Author: Chief Editor

She hasn’t been able to sleep for a week and at first wanted just “to stay hidden”. But this survivor of the shooting of peaceful Nigerian protesters at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos last week says she realised that she had to speak out. “I feel like I’m hiding the truth,” says the young woman, whose name AFP has changed to Clara for her own safety. The shooting of demonstrators in the centre of Africa’s biggest city has unleashed chaos in Nigeria and stirred international outrage. The bloodshed was watched live on social media by tens of thousands of internet…

Zinedine Zidane insisted Real Madrid deserved a point after Casemiro scored a last-gasp equaliser as the Spanish giants fought back from two goals down to snatch a 2-2 draw at Borussia Moenchengladbach on Tuesday and avoid a fourth straight Champions League defeat. Marcus Thuram’s double put Gladbach on course for a famous victory until Real roared back with late efforts from Karim Benzema and Casemiro — three minutes into added time — to salvage a point. But Real remain at the bottom of Group B after their shock 3-2 home defeat by a depleted Shakhtar Donetsk side in last week’s…

Sunday Okobi writes that the Convener of the Save Nigeria Group, Pastor Tunde Bakare espouses the birth of a new Nigeria built on the values of nationhood, equity, equality and dividends of democracy, as canvassed by the EndSARS campaigners In the last few weeks, economic and social activities were crippled in some parts of Nigeria, especially in Lagos, Enugu, Abuja, among other cities due to the peaceful #EndSARS protests to call for an end to police brutality caused by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The protest was also for the federal government to heed the call to reform the Nigeria…

•Denies shooting civilians •Gov never denied inviting soldiers, claims aide •Police command count losses, say six personnel killed, 38 injured, 71 force vehicles, 62 exhibits destroyed •520 suspects arrested for arson, rioting •South-west senators to lobby FG to compensate Lagos A week after it triggered a global outrage over its alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters in Lagos, the Nigerian Army yesterday broke its silence on the incident, denying that it fired at the marchers. It also disputed the claim by Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, that he knew nothing about troop deployment in Lekki Tollgate where soldiers were accused…

Ogun State governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, yesterday said the two-week long #EndSARS nationwide protests against police brutality had underscored the need for the country to embrace a State Police system. He made the observation in Abeokuta during a Stakeholders’ Meeting on #EndSARS Protests, before an audience that included a Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Mr. Leye Oyebade. “Let me say that the #EndSARS protest has brought to the fore, some germane questions about our police system and administration. “Apart from the excesses of some police officers that are under focus with the #EndSARS protest, there is also the issue of…

Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, yesterday presented the Appropriation Bill of N378.48 billion for 2021 to the state’s House of Assembly for consideration. Christened “Budget of Recovery,’’ the governor told the lawmakers that the Bill was made up of N207.52 billion for Capital Expenditure and N171.32 billion for Recurrent Expenditure. He said that capital expenditure constituted 54.76 per cent of the Budget while 45.24 per cent represented recurrent expenditure, and explained that the allocations were consistent with his administration’s agenda of spending more on projects and programmes that would impact directly on socio-economic wellbeing of Deltans. The 2021 budget…

After seven months of holiday declared for Ekiti State civil servants to stem the spread of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic, Governor Kayode Fayemi has directed all the junior workers in the state civil service back to work. In compliance with the stay-at-home directive of the state government, officers on Grade Levels 02 – 07 in the state public service have been away from office since March 23, 2020. This measure was part of efforts put in place to combat the Covid-19 pandemic in the state. Their senior counterparts resumed in August after the number of index cases in the state…

Tayo Oke drtayooke@gmail.com The #EndSARS protest in its current form has come and gone. It is time for a post mortem, soul-searching, and a few sobering thoughts on what just happened, and what it could have been. The most critical aspect of the protest, in my view, was the leadership or leader(less) dimension of the phenomenon. And, it was indeed a phenomenon; a moment in history. We were led to believe that the protest was not organised, not coordinated, managed, or directed by any individual or group of individuals; that it simply took a life of its own. How…

Onwuka Azuka The looting, arson and killings that occurred in Nigeria last week as a reaction to the shooting of the peaceful #EndSARS protesters in Lekki area of Lagos were shocking, disgraceful and demoralising. Most importantly, they were avoidable. If Nigeria had a purposeful and proactive leader, they would never have happened. Anybody who saw the way the #EndSARS protests were executed across Nigeria some two weeks ago and compared that with the violence that erupted last week would wonder if both scenarios occurred in the same country. For about two weeks, young people in Nigeria, having mobilised themselves…

Akeem Lasisi If you want to see hyphens in action, revisit the script of the Thursday broadcast of the  President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to the nation. Understandably, preoccupation with the politics of the broadcast would not let many of us pay attention to the grammar of it, but I did and I have some good news for you. The speech writers patronised the punctuation mark (hyphen) in a way that brings out its versatility. Usually, the comma and full stop are the ones that dominate many write-ups. However, perhaps because of the compact and fiery nature of…