WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine buys six French Caesar howitzers, France to supply missiles

Ukraine has bought six Caesar howitzers, France's defence minister said on Thursday, adding that Paris would send 50 precision-guided missiles a month to Kyiv to aid its fight against Russia's invasion.

Speaking to France Inter radio, Sebastien Lecornu said Caesar manufacturer Nexter had managed to halve the production time of the howitzer to 15 months meaning that some 78 units would be available this year.

In Ukraine's first purchase of French-made weapons since the start of the war, Lecornu said Kyiv had bought six for between 3 million and 4 million euros ($3.3-$4.4 million) each. Ukraine currently has 49 Caesar self-propelled howitzers gifted by France and Denmark.

Lecornu later told reporters that France would also spend 50 million euros from a fund it had created for Ukraine to buy a further 12 Caeser canons which it would then send to Kyiv.

He said he hoped allies would buy 60 Caesars for around 285 million euros.

"We want to share the bill and enable European countries to share the financial burden," Lecornu said.

Ukraine's defence minister had been due in Paris on Thursday for a conference on improving artillery supplies to Kyiv, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute.

"Shortage of ammunition, shell hunger, is a very real and pressing problem that our Armed Forces are facing at present. We need to find a way to address this together," Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told the gathering by video conference.

Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday he had thanked French President Emmanuel Macron in a phone call for Paris committing to the production of dozens of Caesar howitzers and ammunition this year.

Macron will head to Ukraine in February to finalise a deal under which Paris would deliver more sophisticated weaponry, including long-range cruise missiles, and provide long-term political, aid and reconstruction commitments.

Europeans would ramp up their support for Ukraine in the coming weeks, Macron said on Tuesday, so it could continue to defend itself, nearly two years on from Russia's full-scale invasion.

Lecornu said France would also deliver about 50 precision-guided A2SM missiles per month to Ukraine from January, adapted for Soviet-type planes.

The Safran-made missiles can carry bombs ranging from 125, 250 and 500 to 1,000 kilogrammes.

The minister also said France would also start producing from this year 3,000 155 mm shells a month, around 36,000 a year, up from just 2,000 in 2023.

Ukrainian officials say they use between 5,000-15,000 shells a day.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia files charges against 68 foreign mercenaries for fighting for Ukraine

Russia’s Investigative Committee (IC) has charged in absentia 68 more foreign mercenaries (from seven countries) for fighting for Ukraine in the special military operation, the IC’s press service informed TASS in a statement.

"In the criminal case on mercenary activities, investigators received additional materials and filed charges in absentia against 68 more nationals from 7 countries," the statement says.

Criminal proceedings are currently underway against 591 foreign citizens from 46 countries, the committee noted. According to the IC, most of them are citizens of the United States, Canada, Georgia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia.

Reuters/Tass

I hope Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, can finally get some sleep. He deserves it. After the ruling of the Supreme Court on Friday, upholding his election, the governor told a crowd of his supporters who came to rejoice with him at the State Government Lodge in Abuja, that he had not slept for seven days, in spite of the comfort of his waterbed.

Mohammed, a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said he had been awake, seven days and seven nights, “fighting former leaders” to secure the mandate of voters.

I can imagine. This was an election that took place nearly one year ago. And yet, the governor, like his colleagues in seven other states or nearly one quarter of Nigeria’s 36 states, has spent one quarter of his tenure in court, waiting for what has now become the most important vote of all – the ballot of the court.

If it were in my place to do so, I would have asked the governor what he spent seven days and seven nights doing in Abuja. Was he involved in a nonstop nocturnal spiritual wrestling match with the principalities and powers who wanted to steal his votes?

Was he in strategy sessions with ecclesiastical hosts? Was he combining these with visits to some renowned marabouts who may have been obliged to camp outside the Supreme Court, as part of the ritual of success?

If it were in my place, I would have asked what exactly he was doing in Abuja, the domain of their Lordships, without sleeping for seven days and seven nights.

Thanks offering

From what Mohammed said, however, it was not only the court that deserved the credit for the favourable outcome of the matter. Two of the other seven governors specifically thanked President Bola Tinubu and his deputy, Kashim Shettima, for their non-interference. According to the Bauchi State governor, some people had gone to tell the president that he was a threat to him.

“I’m grateful to the government of Tinubu,” Mohammed said, “who believes in good governance – for allowing the rule of law to persist irrespective of lies and mischievous acts that have been perpetrated against me.”

If the governor commended his legal team at all, that part may have been omitted in the statement published in the press, which contained nothing but heartfelt praise for the Supreme Court and the president for not beating the justices.

We die here

Another point of interest was the physical presence of five of the eight governors at the Supreme Court when the judgment was delivered. Of course, they all have a right to be there, to receive firsthand, the much-expected good news, after days, weeks, and perhaps, even months of tension. Who wouldn’t?

There was once a time, though, when the drama, the intensity, the sheer uncertainty, and especially the fearsome reputation of the court in matters like these would have kept the main parties far away from the precincts of the court.

There was an exception, of course. In 1983, the federal election body, FEDECO (as it was then called), declared that Bola Ige of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), who had just completed his first term as governor, had lost his reelection to Omololu Olunloyo of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

Ige petitioned the election tribunal and was in court as part of the UPN’s legal team, though not as the lead counsel. Not even during the equally bitter 1979 contest between the UPN and the NPN after the controversial presidential election, did either Obafemi Awolowo or Shehu Shagari appear in court, though at an earlier stage, Awolowo appeared at the tribunal in Ikoyi in his famous suit.

One crooked step

Of course, that dispensation was different. The electoral act mandated the disposal of election cases before swearing in. But the law is just as good as those who make them and those who are supposed to implement them. Some aspects of the election law have improved in the last 24 years. In spite of the improvements, however, politicians, with plenty of help from lawyers, have also found a way to stay one crooked step ahead. And perhaps one of the most perverse outcomes of all of this is that there’s hardly any solid, reliable set of electoral jurisprudence.

Jurisprudential jiggery pokery has a very long history in Nigeria, even though it wasn’t always rampant or brazen. It was with a heavy, tormented heart, for example, that Fatai Atanda-Williams said the judgment of the Supreme Court in the famous case of Awolowo v Shagari in 1979 was never to be cited as precedent.

Today, the Supreme Court has made so many conflicting and confusing judgments that even if it were to make exemptions it would find itself too entangled in the knot of its own self-inflicted misery to know where or how to start.

How can the court which, four years ago, sacked the entire government in Zamfara in an election in which the winner, Mukhtar Shehu Idris, won 67.41 percent of the votes, on the grounds that the APC failed to conduct valid primaries (clearly a party matter), now give judgments, like that in Plateau State for example, that suggest that it is alright for courts to meddle in party pre-election matters?

Or how can the same Supreme Court which affirmed the ruling of the tribunal and the Court of Appeal that the PDP had no business dabbling into whether Vice President Shettima had been doubly nominated by the APC because it was that party’s internal affair, reject the decisions of the lower courts that Ahmed Lawan who didn’t participate in the party’s primary was the validly nominated candidate of the same party?

And how, for sanity’s sake, did the Supreme Court, which set aside the ruling of the Court of Appeal that Godswill Akpabio was not the validly nominated candidate of the APC for Akwa-Ibom North-West senatorial seat because it was a party affair, justify plunging into the arena of internal party politics and pre-election matters in Zamfara and Plateau?

Thank the king?

It’s not too hard to see why politicians prefer to camp outside the court or to thank the president when cases favour them. They think that if, with the help of senior lawyers, you can purchase the courts and be in the president’s good books, your problems are nearly solved, regardless of what happened at the ballot.

I’m still trying to figure out a situation where a politician in the UK, the US, or even in Ghana or South Africa, wins a case in court and immediately grants a press conference afterwards thanking the king, president or prime minister for not interfering. This must be a uniquely Nigerian contribution to jurisprudential courtesies.

Some progress has been made in our elections, no doubt.

Yet, if the point of elections is to make the voter’s ballot count, and also give all parties a fair chance of settling any disputes that may arise, two things need to happen immediately: we must return to the era where all election petitions are disposed of before swearing in; and limit all disputes to not more than two layers of adjudication.

The regrettable, perhaps unintended overall effect of last Friday’s ruling, is that it may have further undermined the judiciary as a whole, but particularly, thrown the Court of Appeal under the bus which has had, I’m told, only five percent of its cases overturned in the last two election cycles. That, quite frankly, is not only a sad but frightening thing. It is a trend capable of keeping the whole country awake at night.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

I remember the first time I needed to buy new tyres for my car in the UK. One of the tyres had gone flat, and it soon became clear that it was not something that could be solved merely by adjusting the tyre pressure. It had to be changed, and on I went to the tyre dealer. I provided details about the car and the specifications of the tyre. I then asked for the price, ready to get the tyre and go. The guy looked at me with a chuckle, incredulous. We can’t sell the tyre to you like that, he said, still trying to contain his bewilderment: "You have to bring the car, and we will check and fit the tyre for you." This also reminds me of the first time I bought a TV set in here. It was at an ASDA Superstore, and I was bemused when the salesperson insisted I must provide my home address, and evidence of same, before they can allow me to pay for the TV. I understood later that the home address demand was for the purpose of TV license and the fee that must be paid by all households owning Television. It was a criminal offense to default, and you could be jailed for it. The corollary of this, of course, is that the government effectively know how many households have TV in their home. Ordinary TV.

Now why am I sharing these? On Tuesday 16th January, Ibadan, one of Africa's largest cities was rocked by a major explosion that flattened many buildings, and, with the last count, left five persons dead and 77 others injured in its wake. The governor of Oyo State, for which Ibadan is the capital city, later held a press briefing where he noted that the explosion was caused by dynamites held in private apartment by some "foreign" miners. Speculations are rife about who these "foreigners" are, and it is a pertinent question to which I will return in a moment.

The first, and arguably most important, question in my view is: where did they get these "dynamites" from? Are dynamites stuffs you can just go to the market and buy, without any records or traces? What are the legal requirements and regulatory frameworks guiding supply, storage and use of dynamite? You now see why I began with the story of the car tyre. Ordinary car tyre! The dealers are under legal obligations and regulatory guidelines about the conditions under which they can sell tyres. It is the same with the TV sellers, because they are liable under the law. The idea underpinning this is not genius. It is quite simple, in fact.

As we mourn the dead and contemplate the loss of property running into billions of naira, it is important to draw the right lessons and take action. Of course, heads must also roll, but we must all now, as a society, be exercised by the question of "what happens next"? I am not one for impertinent nostalgia, but we need not look to the West for examples of systems and processes that work, even if they are imperfect. I remember growing up as a child, the fear of "Wolewole" (health and safety inspectors) was the beginning of wisdom. Wolewole was the appellation coined by locals and it literally means "going from house to house". These health and safety officers went from house to house and were not shy about wielding the big stick when it came to households with unhygienic surroundings and habits. I have not heard much of them in the past few decades. I wonder if they still exist.

The tragic case of the dynamite explosion is focusing minds about the state of affairs across our cities and towns in Southwest Nigeria and beyond. And this is arguably just a tip of the iceberg. If a "foreigner" can keep dynamites at home, in a high-end residential area of a major Nigerian city, just imagine what else can be kept in homes in the hinterland and across our smaller towns and villages. The impact of the exploding dynamites was felt far away from the epicentre, with reports of buildings shaking and glasses shattering miles away. We are sitting on the keg of gun powder, and if we fall back to sleep now that the roof is on fire, there should not be a surprise about what comes next.

Which brings me to the final point about the "un-named foreigners" that have now been heralded as the villains of the tragic dynamite incident. Our cities and towns are porous and vulnerable man-made disasters like what unfolded on Tuesday, and even worse. And we always knew our villages and forests have become high risk areas. Where then is safe? Or who then is safe? I know that the situation, and the prospect for effective action at the state level, is complicated and compromised by the heavily centralised structure of the Nigerian republic. But surely there are avenues for effective actions at the state level, including a proper census and mechanisms for tracking economic and industrial activities and actors in the states, and who is supplying what to who and for what. And is it not high time we brought the Wolewole, with an expanded scope of action beyond inspecting latrines and refuse dumps?

Hannah Williams isn't afraid to ask strangers how much money they make. In 2022, she quit her six-figure job to make a business out of it, Salary Transparent Street, which brought in $1 million last year.

Since launching her TikTok channel, Williams, 27, estimates she's interviewed upwards of 1,000 people, from teachers to nurses to entrepreneurs and more, about their earning power and money habits.

She's learned a few important salary negotiation strategies, including one popular tactic that may be on the riskier side: Leveraging an offer with a new company in order to get a raise with your current employer.

"That can be risky, and that can get them in bad blood with their current company," Williams says. She suggests people remember why they're considering leaving their job. It's rarely just about the money, she says.

As she sees it, if you're so dissatisfied in your current position that you'd interview elsewhere, "more likely than not, a couple months down the road, you will still probably be leaving that company because it's not just money. Usually it's other things."

Some HR professionals agree: An employee who stays for a counter-offer may be back on the job market within months when the novelty of more pay or new responsibilities wears off, especially if their main dissatisfactions are issues with a manager, the company or something bigger. On the other hand, accepting a counteroffer may be worthwhile if you truly enjoy your job, your work environment and new career opportunities you map out with your manager.

Another important takeaway Williams often sees is that base salary isn't the only thing that's negotiable when discussing your total compensation.

"If you're asking for a raise at your company, and the company does not have the means to increase your base salary, that's not the end of the negotiation," she says. "Anything that you get from a company or that you give to a company is negotiable," including a sign-on bonus, commuting benefits, 401(k) match, stock options, pet insurance, or child care, to name a few.

"There's a ton of things that are on the table that may not increase your paycheck, but will increase your total compensation and oftentimes your flexibility," she adds, "which I think goes hand-in-hand with work-life balance and overall happiness at your job."

The biggest lesson Williams has seen, however, is to recognize that negotiating salary is difficult, and there's really no trick to getting around it.

"The hardest part is actually choosing to negotiate versus thinking about negotiating, like putting the action plan into action," Williams says. Of course, there are plenty of resources to figure out your market rate, know what to ask for specifically, and practice the pitch, but "having those conversations is the hardest thing."

Deciding to negotiate pays off, she adds: "A lot of people I've spoken with are just like, 'You just have to ask. if I hadn't asked, I wouldn't have gotten it.' And it's really that simple."

CNBC

Nigeria still operates an official exchange rate and provides dollars via the central bank to customers at that level.

But a lack of dollars in the domestic market means there’s a backlog of demand from companies who want to convert naira into the US currency to repatriate profits and pay bills. That’s pushed activity into the unofficial market, where the naira changes hands at much weaker levels against the dollar.

Minister of Finance Wale Edun said the central bank puts the current backlog at about $5 billion, following efforts to pay it down, and he voiced confidence that it could be cleared easily if steps to lift oil revenue and mobilize dollars already in the economy succeed.

“There is actually liquidity within the banking system and there should be a way of getting the banks to actually help with that backlog, either on a spot or a forward-rate basis,” he said. “We believe that if we coral the dollars that are available, we can pay down that backlog almost in one fell swoop.”

The government expects oil production to ramp up to 1.78 million barrels per day, from about 1.49 million barrels last month, which should help fire up the economy and bolster its coffers.

Domestic refining of crude is meanwhile expected to resume this year at the state-owned refinery in Port Harcourt, and from the Dangote refinery in Lagos, which will reduce gasoline imports and help ease the currency squeeze.

“The priority is to stabilize the naira, that means getting in the additional liquidity – number one from oil revenue,” Edun said. “We’re also looking to make sure we tap Nigerian savings, in particular domestic dollar savings both inside and outside the formal market. There’s a lot of cash in the Nigerian economy.”

Bloomberg

A Federal High Court in Abuja has declared as null and void the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code authorizing the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to impose fines on broadcast stations who allegedly breach the Code.

Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, quashed the said code on the grounds that the NBC as an administrative and regulatory bodies could not exercise judicial powers.

She made the declaration on Wednesday while delivering judgment in the suit filed by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) against the NBC.

The suit was sequel to the Commission’s imposition of fines of N5 million each on a television station and three pay TV platforms in 2022 for allegedly undermining Nigeria’s national security through their broadcasting of documentaries on banditry in Nigeria.

The plaintiff’s in the suit filed on their behalf by their lawyer, Uche Amulu, asked the court to hold, among others, that the NBC’s action of imposing a fine on each of the media platforms and the station for broadcasting a documentary about the state of banditry and security in Zamfara State is unlawful and unconstitutional and has a chilling effect on the freedom of media to impart information and ideas. 

The plaintiff further submitted that the action of the NBC would deter the platforms and station from reporting the true state of affairs regarding the security situation in the country, and thereby violating the rights of MRA, its members, and other citizens of Nigeria to freedom of expression, particularly their rights to receive ideas and information without interference, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

Subsequently, the plaintiff urged the court to declare that the procedure adopted by the NBC in imposing the fines is a flagrant violation of the rules of natural justice and the right to fair hearing under Section 36 of the Constitution and Article 7 of the African Charter as the Commission is the drafter of the Code, which provides for the alleged offences for which the media platforms and the station were punished, and which empowers the NBC to receive complaints, investigate and adjudicate on the complaints, impose fines and collect fines.

MRA contended that the NBC, not being a court of law and not having been constituted in manner as to secure its independence and impartiality, has no power or competence to impose fines on broadcast stations as punishment or penalties for the commission of an offence as the competence to establish that an offence has been committed and to impose criminal sanctions or penalties belongs to the courts.

Besides, it claimed, the NBC, not being the Nigerian Police or a law enforcement agency, has no power to conduct a criminal investigation or an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against the affected media platforms and stations or the imposition of criminal penalties and accordingly, that the investigation purportedly conducted by the Commission, leading to the fines imposed on the media platforms and station for alleged offences under the Nigeria Broadcasting Code is ultra vires, null and void.

MRA also urged the Court to declare that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code issued by the NBC, being a subsidiary legislation that empowers it as a regulatory and administrative body to enforce the provisions of the Code, cannot confer judicial powers or jurisdiction in criminal matters on the Commission to impose criminal sanctions or penalties such as fines, particularly as the Code was made by the NBC itself.

It urged the Court to declare the fines unconstitutional, ultra vires, null and void, set them aside and issue an order of perpetual injunction restraining the NBC, its servants, agents, privies, representatives or anyone acting for or on its behalf, from further imposing any fine on any of the media platforms or station, or any other broadcast station in Nigeria for any alleged offence committed under the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.

Delivering judgment Wednesday in suit, Ofili-Ajumogobia agreed with the plaintiff that the NBC not being a court of law, acted above its powers by imposing such fines against the alleged offenders.

She subsequently made an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Commission or anyone acting on its behalf from further imposing any fine on any media platform or broadcast station in Nigeria for any alleged offence committed under the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.

The court then went ahead to set aside the fines imposed by the NBC on August 3, 2022 on Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of DSTV; TelCom Satellite Limited (TSTV); Trust-TV Network Limited; and NTA Startimes Limited for broadcasting a documentary about the state of banditry and security in Zamfara State, saying the regulator’s action was wrong and unjustifiable in a democratic society.

The judge however, refused to grant the plaintiff’s claim for N700,000 being costs of the suit.

Ofili-Ajumogobia in addition declined another claim for N2 million as general damages for NBC’s infringement on its rights as well as a request for N1 million as punitive damages for the Commission’s “outrageous conduct in abusing its powers and arbitrarily imposing fines on broadcasting stations.”

Thisday

Following the massive explosion at Dejo Oyelese street in Bodija, Ibadan, on Tuesday, some of the victims have been counting their losses, with most of them rendered homeless.

Some of them, interviewed on Wednesday by our correspondent, described the incident as tragic.

Emmanuel Danladi said he was surprised when the loud noise sounded and the explosion happened. He said he and other people in his compound had to jump a close-by fence before crossing a river to escape from the explosion.

Danladi, who was seen moving away with his box, said the destruction was massive.

‘We jumped the fence, entered the river at the back and crossed to the other side. We came back when some calm had returned. The destruction is much, everything went down, even the house cracked.

‘‘Anything the government wants to do, they should consider supporting us with money. We do not have money, yet we need to pack to another estate for now,” he said.

OluwaYomife Olowe said his sister got injured in the explosion, with their building completely destroyed.

Olowe stated that though his sister is currently responding to treatment at the hospital, the level of destruction caused by explosion makes him sad.

He said he and his family will be moving in with a family member till they sort things out, as they do not have a home anymore.

‘‘The whole building is destroyed. There is practically nothing again. We can’t ascertain anything. We are just waiting for them to finish their investigation,” he added.

Olowe called on the government for support, saying that the affected residents could not handle the losses occasioned by the destruction alone.

“We don’t know where to start from. I don’t even want to think about the cost. I couldn’t sleep throughout last night. We just need help as much as possible,” he said.

Another victim, Rebecca Opakunbi said she was on her way back from the market when she heard the sound of the explosion. She recalled how she was unable to see clearly but managed to get to her house.

‘‘I was coming from the market. People were shouting for help. My sister and my brother were inside the house. I could not see but I started running and when I got there, I saw people that were already injured, covered in blood. Our neighbour was rushed to Redeemed hospital, some others were rushed to Modupe hospital,’’ she recalled.

Opakunbi, who also got treated in a nearby hospital alongside other neighbours, lamented that all their belongings had been destroyed.

‘‘There is nothing again, nothing that is useful here again. Everything has gone down, including the cars. We’re homeless, but we thank God for life.’’

Another resident, Solomon Omofegbene, whose parent’s house got destroyed, blamed the incident on lack of security.

‘‘For them to be have been able to bring those kind of things inside a residential area, it shows the security lapses,” he said.

Omofegbene, however, expressed joy that his mum, sister and children survived the explosion.

He called on the government to support the residents in fixing the affected buildings.

Taiwo Salami also blamed the incident on lack of adequate security in the country, adding that the incident reflected there was no safety or effective security in the country.

He also bemoaned the fact that all his property were lost.

“Everything I have is gone; the whole house, all the vehicles. In fact, every house in this area has to be completely demolished because there are structural defects already. As you can see, there are cracks everywhere. Everything has to be demolished and properly rebuilt, and we’re talking billions here.’’

Meanwhile, Bernard Akpa, another resident who witnessed the incident, said the explosion was really ‘heavy’. He said he suspected the Malian nationals who live in the area and use heavy equipment on their mining site.

‘‘I suspect those miners, the Malians that live here. Some of their equipment are supposed to be kept under a particular temperature that they cannot maintain here. The explosion was heavy, it was more than a bomb. I thought it was a rocket shot from somewhere. Immediately the incident occured, I was thrown off balance in my sitting room,’’ Akpa added.

PT

Suspected bandits have killed a 53-year-old baker, Tijani Amedu, and abducted his 13 relatives, who are mainly children, travelling alongside him, in the Katari area of Kaduna State.

The Edo State-born businessman’s brother, Rasaq, in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Wednesday, said the incident happened on January 6, 2024, while the victims were returning to Kaduna after visiting Warri, Delta State.

Rasaq said, “They came to visit for the Christmas and New Year holidays. My siblings and their families came to visit. But they got attacked by bandits when they were going back to Kaduna, using two buses. I was told the bandits started shooting on seeing them. The first bus drove through them but the second bus stopped. My elder brother and 13 kids were on the second bus. The bandits took all of them.”

He said family members later got to know when the children started communicating from their captivity.

He said, according to the children, “My elder brother’s head was hit and he fell (leading to his death),” adding, “but the 13 kids are still with them. They started (ransom) negotiation from N200m, but now, we’re at N50m.”

Rasaq said he last communicated with the kidnappers on Tuesday.

“We found the body of my brother on Saturday and buried him the following day, January 7,” he added.

He said the family could not raise the N50m, noting, “That’s a lot of money.”

One of the mothers of the children who did not want to be named refused to make any update noting, “Not for now, what we are after is how our children will be out.”

But Zinab, the wife of Amedu, who confirmed her husband was killed, said the family was seeking help on the matter.

“They killed my husband and they went away with 13 children,” Zinab told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Wednesday, adding that the family was seeking “prayers and help from anybody who can help. We have 13 of our children with them.”

When contacted on Wednesday, the Kaduna State Police Public Relations Officer, Mansur Hassan, asked for details of the incident.

He then said, “I will get back to you.” He had yet to do so as of the filing this report.

Kidnappings have recently become a disturbing menace in the North, North-Central and some southern states of Nigeria including Ogun and Lagos.

Members of the Middle Belt Youth Forum led by its president, Brent Kane, had threatened to hold a protest on Wednesday in Abuja against the rising cases of kidnapping in the region and other parts of the country. The protest was later suspended and rescheduled.

The planned protest followed the trending news of scores of abductees who were taken away by bandits from the Sagwari Estate Layout in the Dutsen-Alhaji area in the Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, last week.

Punch

Medicine for hostages and Palestinians arrives in Gaza under first Israel-Hamas deal since November

A shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas arrived in Gaza on Wednesday, part of a France- and Qatar- mediated deal that marked the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong cease-fire in November.

The deal could bring respite to some of the roughly 100 hostages who remain in captivity, as well as to Palestinians in Gaza in desperate need of aid. But fighting still rages in many parts of the beleaguered enclave, and an end to the war — or the release of the hostages — seems nowhere in sight.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, announced late Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, that the shipment had crossed into Gaza, without saying when or how the medicine would be distributed.

“Over the past few hours, medicine & aid entered the Gaza Strip, in implementation of the agreement announced yesterday for the benefit of civilians in the Strip, including hostages,” he wrote.

A senior Hamas official said that for every box provided for the hostages, 1,000 boxes of medicine would be sent in for Palestinians. The deal also includes the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents.

The agreement came 100 days into the conflict and as Palestinian militants are still putting up resistance across Gaza in the face of one of the deadliest military campaigns in recent history. More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed. Some 85% of the narrow coastal territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving.

Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas to ensure it can never repeat an attack like the one on Oct. 7 that triggered the war. Militants burst through Israel’s border defenses and stormed through several communities that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250.

Israel also has promised to win the return of the hostages still held inside Gaza.

Hamas has said it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent cease-fire, something Israel and the United States, its top ally, have ruled out.

AID BOUND FOR HOSTAGES AND PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS

The last deal in late November between Israel and Hamas brought a temporary truce in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, as well as freedom for dozens of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

A Qatari official said the medicine would be delivered to the hostages by the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. It was not immediately clear when the drugs would be delivered, or how the handover would be verified. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts.

France said it took months to organize the shipment of the medicines. Qatar, which has long served as a mediator with Hamas, helped broker the deal that will provide three months’ worth of medication for chronic illnesses for 45 of the hostages, as well as other medicine and vitamins. Several older men are among the remaining hostages.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said in a post on X that the International Committee of the Red Cross will deliver all the medicines, including the ones destined for the hostages, to hospitals serving all parts of Gaza. The ICRC declined to comment.

Senior U.N. officials have warned that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease if more aid is not allowed in.

Israel completely sealed off Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and only relented under U.S. pressure. It says there are now no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and that U.N. agencies could reduce the delays by providing more workers and trucks.

But U.N. officials say aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process and fighting throughout the territory — all of which is largely under Israel’s control.

HEAVY FIGHTING IN GAZA

Israel said at the start of the year that it had largely defeated Hamas in northern Gaza and would scale back operations there, focusing on dense urban areas in the center and south of the territory. Additional Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza on Monday, but there has been little apparent letup in strikes, with scores of Palestinians killed every day.

A strike on a home killed a woman and two children in the southernmost town of Rafah. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies arrive at a nearby hospital. Tens of thousands of people who heeded Israeli evacuation orders have sought shelter in the town, which is home to the border crossing with Egypt.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday that 163 bodies were brought to the territory’s remaining functioning hospitals in the past 24 hours, as well as 350 wounded people. The update brought the war’s overall death toll in Gaza to 24,448, with over 60,000 wounded. The ministry said many other dead and wounded are trapped under rubble or unreachable because of the fighting.

The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children.

Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense residential areas. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 192 of its own soldiers have been killed since the Gaza ground offensive began.

Militants are still fighting in all parts of the territory, and Israel appears no closer to freeing the remaining hostages. The deaths of two more hostages were confirmed Tuesday after Hamas said they were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

TENSIONS ACROSS THE REGION

Tensions are soaring in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have conducted near-daily arrest raids that often trigger shootouts with Palestinian militants.

Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians Wednesday in the territory, including five in the urban Balata refugee camp in the north, the military said. Among that group was a senior militant whom the military said was responsible for militant infrastructure and was allegedly involved in recent attacks against Israelis.

Five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike in Tulkarem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said it targeted a group of militants who had opened fire and were throwing explosives at Israeli soldiers.

Over 360 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.

The Middle East has seen a dizzying array of strikes and counterstrikes from northern Iraq to the Red Sea and from southern Lebanon to Pakistan.

In recent days, a U.S.-led coalition has carried out strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The U.S. military launched more strikes on 14 Houthi missiles deemed an “imminent threat” by U.S. Central Command as the Houthis continue attacks on commercial and military ships. A bomb-carrying drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area hit a U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden Wednesday.

Iran has struck what it described as an Israeli spy headquarters in northern Iraq and anti-Iran militants in Pakistan and Syria. Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have escalated the intensity of their fighting across the border, raising fears of another war.

AP