This is not the first time the singing
duo had a conflict that threatened to separate them but somehow they had
managed to resolved things. Now it seems there is no going back on this
declaration of separation.
Lola who is married to one half of the singing duo, Peter, has
somehow always managed to be dragged into whatever fight P-Square is
having. Fans of the music group and Nigerians in general never hesitate
to brandish their weapons and point accusing fingers at the mother of
two whenever the family feuds.
Peter and Paul Okoye
Peter Okoye has made several complaints about his twin Paul and their
older brother Jude, who happens to be the manager of P Square. Peter
accused Paul of being uncooperative and ruining their plans for a
musical tour in the US. In addition, Peter said Paul was guilty of
slander against his wife and children. Possible further causes of the
split could be the fact that Peter had a lot to say about his older
brother Jude, who allegedly threatened Peter Okoye with murder. Peter
added that Jude also threatened to shoot his wife, Lola, with a pistol.
Social media was then set into disarray after Peter posted a Snapchat
video revealing that he is in Philadelphia on his own for a solo
performance – without his twin brother, Paul. “My name is Mr P,” Peter
said “As from today, guess what? It’s show time, I’m about to go on
stage.”
This post came days after his brother, Paul wrote on Instagram
saying; “Only a woman can come where there’s peace and destroy it”. and
trust Nigerians to take this with a pinch of salt, by all means,
blaming Lola.
We can only wish the once duo success as they decide to take on solo careers.
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja, Seye Ojo, Ibadan and Romanus Ugwu
President Muhammadu Buhari would decide the fate of the suspended
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal and
the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke,
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said yesterday.
Lawal and Oke were suspended on April 19 following and a three-man
committee which included the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr.
Abubakar Malami and National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno
(retd) raised to investigate them.
Prof. Osinbajo, who spoke to journalists after he presented the report
to the president, decline to revealthe content. He insisted that the
president would study it make his decisions known at a yet to be
determined date.
“Of course not. I mean this is a report, which contains recommendations
to the president. It is a fact finding committee as you know and what
our terms of reference were was to find out, based on the fact available
to us and based on the interviews of witnesses of what transpired in
those cases of the report, one involving the SGF and the other the DG of
NIA. We have now concluded and we submitted a full report with
recommendations to the president. We cannot, of course, give you any
kind of details because the president has to look at the report, study
it and then make his own decisions based on that report.”
Buhari was originally scheduled to receive the report on May 8, but had
to leave travel on May 7 after he received the 104 released Chibok
secondary school girls, for medical consultations with his doctors in
London. He returned last Saturday after 103 days.
Asked if Nigerians should expect a fair report despite the fact that the
suspended SGF is a friend of the president, the vice president replied:
“Well, as you can imagine, we are always fair-minded and the whole
approach is to ensure that justice is done in all cases.
“It is in the interest of the government and also in the interest of the
nation that things are done properly and that there is due process and
that we are not unfair. You can be sure that we will do the right
thing.”
On how soon Nigerians should expect the president’s decision on the
report, Osinbajo said: “All I can now say is that we have submitted the
report, and it is a very detailed report, as a matter of fact. The
president has to study the report and make decisions.”
Asked if heads would roll, he replied: “No, how can I tell you? If you
want to know what is in the report you have to wait, you really have to
wait.”
President Buhari had in April ordered the suspension of Lawal and Oke.
He also ordered investigation into the allegations of violations of law
and due process made against Lawal in the award of contracts under the
Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).
The Senate had indicted Global Vision Ltd., owned by the SGF last
December for benefiting from inflated and phantom contracts – or ones
not executed at all – awarded by the Presidential Initiative for the
North East (PINE). The company got over N200 million contracts to clear
invasive grass in Yobe State Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp.
Oke’s travail followed the discovery of substantial sum of money in
local and foreign currencies by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) in a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi,
Lagos, over which the NIA made a claim.
Dr. Habibat Lawal was named acting SGF, while Ambassador Arab Yadam, was
also named acting NIA DG as directed by Buhari that the most senior
permanent secretary in the Office of the SGF and senior deputy in NIA.
Earlier, the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) which has held all the time Buhari was away on medical vacation was shelved.
Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity,
Femi Adesina, however, failed to give reasons for the cancellation of
the meeting.
Adesina only said the president would receive the report of the
investigation committee into the allegations against the suspended SGF
and the DG, NIA.
However, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome described as
shameful and disgraceful, a statement by the presidency that Buhari
could not work from his office because of rats and rodents.
Ozekhome said the statement derided and shamed Nigeria as a country.
“So, a whole Julius Berger, the German construction giant has to be
called in to drive them away and repaint the office! This statement
further derides and shames Nigeria as a country. Why didn’t the same, or
similar rodents pursue Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan during their
presidency?” he queried.
He said that for truth, there was another mini office at the villa quite different from the official residence and main office.
“Let PMB work from them. Let’s see our president working, not through
still photo shopping. For how long will this government take the
Nigerian citizens for a ride and for robots? Who told the image makers
we are as brainless as they are? Don’t they know that lies have expiry
date and that propaganda cannot substitute for image making?”
Meanwhile, former presidential aspirant, Princess Hadiza Ibrahim, said
Buhari should probe allegations that hyenas and jackals have infiltrated
his administration.
She described the hyenas and jackals as “those people that did not want
Buhari to come back and wanted this country to be upside down.They are
the enemies of this country. And they know themselves. I know that
Buhari will do some fact-finding and get to know them. I advise the
hyenas and the jackals to run. So, those who feel they should run,
should run now.
“President Buhari should sit down properly, look at the right and left,
though he has done a little mistakes, which he accepted by his speech
and he should put them right. We are all happy that President Buhari has
returned to Nigeria. It is a great loss to be ashamed of a shameless
person. Baba should throw out the hyenas and jackals in his kingdom. If
they wished him dead and he is back, he should put them in their
places.”
FORMER Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku,
will today deliver a lecture in commemoration of the 98th birthday of
Chief Akintola Williams, the first African to qualify as a chartered
accoun- tant.
Anyaoku’s lecture, entitled: “Re-establishing Nigeria’s leadership
position in the World,” is the third in series of lectures organised by
the Akintola Williams Foundation since 2015.
Born on August 9, 1919, Chief Williams began his education at
Olowogbowo Methodist Primary School, Bankole Street, Apongbon, Lagos
Island, in the early 1930s, the same primary school his late younger
brother, Chief Rotimi Williams attended.
His firm, founded in 1952, later grew organically and through mergers
to become the largest professional ser- vices firm in Nigeria by 2004.
Williams participated in founding the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. During a long career,
Williams received many honours.
Anyaoku, the lecturer, was the third Commonwealth Secretary-General.
He was educated at Merchants of Light School, Oba and attended the
University College of Ibadan, then a col- lege of the University of
London, from which he obtained an honours degree in Classics as a
College Scholar.
Anyaoku joined the Commonwealth Development Cor- poration in 1859 and
by 1962, he came in contact with the then Prime Minister of Nigeria,
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Belewa, having accompanied his visiting boss, Lord
Ho- wick, Chairman of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, to a
meeting with the Prime Minister on the activities of the corporation in
Nigeria and the West Afri- can region.
The Prime Minister, impressed by Anyaoku’s answers to some of his
questions on the projects supported by the CDC in West Africa, took an
interest in his future and persuaded him to consider joining the
Nigerian Foreign Service.
After a grueling interview by the Federal Civil Service Commission,
Anyaoku was offered an appointment in the Foreign Service in April 1962.
Within a month of his en- try, he was appointed Personal Assistant to
the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for External Affairs.
In 1966, Anyaoku joined the Commonwealth Secretar- iat as Assistant
Director of International Affairs. In 1977, the Commonwealth Heads of
Government elected him as Deputy Secretary-General. Anyaoku was to
become Ni- geria’s Foreign Minister in 1983 in the short-lived Shehu
Shagari’s second term in office as president.
After the overthrow of the government by the mili- tary later that
year, he returned to his position as Deputy Secretary-General. In 1989,
at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Kuala Lumpur, Anyaoku
was elected the third Commonwealth Secretary-General. He was re-elected
at the 1993 CHOGM in Limassol for a sec- ond five-year term, beginning
on April 1, 1995.
• You lack native sense, Gov tells ex-minister
• You’re suffering inferiority complex, ex-minister replies
The media war between Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has got messier.
Okorocha, in a statement signed by his media aide, Sam Onwuemeodo,
yesterday, described the ex-minister as bereft of native sense.
“Fani-Kayode’s only claim to fame is the prominent background of his family without which he has nothing else to show,” he said.
Fani-Kayode had, through his media aide, Jude Ndukwe, expressed doubts
about the authenticity of the photograph published in the media from the
recent visit of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress
(APC) and some governors to President Muhammadu Buhari in London. He had
described Okorocha’s action as “a sign of desperation to serve the evil
purposes for which he has been procured.”
Okorocha, in his reaction, dismissed the former aviation minister as a “spoilt and over pampered child.”
But Fani-Kayode countered by referring to the Imo State governor as “a
dirty, cheap, fat, ugly frog that mistakes himself for a monkey simply
because he can hop…”
Okorocha said Fani Kayode “needs a psychiatric examination of his
mental health.” He said if the ex-minister had any problem with the
visit of the APC delegation to Buhari in London he should have dwelt on
that rather than going personal without addressing the issue.
“And on our part, as responsible people, we had delayed in responding to
Kayode’s attacks or hesitated in joining issues with him because most
Nigerians had, before now, doubted his intelligent quotient and had also
called for certain clinical examinations.
“Again, there is obviously a very wide gulf between a man who has
succeeded in every segment of life through the dint of hard work and,
indeed, by God’s grace, and someone whose only claim in the society or
his only meal ticket is the late father’s name.
“And we also know that spoilt and over pampered children do not know
what it takes to have self-discipline and respect for others,” Okorocha
said.
The Imo Sate governor said he began life as a street hawker and ended up
being a governor and successful man, both in business and in other
areas of life, and also obtained a Masters degree in law from the
University of Jos without parental contributions.
“And for him (Fani-Kayode), at the age of eight, he was already at
Brighton College, Brighton, in the UK and, also, studied law at London
University. And one can see that what Africans call “native sense” might
have eluded him. And this “native sense” guides or helps one a lot,
including how to talk to people especially superiors,” Okorocha said.
Fani-Kayode, however, said the Imo State governor “is suffering from a terrible and debilitating inferiority complex.”
He described Okorocha as “a primitive and bush villager of questionable
paternity whose father remains unknown even to his mother.
“Instead of respecting himself, shutting up and seeking for forgiveness
from God for betraying his Igbo people, addressing his elders and
betters in an inappropriate and insolent manner, and playing the fool,
the village idiot called Rochas Okorocha has, once again, fouled up the
public space by opening his dirty mouth and talking about Chief Femi
Fani-Kayode, the former Minister of Culture and Tourism and former
Minister of Aviation.”
Fani-Kayode said it was not a crime to have been born into a well-to-do
family and neither was it a sin. He said Okorocha “has no decorum, no
finesse, no decency, no class, no education and no integrity.”
“We repeat that a man who constantly speaks up for and supports a
government that consistently slaughters and routinely massacres his own
(Igbo) people can only be described as a sociopathic self-hating Igbo,
who is suffering from a terrible and debilitating inferiority complex.
“When he finishes his tenure as governor he will crawl back into the filthy cesspit and hole from which he came.
“FFK was never a ritualist, a cultist, a 419er, a sodomite, a traitor or
a dirty and unreliable street urchin and scammer. He never ruined the
lives of millions, bowed before strange gods and slept in coffins to
make his money.
“He never sold his soul to the devil or his body to reprobate men who lust for other men in return for money and power.”
The former minister said Okorocha has much to answer for and “the evil
spirits that, by his own admission, have been tormenting him ever since
he became governor will soon take their pound of flesh.
“The sword of the Lord is poised to strike and the judgement of God
awaits him for his many indiscretions and sins. Thereafter comes
hellfire,” Fani-Kayode concluded.
Sun
Monday, 17 July 2017
US Moves to Seize 200ft Yacht, Other Luxury Properties from Kola Aluko, Others
Kola Aluko
Alison-Madueke to Kola Aluko: “If you want to hire a yacht, you lease it for two weeks or whatever… You don’t go and sink funds into it at this time when Nigerian oil and gas sector is under all kinds of watch.” – Intercepted
recording of an apparent phone conversation between former oil
minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and oil trader, Kola Aluko
Demola Ojo with agency reports
US prosecutors on Friday moved to seize
$144m in assets including a 200-foot yacht and a Manhattan condominium
one block from Central Park, calling them the fruits of an international
bribery scheme that involved the former Nigerian Oil Minister, Mrs.
Diezani Alison-Madueke.
The justice department action targeted
Nigeria’s oil man, Mr Kola Aluko’s vessel, Galactica Star, which its
builder bills as the “world’s largest fast displacement yacht”, along
with condominium units in Manhattan and real estate in Southern
California located just three miles from the Pacific Ocean.
From 2011 to 2015, two Nigerian oil men,
Kolawole Aluko and Olajide Omokore, alledgedly conspired with others to
bribe the country’s minister for petroleum resources, Diezani
Alison-Madueke, in order to win oil production contracts worth $1.5bn,
according to a civil forfeiture complaint. At the time, along with
controlling the country’s state-owned oil company, Mrs. Alison-Madueke,
also headed the Vienna-based oil cartel, OPEC. Nigeria’s federal high
court earlier this year charged her with money laundering and she has
previously denied any wrongdoing. After awarding government contracts to
shell companies owned by the two men, Mrs. Alison-Madueke — known as
“the madam” or “Madam D” — was rewarded with a “lavish lifestyle”,
according to the US Department of Justice.
Alison-Madueke has since denied any wrong-doing in her relationship with Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore.
A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation that money or
property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime. These
allegations are not proven until a court awards judgment in favour of
the US.
“The United States is not a safe haven
for the proceeds of corruption,” said acting assistant attorney-general
Kenneth Blanco. “If illicit funds are within the reach of the United
States, we will seek to forfeit them and to return them to the victims
from whom they were stolen.”
Though known as “a small time trader”
who had previously earned around $500,000 annually, in less than three
years, Mr. Aluko purchased more than $87m of US property and the $82m
yacht, according to the complaint, filed in US district court in
Houston. According to the complaint, in a conversation with Mr Aluko
that prosecutors say Mrs. Alison-Madueke recorded, she criticised him
for his lavish spending. “If you want to hire a yacht, you lease it for
two weeks or whatever,” she said. “You don’t go and sink funds into it
at this time when Nigerian oil and gas sector is under all kinds of
watch.”
The two businessmen allegedly purchased
millions of dollars worth of property in and near London for the oil
minister and her family and then furnished the homes with furniture,
artwork and other luxury items from Houston-area stores that she
fancied. In January 2011, the Nigerian businessmen and unidentified
co-conspirators bought a Buckinghamshire home known as “The Falls” for
£3.25m. Two months later, as Mr Aluko was meeting with Nigerian oil
officials to discuss a contract, he arranged to buy two properties near
London’s Regent’s Parks: a £1.7m home at 39 Chester Close and 58 Harley
House on the Marylebone Road for £2.8m. The first property, upgraded
with an elevator and new stone flooring and countertops, was intended
for the use of Ms Alison-Madueke’s mother and her son, according to the
complaint. The men that month also purchased a £3.7m flat at 83-86
Prince Albert Road for the oil minister. Ms Alison-Madueke appears to
have favoured furniture stores in the Houston area, which she patronised
on periodic visits to the US oil industry capital. On a single day in
May 2012, Mr Aluko wired $461,500 from a Swiss bank account to one
furniture store and spent an additional $262,091 at a second on the oil
minister’s behalf, the complaint says.
The case was brought as part of DoJ’s
kleptocracy asset recovery initiative. Mr Aluko and Mr Omokore created
two shell companies in the British Virgin Islands — Atlantic Energy
Drilling Concepts Nigeria and Atlantic Energy Brass Development — to
handle their oil contracts. Though the companies, which prosecutors say
were “unqualified”, failed to fulfil the terms of their deals, they were
allowed to produce and sell more than $1.5bn worth of Nigerian crude
oil. The pair then created additional shell companies to launder the
proceeds through the US, prosecutors said. Mr Aluko’s last known address
was in Porza-Lugano, Switzerland, while Mr Omokore is described as a
resident of Lagos.
According to the Justice Department, the complaint announced Friday
demonstrates the Department’s commitment to working with our law
enforcement partners around the globe to trace and recover the proceeds
of corruption, no matter the source.”
“Business executives who engage in
bribery and illegal pay-offs in order to obtain contracts create an
uneven marketplace where honest competitor companies are put at a
disadvantage,” said Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington
Field Office, Andrew W. Vale. “Along with the Department of Justice,
international law enforcement partners and other US federal agencies,
the FBI is committed to pursuing all those who attempt to advance their
businesses through corrupt practices.”
The US government also stated that
Aluko, Omokore and others funded a lavish lifestyle for Alison-Madueke.
According to the allegations, they purchase millions of dollars in real
estate in and around London for Alison-Madueke and her family members,
then renovated and furnished these homes with millions of dollars in
furniture, artwork and other luxury items purchased at two Houston-area
furniture stores.
In return, the US government said
Alison-Madueke used her influence to direct a subsidiary of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to award Strategic Alliance
Agreements (SAAs) to two shell companies created by Aluko and Omokore:
Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts Nigeria Ltd. and Atlantic Energy Brass
Development Ltd. (the Atlantic Companies).
Under the SAAs, the Atlantic Companies
were required to finance the exploration and production operations of
eight on-shore oil and gas blocks. In return for financing these
operations, the companies expected to receive a portion of the oil and
gas produced.
However, according to the complaint, the
Atlantic Companies provided only a fraction of the agreed upon
financing or, in some instances, failed entirely to provide it. The
companies also failed to meet other obligations under the SAAs,
including the payment of $120 million entry fee. Nevertheless, according
to the allegations, the companies were permitted to lift and sell more
than $1.5 billion worth of Nigerian crude oil.
The government contends the Atlantic
Companies then used a series of shell companies and intermediaries to
launder a portion of the total proceeds of these arrangements into and
through the US.
“Today’s announcement would not have
been possible without the remarkable work conducted by a group of
dedicated investigators, attorneys and international partners who were
committed to leaving no stone unturned in this case targeting
international corruption,” said Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal
Investigative Division, Stephen E. Richardson.
“This case demonstrates that the FBI
will not tolerate American institutions and property being used to
launder proceeds of foreign corruption and today’s filing is an
important step towards recovering identified funds. This should serve as
a warning to other corrupt foreign officials that the United States is
not open for their business.”
It was the
end of the road for a suspected armed robber and leader of a cult
group, who had been on the wanted list of the police for five years,
when he was shot dead in Anambra State last week.
The suspect, Chukwuezugo, alias Zion, who
was shot by a rival cult group in Obosi, Idemili LGA, was among
suspected criminals whose cases were announced during the parade of over
100 suspects arrested for armed robbery, child theft, cultism and human
trafficking by the Anambra State Police Command yesterday.
Addressing journalists at the command headquarters in Amawbia, Commissioner of Police, Garba Baba Umar, said the deceased’saccomplice,
Okagbue, alias Hajia, in whose shop he was murdered, had been arrested
and was now assisting the police with information that could lead to the
arrest of other accomplices.
Umar said the police got a distress call
over gunshots and promptly dispatched policemen to the area, where it
was discovered that the victim had been on the wanted list of the police
since 2012 for armed robbery, cultism and drug peddling.
Giving a breakdown of the successes recorded under a short period, the CP said one Oluchi, 24, was arrested on July8, 2017, for stealing a two-month-old baby, in connivance with her friend, Nchedochi, 26.
Umar said the duo sold the baby to a woman, popularly known as First Lady, now at large.
The CP disclosed that the suspect, in
order to conceal her crime, reported to the police station under false
pretence that she left her baby in the custody of a woman, who absconded
with it.
He said exhibits recovered from the
principal suspect included N250,000 cash and one motorcycle that the
suspect allegedly bought with part of the money realised from the sale
of the baby.
In the same period, the police attached
to the Command Monitoring Unit, Awka, busted a child trafficking
syndicate, which allegedly conspired and trafficked one Ifeanyi Odili,
10, for N300,000.
Members of the syndicate nabbed by the police included Rev. Raymond, 60, Angela, 42, Obinigwe, 56, and Jacob, 56.
Also paraded were Ogechukwu, 24, who was
apprehended near Enamel bus stop, Okpoko, Awada, along the
Onitsha-Owerri road during a robbery.He claimed that other members of his gang escaped.
The CP said the suspects, on sighting the
police, opened fire and the police responded accordingly. One of the
suspects, who sustained gunshot wounds on his leg, was arrested, while
his accomplices escaped into the bush.
Exhibits recovered from the suspects include one cut-to-size single barrel gun, two live cartridges and charms.
Umar added that between June 26, 2017,
and now, the command has responded promptly to distress calls at various
locations across the state and foiled many robberies, which led to the
arrest of 15 other suspects and over 40 suspected cult members.
The CP called on members of the public to
refrain from covering their vehicle number plates, misuse of siren and
destruction of billboards and posters of perceived political rivals by
political thugs.
Meanwhile, Governor Willie Obiano has
charged police officers in the state to discharge their duties with
utmost dedication in order to maintain the status of the state as the
safest in Nigeria.
Obiano gave the charge at the police
headquarters when he made a surprise appearance when the police command
received the mobile police squad from MOPOL 27, Katsina, which was on a
working visit to the state. Obianotold the squad that the state, under his watch, had zero tolerance for cultism.
Culled from Sun
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Inquiry needed into 'Saudi Arabia's funding of Islamist extremism in UK'
Theresa May speaks with members of the welcoming delegation after her arrival in Riyadh in AprilCredit:
Bloomberg
A public inquiry must be launched into the Gulf states' funding of the Islamist extremism in Britain that is fuelling terrorism, according to a think tank.
A clear and growing link can be drawn between overseas
money, which mainly comes from Saudi Arabia, and the recent wave of
atrocities in the UK and Europe, the Henry Jackson Society said.
The kingdom's 60-year campaign to export hardline Wahhabi
Islam has led to support for mosques and Islamic institutions that
appear to have links to extremism, the organisation said.
It
found there have been "numerous" cases of Britons who have joined
Jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria whose radicalisation is thought to
link back to foreign-funded institutions and preachers.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud shakes hands with Theresa May in Riyadh in AprilCredit:
Reuters
Prime Minister Theresa May, who visited Saudi Arabia earlier this year, has been accused of "kowtowing" to the kingdom by "suppressing" a report into the funding of extremist groups in the UK.
An inquiry was ordered in 2015 but reports have suggested
the findings may never be published because of the sensitivity of the
investigation's information regarding Saudi Arabia.
Labour MP Dan Jarvis said: "This report from the Henry
Jackson Society sheds light on what are extremely worrying links between
Saudi Arabia and the funding of extremism here in the UK.
"In the wake of the terrible and tragic terrorist attacks
we've seen this year, it is vital that we use every tool at our disposal
to protect our communities.
"This includes identifying the networks that promote and
support extremism and shutting down the financial networks that fund it.
"I'm calling on the Government to release its foreign
funding report, and guarantee that the new counter extremism commission
will make tackling the funding of extremism a priority."
The
Henry Jackson Society, which describes its approach to foreign and
defence policy as "robust", called for a public inquiry into the issue.
Foreign funding for British extremism comes mainly from
governments and state-backed foundations in the Gulf along with Iran,
its study showed.
Report author Tom Wilson said: "There is a clear and growing
link between foreign funding of Islamist extremism and the violent
terrorism we have witnessed across the UK and Europe.
"The key now is to get ahead of the issue and find out the
full extent of what has been going on. A public inquiry would go some
way to informing the debate.
"While entities from across the Gulf and Iran have been
guilty of advancing extremism, those in Saudi Arabia are undoubtedly at
the top of the list.
"Research indicates that some Saudi individuals and
foundations have been apparently heavily involved in exporting an
illiberal, bigoted Wahhabi ideology." A Government spokesman
said: "Defeating the evil ideology of Islamist extremism is one of the
greatest challenges of our time. The Commission for Counter-Extremism,
which the PM announced earlier this year, will have a key role to play
in this fight.
"We are determined to cut off the funding which fuels the
evils of extremism and terrorism, and will work closely with
international partners to tackle this shared global threat, including at
the upcoming G20 summit."