₦airaland Forum

A photocopier (commonly referred to in Nigeria as a photocopy machine) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply.

ASaharaReporters' review of the Abia State 2026 approved budget has revealed that the state government, led by Governor Alex Otti, plans to buy a photocopier at N210 million.

A photocopier (commonly referred to in Nigeria as a photocopy machine) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply.

Otti assented to the 2026 Appropriation Bill of N1,016,228,072,651.99 in December 2025.

Details contained in the budget document published by the state government show that N210,831,142.00 was budgeted to buy a photocopier for the Lagos Liaison Office.

In 2025, N2.5 million was budgeted for the purchase of the same item. The reason for the increase of over N208 million by the government remains unknown.

A further review of the budget shows that N287 million is earmarked under Abia Policy Innovation Centre for publicity on social media and radio.

The newspaper previously reported how the governor spent a whopping N927 million within three months on refreshments/meals, settlement of honorarium, allowances, and welfare packages for officials in 2023.

About N737,922,661.25 was also spent to buy vehicles within this period. However, the quantity and the people the vehicles were bought for were not stated.

According to a copy of the state budget performance obtained by the newspaper, the governor spent N223,389,889.84 on refreshments/meals, while N305,400,000.00 was spent on honorarium and sitting allowance for government officials between July and September 2023.

The Otti-led government also claimed it spent N397,520,734.00 on welfare packages in the document.

Meanwhile, N362,804,050.00 was spent by the Abia government to purchase trucks, and another N400,890,000.00 was used for the purchase of buses. Also in the document, the government claimed that N252.4 million was used to run the Deputy Governor's office for three months.

The report, however, showed that only N25 million was spent by the government on the repair of public schools in the state, despite many public primary and secondary schools in the state being in bad shape.

According to multiple reports online, most public secondary and primary school buildings and facilities across the 17 local government areas of the state have aged and decayed due to government negligence.

Several school buildings are reportedly dilapidated with leaking roofs, broken furniture, doors, and windows.

LAGOS GENERATED 51% OF NIGERIA'S BOX OFFICE REVENUE IN 2025

Box Office Revenue [Number of Cinemas]:
1 Lagos — ₦7.94 billion [41]
2 Abuja — ₦1.15 billion [5]
3 Rivers — ₦1.04 billion [8]
4 Edo — ₦975.23 million [8]
5 Oyo — ₦869.14 million [11]
6 Delta — ₦589.81 million [7]
7 Ogun — ₦483.41 million [12]
8 Osun — ₦331.49 million [3]
9 Ondo — ₦281.52 million [2]
10 Kwara — ₦183.46 million [2]

NC SS SW

Total Box Office Revenue (Nigeria cinemas) — ₦15.64 billion

Lagos alone generated ₦7.94 billion — 50.8% of the national total.

The combined revenue of the next 9 top states (Abuja, Rivers, Edo, Oyo, Delta, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Kwara) is approximately ₦5.90 billion.

Lagos out-earned the next nine contenders combined by over ₦2 billion. If Lagos cinemas were removed, half the industry's revenue would disappear.

#Statisense
(FilmOne, 2025)

pappy4real:
Whoever is behind that handle is confidently saying gibberish, using an elevated office and handle to mislead Nigerians.
No DISCO has the time to turn off any feeder because it's about to rain, our major challenges are old and weak transmission network, bridging conductors caused by windstorm during rain, wire cuts/snap, wire resting on stuffs thereby causing what is known as earth fault and bad conductors in some cases. Also, accidents like cars crashing into poles or erosion affecting poles etc. I can't even go into details cos it's a plethora of challenges bedevling the Nigeria power sector.
Before you ask how I know, see d pic attached, that guy behind that moniker gets paid to lie and mislead Nigerians

Bluntemperor:
My Brother, Ikorodu - Garage,Gramma School, Erunwen,etc Are in Total Darkness and the Ikeja DISCOS are so Useless, that they have Nothing to Offer,as Solutions.
If it is Not G& P,its Dilapidated Transformer,
No New Prepaid -Meters for some Years NOW.
Very Shameful Situation Indeed 😥.

nairalanda1:
Nigerian cities could create large sewage systems where the power lines could run underground to prevent this from happening.

Also, simply run the power lines underground. May cost money, but would prevent this from happening.

Zonefree:
What kind of shameless explanation is this?

seanery:
THE HEIGHT OF IT.

This reeks shame on this Country.

Without Lagos and Rivers, here is what the geo-political zones contributed to the VAT pool and received in 2025.

1. South-West
Contributed: N519.29bn
Received: N503.31bn (96.92%)

2. South-South
Contributed: N459.65bn
Received: N472.16bn (102.72%)

3. North-West
Contributed: N370.92bn
Received: N743.69bn (200.50%)

4. North-Central
Contributed: N266.24bn
Received: N528.99bn (198.69%)

5. North-East
Contributed: N201.40bn
Received: N521.38bn (258.89%)

6. South-East
Contributed: N139.75bn
Received: N436.01bn (312.01%)

This was Trump getting caught on hot mic saying that he wanted Americans to treat him like the people of North Korean treat their Dictator Kim Jong Un.

🚨“When he speaks they jump up and stand upright, That’s what I want”🚨 pic.twitter.com/tUg6RzKj6q

— Bricktop_NAFO (@Bricktop_NAFO) January 29, 2026

Long crowned by his legion of fans as the king of Afrobeat, the late Fela Kuti is finally being recognised by the global music industry.

The Nigerian star will posthumously receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys - almost three decades after his death at the age of 58.

"Fela has been in the hearts of the people for such a long time. Now the Grammys have acknowledged it, and it's a double victory," his musician son Seun Kuti tells the BBC.

"It's bringing balance to a Fela story," he adds.

Rikki Stein, a long-time friend and manager of the late musician, says the recognition by the Grammys is "better late than never".

"Africa hasn't in the past rated very highly in their interests. I think that's changing quite a bit of late," Stein tells the BBC.

Following the global success of Afrobeats, a genre inspired by Fela's sound, the Grammys introduced the category of Best African Performance in 2024.

This year, Nigerian superstar Burna Boy also has a nomination in the Best Global Music Album category.

But Fela Kuti will be the first African to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, albeit posthumously. The award was first presented in 1963 to American singer and actor Bing Crosby.

Other musicians who will receive the award this year include Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, the American singer known as the Queen of Funk, and Paul Simon.

Fela Kuti's family, as well friends and colleagues, will be attending the Grammys to receive his award.

"The global human tapestry needs this, not just because it's my father," Seun Kuti tells the BBC.

Stein says it is important to recognise Fela as a man who championed the cause of people who had "drawn life's short straw", adding that he "castigated any form of social injustice, corruption [and] mismanagement" in government.

"So it would be impossible to ignore that aspect of Fela's legacy," he tells the BBC.

For Fela Anikulapo Kuti was not simply a musician, but also a cultural theorist, political agitator and the undisputed architect of Afrobeat - which is distinct from, but ultimately led to, the modern sound of Afrobeats.

He pioneered the Afrobeat genre alongside drummer Tony Allen, blending West African rhythms, jazz, funk, highlife, extended improvisation, call-and-response vocals and politically charged lyricism.

Across a career spanning roughly three decades until his death in 1997, Fela Kuti released more than 50 albums and built a body of work that fused music with ideology, rhythm with resistance, and performance with protest.

His music incurred the wrath of Nigeria's then-military regimes.

In 1977, after the release of the album Zombie, which satirised government soldiers as obedient, brainless enforcers, his compound in the main city, Lagos, was raided.

Known as Kalakuta Republic, the property was burned, residents were brutalised, and his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, later died from injuries sustained during the assault.

Rather than retreat, Fela Kuti responded through music and defiance. He took his mother's coffin to government offices and released the song Coffin for Head of State, turning grief into protest.

The musician's ideology was a blend of pan-Africanism, anti-imperialism, and African-rooted socialism.

Fela Kuti's mother was hugely influential in his life, helping shape his political consciousness, while the US-born singer and activist Sandra Izsadore helped sharpen his revolutionary outlook

He was born Olufela Olusegun Oludoton Ransome-Kuti, but dropped Ransome because of its Western roots.

In 1978, he married 27 women in a highly publicised ceremony, bringing together partners, performers, organisers and co-architects of the cultural and communal vision of Kalakuta Republic.

Fela Kuti endured repeated arrests, beatings, censorship and surveillance by the security forces. Yet repression only amplified his influence.

"He wasn't doing what he was doing to win awards. He was interested in liberation. Freeing the mind," Stein tells the BBC.

"He was fearless. He was determined."

Fela Kuti's musical evolution was shaped not only by Nigeria but also by Ghana. During the 1950s and 1960s, highlife music, pioneered by Ghanaian musicians such as ET Mensah, Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas, became a defining sound across West Africa.

Its melodic guitar lines, horn sections, dance rhythms, and cosmopolitan identity deeply influenced Fela Kuti's early musical direction.

He spent time in Ghana absorbing highlife's structure, horn phrasing, and dance-oriented arrangements before fusing it with jazz, funk, the rhythms of his own Yoruba people, and political storytelling.

The DNA of highlife can be heard in Afrobeat's melodic sensibility and its balance between groove and sophistication.

In this sense, Afrobeat is not only Nigerian. It is West African, pan-African, and diasporic in origin, carrying Ghana's musical imprint at its foundation.

On stage, Fela Kuti cut an unmistakable figure. Often bare-chested or draped in the wax-printed fabric popular across West Africa, hair shaped into a crisp Afro, saxophone in hand, eyes alert with intensity, he commanded a large band of more than 20 musicians.

His performances at the Afrika Shrine in Lagos were legendary, part concert, part political rally, part spiritual ceremony.

Stein recalls that performances at the Shrine were immersive rather than conventional.

"When Fela played, nobody applauded," he tells the BBC. "The audience wasn't separate. They were part of it."

Music was not spectacle. It was communion.

Fela Kuti's visual identity was shaped in part by artist and designer Lemi Ghariokwu, who created 26 of his album covers between 1974 and 1993.

"Fela has been an ancestor for 28 years. His legacy is growing by the day. This is immortality," Ghariokwu tells the BBC, welcoming the posthumous award.

Today, Fela Kuti's music is still popular with millions around the world, and his influence is audible in modern artists such as Burna Boy, Kendrick Lamar and Sir Idris Elba.

Elba is a huge fan - the award-winning actor and DJ has curated an official vinyl box set, Fela Kuti Box Set 6, and has publicly compared him to icons such as Sade and Frank Sinatra to illustrate the point that Fela Kuti has his own unique sound.

Fela Kuti performed at major international festivals in Europe and North America, introducing global audiences to a bold and politically charged version of modern Africa.

Seun Kuti was just 14 when his father died.

"Fela never made me feel like I was a child," he recalls. "He didn't hide anything from me. He talked about everything openly."

There was no myth-building.

"I didn't even realise my dad was famous," he says. "That's credit to him. He kept me grounded."

What stayed with him most was not spectacle, but discipline, clarity and humanity.

"The human part of him, leadership, musicianship, fatherhood, that was the epitome of who he was."

One of Seun Kuti's most revealing reflections speaks to independence and identity.

"Fela was our dad, but you didn't own him. Fela belonged to himself. But we all belonged to him."

Fela Kuti insisted on being addressed by name, not by title, even by his children. Seun recalls having his pocket money docked after calling him "Pops", a moment that carried a lesson in respect.

"He always reminded us that he was in service to others more than himself."

That ethic shaped Seun's evolution from youthful ambition toward cultural responsibility.

"I used to make music to make money. But as I've grown, I lean more toward working for my people as well as my art."

Fela Kuti led multiple ensembles, most famously Africa 70 and later Egypt 80, the latter now carried forward by his son.

These were not conventional backing bands. They were musical militias, trained in discipline, endurance, and ideological purpose.

Stein recalls Fela Kuti's obsessive attention to detail.

"He tuned every instrument personally. Music wasn't entertainment to him. It was his mission."

LegendHero:
This pitch better pass everything for Abia including the so called "smart school".

Image123:
Imagine Peter Obi having such a basic project as this. His followers would be lynching people by now. It is well

Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the e-commerce company in three months.

The tech giant has been reducing a workforce that swelled during the pandemic.

Beth Galetti, a senior vice-president at Amazon, said in a blog post on Wednesday that the company has been "reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy."

The company did not say what business units would be impacted, or where the job cuts would occur. When reached by CBC News, a spokesperson did not specify how many employees in Canada would be impacted by the layoffs.

The latest reductions follow a round of job cuts in October, when Amazon said it was laying off 14,000 workers. While some Amazon units completed those "organizational changes" in October, others did not finish until now, Galetti said.

She said U.S.-based staff would be given 90 days to look for a new role internally. Those who are unsuccessful or don't want a new job will be offered severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits, she said.

"While we're making these changes, we'll also continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future," Galetti said.

On Tuesday, Amazon mistakenly sent an email appearing to refer to the layoff plan as "Project Dawn" ‍to some Amazon Web Services staff, unsettling thousands of workers.

The email, signed by Colleen Aubrey, senior vice-president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrongly said that impacted employees in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed that they lost their jobs.

"Changes like this are hard on everyone," Aubrey wrote in the email, reviewed by Reuters. "These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success."

On Tuesday, Amazon also cut jobs in its Fresh grocery and Go market divisions as it plans to close existing brick-and-mortar stores and convert some of them to Whole Foods stores. It did not disclose the number of affected employees.

AI 'should change' approach to work, CEO said
Galetti, wrote in an October blog post that with the rise of artificial intelligence, the company would need to be organized "more leanly" to adapt as quickly as possible. She indicated that more job cuts were likely in the future.

Wednesday's announcement alluded to Galetti's previous post, but it did not mention artificial intelligence directly.

Back in June, CEO Andy Jassy wrote to employees that the company's existing generative AI products and services were a "small fraction" of what it would ultimately build.

"As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," he wrote, adding that this could lead to a smaller corporate workforce.

Lagos State Police Command has arrested a man identified as Kosiso Chukwem-Nenyem over alleged bomb threat messages sent to two schools located in the Ikeja Government Reserved Area, GRA, of the state.

The arrest was disclosed as the command also announced the dismantling of a notorious one-chance robbery syndicate, with 21 suspects apprehended across different parts of Lagos.

According to police findings, at about 4:00 p.m. on January 20, 2026, the Human Resources Manager and Chief Security Officer of the affected schools separately reported at the Ikeja Divisional Police Headquarters that they had received threatening WhatsApp messages from the same unidentified number.

The messages claimed that explosive devices had been planted within the school premises.

Briefing journalists at the Command Headquarters in Ikeja, the Commissioner of Police, Moshood Jimoh, said security operatives were immediately mobilised following the reports.

Teams deployed included personnel from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, EOD, Unit, the Counter-Terrorism Unit, CTU, and other tactical squads.

“After a thorough sweep of the premises, no explosive device was discovered, and the schools were declared safe,” Jimoh said.

He added that subsequent investigations traced the threatening messages to Kosiso Chukwem-Nenyem, a resident of Okota, who was identified as the sender.

Although the suspect claimed that he had lost his mobile phone in November 2025, police investigations contradicted the account, revealing that the line continued to receive calls from family members during the period the threats were sent. The SIM card used was also recovered from him.

The police commissioner stated that preliminary findings showed the suspect acted alone and intentionally sought to create fear among school authorities and parents, stressing that he would be charged to court accordingly.

Okiemute101:
Ahhhh.... this message is just for me. I feel crazily different and sick with food I used to love very much nowadays. In few months I will be hitting 40. This i agree could be the changes in my appetite for these foods especially the rice and sugar foods you mentioned. This is not just a post but a voice I must reckon with. Thanks for sharing 👍

ollyboy900:
From the day we were born, human body has started breaking down. We are a machine, created with flaws and bound to breakdown irrespective of what we eat.

Welcoming new citizens into the Australian family is one of the most meaningful ways to mark Australia Day.

Today I met Michael Odutola and his family. Michael came to Australia to contribute to cancer research, and his work is already helping improve lives across our community.

Families like the Odutolas are part of what makes Australia strong, diverse and full of possibility.

Congratulations, and welcome home.

Odutola is a Doctoral Researcher at Centre for Big Data Research in Health, University of New South Wales, Australia.

Close to 19,000 people from more than 150 countries are becoming Australian citizens today; at one of 325 citizenship ceremonies being held around the country.

Albanese says becoming an Australian citizen is a special and important moment.

“Because at the very heart of the pledge that you make today to our laws, to our values, and to our people, is the respect for our common humanity that defines Australia. Love not hate. Hope not fear. Optimism not negativity. And indeed - unity not division,” he added.

Today, the Lagos State Government hosted the Honourable Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Abia State, Hon. Chaka Ikenna Chukwumerije @ChakaIkenna ,alongside officials from the Abia State Ministry of Lands, on a study tour to Lagos State.

The visit is aimed at learning and understanding Lagos State’s land administration framework, particularly the deployment of technology-driven solutions to address land-related challenges and enhance service delivery.

The delegation was received by the Special Adviser on eGIS and Urban Development, Dr Olajide Babatunde, where they held an interactive session and were taken on a guided tour of key facilities, including the ongoing Lagos GIS Centre, Land Digitization Centre, Lagos Land Archive, and the Electronic Physical Planning Centre.

The team also visited the Lagos State Lands Bureau, where they engaged with the Executive Secretary of Lands Bureau and other senior officials of the Department, exchanging insights and best practices in land administration and management.

jaxxy:
Trump is applying pressure. kilode

Afonja007:
even trump is begging illegal foreigners to leave USA they also be giving 3000 dollars