News Archives - Frontpageng

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

The Insecurity Triad: Money, land, and mind —A definitive articulation

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Troops rescue 13 kidnapped Benue Links passengers in Benue

Agency Report — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:28:36 +0000

The Nigerian Army troops under Operation Whirl Stroke, OPWS, have rescued 13 kidnapped passengers of a Benue Links commercial bus abducted along the Makurdi–Otukpo Road on April 15, 2026.

The announcement was made in an operational report made available on Sunday in Abuja.

The report said the troops, while conducting search-and-rescue operations, recovered the victims in the early hours of Sunday from a forest area in Okete Ward, Ohimini local government area of Benue.

According to the report, those rescued include Hycent Oko (56), Elaiguli Joshua (25), Orili Raphael (29), Sunday Augustine (18), Emmanuel Elaicha (21), Gbile Nguyor Daniel (18), Ukacha Tersoo (18), and Nyikwagh Aoridakator (22).

Others are Iornav Ngukuhan (18), Nyikwagh Benjamin (18), Buker Agatha (19), Paul Wende (29), and Akor Jessica (19).

It added the rescued victims were immediately evacuated to the General Hospital, Otukpo, “where they are currently receiving medical attention,” including treatment for injuries sustained during captivity.

The report further disclosed that three of the 17 abducted passengers had earlier escaped and reunited with their families safely, while efforts were ongoing to rescue the remaining victims still in captivity.

It added that eight of the abducted passengers were candidates preparing for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, examination.

Source: NAN

Journalism has changed; don’t you think?

Nigeria to deploy special forces to Türkiye for training —Minister

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

Journalism has changed; don’t you think?

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NDLEA intercepts cocaine, loud in food flasks, arrests fashion designer, others

Ismaila Sanni — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:18:50 +0000

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have intercepted 12 large parcels of cocaine concealed in false bottom of food flasks heading to the United Kingdom via a Virgin Atlantic Airline flight from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos.

NDLEA’s Director, Media & Advocacy, Mr. Femi Babafemi, made this known on Sunday in a press statement.

He said the cocaine consignment with a gross weight of 2.80 kilogrammes was intercepted on Thursday, 9th April 2026, by NDLEA operatives attached to the export shed of the Lagos airport while two cargo agents involved in the export bid – Ama Obinna Ufeim, 33, and Ogabi Monday Akorede, 39 – were swiftly arrested.

Further investigation, he said, revealed a 52-year-old freight and forwarding agent, Agoro Tajudeen Moninuola, as the sender of the consignment and he was arrested in a follow-up operation.

In a similar operation, NDLEA officers at the import shed of the Lagos airport on Wednesday 8th April intercepted a consignment of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis, with a gross weight of 2.90 kilogrammes and concealed in snack food packs, which arrived from the United States of America aboard a Delta Airlines flight.

Two cargo clearing agents – Animashaun Moshood Adetunji and Mercy Gabriel Oluwasegun – were initially arrested in connection with the seizure before the consignee, Saheed Adeshina Adegoke, a 29-year-old fashion designer, was nabbed in a follow-up operation at 3 Oba Ogunji Road, Ogba, Lagos, on Monday 13th April.

In Kaduna, NDLEA operatives on patrol along Kaduna-Zaria Highway by Gwargwaje Zaria on Monday 13th April intercepted a trailer conveying cement heading to Hadeja in Jigawa state.

A search of the truck led to the recovery of 760 blocks and 33 jumbo bags of skunk, a strain of cannabis, weighing 847 kilogrammes.

The truck driver Umar Garba Haruna, 33, was arrested in connection with the seizure.

A 53-year-old female suspect, Alice Sunday Udoh, was arrested on Thursday, 16th April, when NDLEA officers supported by soldiers raided a forest in Uwet community, Akamkpa local government area, Cross River State, where 15,000 kilogrammes of skunk on six hectares of farmland were destroyed and 119kg of same substance recovered.

Another cannabis farm was raided on Tuesday 14th April at Saboro camp, Ovia North East local government area of Edo State where NDLEA operatives destroyed 2,281.43kg of same psychoactive substance, while three suspects – Nweke Smart, 27; Christopher Egbe, 62; and Monday Ayan, 45 – were arrested, with the duo of Christopher and Monday caught with 38.5kg cannabis and its seeds.

Two suspects – Sunday Odili, 49, and Ijenebe Joshua, 39 – were nabbed with 87.838kg skunk and seeds at Powerline area of Okwo, Delta State on Friday, 17th April.

In Lagos, two suspects – Chinedu Ogbekene and Zindozin Aloukou Bienvenu – were arrested on Wednesday 15th April at Mile 2, Lagos/Badagry expressway while conveying 11,900 capsules of tramadol and 400 ampoules of phenobarbital injection in a truck to Ghana.

Same day, NDLEA operatives raided a two-storey building at Petti, Lagos Island, where a total of 95.8kg skunk was recovered.

With the same zeal, commands and formations of the agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse, WADA, sensitization activities in schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week.

These include WADA enlightenment lecture for students and staff of Alfurgan Islamic School, Paiko, Niger State; Edgerly Memorial Girls Secondary School, Calabar, Cross River; Heritage Model School, Ankpa, Kogi; Government Day Junior and Senior Secondary School, Kankia, Katsina; Government Senior Secondary School, Rano, Kano, and De Ambassador Secondary School, Epe, Lagos State, among others.

While commending the officers and men of MMIA, Edo, Delta, Cross River, Kaduna, and Lagos commands of the agency for the arrests and seizures, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) noted their drug supply reduction efforts balanced with WADA sensitization activities while he charged them and their compatriots across the country to maintain the current tempo.

Nigeria to deploy special forces to Türkiye for training —Minister

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

Nigeria to deploy special forces to Türkiye for training —Minister

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The Insecurity Triad: Money, land, and mind —A definitive articulation

frontpageng — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 08:04:23 +0000

By MAX AMUCHIE

A nation does not collapse all at once. It erodes — layer by layer, system by system — until what once appeared unshakable begins to give way under the weight of forces it can no longer contain.

This column said that last week. It bears repeating now because there are moments in the life of a crisis when description is no longer enough — when the accumulation of evidence: the kidnapped schoolgirls, the abandoned farms, the bombed houses of worship, the ransomed businessmen, the burning villages — demands not another account of what is happening, but a coherent theory of why it is happening, how the pieces connect, and what it means.

We have arrived at that moment.

In The Sunday Stew, this inquiry has already traced the contours of kidnapping, banditry, and insurgency as distinct but increasingly interwoven forms of violence. The present analysis consolidates these patterns into a single explanatory framework — The Insecurity Triad — as a way of understanding their systemic interaction.

The framework emerged from a growing dissatisfaction with the lenses through which insecurity is commonly understood. Journalistically, these events are too often reported as separate incidents—kidnappings here, raids there, bombings elsewhere—without accounting for the structure that binds them. Policymaking has suffered from the same fragmentation, responding to symptoms in isolation rather than confronting the architecture that sustains them.

Part of the problem lies in the dominance of external security frameworks, especially the Global War on Terror (GWOT) shaped after September 11, 2001, where violence is largely interpreted through counter‑terrorism lens. That framework was necessary for its time and remains analytically useful. However, it obscures local dynamics like resource extraction, weak state authority, and the emergence of rival or parallel sovereignties. The world has changed. Contemporary insecurity—particularly in West Africa—has outgrown the categories that framework alone can provide. To rely on it exclusively is not rigour; it is lag.

What is needed is not it’s abandonment, but its expansion. We need a formulation capacious enough to hold together the economic drivers of kidnapping, the territorial logic of banditry, and the ideological ambitions of terrorism as distinct yet converging forces. A Nigeria‑ or West Africa–specific frame should reorient reportage, analysis, and policy beyond drones and raids, while insisting that the state deploy its full coercive weight against the shadow order and treat force as a central, deliberate instrument of restoring authority—rather than as a last resort.

Banditry and kidnapping are not terrorism in the strict sense. They are driven by economics and territorial control. Yet when they converge with terrorism, they form a more intricate and mutually reinforcing arrangement — one that cannot be understood, or addressed, through a single analytical frame.

It is from this gap — between reality and its interpretation — that The Insecurity Triad emerges.

From Insight to Definition

No framework emerges in isolation, and this is no exception. The Insecurity Triad rests on five scholars whose ideas, taken together, form a causal chain — from the structural weaknesses of the post-colonial state to the fragmentation of sovereignty itself, and finally to the lived reality that fragmentation produces.

Ali Mazrui: The Logic of Convergence

Mazrui, in The Africans: A Triple Heritage, argues that African identity is shaped by three interlocking civilisational forces — Indigenous, Islamic, and Western — and that understanding Africa requires holding these forces together.

The Triad borrows this logic. Where Mazrui described convergence as the making of identity, the Triad reveals convergence as the unmaking of security — a collision rather than a synthesis. His insight provides the method: insecurity must be read in interaction, not isolation.

Claude Ake: The State That Never Arrived

Ake, in A Political Economy of Africa and Democracy and Development in Africa, notes that African states often function not as public institutions but as instruments of private accumulation. Power is privatised; governance is secondary. Large segments of society remain unprotected and effectively ungoverned.

The Triad operates precisely in these abandoned spaces. Kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism are not merely security failures — they are symptoms of a state that never fully constituted itself as a public authority.

Jean-François Bayart: The Normalisation of Extraction

Bayart, in The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, extends this diagnosis by showing that the state itself is organised around extraction — the “politics of the belly.” Accumulation precedes service; governance becomes indistinguishable from appropriation.

Within this context, the actors of the Triad are not anomalies — they are imitators. The kidnapper pricing human life, the bandit taxing farmers, the insurgent levying communities all replicate, at the margins, the extractive logic of the centre.

The Triad, then, is not merely a consequence of state failure. It is the diffusion of predation.

William Reno: The Relocation of Authority

Reno, in Warlord Politics and African States, takes the argument to this core insight: when state legitimacy erodes, authority does not disappear — it relocates. In Nigeria, that erosion is not hypothetical. It is territorial. In the Northwest, the Northeast, and the Middle Belt, the state’s claim to sovereign authority competes — and in some spaces loses — against armed networks that govern on transactional terms: protection for compliance, access for tribute, order for loyalty.

This is why conventional responses fail. They assume a vacuum. But there is no vacuum — only competing centres of authority.

Each pillar of the Triad represents a form of rival sovereignty. A state that cannot recognise this reality cannot displace it.

Achille Mbembe: The Texture of the Shadow Order

Mbembe, in Necropolitics and On the Postcolony, provides the final layer. Where Reno shows that authority relocates, Mbembe shows what relocated authority looks like in practice. He argues that in the postcolonial context, sovereignty is exercised above all through the power to dictate who lives and who dies — to commodify life, claim space, and impose a rival moral order.

This is precisely what the Triad does across all three pillars simultaneously. The kidnapper commodifies life and prices safety. The bandit seizes productive territory and determines who works and who starves. The terrorist asserts an alternative ideological universe and decides whose beliefs constitute legitimate order. Together, they do not merely fill the space the state vacates — they govern it, on their own terms, by their own logic.

Mbembe gives the Triad its phenomenological dimension: not just the structure of the shadow order, but its lived texture — the daily reality of populations caught between a state that has withdrawn and armed actors who have moved in.

Taken together, these scholars outline a sequence: Mazrui provides the method — convergence; Ake identifies the condition — state absence; Bayart explains the culture — extraction; Reno delivers the consequence — relocated authority; Mbembe reveals the reality — the lived texture of a shadow order that prices life, claims territory, and contests belief.

It is a chain that moves from intellectual realm to political reality, from the academy to the village, from theory to the lived experience of insecurity.

That relocation maps directly onto the Triad:

Kidnapping: authority over persons — the power to price safety (Money);

Banditry: authority over territory — the power to control land and production (Land);

Terrorism: authority over belief — the power to shape ideological order (Mind).

Each is sovereignty in a different domain. Together, they constitute a shadow order — extractive, territorial, ideological — without formal recognition.

Nigeria is not merely a country with a security problem. It is a state where authority is contested, extraction is normalised, and power has fragmented into rival or parallel sovereignties. In the spaces where the state recedes, these sovereignties manifest as a shadow order — one that prices safety, taxes production, and contests belief itself, levying its own rules where formal authority has withered. This is what I mean by shadow order: not just a metaphor, but a recognisable structure of parallel governance that expresses the Triad in practice.

The Definition

Building on these insights, I now offer a definitive articulation of The Insecurity Triad as I have developed it:

The Insecurity Triad is an interlocking system in which kidnapping finances violence through ransom economies (Money), banditry governs territory and production (Land), and terrorism reshapes the ideological order (Mind). It conceptualises insecurity not as isolated threats or mere state failure, but as a convergent structure of economic extraction, territorial control, and ideological influence — expressed through the dynamic, mutually reinforcing interaction of these three forces.

As I stated in The Sunday Stew last week, this is not an imported or adapted theory. It is an original analytical construction of my own, grounded in five pillars of African scholarship — Mazrui, Ake, Bayart, Reno, and Mbembe — and tested against the realities of a fracturing state.

The Macro-Diagnostic

While The Insecurity Triad framework provides the tool to decode, map and address the crisis, I have codified the Trinity of State Decay as the diagnostic lens that reveals the ‘Big Picture.’ It explains how the Administrative Mirage and the Shadow Order interact to make the Triad possible. We will explore this next week.

Don’t miss it.

Trust is Sacred. Stay Seasoned.

Dr. Amuchie is the CEO of Sundiata Post and the developer of The Insecurity Triad Analytical Framework. He writes The Sunday Stew, a weekly syndicated column on faith, character, and the forces that shape society, with a focus on Nigeria and Africa in a global context. X — @MaxAmuchie | Email: max.a@sundiatapost.com | Tel: +234(0)8053069436

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

Stocks extend rally, add N3.39trn in nine-day gain

UNILAG: Shell/NNPC, partners, deliver landmark Geosciences Centre of Excellence

The post The Insecurity Triad: Money, land, and mind —A definitive articulation appeared first on Frontpageng.

Journalism has changed; don’t you think?

frontpageng — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:44:01 +0000

By BOLA BOLAWOLE

Comment is free, but facts are sacred -Charles Prestwich Scott.

Let me state from this starting point that I am an accidental journalist, sort of; just like Nasir el-Rufai, ex-governor of Kaduna state, described himself as an accidental civil servant. But let no one mistake the reference to el-Rufai here to mean anything! He is neither friend nor foe!

I set out to be an academician. As a secondary school leaver, my heroes were Marxist scholars Dr. Segun Osoba and Dr. Bala Usman of the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria respectively. Hence my choice of History as a course of study at UNIFE – and what a pleasure to have studied at the feet of our iconic comrade, Dr. Segun Osoba! I passed out at Ife in 1982 with a combined honors degree in History and Political Science.

The two History teachers were the authors of the minority report that emanated from the 1976 Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) inaugurated on October 18, 1975 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos by the then military Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed.

Known as the “50 wise men”, the CDC was later reduced to 49 members because Chief Obafemi Awolowo declined to participate in the committee headed by legal luminary, Chief FRA Williams. Murtala Muhammed was later assassinated in an abortive coup on February 13, 1976 by Col. Bukar Sukar Dimka and co.

Immediately after my NYSC at the University of Ibadan, I enrolled for the M.SC. in Political Science course in the same university, but the mistake of someone I never knew ensured I did not graduate with my mates. My long essay was sent to the wrong examiner; when this mistake was discovered late in the day, I was sent to the right examiner, a professor and Head of the Political Science department at the University of Ilorin. He scored me an A and also promised me a Graduate Assistantship job in the department.

So I kept going to Ilorin but he kept posting me for reasons I could not fathom, until, one day, his secretary took pity on me and told me point black that Prof. had decided to reserve the two available vacancies for two of his Ijebu kinsmen who were still studying for their own master’s degree!

Was I devastated? Prof. was from an Ishara royal family in Ogun state while I am from Owo in Ondo state – both of us being Yoruba. I understand he passed on a few years ago. May his soul rest in peace! I told my story to a friend and colleague of his some years back and he could only giggle and wonder what came over him!

Each time I remember my UNILORIN experience, I also remember what my role model, Alhaji Nojeem Jimoh, always says about the Yoruba-nation struggle: that it is our being in Nigeria that solidifies and gives meaning to our Yoruba identity. If and when we achieve our goal of an independent Yoruba nation, we shall retreat to what was and begin to see ourselves as Ijebu, Egba, Ekiti, Owo, Egun, Awori, Oyo, Akoko, Ilaje, etc. O! The ethnic struggles and cut-throat competitions that will ensue! God help us!

I say this not to denigrate or discourage anyone involved in the Yoruba-nation struggle but to sound a note of warning. To be fore-warned, as they say…

I had a flair for writing early. At UNIFE, I took interest in our Marxist groups’ campus newsletters and the first two articles I wrote after my M.SC. graduations were published by the then flagship of the Nigerian media, The Guardian newspapers, when respected Sonala Olumhense was the Editorial Page Editor. I also contributed to the Ibadan-based Sketch newspapers, now defunct. Shortly after, as I was still scurrying everywhere for a lectureship, I got employed as a Senior Reporter by Sketch newspapers in October 1985 and that was how my journalism odyssey began.

I did not study Journalism or Mass Communications within the four walls of any school; I learned on the job. I grew from a reporter who covered the various gamut of reportorial work from the grassroots to the urban centres and cities; from the ‘red light’ districts to the polished exclusive preserves of the elite, traversing virtually every Desk – Politics, Business/Finance, Foreign Affairs, Labor, General Beat, name it.

Today’s deviation from the journalism I knew is massive and I just felt I should express an opinion, since comment is free. I come in peace!

I moved from the Newsroom to the Features department. I handled the Sunday, Saturday, and Daily publications at various levels, up to the editorship. In the giddy days of military dictatorship and the struggle to revalidate the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by MKO Abiola but annulled by the military dictatorship of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, I was also in the trenches like many others. Giving vent to the “guerilla press” genre we had encountered in Marxist literature, I led the task of editing a weekly newspaper published underground by the PUNCH. Like many others, I suffered harassment; was haunted, hunted and detained, narrowly escaping getting martyred.

I had been Chairman, Editorial Board; Deputy Editor-in-Chief and, at some points, a newly-created Advertorial Department was under my purview while the Advert Department itself worked closely with me. I poked my nose in Printing as well as the Circulation departments as occasion demanded. Of course, I was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of a newsmagazine, thereby affording me an opportunity to study as well as oversee the technicalities and nuances of that special branch of newspapering.

For decades now, I have maintained columns in respected national newspapers. I also feature regularly as an analyst on radio and television.

Not one, not two persons have said that in other climes, I will qualify as Professor of Practice in Journalism or Mass Communications! The only aspect of the profession that I have been absent from – and deliberately so – is its unionism. I am not a union person. The only time I had participated in any union activities was when my comrade, Lanre Arogundade, contested for the chairmanship position of the Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists.

I saw quite early how union activities were employed by some reporters as shields and excuses to shirk their duties and responsibilities. I also saw how union leaders employed blackmail to get by and decided against getting involved in union activities – but this is not to say that I see nothing good in union activities. My choice is personal to me – whether right or wrong.

I squirm when union leaders solicitously go cap-in-hand to the very people, agencies and organizations – public and private – that they are mandated by the Constitution to hold accountable to the people. They arrange and give awards – Best this, and Best that – to the very organizations and personalities they are supposed to exercise watchdog functions over. I may be wrong, but I do not think such a watchdog can escape being compromised. How can they avoid being beholden to those from whom they seek favors? For, as they say, he who pays the piper…

Although I also teach Political Science courses in a private university, I earn my living working mainly as a journalist. So I introduce myself as a “journalist” when I am asked about my profession. But is journalism a profession?

The vice-chancellor of a first-generation Nigerian university stared me in the face sometimes ago and said journalism is a vocation and not a profession. He did not mean to denigrate but to draw attention to the fine line that separates professions from vocations. Journalism can be a profession but I think its fore-fathers deliberately chose to remain a vocation or trade union even when others like public relations and teaching were professionalizing. Is it too late for journalism to quit being a vocation/trade union and become a profession? Is such a move even desirable? I leave that as a topic for another day!

But it would appear as if it is the lack of the rigors of professionalism that has made journalism an all-comers affairs. Before university graduates began to stream into the profession, it used to be looked down upon and derided; most of its practitioners being School Certificate or Diploma holders. This is not to say that those early journalists did not prove their mettle but in a society crazy for degrees and titles, there is no way such a perceived “deficiency” would not rub off negatively on the profession and its practitioners.

The advent of social media has not helped matters. These days, all you need to become a journalist is an android phone! Once you can string sentences together – factual or false, with tenses and grammar that do not align – you are a journalist! Who registers journalists? Who regulates the profession? What standards must be met? And who enforces? Some of the criteria for a profession are that it sets and enforces standards and also self-regulates. Does journalism meet this threshold?

If we excuse social media for what it is, what of the traditional media – print and electronic? If we ignore the pretenders to journalism, what of those with known pedigree who, regrettably, brazenly brutalize journalism ethics and, painfully, to wide and wild acclaim? Supposedly well-trained and well-horned journalists assault with relish every known journalism ethics. At best, they are partisan political activists seizing and desecrating the podium of journalism.

Trust me, I see nothing wrong in anyone being a political activist. It is a noble vocation or calling whose services are sorely needed in any democratic society properly so-called. But let such elements openly announce themselves as such and stop masquerading as journalists.

The ethics of journalism are clear and unambiguous. Detach yourself from the issues. Facts are sacred, opinion is free. Listen to and state all sides to an issue. Be fair to all. When in doubt, leave out. Lay the facts bare and allow your audience or readers the freedom to reach their own conclusions. Don’t goad them in this or that direction. Don’t intimidate them. Interviewers must be civil, courteous and respectful, even when vigorously pursuing leads.

Why abuse or exchange words with your guest? The moment you enter into the ring yourself, any claim to objectivity is lost. And journalism is all about objectivity, fairness, and truth. Even columnists and commentators who are allowed a lot of leg-room are expected to still serve their audience “informed commentaries!”

The basic rules which, for ages, have governed journalism are today thrown under the bus by gallivanting political activists masquerading as journalists. Interviewers speak more than their guests! They hardly allow someone they had invited to throw light on an issue the opportunity or liberty to do so! They already have a preconceived idea and are abrasive the way they railroad their guests towards it! Decline and suffer verbal assault!

Today’s deviation from the journalism I knew is massive and I just felt I should express an opinion, since comment is free. I come in peace!

*Bolawole (turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533), former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of the Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the “ON THE LORD’S DAY” column in the Sunday Tribune and “TREASURES” column in the New Telegraph newspapers. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

Stocks extend rally, add N3.39trn in nine-day gain

UNILAG: Shell/NNPC, partners, deliver landmark Geosciences Centre of Excellence

The post Journalism has changed; don’t you think? appeared first on Frontpageng.

Nigeria to deploy special forces to Türkiye for training —Minister

frontpageng — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:20:25 +0000

The Minister of Defence, retired Gen. Christopher Musa, has said that Nigeria and Türkiye have reached an agreement for the immediate deployment of 200 Nigerian Special Forces for training in Türkiye.

Musa disclosed this in an interview on the sidelines of the 5th Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF2026) in Antalya, Türkiye, on Saturday, following discussions with his Turkish counterpart, Yasar Guler.

The three-day forum, themed: “Mapping Tomorrow, Managing Uncertainties,” which started on Friday, is attended by world leaders, ministers, and diplomats, among others.

The minister explained that following the agreement, Türkiye had allocated a training quota of 200 personnel from Nigeria’s Special Forces, who will be immediately deployed on his return to Nigeria.

“We have a Special Forces training agreement. Türkiye has agreed to give us 200 Special Forces training, so as soon as I return, we are sending them here for training.

“We will continue to do a lot. There will be exercises. The first exercise is coming up later in the year. So, in so many areas of defence we are going to work together,” he said.

The minister also disclosed that Nigeria and Türkiye had both agreed on joint defence equipment production and the transfer of military technology.

Musa said that Nigeria and Türkiye had come a long way, working together over the years, adding that, “since 1960 Türkiye has been like family to Nigeria.”

According to him, Türkiye has a lot of defence experience from which Nigeria could learn through shared experiences.

“I’ve had a meeting with the Turkish Minister of Defence, where we shared a lot of ideas on how to improve on our relationship, defence-wise.

“Türkiye has improved dramatically with regard to the production of military hardware.

“Nigeria is still developing, and we have agreed that we are going to partner together so that we have a co-production of some of these items,” he said.

The minister noted that while Nigeria had been fighting asymmetric warfare against insurgency for about 17 years, Türkiye had had a similar experience of fighting against terrorism for 40 years.

He added: “Because of that, we will move into training, production and improving on our defence, industrial production, and exchange of officers and soldiers.”

The annual event also featured panel discussions and sessions covering a wide range of topics shaped by contemporary global defence and security, political, economic, environmental, and technological dynamics.

Participants from about 150 countries, including 5,000 decision-makers, 20 heads of state and government, 40 foreign ministers, 60 invited foreign media, and diplomats, among others, attended the forum.

Source: NAN

Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

LAGFERRY to unveil Eko Water Taxi to ease Lekki–Epe traffic

Candidates, parent arrested for using AI to falsify result -JAMB

First lady, Hamzat, Fashola, others advocate religious tolerance

Naira closes week with minimal loss at official market

Stocks extend rally, add N3.39trn in nine-day gain

UNILAG: Shell/NNPC, partners, deliver landmark Geosciences Centre of Excellence

The post Nigeria to deploy special forces to Türkiye for training —Minister appeared first on Frontpageng.

FCT teachers begin indefinite strike Monday

Agency Report — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:03:37 +0000

The State Wing Executive Council, SWEC, of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, Federal Capital Territory, FCT, has directed primary and secondary school teachers to begin an indefinite strike on Monday.

The union gave the directive in a communique issued at the end of an emergency SWEC meeting in Gwagwalada, Abuja, on Friday.

The communique was jointly signed by the state chairman, Abdullahi Shafa; the State Secretary, Margaret Jethro; and the State Publicity Secretary, Ibukun Adekeye.

In the communique made available to newsmen in Abuja on Saturday, the union directed the teachers to comply with the directive and await further instructions.

It further advised parents to keep their children and wards in primary and secondary schools safe at home until further notice.

It said that the teachers would remain at home until all their demands were met.

The union explained that the decision was the outcome of the SWEC meeting, convened to review the seven-day ultimatum issued to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, on March 11, which expired on March 29.

It said that the SWEC appreciated Wike for the implementation of the N70,000 Minimum Wage and payment of the nine months arrears to the primary school teachers in the FCT.

It, however, said that the Council noted with concern that the minister’s intervention, which facilitated the suspension of the 14-week strike on July 9, 2025, was yet to be addressed.

“The minister constituted a committee on July 7, 2025 with a mandate to, within two weeks, harmonise all outstanding entitlements of primary school teachers.

“The committee was also directed to make appropriate recommendations that would lead to a permanent solution to the frequent industrial disputes involving FCT Primary School Teachers.

“The committee concluded its assignment and submitted its report in August 2025, however, the report is yet to be made public,” it said.

The union explained that the seven-day ultimatum followed the unexplained delay in the implementation of the committee’s report.

It added that the move also became necessary following the continued silence on the legitimate demands of teachers amid the prevailing harsh economic realities in the country, particularly in the FCT.

It explained that the Wike-led FCT Administration was asked to, within the seven-day ultimatum, release and implement the report of primary school teachers’ outstanding entitlements.

The union further called for the removal of the “vacancies” precondition for the promotion of classroom teachers and totally reviewed the 2024 promotion exercise conducted by the FCT Civil Service Commission to allow for the unhindered promotion of eligible teachers.

It said that the SWEC was disturbed that following the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum on March 19, including the additional 28-day grace period granted to the authorities, there had been no tangible response to all the issues raised in the ultimatum.

“After exhaustive deliberations on the industrial issues and the silence on the legitimate demands of teachers’ welfare, the Council resolved that all public primary and secondary school teachers in the FCT shall, with effect from Monday, proceed on an indefinite strike until our demands are met,” the union said.

Source: NAN

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Two confirmed dead, 20 injured in Kano road crash

Agency Report — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 06:48:07 +0000

The Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, has confirmed the death of two persons, 20 others injured, and eight unhurt in a road traffic crash at Wudil T-Junction on Maiduguri Road in Kano State.

The state commander, Idris Muhammed-Lawan, disclosed this in a statement signed by FRSC’s Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Labaran, on Saturday in Kano.

The statement said: “we received a distress call at about 9:25 a.m. and arrived at the scene within 10 minutes.

“The accident involved a DAF trailer loaded with goods and passengers, travelling from Wudil Market en route to Lagos State.

“The passengers were 30 male adults; two persons died, 20 others sustained varying degrees of injuries, while eight were unhurt.”

According to the statement, preliminary investigations reveal that the driver lost control due to over speeding while approaching the T-Junction and hit another vehicle parked by the roadside.

The statement added that the victims were taken to Wudil General Hospital for treatment.

It quoted the state commander expressing concern over continued violation of road safety regulations, particularly the use of trailers for conveying passengers.

He said overspeeding and overloading remained major causes of road crashes and urged drivers to comply strictly with traffic rules.

Muhammed-Lawan advised the general public to avoid boarding trailers and other unsafe vehicles.

Source: NAN

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Galadima, ex-NFA chairman, dies at 78

Agency Report — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 06:44:15 +0000

Former chairman of the defunct Nigerian Football Association and Galadiman Fagge, Dr Ibrahim Galadima, is dead.

He was 78 years old.

His younger brother, Alhaji Abba Galadima, confirmed the death in a statement, saying he “passed away on Saturday at a hospital in Kano metropolis.”

He described the loss as painful, noting that the late Galadima devoted his life to public service, community leadership and the growth of football administration in Nigeria.

He said the funeral prayer would hold on Sunday at 10 a.m. in Fagge Juma’at Mosque, Kano State.

Family members, associates and well-wishers are expected to attend the prayer and burial rites in accordance with Islamic traditions.

Abba Galadima prayed for Allah’s mercy, saying, “May Almighty Allah forgive his shortcomings and grant him Aljannatul Firdaus.”

He served as Commissioner for Works and Kano State Sports Commission chairman during his career in public service.

He was widely respected for his administrative skills, integrity and commitment to advancing sports development, particularly football, within Kano State and across the country.

Galadima also played a prominent role in traditional leadership as Galadiman Fagge, contributing to community cohesion and local governance in Kano State.

Tributes have begun to pour in from associates, who remember him as a disciplined administrator and a dedicated elder statesman.

Source: NAN

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The post Galadima, ex-NFA chairman, dies at 78 appeared first on Frontpageng.

NUC assures action on NYSC mobilisation for NOUN graduates

Agency Report — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:20:43 +0000

The National Universities Commission, NUC, has said that it will review the exclusion of National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, graduates from the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, scheme.

The Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu, said the move followed concerns raised by NOUN Chancellor, the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, over unequal treatment of NOUN graduates.

The traditional ruler had called for policy changes to allow eligible graduates to serve, saying that current restrictions put them at a disadvantage.

Addressing the concerns raised by the Oba, Ribadu, consequently, pledged that the NUC would engage NYSC leadership to re-evaluate the mobilisation framework.

“I have heard the concerns of the Chancellor in his speech about the lack of mobilisation of NOUN graduates for the National Youth Service Corps.

“I want to assure you, at NUC, we will engage with NYSC to see what policy changes can be made in order for NOUN graduates to be accommodated, because the dynamics have changed,” he said.

He noted the initial policy reflected NOUN’s past student profile of working professionals above the service age limit, adding that the commission had now observed a shift to younger students.

“Unlike in the past, where graduates of NOUN are 30 years and above; in recent times, you have graduates of younger age, less than 30, who are likely to participate in the NYSC based on age,” he said.

Source: NAN

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