₦airaland Forum

Lola Omotayo Okoye, the wife of Nigerian music singer Peter Okoye of Psquare, was taken aback by an unexpected visit from international boxer Anthony Joshua.

Lola revealed that she was star-struck when she spotted the sportsman on her doorstep unannounced.

The mum of two mentioned that she was a die-hard fan of the boxer and characterised the event as pure delight and unforgettable.
The businesswoman shared videos and pictures of her practising boxing with the star figure .

Lola further expressed her gratitude for the visit, stating that she was motivated and still smiling.
She wrote:

“When your favourite boxer @anthonyjoshua shows up at your doorstep, and you’re a die-hard boxing fan, pure joy doesn’t even begin to cover it! What an unforgettable moment with the champ—grateful, inspired, and still smiling!”.

"Only recently, the DSS DG averted what would have been a very serious security crisis in Enugu State where nine young Fulani men were murdered in cold blood and their corpses dumped in the bush.
"It took painstaking efforts by Mr. Ajayi to help douse tensions".

agulion:
Just only one suspect was killed, people that should be shot at sight,

Troops of Operation Lafiyan Jama’a have repelled a militia attack on Teegbe community in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, neutralising one suspect and arresting two others during a hot pursuit into neighbouring Kaduna State.

The operation, which was revealed in a post by security analyst, Zagazola Makama on X, followed a distress call received at about 9 a.m on Wednesday when the community came under attack.

According to Makama, troops swiftly responded to the call and engaged the armed assailants upon arrival in Teegbe. The attackers, however, fled toward Baduru Sama in Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

During a fierce chase, the troops re-engaged the fleeing militia members, leading to the neutralisation of one suspect.

Further clearance operations in the area led to the arrest of two individuals; 40-year-old Sani Adamu and 20-year-old Buhari Mohammed suspected to be members of a local bandit group.

The troops also recovered 42 stolen cows and a sum of ₦20,200 from the neutralised suspect.
Sadly, two residents of Teegbe community were confirmed dead following the attack, while another sustained gunshot wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

A soldier, identified as Lance Corporal Tope Awoniyi, was also injured during the exchange and is currently receiving treatment at the 3 Division Medical Services and Hospital.

The arrested suspects and the recovered items are currently in military custody for further investigation.

ElevationD:
So Hakeem Ahmed should shut his mouth, while powers in charge should continue rigging elections?

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed: Silence is better than empty threats, By Kassim Afegbua

Yesterday we were greeted with the news of the passing of the pontiff of the Catholic Church. May God rest his soul. While still in sobriety, this morning has greeted us with the utter rubbish that was hurled at us from the mouth of one Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, about his days in government and why he decidedly resigned from his duty as a political advisor to Mr. President.

I’m very suspicious that he was thrown out. He went on to say the North would soon come together to chart a roadmap for 2027. I sincerely hope that they plan to chart a roadmap for the presidency to remain in the South, for at least four years from 2027; as anything otherwise would amount to abuse and a call for a fight.

By now, this North- South rotation business should have rested. For Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a habitue in our land, originally from Mauritania gathers the balls to preach about our country to us, to the extent of using his North to threaten our collective sufferance, then we sure are in trouble.

His bravado shows that we have surrendered this country to those who were never part of our heritage, our history, and our foundation, but who have been so patronised that they assume certain notional positions in our country, that emboldens them to insult us to our faces.

This foreigner now warns sternly that the North will act decisively. Such brazen declaration actually came out of the buccaneers cavity of a man whose political interest has never shown dominance in the outcomes of voting in his polling unit in Zaria where he claims to be his origin; not even when his younger brother Datti Baba-Ahmed ran as Vice President.

This strange behavior supports the wonders shall never end saying. It is indeed an exhibition of sheer idiocy. It has become absolutely vital that a few cautionary words be sent to Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and those who think like him, that Nigeria is no longer wired in that all-North categorisation. Nigeria is now segmented into six ALL IMPORTANT geopolitical zones and no one single zone can intimidate the other about political superiority.

When President Muhammadu Buhari became a professional at running elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011, despite and in spite of all the famed followership, and more than 100% grip on the votes from the North, he was never elected. He only got out of the tunnel of his concatenated ill luck when the incumbent president, prevailed on hm to come to a merger, to better his chances and we all know the rest of the story. And so, the All Progressives’ Congress- APC was birthed.

The political artistry of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other chieftains of the APC was brilliant and advantageous enough to defeating an incumbent President, Jonathan, on the platform of a BRAND NEW PARTY in 2015. That win could easily have been seen as a disgrace, depending on how it is viewed. Importantly, it was the brainchild of our current president. Before then, Muhammadu Buhari, was already inured to failure at the polls; because all he considered was his North. Had Hakeem Baba-Ahmed not come to Nigeria by then? Is this news to him? Or has the northern voter population grown lately?

At best, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed was a meddlesome officious Interloper who was never part of the Tinubu Campaign in 2023, who parasitically grabbed the offer of a political appointment courtesy of Mr President’s resolve to run an inclusive government, without qualms. He reminds me of those ones who are described as, “anywhere belle face” politicians; those waiting for the till before they make a kill.

I would have been enamoured of Hakeem Baba-Ahmed if he had boasted of convoking a summit that would address the precarious and original situations of the North, which they now export to the South- armed banditry, insecurity, poverty, educational backwardness, kidnapping, almajiri syndrome, illicit drugs, killings and exploitations.

It would have been rock solid commendations to his credit if he promoted a beam light on the ugly narratives that have dominated public discourse in the entire country about the activities in and from the North. To wake up to this nuisance of a threat of his, does not at all redound to his credit. This squeamish idea of political superiority appears to be perpetuating.

Even common sense dictates that the South should run its term of eight years. With all the huge challenges emanating from the North left untreated, his ogles the office in Abuja.

For several years, gold exploitation in Zamfara and other parts of the North has been in the hands of private individuals shrouded by all the orchestrated armed banditry to allow the trade flourish; a trade that has yielded nothing but economic brigandage. How have they handled it?

If Baba-Ahmed were that concerned about National growth, he ought to have called for an emergency discourse on the plights of the North and her army of almajiri coupled with the incessant insecurity in the region. What elder statesmen do during periods of anomie is rally support around the government and its institutions to generate ideas that will obliterate and or mitigate the political and economic challenges disrupting the system.

Unfortunately, that is not happening; instead one foreigner greets us with threats about how the nation will be run going forward; a political inconsequential existing in our land on the basis of kindness and hospitality.

The reasonable political actors from the North know in their hearts that President Tinubu has brought a new dimension to leadership in the country. Instead of pampering the challenges with a laissez faire attitude like his predecessor’s, he has taken the bull by the horn from day one, matching bold actions with our problems.

Since assuming office, he’s scored many firsts, and achieved many feats, in several aspects of our national life. It may not be Uhuru yet, but to suggest that the government is not doing anything, is to be economical with the truth and divisive in intentions. He’s made huge budgetary provisions for tackling insecurity, a huge investment in our educational sector, health sector, job creation and infrastructural renewal, several cuts above the inherited tokenism of the past. President Tinubu’s bold leadership emanations have brought new perspectives to the fore.

Even though he hasn’t got to the desired destination, Nigeria’s current polices have shifted away from previous jerry built arrangements that couldn’t endure the test of time. The Lagos-Calabar Coastal road is a handy reference to President Tinubu’s bold ambition.

The economic importance of that singular road cannot be over-emphasized; to say the least, it has become the courageous stimulus to re- ignite our economic recovery initiatives and job creation efforts.

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, stop this arrogance of power and concentrate your energies on therapeutic engagements that would help heal the wounds in the land. All this pussy-footing about- the North this, the North that, will not lead us to building national cohesion to stimulate national enterprise.

Great men help the government build institutions that would impact the well-being of the people not threaten it with their imaginations and warped notions. After General Buhari’s serial failed attempts at the presidency when he clutched unto his North-alone diadem, is it not pellucid for any mind that is not wonky to reckon that no geopolitical zone can go it alone?

Nigeria has to be a collective endeavour to be able to weave together the centripetal and centrifugal forces to generate positive movements. If the Hakeem Baba-Ahmeds of this world could help proffer solutions to the prevailing armed banditry and kidnapping in the North, coupled with Boko Haram, they would have added a feather to their caps and moved up several notches in political relevance.

He and his like should use the North to show good example of how they can make Nigeria great. They should go and repair the North while they wait for their turn. Enough of this crass arrogance of political superiority. There’s even nothing to point to as assessments or judgement of the contents of their mental dosage.

Nigeria is now made up of intertwined relationships and cross cultural realities, from the North to the South, East to West, such that no one Zone or conclave can go it alone in terms of political and electoral domination. Common sense must come to the table.

What I crave to see is for the North and her political leaders to point at how they have bettered the lot of the average Northern poor, before they begin to pick the perks in other people’s eyes. I want to see a coalition against poverty, against insecurity and all other vices that are ravaging the North and else where in Nigeria. Such coalition should be bold to unveil the record of performance of her previous leaders and the impact they made to add value to the economic well-being of the North.

This arrogance of coalition against the South must simply stop. This political superiority mentality must give way for a more robust, symbiotic and reasoned understanding that we need ourselves to till the same soil for more harvests for our people. No zone can operate at the level of political island. Buhari tried it, he failed woefully.

Anybody that seeks to contest election must as a matter of urgency, see Nigeria from the prism of nationalistic patriotism and not prebendal politics of old that apparently encourages ethnic chauvinism.

A new Nigeria is possible if we dwell less on our clannish attachments and promote a sense of collectivism that will help enhance national cohesion for the good of all.

The like of Hakeem Baba-Ahmed should be treated with utmost disdain which is befitting for those who want to drag us backward and stymied our growth on the basis of their identity. We are Nigeria, and we need ourselves to flourish and grow national dialogue and conversation.

The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, Lere Olayinka, has said former Political Adviser to Vice President Kashim Shettima, Hakeem Baba- Ahmed has no moral right to talk about free and fair elections.

Olayinka said Baba-Ahmed worked for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, when elections conducted by the body were tainted with malpractice.

He was reacting to Baba-Ahmed’s warning that any attempt by President Bola Tinubu’s government to manipulate the 2027 general elections will be resisted.

The former leader of the Northern Elders Forum said there would be dire consequences if the current government tampered with the 2027 election results.

“Conducting a bad election in 2027 may lead to the end of Nigeria, I swear to God. “There will be a time we will come out and say it’s okay, and it’s soon. This injustice is over. We know who we are,” he warned.

Baba-Ahmed also charged President Tinubu to step aside and allow a new generation of leaders to takeover the helm of affairs in Nigeria.

Reacting, Olayinka, in a Facebook post, wrote: “In 2003, Dr Hakeem Baba- Ahmed was INEC Secretary. He took over from Mr. Benjamin Ochai, in June 2002 “Before his appointment as INEC Secretary, Dr. Baba-Ahmed was a Permanent Secretary, Political Affairs in the Presidency.

“Today, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed is now a critic, telling Nigerians how 2027 elections must be free and fair. “Of course, elections must be free, fair and credible.

But someone who was INEC Secretary in 2003 and 2007 when, even President Yar’Adua who won the presidential election admitted that the election was flawed lacked moral rights to talk about free and fair elections.”

Ikaeniyan0:
Look at how dry the thread is... If the thread is about the states and the FCT debt increasing now, e go don reach like page 10. Wailers and losers won't let us hear word

Coalition spokesman, Salihu Moh. Lukman

The Federal Government has announced the revitalization of over 901 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) across Nigeria, through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).

In addition, the government plans to upgrade 2,701 more PHCs, as part of efforts to ensure that each ward in the country has at least one fully functional health centre.

Dr Muyi Aina, Executive Director of NPHCDA, disclosed this on Tuesday during the agency’s first quarterly news conference for 2025, held in Abuja.

He noted that the initiative is part of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Programme and the Health Sector Strategic Blueprint.

He stated that the NPHCDA has adopted a three-pillar strategy aimed at strengthening the primary health care (PHC) system, restoring public trust in healthcare services, and enhancing the nation’s frontline health security.

“Our goal is to rebuild trust in our health system by ensuring that every Nigerian, regardless of their location, has access to quality and functional primary health care,” he said.

Addressing service delivery gaps and increasing investment

According to him, the agency has assessed over 18,000 PHCs across the country and identified service delivery gaps, which are now being addressed through increased federal investment and strategic collaborations with state governments and development partners.

To support these efforts, the number of PHCs funded under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) is being increased from 8,406 to 17,600.

He added that high-volume PHCs will now receive N800,000 per quarter, while low-volume centres will get N600,000, an increase from the previous uniform rate of N300,000.

Aina also unveiled new digital tracking and accountability tools, including a real-time public dashboard for monitoring PHC status ( https://phc.nphcda.gov.ng ) and a digitised financial management app, which has already been piloted in four states.

Key highlights of the PHC revitalization plan[b]

He explained that these tools are designed to enhance transparency and efficiency in PHC operations.

“Key highlights of the plan include: The launch of a digitised financial management system to streamline fund usage and reporting across PHCs.

“Expanded use of BHCPF’s four gateways:

NPHCDA, National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and National Emergency Medical Services and Ambulance System (NEMSAS), for infrastructure, health security, and emergency response.

“A commitment to the accountable use of the one billion dollars mobilized by the Federal Government for PHC revitalization.

“Implementation of tiered funding models based on PHC capacity and service volume, along with strengthened workforce development and partnerships with states to ensure skilled and consistent staffing.”

Aina reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to reaching every child and community with life-saving vaccines as Nigeria marked African Vaccination Week 2025.

He emphasized the theme, “Immunization for All is Humanity Possible, ” and urged citizens and the media to utilize the public dashboard to monitor PHC progress and contribute to transparency in the country’s health delivery system.

Immunization as a cornerstone of primary health care

Dr. Eshetu Wassie, Head of the Expanded Programme on Immunization at WHO, highlighted that immunization is not only a cornerstone of primary health care but also a fundamental human right.

He stressed the effectiveness of vaccines, which have saved more than 154 million lives in the past 50 years.

“As we gather for 2025 and African Vaccination Week, I urge all of us, governments, partners, health workers, communities, and the media to recommit to this life-saving mission,” Wassie said.

UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Ms. Cristian Munduate, emphasised the need to reach the most vulnerable populations.

She highlighted that one in three infants remained unreached, with “zero-dose” children being the most vulnerable.

Munduate also called for stronger partnerships, increased domestic funding, and community-driven solutions to address barriers such as insecurity and vaccine access.

She urged the media to help build trust in vaccines and ensure that no child is left behind, rather than amplifying misinformation.
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Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, has ordered the revocation of houses and land allocation within a school premises embarked upon by previous government led by former governor Nasir El-Rufai.

The government revoked the previous sales of institutional houses and land allocations within Alhuda-huda College, Zaria, Queen Amina College, Kaduna and Government Commercial College, Zaria for overriding public interest and for the common good.

Secretary to the State Government, Abdulkadri Muazu Meyere, in a statement, on Tuesday, said the “revocation was approved last year and the revocation order has been conveyed to all allottees, while steps are being taken to refund amounts paid in respect of the sold houses as directed by the Governor of Kaduna State.”

He said, “Uba Sani noted that effective learning can best take place in a conducive atmosphere without distractions and sundry interfere.

“One of the first decisions that His Excellency took upon assuming office was the slashing of the school fees of Kaduna State-own tertiary institutions on August 21, 2023.

“Apart from tertiary institutions, the Senator Uba Sani administration has also improved access by building new primary and secondary schools as well as blocks of classrooms since he became Governor of Kaduna State.

“The Senator Uba Sani administration has built over 2,336 new classrooms, renovated more than 707 others and provided 3,704 and 30,742 furniture, for teachers and pupils respectively.
“Kaduna State Government has sunk 51 boreholes, provided 918 cubicle toilets for both pupils’ and teachers’ use in all the Local Governments to make learning more conducive.”

Gunmen have reportedly killed a herder, Hamza Sulaiman, in Shen community, Jos South LGA of Plateau State.

Garba Abdullahi, Chairman of the Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN), said the attack occurred around 12:30 p.m. on Monday while six herders were grazing. Three cattle and several sheep were also killed.

Fulani leaders called for justice and urged their communities to remain peaceful. In a separate incident, 26 cattle were allegedly poisoned near the INEC office in Mangu LGA. Musa Muhammad, Secretary of MACBAN in Mangu, said the cattle were grazing when the poisoning occurred around 1:30 p.m. Local security personnel, including the DSS and police, visited the scene and confirmed the deaths. Poisoned mangoes and contaminated water were discovered.

Muhammad accused the Muwagvle youth group of orchestrating the poisoning, but the group’s spokesperson, Satmak Bala, denied the claim, calling it baseless.

Meanwhile, the Plateau chapter of the Coalition of Fulani Registered Organizations denied issuing preconditions for peace in the state. Chairman Garba Abdullahi clarified that their April 7 press briefing in Kaduna was a plea for intervention—not demands—regarding insecurity in Bokkos LGA. He said their message was distorted by some media outlets, misrepresenting the Fulani community’s stance.

Jafar Jibrin Bayero, the deceased’s uncle, said Hamza’s body was found in a shallow grave after the shooting.