiment with no hope in sight.
The loss of hope in a nonexistent socioeconomic structure is a direct indictment of Nigeria. As Chinua Achebe aptly quips, it is a reiteration of “a failure of leadership.” Admittedly, this does not cloak the blame due these few fraudulent Nigerian nationals. Integrity is an intrinsic, conscious value to be continually upheld as a self-guide by every individual regardless of external forces of failure. To blame the vices of evil without highlighting the deepening failures of governance across all dynamics though, is to be selective about the realities of our normative socioeconomic and political truth.
Secondly, that the indictments of these cyber-criminals have been executed by such international law enforcement bodies like the FBI, INTERPOL, and the Dubai Police Force, reiterates our perceived views about the interests and mandates of the anti-graft commission. It exposes the failures of Nigeria’s national anti-crime agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), again, making a mockery of the nation’s image as one only interested in selectively fighting against crime.
Since the Commission’s creation in 2004 to “prevent, investigate, prosecute and penalise economic and financial crimes and is charged with the responsibility of enforcing the provisions of other laws and regulations relating to economic and financial crimes,” its results have been, to put it bluntly, abysmal. In May 2018, the EFCC’s Head, Media and Publicity, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren claimed that the Commission had, within three years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, secured 603 convictions: 103, 195, and 189 for 2015, 2016, and 2017, respectively. He also claimed that the Commission had recovered about 500 billion naira in Nigeria’s embezzled commonwealth. Fast-forward to this year’s Democracy Day, June 11, while speaking at a press conference, the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu noted thus: “Our scorecard in the area of conviction is 2,240 in the last five years and we recovered assets in excess of N980 billion, with quite a large array of non-monetary assets.”
Juxtaposing these “recovered” stolen funds with the 2018 Brooking Institution report that every minute, six people in Nigeria fall into extreme poverty—defined by the United Nations to mean those who earn $1.90 (a meagre N760) or less daily—is a tough task. In the same year, Nigeria would become the “poverty capital of the world” overtaking India—a nation with more than six times its population size—and is set to remain so for the next generation. That we have reportedly recovered N980 billion ($2,529,977,800.00) under the present administration by the EFCC alone, even as Nigerians fall into extreme poverty, is almost unimaginable. There have also been allegations of Magu “relooting the loots”—a codified notion that the recovered funds have been used for personal gains instead of being reimbursed into the coffers of Nigeria’s commonwealth.
As at the time of writing this piece, Ibrahim Magu has been arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS).
Supposing we even ignore these random convictions and focus on the assumed big fishes as my curiosity suggested during the writing of this piece, my inquiry into the most sensitive cases betrayed hope as well. Of all 43 cases termed “high profile cases being prosecuted by the EFCC” as shown here with the earliest dated 2007, only four (a measly 9.30%) of the cases have been “dismissed.” A massive 39 of the cases (90.7%) are still “ongoing” or have “commenced” including those on “interlocutory appeal at the Supreme Court.” The perception is thus that Nigeria’s anti-crime agencies are mere watchdogs for political witch-hunting, readily available and only potent against targeted individuals and organisations.
This endemic betrayal of trust in the Nigerian system and the astronomical surge in cybercrimes by its nationals, have come at a grave cost to Nigeria’s international image. 419—the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code—is now an emblem of our economic and financial realities. Cybercrime is now an automatic indictment of both the average Nigerian and Nigeria’s character, just as our comatose international image lies critically at the selective mercy of western propaganda. It has equally fostered an unconscious guilt we have to bear across all international institutions as Nigerians. And its implications have been even more damaging: our emails are rejected; our notices for denial are stamped with imperialist prejudice; our visa applications—whether for tourism, work, or studies—are denied with reckless abandon; our green international passports are treated with utter disdain. We are judged based on our perceived unscrupulousness than on the merits of our individual characters. And even when meritorious acts are associated with the Nigerian nationality, there is the preconceived idea that an ill must have contributed to the outcome. Through it all, no iota of success or failure of the Nigerian is without the asterisk of potential criminality.
Thankfully, international anti-crime agencies have been successful in fishing out these hoodlums and charging them appropriately. However, what does not fall under the jurisdiction of INTERPOL, FBI, or any other anti-crime agency is the urgent need to redeem Nigeria’s image. To do this, is to reexamine the erroneous one-way-street perception of criminal acts, which is to call out the failures of both the leaders and the led. To do this, is to admit the failed Nigerian socio-economic and political systems, and to rebuild them on the foundations of integrity, transparency, truth, and justice. Until we do so, the Hushpuppis and Obinwannes of our existence will continue to dent our collective image with their cybercriminal acts. Until we do so, others will continue to look up to these criminals as role models and answers to the questions Nigeria fails to address.
Eleanya Ndukwe Jr. is a sociopolitical critic and graduate student of Political Science at California State University, Los Angeles majoring in Global Politics. He writes from Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @The_New_Mind
This opinion piece originally appeared in The Guardian.
On January 9, 1943, two days after Nikola Tesla died destitute in a New York City hotel, the FBI called MIT professor and esteemed electrical engineer, John G. Trump, to determine if any of the belongings in the inventor’s estate—which included a purported weapon of mass destruction Tesla called the death ray—would be dangerous if they fell into enemy hands.
After a three day investigation, Trump – in fact the late uncle of Donald J. Trump – determined there was no risk. (It turned out Tesla never actually made his death ray.) Still the mystery and exaggerated claims, along with the soaring success and failures associated with Tesla, an eccentric Serbian-American polymath futurist continue to be played out today on a scale that only he could have imagined.
That two high-profile electric vehicle companies, one named after the inventor’s last name, ‘Tesla,’ headed up by Elon Musk—very much an intellectual descendent of the inventor, and another ‘Nikola,’ after his first name, would both be creating huge waves and headlines—though for very different reasons—80 years later, seems to be beyond. Yet for those who’ve believed in the man and his vision, maybe it isn’t so surprising. It’s also the case that Tesla, brash and successful and Nikola, speculative and troubled both reflect facets of their namesake. (It’s perhaps poetic that Tesla’s Musk, sometimes spars with and sometimes emulates Professor Trump’s nephew, the President of the United States.)
In this Thursday, March 7, 2019 file photo, a shadow of Milica Kesler, curator and archivist is cast onto a poster of Nikola Tesla at the Nikola Tesla museum in Belgrade, Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Here’s a bit more on Nikola Tesla: A visionary who among countless other inventions and ideas helped develop and commercialize the AC or the alternating current electricity supply system, Tesla was a tall, reed-thin vegetarian who dined at Delmonico's restaurant nearly every night. Possessing an eidetic memory, Tesla was prone to fantastic claims and forever tapping Wall Street, including J.P. Morgan himself, for vast sums of money in part because of his lavish spending. (Trivia alert: Tesla was played by David Bowie in Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige,” while Ethan Hawke has the lead role in this year’s “Tesla.” Also see “The Current War.”) Tesla also battled powerful rivals (including Marconi and Edison) and endured a love/hate relationship with the press, who called some of his work a hoax.
Any of that sound familiar?
Let’s now flash forward to September of 2020. It would be an understatement to say that Tesla and Nikola, (the two EV companies that is) had a crazy week, yet in a way that’s pretty much normal for both of them.
Tesla is more than a car
Let’s start with Tesla’s week: The company was following a court case involving a Russian ransomware attack. It sued the U.S. government over Chinese import tariffs. And in a court document filed this week, Tesla accused Nikola of itself stealing a truck design, a filing it made in response “to a lawsuit in which Nikola alleges that Tesla stole Nikola's design of its electric truck— the Nikola One — for the Tesla Semi…” (Got that?) Oh and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he was banning gas powered cars in his state by 2035, which would certainly benefit Tesla (and Nikola.)
But all that was just a sideshow (if you can imagine) for Tesla’s main event, the company’s first “Battery Day,” where the company introduced a battery that it says has six times more power and five times more energy than its previous batteries. Musk also indicated that the company could produce an EV for some $25K in three years. (The fact btw, that Tesla can hold a Battery Day—capital B, capital D—speaks both the company’s incredible marketing machine and to the actual import of these batteries going forward.)
“From someone working in the battery research field for two decades, I give them an A+,” says Shirley Meng, a professor of energy technology at the University of California San Diego. “They are doing this incredible vertical integration so they can ensure cost and performance control, and also meet a sustainability goal. In the battery field there were so many claims based on dollar per watt hour, energy density, watt hour per kilogram. There was a lot of fatigue in terms of those claims. But when the Tesla team announced this kind of very holistic approach to look at this entire supply chain of the batteries, I think it’s very forward looking. I’m impressed.”
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk reveals a Tesla Energy battery for businesses and utility companies during an event in Hawthorne, California April 30, 2015. (REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon)
And yet the announcement underwhelmed Wall Street and Tesla’s share price fell some 10% (which happens with this volatile stock, and it has since recovered a bit.) But that drop produced agita and even outrage among Tesla’s sometimes maniacal customer base and Musk’s nearly 39 million Twitter followers.
In fact, one Tesla bull got into a kerfuffle this week with a Yahoo Finance reporter who was questioning some of Musk’s claims, causing the Tesla bull to Tweet his displeasure which prompted Musk to Tweet that “Yahoo Finance is as dumb as it sounds.”
Musk’s Twittering and his dust-ups with the media are predictable and Trump-like and I say unnecessary too, as they detract from his accomplishments and are beneath him. But maybe I’m old school. The fact is, (and it is a fact), Tesla is the real deal. If you’ve never driven a Tesla, you may not get it. These babies are super cool and more importantly really what cars will be. Tesla is more than a car though, its software and charging stations make it a network. Tesla is miles ahead of its competitors, EV or legacy car company. In just a few short years Musk has built a world-changing product and brand. He’s driving the vehicle business forward in a way no one else is, or has since maybe Henry Ford.
“First Tesla and electric vehicles were largely dismissed as a fad,” says Joseph Osha, an equity analyst at JMP. “After that, automotive manufacturers started saying ‘this is real but we’ll just do it.’ Expectations were that a big company — Ford, GM, Volkswagen —would show up and that would be the end of Tesla. What you saw — was a whole series of basically blown launches, from the Audi e-tron to Mercedes EQC to Jaguar I-PACE to numerous promises from GM. All of those cars were supposedly going to run right up against Tesla. Now you’re seeing a scramble because the original manufacturers dramatically underestimated how hard this is. It’s quite something. I’m curious about which one is going to make big company decisions to drop $5, $10, $15, $20 billion into catching up.”
Does Musk sometimes make outlandish claims and fall short? Sure, but I don’t think you can say this is all about fake-it-to-you-make-it. With apologies to Marty McFly and Jeff Bridges, Tesla—with a reported million plus EVs sold worldwide and 48,00 employees—is no DeLorean or Tucker.
The one giant question about Tesla, is its stock price, which has climbed by 10X this year. 10X! In other words, yes, Tesla is a revolutionary company, but is it worth $377 billion—more than Ford, GM, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota combined ($278 billion)?
It’s a sky-high valuation, but is it justified? Of course no one really knows.
Can Nikola make hydrogen work?
Let’s shift gears now, (actually an inappropriate cliche when talking about EVs) and delve into Nikola, which has a market cap of some $7 billion—though four months ago it was five times higher.
Have you not been following the Nikola saga? An EV truck company founded in Utah six years ago (the name must have driven Musk crazy), founded by one Trevor Milton, Nikola went public this June through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company—the Wall Street entity of the moment) run by former GM exec Steve Girsky. Nikola has a number of trucks in design phase, using battery-electric and hydrogen-electric fuel cells, but has yet to deliver any vehicles. Nonetheless Nikola’s stock soared this summer, powered at least in part by young, so-called Robinhood investors.
A mere two days later, Hindenburg Research, which “specializes in forensic financial research,” published a damning 67-page report, “Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America” stating that “we believe Nikola is an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton’s career.”
Nikola did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo Finance regarding the Hindenburg report but issued this statement on Sept. 14 (partial excerpt): “Nikola believes that the Hindenburg report, and the opportunistic timing of its publication shortly after announcement of Nikola's partnership with General Motors Co. and the resulting positive share price reaction, was designed to provide a false impression to investors and to negatively manipulate the market in order to financially benefit short sellers, including Hindenburg itself.”
Founder of U.S. Nikola Trevor Milton speaks during presentation of its new full-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell battery trucks in partnership with CNH Industrial, at an event in Turin, Italy, December 2, 2019. REUTERS/Massimo Pinca
“Having studied the Hindenburg report pretty closely, there’s nothing in there that points to Nikola’s ability or inability to execute on the plan. 90+ percent of the argument made is that the founder of Nikola has made untruthful statements or promised things that haven’t played out. And he resigned on the back of those,” says Emmanuel Rosner, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. “But if you go back to the arguments, there’s nothing in there that gives investors clarity on whether Nikola can make hydrogen work or not work. Nothing has changed from that point of view.”
That’s the company though. As for the man, Milton, who still owns 25% of the company worth some $2 billion, things could get worse. Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan reports that many of Milton’s hyped-up claims along with Hindenburg’s charges are “...likely at the heart of inquiries now undertaken by federal agencies tasked with deciding whether legal action against the short seller, Milton, or Nikola is warranted.”
But wait, Elon Musk has made claims that haven’t come true, right? “Overall no question in our mind that Elon has a track record of setting bold targets and [the new battery strategy] is certainly a bold target as it relates to improvement and cost reduction” says Rosner. “...even achieving a piece of it, let’s say there’s a smaller cost reduction, would still have enormous implications.”
So is that wrong to do?
Steve Jobs too made bold, sometimes outlandish promises. And by extension, so has Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. In fact, this has essentially been her defense, which is to say that forward-thinking entrepreneurs need to put out stretch goals and challenge conventional thinking. But somehow Milton and Holmes aren’t Musk and Jobs. Is it because the latter two were more successful? Or is it a question of degree? Certainly it’s a matter of intent.
So just what is a promise in business—and in politics too? Where do we draw the line between hyperbole and fraud?
Those are questions Nikola Tesla faced 100 years ago, and today, Nikola, Tesla and Donald Trump face them too.
This article was featured in a Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on September 26, 2020. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe
Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @serwer.
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