Author: Chief Editor

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, will depart Abuja Wednesday, June 22, for Kigali, Rwanda, to attend the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, being held from June 20 to 26, 2022. At CHOGM 2022, the President will join other leaders to participate in discussions focused on the progress and prosperity of the more than 2 billion people living in the 54 independent countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific that make up the Commonwealth. The theme for CHOGM 2022 is ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming,’ and the Heads of Government are expected to reaffirm…

The Coalition of Northern Groups says it remains neutral and advocates good governance and is neither pro All Progressives Congress nor People Democratic Party or any political party in the country. The position of the group is contained in a statement signed by its Director of Strategic Communication, Sama’ila Musa, a copy of which was made available to The PUNCH in Kano State on Wednesday. Musa said the group found it necessary to make the clarification following a media publications going round that the CNG has said, “Okowa can’t guarantee PDP victory” and purportedly recommended Dr. Ibrahim Bello-Dauda as the preferred Vice…

Jackson Ekwugum Perhaps the biggest clog in our wheel of progress as a people is not leadership incompetence, as bad as that is. It may not even be the flawed 1999 Constitution, which concentrates political and economic powers on the federal government while treating the states as appendages of the centre. Nor is it the unwieldly bureaucracy at the national and sub-national levels of government, which continues to constitute a bottleneck to the effective implementation of government policies and programmes. Our albatross, in my considered view, is the inability of the average Nigerian to rise above petty sentiments and primordial…

Security chiefs got fresh orders from President Muhammadu Buhari to spare no effort in freeing the remaining hostages from those who attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train on March 28. The President directed that non-kinetic efforts be deployed to secure freedom for the victims. Buhari’s order came barely a day after negotiator Malam Turkur Mamu raised the alarm on the state of health of the hostages in the terrorists’ camp. According to Mamu, snakebites and the poor condition in which they live in the forest worsened their health. Eleven of the hostages were on June 11 released following negotiations between the authorities and…

Petrol subsidy removal was suspended because it was not in the country’s best interest, President Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday. He said while removing subsidy looks good on paper, the human consequences cannot be ignored. Although his administration was on the verge of removing petrol subsidy last year, President Buhari said it became inadvisable after input from industry experts and other economic factors. The President spoke in an interview with Bloomberg. He fielded questions on a wide range of issues, including the economy, infrastructure development, activities of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and state of the nation. The President pointed out that…

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu has urged the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart Atiku Abubakar to focus on resolving their internal crisis. “The PDP should pay attention to resolving their internal crisis, they failed to fulfill all their internal promises,” Tinubu’s spokesman Tunde Rahman told BBC. “They should stop the propaganda campaign on Muslim-Muslim ticket, amongst others.” Rahman was reacting to a statement by Atiku, a former vice president, where he said Tinubu is not prepared to be president. Atiku, who announced Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa as his running mate last week, said the…

Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari sent a list of ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening and confirmation. The nominees are Henry Ikechukwu – Abia State, Umana Okon Umana – Akwa-Ibom State; Ekuma Joseph – Ebonyi State; Goodluck Nana Obia – Imo State; Umar Ibrahim Yakub – Kano State; Ademola Adewole Adegorioye – Ondo State; Odo Udi – Rivers State. [GuardianNg]

The Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and allied institutions have both said they have yet to receive any message after discussing the 2009 agreements with the Federal Government renegotiation committee. The Federal Government renegotiation committee, chaired by Pro-Chancellor of Alex Ekweme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Prof. Nimi Briggs, is expected to review the draft proposed 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement and renegotiate with all the striking university unions. ‘‘Yes, we had a meeting with them last week and they have not called us…

The International Air Transport Association has said that Nigerian airlines and others across Africa will lose $700 million in 2022 due to a combination of Russia-Ukraine war and COVID-19. This was disclosed at the ongoing 78th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Doha, Qatar. IATA said that inflation, interest and exchange rates would affect the growth of the aviation industry globally, stressing that countries should learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking at the summit, the IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh, said, “Governments must have learned their lessons from the COVID-19 crisis. Border closures create economic pain…

At least, 3,478 people were killed while 2,256 others were abducted across the country from December 2021 to June 15, 2022, a tally collated by The PUNCH has shown. The figures were obtained from the daily incidents recorded by the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think-tank, during the period under review. The data captured by our correspondents included those killed by non-state actors such as terrorists, bandits, gunmen, armed robbers, cultists and security operatives, among others. A monthly breakdown showed that in December 2021, no fewer than 342 innocent Nigerians were killed while 397…