iexclusive News Nigeria reports that Italy may join other European countries in imposing a ban on passenger flights from Britain, the foreign minister said Sunday.

As the British government warned that a new more infectious strain of the virus was “out of control”.

“The United Kingdom has issued an alert concerning a new strain of Covid-19,” Luigi Di Maio wrote on his Facebook account.

“As the government, our duty is to protect Italians and for this reason… we will sign, with the health minister, a decree suspending flights to and from Britain,” he said, without specifying when the measure would come into effect.

According to the Sky TG-24 news channel, boarding of flights from Rome’s main Fiumicino airport had already been blocked.

In a health ministry statement issued on Sunday afternoon, Health Minister Roberto Speranza added that he had signed a decree “which blocks flights from Great Britain and prohibits entry into Italy of people who have stayed there during the last 14 days”.

Anyone already in Italy who recently travelled from Britain must be tested for coronavirus, the statement added.

“The variant of Covid recently discovered in London is worrying and will have to be further investigated by our scientists. In the meantime, we choose the path of greatest caution,” Speranza

Nigeria is also among the countries planning to ban all flights from UK due to the new deadly type of Covid-19

iexclusivenews

Insecurity has challenged Nigeria, her economic development and leadership like never seen in the recent history of the country apart from the civil war. In truth, everything seems to be on a standstill. Our leaders need help and a change of direction. 

Insecurity in Nigeria seems to have defied every plausible solution. The people are groaning under the yoke of anxiety, and there seems to be no listening ears nor solutions in the horizon. Hopelessness permeates the land, and everything seems to be failing.

About three weeks ago, about 110 Nigerians were said to have been killed by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno State. According to reports, the terrorists attacked farmers working in rice fields in the Garin Kwashebe village of the state. The assailants tied up the farmers  and slit the throats of the victims who were among labourers from Sokoto State that had travelled to neighbouring Borno State to find work. Slitting the throats is so demeaning  that it almost seems that the lives of victims are not even worth a bullet. An attempt at visualising the incident leaves one with a mental scar. 

The Kwashebe killings were the latest in an orgy of killings that have engulfed the North Eastern part of Nigeria in recent times. Boko Haram and its splinter faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have continued to attack civilians, humanitarian, and military targets this year, reportedly killing at least 363 civilians between January and September. It is increasingly difficult to protect civilians, even in government-controlled areas. In June, three rocket-propelled explosives fired from outside Maiduguri killed four and injured three others in the city, an area previously considered relatively safe due to heavy army presence.

As the country was still reeling from the shock of the Kwashebe slaughter came the news that more than 300 schoolboys were kidnapped after attackers on motorcycles stormed the all-boys Government Science School in Kankara, Katsina State. The hoodlums engaged security forces in a fierce gun battle, forcing hundreds of students to flee and hide in the surrounding forest.

Days later, with the boys still missing, a video said to be from Boko Haram was released, showing some of the abducted students. In the video, filmed in a forest, gunmen with their faces covered stand guard over boys, some of whom look no older than 10.

One  child issued  demand on behalf of the group, under duress. Nigeria and Nigerians are in fear. Some people started hashtag #BringBackOurBoys on social media, which brings back the sad memories of #BringBackOurGirls hashtag created over the abduction of 276 female students from a secondary school in the town of Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram terrorists on the night of 14–15 April 2014. Up to date, about 112 of those girls are still missing.

It is instructive that if the claims of responsibility for the kidnapping of the schoolboys by Boko Haram turned out to be accurate, it would be the first time that such kind of mass abduction would take place outside the North-Eastern part of the country. It would mean that Boko Haram has finally expanded the frontiers of their terror, meaning that no part of the country could be considered safe from the bloodthirsty group.

It was with an enormous sense of relief that most Nigerians welcomed the safe release of the kidnapped boys last Thursday. Also, heart-warming is the assertion by security agencies that Boko Haram terrorists were not involved in the kidnap, that they only capitalised on the ugly circumstances to promote their propaganda of terror. 

Whatever it is that happened in Kankara, the reality is that the country is in the throes of acute insecurity. National security is the foundation for a country’s economic growth and development. It is only in an atmosphere of peace that any meaningful economic development can take place, and foreign investors can be attracted. 

Additionally, the security of lives and properties helps local investors freely operate the economy in an atmosphere devoid of tensions and apprehensions. The summary is that safety is the pillar upon which every meaningful development is achieved and sustained. 

The country has witnessed grave security challenges in recent times in the form of armed robbery, militancy, kidnapping, abduction and bombings. Since the terrorist group, Boko Haram came on the scene in 2002, the insecurity situation in Nigeria seemed to have assumed higher and more complex dimension. Apart from the frequency and intensity of deadly attacks and carnages, insecurity situation in Nigeria cuts across cities, towns and villages that there is hardly anywhere to run to for cover. Lives and properties are not safe for urban dwellers as well as for the rural dwellers. People live in grave fear and apprehension almost every day. 

One of the causes of insecurity in Nigeria is poverty. There is a direct link between the level of poverty and crime and insecurity in every society because the more people are unable to find something to eat, there is a great tendency that they would resort to crime and criminality, leading to security challenges. Then there is corruption. It breeds inequality and disenchantment, and it usually threatens the security and wellbeing of the populace. Other societal malaise like electoral fraud, illiteracy and unemployment all contribute to the porous security situation we have in our country today.

It is a known fact that insecurity is a worldwide phenomenon. Different countries of the world have different kinds of security challenges. The problem with Nigeria, however, is that we do not have effective means of tackling our security challenges. People are being abducted, maimed and killed every day and the populace is burdened on a daily basis with psychological and emotional trauma resulting from gory sights of lifeless and mutilated bodies of loved family members, close associates and colleagues caught in the web of acute insecurity. This kind of situation makes it difficult for the economy to thrive. It is evident that there is a relationship between insecurity on the one hand and economic and social malaise on the other. 

One of the responsibilities of government is the provision of security for the citizenry, which means freedom from danger of threats to public safety. It also means the ability of the state to protect and promote its cherished values and legitimate interests and enhancement of the wellbeing of its people. The populace should be protected from both internal and external aggression. Currently, the country does not face any credible foreign threat of invasion, so our problem is majorly internal security.

When the government provides security for her citizenry, there exists and persists freedom from or the absence of those tendencies which could undermine internal cohesion and the corporate existence of the nation and its ability to maintain its vital institutions for the promotion of its core values and socio-political and economic objectives as well as meet the legitimate aspirations of the citizenry. It implies freedom from danger to life and property and the presence of conducive atmosphere for the people to pursue fair means of livelihood. 

In essence, internal security suggests freedom from threats and the ability of the government to create and sustain an atmosphere conducive for the pursuit of economic interest by the population without interruptions from anybody. And in the event of a threat, it includes the ability of the government to quickly intervene to minimise the impact on the citizenry. Furthermore, it also provides for the capacity of the government to create and maintain agencies and mechanisms as well as institutions that would guarantee freedom from danger. Therefore, the threat to life and property be it from the armed robbers, Boko Haram attack, civil disturbances, roadblocks that endangered the road users and other distractions are symptomatic of lack of internal security.

There have been strident calls for President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the service chiefs, who in the view of many Nigerians have grossly underperformed. Most Nigerians believe that the security situation of the country has grossly deteriorated under the watch of the current security heads and the first step towards addressing the country’s poor security situation is to show those at the head of security agencies the back door.

Though in times of institutional failures, someone or some people need to take political responsibility and pay the political price, it is wishful thinking to believe that our security challenges would suddenly disappear with the exit of the service chiefs. Nigerians must collectively come together and jointly find a solution to these challenging security situation that has put all of us on edge. Government has a role to play in facilitating this national engagement . It is time to forget politics, ethnic divides, and ideological and religious grandstanding to seek solutions to this scourge that has held us captive. 

Nigeria needs exceptional leadership at this point. Leadership during quiet and prosperous times is essential, but it does not bring out the best in us. It is at a time of national crisis like the one we have at hand that exceptional leadership stands out. It is at such a time that you will know leaders that have three of the essential qualities of true leaders – ability to listen and understand the pains of the people you lead, empathy and willingness to accept that you do not have all the answers. 

In our country today, these qualities seem to be lacking or have evaporated. If leaders at all levels are listening, they would have heard the loud groaning of Nigerians. The economy is failing them, insecurity is threatening them, and hope is evaporating. Most Nigerians feel their government is insensitive to their pains.

A lot of goodwill has been lost, but there is still time for our leaders to take a holistic view of the current situation and come out with solutions to address the urgent security needs of Nigerians. Failure to do this would only drive the country deeper into social, economic, and political  ruin and may take the country towards an irreversible path of disintegration.

strength and courage are deserting us. 

sundiatapost

Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Saturday, December 19, 2020 received an award from Interpol’s National Central Bureau, NCB, for her contributions in combating crime and criminality in Nigeria.

The Commissioner of Police in charge of NCB, Garba Baba Umar, in his speech commended the EFCC for being a strong partner in tackling transnational organized crime, adding that the EFCC has made the job of Interpol easy though exchange of intelligence and joint operations.

This was contained in a statement released via twitter handle of the anti-crime agency.

He said the partnership has helped in protecting the interest of the country against criminals and fugitives.

Receiving the award on behalf of the Acting Chairman of the Commission, Mohammed Umar Abba, the Director of Operations, Umar Mohammed Hadejia, thanked Interpol for recognizing the efforts of the Commission and assured of closer collaboration in achieving set set objectives of fighting corruption and securing the country against the threats of illicit financial flows, violent extremism and other acts of criminality.

The event which took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja had in attendance stakeholders from paramilitary establishments, the military, international organizations, and the diplomatic corps.

sundiatapost

Dear reader, do you know that the appellation of President Muhammadu Buhari who marked his 78th birthday on 17 December 2020 was “Leko” in Katsina Middle School? In the article you are about to read, you will discover how he got his stern character traits. You will also read the contribution of his old teacher, Mallam Baraya Gombe, in instilling discipline in him, a virtue complemented by Buhari’s military profession, reflecting in his spartan life style.

It is a 1993 preface to a cover interview, entitled:

The Spartan’s Limit

By Dapo Olorunyomi

One sunny afternoon in 1953, first year pupils of Katsina Middle School were sweating it out in an arithmetic class. Mallam Baraya Gombe, the teacher who doubles as headmaster was prowling the narrow passage between the blackboard and the class, his hulky frame casting a frightening shadow on the class.

One of his pupils was missing and Gombe, without prompting knew who that  could be: Leko, the truant was at it again. Suddenly, as the teacher was trenchantly stressing his point, a tall, skinny, gangling frame burst into the class, his face plastered with smiles. Gombe was mad with rage.  Who was this lousy fellow, late to class, still grinning, still naughty? He thought. He reached out for Leko, the famous hockey player, soccer centre-forward and the school’s 800 metre record holder who had never hidden his disdain for school and delivered a horrendous slap on his face.

The 1993 cover preface page

Muhammadu Buhari, Leko for style, in later years an army general and former Nigerian Head of State, learnt his first lesson in discipline, order and rules. This too, was probably the water-shed in his life. Buhari grew up never to forget that encounter. Born 17 December 1942 to a Fulani father, Ardo Adamu (who died when he was four), and a Hausa mother Hajia Zulaihatu Musa, in Daura (present day Katsina State), he grew under the care of a firm uncle and a strict Islamic ethics of frugality and Spartan sensibility.

With this background of strict, austere propositions, Buhari , when it became necessary to choose a career saw the army as a logical platform “I was impressed with the discipline in the military,” he told TheNews in a rare interview at his Haliru Dantoro Street home in Kaduna.

His classmate, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (now a retired Major General) remembered him as “reserved” one of the few boys trusted by his classmates…quite dependable”. Muhtari Zango, another classmate, recalled. “He was principled (who) always stood his ground and did not follow the crowd”. Buhari, today, is a continuity of his past.

As a stage actor, he would make a woeful failure, lacking in that dramatic, showy exteriorization so necessary in the theatre, a gift that probably unites a dissimilar nature like Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida. In strict typology then, Buhari is closer to Danjuma without the stern look and barking reception of the latter.

Yet this was the same Buhari, when as a student at Mons Cadet School in Aldershot took time off traveling to Famborough, to learn ballroom dancing – perhaps the most theatrical of all social engagements! It is doubtful if Buhari ever danced again after the course. These conflicting layers of articulations, represent an essential component of his character. So genial and reserved yet opting for the rough life of the military; so successful in many departments of life yet so humble, even so self-effacing as to deny the screaming validity of his achievements. Then the most profound of all; so selflessly patriotic yet so easily lacking in the subtleties that provide effective mediation between goals and methods.

The Buhari interview cover

That Buhari made a distinguished and brilliant military officer – one of the very best in the history of the Nigerian Army – is a sufficient testimony that the realm of the civil society is fundamentally at tangent with that of the military
Here was the man, perhaps the only officer yet, that commanded three of all the four divisions of the Nigerian Army and served as Adjutant General in t he fourth; the same man who in the Nigerian civil war was so distinguished that his divisional commander, General Martins Adamu, described him as a “first class officer, resourceful, very brave, but very calm, even under pressure….of first class discipline, integrity and competence,”

Here was Buhari who tore through the impudent bragaddocio of Hissene Habre’s forces in April 1983 and beat the invading Chadians into a hurried and shame-faced retreat. Ironically, this was the same Buhari, in a different context of presidency who sets up a profoundly patriotic economic programme that promoted counter trade, commercialization (as against privatization), backward integration in industries, strict validation of debts, control of debt servicing and a principled opposition to the IMF. His undoing is that he failed to carry the people along. There is a sense therefore in which the present nauseating weariness of the civil society could be attributed  to the exhaustion from the battle against the Buhari regime.

The moral again here is that soldiers are soldiers. For a regime that interpreted its mission in the mode of social and moral laundry, racking off the muck of civilians, it is not strange to hear Buhari tell a biographyer in 1984 that “military rule in Nigeria has come to be a necessity because civilians easily become hostage to interests that do not go hand-in-hand with national interest.”  Commenting on how to prevent new crops of politicians from messing up the nation again, Buhari insists on “stricter supervision of political funds, both party and personal.” If these are no indices of a veiled consciousness, they help advertise the philosophical foundation of that leadership which was at once patrioci and screamingly empiricist.

It is against this background then that the regime’s obsession with order, discipline and rules could be understood. An obsession so deep that the nation dissolved into one huge formal category as if all its contradictions could be resolved from a purely ethnical frame-work. Within this canvas, too, a valorization of the military ethics became an inescapable dilemma; a dilemma, however, that eight years of post-Buhari military adventurism has combusted for what it really stands for.

If the Buhari regime held the civilian culpable for ruining the economy and laying the foundation for vulgarising basic  ethics like honour, hard work, patriotism, and merit, and if the regime proceeded to tackle, not that elite alone but insisted on a contest with the popular spectrum of the society, (students, labour, lawyers, professionals etc) we are once more reminded that empiricism is the slaughter slab of unearthed dreams and visions especially when we fail to historicize our mandates and chosen platform.

The coup that brought Buhari’s government to power surely put the survival of other nation-states on the agenda. But as an act of regicide it also posed the problem of sustaining democracy. Thus by insisting to isolate a possible anarchy, the coupists substituted military “salvation” for a creaking democracy. Salvation, as it is now well known, is the pivot of the custodian theory that agitpropists of military rule are too eager to flaunt. Again, the most devastating salvo to this opportunistic theory is eight years of Post-Buhari social engineering.

For all its promise, and noble intentions, it is a great pity that the analysis and criticism of the Buhari regime must rest on its ethical imperative. Its political programmes was undeveloped before its extinction and its economic programmes were just taking shape.

As far as this ethical imperative was formulated, therefore, the regime must best be characterized in the mode of the rule-deontologists; the school of ethics which insists that what is good is what the rule says. Sadly our collective history of about a decade now has taught us otherwise, that there are moments when what is good represents the property of an act by enthroning, in a most pre-eminent manner, the fetish of rules, the regime displaced the objectivity of some acts which are noble, but go against the rules. Would it be right for a Jew to attempt murder on Hitler? Would it be right to commit a traffic offence in order to save a dying child? Should one overthrow a sclerotic regime to save his nation?

By insisting on the Prussian preference for rules, order, discipline, accountability as ends  in themselves, a regime which could well have gone down as perhaps the most patriotic, honest and sincere in Nigeria’s history blew up a historic opportunity under the tension of goals and methods.
The grand irony lingers for a regime that tirelessly sought to relate the acceptance of rules, order, discipline, and accountability to socio-political stability. It was more than a sardonic humor that the activities of fifth columnists, and an international alliance and local reaction were to play a decisive role in the collapse of his regime. This was the limit of excessive formalism and idealism, the terminus of patriotic empiricism.

thenewsnigeria

Two men have been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for reportedly robbing in traffic on Otedola bridge.

Police said they were nabbed by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) on Friday in Oko-Koto, Agege.

The suspects, who were described as suspected members of Awawa cult, were arrested, hours after a traffic robbery around Otedola Bridge on Lagos–Ibadan Expressway was foiled.

The suspects, 22-year-old Rasak Babatunde, a mechanic and 16-year-old Idowu Wasiu, a tailor, were arrested at their hideout.

A statement by the Lagos State Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, on Sunday, said the Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Odumosu, has ordered a raid on the suspected hideouts and black spots across the state, particularly in Agege and its environs.

Adejobi mentioned that some of the areas raided included Isokoko, Oke-Koto, Abattoir, Dopemu, Elere, Oniwaya and Pen Cinema, all in Agege.

It was said that a team of the RSS led by CSP Yinka Egbeyemi, foiled the traffic robbery on Friday.

Newspot learnt that the team ran into the suspected armed robbers around 11:00pm at Otedola bridge, inward Ojota.

The Lagos police spokesman said the armed robbers hurriedly fled the scene, abandoning their motorcycle which was marked, NND 268 WZ.

They were also said to have left behind a toy gun and some dangerous weapons.

The Lagos Commissioner of Police has now ordered an investigation of the suspects.

newspotng

By Sesugh Akume

After years of outcries and calls for the notorious Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) to be scrapped, with the rogue outfit purportedly shut down for the fourth time this year, a final showdown weeks ago brought matters to ahead leading to the fatalities of scores with the murder of unarmed, organised, civil protesters at the Lekki tollgate on 20 October 2020.

SARS (which is still lowkey operational, not entirely scrapped as claimed) is a metaphor for Nigeria’s dysfunction characterised by bad governance, gross impunity and lawlessness, unprofessionalism and incompetence, unbridled corruption, low IQ and mental retardation, and everything one would never expect of a police unit, much less the policing system of any real country. Sadly, this is what the court system in Nigeria is, save for the physical murder, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, extortion at gun point, etc. But in effect, it is actually the same, if not worse.

The Nigerian court system is slow, archaic, and certainly not designed or intended for the everyday Nigerian. It is more a court of law than a court of justice.

It is expensive and not accessible. Aside from having to pay for the services of lawyers, everything else is paid for, both for legitimate and under-the-table payments, even for things ordered by the court itself. The other day, at the Federal High Court, Abuja after a matter was adjourned and the court ordered for a hearing notice to be served to the other parties notify them of the new date, demands were made both to get the hearing notice and to ‘mobilise’ the bailiff to serve it. Asking for money for a hearing notice to be issued (forms already provided, all the officials do is to fill them) was a new low.

This is an insensitive, insular system where court registrars would not deign to send simple 4 naira text messages to reschedule court sittings. Lawyers (senior advocates inclusive) travel all the way, including from out of town (along with the associated costs) only to be told that the court wouldn’t be sitting! Changes in plan that are usually not emergencies or impromptu but known well ahead.

There are all manner of dirty extortionary practices one would least expect from a Temple of Justice. The officials there don’think so. The court is to them just like any other place hustlers use as their grounds to earn a buck. They see nothing sacred about it. It’s normal. A complaint I wrote to the chief registrar of the Federal High Court on corrupt practices I witnessed at the Federal High Court Makurdi, which are in clear breach of what the court itself has made public, since 7 October, hasn’t as much as been acknowledged. I wrote again in reminder and to complain about it a month later, nothing came of it. If my hands weren’t full at this time, the impunity of the chief registrar, Emmanuel Gakko, would have been addressed. But it’s never too late.

I was shocked to a stupour when confronted with the reality at close range, of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the highest court in the land, which has absolutely no regard for the laws of the land. I made a Freedom of Information (FOI) application to know the status of Martins Alo v Speaker, Ondo House of Assembly, filed since 2018, and got no response at all, whereas the law says it must answered in 3 days or at worst 7 days. Two weeks later I wrote a reminder/complaint letter, again to no avail, eliciting may lawsuit against the Supreme Court and the chief registrar, Hadizatu

Mustapha (FHC/ABJ/CS/1161/2020). No lessons were learnt when I again, made an FOI request on the status of Andrew Osakue v EDOCASA, also filed since 2018, leading to a second lawsuit (FHC/ABJ/CS/1491/2020).

Both are landmark cases challenging the impunity of subnational (state and local) governments denying the people access to public records of their own government. These have not been attended to since 2018, but elitist cases commenced at the lower courts began a year later have gone all the way to the Supreme Court and determined. What does it says about the system?

When I eventually got the replies all I could do was shake my head. The Court there is no uniform standard for referencing its letters, the dispatch date on one of them is a wrong one, they even start sentences with small letters, and others blunders too embarrassing to say. And this is supposed to be the highest court in the land!

Space limits me from going into the practice and conduct of judges that rather tend to hamper the course of justice. Or the system’s deliberate resistance to adopting technology to ease the work and make it more efficient, therefore more timely (as justice delayed is justice denied). Or the seeming disposition of judges waiting for government lawyers to say any foolish thing at all so that they would rule in their favour.

There are institutions set up to regulate society and make it liveable for us all. Leading this category, in my view, is the court system. It is intended to be the last hope of the ‘common man’, but in Nigeria it isn’t so in practical terms. Social media seems the last hope of the everyday citizen. In fact, I’ve seen where the police took to Twitter to report the army! Government officials and agencies have been on each other’s necks repeatedly on social media. It appears social media isn’t the last resort of the everyday person alone. It shouldn’t be so. This dysfunction won’t last forever. Something must eventually give.

Like Omoyele Sowore or not, like #RevolutionNow or not, it will come. The question is how do we prefer it? In 1962, John F. Kennedy, the 35th US president, famously said, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ It’s either the court system and entire law enforcement and justice system reforms itself into a decent sector that offers equity, justice, and fairness; real value and timely, or continues being rogue. When the consequences come some day, and they will, none of us will like the outcome.

(CNN)Walter Forbes was a young college student in 1982 when he stepped between two groups fighting outside a bar in his small Michigan town.

One of the men, Dennis Hall, retaliated the next day, shooting Forbes four times. Soon afterward, Hall died in an apparent arson fire, and Forbes was sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to court documents.

Now, in a complex story first reported by the Detroit Free Press, Forbes has walked free after a key witness recanted her testimony.

Sole witness
While on bail for the shooting, Hall died in a fire at his apartment in Jackson. His fiancee was able to escape with their young daughter.

Fire investigators found a blue gasoline container at the scene and evidence of accelerants inside the building’s first floor, according to court documents.

Forbes said he learned of Hall’s death while listening to a morning radio program.

“Some way they’re going to try to frame this on me,” Forbes told CNN. “That thought went through my mind.”

Three months after the fire, a young mother came forward.

Annice Kennebrew said she had seen Forbes and two other men carrying red gasoline canisters near the building during the time of the fire and saw them pour gasoline around it, according to court documents.

Kennebrew’s account differed from what fire investigators found. While she described gasoline being poured on the exterior of the building, investigators found charring and evidence of accelerants only on the inside.

One container that smelled of gasoline was found at the scene. It was blue, not red, according to court documents.

One of the accused men passed a polygraph test, and the charges against him were dismissed. A second was acquitted. Only Forbes was convicted.

Twin fires
The jury heard only part of another set of evidence, about another person who stood to gain from the fire.

An anonymous tipster called police four days after the fire, pinning the responsibility on the building’s owner.

The tip was deemed inadmissible at the time, according to Forbes’ current lawyer, Imran Syed.

David Jones, who had owned the building for eight years, got it insured two months before the fire, according to fire investigator notes summarized by the defense.

Jones died some time before the Michigan Innocence Clinic took up Forbes’ case, according to Syed.

At trial, Jones testified that the property’s maximum resale value was $35,000. Insurance paid out $50,200, according to court documents.

After Forbes was convicted, a witness came forward, informing the local fire investigator that an acquaintance had admitted setting the fire for Jones in exchange for $1,000, according to court documents.

It was unclear whether authorities followed up on the information.

In 1990, Jones pleaded no contest in an arson insurance fraud scheme in nearby Livingston County.

During the investigation, one conspirator mentioned Jones was involved in a 1982 fire in Jackson, according to court documents.

While in prison, Forbes said he was thumbing through a newspaper when he saw an article about the case. He said he felt relieved when he saw how similar the arson cases were.

“It was a pattern with this guy,” Forbes told CNN.

A witness recants
Forbes reached out to the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which started looking into his case in 2010.

The clinic, run by lawyers and students at the University of Michigan, was struck by the use of a single witness to convict a man for murder.

“We knew there were two things we wanted: to speak to the witness and see what her story was. We also knew there had been an alternate suspect from the beginning in this case,” Syed said.

Syed and his team began reaching out to Kennebrew, trying to understand what exactly she had seen. Finally, sick with a respiratory illness, she invited them to a friend’s house in Jackson in 2017.

“She came clean,” Syed said. “She said that at the time of the fire she was 19, and there were two men in the community that took advantage of that.”

Weeks after the fire, two local men approached her and pressured her to implicate Forbes and two other men in the arson.

“They threatened to kill my children, parents, siblings, and me if I did not report to the police and testify at trial that I saw Walter and the other two men set the fire,” Kennebrew said in a sworn 2017 affidavit.

“Everything I told police, and everything I testified to at trial relating to my witnessing the setting of the fire, was a fabrication,” the affidavit continued. “As far as I know, Walter had nothing to do with this crime.”

Kennebrew was hesitant to speak about her testimony when reached by CNN. When asked whether she was pressured before her initial testimony, she said, “It was hard. I was a kid.”

She said she recanted “because it was the right thing to do.”

Kennebrew, Forbes and Syed said it was unclear why the two men pressured her to accuse the trio. Forbes said they may have been feuding with his brother, but he was unsure of the exact reason.

The Jackson County Circuit Court judge heard the case remotely in May and June.

The clinic argued Forbes was owed a new trial based on Kennebrew’s recantation and Jones’ 1990 conviction.

“Nothing’s impossible, but if you got no proof, you can’t sustain a conviction,” Syed said.

After reinvestigating the case, the Jackson County prosecutor’s office chose to oppose the Michigan Innocence Clinic’s motion for relief from judgment.

In its reply to the clinic’s brief, the county prosecutor argued that Forbes had to “show ‘more probable than not’ that the jury would acquit” were he to be given a new trial.

Lawyer: ‘Sad’ it took 38 years
The prosecutor’s filing also argued that inconsistencies in Kennebrew’s original testimony were insignificant, and she could have “easily” been confused about colors while the rest of her account was sound.

Prosecutors also questioned why the two men would have pressured Kennebrew to testify in the first place. Both men have since died, according to court documents.

The Jackson County prosecuting attorney did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

The judge threw out Forbes’ conviction this fall, and the county prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss the case.

Forbes walked free November 20. He said he hopes to continue the work he began in prison with prison reform groups. Being released, he said, has been like seeing a “vision unfold.”

Syed became aware of Forbes’ case when he was a law student at the University of Michigan, working at the clinic, and has worked on the case throughout his first decade as a lawyer.

“It’s not that complicated. It’s not a DNA case. It’s not a forensic science case. It’s pretty straightforward,” Syed said. “It’s pretty sad that it took 38 years.”

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Australia canceled an order for 51 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by CSL Ltd. and the University of Queensland after trials ran into difficulties.

The government said Friday it’s replacing most of the CSL doses with more purchases of other planned vaccines. Australia has ordered an extra 20 million shots being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc, and 11 million more Novavax Inc. doses, the government said.KEEP READINGWHO against mandatory coronavirus vaccines: Latest updatesUS FDA researchers back Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine dataCoronavirus vaccine trial halted after participant gets sickCoronavirus vaccine: How will poorer countries get a fair shot?

The CSL failure shows that despite the groundbreaking progress by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. in producing an inoculation, the path to a successful vaccine remains difficult. Australia’s government had already sought to spread that risk by ordering shots from Pfizer and BioNTech SE, Novavax and AstraZeneca.

Even without CSL’s doses, more than 140 million units of vaccines will be available in Australia, Health Minister Greg Hunt said. The country is home to about 26 million people. “This is one of the highest ratios of vaccine purchases and availability to population in the world,” Hunt said. “So we’re in a strong position.”

CSL said it would not progress to phase 2/3 clinical trials. It said a small component of the vaccine comes from the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and while that posed no risk of infection, some trial participants had false positive tests for HIV.

The potential for this to happen was anticipated before the trial, and participants had been pre-warned, CSL said.

CSL Won’t Progress Covid Vaccine Candidate to Phase 2/3 Trials

“It is generally agreed that significant changes would need to be made to well-established HIV testing procedures in the health-care setting to accommodate rollout of this vaccine,” the company said.

CSL shares fell 3.2 percent to Australian $291.78 at 12:37 p.m. in Sydney. The stock is up almost 6 percent this year.

Vaccines are proving key to reopening the world economy nine months into the worst pandemic in a generation. The UK and US have approved the Pfizer shot, and other countries are scrambling to secure deals and authorize vaccines for public use.

For Australia, yet to sign off on any shot, a widely distributed inoculation would allow the country to ease some of the most restrictive border curbs in the world.

aljazeera