The Vanguard says that a coalition of 75 Northern groups, on the platform of Northern Consensus Movement, has announced a reward of N100 million for persons who can produce the supreme leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, for the continuation of his trial for alleged treason.
The Guardian reports that the 2021 Global Peace Index (GPI) has ranked Nigeria 146 among 163 independent nations and territories, according to its level of peacefulness.
Nigeria moved one step from 147 in 2020, though it still ranked eighth among the least peaceful countries in Africa after South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali.
In the report released yesterday, Nigeria finished with 2712 points and was graded low on the state of peace out of very high, high, medium, low and very low on the chart.
The GPI, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), measures the state of peace in countries. It assesses countries in three domains, including the level of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict and the degree of militarisation.
Describing the situation, the report said Nigeria continues to face challenges on both safety and security and ongoing conflict domains. The conflict between government forces and Boko Haram in the Northeast led to an estimated 1,606 people killed in 125 fatal incidents in 2020, making an average of 13 deaths per violent event in the Boko Haram insurgency of last year.
The Vanguard says that a coalition of 75 Northern groups, on the platform of Northern Consensus Movement, has announced a reward of N100 million for persons who can produce the supreme leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, for the continuation of his trial for alleged treason.
The groups, which disclosed this at a press briefing in Abuja, the nation’s capital on Thursday evening, accused Kanu and the Eastern Security Network (IPOB’s militia wing) of masterminding the recent spate of attacks on Northern communities in the Southeast via what they called ‘hate speech’.
Dr. Awwal Abdullahi Aliyu, who spoke on behalf of the Coalition, urged the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the European Union to facilitate Nnamdi Kanu’s repatriation to Nigeria to face the charges against him.
Aliyu said, “The Northern Consensus Movement, an amalgamation of more than 75 civil society groups of Northern extraction, has taken it upon ourselves, as active citizens of this country, Nigeria, to state in unequivocal terms that:
“We are declaring Nnamdi Kanu wanted for crimes against humanity and for instigating the killing of innocent Northerners in the southeast via his hate speech.
“We want him to answer for the killing and destruction of Northerners residing and undertaking lawful businesses in the southeastern part of Nigeria.”
ThisDay reports that a member of the House of Representatives, representing Ngaski/Shanga/Yawuri Federal Constituency in Kebbi State, Hon. Yusuf Tanko Sununu has lamented recurring cases of abduction of his constituents by bandits.
Addressing journalists on the heels of the attack on the Federal Government College in Birnin-Yawuri, Kebbi State and the abduction of some teachers and students by suspected bandits on Thursday, Sununu, who is the Chairman House Committee on Healthcare Services, while expressing sadness over the incident, raised the alarm over the worsening insecurity in his constituency.
He said that children were no longer going to school and farmers were no longer going to the farm due to the heightened insecurity in the area.
The lawmaker recalled that a week ago, another calamity befell the constituents when armed bandits numbering about 250 to 300, operated for more than eight hours and collected money, handsets, motorcycles and cattle from members of the community.
This devious act, he said led to massive influx of internally displaced persons into the headquarters of the Emirate in the town of Yawuri.
He said the bandits after operating successfully left and threatened to come back, which they did by attacking the school on Thursday.
The Punch says that in a virtual meeting with the representatives of the Federal Government, the mission of the International Monetary Fund stated that the resurfacing of fuel subsidies was concerning.
The IMF mission led by Jesmin Rahman, according to a press release, expressed its concerns about rising fuel subsidies to the Nigerian authorities during a virtual meeting. The Fund also stressed the importance of introducing market-based fuel pricing mechanisms and the need to deploy well targeted social support to cushion any impact on the poor.
The mission commended the Central Bank of Nigeria for merging taking the official exchange rate to the NAFEX window.
However, they recommended the unification of all exchange rate windows and establishing a market-clearing exchange rate. On monetary policy, they advised the country to strengthen the monetary targeting regime and integrating the interbank and debt markets.
The newspaper reports that insecurity is posing a risk to telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria, stakeholders in the industry have said.
A former President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Olusola Teniola, highlighted the threat in a telephone interview with our correspondent. He said, “There is heightened insecurity.
The reasons MTN recently gave had to do with personnel. It is something that has been well understood in the industry. “During the height of the Boko Haram bombings, there was destruction of towers in Borno.
When I was president, the industry was very careful in sending personnel to areas with security challenges. “Insecurity is the concern of the industry as a whole, not just MTN.
Insecurity has escalated beyond what is normal, and telco infrastructure will suffer.” Reuters recently reported that MTN said insecurity challenges was going to cause a disruption in its services.
The Sun says that contrary to reports in certain quarters that the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) was under probe by the Public Accounts Committee of the Senate for N62 billion fraud, the new management on Thursday debunked the claims, describing them as totally uninformed.
According to a statement by Alexandra Mede, its Deputy General Manager, Corporate Affairs, what the Senate Public Accounts Committee is currently probing is the cumulative actions and inactions, financial malfeasance and infractions by two past management teams of the agency between 2013 and 2020, over which the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation had earlier raised an audit alarm.
He noted that the exercise was purely within the statutory oversight functions of the National Assembly.
He said: “The new management of the NSITF which came into office on June 1, 2020, has, of course, submitted itself and all documents requested by the Senate to assist in this oversight, knowing full well that government is a continuum.”
GIK/APA