Yesterday, it was reported that Lupita Nyong’o spoke at the Essence Magazine’s 7th Annual Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon about the beauty of dark skin, and the fact that her success is greatly due to her skin color. She used her speech to advise dark skin women to be proud of their skin and not to think success cannot come their way simply because they are black.
In
the speech, Lupita Nyong’o at a point said;
I
want to take this opportunity to talk about beauty, Black beauty, dark beauty.
I received a letter from a girl and I’d like to share just a small part of it
with you: “Dear Lupita,” it reads, “I think you’re really lucky to be this
Black but yet this successful in Hollywood overnight. I was just about to buy
Dencia’s Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin when you appeared on the world
map and saved me.”
However,
Dencia felt bad about Lupitan’s comment that she replied her saying,
“&
oh @Lupita_Nyongo cln't talk abt the bleaching creams white people (Companies)
make cuz the white man pays her,they own her!! And oh while u claim she isn't
thinking of me,I'm on Her brain 4 her 2 mention me in a speech she shld have
thanked u stupid fools.
“Somehow
somehow, that Lupita Nyong'o interview just made more money for Dencia's
Whitenicious. U go girl!”
l for car vandalisation.
After Samiu Akande was released on
bail by the Police in Ogun State, he jumped bail by escaping to Lagos. With no
feasible means of livelihood in Lagos, he enlisted as a commercial bus
conductor with a bus owner at Iyana-Ipaja garage. He also made the same park
his home, where he retired to sleep at night.
He continued this until one
night, when he ran into a member of a notorious armed robbery gang, who operate
in Iyana-Ipaja and environs. It is this new friend that introduced Samiu into
full time armed robbery but, “I later graduated into a bank robber and finally
an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) hacking expert.”
Even though he is now late, Samiu
Akande could best be described as a gifted armed robber. He was not lettered
yet had computer and target skills that are shocking. Here is how he acquired
his computer skills. “One day I went to a bank (name withheld) to withdraw some
money and I ran into one of the bank staff, and with time we became friends. It
is the bank staff that taught me some of the basic skills in computer. Every
other thing about hacking and ‘skimming’ of customer’s ATM card, I developed
them myself.”
Akande who died penultimate week
described how to hack an ATM. According to him, “I would install card skimmers
and small cameras on ATMs around my neighbourhood, these devices would collect
customer bank card information each time someone makes use of the machine, and
later I would supply the information to my insider in that particular bank, who
would in return supply me with details of monies in the customer’s
account, then I would start withdrawing money from the customer’s accounts. He
said the devices would also disable the affected customer’s SMS alert on
transaction on their account from activating.”
But Samiu later graduated from hacking
of ATM to robbing the machines in every part of the country. Before he was
gunned down by the Police in Ikeja area of Lagos, where he and his gang members
went on unsuccessful ATM robbery operation, Samiu Akande and his gang have
successfully pulled down and robbed 43 ATMs across the country.
A retired First Bank of Nigeria Plc
senior manager, Francis Nwachukwu, now a lecturer at the University of Lagos,
told Political Economist that most bankers does all manner of shady deals with
their customer’s account.
He added that apart from squealing
vital information about customer’s account to criminals, bankers partner with
criminals to steal from their employers.
He added that, the situation is at
present precarious and has drifted from bad to worse. “How do you describe a
banker who feed in counterfeit currency into ATM for customers or who give
robbers the home address of a customer who has just made large withdrawal for
the hoodlums to go and clean up the customer.”
Investigation revealed that physical
attacks, ram-raids or smash and grab burglary of ATMs are some of the ways of
robbing the machine. But one of the most common is through physical attacks,
which attempt to gain access to the safe or vault inside the ATM through
mechanical or thermal means.
Typical entry methods include
caulking shut every opening on the machine and using explosive devices to blow
open the safe to expose the cash cassettes or the use of high speed grinders,
construction saws, pry bars and torches to cut away the outside security lock
to gain access to the inside of the ATM without setting off the alarm.
Regardless of the tactic, the ultimate goal is to penetrate the ATM on location
and open the safe door, or make an opening in the safe sufficiently large
enough to quickly remove cash.
All the above, Samiu Akande said he
has undertook with the aid of his banker friends, who serve as informants to
him. “My friends who work in these banks would inform me whenever large sum of
money has been stored in the machine. This is to guide us, because in every
operation he gets 30 per cent and we have 70 per cent. So, the larger the
amount in machine, the better for all of us.”
Those familiar with ATMs told our
reporter that depending on the size, a fully loaded ATM can hold from
N11million to N15 million.
Political Economist checks revealed
that Samiu Akande’s ATM robbery operation successes while it lasted were
basically due to so many factors including lack of collaboration between all
sectors in the ATM Life Cycle and Law Enforcement. In the United Kingdom
(UK) for instance, a police operation known as Operation ARTIC, which involved
the provision of intelligence, ATM expertise and crime prevention advice from
ATM deployers, the post office, ATM Security Working Group, British Bankers Association,
and Building Society Association is employed to check activities of people like
Samiu Akande.
However, the Commissioner of Police
(CP) Lagos State, Umar Manko, said his operatives have investigated related
cases. “Out of 10 ATM or bank robbery cases we have investigated, five must end
up being insiders’ job.”
He added that the problem is that the
bank’s management would never allow the prosecution of staff concerned. “All
they would do is plead that the affected staff has been dismissed and that the
image of the bank was at stake.”
Manko said his operatives at the
State Criminal Investigative Department (SCID) Panti, Yaba in Lagos were
currently handling five of such cases. He vowed that he might charge the
affected bank staff to court, even though there are pleas for them to be
spared.
Today in Nigeria, there is no
evidence of collaborative policy harmonisation towards ATM deployment. Although
the Central Bank of Nigeria has implemented the E-Banking guidelines, with a
section on ATM security requirements, and the Inspector General of Police (IGP)
Muhammed Abubakar, has announced a requirement for armored Bullion Vans, there
is little indication of an overall ATM deployment policy harmonisation and
safety yet in the country.
Series of ATM robberies across the
country could be tied to some of the above factors. The issue of insider
collaboration, the issue of poor security in and around the ATM deployment, the
problem of general insecurity in the country and perhaps finally, the problem
of personal security among ATM users in the country contribute majorly to ATM
robbery.
Analysts believe
that with constant armed robbery attacks on ATM, the government cashless policy
might as well be heading to a fiasco. Similarly, as the deployment of
burglary-proof security doors at banks these days has made raw bank raiding
risky to armed robbers, the plan “B” of the criminal elements, beside
cybercrime, seems to be that of breaking of ATM and carting away money stacked
in such machines.

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