•Emmanuel Olugbaike Finnih

A former Texas Southern University adjunct professor will serve 78 months in federal prison for a student financial aid fraud scheme that obtained more than $921,000 and left victims with debt in their names, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

Dallas Express reported that Emmanuel Olugbaike Finnih, 43, of Richmond, is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Nigeria.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen imposed the prison sentence and three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a news release.

Finnih pleaded guilty March 20 to theft of government funds, fraud, unlawful use or transfer of identity documents, and aggravated identity theft.

Finnih submitted more than 100 fraudulent financial aid applications over approximately five years using other people’s identities at colleges and universities across Texas, prosecutors said.

He sought more than $1.3 million in federal grants and loans, and the scheme resulted in $921,189.08 in disbursements.

Finnih used other people’s personal information to complete and sign aid applications and master promissory notes.

He controlled the mailing addresses, phone numbers and email accounts that received communications from schools and the Department of Education, prosecutors said.

He then collected financial aid refunds through electronic transfers, checks and prepaid debit cards sent to addresses or accounts he controlled.

• Image credit: NIPOST

The Federal Government has launched the National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System, urging Nigerians to find and begin using their postcodes.

The National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode, operated by the Nigerian Postal Service, gives every addressable building a unique 11-character code — the code is designed to provide a precise, GIS-enabled reference for identifying locations.system. Easier to find, share and use.

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani announced the launch in a post on X on Thursday.

Tijani described the system as a step towards making locations across the country easier to identify and connecting people and businesses to services and opportunities.

Tijani said the system could help businesses reach customers beyond their immediate neighbourhoods, enable families to provide accurate locations during emergencies and help government agencies reach communities with essential services.

The minister encouraged Nigerians to search for their postcodes through the official Digital Postcode website, postcode.gov.ng, and share them with family members, friends and businesses.

President Bola Tinubu has declared that the next phase of his administration’s reform will be focused on reducing the cost of living, creating jobs and ensuring that the benefits of economic growth were widely shared.

President Tinubu gave the assurance in his Independence Day address to mark Nigeria’s 66th anniversary, titled “From Reform to Prosperity”, in which he defended the economic policies of his administration and urged Nigerians to stay the course.

Tinubu said the reforms undertaken since his assumption of office had corrected the country’s economic direction, describing them as painful but necessary treatment for longstanding structural problems.

Using a cancer patient as an analogy, the President said Nigeria had for too long treated the symptoms of its economic problems rather than confronting their underlying causes.

“By 2023, poverty was rising, and hope was nearly gone. The country’s situation was darker than ever. We had no choice but to act,” he said.

Tinubu said previous administrations had chosen “morphine” by sustaining inefficient arrangements and postponing difficult decisions, while his administration chose to “excise the cancer”.

He acknowledged that the reforms had produced painful “side effects”, but argued that the hardship should not be confused with the underlying economic problems they were designed to address.

“Our reforms did not create the weaknesses in our economy. They confronted them,” he said, while warning against attempts to reverse the policies and return to what he described as the “abuse of addictive subsidies”.

The President’s speech came as some stakeholders and analysts regretted that, despite various reforms embarked upon by successive Federal Governments, the country was yet to come out of the woods economically and socially.