Headlines

Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has signed into law, the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N800bn into law.

This is coming a day after he presented the budget estimates to the State House of Assembly led by Edison Ehie.

The signing ceremony was held on Thursday in the conference room of the Governor’s Office at the Government House.

Leading Reporters reports that Fubara had during his presentation to the assembly said the N800 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year was aimed at promoting economic development through inclusive growth and addressing socio-economic inequality in the state.

He added that the N800, 392,485,433.01 billion constitutes a Recurrent Expenditure of 361,598,242,570.85 and a Capital Expenditure of 410,266,485,090.64.

At a quiet cemetery in eastern China, bereaved father Seakoo Wu pulls out his phone, places it on a gravestone and plays a recording of his son.

They are words that the late student never spoke, but brought into being with artificial intelligence.

“I know you’re in great pain every day because of me, and feel guilty and helpless,” intones Xuanmo in a slightly robotic voice.

“Even though I can’t be by your side ever again, my soul is still in this world, accompanying you through life.”

Stricken by grief, Wu and his wife have joined a growing number of Chinese people turning to AI technology to create lifelike avatars of their departed.

Ultimately Wu wants to build a fully realistic replica that behaves just like his dead son but dwells in virtual reality.

“Once we synchronise reality and the metaverse, I’ll have my son with me again,” Wu said.

“I can train him… so that when he sees me, he knows I’m his father.”

Some Chinese firms claim to have created thousands of “digital people” from as little as 30 seconds of audiovisual material of the deceased.

Experts say they can offer much-needed comfort for people devastated by the loss of loved ones.

But they also evoke an unsettling theme from the British sci-fi series “Black Mirror” in which people rely on advanced AI for bereavement support.

– ‘Needs are growing’ –

Wu and his wife were devastated when Xuanmo, their only child, died last year at the age of 22 while attending Exeter University in Britain.

The accounting and finance student, keen sportsman and posthumous organ donor “had such a rich and varied life”, said Wu.

“He always carried in him this desire to help people and a sense of right and wrong,” he told AFP.

Following a boom in deep learning technologies like ChatGPT in China, Wu began researching ways to resurrect him.

He gathered photos, videos and audio recordings of his son, and spent thousands of dollars hiring AI firms that cloned Xuanmo’s face and voice.

The results so far are rudimentary, but he has also set up a work team to create a database containing vast amounts of information on his son.

Wu hopes to feed it into powerful algorithms to create an avatar capable of copying his son’s thinking and speech patterns with extreme precision.

Several companies specialising in so-called “ghost bots” have emerged in the United States in recent years.

But the industry is booming in China, according to Zhang Zewei, the founder of the AI firm Super Brain and a former collaborator with Wu.

“On AI technology, China is in the highest class worldwide,” said Zhang from a workspace in the eastern city of Jingjiang.

“And there are so many people in China, many with emotional needs, which gives us an advantage when it comes to market demand.”

Super Brain charges between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan ($1,400-$2,800) to create a basic avatar within about 20 days, said Zhang.

They range from those who have died to living parents unable to spend time with their children and — controversially — a heartbroken woman’s ex-boyfriend.

Clients can even hold video calls with a staff member whose face and voice are digitally overlaid with those of the person they have lost.

The significance for… the whole world is huge,” Zhang said.

“A digital version of someone (can) exist forever, even after their body has been lost.”

Sima Huapeng, who founded Nanjing-based Silicon Intelligence, said the technology would “bring about a new kind of humanism”.

He likened it to portraiture and photography, which helped people commemorate the dead in revolutionary ways.

Tal Morse, a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at Britain’s University of Bath, said ghost bots may offer comfort.

But he cautioned that more research was needed to understand their psychological and ethical implications.

“A key question here is… how ‘loyal’ are the ghost bots to the personality they were designed to mimic,” Morse told AFP.

“What happens if they do things that will ‘contaminate’ the memory of the person they are supposed to represent?”

Another quandary arises from the inability of dead people to consent, experts said.

While permission was probably unnecessary to mimic speech or behaviour, it might be needed to “do certain other things with that simulacrum”, said Nate Sharadin, a philosopher at the University of Hong Kong specialising in AI and its social effects.

For Super Brain’s Zhang, all new technology is “a double-edged sword”.

“As long as we’re helping those who need it, I see no problem”.

He doesn’t work with those for whom it could have negative impacts, he said, citing a woman who had attempted suicide after her daughter’s death.

Bereaved father Wu said Xuanmo would “probably would have been willing” to be digitally revived.

“One day, son, we will all reunite in the metaverse,” he said as his wife dissolved into tears before his grave.

“The technology is getting better every day… it’s just a matter of time.”

AFP

The Rivers state governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has signed the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N800bn into law.

Fubara, who presented the bill on Wednesday, December 13, to a four-member House of Assembly led by Speaker Edison Ehie, was said to have signed the budget on Thursday at the Government House, Port Harcourt.

Professor Zacchaeus Adangor, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Rivers State, has tendered his resignation, citing “purely personal reasons” in a letter to Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

However, Leading Reporters gathered that his resignation may not be unconnected to the Governor’s controversial presentation of the state budget to only five members of the House of Assembly and the demolition of the State House of Assembly complex on Wednesday.

More to follow…

A nine-day-old baby and mother have lost their lives in a building which collapsed in Akure, the state capital.

 The incident occurred at Ayedun street around Hospital/Egbe Road in the ancient city.

 Leading Reporters gathered that the incident happened in the early hours of Wednesday as an overhead water tank fell on the story building and wreaked havoc in the area.

It was further gathered that the baby who was christened yesterday died instantly while the elder brother of the baby and their grandmother sustained varying degrees of injuries.

As of the time of filing this report, security personnel had evacuated the dead bodies while the injured ones are receiving treatment at an unknown hospital

Aiyedun Quarters in Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State was on Wednesday thrown into a state of despair due to a horrifying incident resulting in the death of a nine-day-old baby and her 30-year-old mother.

The tragedy occurred when an overhead water tank crashed onto a one-bedroom detached bungalow, situated near a primary health centre within the quarters.

According to sources in the area, the mother of the deceased infant, identified as Bose Sanusi, had on Tuesday christened the deceased baby before the incident.

However, the baby girl’s grandmother and her elder brother narrowly escaped unscathed, as they were said to be in the kitchen, which was not affected by the collapse.

The lifeless bodies of the infant and her mother have since been evacuated from the wreckage and deposited at the mortuary of the state specialist hospital.

Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Funmilayo Odunlami-Omisanya, said the mother and her infant daughter got killed in the building collapse.

According to her, an investigation has begun to figure out reason for the collapse of the overhead water tank.

The leader of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, has urged Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State to concentrate on his work and leave the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, to God.

Primate Ayodele made the remark in reaction to the current political crisis in Rivers State that has caused division between Wike’s camp and that of Governor Sim Fubara.

He advised the governor not to fight the FCT minister because it would be a waste of time.

In a statement by his media aide, Oluwatosin Osho, the clergyman advised the governor to concentrate on the people of Rivers because God would fight Wike himself.

The prophet said Fubara would fail if he tried to fight Wike because it is not his battle, adding that he should allow God to fight for him because the former governor is reaping what he has sown.

He said: ‘’Fubara should humble himself and do what he has promised God. He should not fight Wike, he should leave him alone. He should concentrate on his people and project.

“God wants to punish Wike for his wickedness. If Fubara takes a step to fight Wike, he will fail. Let Wike continue to fight himself, God will fight for you.’’

The minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru, has said that the N1.57 trillion naira allocated to fight insecurity in 2024 was not enough.

Badaru disclosed this when he appeared before a joint National Assembly Committee on Defence to defend the ministry’s 2024 budget proposal on Wednesday.

The minister said the rising cost of operations and the increase in the price of diesel and fuel necessitated the call for an increment of the ministry’s allocation.

“I appeal to the distinguished senators and honourable members to review the ministry’s budget given the prevailing economic situation to enable the ministry to function effectively,” Badaru told lawmakers.

“You are already aware of the inflationary trend and the cost of diesel, petrol, and operational costs. The overhead is very low, and we urge you to support us to see how we can improve our overhead,” he added.

The minister said heads of military units consume large quantities of fuel and diesel to carry out their official duties.

He assured that all funds appropriated in the budget would be judiciously utilised.

Instead of fighting in one sector, the bandits or insurgents run into another sector, that was the intent of the supplementary budget, and we assure the senators that we will track this expenditure and make sure the monies appropriated will be utilized fully, and we will account appropriately”.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, Ahmad Lawan, said there would be no justification for huge budgetary allocation for the ministry if there was no improvement in security across the country.

He said it was paramount to establish how the money allocated to the ministry improved security.

“If you are given N100 billion, how has it improved the security situation in the country? It will not augur well to appropriate money without justification,” he stated.

Leading reporters had earlier reported that the Ministry of Defence allocated N1.15 trillion for personnel; N116.5 billion for overhead and N308.2 billion for capital, totaling N1.57 trillion

But the defence minister said the allocation was not enough to fight insecurity.