A fierce war of words has erupted over Nigeria’s political past, as former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido accused President Bola Tinubu of supporting the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election. The Presidency swiftly hit back, describing Lamido’s claims as “revisionist falsehoods” aimed at distorting Tinubu’s well-documented pro-democracy record.

Lamido: Tinubu Was With Babangida, Not Abiola

In an interview on Arise Television, Lamido alleged that Tinubu, then a senator on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), backed the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida in annulling what is widely regarded as Nigeria’s freest and fairest election — presumed to have been won by SDP candidate MKO Abiola.

Lamido, who served as the SDP’s national secretary at the time, dismissed Tinubu’s claims to the June 12 struggle as “dramatised rhetoric.” He said the President only became prominent after General Sani Abacha’s coup later that year.

“I was there. We were all there,” Lamido said. “Tinubu was a major supporter of Babangida. His own mother, Abibatu Mogaji, led market women to Abuja to back Babangida. He ran away when the heat came, while some of us stayed and fought.”

Lamido questioned the credibility of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), arguing that many of its members, including Tinubu, were absent during the critical days of the June 12 annulment. He claimed NADECO only emerged during Abacha’s reign, long after the damage had been done.

“I am ready to support any credible political coalition that will remove Tinubu in 2027,” he added.

Presidency Responds: Lamido Rewriting History, Not Tinubu

The Presidency, in a detailed rebuttal signed by Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga, condemned Lamido’s comments as “distorted” and “deeply ironic,” accusing the former SDP scribe of being among those who actually failed Abiola and democracy.

Onanuga stated that Tinubu, far from supporting Babangida, was one of the earliest voices in the National Assembly to publicly condemn the annulment. Quoting Tinubu’s purported Senate speech from August 1993, the Presidency highlighted his unequivocal criticism of the annulment as “another coup d’état.”

“He condemned the injustice when Lamido and his fellow SDP leaders shamefully capitulated,” Onanuga said. “It is documented that Tinubu urged Nigerians to reject the military’s abuse of power and stood firm even before Abacha’s coup.”

The statement dismissed as false the claim that Tinubu’s mother mobilised women to support the annulment. “Had she done that, she would have lost her position as the market leader in Lagos,” it argued.

Exile, Resistance, and the Role of NADECO

The Presidency traced Tinubu’s journey through the pro-democracy struggle, noting his role in forming NADECO after Abacha’s takeover in November 1993. It stated that Tinubu was arrested, detained at Alagbon, and later forced into exile, during which time he continued to fund protests and support the resistance from abroad.

“His home in Victoria Island was bombed. He lived in exile for nearly five years, while Lamido and others were cutting deals with the Abacha junta,” the statement said.

It credited Tinubu with financing various pro-democracy groups, including NALICON, led by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, and sustaining the momentum of NADECO at great personal risk.

Who’s Rewriting History?

The Presidency dismissed Lamido’s attacks as driven by “envy” and “political desperation,” labeling him a member of the “Coalition of the Disgruntled.” It noted that Lamido’s revisionism conveniently overlooks Tinubu’s documented activism and the silence or compromise of many others during the crisis.

“If anyone rewrote history, it was Lamido himself, who, as SDP secretary, helped betray Abiola’s mandate. Tinubu, on the other hand, put his life and resources on the line,” Onanuga said.

Conclusion

At the heart of the controversy lies not just a dispute over historical facts, but a deeper political battle over legitimacy, legacy, and the moral high ground in Nigeria’s long and painful march to Western democracy. While Lamido casts Tinubu as a latecomer who fled the scene, the Presidency insists the current president was, in fact, a foundational pillar of resistance.

With both sides trading claims and counterclaims, Nigerians are left to sift through the fog of memory and political self-interest to judge for themselves who stood for democracy — and who stood aside.

Oil prices jumped on Monday to their highest since January as the United States' weekend move to join Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities stoked supply worries.

Brent crude futures was up $1.92 or 2.49% at $78.93 a barrel as of 0117 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude advanced $1.89 or 2.56% to $75.73.

Both contracts jumped by more than 3% earlier in the session to $81.40 and $78.40, respectively, touching five-month highs before giving up some gains.

The rise in prices came after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites in strikes over the weekend, joining an Israeli assault in an escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.

Iran is OPEC's third-largest crude producer.

Market participants expect further price gains amid mounting fears that an Iranian retaliation may include a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global crude supply flows.

Iran's Press TV reported that the Iranian parliament had approved a measure to close the strait. Iran has in the past threatened to close the strait but has never followed through on the move.

"The risks of damage to oil infrastructure ... have multiplied," said Sparta Commodities senior analyst June Goh.

Although there are alternative pipeline routes out of the region, there will still be crude volume that cannot be fully exported out if the Strait of Hormuz becomes inaccessible. Shippers will increasingly stay out of the region, she added.

Goldman Sachs said in a Sunday report that Brent could briefly peak at $110 per barrel if oil flows through the critical waterway were halved for a month, and remain down by 10% for the following 11 months.

The bank still assumed no significant disruption to oil and natural gas supply, adding global incentives to try to prevent a sustained and very large disruption.

Brent has risen 13% since the conflict began on June 13, while WTI has gained around 10%.

The current geopolitical risk premium is unlikely to last without tangible supply disruption, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the unwinding of some long positions accumulated following a recent price rally could cap an upside to oil prices, Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, wrote in a market commentary on Sunday.

Reuters

US bombing of Iran started with a fake-out

As Operation "Midnight Hammer" got underway on Saturday, a group of B-2 bombers took off from their base in Missouri and were noticed heading out toward the Pacific island of Guam, in what experts saw as possible pre-positioning for any U.S. decision to strike Iran.

But they were a decoy. The real group of seven bat-winged, B-2 stealth bombers flew east undetected for 18 hours, keeping communications to a minimum, refueling in mid-air, the U.S. military revealed on Sunday.

As the bombers neared Iranian airspace, a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. U.S. fighter jets flew as decoys in front of the bombers to sweep for any Iranian fighter jets and missiles.

The attack on Iran's three main nuclear sites was the largest operational strike ever by B-2 stealth bombers, and the second-longest B-2 operation ever flown, surpassed only by those following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda.

The B-2 bombers dropped 14 bunker-busting GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing 30,000 pounds. The operation involved over 125 U.S. military aircraft, according to the Pentagon.

From the U.S. military's perspective, the operation was a resounding tactical success. The Iranians were unable to get off a single round at the American aircraft and were caught completely flat-footed, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday.

"Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface to air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission," Caine said. "We retained the element of surprise."

Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites targeted sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was more confident.

"It was clear we devastated the Iranian nuclear program," he said, standing alongside Caine in the Pentagon briefing room.

Midnight Hammer was highly classified, Caine said, "with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of the plan." Many senior officials in the United States only learned of it on Saturday night from President Donald Trump's first post on social media.

Hegseth said it took months of preparations to ensure the U.S. military would be ready if Trump ordered the strikes. Caine said the mission itself, however, came together in just a matter of weeks.

What happens next is unclear.

Gulf states, home to multiple U.S. military bases, were on high alert on Sunday as they weighed the risks of a widening conflict in the region.

Guarding against blowback, the U.S. military also dispersed U.S. military assets in the Middle East and heightened force protection for U.S. troops.

Hegseth said the U.S. military was positioned to defend itself in the Middle East, but also to respond against Iran if it goes through with longstanding threats to retaliate.

The Trump administration said it is not looking for a wider war with Iran, with Hegseth saying private messages had been sent to Tehran encouraging them to negotiate.

But Trump has also warned Iran that the U.S. is prepared to hit additional targets if needed, using far greater force.

"Iran would be smart to heed those words. He said it before, and he means it," Hegseth said.

** Satellite images indicate severe damage to Fordow, but doubts remain

Commercial satellite imagery indicates the U.S. attack on Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged - and possibly destroyed - the deeply-buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but there was no confirmation, experts said on Sunday.

“They just punched through with these MOPs,” said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, referring to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs that the U.S. said it dropped. “I would expect that the facility is probably toast.”

But confirmation of the below-ground destruction could not be determined, noted Decker Eveleth, an associate researcher with the CNA Corporation who specializes in satellite imagery. The hall containing hundreds of centrifuges is "too deeply buried for us to evaluate the level of damage based on satellite imagery," he said.

To defend against attacks such as the one conducted by U.S. forces early on Sunday, Iran buried much of its nuclear program in fortified sites deep underground, including into the side of a mountain at Fordow.

Satellite images show six holes where the bunker-busting bombs appear to have penetrated the mountain, and then ground that looks disturbed and covered in dust.

The United States and Israel have said they intend to halt Tehran's nuclear program. But a failure to completely destroy its facilities and equipment could mean Iran could more easily restart the weapons program that U.S. intelligence and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say it shuttered in 2003.

'UNUSUAL ACTIVITY'

Several experts also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors.

They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance of the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60% highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.

"I don't think you can with great confidence do anything but set back their nuclear program by maybe a few years," said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. "There's almost certainly facilities that we don't know about."

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat and member of the Senate intelligence committee who said he had been reviewing intelligence every day, expressed the same concern.

"My big fear right now is that they take this entire program underground, not physically underground, but under the radar," he told NBC News. "Where we tried to stop it, there is a possibility that this could accelerate it."

Iran long has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But in response to Israel's attacks, Iran's parliament is threatening to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of the international system that went into force in 1970 to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, ending cooperation with the IAEA.

"The world is going to be in the dark about what Iran may be doing," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group.

'DOUBLE TAP'

Reuters spoke to four experts who reviewed Maxar Technologies satellite imagery of Fordow showing six neatly spaced holes in two groups in the mountain ridge beneath which the hall containing the centrifuges is believed to be located.

General Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 GBU-57/B MOPs, 30,000-pound precision-guided bombs designed to drive up to 200 feet into hardened underground facilities like Fordow, according to a 2012 congressional report.

Caine said initial assessments indicated that the sites suffered extremely severe damage, but declined to speculate about whether any nuclear facilities remained intact.

Eveleth said the Maxar imagery of Fordow and Caine's comments indicated that the B-2s dropped an initial load of six MOPs on Fordow, followed by a "double tap" of six more in the exact same spots.

Operation Midnight Hammer also targeted Tehran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, he said, and struck in Isfahan, the location of the country's largest nuclear research center. There are other nuclear-related sites near the city.

Israel had already struck Natanz and the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center in its 10-day war with Iran.

Albright said in a post on X that Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery showed that U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles severely damaged a uranium facility at Isfahan and an impact hole above the underground enrichment halls at Natanz reportedly caused by a Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bomb that "likely destroyed the facility."

Albright questioned the U.S. use of cruise missiles in Isfahan, saying that those weapons could not penetrate a tunnel complex near the main nuclear research center believed to be even deeper than Fordow. The IAEA said the tunnel entrances "were impacted."

He noted that Iran recently informed the IAEA that it planned to install a new uranium enrichment plant in Isfahan.

"There may be 2,000 to 3,000 more centrifuges that were slated to go into this new enrichment plant," he said. "Where are they?"

Reuters

Israeli forces recover bodies of three hostages from Gaza

Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of three hostages which had been held in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant group Hamas' 2023 attack, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

The hostages were identified as civilians Ofra Keidar and Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson. All were killed on the day of the attack, on October 7, 2023, the military said.

With their retrieval, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

The abduction of Samerano, 21 at the time of his death, by a man later identified by Israeli officials as a worker at the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, was caught on CCTV.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

The subsequent Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run strip, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine fighting 10,000 Russian troops in Kursk region, Ukrainian commander says

Around 10,000 Russian soldiers are fighting in Russia's Kursk region, about 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of which is controlled by Ukraine, Ukraine's top military commander said.

"We control about 90 square kilometers of territory in the Hlushkov district of the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, and these are our preemptive actions in response to a possible enemy attack," Oleksandr Syrskyi said without elaborating, in remarks released by his office for publication on Sunday.

The Ukrainian military said the activity in this area prevented Russia from sending a significant number of its forces to Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in the more than three-year-old full-scale invasion.

Syrskyi's troops are repelling Russian forces along the frontline, which stretches for about 1,200 km, where the situation remains difficult, the Ukrainian military said.

Russian gains have accelerated in May and June, though the Ukrainian military says it comes at a cost of high Russian casualties in small assault-group attacks.

While the military says its troops repelled Russian approaches toward Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region borders last week, the pressure continues in the country's eastern and northern regions.

The Russian military also continues its deadlydrone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian cities further from the front, prompting Ukraine to innovate its approaches to air defence.

Ukraine's military said it currently destroys around 82% of Shahed-type drones launched by Russia but requires more surface-to-air missile systems to defend critical infrastructure and cities.

The military said the air force was also working on developing the use of light aircraft and drone interceptors in repelling Russian assaults which can involve hundreds of drones.

Ukraine also relies on its long-range capabilities to deal damage to economic and military targets on Russian territory, increasing the cost of war to Moscow.

Between January and May, Ukraine dealt over $1.3 billion in direct losses in the Russian oil refining and fuel production industry, energy and transport supplies as well as strategic communications, the Ukrainian military said.

It also dealt at least $9.5 billion more of indirect damages through the destabilization of the oil refining industry, disruption of logistics and forced shutdown of enterprises, it added.

It was not clear whether the Ukrainian military included the damages from its operation "Spider's Web" which damaged Russian warplanes -- and Ukraine said cost billions in losses -- in the estimates.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky makes new threats against Russia

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has suggested that Kiev’s forces will conduct more long-range strikes targeting facilities deep inside Russian territory.

Ukraine has significantly escalated drone attacks deep into Russia in recent weeks, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the actions as an attempt to derail the peace process.

In a post on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Zelensky wrote that he had held a meeting with the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, claiming that Kiev was keeping tabs on Russia’s “main pain points.” He pledged to “strike appropriate blows” with a view to “significantly reducing” Moscow’s military potential.

Zelensky also stated that Kiev was sharing its intelligence on Russia with its Western backers, with which it is “preparing joint defense solutions.”

Speaking to reporters also on Sunday, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, similarly said that Kiev “will increase the scale and depth” of its strikes on Russian military facilities deep inside the country.

On June 1, Ukrainian intelligence conducted a coordinated attack on several Russian airbases across five regions, from Murmansk in the Arctic, to Irkutsk in Siberia.

Ukrainian media later reported that the operation codenamed ‘Spiderweb’ involved dozens of first-person view (PFV) kamikaze drones. At least some of them were reportedly launched in close proximity to the targets, from commercial trucks that had been covertly brought into Russia.

The strikes were said to have been prepared for more than a year and a half and focused on Russia’s “strategic aviation.”

The Defense Ministry in Moscow said that a number of aircraft in Murmansk and Irkutsk regions had caught fire as a result of the attack.

Kiev claimed that the strikes had damaged or destroyed approximately 40 Russian military aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov later dismissed these estimates as incorrect.

”The equipment in question… was not destroyed, but damaged. It will be restored,” the diplomat told TASS in early June.

Around the same time, Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, cautioned that “when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their nuclear triad… that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side’s going to do.”

Reuters/RT

The legal career of Joseph Chu’ma Otteh, whose mortal remains were committed to earth on 20 June, could easily have been different. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife in 1988, very much one of the best students in the set. In 1989, Joe enrolled as a lawyer in Nigeria. He had every opportunity to deploy his prodigious talents and considerable skills in the pursuit of personal fortune and no one could have begrudged him. Instead, he chose the path of legacy and impact through the pursuit of an unpredictable career in the defence of the excluded and marginalised.

As a lawyer, Joe worried about two intractable and inter-related problems: delay in justice delivery and judicial performance. His intellect and temperament were well suited to high judicial service. For someone who did not seek nor pursue a judicial career, however, his preoccupations were startling because ultimate control over the solutions to these issues lay in the hands of the judges, or so it was thought.

Early in his legal career, Joe chose to do something about these issues and he travelled around the world to prepare himself for that purpose, learning about models fit for adaptation in Nigeria. In pursuit of answers, he undertook two programmes of graduate studies in law, one at the University of Lagos in Nigeria and another at the New York University (NYU) in the United States of America. In between both programmes, in 1994, he also researched the same issue as a Research Fellow at the Danish Centre for Human Rights in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Three years earlier, in 1991, just fresh from completing his National Youth Service scheme, Joe had joined the staff of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO). There, he began his career as a lawyer to the under-privileged and under-represented in Nigeria whose encounters with justice were defined by the twin blights of exclusion and delay. For these people, entry into the court system was sometimes attainable but exit from it was almost always intractable. 

For context, this problem probably predated Frederick Lugard’s Amalgamation of 1914. In a memorandum to Frederick Lugard dated 11 February 1914, Edward Speed, the first Chief Justice of post-Amalgamation Nigeria, lamented that “the greatest enemy to the efficient administration of Criminal Law is delay.” It was to the redress of this century-old problem that Joe dedicated his professional life.

Joe realised he could not do this alone. So, in 1999, he founded Access to Justice as an organisation dedicated entirely to figuring out how to contribute to alleviating the twin problems of judicial (lack of) performance and delay in the legal process in Nigeria. The few lawyers who had adverted to this before him seemed to believe that the way to redress delay in litigation was to litigate more cases. They would file cases on behalf of specific victims of delay believing somehow that they could jump the queue of institutional dysfunction by inflicting more dysfunction on it.

Joe’s genius lay in his capacity for patient diagnosis. He saw this as a problem of judicial administration and court management. The answer, he believed, lay in working with the judges to re-design case management and judicial throughput. To address this, Joe invested patiently in cultivating the attentions of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) at the time, Mohammed Lawal Uwais, who died earlier this month. He was successful in persuading the Chief Justice Uwais to grant consent for a pilot project in monitoring the performance of judges.

Over a period of one year, monitors would record the way the judges ran their courts, documenting such minutiae as when they began sitting; how long they did; the number of motions, trials, cases that they did and the number of rulings, judgments and orders that they produced. The report was to be submitted to the CJN with whose authorization, under the initial proposal, it was to be issued after he must have reviewed it. The information captured from the pilot was so troubling, the Chief Justice was reluctant to make it public.

Joe was disappointed but not deterred. He repurposed the report into persuading the Chief Justice to endow the National Judicial Council (NJC) with a capacity to monitor judicial performance, an advocacy in which he achieved limited success.

But his ultimate revenge lay elsewhere. As CJN in December 1979, Atanda Fatayi Williams had enacted the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) (FREP) Rules to govern litigation for the enforcement of the fundamental rights guaranteed in Chapter IV of Nigeria’s Constitution. As a cottage industry in claims for fundamental rights grew in the quarter century thereafter, the desire to simplify access to remedies through the FREP Rules became subverted. Delay became chronic and some judges fixated on using the rules to achieve judgment without delivering justice.

Joe believed the only way to change this was to reform and re-enact the FREP Rules and he spent a decade persuading a succession of CJNs that this needed to be done. In this mission, he was relentless. In 2009, Joe finally persuaded Chief Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi to enact the revised FREP Rules. It is a revolutionary piece of work that advertises the full range of Joe’s acuity.

The 2009 FREP Rules could easily be called the “Otteh Rules” because Joe drafted them. Through those Rules and in them, Joseph Otteh wrote his own epitaph long before his earthly tour of duty ended on 28 March 2025.

The 2009 FREP Rules clearly set about fixing the major issues that Joe had diagnosed as the major afflictions that made redress of human rights violations in Nigeria difficult. Three things stood out. First, it addressed clearly the issue of standing to sue or locus standi in human rights cases. Second, it makes it an obligation for courts to “in a manner calculated to advance Nigerian democracy, good governance, human rights and culture, pursue the speedy and efficient enforcement and realisation of human rights.” Third, the 2009 FREP Rules require judges to also “proactively pursue enhanced access to justice for all classes of litigants, especially the poor, the illiterate, the uninformed, the vulnerable, the incarcerated, and the unrepresented.”

This was the constituency to whom Joe devoted his professional life. His convictions and deep thoughtfulness, intellect, integrity, industry, empathy and honour were formed early. Joe was the son of teachers who found virtue in advancing dignity, service, and faith with enlightenment. His Dad, an economics teacher from Okporo in then Orlu Division of Imo State, built life in Agbor in the old Mid-West.

Born 18 October 1965, primary school commenced for Joe at the end of the civil war at the Agbor Model School. His high school began in the famous Edo College in Benin-City in 1977, ending in 1982 at the Ika Grammar School in Agbor, where his Dad served also as the Vice-Principal.

As Africans, the investment in rituals of naming have rich symbolism. When Joe was born, his parents summed up their hopes and beliefs in the name that they gave to the first of their seven children, “Chu’ma” (God knows). It was a confession of total submission to the Almighty. It is also the one consolation that we are left with at his passing.

Most lawyers retail their skills, and are content to do their cases. Joe did his law wholesale. He took charge of upstream lawyering and chose to deploy his skills in building institutions, transforming how they are run, and taking hope to the poor and excluded. Untimely as his passing is, Joseph Chu’ma Otteh has left us with the most durable and consequential impact any professional could hope for in the FREP Rules 2009. He is survived by his mum, Adanma; his wife, Ogechi; their children – Chidimso, Samantha, and Ikechi; and siblings.

** Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a professor of law, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Sometimes after a long, productive day, I only have the energy to scroll on social media and lie on my couch. Apparently what I experience is common enough to have its own name.

“Functional freeze” is a mind-body response to stress and overwhelm that typically involves having a hard time choosing which task to complete next, and instead spending hours in one spot, says Liz Tenuto, who has a degree in psychology and is an instructor of somatic exercise.

Sometimes a person can get their tasks done during the day, but “then when they get home and when they finish everything, they just completely crash out and have a hard time getting out of bed,” says Tenuto, who is known on social media as “The Workout Witch.” 

“Essentially,” when this happens, she says, you’re “conserving as much energy as possible before you start tomorrow.”

Here are some signs to watch out for:

• Feeling emotionally numb and often disassociating
• Self-isolating and no longer feeling social
• Having sleep issues or feeling constantly exhausted
• Excessive social media use
• Spending too much time watching TV

 “Movement is the best way to come out,” Tenuto says. But you don’t want to exhaust yourself with intense exercise. Instead she suggests micro-movements like breathwork or pulling on your ears, working your way up or down the length of each lobe.

The next time I feel glued to my bed after a busy day, I’ll try gentle exercises to slowly boost my energy instead of making myself feel bad for being exhausted.

CNBC

U.S. forces struck three Iranian nuclear sites in a "very successful attack," President Donald Trumpsaid on Saturday, adding that the crown jewel of Tehran's nuclear program, Fordow, is gone.

After days of deliberation, Trump's decision to join Israel's military campaign against its major rival Iran represents a major escalation of the conflict.

"All planes are safely on their way home," Trump said in a post on Truth Social, and he congratulated "our great American Warriors."

He was due to deliver a televised Oval Office address at 10 p.m. ET (0200 GMT).

CBS News reported that the U.S. reached out to Iran diplomatically on Saturday to say the strikes are all the U.S. plans and that regime change efforts are not planned.

Trump said U.S. forces struck Iran's three principal nuclear sites: Natanz, Esfahan and Fordow. He told Fox News six bunker buster bombs were dropped on Fordow, while 30 Tomahawk missiles were fired against other nuclear sites.

U.S. B-2 bombers were involved in the strikes, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow," Trump posted. "Fordow is gone."

"IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR," he added.

Reuters had reported earlier on Saturday the movement of the B-2 bombers, which can be equipped to carry massive bombs that experts say would be needed to strike Fordow, which is buried under a mountain.

An Iranian official, cited by Tasnim news agency, confirmed that part of the Fordow site was attacked by "enemy airstrikes."

Israel's public broadcaster Kan cited an Israeli official saying the country was "in full coordination" with Washington on the U.S. attack.

A White House official said Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the strikes.

The strikes came as Israel and Iran have been engaged in more than a week of aerial combat that has resulted in deaths and injuries in both countries.

Israel launched the attacks on Iran saying that it wanted to remove any chance of Tehran developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Diplomatic efforts by Western nations to stop the hostilities have been unsuccessful.

In recent days, Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans have argued that Trump must receive permission from the U.S. Congress before committing the U.S. military to any combat against Iran.

Israeli military officials said earlier on Saturday that they had completed another series of strikes in southwestern Iran, having targeted dozens of military targets.

Israel launched attacks on June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which it neither confirms nor denies.

At least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since Israel began its attacks, Iranian state-run Nour News said, citing the health ministry.

In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed by Iranian missile attacks, according to local authorities, in the worst conflict between the longtime enemies. More than 450 Iranian missiles have been fired towards Israel, according to the Israeli prime minister's office.

Israeli officials said 1,272 people have been injured since the beginning of the hostilities, with 14 in serious condition.

** Trump addresses the world

The U.S. president warned during his address that he will not hesitate to strike other targets in Iran if peace does not come quickly in the Middle East.”

There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” he said.

Trump said that while the nuclear facilities struck by the U.S. on Saturday were the most “lethal,” “there are many targets left.”

“If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill,” he added.

** Trump says he worked ‘as a team’ with Israel’s prime minister to strike Iran

Trump said he worked “as a team” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the collaboration was “perhaps” like “no team has worked before.”

But Trump also noted that no military in the world except for the that of the U.S. could have pulled off the attack.

Trump called Iran “the bully of the Middle East” and warned of additional attacks if it didn’t make peace.

“If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier,” Trump said at the White House after the bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities were announced earlier.

Trump portrayed the strike as a response to a long-festering problem, even if the objective was to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“For 40 years Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel,” Trump said. “They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs.”

** Netanyahu welcomes US strikes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decision to attack in a video message posted to X, directed to the American president.

“Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the awesome and righteous might of the United States, will change history,” he said. Netanyahu said the U.S. “has done what no other country on earth could do.”

Reuters/AP

Amid a global decline in trust in news media, Nigerians stand out as the most trusting audience in the world, according to the latest Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The 2025 edition of the report reveals that 68 per cent of Nigerians trust the news they consume—the highest level globally—surpassing Finland, long known for its strong media credibility, where 67 per cent of people say they trust the media. In stark contrast, only 22 per cent of people in Hungary and Greece said the same.

The study notes that trust in the media has steadily increased in Nigeria since 2021, despite ongoing threats to press freedom. The report links this rise in trust to Nigerians’ growing reliance on multiple sources for verifying news, their high interest in current affairs, and some modest improvements in the country’s press freedom scores.

However, the same report draws a sobering picture of the global media landscape: overall trust in the news has stagnated at 40 per cent, while media avoidance is rising, with four in ten people worldwide saying they sometimes or often avoid the news, up sharply from 29 per cent in 2017. Reasons for this avoidance include negative emotional impact (39 per cent), feeling overwhelmed (31 per cent), excessive conflict coverage (30 per cent), and a sense of helplessness (20 per cent).

The situation is even more complex among younger audiences, many of whom find news “too hard to understand.” The spread of AI-generated content is also adding to public skepticism, with increasing concern over information overload and authenticity.

In Nigeria, where press freedom remains under serious threat, journalists continue to operate in a hostile environment. During the 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented at least 56 assaults or detentions of journalists by security forces. Groups such as the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) have since called for international intervention to protect press freedom.

Interestingly, the report found that high levels of trust in news often coexist with low levels of press freedom, suggesting a complex relationship between media credibility and political context.

When it comes to news consumption habits, 94 per cent of Nigerians rely on online platforms, with 79 per cent getting their news primarily from social media, 65 per cent from television, and only 34 per cent from print publications.

Yet, while online platforms dominate, they also contribute to the spread of misinformation. Globally, influencers and politicians were identified as the most frequent sources of misleading content, a concern echoed by 58 per cent of Nigerians and 59 per cent of Kenyans, who worry that these figures struggle to differentiate truth from falsehood online.

The report concludes by warning that low trust levels and high misinformation risks threaten the foundation of democratic societies. It urges news publishers to embrace radical transparency, and to rebuild credibility through accuracy, impartiality, and original reporting—even as these ideals face growing skepticism in polarised environments.

The Digital News Report 2025 is based on an online survey of nearly 100,000 people across 48 countries, offering one of the most comprehensive snapshots of global media attitudes, habits, and challenges.

A devastating suicide bombing carried out by a female assailant late Friday night has left at least 24 people dead and over 30 others injured in Konduga, Borno State—one of the deadliest such attacks in recent months.

According to local sources and security officials, the bomber detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) at a crowded food joint and fish market around 10 p.m., targeting civilians in the restive northeastern town. The explosion tore through the evening gathering, killing the bomber and scores of innocent victims. Only the bomber’s head was reportedly recovered intact.

Police authorities confirmed the attack in a statement issued Saturday by Borno State police spokesperson, Nahum Kenneth Daso. He said the bomber had infiltrated the crowd before detonating the IED. Victims with severe injuries were rushed to nearby hospitals for urgent treatment, while the bodies of the deceased were deposited in a local morgue.

Eyewitnesses and local residents suggest the casualty figures could rise, as many of the wounded are in critical condition. A joint security team—comprising military personnel, police, members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), and local hunters—has cordoned off the area, stepping up patrols to forestall further violence.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram and its splinter factions, which have carried out similar assaults over the years. Konduga has remained a flashpoint in the 16-year Islamist insurgency that has ravaged Borno and neighboring states, killing tens of thousands and displacing over two million people.

The Friday night attack comes less than a year after a similar bombing in Konduga killed 17 people in August 2024, underscoring the continued vulnerability of civilian spaces despite repeated claims of progress in counterterrorism efforts.