Good morning Nigeria. Welcome to the Editor roundup of top newspaper headlines in Nigeria for today, Tuesday, 2nd April 2024.
1. Gunmen have abducted an unspecified number of students travelling along the East-West Road in Ughelli, Delta State. DAILY POST reports that the incident happened on Monday.
2. A women leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Hajia Maryam Suleiman, has slammed Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, accusing him of disloyalty to his predecessor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. In a video which has gone viral, Suleiman recalled how El-Rufai, in 2019, travelled almost 500 times to lobby party chieftains at the APC headquarters in Abuja to ensure that Sani became the representative of Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 9th National Assembly.
3. Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, has dismissed insinuations that the agency is only going after internet fraudsters, popularly known as “Yahoo boys’. Olukoyede, in a statement by the agency’s spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, on Monday in Abuja, assured that the anti-graft war would not spare anyone linked with any form of economic and financial crimes.
4. Nineteen students of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State have been expelled and rusticated by the authorities of the institution for their involvement in various offences. A statement in Ilorin on Monday by the Director Corporate Affairs of the University, Kunle Akogun, disclosed that the approval for expulsion/rustication of the affected students by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Wahab Egbewole (SAN) was sequel to the recommendations of the Students’ Disciplinary Committee at its 220th/221st meeting.
5. The Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Air Peace Airlines, Allen Onyema, has narrated how his airlines suffered what he called both internal and external conspiracies. Onyema, who disclosed this on Monday while fielding questions on Arise Television’s Morning Show programme, said ‘his own country’ denied Air Peace and threw back its application for a Technical Country Operators (TCO) permit, which could have allowed the airlines to start going into any European country.
6. The Labour Party, LP, 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has threatened to dump the party ahead of the 2027 general election following the ongoing crisis. Obi while featuring on an X space hosted by Parallel Facts, said he won’t die while trying to change LP, hence his decision to leave if the party’s crisis can’t be resolved.
7. Arrangements have been concluded for President Bola Tinubu to depart Abuja, Nigeria’s capital to attend the inauguration of Senegal’s President-elect, Bassirou Diomaye Faye. According to Tinubu’s spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale on Monday, the President who doubles as the Chairman of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, will join other regional leaders to witness the inauguration at Diamniadio Exhibition Centre on Tuesday.
8. The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, says the number of electricity consumers increased by 410,000 from 11.71 million in the third quarter of 2023 to 12.12 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The bureau disclosed in its Electricity Report for the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023 released in Abuja on Monday, that the increase was by 3.46 per cent.
9. Troops of the Nigerian Army have carried out a series of coordinated operations and raided terrorists’ enclaves in Katsina and Zamfara States, resulting in the elimination of a significant number of terrorists. In a post on the Nigerian Army’s official ‘X’ handle on Monday, the Army said the operations were conducted on March 29 and March 30.
10. At least two persons were killed on Sunday night and several houses torched in the North Bank Area of Makurdi, the capital of Benue State, in what appeared to be the resumption of cult killings and the communal clash between Tiv and Jukun in Makurdi. The incident, which started on Sunday evening, lasted into the following day, Easter Monday morning.
