The First Lady, Aisha Buhari has shed light on why she posted a video of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami giving a sermon, where he cried.

She had captioned her first post, “A Reminder. Achire tsoro ayi abinda ya dace,” in Hausa language, meaning, ‘Be courageous to do the right thing’.

In her latest post, Mrs Buhari said, “Tafsir na Malam kan tsoron Allah ba tsoron mutum ba!

“Da aka cire tsoro da son Kai aka shiga Jihar Zamfara, abubuwa sun fara kyau. Sai a dage a shigo sauran wurare da ke bukatan haka.”

This is translated from the Hausa language to loosely mean, “Mallam (Pantami) is preaching about the fear of God and not of man. As fear and selfishness have been removed in the case of Zamfara State, positive results have started to show. It is left for the those in charge to take control in other states in need of intervention.”

The 75 pupils of Government Day Secondary School, Kaya, in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State who were abducted on September 1, 2021, have regained their freedom.

The Nigerian Television Authority broke the news via its verified Facebook page overnight.

Nigerian Police had reported that gunmen abducted more than 70 students in the country’s northwest state of Zamfara.

Zamfara State Police spokesman, Mohammed Shehu, had said in a statement that a large group of attackers stormed the Government Day Secondary School in the remote village of Kaya that Wednesday morning, seizing the pupils. He had given the number of seized children as 73.

“The abduction followed the invasion of the school by large numbers of armed bandits,” he had stated.

Shehu said that Police rescue teams were working with the military to secure the release of the pupils.

The bandits later returned five of the pupils within 24 hours.

A former councilor of Kaya ward, Yahaya Kaya, said that his niece was among those released by the bandits; adding that the five freed pupils had been returned to their hometown of Kaya.

It is not yet clear if any ransom was paid before the pupils were released.

Following the abduction, the Zamfara State Government had ordered the immediate deboarding of boarding facilities in 30 schools.

In reaction to the abduction, UNICEF, on September 3, said it was horrified by yet another attack on an educational institution in Nigeria.

The UN agency, in a Press release distributed by the APO Group, stated, “Of the abducted students, 23 students escaped and returned home – two of them with bullet wounds. The abducted students are aged between 14 and 19.”

“We strongly condemn this attack, which has happened just a few days after kidnapped students of a school in Niger State, north-central Nigeria, were freed,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria. “We call on the authorities to take expedited action to rescue these students and reunite them with their families.”

“We reiterate that attacks on schools and abduction of learners are a gross violation of children’s rights, and a horrific experience for children to go through – one which could have long-lasting effects on their mental health and overall well-being,” said Peter Hawkins.

“Schools must be safe; no child should experience any harm because they went to school, and no parent should come to grief for sending their children to learn,” said Hawkins.

Governor Nyesom Wike, has said he will not withdraw the lawsuits against the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, because he does not trust the chairman to honour agreements.

Wike disclosed this in a meeting with the Senator David Mark-led committee set up by the PDP National Executive Committee to resolve the party’s crisis.

The bid by Secondus to seek re-election and the determination of the Rivers State governor to stop him is reported to be the genesis of the crisis.

The Mark-led panel had met with Secondus and Wike with a proposal that they both withdraw pending lawsuits to pave the way for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.

While Secondus agreed to withdraw on the condition that the other party does the same, Wike insisted on going ahead with his.

The report submitted by the Mark-led committee quoted Wike as insisting that the “court cases instituted would not be withdrawn because of the lack of confidence in the other party to keep agreements”.

This was contained in the report submitted by the committee to the party’s NEC at its 93rd meeting in Abuja, on Thursday.

The Kogi State government has said it will not involve itself in the pursuit to retain the Value Added Tax as embarked on by the governments of Lagos and Rivers.

The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, had signed a bill on VAT followed by an order requiring businesses to henceforth pay VAT to the state and not to the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

He announced that the payment of VAT to the state will commence this September.

This was after a judgment by a federal high court in Port Harcourt restrained the FIRS from collecting VAT in the state.

The Lagos State government, in line with the judgment, also passed a VAT bill and asked the FIRS to stop collecting VAT from businesses in the state.

The move by both states was opposed by Kogi State through the Commissioner of Information, Kingsley Fanwo, in an interview with Arise TV on Friday.

He said, “We are not created equally, and God that created us did not give us equal potential, and we have to support one another.”

Speaking further, Fanwo said, “This call shows that some of our leaders are insensitive, self-centred and trying to make policies that will further divide the country.

“Kogi is bordered by about 10 states of the federation and a gateway to the north, south, to everywhere. And you know that thousands of vehicles transverse the state on a daily basis. It’s the mineral capital of Nigeria. When you look at our advantages, we should even be at the forefront of fighting for VAT to be completely retained in the state.”

He continued, “When you look at the development of the South-West in those days — the cocoa house — and the groundnut pyramids in the north, the whole of Nigeria is reaping the benefit till today. And what we need to do at this material time as leaders is to stop thinking about ourselves alone.

“The position of governor Yahaya Bello on this is very clear: we will not jump on that bandwagon to call for the retention of VAT completely in the state. We are not created equally, and God that created us did not give us equal potentials, and we have to support one another.”

The Naira was at a record low against the dollar on Thursday, depreciating to nearly N550 at the unofficial market from N530 at last week’s close as demand for the greenback from importers continues to bump up against scarce market liquidity.

Checks in Kano revealed the record high forex rate especially at the Kano’s popular Wapa BDC market in Wapa, where forex traders said as of Thursday evening, a dollar was exchanging for N549, and that it could even exceed N550 before the close of the day.

Aminu Shua’ibu Malan, a trader in the market, said: “Prior to the last three days, it used to be around N520, but has now reached N550.

“This is caused by the high demand by importers and its scarcity courtesy of this Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy. We are afraid that if this policy continues, a dollar could reach about N600-N700, which will surely spell doom for our economy.”

The traders, who said that there is no hope in sight as to when the Naira will appreciate, called on the apex bank to have a rethink on its dollar ban policy in order to save the country’s economy.

In Abuja, the Naira continued a free fall, shading off about N12. At the Wuse Zone 4 BDC market, most of the forex traders sold the naira for between N540 and N542 to the dollar, as against about N528/$1 last week.

A BDC operator named Sumaila said he sold for N540/$1. He also said the price has spiked because even the banks don’t sell to BDCs, yet most SMEs get their forex funding needs from BDCs’ supplies.

Some other BDC operators said they sold the dollar for between N540 and N542.

Ibrahim Audu, a forex hosteller who prospects for customers at Wuse Zone 4 Abuja, told our Correspondent he could arrange for N542/$1 if the Correspondent would sell up to $10,000.

At the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos showed that dollars exchanged for between N530 to N535 at the parallel market.

“We started at N525 this week and it has continued to rise because of high demand,” says a Bureau De Change operator.

“We don’t even understand it again. They said banks should give dollars and when you go there, they would tell you there is no dollar. The banks too have become Bureau De Change,” another BDC operator, who identified himself simply as Hassan, said.

“We now sell at N529, N530. We hope very soon, things will change and CBN will reconsider their stand,” he added.

EFCC reads riot act to bank heads

In the meantime, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, has warned banks against fraudulent election financing, foreign exchange malpractice and money laundering.

Baba gave the warning on Thursday during an interactive session with managing directors of banks at the Lagos Zonal Command of the commission.

According to a statement by the EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujiaren, the anti-graft agency boss charged the bankers to comply with the guidelines of CBN on the issuance of Personal Travel Allowance, PTA, and Business Travel Allowance, BTA, to their customers.

“You need to ensure full compliance with regard to knowing your customers and ensuring that you do not give opportunities for foreign exchange malpractices,” he said.

Pointing out the salient issues EFCC will tackle, Bawa said, “Some of the issues we have identified include foreign exchange malpractices and fraudulent election financing.”

‘Banks selling to cabals’

The Chairman of BDC Operators, Local Airport, Mr. Danladi Sunday blamed the CBN for the development.

He said while the CBN had directed commercial banks to sell dollars, the banks only supply to “cabals.”

“The stoppage of dollars to bureau de change is the cause of this problem. The CBN said they would be giving to commercial banks and the commercial banks are not selling to everybody, they are only selling to their cabals,” he alleged.

“And once the demand is higher and supply is lower, definitely, the money is going to be high. The solution now is for the CBN to call us back. Once they call us back, the money would come down.”

Trading Desk Manager at AZA Murega Mungai said: “Despite the current weakness, the central bank on Tuesday said it still expects the country’s unofficial and official rates to converge.”

The Naira was trading at 411.30 to the dollar on the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing (NAFEX) window this week. We expect the currency pressure to persist in the coming days as demand for forex continues to outweigh supply.