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WHAT’S NEWS? Tuesday, October 3, 2023.
By Ezinwanne Onwuka
Gunmen kill Councillor in Katsina
The councillor representing Nasarawa ward of Funtua county in Katsina State, Samaila Buhari Mairago, reportedly has been gunned down. The politician, a member of Nigeria’s ruling party the All-Progressives Congress (APC) was killed at his residence Monday night.
In recent months, bandits have targeted Katsina residents, setting raids for murder, cattle rustling and kidnapping despite the efforts of the State government to fight the insecurity. Governor Dikko Umaru Radda, …. approved the sum of N7.8 billion (US$10,180,890.899) for the procurement of sophisticated security equipment and other logistics for security agencies in the State. The immediate past administration of Governor Aminu Bello Masari, in its efforts to curb terrorism, signed a peace pact with the terrorists in 2016 but later pulled off from the agreement.
Chicago State University releases Tinubu’s academic records to Atiku Abubakar
Atiku Abubakar, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate during Nigeria’s hard-fought presidential election in February, has obtained academic records of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Nigerian President. Over the weekend, a U.S. federal district court in Chicago ordered Tinubu’s alma mater the Chicago State University (CSU) to release the documents to Atiku.
Atiku claims Tinubu presented a forged certificate to Nigeria’s electoral body and he went the extra mile to drag CSU and Tinubu to court in the United States to compel the school to release Tinubu’s records after his case was dismissed by Nigeria’s presidential election tribunal.
Part of the documents presented to Atiku’s legal team on Monday includes copies of certificates with redacted names issued to other persons about the same time the Nigerian President finished from the school in 1979, Tinubu’s admission letter, and a letter dated June 27, 2022, confirming that he attended the university from August 1977 to June 1979 and was awarded a BSc in Business Administration with Honours.
Nigerian workers strike deal with government, halt planned strike
The leadership of the Nigerian workers’ unions, on Monday night, suspended its indefinite strike earlier planned for Tuesday (today) after a five-hour closed-door meeting with senior government officials.
Both parties reached a couple of agreements including the payment of a N35,000 (US$44.8) as a monthly wage award to all federal government workers, the constitution of a committee to review the country’s minimum wage within one month, the suspension of the value-added tax (VAT) on diesel starting October, among others.
Without the last-minute intervention, work strike might have devastated the economy. Banks and government-owned hospitals would have been shut, and there would be a nationwide blackout – the scenario that played out during an earlier two-day warning strike in September. The unions gave the Nigerian government only 30 days to implement all agreements reached during Monday’s meeting or risk a total shutdown of the nation.
Church collapse leaves pastor dead, three others injured
A church building caved in in Benue State Nigeria early Tuesday morning, killing one person and injuring three others. The victims, the presiding pastor of the church and three members were reportedly inside the building praying when the incident happened. The pastor died. Others escaped the wreckage with serious injuries.
The church, a parish of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, is located at Mission Ward North Bank in Makurdi, the Benue State capital. Nearby residential buildings were affected by the collapse.
Building collapses are becoming rampant in Nigeria with more than a dozen of such failures recorded in the last year. In August, a mosque collapsed in northwestern Kaduna State, killing seven people. Authorities often blame such disasters on a failure by officials to enforce building safety regulations and the use of substandard construction materials.
Nigerian Army raids secessionists’ camps in southeast
Troops of the Nigerian military joint task force in the southeast region, codenamed Operation UDO KA II, have cleared four camps of the proscribed secessionist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed affiliate, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) in Imo State. The operation led to the death of two IPOB fighters and the arrest of four. Others escaped with gunshot wounds.
Lt.-Col. Jonah Unuakhalu, the acting deputy director for the task force who briefed the press on Monday, said the operation was carried out on Sunday (Oct. 1) in Ihube, Aku, and Umulolo communities in the Okigwe County (local government area). “The camps were being used to perpetuate atrocities such as cannibalism, occultic practices, and ritual killings to instill fears into law-abiding citizens,” the Lieutenant Colonel said, “these were evident from many fresh and old corpses discovered while clearing the entire camps.”
The Nigerian government has in recent times intensified efforts to clamp down on the secessionist group, whom they blame for every criminal activity in the southeast region. The group denies the allegations.
