The Southern Governors Forum comprising 17 Governors from Southern Nigeria met recently in Asaba, Delta State to deliberate on burning national issues. Following the meeting, the Chairman of the Forum, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State read a 12-point communiqué which essentially captured the current fears and pains of most Nigerians stemming from the perilous state of our country.
Recent reports of armed attacks on security formations in the South-East and South-South regions of Nigeria, and the resultant unfortunate deaths of security personnel, are quite troubling and unsettling.
Undoubtedly the South-East has been a simmering cauldron of resentment and ill-will towards security agencies, fuelled by ceaseless perceptions of harassment and oppression. The current siege on the region by non-state actors was clearly a ticking bomb just waiting to go off.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s avowed war against terrorism had the rug pulled from under it by the rather absurd defence of Dr Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, by the presidential spokesman, Mr Garba Shehu.
Nigerians had made strident calls for Dr Pantami’s resignation or sack following the sordid revelations of his proclivity to global and domestic terrorism and fervent support for its activities represented by the deadly Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Boko Haram organisations through his public lectures and sermons as an Islamic cleric, before his appointment as a minister.
We are greatly saddened by the news of the recent killing of three students of Greenfield University, Kasarami Village in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Marauding bandits had earlier killed a staff and kidnapped 23 students of the institution on Wednesday, April 21 from the school premises.
Our condolences go to the families of the deceased youngsters, the management of Greenfield University and the Kaduna State Government over this horrible incident which has regrettably cut short the lives of these young Nigerians even before their prime.
Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami’s recent volte-face of previously held extremist views in support of global terrorism after his initial denial of harbouring such views, is very unfortunate, embarrassing and disheartening.
The viral video of the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Mr Danladi Umar, and his aides, assaulting a security guard, Mr. Clement Sagwak, at Banex Plaza, Abuja requires very little annotation. It illustrates an unambiguous example of lawlessness, arrogant disdain for public morality and the violation of rights and dignity of a private citizen. It reveals in unmistakable terms, the culture of impunity in our country.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday 30th March 2021 flew to the United Kingdom, for what Presidential officials have described as a ‘routine medical check-up’. This would be the sixth time the President would travel to London for medical reasons since he became Nigeria’s President on May 29th 2015. He had made similar trips on February 5th, 2016, June 6th 2016, January 19th, 2017, May 7th, 2017 and May 8th 2018.
On Tuesday March 2nd, Nigeria received its first batch of 3.92million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine shipped via the COVAX facility; a partnership between Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), Gavi, United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organisation (WHO). This is said to be the first shipment out of the over 16million doses allocated to the country via the COVAX arrangement targeting about 20 percent of the population.
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