I was going through some old files in my closet the other day when I saw some documents and receipts that absolutely cracked me up. Among the browning, time-worn papers was the receipt from a private primary school for the payment of my first daughter’s fees. 

It was a middle-class school that charged N5,000 naira per term. Attached to the fading receipt was a thank you note by the bursar. I rocked with laughter. This was in 1995 when, after nearly seven years of working, my monthly salary was around 60k or so. I will not forget how my mother reacted when she found out how much I was paying for her granddaughter’s termly fees. “Did your university tuition cost that much?”, she asked despairingly. 

Of course, it did, but not by a lot. As I held that rusty receipt in my hand on that day, the shock and despair in my mother’s face about how prices had gone up and how things had changed, for the worse, flooded my mind. 

Yet, within three decades of my mother showing concern, the joke was on me. By this time, it was no longer a laughing matter.

“Ilu le o…!” 

I had somehow managed to find out how much my daughter was paying for my granddaughter’s school fees in a school certainly more upscale than the one she attended, but by my reckoning, unlikely to be among the A-List schools in her part of town. 

What she was paying for my granddaughter’s kindergarten per term was roughly ten times my salary after seven years of working. I couldn’t help wondering what my mother would have said or done if she had lived to see the school fees of her great-granddaughter, a kid enrolled barely out of her diapers! And this was only three years ago.

Many things in the old files in my closet reminded me of how the times are changing. When I think of Victor Olaiya’s famous highlife song, “Ilu le o!” (literally meaning, Country hard!) released over 40 years ago which was supposed to have captured the misery of men and women complaining about the hard times, I wonder exactly what the moaning was about. 

Nuts for the rich

A few days ago, I had a conversation with my local cashew nut seller. I had been buying cashew nuts from her since when a bottle cost N800, which was not up to four years ago. Slowly, but steadily, the price climbed to N1,000, then N1,200, then N1,500 and before you could say, “cashew,” it became N4,000 per bottle – roughly the cost of my daughter’s one-term school fee in the late 1990s.

How do you buy a bottle of nuts for N4,000? Perhaps because I drive a big car – which is a Tokunbo, by the way – the nut seller thought she had me hooked; that I should be able to afford the nut, whatever the price. Well, she was mistaken and I told her so. Of course, she pleaded that it was not her fault that it was – you guessed right – the exchange rate! Dollar or not, I won’t buy cashew nuts now priced as luxury items. 

Of course, I know about the fiber, protein and healthy fats that come from cashew nuts, not to mention blood sugar control, heart health and weight loss. But at 72.5kg, and with the gift of a stature that can eat both pounded yam and mortar without them showing, why should I lose sleep over weight? Whatever cashew nut offers, especially in fiber, I will get from sweet potatoes.

But cashew nuts are not the whole story of this cost-of-living crisis. Even potatoes have doubled in price. According to a BBC report, prices in Nigeria are rising at their fastest rates ever in the last 30 years.

This was how the BBC report described it: “A standard 50kg bag of rice, which could help feed a household of between eight and 10 for about a month, now costs N77,000,” that is, about double the price last December. The prices of other staples such as beans, garri, maize and millet have also gone up, costing the average worker two months’ minimum wage for a bag.

Portion control 

Portion control was a frequent point of argument in my house. It’s a problem with men, of course, but it’s worse with African women brought up to believe that the proof of spousal care is in the size of the husband’s weight, measured by the amount of food on his plate. It's considered taboo in many places, especially in the South of Nigeria, for example, for a man’s plate of soup to have only one piece of meat or fish. Or for his dough, famously called swallow, to appear miserly. 

This well-intended culture of culinary excess is captured in Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart, where the story is told of a wealthy man who gave a feast at which guests on one side of the table did not see those on the other side from morning until night when they managed to level the mountain of food set before them during the new yam festival. 

If, however, Okonkwo’s guests were living in today’s Nigeria, where a sachet of water in a 50cl plastic bag costs N20, more than twice the price last year, they would be lucky to find enough water to drink after a meal of afafata, chaff of rice grain, which is now a staple in parts of Northern Nigeria.

My point about portion control is that after years of struggling to convince my wife, and often the female domestic staff, that measurements and smaller food portions, including far fewer pieces of protein in my meals don’t mean lack of care, the cost-of-living crisis is finally driving the point home! 

As for other things such as the cost of petrol and other energy costs, which increased by 216 percent from N195 per litre after the removal of subsidy last May, I threatened to buy a bicycle to augment my transportation cost before a concerned staff warned me of the risk of cycling nearly 15 kilometres to work across two major highways.

There is, however, one area of adjustment, which after futilely struggling to contain without luck, I have decided to seek “divine intervention”, as we say: my BP medication. In a country where less than five percent of the population have health insurance and the rest pay out-of-pocket for treatment, persons with underlying medical conditions have been badly hit by the current inflation rate of 28.9 percent.

It's not a laughing matter. Last year, for example, a packet of Co-Diovan 80/12.5mgs, my recommended BP management medicine, cost about N8,000. Now, it is N24,000 and still rising for the same packet which lasts 28 days.

Trouble in the world 

Of course, it’s not a uniquely Nigerian problem. From New Zealand to Nepal, countries 

around the world have been battling with a serious cost-of-living crisis. This crisis is a combination of factors ranging from Covid-19 and the supply chain problems that followed, to the war in Ukraine and extreme climate changes across the world. 

In fact, Nigeria is not listed among the 10 African countries with the highest cost of living, a list that features Senegal at the top, with others such as Cote d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Cameroon and Kenya, among others. 

Just like economic problems imitate physical diseases, countries with underlying structural problems have been the worst hit. The difference from place to place, however, has been in how leaders repaired trust and mobilised resources in response. 

President Bola Tinubu campaigned for his current job knowing full well there won’t be a honeymoon from day one. I’ll need to file something urgently in my closet that my granddaughter might see someday to show that my vote for him was not a mistake.

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

Britain’s decline over the past 25 years has been staggeringly rapid. Almost everything is getting worse, and almost nothing is getting better. Our public and private institutions are broken, presided over by an incompetent, selfish and narcissistic ruling class. Living standards, when adjusted properly for living and property costs, are declining.

Even the simplest things don’t work any longer. Queuing, scarcity and congestion are rife, our infrastructure is embarrassingly poor, and the honest and hardworking face endless bureaucratic battles to obtain what they are due. Free riding, crime, disorder, fraud, littering and generalised rule-bending are rife, and all too often tolerated by apathetic citizens and an indifferent state. Britain’s residual virtues, our individualism, independence of mind, tolerance and openness, uniquely appealing features of our national character, are fading. 

Like a frog in boiling water, few saw the full scale of the decline coming until it was too late, and those who did were ridiculed by the bien-pensant. Yet even in 2024, when millions now realise that Britain is on the wrong track, there is no hope of meaningful improvement. The Tories have been abysmal, but Labour will be even worse: Keir Starmer will double down on the social-democratic and culturally nihilistic policies tested to destruction by the Conservatives.

In the 2000s, Britain had a particular idea of itself: a country of post-Thatcherite property-owners which reconciled modernity and tradition, globalisation and national self-determination, low-tax dynamism and fairness, where you didn’t need IDs to vote, where MPs weren’t attacked by screaming mobs, and where, finally, racism was increasingly a thing of the past. We saw ourselves as a socially mobile, law-abiding land of high trust, low corruption, the rule of law, improving race relations and religious toleration: a uniquely open society and a model to the Western world. 

Such a vision is now largely obsolete. An Englishman’s home was his castle, making a huge difference to our national psyche, until our deliberate policy of rationing new housing at a time of mass immigration robbed the under-40s of the chance of owning anything of their own. “This is a free country”, we used to maintain when presented with another idiotic proposal to control us, but that too is over, killed off by the woke war on free speech, the jailing of Christian preachers, the sugar tax, the surveillance society and the Covid lockdowns. 

In narrow GDP growth terms, we continue to outperform the true laggards on the continent, as Brexiteers correctly predicted, but that should be no consolation. Our manufacturing sector is being priced out of global markets by the rush to net zero, our energy policy is a hideous farce, our misregulated City is in decline, and our tax system an absurd conspiracy against hard work and merit, with marginal tax rates back at 1970s levels for some. 

The socialist NHS, despite massive increases in funding, is a horror show, and one of the main reasons not to live in the UK. Some 5.6 million adults are on out-of-work benefits, and yet immigration is running at extraordinary levels. Our Armed Forces have been slashed, and are now being subject to a woke takeover. 

Yet while all of these instances of national enfeeblement are tragic, they pale in comparison with the most terrifying regression of them all. We thought that we had progressed decisively as a society, that we had vanquished racism and religious discrimination, that the institutions of our liberal state would prevent a minority from facing persecution, and that our ruling class would never allow any subset of the population to be openly hated and othered again. 

How wrong we were. That anti-Semitism, the oldest of hatreds, is back on the streets and screens of Britain, is terrifying enough; but the fact that this explosion of prejudice is being treated in such a cavalier fashion by the authorities and the mainstream broadcast media – and in some cases is even being rationalised and normalised – is a catastrophic development that casts doubt about Britain’s very future. 

This is the worst moment for Britain’s Jews since the pogroms that disgraced Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester in the summer of 1947. The double-standards, the never ending “pro-Palestine” marches that are inevitably marred by egregious, open, anti-Semitism and evil slogans, the bullying, the victim blaming, the spreading of fake news, the wilful, blatant lies and denialism of Hamas’s atrocities, the obsessive interest in, and delegitimisation, of Israel, a state that accounts for just 0.25 per cent of the Middle East’s landmass, is its only multi-religious democracy and which is fighting for survival against neighbours that reject its very existence, stink of a replay of the 1930s. 

The return of anti-Semitism is not just an existential threat to Britain’s tiny, 292,000-strong Jewish community, but a damning indictment of a Britain that is regressing into darkness. As Lord Sacks put it in 2016, “the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews … the appearance of anti-Semitism in a culture is the first symptom of a disease, the early warning sign of collective breakdown.” 

Already a non-Jewish MP has resigned out of fear for his own safety. Traditional British democratic norms are being upended by far-Left and Islamist extremists. Cranks, conspiracy theorists and racists appear to have entered mainstream politics in significant numbers, and many seem attracted by the Labour Party. 

Anti-Semites never just target Jews. They are full-service, equal opportunity bigots who oppress and impoverish and destroy all that they touch, and despise freedom and human flourishing. 

Starmer is genuinely committed to fighting anti-Semitism, but he has proved unforgivably slow in his attempts at rooting out prejudice in recent days. He rightly purged the Corbynites, but the rot in his party evidently goes far deeper, having contaminated even “centrist” or “Right-wing” circles. Some in his party are seeking votes among far-Left and Islamist extremists: a morally righteous party would announce that they are not interested in such voters, and terminate all relevant candidates, even if such a stance costs them power.

In the absence of such a step, we face the prospect of many new Labour MPs being, at the very least, soft on anti-Semitism. The Tories have failed, but Labour will be infinitely worse. Britain is hanging on by a thread.

The Telegraph

Muhammad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, has lamented the economic hardship in the country, saying Nigerians are frustrated and hungry.

The traditional ruler spoke at the 6th executive committee meeting of the northern traditonal rulers council (NTRC) which held in  Kaduna state on Wednesday.

He said insecurity and poverty are the major issues causing trouble for the people of the north.

“To make matters worse, we are faced with rising levels of poverty of most of our people; a lack of normal sources of livelihood for the common man to have even a good meal a day,” he said.

“But I believe talking about insecurity and the rising level of poverty are two issues that we cannot fold our arms and think everything is okay.

“I have said it so many times and at so many fora that, things are not okay in Nigeria and of course, things are not okay in the north.

“To me, this government is a continuation of the former government; it is the same party.

“So, what really is the problem? I think that is one of the reasons we are here to talk to ourselves.”

The sultan said traditional rulers owe it a duty to Nigerians, who believe in the traditional institution, to bring solutions to the various problems facing the country.

“Education is important, so whatever issue you want to bring here, you must talk about education, you must talk about health issues and of the two monsters that have been harassing all of us here that is insecurity and poverty,” he said.

“And let’s not take it for granted; people are quiet, they are quiet for a reason because people have been talking to them.

‘We have been talking to them, we have been trying to tell them things will be okay and they keep on believing.

“I pray to Almighty Allah that they will not one day wake up and say we no longer believe in you, because that would be the biggest problem because we can’t quieten these people as traditional, spiritual leaders and diplomats forever.

“We have reached that level, people are very agitated, people are hungry, they are angry, but they still believe there are people who can talk to them, they believe in some of their governors, some other traditional rulers, and some of their religious leaders.

“Fortunately, some of us double as traditional and religious leaders.

“So, we have this onerous task of reaching out to everybody, calming them down, and assuring them things will be okay, and they should continue to pray and pray and still do something good because prayer without work will not bring anything.”

Abubakar also expressed concern about the millions of unemployed youths, noting that it poses serious danger to the country.

“We must find jobs for our teeming youths that are sitting idle and I have said it so many times, we sit on a keg of gunpowder, having teeming youths millions of them, without jobs, without food, we are looking for trouble,” he added.

He added that the council is ready to work with the governors.

“And if the governors too want to have peace and stability in their states, they must work with the traditional leaders,” he said.

The Cable

Mixed reactions have trailed the confirmation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the federal government has resumed payment of subsidies on the premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol through the backdoor.

Recall that during his inauguration on May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu announced an end to petrol subsidy, triggering a hike in the prices of goods and services in the country.

A few weeks later, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) collapsed the different exchange rate regimes into one, with the value of the naira to the dollar weakening. As of Monday, dollar was N1,499/$1 at the official window and N1,515/$1 at the parallel market.

Earlier in the week, the IMF issued a statement on the conclusion of its Executive Board’s Post Financing Assessment with Nigeria, and it expressed concerns that the government had capped the prices of fuel at retail stations.

The global lender advised the Tinubu administration to completely stop the payment of subsidies on petrol to free funds to run the government.

Daily Trust reports that after the removal of petrol subsidy in May 2023, the pump price changed from N185 per litre to N400 per litre, and then to N568 per litre at NNPC fueling stations, while some sold above N600.

There were reports that the landing cost of petrol had gone up and the retail price could go up to N1000 per litre.

Daily Trust investigation had revealed that the federal government paid N169.4 billion as subsidy to keep the pump price at N620 per litre.

A document from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), sighted by one of our reporters, showed that in August 2023, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) paid $275m as dividends to Nigeria via NNPC Limited. NNPC Limited used $220 million (N169.4 billion at N770/$) out of the $275 million to pay for the PMS subsidy. Then NNPC held back $55 million, illegally.

The IMF, in its latest statement, said the Tinubu-led administration has “capped retail fuel and electricity prices” ostensibly to “ease the impact of rapidly rising inflation on living conditions, thus partially reversing the fuel subsidy removal.”

Many Nigerians on X have reacted differently to the statement made by the IMF.

@iam_realjayson said: “I would really like to know the mathematics behind this… Fx is on a free fall, while PMS pump price is relatively stable. Miracle really no dey tire Jesus.”

@journalofOCO: “Once again, as long as the people in power are dishonest, this fuel subsidy issue will continue to be a bone in our throat. For those who say the President doesn’t matter, know that the continued support of dishonest people will lead to the continued destruction of the country.”

@ourt_destiny: “It’s why fuel hasn’t spiked to 1k per liter while everything else has spiked up in price.”

@Manseey: “Lol. So the removal was a scam in the first place. Tell me something I don’t know about Nigeria.”

@Andrew_Eneyi: “The inconsistencies and lies under this government is so shameful. So subsidy is actual not gone and we are suffering like this in Nigeria.”

@TimiTheAce: “I have a conspiracy theory that these guys are still subsidizing this fuel price because they know if they sell it at the actual price or anything greater than the current price, they’d be an outrage and the whole of Nigeria would fight back. They’ve not even increased it sef…”

@Jay_M85: “Nothing surprises me about Nigeria anymore. Inside one surprise another bigger surprise Dey inside.”

@MoraOgo: “Don’t mind IMF, Nigerians can’t afford to buy fuel for 1’500 per litre.”

@tangledthug: “There is no country in the world that does not subsidize when item or the other I don’t understand IMF stand than Nigeria must remove all form of subsidy, this is not fair.”

@Pauly2570: “As long as they keep listening to those international money lenders coupled with the profligacy, the country will continue to deep into economic crisis.”

Daily Trust

Nigeria’s households and businesses are going through very difficult times as a result of the continued escalation of cooking gas, diesel and other resources.

This becomes unbearable as their incomes have not experienced any meaningful increase in the past few years, which also recorded a significant drop in the value of the Naira, currently going for N1,515/$ at the official market.

A market survey by Energy Vanguard, weekend, indicated that the price of cooking gas (12.5kg) that was N11, 250 in December 2023, has risen to N15, 000, indicating an increase of 33.3 per cent.

Similarly, the price of diesel has risen to N1, 270 per litre in February 2024, from N800 per litre in the corresponding period of 2023.

The market trend is mainly driven by the depreciation of the Naira and increased utilisation of diesel by consumers, including the tanker drivers involved in moving petroleum products from one part of the nation to another.

Also, consumers further suffer from inadequate and unstable supply of electricity as generation, dropped year-on-year, YoY, by 17.8 per cent to 4,015.55 megawatts, MW on February 11, 2024, from 4,887.7 MW recorded in the corresponding period of 2023.

But on month-on-month, MoM, generation dropped by 19.4 per cent to 4,015.55MW in February, from 4,981.78MW, recorded in the preceding month of January 2024.

Nigerian Electricity System Operator, the semi-autonomous unit of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, attributed the factors responsible for the declining trend to inadequate gas to thermal stations and poor state of stations.  

Checks by Energy Vanguard showed that the electricity generated remains inadequate for transmission and distribution to consumers, including households and companies in all parts of Nigeria.

It also indicated that the Electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos have embarked on load shedding, targeted at ensuring that the little supply is shared to many consumers at different times.

However, the Nigerian Gas Association, NGA, said it remains proud to support the Federal Government’s renewed focus on prioritising autogas to cushion the effects of the removal of subsidy on the petrol.

In its report obtained by Energy Vanguard, NGA stated: “The leadership of the NGA believes that this policy leaning is very apt as it accelerates the domestic adoption and utilisation of gas, a resource that the country is most endowed with. Gas for the transportation sector and also for users of small generators, whether powered by Liquefied Petroleum Gas or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), is one of the most affordable, available, safe, and reliable fuels that also substantially addresses global carbon emission concerns and the well being of the environment.

“To achieve this, the NGA urges the Federal Government to revisit and accelerate the implementation of the Nigerian Autogas Policy launched two years ago as part of the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) under the well-articulated Decade of Gas Policy and Programme.”

The President of NGA, Akachukwu Nwokedi, had said: “We salute the steadfastness of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his quest to return Nigeria to responsible and sustainable energy utilisation. We are also elated about his recognition of the critical and game-changing role that gas would play in actualising this policy direction and helping build the nation.

“The members of the NGA are very keen to support the implementation of the autogas policy and stand ready to commence the strategic engagements and enlightenment campaigns to make it happen.”

Vanguard

Youths in Ughelli, Delta state trooped yesterday to protest against alleged brutality and extortion by the Nigerian police.

In now viral videos, the protesters were seen with different placards, including one with the inscription, ENDSARS NOW.

They called on the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force to weigh into the matter.

An X user, who shared the videos said police brutality in the state had been on the rise.

“Heavy protests are ongoing in Ughelli against police brutality which has become rampant!!,” the user wrote.

Quoting the post, spokesperson of the Delta Police Command, Bright Edafe, explained that the protest was triggered after the police arrested four boys who could not establish ownership of the unregistered car in their possession.

The spokesman said some youths attacked the officers in the process, injuring one officer on the head and damaging the force patrol vehicle.

He warned youths to stay calm, insisting that no amount of protests would deter the police from performing its constitutional duties.

He wrote: “Regarding the ongoing protest in Ughelli, the Command wishes to inform members of the public that yesterday 13th February 2024, Policemen from Ughelli Area Command intercepted an unregistered Benz GLK without a plate number in Ekuigbo community. The men confronted the four boys who could not establish ownership of the car.

“In an attempt to arrest them, some of the youths attacked the Police, destroyed their vehicle, and broke the head of one of the officers. Nine of the suspects were arrested and will be charged to court. Youths are advised to stay off any protest because it won’t deter us from doing our job.”

This is not the first time Nigerians would protest against police brutality.

In 2020, tens of thousands of young Nigerians took to the streets to protest against police brutality after a video went viral of a man allegedly being killed by the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), sparking what became known as the #EndSars demonstrations.

The demonstrations rocked the country for two weeks – and led to the government agreeing to disband Sars and set up judicial panels of inquiry to investigate the widespread allegations of abuse by officers.

Daily Trust

A Nigerian soldier, identified as Adie Paul, has faulted the decision of President Bola Tinubu to gift Super Eagles players houses, plots of land, and national honours after they came second in the recently-concluded African Cup of Nations at a time when soldiers in the battle field are not receiving such recognition.

The soldier who said he  sustained a bullet injury while serving in the North East took to his X handle to express his frustration.

He made his position known while reacting to a post by an X-user, drpenking, who tweeted, “Even Ahmed Musa wey no kick ball once for AFCON follow collect flat, land and OON. Wonderful times.”

Reacting to the post, the soldier, while sharing a picture, wrote, “Yet, as a soldier, I stayed in the North East fighting Boko Haram for four years plus, I was shot and I am still carrying the bullet in me till date, not even a medal from the Army/Nigeria government.”

Tinubu had on Tuesday conferred the national honour of Member of the Order of the Niger on every member of the Super Eagles  team that won Silver medal at AFCON.

Punch

A group of 60 lawmakers has initiated a move to end the current presidential system and revert to the parliamentary system previously used in Nigeria’s First Republic.

The group, known as the Parliamentary Group, introduced a constitution alteration bill on the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, setting in motion what could be a transition to a parliamentary system by 2031.

Three constitution alteration bills were presented by the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers), and 60 others during plenary.

Spokesperson of the group, Abdulsamad Dasuki, briefed journalists on the synopses of the bills.

During a press briefing at the House Press Center, the lawmakers, led by Dasuki, expressed their frustration with the expensive presidential system and the overbearing powers of the president.

“No wonder the Nigerian President appears to be one of the most powerful Presidents in the world,” Dasuki said.

“Over the years, the imperfections of the Presidential System of Government have become glaring to all, despite several alterations to the constitution to address the shortcomings of a system that has denied the nation the opportunity to attain its full potential.

“Among these imperfections are the high cost of governance, leaving fewer resources for crucial areas like infrastructure, education, and healthcare, and consequently hindering the nation’s development progress, and the excessive powers vested in the members of the executive, who are appointees and not directly accountable to the people,” he said.

The lawmakers seem not confident about their chances of success in getting the bill passed within the current Assembly, therefore, setting a timeline of 2031 for the constitutional amendment to allow the transition.

Dasuki said the group is seeking to spark a conversation about the lack of effectiveness of the current presidential system.

“The bills presented today seek a return to the system of government adopted by our founders, which made governance accountable, responsible, and responsive, and ultimately less expensive,” he said.

Parliamentary System

Nigeria operated under the parliamentary system pre-independence and in the First Republic. However, the coup of 15 January 1966 truncated that republic.

The military suspended the civil government and ruled the country until the transition to democracy in 1979, but the Second Republic was built on the 1979 Constitution which prescribed the presidential system.

The proposal by the lawmakers is seeking to revert to the First Republic system with a prime minister, a member of parliament, serving as the head of government, similar to the British system.

In a parliamentary system, the executive branch derives its legitimacy and authority from the legislative branch. The head of government (often the prime minister) is typically a member of the legislature and is accountable to it. This system fosters a close relationship between the executive and legislative branches, allowing for efficient decision-making and policy implementation.

However, some experts believe that the parliamentary system polarised the country during the First Republic – especially as the prime minister needs not to be acceptable to the majority of citizens – paving the way for the military to strike.

The timing of the proposed legislation raises significant suspicion. One concern is that the lawmakers seem to be aiming for when President Bola Tinubu would have finished his constitutionally allowed tenure. Tinubu is due for re-election in 2027 for another term of four years which is going to end by 2031.

Members of the coalition include members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

PT

Gaza cease-fire and hostage release talks appear to stall as Netanyahu and Hamas trade blame

International efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas suffered a setback on Wednesday as Israel reportedly recalled its negotiating team and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of hobbling the high-stakes negotiations by sticking to “delusional” demands.

Netanyahu’s remarks came hours after local media reported that the Israeli leader had ordered an Israeli delegation not to continue talks in Cairo, raising concerns over the fate of the negotiations and sparking criticism from the families of the roughly 130 remaining captives, about a fourth of whom are said to be dead.

The relatives of the hostages said Netanyahu’s decision amounted to a “death sentence” for their loved ones.

The mediation efforts, steered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, have been working to bring the warring sides toward an agreement that might secure a truce in the monthslong war, which has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health officials. The fighting has destroyed vast parts of Gaza, displaced most of the territory’s population and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe.

“In Cairo, Israel did not receive any new proposal from Hamas on the release of our captives,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “A change in Hamas’ positions will allow progress in the negotiations.”

Hamas meanwhile said Netanyahu was to blame. Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press that Israel had put forward a proposal that strayed from agreements reached during earlier cease-fire talks.

On Tuesday, CIA chief William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, attended the talks in the Egyptian capital, but there were no signs of a breakthrough. The talks continued Wednesday at a lower level, even as deadly violence persisted both in the Gaza Strip and along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where fighting has simmered since the war broke out.

Israeli media reported Wednesday that Netanyahu told his delegation not to return to the talks unless Hamas softens its demands.

The sides have been far apart on their terms for a deal. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages.

Hamas has said it will not release all the captives until Israel ends its offensive, withdraws from Gaza and releases a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants. Netanyahu has rejected those demands, calling them “delusional.”

The plight of the hostages has deeply shaken Israelis, who see their lengthy captivity as an enduring symbol of the failure of the state to protect its citizens from Hamas’ attack.

A group representing the families of the hostages called Netanyahu’s reported decision to keep the delegation away from the talks “scandalous” and said the families would set up a “mass barricade” outside the Israeli Defense Ministry unless Netanyahu agreed to meet them.

Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in return for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The war, which erupted after Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 captive, ground on even as the talks appeared to be stalling.

Palestinians began evacuating the main hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, according to videos shared by medics Wednesday. Weeks of heavy fighting had isolated the medical facility and claimed the lives of several people inside it.

Now in its fifth month, the war has devastated Gaza’s health sector, with less than half of its hospitals only partially functioning as scores of people are killed and wounded in daily bombardments. Israel accuses the militants of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as cover.

Khan Younis is now the main target of a rolling ground offensive that Israel has said will soon be expanded to Gaza’ southernmost city of Rafah. Some 1.4 million people — over half the territory’s population — are crammed into tent camps and overflowing apartments and shelters in Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

The videos of the evacuation in Khan Younis showed dozens of Palestinians carrying their belongings in sacks and making their way out of the Nasser Hospital complex. A doctor wearing green hospital scrubs walked ahead of the crowd, some of whom were carrying white flags.

The Israeli military said it had opened a secure route to allow civilians to leave the hospital, while medics and patients could remain inside. Troops have been ordered to “prioritize the safety of civilians, patients, medical workers, and medical facilities during the operation,” it said.

The military had ordered the evacuation of the hospital and surrounding areas last month. But as with other health facilities, medics said patients were unable to safely leave or be relocated, and thousands of people displaced by fighting elsewhere remained there. Palestinians say nowhere is safe in the besieged territory, as Israel continues to carry out strikes in all parts of it.

The Gaza Health Ministry said last week that Israeli snipers on surrounding buildings were preventing people from entering or leaving the hospital. It said 10 people have been killed inside the complex over the past week, including three shot and killed on Tuesday.

The ministry says around 300 medical staff were treating some 450 patients, including people wounded in strikes. It says 10,000 displaced people were sheltering in the facility.

The war in Gaza has become one of the deadliest and most destructive air and ground offensives in recent history. At least 28,576 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Over 68,000 people have been wounded in the war.

Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, large areas in northern Gaza have been completely destroyed and a humanitarian crisis has left a quarter of the population starving.

In northern Israel, meanwhile, a rocket attack killed a female soldier, the Israeli military said, and wounded eight people when one of the projectiles hit a military base in the town of Safed on Wednesday.

Israel carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon in response, killing four people, including a Syrian woman and her two Lebanese children, and wounding at least nine, Lebanese security officials and local media said.

The U.N. children’s agency condemned the killings of “two innocent children” and called “for the protection of children in times of war and at all times.”

Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which supports Hamas, have traded fire along the border nearly every day since the start of the war in Gaza, raising the risk of a wider conflict. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for the rocket attack.

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia should have begun Ukraine operation earlier – Putin

Russia has for far too long trusted its opponents in a futile attempt to resolve the decade-old Ukrainian crisis diplomatically, and should have resorted to decisive actions earlier, President Vladimir Putin suggested on Wednesday.

Following the 2014 coup in Kiev, Moscow had tried to settle the bloodshed in Donbass “by peaceful means,” namely the Minsk Accords, which envisaged a special autonomous status for the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics within Ukraine, Putin told journalist Pavel Zarubin.

“The only thing we can regret is that we did not start our active actions earlier, believing that we were dealing with decent people,” the Russian leader stated.

Russia cited the need to protect the people of Donbass from continued persecution by Kiev as one of the major reasons it launched its military operation in February 2022. In the wake of the 2014 Maidan coup, two former Ukrainian territories with predominantly Russian-speaking populations declared their independence from Kiev.

The post-coup Ukrainian government responded by launching an “anti-terrorist” operation against the two republics, sparking a protracted conflict that has raged ever since, in one form or another.

Russia sought to resolve the conflict through the later-derailed Minsk agreements, brokered by Germany and France, but successive governments in Kiev have refused to abide by the accords to make peace.

“It turned out later that we were being deceived in this regard, because both the former German chancellor and the former president of France admitted straightforwardly in public that they never planned to fulfill the agreements. Instead, they were buying time to deliver more weapons to the Kiev regime, which is exactly what they did,” the Russian leader said on Wednesday.

Moscow has repeatedly insisted that it is still ready to settle the hostilities through negotiations, blaming the lack of any diplomatic breakthrough on Kiev. In March 2022, Ukraine signed a preliminary agreement which obliged Russia to withdraw its troops from around the Ukrainian capital. However, Kiev violated the deal almost immediately after then-British PM Boris Johnson reportedly advised Ukrainians to “just continue fighting.” 

Should Russia and Ukraine ever return to the negotiating table, the potential talks will not be the same, as Kiev will have to accept the “new reality,” the Kremlin spokesman said last week, apparently referring to the territorial changes – namely incorporation of the four formerly Ukrainian regions, Zaporozhye and Kherson, as well as DPR and LPR into Russia following referendums in late 2022.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says it sank Russian large landing warship in Black Sea

Ukraine destroyed a Russian landing warship off the coast of occupied Crimea in an operation with naval drones that breached the vessel's port side on Wednesday and caused it to sink, Kyiv's military spy agency and armed forces said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which said earlier that it had destroyed six drones in the Black Sea. The Kremlin declined to comment.

"The Ukrainian Armed Forces, together with the Defence Ministry's intelligence unit, destroyed the Tsezar Kunikov large landing ship. It was in Ukraine's territorial waters near Alupka at the time of the hit," the military said on Telegram messenger.

The Black Sea resort town of Alupka lies not far from Yalta on the southern edge of Crimea, which Russian forces seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

"Today, more security in the Black Sea and more motivation for our people were added. This is important. And step by step, we will clear the Black Sea of Russian terrorist objects," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency said the warship appeared to have been loaded when it sank and that, before the attack, it had spent some 10 days at a loading site used by the Russian military.

It published grainy footage on Telegram purporting to show several naval drones approaching a large vessel at night and at least one large explosion.

Reuters was able to verify the ship in the video as the Russian Black Sea Fleet's Tsezar Kunikov based on its main mast, antenna, bridge and deck. The location and date the footage was filmed could not be independently verified.

Some of the footage at the end appeared to show major damage with the vessel listing heavily to one side.

"In summary, Tsezar Kunikov received a critical breach on the port side and started sinking," the GUR agency said in a statement.

The Project 775 warship, one of Russia's newest vessels, has a crew of 87 and took part in wars in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, GUR said in its statement.

A Ukrainian news outlet published several videos showing a column of smoke rising over the sea off the southern coast of Crimea with helicopters flying overhead.

Ukraine has used uncrewed navy drones packed with explosives to attack Russian warships to try to drive them out of parts of the Black Sea, making it possible for Ukraine to open a shipping corridor along a traditionally key export route.

Ukraine has no large naval ships left and deliberately scuttled its own flagship at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion to prevent it falling into Russian hands.

Newly developed naval drones have been vital for Ukraine as it tries to narrow the vast gap in its naval capabilities with Russia which has a powerful Black Sea Fleet that Kyiv has been trying to degrade.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the use of drones was "an asymmetrical way to rebalance the security picture in the Black Sea" and was helping grow Ukraine's economy to sustain the war effort.

"The fact that the Russian navy cannot operate in the Black Sea at will, compared to how it could operate at the beginning of this war, is a fundamental shift in the strategic position in the Black Sea region," the official told reporters, requesting anonymity.

A senior Ukrainian security official said in December that it had already destroyed 20% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said that Russia had five remaining large landing ships in the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian military says that it has "destroyed" 25 Russian military vessels and ships and one submarine during the war to date. Last month, Ukrainian cruise missiles struck another large Russian landing warship in Crimea.

RT/Reuters