Category Nigeria News

The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hassan Abubakar, has provided free medical care and insecticide-treated mosquito nets to pregnant women in commemoration of her 60th anniversary in Niger State.

Over 500 indigents from the Maikunkele community are targeted to benefit from the outreach.

Besides working in the front line of the battle against insecurity in some parts of Niger State North-Central Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force is also striving to keep healthy civil-military relations with communities hosting their formation across the country.

This time around, the chief of air staff medical outreach is targeting 500 people, particularly women and children in the Maikunkele community which hosts the Air Force 013 Quick Response Force.

The representative of the commander, 013 Quick Response Force Air Commodore Solomon Lazarus, said the event is in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the force.

The district head of Maikunkele Community, Sulaiman Dada, said they are appreciative of the security cover the force provides to the community, and said the outreach was not only timely but targeted at common illnesses in the community.

Motorists plying the Gusau-Sokoto Road in Zamfara State were left stranded on Wednesday evening as armed bandits blocked the ever-busy highway with an intention to attack road users. 

The bandits, who blocked the road between Kukah Mai Rahu community and Mayanchi town around 7pm, forced motorists to pass the night in the bush.

The troops of Operation Hadarin Daji deployed to the area advised the commuters not to proceed with the journey because of the fear of bandits abductions.

One of the stranded commuters, Ibrahim Abubakar, told Channels Television that he was returning from Sokoto when he met the blockade by the military at Kwanga-Taama village, asking them not to continue with the journey.

“After we passed Talata-Mafara about 6:30pm, I noticed there were no vehicles coming and it’s very unusual because of how busy the road used to be. When we get to Kwanga-Taama village after Kukah Mai Rahu, the military who camped in the village, asked us not to proceed because bandits have blocked the road,” Abubakar said.

He added that “we left the military checkpoint this (Thursday) morning around 7am when the troops had proceeded to clear the road.”

“One of the military officers said the bandits came on 10 motorcycles with two persons on each bike carrying sophisticated weapons.”

The source also added that the soldiers told them that the bandits came out on revenge mission after five of them were neutralised by the troops some days ago.

The Gusau-Talata-Mafara Road used to be one of the safest roads to travel in Zamfara State but recently there has been pockets of attacks and abductions along the road.

The military has declared Halilu Buzu wanted for terrorist activities, illegal arms supplies, illegal mining, and cattle rustling.

Announcing this in Abuja at the bi-weekly media briefing of the Defence Media Operations, the Director of Operations, Major General Edward Buba, said Halilu Buzu, who is an indigene of Niger, resides in a forest in Zamfara State, and often escapes to the Niger Republic after striking in Nigeria.

General Buba, however, said the military is working with its counterparts from the Niger Republic, to ensure the arrest of the terrorist, who has a lot of boys working for him.

Buba also said the troops of the Nigerian Army succeeded in rescuing a total of 253 kidnapped victims in the last two weeks.

According to him, the feat was achieved by the Troops of Operations Y-Watch, the Troops of Nokia-Fighting Patrols, and the Troops of Operations Delta State.

While also announcing the killing of some insurgents, he said the fight against terrorism is one that “must be won.”

Speaking further, Buba also said that the troops neutralised 227 and arrested 529 terrorists. Eleven perpetrators of oil theft were also arrested in the weeks under review.

“We relentlessly target these categories of terrorists such that we will be able to take them out, and take them off the battlefield as soon as possible.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cisco to advance Nigeria’s digital transformation.

Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Programme is a global initiative that partners with government and private sector leaders to develop sustainable, secure, and inclusive communities powered by ethical and innovative technology solutions.

The partnership which was sealed on Monday, aims to unlock the value of digitalisation in Nigeria and drive an inclusive future.

The Federal Government will collaborate with Cisco, industry, and academia to accelerate the national digitisation agenda by implementing pilot projects in five key areas:

1. Repurposing NCAIR to create an AI and Cybersecurity Experience and Incubation Center;

2. Establishing a Broadband Innovation Center;

3. Setting up a Smart Agriculture Demo Farm;

4. Designing and deploying Technology Learning Hubs; and

The MOU was signed by the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, and the Senior Director of the Cisco Country Digital Acceleration Programme, Clayton Naidoo, at NITDA HQ in Abuja.

According to NITDA, this partnership aligns with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s priority areas of accelerating diversification through digitisation and innovation, strengthening national security for peace and prosperity, and boosting agriculture to achieve food security.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says electricity tariff hike pushes up inflation, insisting that the recent increase by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and distribution companies in the country must be immediately reversed.

“Unknown to people, this issue of tariff increase is determined by inflation and the value of the currency,” NLC President Joe Ajaero said on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show on Tuesday.

“NERC takes these two major variables to determine tariff increase. Unknown to the same NERC, each time you increase tariff, it leads to another inflation which within few months, they would see demand for another tariff increase. And this is happening on and on and there is no control over it.”

On April 3, 2024, NERC raised electricity tariff for customers enjoying 20 hours power supply daily. Customers in this category are said to be under the Band A classification. The increase saw the customers paying N225 kilowatt per hour from the current N66, a development that has been heavily criticised by many Nigerians, considering the immediacy of the tariff hike and the current hardship in the land.

READ ALSO: NLC Will Disown Obi If He Adopts IMF Policies As Nigeria’s President – Ajaero

Following the outrage, NERC asked discos to cut down electricity tariff rate by 8.1% for customers under Band A category. The outrage, however, persisted with many Nigerians rejecting the reduction and demanding a total reversal of the tariff hike. The NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) subsequently picketed NERC offices and discos on Monday to press home their demands.

Ajaero, on Channels Television’s programme on Tuesday morning, kicked against the “politics of reduction” embarked upon by NERC in recent times. He said reduction after tariff increase won’t stand, insisting that NERC and discos must first reverse the tariff to the old rates and come to the negotiation table with labour unions and other stakeholders on an agreeable way forward.

He wondered how that the government now talk about trillions of naira in subsidy of the power sector post-privatisation when there was no subsidy before the privatisation of the power sector.

He said, “The investors they brought in the first instance, and I say this without apologies, are not the people that were the right investors with the technical competence, with managerial ability to attract foreign direct investment. You can see that after 12 years of privatising the sector, no direct investment is coming into the sector.”

The NLC boss said because of the long-term nature of investment in the power sector before profit, “all over the world, the state drives the process of developing the sector” and “not to just transfer the burden on the poor masses”.

Ajaero said it is important to look at the state’s withdrawal from the sector whether it was right at the time it did. “Why do you sell it in the first instance when after the sector was sold at N400bn and the Nigerian state has invested about N2trn in the sector?” he queried.

Prices of food and basic commodities have gone through the roof in the last weeks, as Nigerians battle one of the country’s toughest economic crises sparked by the current government’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of forex windows.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate jumped to 33.20% in March 2024 compared to February 2024 headline inflation rate which was 31.70%. The inflation for March 2024 was largely driven by increase in food such as garri, millet, yam, bread coupled with energy and housing costs.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan wrapped up their three-day visit to Nigeria on Sunday, arriving in the country’s economic capital Lagos during a trip to promote his Invictus Games for wounded military veterans.

The Duke of Sussex arrived with his wife on Friday in Nigeria’s capital Abuja where they visited a school event on mental health, in a trip that also saw the prince meet wounded Nigerian soldiers in the country’s northwest.

READ ALSO: [VIDEO] Sanwo-Olu Welcomes Prince Harry, Meghan To Lagos, Thanks Them For Work With Military

On day three of the visit, Prince Harry and Meghan took part in a basketball event with the Giants of Africa Foundation in Lagos, an organisation that helps youth through engagement in the sport.

The prince practised dribbling basketballs with children at the exhibition event for the foundation, which is run by vice-president of an NBA team Masai Ujiri.

“The power of sports can change lives, it brings people together and creates community and there are no barriers which is the most important thing,” the prince said.

Harry, a former army captain who flew helicopters in Afghanistan, founded the Invictus Games 10 years ago to help bring wounded veterans into sporting events to aid with their recuperation.

The couple later met with Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and were also set to take part in a Lagos fundraiser.

“He has seen a lot and is still soaking in a whole lot,” the governor said of the prince’s experience of Nigeria.

Nigerian heritage

On Friday afternoon, Meghan sat on an event for women in leadership with Nigerian-born World Trade Organization director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, where the Duchess discussed her Nigerian heritage and being a role model to women.

“I want to start by saying thank you very much for just how gracious you’ve all been in welcoming my husband and I to this country,” she said to applause, before adding, “my country”.

“It’s been really eye-opening and humbling to be able to know more about my heritage and to be able to know, this is just the beginning of that discovery.”

In Abuja, the prince had also taken part in a seated volleyball match with Nigerian veterans, some of who were missing limbs from combat in the country’s north where troops battle jihadists and heavily armed criminal gangs.

On the Duke’s volleyball team was former Nigerian soldier Peacemaker Azuegbulam, who lost his leg in combat in the northeast, and became the first African to win gold at the Invictus Games in Germany last year.

Before Nigeria, Prince Harry was in London on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the games.

His trips to the UK since he moved to the United States in 2020 always prompt fresh speculation over a potential reconciliation with his family. But he did not meet with his father King Charles on this trip.

Nigeria’s military forces are battling armed groups on several fronts.

A long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced another two million since 2009. Militants have been pushed back from areas they once controlled, but they now target convoys with roadside bombs.

In northwestern and central states, heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, carry out mass kidnappings for ransom and raid villages from camps hidden deep in remote forests.