This is obvious dishonest propaganda against Bitcoin, I'm only biting because I was asked to by an acquaintance.

Can you point out what are the flaws you found in SegWit after going through the code?

Pieter Wuille is a brilliant developer, and you can only dream to ever contribute to Bitcoin as much as he did.

I'll simply ignore the conspiracy theories regarding Bilderberg etc.

Lightning is spelled thus, without an e.

It has never been claimed that SegWit is necessary for Lightning Network, only that it makes it much easier and simpler. It is unlikely to see LN deployed without a malleability fix.

The problem with malleability is that you can be confused about whether a transaction went through or not. This makes advanced applications like LN harder.

SegWit moves the signature data, not removes it. It might be arguable that the exact details are somewhat hacky, due to the desire to implement it as a soft fork. But it is still Bitcoin, just with a protocol upgrade.

Miners must conform to the new protocol rules including SegWit, otherwise their blocks will be invalid and they will not get any revenue. They can of course choose to handicap themselves and choose to exclude SegWit transactions, but they will just give up on their fees - other miners will happily pick that up.

The Lightning Network can work as a p2p mesh, just like ordinary Bitcoin can. It can also work with hubs, but since it is trustless and starting a hub is easy, that is also fine. Unlike traditional banks and hosted wallets, funds locked in a channel are still under your control.

The bogus article with a mathematical "proof" against LN has been debunked, see https://medium.com/@murchandamus/i-have-just-read-jonald-fyookballs-article-https-medium-com-jonaldfyookball-mathematical-fd112d13737a.