Popular Nollywood actor, Saheed Balogun, has lost his daughter, Zeenat Balogun, to the cold hands of death.

The actor announced the passing of his daughter on Saturday via his verified Instagram account, posting a solemn image of a candlelight surrounded by flowers, accompanied by heartbroken emojis.

His colleague, Ronke Oshodi Oke later confirmed the devastating news via her Instagram account.

Posting an image of a candle, she wrote, “No words can ease the pain of losing someone so precious. My heart goes out to you @saidibalogun during this incredibly difficult time. May you find strength in the love and support surrounding you.”

As of the time of this report, the cause of Zeenat Balogun’s death remains unknown.

iwaeda:

iwaeda:


Rivers of blood again. Wike should know, he can't win all the time,Nlfpmod.

Buildings and other property were shattered in the early hours of Saturday as explosives suspected to be dynamite shattered the secretariat of the All Progressives Congress along Aba Road in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.

The explosion brought down the gate of the secretariat while doors, windows and other property were destroyed.

This is the second time the Chief Tony Okocha-led APC would be experiencing such an attack at its secretariat this year.

This came as the local government elections is set to hold in the state today as the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission said on Friday that all sensitive materials have been distributed to the various local government areas.

A viral video of the incident scene seen by our correspondent showed some workers at the facilities going round to ascertain the extent of damage.

When contacted, the spokespetson for the state police command, Grace Iringe-Koko, said she had yet to get a report on it but promised to revert.

The party has yet to make a statement on the incident.

Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, has said with the current situation of things in the country, Nigerians will push for change in 2027.

Kwankwaso said this while receiving a large number of the All Progressives Congress (APC) members who decamped to to the NNPP in the state.

KHe received the decamped members of the APC from Dala, Kiru and Gwale local government areas at his Miller Road residence in Kano.

He said, “Nigerians, more specifically northerners, have suffered enough and no amount of pressure or intimidation will change their minds.

“Nigerians should rethink over the current dispensation, it has now become clear that the APC-led government is clearly against the poor masses and will never change.

“It is now clear that regardless of their beliefs and plans to use the security agents and INEC in the forthcoming elections, it will not be possible as Nigerians are tired and will surely struggle for change” Kwankwaso stated.

He described the occasion as historic, stating that the number of those joining the NNPP from the wards of Dala, Kiru, Gwale and Dawakintofa local governments, shows that the APC structure is completely crumbled in the affected places.

He said the APC which created to salvage the hardship of the poor masses has now turned against them with insecurity and poverty eating deep into the fabric of Nigeria saying, “Nigerians are tired,” he added.

The Bauchi State chapter of the Retired Police Officers Association of Nigeria (REPON) has disclosed that over 500 members have passed on while fighting for their retirement benefits.

REPON also lamented the delay of a proposed bill, submitted to the National Assembly since 2012, seeking the establishment of a police pension board.

Speaking at a press conference held in Bauchi, the Secretary of the chapter, retired ASP John Iliya, expressed frustration, stating, “We can no longer tolerate these empty promises.”

Iliya recalled that on May 21, 2024, members of the association protested at the National Assembly gate.

According to him, during the protest, Senator Ahmed Abdulkadir Mallam Madori, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, and his colleagues assured that their demands would be addressed by September 2024.

However, as of October 2, 2024, there had been no mention of the retired officers’ plight, particularly for those in Bauchi State.

Iliya warned that if their demands remain unmet, the association would be left with no choice but to stage another protest at the National Assembly.

He disclosed that one of the key demands of the association is the removal of the Nigeria Police Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and the establishment of a Police Pension Board. This, Iliya argued, would allow police retirees to manage their pensions independently.

He expressed disappointment that despite various meetings with House committees during their last recess, the Committee on Police Affairs had failed to address their concerns.

The association also criticized lawmakers for quickly passing the bill extending the tenure of the Inspector General of Police without public hearings, while the police retirees’ proposal remains neglected.

Iliya, therefore, called on the National Assembly’s Committee on Police Affairs to expedite the passage of the bill to avoid further protests by his members.

The Naira depreciated significantly against the Dollar at the foreign exchange market upon resumption of trading after Nigeria’s 64th Independence Day holiday.

FMDQ data showed that it weakened to N1669.19 per dollar on Wednesday from N1541.94 exchanged on Monday.

This represents an N127.25 loss against the dollar compared to the N1541.94 traded on Monday.

Meanwhile, at the parallel market, the Naira gained N10 to close at N1690 per dollar on Wednesday compared to the N1700 exchange rate on Monday.

DAILY POST reports that on Monday the depreciated marginally against the Dollar.

For months now, the Naira has continued to fluctuate against the dollar and other foreign currencies.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during his Independence Day pleaded with Nigerians to be patient with his economic policies.

On June 14 last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria floated the Naira at the FX market which saw the value of the Country’s currency drop.

Nigerian Central Bank Says Currency In Circulation Now N4.1trillion With Only 6% In Banks

Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has shown that the currency in circulation has reached an all-time high of N4.1trillion as of August 2024.

The report also revealed that currency outside the banks grew to N3.86 trillion in the month under review, which indicates that 93.34 per cent of the nation’s currency is in the hands of individuals and businesses, while only 6.66 per cent remains within the banking sector.

This trend highlights a persistent challenge for Nigeria’s formal banking system.

Despite efforts to drive financial inclusion and promote cashless transactions, a significant portion of the country’s money supply remains outside regulated channels.

Daily Trust reports that according to the data, a steady increase in currency in circulation, growing from N4.05 trillion in the previous month of July to N4.1 trillion in August, according to the Apex Bank’s Money and Credit Statistics.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in August reported that the currency in circulation surged to an unprecedented N4.05 trillion in July 2024, marking an all-time high.

According to the CBN’s Money and Credit Data, this figure represents an 11.05 per cent increase since the beginning of the year and a significant 56.17 per cent rise compared to the same period in 2023.

Analysis of the data revealed that the year began with N3.65 trillion in circulation in January 2024, a stable figure reflecting a typical post-holiday economic environment.

February saw a modest rise to N3.69 trillion, a 1.18% increase from January, while March recorded a more substantial jump to N3.87 trillion, marking a 4.76 per cent month-on-month increase.

The upward trend persisted in April, with the currency in circulation hitting N3.92 trillion, up by 1.39 per cent from March, driven by heightened consumer spending during the Easter period.

May and June continued this trajectory, with the currency in circulation reaching N3.97 trillion in May and peaking at N4.04 trillion in June, representing monthly increases of 1.07 per cent and 2.11 per cent, respectively.

Timmi:


After all is said and done, it is now obvious that none looks after righting the wrong but all are looking to share in the booty. Again, it is the brainless zombies killed and maimed in these ego boosting protest that wins. It is a shame and it is a lesson to those joining the so-called fearlessinOctober protest that all are for sale to the highest bidder. The activists, the lawyer(SAN as they call themselves), are nothing but envelope collecting cretins devoid of conscience and sensibility.

AT 64, Nigeria is a total mess. It is a deformed adult child at 64! It cannot protect itself and depends on others for basic sustenance, even from resources it has in abundance.

A weak union, Nigeria, which got its Independence from the British colonial masters on October 1, 1960, is standing on false structural legs. Turning political logic on its head, a natural federation of more than 250 distinct ethnic nationalities of vast cultures, beliefs, and ideologies operates like a unitary state. Consequently, it goes around in circles, a bleak mimicry of an isomorphic state.

For much of its history, it has lost its way. It is crawling in contrast to China, which shares October 1 as its national day. And this is not a harsh judgement. China’s GDP is $17.96 trillion (2022) in contrast to Nigeria’s $252 billion!

The political class lives in denial, but there is precious little to celebrate for most citizens. The lofty hopes that independence birthed have vanished, made worse by the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis in the past year.

The ethnic nationalities cohabit in mutual suspicion, distrust, and disharmony. The malice is barely concealed. The competition of the early days after the exit of the colonialists has turned to hostile rivalry. The values of integrity, scholarship, and dignity of labour have disappeared, replaced by sleaze and morbid antagonism. Youths are fleeing, referred to in local parlance as ‘japa.’

The numbers are bleak. Islamic terrorism, Fulani herdsmen rapine, banditry, and separatist agitation consumed 63,135 citizens in the eight years to May 2023. The number has not improved under Bola Tinubu, the fifth President of the Fourth Republic, which began in 1999. The Fragile State Index compiled annually by Fund for Peace, puts Nigeria at No.15 in 2023. It is in the same company as Guinea, Zimbabwe, and Libya.

After mismanaging its abundant natural resources, Nigeria is currently a hollow repository of abandoned infrastructural projects. About 56,000 uncompleted projects dot the landscape. The World Bank says Nigeria’s infrastructure stock is 30 per cent of GDP. This is 40 per cent short of the 70 per cent recommended by the Bank. The African Development Bank notes that Nigeria needs $100 billion annually for 30 straight years to build its infrastructure.

The electricity output is dismal, a stark reality of Nigeria’s arrested development. Its continental peers, South Africa and Egypt generate 58,000 megawatts each; Nigeria is barely able to generate 5,000MW. The World Bank says 45 per cent of citizens lack access to grid electricity 64 years after flag independence.

The economy depends unwisely on oil revenue. Since 2014, oil prices have fluctuated widely, leaving Nigeria hanging by a thread. An economy then the first with a GDP of $510 billion after rebasing in 2014 is now the fourth in Africa with a GDP of $252 billion.

After over six decades of independence, the country with the largest population – 233 million – in Africa cannot feed its population. According to the 2023 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranks 109th out of the 125 countries with sufficient data to calculate GHI scores. With a score of 28.3, Nigeria has a level of hunger that is serious.

In education and the provision of social services, Nigeria is in a pitiful state. With 20.1 million, Nigeria’s out-of-school population is second in the world to India’s. The universities, beset by strikes, poor pay, and shabby infrastructure, are poorly ranked globally. A new policy to prevent under-18 students from university admissions is causing mass discontent.

With a sizeable number of medical professionals relocating overseas, the health of citizens is in jeopardy. The wealthy fly abroad for medical treatment. Medical tourism sets Nigeria back by $2 billion yearly, per the Nigerian Medical Association.

Fifty-eight years after independence, Nigeria went from bad to worse. That year, it gained global disdain after overtaking India as the global poverty capital with 87 million nationals. Unfortunately, things are much worse. In 2022, the NBS estimated that 133 million Nigerians lived in multidimensional poverty. The situation degenerated in 2023 after Tinubu cancelled the petrol subsidy that had kept transportation prices affordable and floated the currency. The World Bank said the twin policies added 7 million Nigerians to the poverty rate. Data by the NBS put the poverty rate at 27.2 per cent or 17.1 million citizens in 1980 and 69.0 per cent or 112.47 million in 2010. Multidimensional poverty is at 63 per cent and income poverty at 40 per cent, the AfDB said.

Its economy is disarticulated. This is reflected boldly in the 10 per cent tax-to-GDP ratio, one of the lowest in the world. The OECD pegs the minimum for economic development at 16 per cent tax-to-GDP.

Labour is poorly rewarded. Most states are struggling with the new national minimum wage of N70,000 per month. On its part, the Federal Government is incurring debt to pay federal civil servants, although the national debt stock crossed the N121 trillion barrier in 2024. The Federal Government serviced its debt by 74 per cent of income in Q1. There is a wide gap in income equality. Unemployment remains unusually high.

Unwisely, Nigeria is unwilling to change a political structure that has delivered discontent, agitations, and extreme privations. The political leadership is driving the system to ruination and implosion is imminent.

Its only positive claim is that democracy is in operation after the exit of the military from governance in 1999. That is as best as it gets. Elections, a healthy measure of democracy, are hollow; they end up in litigation and winners are decided by the judiciary instead of the electorate. This creates deeper fissures after each election cycle.

It was not so at the beginning. The 1963 Republican Constitution recognised the importance of federalism, which accommodates disparate interests, especially that of minorities. The three regions – East, West and North – developed at their own pace, begetting healthy competition and development. Those three regions are now atomised as 36 states. Most are not economically viable.

The misguided military coup of 1966 destroyed Nigeria’s incipient political soul. Since then, the country has experienced a three-year internecine war. Amidst renewed violence, Biafra separatist agitators are asking for their own country again. The North is defined by religious bloodletting, a sign that Nigeria is a failing state. Others are emphatic it has failed.

Nigeria has a few options left. One, it can continue pretending as a unitary state and eventually self-destruct. Two, it can instigate true federalism – the devolution of power to the constituent units as it was in the First Republic. Here, the federating units are co-equals to the centre, not subservient as it is currently in which they go to Abuja with begging bowls.

The third option is to negotiate a peaceful separation as occurred in the ‘Velvet (Gentle) Revolution’ in defunct Czechoslovakia in 1989 to form two countries – Czechia (originally the Czech Republic) and Slovakia.

Without taking any of this route, the ultimate cost is violent disintegration. The obdurate forces in the former Yugoslavia travelled this road with devastating outcomes as the country split violently into over seven countries.

The degenerate political class should redeem itself and avoid this at all cost, but delay is dangerous.

Punch Editorial Board

iwaeda:


Truth can't be covered for long. Those who claimed noone died at Lekki Toll Gate should remembered, people were around Mobil House, uncompleted building s around, LAWMA people behind the barb wire, God Almighty upstairs, Nlfpmod.

A social media user, Princess Banke Oniru, has alleged that some coordinators of the protest against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force shared millions of naira severally.

Nigerians attracted global attention after they took to the streets across the country in late 2020 protest to call for the disbandment of SARS, accused of extrajudicial killings, extortion, and torture.

At the twilight of the protest in October 2020, unarmed protesters waving Nigerian flags were allegedly killed after soldiers and police invaded the Lekki Tollgate, the main convergence point of the protest in Lagos State.

While there had been several controversies around the funds generated for the protest, with Feminist Coalition (FEMCO) facing public scrutiny over the group’s alleged inability to properly account for the funds received, some details emerged on Sunday about how funds from the government were allegedly shared by acclaimed coordinators of the protest

Taking to his social media account on Sunday, Oniru explained that while initial funds offered by the Lagos State Government were rejected, coordinators later shared several millions of money from the government.

She claimed she initially refused the largesse but later asked her assistant to pick it from a popular social commentator, Sarah Ibrahim, and she (Oniru) shared the money accrued to her as giveaways.

Oniru, with posts from the handle @HRH_bankeoniru, wrote, “Following the EndSARS unrest, and during the panel of inquiry, the Lagos State Government’s initial funding offer was met with resistance.

“@sarahibrahim and associates then consulted Mr. Femi Falana regarding the substantial sum proposed for advisory purposes. Despite Mr. Falana’s counsel to accept the funds as a gift, I deemed it incongruous to accept financial compensation from those we were opposing, fearing it may undermine our integrity.

“The first funds Sarah called me to pick up was N1.5m. The second was N1m. I have proofs. Messages to back it up. The #endsars coordinators shared millions of money severally. Going back and forth to pick a Ghana must-go filled with cash at Alausa Ikeja.

“On two separate occasions, I entrusted my personal assistant to collect money from Sarah, ensuring she took photographs for evidentiary purposes. Afterward, I shared images of the funds received on EndSARS United and Competent Nigerians platforms for public dissemination as giveaways. Adeshina Ademola Ogunlana of blessed memories was the only lawyer that stood genuinely for the endsars. He can never be bought.”

‘Lagos offered N100 million’

But countering the claim, Ibrahim explained that Oniru displayed “severe ingeniousness” in her allegations, adding that though the Lagos State Government reached out to her and offered N100 million, she never accepted the offer.

Tweeting from @TheSerahIbrahim, Ibrahim in a lengthy post on social media, said that after consulting her lawyers, she asked the government to use the funds in supporting Lekki Toll Gate victims’ families, and those who are injured.

She wrote, “So yes, I was reached by the Lagos State Government to offer N100 million. A meeting they were trying to have for months but I kept refusing because I was rightfully pissed at them.

“Finally, I attended one of the meetings after speaking with my lawyer Fusika SAN,

who then took me to also consult jointly with Falana SAN, on what to do. At one of the meetings, I attended with @akintollgate where one of Sanwo Olu’s commissioners apologised for what happened at the Toll Gate and wanted us to make amends.

“He spoke like a father, he was nice and very understanding and wanted us to make peace with the govt, and move on. Truthfully, his words calmed me. After all was said and blame passed back and forth, he stated there was a financial offer to us to cover for all we must have spent and gone through during the period, an amount of N100 million. Immediately I refused, I didn’t want to involve myself with it. And I spoke with Akin who agreed with my thought on it. I only requested that prosthetics be done for those who were amputated so that we can help them move around.”

She claimed that upon rejecting the monetary offer, she started getting calls from families of victims and she had to change her stance.

“So after, I started getting calls from the victims, I was pissed. I went to the lawyers and told them what was happening. The govt informed me that the money was in cash and it was to be given to me, that I should come and pick it up and do with it what I wish. So speaking to Falana SAN, he then said if the govt is remorseful and wants to finally help those they shot and killed at the toll gate, let me not block it but allow it to happen.

“I told Falana SAN that I personally did not want anything to do with the money and I did not want to go pick it up like the govt wanted, and I wanted to stay out of it, and he immediately right there and then, wrote a letter for me and told me to give to the commissioner stating that the govt should do it the right way. The govt stated that the money was in two ranches of N50 million each and so there were two letters one stating N50 million and another stating the total of N100 million.

“I insisted that the govt should just give out the compensations as instructed by the panel, rather than this ‘backyard assistance’ like my dad called it.”

Meanwhile, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s spokesman, Gboyega Akosile, was yet to respond to a WhatsApp message on Monday morning seeking the government’s reaction to the alleged funds paid to victims’ families and protest coordinators.

BlueRayDick:
They are just thieves. Th current IGP is doing everything possible to turn the police force into a revenue generating agency which they are not.

All of these is just for them to extort ₦5,000 from the driving public all in the name of E-CMR. By law their job cuts across safeguarding lives and properties. They don't need to extort ₦5,000 annually from us before they do their jobs.

naptu2:
Prince Olumuyiwa Adejobi @Princemoye1

NewDea4:


You steal and you don't just walk free, you are worshipped as a god, by the same people you robbed

Racoon:
Hehehe! Bloody hypocrite deceiving the gullible zombies 🧟‍♀️

adenigga:



Source: https://dailypost.ng/Removal-of-fuel-subsidy-saved-N5.4trn-for-Nigeria-Gov-Abiodun