Felix Duru Mbah

Federal Government (FG) said it has secured the release of a further 130 schoolchildren kidnapped from a Catholic school in November, after 100 were freed earlier this month. “Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare said on X, in a post accompanied by a photo of smiling children. In late November, gunmen kidnapped hundreds of students and staff from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in Niger State. There has recently been an upsurge in mass abductions, reminiscent of the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014.…

*Oyo Head Of Service Salutes Civil Servants Over Conduct During Examinations By Stephen Gbadamosi, Ibadan The Circular Road Stakeholders Engagement Committee set up by Oyo State governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde, to look into the grievances of those protesting against the planned corridor for the 110-kilometre road, paid a courtesy visit to the Olubadan of Ibadanland, His Imperial Majesty Oba (Senator) Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, Arusa 1, at the Oke Aremo Palace to brief him on its activities. It also sought guidance on how to further successfully prosecute its assignment. The committee, made up of some prominent Ibadan mogajis (family heads), Chairmen…

By Idibia Gabriel, Kaduna A fresh scandal is rocking the Kaduna Polytechnic. On the heels of the subsisting allegation of land grabbing on the institution's Bypass-By-Television Village site by outsiders believed to be fronting for some staff of the federal polytechnic, the school is now gripped by a bids controversy over its move to lease out the school's hotels for five years to qualified operators. The reported rejection of a particular highest bidder's proposal has sparked outrage and suspicion in governance accountability and transparency circles in the Northern political capital. Worse still, no genuine reason was given for the rejection…

*'Public Officials Should Experience Realities On Ground' By Prosper Okoye Civil society groups in Nigeria have criticised a call by Senate President Godswill Akpabio for the return of police security personnel to members of the National Assembly and other senior public officials. The criticism followed Akpabio’s appeal to President Bola Tinubu to review his recent directive withdrawing police operatives attached to Very Important Persons (VIPs). The president said the move was intended to redeploy officers to tackle wider security challenges across the country. Speaking during President Tinubu’s presentation of the 2026 budget at a joint sitting of the National Assembly…

A coalition of pan-Igbo self determination groups --American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID), Ambassadors for Self-Determination (ASD) and Rising Sun Foundation (RSF) -- has slammed Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, over his claim, some days ago, that President Bola Tinubu has integrated Igbos into Nigeria's mainstream, thus rendering the Biafra agitation unwarranted. Frowning at such claim, the coalition queried Umahi, who was a governor of Ebonyi State in South-East Nigeria, picking several holes in the Minister's assertion even as it described him allegedly as a betrayer. Furthermore, the group tracked back into global history and concluded that the activities of…