The amount spent on airtime and data by Nigerian telecom subscribers rose to at least N2.59tn in the first nine months of 2023.

This is according to the financial statements of MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa. This was a 32.57 per cent increase from the N1.95tn both telcos recorded from both income sources in the corresponding period of 2022.

The increase in voice and data revenue was partially driven by rising data subscriptions and the devaluation of the naira on Airtel’s part. In the first nine months of 2022, Airtel made $1.41bn from airtime and data. When converted at the exchange rate of N461/$ which was obtained at the time, it amounted to N647.71bn.

In the same period of 2023, the company’s income from these two revenue sources amounted to $1.29bn. When converted at the exchange rate of N777/$ at the time, it amounted to N1.003tn. On MTN’s part, increasing data revenues continue to fuel the company’s overall revenue growth. Data revenues grew by 36.36 per cent year-on-year, while voice revenues only grew by 10.64 per cent, indicating a rise in the usage of the Internet in the country.

Commenting on this growth, MTN said, “Data revenue grew by 36.4 per cent on increased usage and data conversion in new and existing base.”

The firm stated that data usage on its network grew by 29.1 per cent in the period under review. It noted, “Data usage (GB per user) grew by 29.1 per cent to 8.6GB, and the number of smartphones on our network increased by 7.6 per cent, bringing smartphone penetration to 53.4 per cent, up 1.4pp YoY.

“Consequently, we recorded a 46.3 per cent growth in data traffic, with the 4G network accounting for 83.7 per cent of the total traffic (up 5.2pp YoY).”

On its part, Airtel recorded an increase in data usage per customer to 5.9 GB per month. The firm highlighted, “Data revenue grew by 29.3 per cent in constant currency, driven by data customer base growth of 17.4 per cent and data ARPU growth of 12.3 per cent.

“Data usage per customer increased by 23.8 per cent to 5.9 GB per month (from 4.8 GB in the prior period). Our continued 4G network rollout has resulted in nearly 100 per cent of all our sites delivering 4G services.”

Increased Internet usage because of a rise in video streaming pushed the amount telecom consumers spent on telecom services to N3.86tn in 2022. It was an 18.74 per cent increase from the N3.25tn that was spent in 2021. Data usage in the country surged by 46.77 per cent to 518,381.78TB in 2022 from 353,118.89TB in 2021.

Data consumption has been predicted to be the next frontier for telecoms growth and is expected to continue to surge. Many analysts believe data revenues will outpace voice revenues in the coming years. The World Bank recently disclosed that increases in the consumption of data services by households and businesses and higher subscriber numbers were responsible for growth in the ICT sector.

In its Ericsson Mobility Report (June 2023), the firm noted, “Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to be the region with the highest growth in total mobile data traffic, rising by 37 per cent annually between 2022 and 2028 as service providers across the continent continue to invest in 4G networks and migrate customers from 2G and 3G.

“This increase in data traffic will primarily be driven by a four times increase in smartphone traffic in the period, with average data per active smartphone settling at 19 GB per month in 2028.”

Punch

Twenty people were killed and nearly 2,000 inmates escaped during Sunday's attack on a military barracks, a prison and other locations in Sierra Leone, officials said on Monday.

The West African country was thrown into panic in the early hours when the assailants sent gunfire ringing across the capital Freetown. The government blamed "renegade soldiers" that it said had been repelled.

President Julius Maada Bio said in an address on Sunday that most of the leaders of the attack had been arrested and that efforts to apprehend others were under way. An investigation has been launched, he said.

Army spokesman Colonel Issa Bangura told Reuters that the 20 dead included 13 soldiers, three assailants, a police officer, a civilian and someone working in private security. Eight people were wounded and three arrested, he said.

Some 1,890 inmates escaped from the Pademba Road central prison after the attackers broke in, according to a situation report that prison officials shared with Reuters on Monday. So far, 23 have returned, it said.

In a two-hour raid, the assailants rammed open the main gate with a vehicle after gunfire and a rocket launcher failed to breach prison defences, said Colonel Shek Sulaiman Massaquoi, the acting director general of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service.

Inside the prison on Monday, a Reuters reporter saw cell doors broken open or removed entirely, and piles of trash from an ongoing clean-up.

The police urged inmates to return to prison in a statement on Monday, and offered the public rewards for details on the whereabouts of escapees or the attackers.

TENTATIVE CALM

Life returned to Freetown on Monday afternoon as shops and businesses opened after the government reduced an all-day curfew to a nightly one running from 2100-0600 GMT.

In a show of a return to normalcy, Bio's X social media account on Monday shared a picture of the president behind his desk in his office saying he was at work.

"The task before us is too great and urgent to be derailed by those who seek to truncate the peace and security that we have enjoyed as a country," he said in the post.

Sierra Leone, which is still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war in which more than 50,000 were killed, has been tense since Bio was re-elected in June, a result rejected by the main opposition candidate and questioned by international partners including the United States and the European Union.

In August 2022, at least 21 civilians and six police officers were killed in anti-government protests.

Reuters

Israel and Hamas agree to extend truce for two more days, and to free more hostages and prisoners

Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their cease-fire for two more days past Monday, raising the prospect of further exchanges of militant-held hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel and a longer halt to their deadliest and most destructive war.

Eleven Israeli women and children, freed by Hamas, entered Israel Monday night after more than seven weeks in captivity in Gaza in the fourth swap under the original four-day truce, which began Friday and was due to run out. Thirty-three Palestinian prisoners released by Israel arrived early Tuesday in east Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah. The prisoners were greeted by loud cheers as their bus made its way through the streets of Ramallah.

The deal for two additional days of cease-fire, announced by Qatar, raised hopes for further extensions, which also allow more aid into Gaza. Conditions there have remained dire for 2.3 million Palestinians, battered by weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground offensive that have driven three-quarters of the population from their homes.

Israel has said it would extend the cease-fire by one day for every 10 additional hostages released. After the announcement by Qatar — a key mediator in the conflict, along with the United States and Egypt — Hamas confirmed it had agreed to a two-day extension “under the same terms.”

But Israel says it remains committed to crushing Hamas’ military capabilities and ending its 16-year rule over Gaza after its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. That would likely mean expanding a ground offensive from devastated northern Gaza to the south.

Monday’s releases bring to 51 the number of Israelis freed under the truce, along with 19 hostages of other nationalities. So far, 150 Palestinians have been released from Israeli prisons.

After weeks of national trauma over the roughly 240 people abducted by Hamas and other militants, scenes of the women and children reuniting with families have rallied Israelis behind calls to return those who remain in captivity.

“We can get all hostages back home. We have to keep pushing,” two relatives of Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old girl and dual Israeli-American citizen who was released Sunday, said in a statement.

Hamas and other militants could still be holding up to 175 hostages, enough to potentially extend the cease-fire for two and a half weeks. But those include a number of soldiers, and Hamas is likely to make much greater demands for their release.

FOURTH RELEASE

The newly released hostages included three women and nine children — including 3-year-old twin girls and their mother — from the kibbutz Nir Oz, a community near Gaza that was hard hit in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The kibbutz said 49 of its residents remain in captivity, including the father of the twins. The Israeli military said late Monday that the hostages were undergoing initial medical checks in Israel before being reunited with their families.

Most of the hostages freed so far have appeared to be physically well. But 84-year-old Elma Avraham, released Sunday, was airlifted to Israel’s Soroka Medical Center in life-threatening condition because of inadequate care, the hospital said.

Avraham’s daughter, Tali Amano, said her mother was “hours from death” when she was brought to the hospital. Avraham is currently sedated and has a breathing tube, but Amano said she told her of a new great-grandchild who was born while she was in captivity.

Avraham suffered from several chronic conditions that required regular medications but was stable before she was kidnapped, Amano said Monday.

So far, 19 people of other nationalities have been freed during the truce, mostly Thai nationals. Many Thais work in Israel, largely as farm laborers.

France said three of the hostages released Monday were French-Israeli dual citizens, two 12-year-olds and one 16-year-old. The French government is ‘’working tirelessly’’ to free five other French citizens held hostage, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Palestinian prisoners released so far have been mostly teenagers accused of throwing stones and firebombs during confrontations with Israeli forces, or of less-serious offenses. But some were convicted in alleged attempts to carry out stabbings, bombings and shootings. Many Palestinians view prisoners held by Israel, including those implicated in attacks, as heroes resisting occupation.

The freed hostages have mostly stayed out of the public eye, but details of their captivity have started to trickle out.

Merav Raviv, whose three relatives were released Friday, said they had been fed irregularly and lost weight. One reported eating mainly bread and rice and sleeping on a makeshift bed of chairs pushed together. Hostages sometimes had to wait for hours to use the bathroom, she said.

In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby welcomed the extension of the truce.

“We would, of course, hope to see the pause extended further, and that will depend upon Hamas continuing to release hostages,” Kirby told reporters.

RESPITE IN GAZA

More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. More than 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial attack. At least 77 soldiers have been killed in Israel’s ground offensive.

The calm from the truce allowed glimpses of the destruction wreaked by weeks of Israeli bombardment that leveled entire neighborhoods.

Footage showed a complex of several dozen multistory residential buildings that had been pummeled into a landscape of wreckage in the northern town of Beit Hanoun. Nearly every building was destroyed or severely damaged, some reduced to concrete frames half-slumped over. At a nearby U.N. school, the buildings were intact but partially burned and riddled with holes.

The Israeli assault has driven three-quarters of Gaza’s population from their homes, and now most of its 2.3 million people are crowded into the south. More than 1 million are living in U.N. shelters. The Israeli military has barred hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south from returning north.

Rain and wind added to the hardship of displaced Palestinians sheltering in the compound of Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza. Palestinians in coats baked flatbreads over a makeshift fire among tents set up on the muddy grounds.

Alaa Mansour said the conditions are simply horrendous.

“My clothes are all wet, and I am unable to change them.” said Mansour, who is disabled. “I have not drunk water for two days, and there’s no bathroom to use.”

The U.N. says the truce made it possible to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the start of the war. But the 160 to 200 trucks a day is still less than half what Gaza was importing before the fighting, even as humanitarian needs have soared.

Long lines formed outside stations distributing cooking fuel, allowed in for the first time. Fuel for generators has been brought for key service providers, including hospitals and water and sanitation facilities, but bakeries have been unable to resume work, the U.N. said.

Iyad Ghafary, a vendor in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said many families were still unable to retrieve the dead from under the rubble left by Israeli airstrikes, and that local authorities weren’t equipped to deal with the level of destruction.

Many say the aid is not nearly enough.

Amani Taha, a widow and mother of three who fled northern Gaza, said she had only managed to get one canned meal from a U.N. distribution center since the cease-fire began.

She said the crowds have overwhelmed local markets and gas stations as people try to stock up on basics. “People were desperate and went out to buy whenever they could,” she said. “They are extremely worried that the war will return.”

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces advancing on Ukrainian town from all sides

Russian forces are intensifying their drive to capture the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, trying to advance on all sides after weeks of fighting, the town's top official was quoted as saying on Monday.

Russian troops have been pressing land and air-based attacks on Avdiivka, since mid-October as the focal point of their slow-moving push through eastern Ukraine's Donbas region in the 21-month-old war.

The latest push, reported by Vitaliy Barabash, head of Avdiivka's military administration, followed reports last week that Ukrainian troops had made some headway in halting and pushing back the Russian advance.

"Things in the Avdiivka sector have become even tougher. The intensity of clashes has been increasing for some time," Barabash told the media outlet Espreso TV.

"The Russians have opened up two more sectors from which they have begun making assaults - in the direction of Donetsk ... and in the so-called industrial zone. The enemy is attempting to storm the city from all directions."

Officials say not a single building remains intact after months of battles in the town noted for a vast coking plant. Fewer than 1,500 residents remain of 32,000 before the war.

Much of the fighting has focused on the industrial zone and the coking plant.

Barabash earlier said that Ukrainian forces had in recent days pushed back Russian forces near Stepove, a village northwest of Avdiivka, pinning them down near a rail line.

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Ukrainain and Western military analysts say Russia has incurred heavy losses, although the battle for the town is rarely mentioned in official Russian military dispatches.

Russian military bloggers also reported Ukrainian gains near Avdiivka last week. On Monday, Russian reports said Moscow's troops had secured control of the industrial zone and were attempting to storm the coking plant.

Reuters could not verify reports from either side.

Avdiivka was briefly captured in 2014 by Russian-financed separatists who seized large chunks of eastern Ukraine.

Fortifications were later built around the town - seen as a gateway to the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk - and it has resisted attacks since Moscow began its full-fledged invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June but has made only marginal gains in both the east and the south. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged the slow progress but denies any suggestion the war is at a "stalemate".

Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun told the news outlet liga.net that wintry weather and strong winds were affecting the use of drones by both sides.

Shtupun said Russian forces had suffered heavy losses near Avdiivka and nearby Maryinka, another largely destroyed town where control has been contested for months.

"Our defenders are holding their ground," Shtupun told liga.net. "We are fighting and will continue to fight despite the weather."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

West ‘screwed over’ Ukraine – ex-Zelensky aide

The West has essentially thrown Ukraine under the bus in its conflict with Russia by failing to provide Kiev with the necessary amount of military aid, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, has claimed.

Writing on Telegram on Sunday, Arestovich weighed in on the differing views of Ukrainian officials as to why Kiev’s conflict with Moscow is still in full swing despite several major attempts at peace.

According to the former presidential aide, the West bears most of the blame for the situation.

The real responsibility lies with those who promised Ukraine real support for waging a real, big war and did not provide it. In other words, they screwed us over.

Arestovich claimed that Ukraine “had won its war” by managing to survive in the first few months of the conflict. “This war of ours could have well ended with the Istanbul Agreements,” he suggested, referring to the talks in the Turkish city in the spring of 2022, which initially made some progress but stalled after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Kiev. The negotiations collapsed but Russia maintains it is open to diplomatic engagement with Kiev.

After the Istanbul talks, the conflict entered another phase in which Ukraine had no chance of winning without securing massive Western arms supplies, including warplanes and long-range missiles, the former official continued. “But nothing came. We paid a huge price for that.”

Arestovich suggested that the West would now try to force Ukraine to accept the loss of several regions, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a series of public referenda last autumn.

He also suggested that, while Kiev found itself in a tough spot mostly due to the West’s inaction, the Ukrainian leadership’s “stupidity and corruption has given them many formal and informal reasons to screw us over.”

Arestovich’s remarks came amid Ukraine’s faltering counteroffensive, which has been underway since early summer but has failed to gain any significant ground. Last month, Moscow said Kiev had lost more than 90,000 troops since the start of the push, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claiming that Ukrainian casualties had reached more than 13,000 soldiers in November alone.

Earlier this month, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, admitted that hostilities had reached a stalemate, an assessment rejected by Zelensky. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Mariana Bezuglaya, a senior Ukrainian MP, blasted Zaluzhny over the lack of a strategic plan for 2024 and called on the military leadership to step down.

** Russian forces wipe out Ukrainian command post in DPR over past day

Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian command post in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"A command post of the Ukrainian army’s 5th assault brigade was destroyed near the settlement of Krasnoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the ministry said in a statement.

Reuters/RT/Tass

The recent worldwide surge of inflation is forcing political change, reminding us how efficiently this old economic problem can topple governments. In democracies, election outcomes often hinge on price developments. But the effect on autocracies is no less pronounced, because inflation erodes the implicit social compact on which they base their authority.

In Argentina, the election of a radical self-styled anarcho-capitalist, Javier Milei, as president can be understood as the immediate consequence of the incumbent Peronist regime’s inability to deal with inflation, which has hit an annualized rate of 143%. Milei’s most important campaign promise was to restore price stability by abolishing the central bank and replacing the Argentine peso with the US dollar.

Ending monetary autonomy is obviously a bold and risky experiment that will severely limit government action. But that is exactly the point. Since the previous government tried to do too much, and manifestly failed, voters now feel as though anything would be better than more mismanagement.

At first blush, Russia looks surprisingly stable by comparison. Its annualized inflation rate recently rose from 6% to 7%, whereas even the United States and the eurozone briefly flirted with inflation in the double digits last year. But the US, the eurozone, and the United Kingdom have all brought inflation back down below 5%, while Russia is moving in the opposite direction.

Moreover, Russian inflation also surged in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine – just as it had done in 2014 after the initial seizure of territory in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Then, from April 2022, the inflation rate fell for a full year, and almost looked as though it would settle at a respectable 2.5%. But that stability turned out to be an illusion. Inflation returned this summer, following Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted putsch, and it now represents the greatest immediate risk to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wartime regime.

Moscow’s city government is candid about this source of angst, and even Putin, who generally avoids acknowledging weaknesses, recently commented on inflation and its threat to Russian families. The Russian central bank has duly hiked its policy rate to 15% – almost three times higher than the US federal funds rate.

As Putin may well know, discontent over prices is often the first sign of an authoritarian regime’s loss of social support. While ordinary citizens cannot complain openly about the government (lest they be arrested or harshly punished), they can and do murmur about prices, especially when inflation is a direct result of increased government spending on a war. The problem arises not just because of higher military expenditures or supply constraints resulting from sanctions, but also because the Kremlin has tried to buy popular support. Soldiers, for example, now make over two and a half times the average salary, and their families are compensated lavishly – receiving five million rubles ($57,000) – when they are killed at the front.

The telltale signs of the resulting inflation are popping up everywhere. Owing to the exodus of 800,000-900,000 young people who were unwilling to risk conscription and mobilization, Russia’s labor market has been transformed for the worse. Skills are lacking, and employers have had to offer much higher pay to attract workers. That might work for a short while; but soon enough, people start to notice that their larger paycheck still does not buy them what they need or want.

History offers powerful lessons here. Inflation was the central dynamic that broke the czarist autocracy’s own social compact with the Russian people in the 1910s. During World War I, the Russian Empire, unable to balance its budget, resorted to the printing press. Since Russia had been a massive grain exporter in the years before the war, Russian peasants initially could sell their excess grain to military-procurement offices, which were willing to pay higher prices. But by late 1916, inflation was accelerating, and the peasants noticed that their paper rubles no longer bought them much. Rather than continuing to sell their grain, they fed it to their livestock.

Importantly, the paper money of the time directly evoked images of the czarist dynasty – featuring Peter the Great on the 500-ruble note and Catherine the Great on the 100 note. Suddenly, these grand historical figures no longer looked so grand. The notes bearing their faces had become worthless, and the peasants refused to accept them as payment. As the grain supply collapsed, the resulting food shortages caused urban unrest that culminated in the double revolution of 1917. Soldiers stopped fighting because they could no longer buy anything with their pay. They preferred to go home to their villages, where they might at least find something to eat.

Once in power, the early Bolsheviks had to do something dramatic to restore price stability, so they hit on the idea of making an explicit reference to gold in the name of the new currency: chervonets (gold coins). They even minted a few gold coins.

One finds an extraordinary degree of continuity in Russian monetary history. The current 500-ruble note, designed in 1997, once again depicts Peter the Great (this time as a statue in the port of Arkhangelsk). And it could fall into similar disrepute.

People turn on governments that have broken their promises, and money constitutes one of the oldest such covenants. Russian monetary machinations are now one of the most tangible signs of a system that cannot deliver what it has promised. It is a system that eventually will be replaced, because it has broken faith with the people.

Project Syndicate

Perfectionism might seem like a great quality for a boss to have. It's actually pretty toxic, says Ginni Rometty, former president and CEO of IBM.

Rometty worked at the tech giant for 39 years, starting as a systems engineer in 1981 and rising to the top post in 2012 before stepping down in 2020. In her early days as a boss, she was a poster-child for perfectionism, she said at the 2023 World Business Forum summit on Wednesday.

"My nickname in my early career was Red Pen. I mean, you'd send anything to me [and I'd send it back] completely red," Rometty, 66, said. "I used to think that was a great skill ... to find every mistake and improve it."

A wake-up call from a colleague helped her realize that her obsession with finding mistakes was negatively impacting her employees, she said.

"One person was like, 'You know, people just don't even want to try hard, because you're going to change it and fix it. It's never going to be good enough,''' said Rometty. "That's pretty disabling for people … I was disempowering them. Of course, it was never my intent, but I learned to stop it."

Your perfectionist boss may think they're showing you how to be detail-oriented. Instead, they could be harming your team's anxiety and productivity, Rometty noted.

"Perfectionism is the enemy of progress," she said. "And it's what polarizes people, ideologically. And this is why we make no progress on many things."

How to deal with your perfectionist boss

Perfectionism is a growing problem for the next generation of professionals, according to psychologist Kate Rasmussen.

"As many as two in five kids and adolescents are perfectionists," Rasmussen told the BBC in 2018. "We're starting to talk about how it's heading toward an epidemic and public health issue."

If you want to do something about your perfectionist boss, you can start by helping them recognize that they're creating a negative environment — for both the workplace and themselves. They'll either burn out or lock themselves in a cycle of endless procrastination, mental health author Morra Aarons-Mele told CNBC Make It in February.

Awareness alone may help. The more someone knows about their tendencies, the more they can focus on changing them, Aarons-Mele said — and the less time you'll spend hovering over your computer deconstructing your work at the expense of your mental health.

CNBC

Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Limited will be listed on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, Chairman of the company, Aliko Dangote, has revealed.

Dangote, who is the richest man in Africa, confirmed this in an interview with the Financial Times published on Saturday.

The refinery will join other businesses of Dangote currently trading their equities on the NGX, Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and NASCON.

The oil facility, believed to be worth about $20 billion, was launched in May 2023 by the immediate past president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, though it is yet to commence operations.

A few weeks ago, it was reported that the refinery was starved of crude oil supply by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, one of its major shareholders, frustrating its commencement of the production of premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, which the country desperately needs as it currently relies on the importation of the commodity from Europe, especially from the Netherlands and Belgium.

But in the interview, Dangote confirmed that this issue has been resolved, announcing that the refinery may begin to supply the nation diesel, kerosene and jet fuel from December 2023, which is just a few days away.

“We’re starting with 350,000 barrels a day. [We have sealed a deal for the first cargo of about 6mn barrels [for delivery in December],” he was quoted as saying.

According to him, “We have resolved all the issues of supply [with the NNPC,]” he said, refusing to blame the state-owned oil-firm for the difficulties in supplying crude oil to the refinery.

“Let’s not have the blame game here,” he declared in the interview.

However, he expressed optimism that the oil facility would be a game-changer for Nigeria, especially when it is listed on the domestic stock exchange, stressing that the NNPC was not attempting to increase its stake in the organisation with the supply-restriction tactics.

Recall that in 2021, NNPC acquired a 20 per cent equity stake in Dangote Refinery for about $2.76 billion, and there have been speculations that the firm was planning to increase its shares in the company, which has the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day and could generate $25 billion a year.

But Dangote, who is 66, played down these rumours, saying, “I don’t think NNPC needs to buy more shares. I think they’re OK with what we’ve given them.”

Business Post

A United Nigeria Airlines flight destined for Abuja on Saturday landed in Asaba, the capital of Delta state.

Passengers said they only realised the mistake after the cabin crew announced “Welcome to Abuja” when they landed in Asaba.

“We departed Lagos about an hour ago on Fly United to Abuja and upon arrival, the cabin crew confidently announced that we had arrived Abuja only for us to realise that we landed in Asaba,” Salihu Yakasai, the Kano governorship candidate of Peoples’ Redemption Party in the 2023 election, wrote on X.

After about half an hour on the tarmac, the plane was redirected to Abuja. This was after the pilot announced that the “honest mistake” was caused by a mix-up in the flight plan given to him.

“People were thinking that there’s something we were not being told. Until the pilot announced to us that he received a wrong flight plan, that’s when calmness was restored,” a passenger on the flight said.

But in its defence few hours after the incident, United Nigeria Airlines claimed the flight was diverted to Asaba as a result of bad weather.

Achilleus-Chud Uchegbu, the airline spokesperson, said the pilot was properly briefed about the diversion, noting that the cabin crew made “wrong announcement upon landing safely in Asaba [and] created confusion among the passengers.”

“A united Nigeria Airlines flight, NUA 0504, operating from the MM2 in Lagos enroute Abuja on Sunday, November 26, 2023, was temporarily diverted to the Asaba International Airport due to poor destination weather,” the statement reads.

“At all material time, the Pilot of the aircraft was aware of the temporary diversion and was properly briefed. However, a wrong announcement was made by cabin crew upon landing safely in Asaba creating confusion among the passengers.”

The Cable

Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio said most of the leaders of an attack on a military barracks in the capital Freetown earlier on Sunday had been arrested, adding that security operations and an investigation were ongoing.

"We will ensure that those responsible are held accountable," Bio said on national television.

"As your commander-in-chief, I want to assure everybody who is resident in Sierra Leone that we have overcome this challenge," he said, and calm had been restored.

Earlier, the government said security forces had repelled "renegade soldiers" who attempted to break into a military armoury in Freetown during the early hours of Sunday.

A nationwide curfew was imposed. Gunfire was heard across the city as the assailants attacked a prison and a police station.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in the barracks attack or during the gunfire in Freetown on Sunday.

The country's former president Ernest Bai Koroma, said in a statement that a military guard assigned to his residence in the capital was shot point blank, while another was "whisked away to an unknown location".

Koroma did not say who shot the guard. He condemned the killing and the attack on the barracks.

"I am deeply concerned that once again our beloved nation could be subject to such insecurity," he said.

The West African country's civil aviation authority urged airlines to reschedule flights after the curfew was declared, while a soldier on its frontier with neighbouring Guinea told Reuters they had been instructed to shut the border.

A Reuters journalist, who earlier witnessed an armed group of men commandeer a police vehicle near the Wilberforce barracks, said streets were mostly empty on Sunday as residents hunkered down.

"We'll clean this society. We know what we are up to. We are not after any ordinary civilians who should go about their normal business," one of the masked men, who was dressed in military fatigues, said before driving away.

Sierra Leone has been tense since Bio was re-elected in June, a result rejected by the main opposition candidate and questioned by international partners including the United States and the European Union.

In August 2022, at least 21 civilians and six police officers were killed in anti-government protests in Sierra Leone, which is still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war in which more than 50,000 were killed. Bio said the protests were an attempt to overthrow the government.

In his address to the nation on Sunday night, Bio called on Sierra Leone's political and traditional leaders, and civil

society to work to preserve peace.

"Let us not succumb to fear or division," he said.

Information minister Chernor Bah said earlier on Sunday that security forces were making progress in apprehending those involved in the attack, but gave no further details.

A video on social media showed three men, two in fatigues and one in civilian clothes, with their arms tied behind their backs sitting in a military truck surrounded by soldiers. Reuters has not authenticated the video.

Bah said that major detention centres including the Pademba Road prisons were attacked and inmates released by the unidentified assailants.

It was not immediately clear how many prisoners had broken out of the facility, which a U.S. State Department report said was designed for 324 inmates but held more than 2,000 in 2019.

Videos posted on social media, which were not authenticated by Reuters, showed several people fleeing from the area of the prison, while gunshots could be heard in the background.

"The security forces were forced to make a tactical retreat. The prisons were thus overran," said Bah, who had earlier declared a nationwide curfew and called for people to stay indoors.

The Economic Community of West African States condemned what it called an attempt by certain individuals to "acquire arms and disturb constitutional order" in Sierra Leone. The U.S. embassy in Freetown said such actions were not justified.

There have been eight military coups in West and Central Africa since 2020.

Reuters

Hamas releases third group of hostages as part of truce, and says it will seek to extend the deal

The fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was back on track Sunday as the militants freed 17 more hostages, including 14 Israelis and the first American, in a third exchange under a four-day truce that the U.S. said it hoped would be extended. In turn, Israel released 39 Palestinian prisoners.

Most hostages were handed over directly to Israel, waving to a cheering crowd as they arrived at an air force base. Others left through Egypt. Israel’s army said one was airlifted to a hospital, and the director of Soroka Medical Center said Elma Avraham, 84, was in life-threatening condition as “a result of an extended period of time when an elderly woman was not taken care of as needed.”

The youngest hostage released was Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old girl and dual Israeli-American citizen whose parents were killed in the Hamas attack that started the war on Oct. 7. “What she endured was unthinkable,” Biden said of the first American freed under the truce. He did not know her condition and did not provide updates on other American hostages. Biden said his goal was to extend the cease-fire deal as long as possible.

In all, nine children ages 17 and younger were on the list, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Three more Thai nationals were released. Separately, Hamas said it released a Russian hostage “in response to the efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” The Russian-Israeli citizen was the first male hostage to be freed.

The Palestinian prisoners released were children and young men, ages 15-19, largely accused of public disorder, property damage and in some cases causing or threatening physical harm to Israeli officers by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. Many were scooped up from protests and confrontations with troops. In turn, many Palestinians view prisoners held by Israel, including those implicated in attacks, as heroes resisting occupation.

A fourth exchange is expected on Monday — the last day of the cease-fire during which a total of 50 hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners are to be freed. Most are women and minors.

International mediators led by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar are trying to extend the cease-fire that began Friday.

“We can get all hostages back home. We have to keep pushing,” said two of Edan’s relatives, a great aunt and cousin, in a statement thanking mediators.

Hamas for the first time said it would seek to extend the deal by looking to release a larger number of hostages. Netanyahu issued a statement saying he had spoken to Biden and reiterated his offer to extend the cease-fire by an additional day for every 10 hostages Hamas releases. But he said Israel would resume its offensive “with all of our might” once the truce expires.

Ahead of the latest hostage release, Netanyahu donned body armor and visited the Gaza Strip, where he spoke with troops. “At the end of the day we will return every one,” he said of the hostages, adding that “we are continuing until the end, until victory. Nothing will stop us.” It was not clear where he went inside Gaza.

This is the first significant pause in seven weeks of war, marked by the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades. More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, roughly two thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The war has claimed more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians killed in the initial attack.

In New York, hundreds of Jewish protesters and allies demanding a permanent cease-fire in Gaza shut down vehicle traffic on the Manhattan Bridge in both directions for several hours Sunday. A New York police spokesperson could not immediately provide an exact number of how many people were arrested.

LIFE IN CAPTIVITY

Hamas’ military wing released a video showing militants handing over the hostages to Red Cross workers and paramedics, with some of the balaclava-wearing fighters and hostages waving goodbye to each other.

Families from the southern Israeli town of Kfar Aza embraced, cried, and applauded Sunday at the news that hostages from their town had arrived in Israel. More than 70 members of the kibbutz of around 700 people were killed and 18 were kidnapped.

The freed hostages have mostly stayed out of the public eye. Hospitals said their physical condition has largely been good. Little is publicly known about the conditions of their captivity.

Merav Raviv, whose three relatives were released on Friday, said they had been fed irregularly and lost weight. One reported eating mainly bread and rice and sleeping on a makeshift bed of chairs pushed together. Hostages sometimes had to wait for hours to use the bathroom, she said.

Pressure from families has sharpened the dilemma facing Israel’s leaders, who seek to eliminate Hamas as a military and governing power. Hamas and other militant groups seized around 240 people during the incursion into southern Israel that ignited the war. Fifty-eight have been released, one was freed by Israeli forces and two were found dead inside Gaza.

AID TO NORTHERN GAZA

The pause has given some respite to Gaza’s 2.3 million people, still reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel also went silent.

War-weary Palestinians in northern Gaza, where the offensive has focused, made their way through entire city blocks gutted by airstrikes.

But those among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled the north have been turned back by Israeli troops while trying to return to check their homes.

“They open fire on anyone approaching from the south,” said Rami Hazarein, who fled Gaza City.

The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians not to return to the north or approach within a kilometer (around a half-mile) of the border fence. The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said Israeli forces opened fire Sunday on two farmers in central Gaza, killing one and wounding the other. An Israeli military spokesperson said they weren’t aware of the episode.

The United Nations says the truce made it possible to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the start of the war, but it calls the 160 to 200 trucks a day “hardly enough.”

It was able to deliver fuel for the first time since the war began, and to reach areas in the north for the first time in a month. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said 50 Egyptian aid trucks crossed through Israeli checkpoints to reach Gaza City and northern areas Sunday.

HAMAS COMMANDER KILLED

Hamas announced the death of Ahmed al-Ghandour, who was in charge of northern Gaza and a member of its top military council. He is the highest-ranking militant known to have been killed in the fighting. Israel’s military confirmed the death.

Al-Ghandour had survived at least three Israeli attempts on his life and was involved in a cross-border attack in 2006 in which Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, according to the Counter Extremism Project, an advocacy group based in Washington.

Hamas said he was killed along with three other senior militants, including Ayman Siam, who Israel says was in charge of Hamas’ rocket-firing unit. The Israeli military mentioned both men in a Nov. 16 statement, saying it had targeted an underground complex where Hamas leaders were hiding.

The Israeli military claims to have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.

Elsewhere, the war has been accompanied by a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian health authorities said Sunday that five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin that began the day before. The war toll in the West Bank is now 239.

The Israeli army has conducted frequent raids and arrested hundreds of Palestinians since the start of the war, mostly people it suspects of being Hamas members.

AP