Super Eagles of Nigeria have qualified for the quarter-final of the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Ivory Coast. 

Nigeria booked a place in the next phase of the competition after defeating Cameroon 2-0 at the Stade Félix Houphouet-Boigny, Abidjan, on Saturday.

Ademola Lookman scored a brace as the Eagles outclassed the Indomitable Lions in the nerve-racking encounter.

Nigeria qualified for the second round after finishing second in Group A behind Equatorial Guinea. The team had failed to score more than one goal in their previous six matches.

But against the Lions, the Eagles broke the jinx with a bit more comfort and improved performance.

For the second consecutive game, Jose Peseiro, Super Eagles’ head coach, favoured a 3-4-3 formation with Stanley Nwabali in goal behind the defensive trio of Troost-Ekong, Semi Ajayi, and Calvin Bassey, while Ola Aina and Zaidu Sanusi on both flanks as wingbacks.

Alex Iwobi started in the midfield alongside Frank Onyeka. Moses Simon, Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen led the front line.

The Eagles thought they had taken the lead in the 12th minute after Ajayi finished off a rebound following a spillage from Fabrice Ondoa. But after a video assistant referee (VAR) review, the goal was ruled out for offside.

However, there was no denying them again in the 36th minute. Osimhen wrestled the ball from Oumar Gonzalez before setting up Lookman, whose shot trickled home under Fabrice Ondoa.

Lookman then scored his second late in the second half. He stabbed the ball past the limbs of Ondoa from close range after a long bust forward by Bassey.

In the end, it looked like a pyrrhic victory for Nigeria as Nwabali was stretched off after a collision with Georges-Kévin N’Koudou. The goalkeeper was replaced by Francis Uzoho.

The Super Eagles will play Angola in the quarter-final match billed for February 2.

Earlier, Angola defeated Namibia 3-0 in the other second-round game of the day

PLAYER RATINGS

Stanley Nwabali; GK (4/5): He was confident as usual and dealt with the few attacks thrown his way. Unfortunately, he left the field injured following a collision with N’Koudou.

Ola Aina, WB (4.5/5): He had the license to roam forward, and the defender was only denied a goal by a well-timed block. Another wonderful display on the wings at both ends.

Calvin Bassey, DC (4.5/5): He was rock solid as usual, cleared his lines and had enough time to assist Lookman’s second goal.

Semi Ajayi, DC (4/5): He scored but was denied by VAR. The languid defender was an effective foil alongside Troost-Ekong and Bassey. He handled the business as usual without the flair.

William Troost-Ekong, DC (4.5/5): He cleared and blocked everything thrown at him. Ekong recovered from injury to lead, and he put in a captain’s performance.

Sanusi Zaidu, WB (3/5): He made overlapping runs and held his own as Cameroon tried to go through the wings. He put in a massive shift in defence.

Frank Onyeka, MC (4/5): He was saddled with covering the midfield landscape, the Brentford man battled all night and was unfazed by the physicality on display by the Cameroonian players.

Alex Iwobi, MC (3/5): He was tasked with linking midfield to attack. However, he looked a bit out of depth most times and completely scuffed a chance that could have cushioned the victory for Nigeria.

Moses Simon, WF (3/5): He had another average performance but was not helped by the defence-first approach.

Ademola Lookman, WF (4/5): He scored the vital brace that sent Nigeria into the last eight. His positioning throughout the game was excellent.

Victor Osimhen, ST (4/5): He was aggressive, strong and pacy. The leader in attack showed why he is sought after by the big European clubs. He robbed Gonzalez of the ball and won the physical battle before setting up Lookman for the goal. He was a handful for the Cameroonian defender throughout the match.

Substitutes

Francis Uzoho, GK (N/A): A warm entrance for the forgotten man. No action came to his side, but being on the winning side could boost his confidence.

Keneth Omeruo, DF (3/5): He was solid in the cameo. He slotted in perfectly into the defensive unit.

Bright Osayi-Samuel, WB (N/A): No time to impact the game.

Paul Onuachu, ST (N/A): No time to impact the game.

 

The Cable

It is just January 2024, but Tobi Amusan has picked up where she left off in 2023, breaking Gloria Alozie’s 25-year-old 60m hurdles indoor record on Saturday.

Amusan set an African record as she dipped under 7.8 seconds in the 60m hurdles at the Astana Indoor Meet in Kazakhstan. Her record of 7.77 seconds smashed Alozie’s 25-year-old record of 7.82 seconds, set in 1999 during the Madrid Championship.

Amusan, 26, finished ahead of close competitors from the USA and Ireland, respectively.

Amusan finished first in the event’s final, ahead of Nia Ali of the US and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin, who finished second and third, respectively.

Aside from beating Alozie’s record, her 7.77-second achievement might enter the all-time top 20 records after every adjustment.

Amusan experienced a series of ups and downs in 2023. She faced a provisional suspension from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on accusations of “missing three tests in 12 months.” As a consequence, she was unable to retain her World Championship title in Hungary, finishing in sixth place due to her arrival just three days before the start of the competition.

She bounced back towards the end of 2023, winning her third consecutive Diamond League medal.

Amusan, also known as ‘The Express,’ is getting ready for the 2024 Olympic Games, scheduled for Paris and starting from 26 July.

 

PT

Embattled UN agency warns its aid operation in Gaza is 'collapsing' over a wave of funding cuts

The head of the main U.N. aid agency in the war-battered Gaza Strip warned late Saturday that its work is collapsing after nine countries decided to cut funding over allegations that several agency employees had participated in the deadly Hamas attack against Israel four months ago.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said he was shocked such decisions were taken as “famine looms” in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment,” he wrote on X. “This stains all of us.”

His warning came a day after he announced he had fired and was investigating several agency employees over allegations that they participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. The United States, which said 12 agency employees were under investigation, immediately said it is suspending funding, followed by several other countries, including Britain, Italy and Finland.

The agency, which has 13,000 employees in Gaza, most of them Palestinians, is the main organization aiding Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster. More than 2 million of the territory’s 2.3 million people depend on it for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said, warning this lifeline can “collapse any time now.”

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people. The Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 hostages were taken.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday after the International Court of Justice ruling to limit death and destruction in the military’s Gaza offensive, declaring that “we decide and act according to what is required for our security.”

Among the first deaths reported since the ruling, witnesses said three Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.

Israel’s military is under increasing scrutiny now that the top United Nations court has asked Israel for a compliance report in a month. The court’s binding ruling on Friday stopped short of ordering a cease-fire, but its orders were in part a rebuke of Israel’s conduct in its nearly 4-month war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

At least 174 Palestinians were killed over the past day, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tolls, but has said about two-thirds are women and children.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the militants embed themselves in the local population. Israel says its air and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 9,000 militants.

Israel’s military said it had conducted several “targeted raids on terror targets” in the southern city of Khan Younis in addition to the airstrike in nearby Rafah targeting a Hamas commander.

Bilal al-Siksik said his wife, a son and a daughter were killed in the Rafah strike, which came as they slept. He said the U.N. court ruling meant little since it did not stop the war.

“No one can speak in front of them (Israel). America with all its greatness and strength can do nothing,” he said, standing beside the rubble and twisted metal of his home.

More than 1 million people have crammed into Rafah and the surrounding areas after Israel ordered civilians to seek refuge there. Designated evacuation areas have repeatedly come under airstrikes, with Israel saying it would go after militants as needed.

In Muwasi, a narrow coastal strip once designated as a safe zone but struck in recent days, displaced Palestinians tiptoed on sandaled feet through garbage-lined puddles in damp and chilly weather. Walls of sheets and tarps billowed in the wind. A mother wept after rain leaked in and soaked the blankets.

“This is our life. We have nothing and we left (our homes) with nothing,” said Bassam Bolbol, whose family ended up in Muwasi after leaving Khan Younis and finding no shelter in Rafah.

Frustration with the uncertainty grows. As thousands of Gazans fled Khan Younis toward Muwasi, Israel shared video showing a crowd appearing to call for bringing down Hamas.

The case brought by South Africa to the U.N. court alleged Israel is committing genocide against Gaza’s people, which Israel vehemently denies. A final ruling is expected to take years.

The court ordered Israel to urgently get aid to Gaza, where the U.N. has said aid entering the territory remains well below the daily average of 500 trucks before the war. The U.N. also says access to central and northern Gaza has been decreasing because of “excessive delays” at checkpoints and heightened military activity.

The World Health Organization and the medical charity MSF issued urgent warnings about the largest health facility in Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital, saying remaining staff could barely function with supplies running out and intense fighting nearby.

WHO footage showed people in the crowded facility being treated on blood-smeared floors as frantic loved ones shouted and jostled. Cats scavenged on a mound of medical waste.

“These are the only painkillers left we have. If you want to count them, they are only for maybe five or four patients,” Dr. Muhammad Harara said.

Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement that Nasser Hospital lacked anesthesia and other medicines for intensive care units and had “dangerous” shortages of blood.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has increasingly called for restraint and for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza while supporting the offensive.

More mediation lies ahead in search of a deal to secure the release of hostages who remain captive in Gaza. Over 100 were released in a swap for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long cease-fire in November. An unspecified number of the remaining 136 are believed to be dead.

The U.S. CIA director will meet in Europe with the head of the intelligence agencies of Israel and Egypt and with the prime minister of Qatar, according to three people familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

Netanyahu in his address said he would not take back “a single word” of his earlier criticism of Qatar, again accusing it of hosting Hamas leaders and funding Hamas.

“If they position themselves as a mediator, so please, let them prove it and bring back the hostages, and in the meantime deliver the medicines to them,” he said.

While the prime minister’s comments appeared to be aimed at his right-leaning base of supporters, other Israelis again gathered in Tel Aviv and outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to call for new elections, frustrated with the government’s failure to bring all hostages home. Israel also was marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, alongside other countries around the world.

Hamas has said it will only release the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

 

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

US to change strategy on Ukraine – WaPo

The US is working on a new strategy for Ukraine that would mark a departure from the failed forward push of 2023 and instead focus on frontline defense, the Washington Post has reported. The supposed adjustments come in response to Kiev’s failed counteroffensive last year, the newspaper added.

In an article on Friday, the newspaper quoted a senior White House official explaining that “it will be difficult for [Ukrainian forces] to try to mount the same kind of major push on all fronts that they tried to do last year.” In light of this, the hope is now much less ambitious – to ensure that Kiev does not lose any more ground to Moscow, the unnamed staffer told reporters.

This, however, does not mean that Ukraine’s military will just sit in their trenches, with what is described as a “swapping of territory” still likely in small cities and villages, the source told the WaPo.

Politico similarly reported of a realization in Washington and Brussels that a “total victory” for Ukraine was unlikely, at least in 2024, and that the US and EU are silently redirecting their efforts toward an eventual negotiated settlement.

The Post reported that the Ukrainian army in Zaporozhye Region is already preparing to emulate the Russian defense line that stopped their own advance last summer.

Its Western backers also want Kiev to focus more on long-distance missile strikes against Russian forces, including the Black Sea Fleet based in Crimea.

In the longer term, the Biden administration reportedly hopes to seal a ten-year-security agreement with Ukraine as early as this spring, similar to that recently signed between London and Kiev.

Under the would-be accord, Washington would commit to beefing up Kiev’s military as well as to strengthening its industrial and export base, among other things, the WaPo report claims.

However, these plans hinge on Congress giving the green light to President Biden’s $61-billion funding request, with Republicans appearing as uncompromising as ever, the newspaper pointed out.

According to the report, it is hoped that Washington’s long-term agreement with Ukraine would make it more difficult for the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump to slash aid, should he win the presidential election in November.

Trump has repeatedly called into question his country’s continued generous allocations for Kiev, and vowed, if returned to the White House, to end the bloodshed “in one day, 24 hours.”

Last week, CNN reported that the Biden administration was hoping to get “as much aid [as possible] in before January 2025” amid fears that Trump could throttle back the flow of cash, if reelected.

 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says it uncovers mass fraud in weapons procurement

Ukraine's SBU security service said on Saturday it had uncovered a corruption scheme in the purchase of arms by the country's military totalling the equivalent of about $40 million.

The announcement of mass procurement fraud, confirmed by Ukraine's Defence Ministry, will have a huge resonance in a country beleaguered by Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion.

The fight to root out endemic corruption remains a major issue as Ukraine presses its bid to secure membership in the European Union.

The SBU said an investigation had "exposed officials of the Ministry of Defence and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal, who stole nearly 1.5 billion hryvnias in the purchase of shells."

"According to the investigation, former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence and heads of affiliated companies are involved in the embezzlement."

The embezzlement, it said, involved the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells for the military.

The SBU said a contract for the shells was clinched with Lviv Arsenal in August 2022 - six months into the war - and payment was made in advance, with some funds transferred abroad.

But no arms were ever provided, the statement said, with some funds then moved to other foreign accounts.

The statement said five individuals had been served "notices of suspicion" - the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings - both in the ministry and the arms supplier. One suspect, it said, was detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border.

Corruption within the military has been a particularly sensitive issue in Ukraine as it tries to maintain wartime public morale and present its case to join the 27-nation EU.

Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov was dismissed last September over various corruption cases despite enjoying a solid reputation in representing Ukraine in its discussions with Western allies.

Although he was not alleged to have engaged personally in corruption, several cases hit the military under his stewardship, one for supplying troops with food, another over procuring suitable clothing for servicemen.

 

RT/Reuters

Northern Nigeria used to have a cult of power called the Kaduna Mafia. The Kaduna Mafia decided who would become the Nigerian president, which road to build, which to abandon, which industries to be cited and where. When it couldn’t help but hand the reins of power to the south, it determined which weakest link to exploit. The 1976 assassination of Murtala Muhammed and the handing over of power to Olusegun Obasanjo explains this. If the Kaduna Mafia was bothered about the north-centric disposition of Obasanjo, it could have defiantly handed over the reins of the military government to Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, at that time a lieutenant colonel in the army. Nothing would have happened. When it handed power to Obasanjo, it had to ensure a triple promotion for Yar’Adua, the Fulani scion whose stock needed placation. He was named Chief of Staff Supreme Military Headquarters, with the brief to curtail Obasanjo’s probable excesses against the north.

Though the Kaduna Mafia seemed to have hit its expiry at the time Muhammadu Buhari came into office, the northern oligarchy was resolute about the Daura General’s emergence. And Buhari didn’t disappoint. His administration inflicted one of the most atrocious ethnic and cronyistic governments on Nigeria.

But today, the North is angry. This time, the subject of its annoyance is the planned relocation of some key departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos State. In time past, when the north got annoyed, it was akin to the shrill cry of the pied crow. The crow is a bird the Yoruba call the Kannakanna. So many myths surround this strange bird. The most outstanding of its mysterious features is its queer and unusual cries. These, the Yoruba, in their deep into mystical beliefs, associate with calamities. Yet, the Kannakanna has other features, one of which is that, it does not lay own eggs but rather chooses to harry other birds off their own egg nests. This bit about harrying other birds seems to be true. It, however, has no known explicable biological reasons. The other myth woven round the bird is that the Kannakanna does not lay its own eggs. This has been disproved by ornithologists.

When you compare the ancientness of northern elders’ cries in Nigeria whenever they feel things are not going their way with this strange bird, you will find out that the Kannakanna has a lot in common with the elders of the north. This mysterious bird is known among the Yoruba to be the bird of the elders; elders in this wise, witches and wizards. In some other instances, obeisance is paid to witches through chanting of their cognomen. One of these chants is that the witch is the owl with copper-like eyes – owiwi oloju ide. Witches are also simultaneously reputed to have their legs bespattered with camwood – osun. Beliefs in witches say that the crow is a messenger of these unique beings of African women. It is the animal they send on their mysterious, most times destructive assignments. Always decked in black apparel – its quills – a few other species of crows have white apron-like quills on their chests. Though it feeds mostly on ants, the Kannakanna’s most cherished meal is the hatchling of a sparrow (eye ega). The sparrow itself is a social, homely, very small, seed-eating bird with conical bills. It will fight its assailant to a standstill if annoyed. That is why when a spat is in the offing between two groups or individuals, the Yoruba will say that they smell a fight in the proportion of what happens when the crow attempts to beat the hatchling of a sparrow – “Kannakanna na omo ega...”

So, the north is annoyed. This time, the north that is annoyed is represented by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). A few other voices have spat into the void and lapped the sky-spiraling spittle with their faces. One of them was Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South in the National Assembly. While the NEF, through its Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said that the relocation of the CBN departments would lead to brain drain, Ndume delivered his in form of a subtle threat. He said, if the Yoruba-born president of Nigeria goes ahead with the relocation of those departments, this “move would have consequences.”

For Ndume, who is today the self-appointed one-man squad spearheading the north’s dissonance with government’s policies, the president is being ill-advised by the people he derogatorily labeled “Lagos boys” in the corridors of power. Hear him: “All these Lagos boys who are thinking that Lagos is Nigeria are just misinforming and advising the President wrongly. Those political cartels that are in the corridors of power are trying to misinform the President and we will tell the President. The President will take action. They are not doing any favour to Mr President because this will have political consequences”.

If you are imbued with the steady eyes to see the unseen, ears to hear the unsaid and ability to penetrate the thin veneer of today to arrive at Nigeria’s atrocious past, Ndume will remind you of the ubiquitous Kaduna Mafia. The only difference is that the Kaduna Mafia was not as loquacious, nor visible as the Borno senator. In Bala Takaya and Sonni Gwanle Tyoden (eds) book, The Kaduna Mafia: A Study of the Rise, Development and Consolidation of a Nigerian Power Elite, (1987) this mythical, sect-like northern Nigeria powerful force’s role in Nigeria’s political economy was rightly dissected. Operating under similar historical evolution and characteristics as the Mafia in Italy, Spain and the United States of America, the book used the septic-tank darkness nature of the Italian Mafia to explain the Kaduna Mafia. It said it “is such that for (the Kaduna Mafia) to continue its existence and pursue its objectives with the required effectiveness, it cannot but subject its identity, nature and activities to obscurity. (Secrecy) is one of the hallmarks of a successful mafia set-up".

The Kaduna Mafia, a faction of the Nigerian bourgeois class and northern oligarchy, escalated the ethnic politics between the north and the south in the 1970s to the 1990s. The Mafia was a set of amorphous but lethal power-baiting individuals. Within this period in the life of Nigeria, this narrow group interest held the rest of Nigeria to ransom. It dictated the political and economic barometer of the country and blithely decreed the future of Nigeria. It perfected underdevelopment, focusing solely on development of the north and like godfathers in today’s politics, was narrow-minded and self-centered. Like the roach, the Kaduna Mafia had very sensitive political antennae with which it sniffed the pendulum of power and ethnic gains. Realizing that the best place to manipulate power was outside the locus of power, the Mafia fiddled with policies in such a way as to ensure that the north made maximum benefits through strategic positioning of policies and structures. Using the façade of Islamic puritanic posture, the Kaduna Mafia was be able to conceal its selfish political and economic interests before the overall intent got exposed to a larger Nigeria.

The overall effects of the Kaduna Mafia’s ethnic politics were negatively consequential for Nigeria. In the military, for instance, the first and only Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was clairvoyant about the future hegemonic hold of uniformed men on the running and ruining of Nigeria. Thus, he ensured that a number of qualifications for entrance into the military were waived for northern boys enlisting in the military in 1959 to the 1960s. In height, education and mental acuity criteria, many northern boys who didn’t measure up became soldiers, rising to become military governors and even Heads of State. This ultimately inflicted colossal damage on the future of the country. One of such boys was Muhammadu Buhari. In terms of academic qualifications, he obviously didn’t have the school certificate requirement. He also ranked very low in terms of depth. How was anyone, even Bello, who had much charisma and depth, to imagine that someday, Nigeria would be in the hands of a Buhari? The rest, as they say, is history.

So, when Ndume and the NEF began the resurgence of their crow cry about a north under siege, what came to the minds of other parts of Nigeria is similar to the cry of a butcher who is being stalked by a threat of death. So when the butcher screams that death was about to take hold of him, the question people ask is, didn’t the animals he had mercilessly butchered too have blood flowing in their veins? Yoruba render this as, “Iku fe pa alapata, o nkigbe; omo eranko t’o ti da l’oro nko?” What this pithy saying advocates is the need for fairness at all times as whatever one is unwilling to stomach, they should refrain from imposing it on others. 

The current federal government is trying to relocate CBN departments like the Banking Supervision, Other Financial Institutions Supervision, Consumer Protection Department, Payment System Management Department, and Financial Policy Regulations Department from Abuja to Lagos? Ex-CBN Deputy Governor, Kingsley Moghalu, was the first to thaw its ice by labeling it an unnecessary wolf cry. In a tweet on X, he claimed the Lagos office, which he said had been completed and inaugurated approximately 12 years back, was underutilized while the staff of the CBN at the Abuja headquarters “exceed the health and safety limits of the building, hence the need to relocate.” He said the relocation was “rational, given that the market entities supervised by these departments are predominantly located in Lagos.”

While corroborating Moghalu, CBN former governor and ex-emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said “Northern politicians will shout that this is moving from Abuja to Lagos. Abuja is a federal capital not a northern issue. So long as this is a principled decision, the noise should be ignored.” According to him, “All this noise is absolutely unnecessary. The CBN has staff manning its branches and cash offices across the Federation. Moving staff to the Lagos office to streamline operations and make them more effective and reduce cost is a normal prerogative of management.”

Now, why does the NEF relish this idea of northernizing Abuja? Does this Kaduna Mafia-incarnate think that localization means ownership? Countless times, the South-South people have cautioned those who see the FCT as their patrimony, reminding them that the glittering roads of Abuja were paved with oil money from their soil. It was this same northernization of Abuja reasoning that bred the vacuous clamour for a northerner to be FCT Minister at the beginning of this present government and the gas-lighting of the incumbent.

Before the February 4, 1976 promulgation of Decree No 6 by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria which initiated the removal of the national capital from Lagos to Abuja, there had been previous advocacy for its relocation. One of such was made by Obafemi Awolowo at the 1953 constitutional conference held in London. It was Awolowo and his Action Group’s contention that Lagos must be merged with the Western Region while a new federal capital should be built in central Nigeria.

Following this up, the Action Group published a pamphlet in 1953 with the title Lagos Belongs to the West, where it articulated that “(Lagos) is strategically… highly vulnerable. Geographically, it is not by any means properly suited to serve as the headquarters of the Central or Federal Government. Lagos is to Nigeria what Calcutta is to India. What we need now, to pursue this analogy, is a New Delhi.” The party then made this proposal: “A large area of land should be acquired by the Federal Government near Kafanchan, which is almost central geographically, and strategically safe comparatively, for the purpose of building a new and neutral capital. The new capital should be built on a site entirely separate from an existing town, so that its absolute neutrality may be assured. Being the property of the Federal Government, it would automatically be administered by it in the same way as Washington, D.C. in USA or Canberra in Australia. Such a capital would be a neutral place indeed.”

In August I975, the Supreme Military Council formed a Committee on the Location of the Federal Capital, one of whose members was Tai Solarin, Headmaster of Mayfair College, Ikenne, who had written many articles in the Tribune newspapers advocating relocation of the capital from Lagos to the north. One of such was a 197I article he wrote with the title Lagos 'should go'. Other members of the committee were Ajato Gando, the only member with a background in geography and urban planning; Pedro Martins from Lagos, and T. Akinola Aguda as Chairman. The Aguda committee, made up mostly of westerners, recommended Abuja as the FCT. If the SMC had northernization of Abuja in mind, it probably would have made the committee an all-north affair. While its initial planning and implementation were undertaken by the Military Government of Murtala Muhammed and Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida eventually relocated Nigeria’s capital to Abuja. 

One of the terms of reference for the establishment of the new capital was to ensure that it was a truly neutral city which would accommodate Northern, Eastern, and Western peoples and where these peoples would co-exist in harmony. The SMC was wary of the new capital not being free from the rancorous historical legacies of state capitals where dominant groups imposed themselves on previous urban centres. Today, with the nauseating ethnicization of Abuja and an opaque reading of sentiments into national policy matters like the FAAN and CBN relocation by northern crows, the fact that there was a predominant Northern influence in the process of construction of Abuja has made the noxious perception rife today that the FCT is a northern bequeathal. What NEF, Ndume and others are doing by locating ulterior motives in the relocations from Abuja to Lagos is northernizing the ownership of the FCT. Otherwise, the president should be left with the prerogative to decide what policies best suits its administration. What Nigeria needs now is healing. What the framers of the FCT establishment and Awolowo’s Action Group envisaged was a neutral capital which it no longer is. NEF, Ndume and the likes are curating an Abuja that is a threat to unity and indeed a potential symbol of the escalation of the North-South discord.

Should Abuja ever be an issue for ethno-religious claim? It was conceived to be a city of love and not hate. It was conceived as a city of equality and not of superiority of one part over another. That was why the Federal Government paid off the original owners of the land and created Suleja for them. As Nigerians, we owe one another that duty of respect and love - and Nigerians can love! I experienced it last Friday during the burial of my mother. Nigerians of all classes and ethnicities, public figures, private figures helped me in seeing my mother off to eternity. Governors who I, at one time or the other, wrote against; senators I once queried their patriotism to Nigeria; captains of industry, North and South; farmers , artisans, white collar, blue collar people – everybody from everywhere gave my mother a state burial. I thank them immensely. The lesson for me there is that I should stay on the track I have chosen for myself while I plead that we work harder to make Nigeria a haven for all Nigerians who are still alive. Enough of bickering over nothing – not over Abuja, especially!

 

When my uncle called me over the weekend, he had no time for the customary conversational courtesies that typically preceded our phone chats. He was agitated and wanted to know straight away why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wanted to relocate Nigeria’s federal capital back to Lagos.

His questions were pregnant with anger, befuddlement, and a presumption of the truth of his claim. Unfortunately, he is not alone. The notion that Tinubu, the Fourth Republic’s first Lagos State governor and power behind all subsequent governors in the state, wants to strip Abuja of its federal capital status and make Lagos the effective administrative nucleus of Nigeria is gaining wild currency in Muslim northern Nigeria.

The immediate sparks for the “back-to-Lagos” apprehensions in the North are, of course, the decisions of the Central Bank of Nigeria to move some of its departments to Lagos and of the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development’s resolve to relocate the headquarters of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos.

Before the CBN’s policy became public knowledge, a northerner who works at the CBN had confided in me on January 11 that CBN governor Olayemi Cardoso had concluded plans to move the key departments of the Central Bank— or, as he called it, “the entire banking system”— back to Lagos.

The key departments Cardoso wanted to move to Lagos, he said, were the Banking Supervision Department (BSD), the Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department (OFISD), the Consumer Protection Department (CPD), the Payment Systems Management Department (PSMD), and the Financial Policy and Regulations Department (FPRD).

“When you move all these departments and many more to come to Lagos,” he lamented, Abuja would become CBN headquarters in name only. Lagos would essentially return to being the real CBN headquarters. What was even more bothersome, he added, was the fact that “they are using one of us, the Deputy Governor Corporate Services Bala Bello” to emasculate the CBN headquarters in Abuja.

He shared this with me at a time when I was deluged with work and didn’t have the time to independently verify his claims—or to examine the merit of his worries. Two days later, the story appeared on the Abuja-based, digital-native Daily Nigerian, which has been instrumentalized to serve as grist to the conspiracy mills in the North.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that five days after the Daily Nigerian story came out and before the outrage in the North had blown over, FAAN announced the relocation of its headquarters back to Lagos. These twin events conspired to construct a semblance of intentional, Tinubu-backed first steps in an ultimate, long-hatched ditch-Abuja-for-Lagos scheme in the minds of some Northerners.

As I told my uncle, it’s legally impossible in a democratic setting to move Nigeria’s capital from Abuja back to Lagos. There is no provision of the constitution or the Federal Capital Territory Act for an option to change Abuja as the federal capital territory. Unless Nigeria disintegrates, Abuja will be the perpetual federal capital.

So, talk of sneaky designs by Tinubu to return Nigeria’s capital to Lagos is no more than a silly, idle conspiratorial whisper.

To be honest, I’ve tried really hard to inhabit the minds of some of our people who sense an anti-northern animus as the impetus for the relocation of certain core departments of the CBN to Lagos—or for the return of FAAN headquarters to Lagos.

Apart from the unwelcome disruption to family cohesion that the transfer of workers, especially married workers, from Abuja to Lagos would represent, I haven’t seen anything remotely anti-North in the policy.

The CBN has almost zero symbolic, political, cultural, or even economic significance to the North. Plus, Lagos is Nigeria’s de facto commercial capital and the headquarters of most banks. It makes sense that the core operational units of the CBN should be there.

The return of FAAN to Lagos is an even more straightforward case. It was always in Lagos until former Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika moved it to Abuja. There didn’t seem to be any operational reasons to justify the move since Lagos is the nucleus of Nigeria’s aviation.

In any case, there is no legal requirement that all government agencies and departments must be headquartered in Abuja. That is why, as Shehu Sani pointed out on Twitter, the National Examination Council (NECO) is headquartered in Minna, the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) is headquartered in Kaduna, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is headquartered in Port Harcourt, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is headquartered in Lagos, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) is headquartered in Lokoja, etc.

However, it would be unwise to dismiss with a wave of the hand the anxieties of people who are troubled by what appears, at least on the surface, to be a systematic, carefully planned administrative and political denudation of Abuja which, while a federal territory that equally belongs to all Nigerians, is located in the North.

It is particularly disappointing that the president’s spokesperson (Bayo Adenuga) slurred all sceptics and critics of the back-to-Lagos moves as “mischief-makers,” “political opponents,” and “dishonest ethnic and regional champions.” That’s unwarranted and unhelpful bellicosity which, in addition, has no basis in facts.

It’s true, of course, that the people who started and amplified news of the relocation of some departments of the CBN to Lagos are northern workers, or benefactors of northern workers, at the CBN who do not want to move to Lagos. It is they who successfully elevated their personal discomfort to the status of a collective regional slight.

For example, in a January 26 Twitter post, one Adamu Hayatu whom I’ve been told is an ally of Muhammad Sani “Dattijo” Abdullahi, one of the CBN’s deputy governors, claimed that “[Ali] Ndume is angry [that some departments of the CBN are moving to Lagos] because his daughter in Consumer Protection Department is moving to Lagos. Her Husband and another guy who is also married to his Second Daughter are all working in CBN. So much for fighting for the North!”

If this information is accurate, it’s consistent with my initial suspicion. This is a personal fight masquerading as a regional battle. Nonetheless, there are at least two other reasons that fuel the fire of regional angst in the North about Tinubu’s moves.

One, Tinubu has been a profoundly provincial president whose insularity is outrivaled only by the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua. Just like Yar’adua was elected a Nigerian president but was in reality a Katsina governor in Abuja, Tinubu is also, so far, a Nigerian president only in name. His mindset is still that of the governor of Lagos.

With a few notable (and in some cases unavoidable) exceptions, Tinubu’s government is largely the re-enactment of his time as the governor of Lagos. It is, for all practical purposes, an unabashed Lagos-centric Yorubacracy. To be fair, though, with the possible exception of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, all civilian regimes since 1999 have been insular ethnocracies.

So, it’s not unreasonable to nurse anxieties about a regional agenda when a Lagos-centric president appoints as Central Bank governor a Lagos native (who was the president’s Economic Planning and Budget commissioner when he was the governor of Lagos State) whose first major priority is to relocate central units of the CBN back to his hometown amid runaway inflation and an inexorably relentless slide in the value of the naira.

It doesn’t matter what the merit of the policy is. People are justified to read meanings into it. Had a president or a CBN governor with a different profile from Tinubu or Cardoso done this, it probably wouldn’t have been amenable to regional weaponization by disgruntled workers.

Second, although Tinubu got most of his votes from the Muslim North, there is a growing, if uninformed, unease in the region that his governance is being guided by a 53-page August 2011 Yoruba regional script. Written by the Afenifere Renewal Group, a breakaway faction of Afenifere that is associated with Tinubu, the document is titled “Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN)” and advances strategies to fast track the development of Yorubaland. More than 20 Northerners have shared the document with me in the last one week.

However, it appears that Northerners who think the document is some sinister roadmap to dominate and subdue other parts of the country haven’t really read it. It’s actually a forward-looking roadmap to regenerate Yorubaland. I think every region should have a similar blueprint for its uplift.

I searched the document for evidence that the group recommended the stripping of Abuja of substantive power or for the relocation of Nigeria’s capital to Lagos. I found none. The closest thing to this that the document said about Lagos was, “The Southwest states, in particular Lagos should take ownership and lead advocacy and execution of the FSS 2020 objective of Lagos as an International Financial Centre (IFC).” (p. 24). There is nothing ominous about that. Unfortunately, feelings, not evidence, drive narratives.

 

God In The Dynamics of Our Bountiful Harvests

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase ~ 1Corinthians 3:6-7.

Introduction:

The Bible is replete with great promises of supernatural abundance, both for us and our loved ones (Psalm 112:1-3). Not only does God graciously supply our needs, He also supernaturally provides abundant seeds for us beyond our needs (Philippians 4:19). There can be no shortage of goodness where He is involved.

Meanwhile, it is very crucial at this point to note that the “supernatural” occasionally impinges upon the “natural”, directly causing visible manifestations beyond natural laws (John 3:8).

When such “spiritual interruptions” happen to natural things, principles and laws to create new natural states and processes, we call that “supernatural intervention”. This can happen in any facet of life, even in our harvest field. Thus, we all occasionally dance to the tune of “time and chance” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

Examples of supernatural intervention abound in the Bible! For instance, in the space of a day, God provided abundant provisions for a turn-around miracle to a whole nation that had been utterly devastated by a terrible famine (2Kings 7:1-20).

Again, Sarah became pregnant at 90years, and gave birth to Isaac (Genesis 17:15-19; 21:1-3). Joshua also spoke to the sun and the moon, and they both heeded his instructions to give a decisive victory to God’s covenant people (Joshua 10:12-14). All these and many more are undeniable acts of supernatural intervention!

Meanwhile, there are two broad categories of the supernatural: divine and demonic! Both are mutually exclusive. Whatever is supernatural and not of God is demonic.  

Excitingly, there is a supernatural power available to all true children of God in Christ Jesus (1Corinthians 4:20). God always wants us to draw from the deep wells of His presence and power in the Holy Spirit to bring the natural world around us under His divine order.

We have the unique privilege of releasing God’s kingdom power on earth to subdue the demonic powers wherever they’re found in our harvest fields: in our minds, emotions, thoughts, bodies, finances, families, communities, churches and nations.

Yes indeed, it’s our season for bountiful harvest! Together, by the touch of God’s supernatural power, we will see the unbelievable, experience the unthinkable and witness unprecedented harvests of souls, favour and diverse miracles.

Understanding The Dynamics of Supernatural Harvests

Basically, every anticipated harvest is inside the seed (Genesis 1:11-12; 8:22). For the umpteenth time, your seeds include your treasure, time, talents, money, efforts, deeds, and positional influences sown in kingdom principles. The more you sow, the more harvest you reap!

The sowers are responsible for the seed. Albeit, having sowed the seeds, God still has to pour out His abundant grace and blessings upon them to occasion our harvests and meet our needs (2Corinthians 9:8-10). He is the God of the harvest!

In natural farming, man works laboriously to till the ground, plant the seed and manage the fields. Yet, unless God gives the sunshine, the rain, the oxygen, etcetera, there can be no harvest. This is equally true in spiritual matters.

In Zechariah 10:1, we are commanded to ask the Lord for rain and bright clouds for our fields to be fitted for the harvests. The rain here talks of the Holy Spirit. There is an awesome Holy Spirit power available to enable the believers in all our fruit-bearing ventures (2Corinthians 3:17).

Engaging The Power of God for Our Bountiful Harvests

Our loving Father-God has built a supernatural relationship between Himself and His children in Christ Jesus, for our essential supernatural engagements in the spirit realm (John 1:12). Nevertheless, it’s our responsibility to activate these spiritual facilities, and make room for the operations of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

First of all, we must train to seek God and trust Him (Matthew 6:28-33). We need God to give form to our lives; hence, if we must see new levels of supernatural engagements occasioning harvests, we must get God first (Genesis 1:1).

God is the foundation, the builder and the keeper of every good thing (Psalm 127:1). Jesus said, “without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The Apostle Paul internalized this, saying, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me” (Philippians 4:13).

In-between your seed and the harvest is God. Without Him, no man can see or enjoy the glory of any form of increase (1Corinthians 3:6-7). Please train yourself to trust Him and embrace His righteousness, implicitly (Psalm 1:1-3, 92:12; Hebrews 1:8-9).

Secondly, if we want to walk in God’s supernatural power and gracefully access our bounteous harvests, we must become extravagant worshipers of the Almighty God (Psalm 67:3-7). We must give our lives and our most prized possessions to Him.

This was the path chosen by the woman with the beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume, who broke it and poured out its content, just to honour Jesus (Mark 14:3-9). Her status soared immediately to the everlasting bound!

To worship the Lord acceptably and experience an out-flow of God’s supernatural power to excite our bountiful harvests, we must stop considering what others will think about us, or what’s in it for us. We must be focused on pleasing God, giving our entire being to Him.

Thirdly, we must keep in mind also that the seed that will bear fruits must die first (John 12:24). No seed turns to harvest until it is sown and dies. To be useful and fruitful in God’s kingdom, your life-seed must die first.

No doubt, God is raising up a generation of people for Himself! Godly people who will be used to provide leadership in spiritual matters, as well as in business, education, media,  music, medicine, technology and governments in the world.

Inside every true incorruptible seed is an invincible and indestructible heritage of power. But, that seed must fall down and die first before its fruitfulness can be unleashed. The “flesh” must perish first.

We must die to self, to sin, to man’s opinion, strange mindset, fear, etcetera. Until that happens, the unknown, invisible and imperishable heritage within us cannot be manifested!

When you’re dead to self, you’ll be humble enough to cry out for more of God’s help and mercy, regularly (Luke 5:12-13). You will be hungry and willing to go beyond what’s happening around you and seek God for more of His power in your world.

Friends and brethren, we’re in for a long-span season of miraculous harvests! Harvests of souls, desires and accomplishment!! Give it all it takes to gather your lion share of harvests in the fields.

Stay relevant to the divine agenda. Be willing to grow in the grace of God, and be humble enough to learn from other believers who know how to engage God’s power to reap abundant harvests.

Choose to be counted among men and women after God’s own heart that will fulfill God’s purposes in your generation. Determine to be an abiding and an incorruptible seed. Be ready to obey and follow the Master all the way through. Your seed shall soon produce bumper harvests!

God is here for you! Choose Him again and again: little can become much when He is in it (2Corinthians 8:9). Be hungry and thirsty for Him! Be very eager to put a perpetual end to the reign of drought and shame in your life this season (Proverbs 10:5). You won’t miss it, in Jesus name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

• Children had a gene mutation that blocked a protein needed for hearing
• The treatment injected a version of the gene in the inner ear
• Children began hearing just six weeks after the single injection 

A breakthrough treatment has allowed six deaf children, ages one through 11, to hear the world for the first time.

The children were part of two experimental groups in China and the US, who were all born with a gene mutation that blocked production of a protein needed for hearing.

Scientists injected a version of the gene, called otoferlin (OTOF), into the inner ear, and the cells began producing the missing protein.

The children's hearing levels are now up to 70 percent normal after 26 weeks of the treatment, with progress starting at just six weeks.

Progress videos show a one-year-old responding to his name called for the first time and another little girl repeating father, mother, grandmother, sister, and 'I love you' - when before she could not speak.

Aissam Dam, 11, heard for the first time this week after receiving treatment at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) - marking a first in the US.

Gene therapy restores hearing in children born deaf in Shanghai

Zheng-Yi Chen, a professor at Harvard Medical School and study author for China's experiments, said: 'If children are unable to hear, their brains can develop abnormally without intervention.

'The results from this study are truly remarkable. We saw the hearing ability of children improve dramatically week by week, as well as the regaining of their speech.'

Hereditary deafness is the latest condition scientists are targeting with gene therapy, which is already approved to treat illnesses such as sickle cell disease and severe hemophilia. 

About 34 million children worldwide suffer from deafness or hearing loss, and genes are responsible for up to 60 percent of cases.

Dam was born 'profoundly deaf' because of a highly rare abnormality in his OTOF gene, which was also the case for the five children in China.

A defective gene prevents the production of otoferlin, a protein necessary for the 'hair cells' of the inner ear, which convert sound vibrations into chemical signals sent to the brain.

Otoferlin gene defects are rare, accounting for one to eight percent of hearing loss at birth.

Dam underwent a surgical procedure in October that involved partly lifting his eardrum and then injecting a harmless virus, which was modified to transport working copies of the otoferlin gene, into the internal fluid of his cochlea.

As a result, the hair cells began making the missing protein and functioning properly.

Almost four months after receiving the treatment in one ear, Aissam's hearing has improved- he only has mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

He is 'literally hearing sound for the first time in his life,' CHOP shared in a statement.

John A. Germiller, who works at CHOP, said: 'Gene therapy for hearing loss is something that we physicians and scientists in the world of hearing loss have been working toward for over 20 years, and it is finally here.

'While the gene therapy we performed in our patient was to correct an abnormality in one, very rare gene, these studies may open the door for future use for some of the over 150 other genes that cause childhood hearing loss.'

Dam's success story came just days after five children in China heard after receiving the same treatment.

A six-year-old girl, nicknamed YiYi, did not develop the ability to speak due to being deaf since birth.

One month after the injection, YiYi's mother, Quin Lixue, said her daughter was hearing with the treated ear for the first time and repeated what she heard, MIT Technology Review reports.

A video shows Lixue covering her mouth so YiYi couldn't read her lips and asking her daughter to repeat what she was saying.

 

Daily Mail

Nigerian tycoon Femi Otedola said he will add to his purchases of Dangote Cement Plc’s shares after his recent acquisition in part helped propel the wealth of billionaire Aliko Dangote, founder of the cement maker, to the highest in a decade.

Dangote Cement’s shares have more than doubled this month helping add $6.9 billion to its founder’s wealth, which jumped to $22 billion as of Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Otedola’s purchases are “work in progress,” after the tycoon bought the stock last week, he said.

The cement maker is also seen as a proxy for Dangote’s new refinery, the world’s biggest such facility in a single location.

The maker of the construction material is attractive because it’s the “only Nigerian cement company with two export terminals and a substantial export capacity,” Otedola said in a series of text messages. The diversification into the refining positions him to capitalize on the growing demand “in Nigeria and internationally, potentially leading to a considerable increase in revenue and, consequently, his overall wealth,” he said.

Otedola’s investment is timely for Africa’s richest man, whose firm was the subject of an anti-graft commission raid this month. The visit by the authorities was an “unwarranted embarrassment,” the group said, adding that it didn’t face any accusations of wrongdoing.

Otedola’s past purchases have triggered rallies in shares of the target firms.

In 2022, he invested in FBN Holdings Plc, and last year his acquisition of a stake in Transnational Corp. of Nigeria propelled the company’s shares more than 600%. Otedola later exited Transcorp.

“Somebody like Femi Otedola buying the stock is boosting investor confidence,” said Jennifer Audu, an analyst at FBNQuest Merchant Bank in Lagos, adding that Dangote Cement’s share price had exceeded her target. “The other is the expectation of better earnings in 2024 and 2023.”

The surge in cement maker’s shares — the company has the biggest weight on the equity benchmark — paced a 36% jump in the NGX All Share Index, making for the best January since at least 1998.

Dangote Cement, which is Africa’s largest producer of the building material, has a production capacity of 51.6 million tons a year across 10 countries, according to its website. Its revenue surged 29% in nine months through September.

But it’s Dangote’s refinery that investors are keenly watching.

The new 650,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery started operations earlier this month. The plant outside Lagos is now producing diesel and aviation fuel, Dangote Group said. The refinery will be key for Africa’s largest economy to process its own crude oil rather than importing costly fuel processed abroad.

“With projected annual revenues of around $30 billion from products like urea, fertilizer, polypropylene, and other refined petroleum products, the refinery will substantially enhance his business interests beyond the traditional sectors like cement,” Otedola said.

Otedola, who has investments in Nigeria’s electricity, petroleum and finance sectors, didn’t disclose the amount of shares he bought in Dangote Cement. He said he will disclose his stake once it hits a limit that triggers a regulatory disclosure.

 

Bloomberg

Suspected kidnappers have abducted Philip Aivoji, chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, and some members of the party.

Hakeem Amode, spokesperson of the party in the state, who confirmed the incident, said Aivoji and his party members were abducted on Friday on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway while returning from a meeting.

Amode said the PDP chairman was in Ibadan to attend a meeting convened by Seyi Makinde and Ademola Adeleke, governors of Oyo and Osun states, respectively.

Amode said security agencies and government authorities at all levels should intervene promptly and secure the release of the party’s chairman.

“It is disheartening that kidnapping has become a prevalent issue in our country, and the government’s inability to address this menace is deeply concerning,” he said.

“The abduction of Aivoji underscores the pressing need for decisive actions from the government and stakeholders to eradicate this menace.

“Aivoji’s abduction was a violent incident, and his current whereabouts or any communication from the abductors remain unknown.

“We implore the governments of Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos states, alongside security agencies, to expedite efforts and secure his safe return to his family and well-wishers.”

Meanwhile, Abdul-Azeez Adediran, the governorship candidate of the PDP in the 2023 elections in Lagos, has called on officials of the south-west security network, code-named Amotekun, to support the security agents in rescuing Aivoji and others.

In a statement by Gbenga Ogunleye, his spokesperson, Adediran, also known as Jandor, said government’s abysmal failure to provide security has put the lives of the citizens in grave danger.

“Adediran described the unfortunate incident as a disturbing dimension to the growing insecurity in the country, especially in the South West,” the statement reads.

“JANDOR demands urgent action from the security agencies to facilitate the immediate release of the abducted party chairman. He also advised that the regional local security outfit, Amotekun should collaborate with the police in this rescue mission.”

 

The Cable