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The African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State are trading accusations over an alleged attack on supporters of the opposition party at a toll gate in the state.

The incident occurred on Tuesday when supporters of the ADC governorship candidate, Isa Ashiru, gathered to welcome him back to Kaduna following his two-week Lesser Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

Some vehicles belonging to the supporters were reportedly vandalised during the incident, while mobile phones were allegedly stolen from some of the victims.

Speaking to Daily Trust, Dr. Ilesha Paul, chairman of the Ashiru Support Group (ATISAH), said he was among those whose vehicles were damaged.

He explained that supporters had converged from different parts of the state to welcome Ashiru and escort him home when they were set upon.

‘We are not at war. Our members came from Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3, which meant it was a major rally just to receive our governorship candidate. Please, we are in politics, not war. It was really unfortunate,’ he said.

Paul stressed that the supporters were unarmed and had no intention of engaging anyone in a confrontation.

‘We don’t have weapons because we did not go there to fight. We went there simply to welcome our candidate, Ashiru,’ he said, adding that his mobile phone was also taken during the attack.

It was further alleged that the attackers-mostly youths and teenagers-pelted the supporters with stones and vandalised their vehicles.

However, the APC State Secretary, Mohammed Sani Haruna, offered a contrasting account, claiming that APC supporters were the ones attacked at the toll gate. He accused the ADC of attempting to twist the narrative surrounding the violence.

‘I reached out to the people there and we discovered it was our people that were attacked. In fact, we were the ones who suffered damage,’ Haruna said.

He noted that the APC was actively working to de-escalate tension and prevent the situation from worsening.

‘Our people came out for a peaceful rally at the toll gate but were attacked. So we cannot call it a clash, because our people came out for a peaceful rally but were attacked,’ he said, maintaining that the party was not interested in escalating the matter despite the destruction of property.

‘We are dousing tension now to avoid escalation,’ he added.

Countering the APC’s stance, Ashiru’s spokesman, Abdulwaheed Olayinka Adubi, confirmed the attack and insisted that ADC members were the true victims.

‘Our people were attacked and their vehicles were damaged. We saw those who attacked us. They were inside a fully branded Hilux vehicle with ‘Renewed Agenda’ written on it and an 18-seater bus carrying fully armed youths,’ he said.

Adubi said the ADC strongly condemned the assault on supporters who had merely gathered to welcome their governorship candidate.

In a separate statement, Ashiru described the alleged attack as unacceptable and warned against allowing political differences to degenerate into violence.

‘Enough is enough. Kaduna belongs to all of us, and no political party has the right to prevent citizens from supporting the candidate or party of their choice,’ he said.

Ashiru called on the Kaduna State Government and the APC leadership to ensure that all political parties and their supporters are allowed to carry out legitimate activities without intimidation.

He also urged security agencies to investigate the incident thoroughly and prosecute anyone found culpable, regardless of political affiliation.

The ADC flagbearer appealed to his supporters to remain peaceful and law-abiding, assuring them that the party would pursue its goals through constitutional avenues.

‘We will not be intimidated, and we will not be provoked into violence. Our response will remain the ballot, the issues, and the people. Kaduna deserves a peaceful, competitive, and credible democratic process,’ he said.

Nigeria’s social media growth industry has spent the past few years building genuine technical infrastructure and market trust at home.

A newer, less discussed pattern is now emerging alongside it, several Nigerian-built platforms are beginning to serve customers well beyond Nigeria’s own borders, extending into Ghana and Kenya as real, distinct markets rather than incidental overflow.

A Real, Growing Cross-Border Pattern

For years, Nigerian SMM panels focused almost entirely on the domestic market, a reasonable choice given Nigeria’s own substantial creator and small business economy.

But as these platforms matured, several began noticing genuine, organic demand originating from outside Nigeria specifically, Ghanaian and Kenyan users discovering Nigerian-built services through search, referral, and increasingly, through AI-powered search tools that now cite these platforms directly when answering user questions about social media growth options.

Chickletboost, a Nigerian platform offering what it positions as the best SMM panel in Nigeria, is one example of this pattern playing out concretely. The platform has expanded its real service offering to serve Ghana and Kenya directly, rather than treating either market as an afterthought layered on top of Nigerian infrastructure.

Why Genuine Local Payment Support Matters for This Expansion

A real, practical barrier to cross-border growth in this industry has historically been payment infrastructure. A Nigerian platform accepting only Naira through local bank transfer effectively locks out customers in neighboring markets, regardless of genuine demand.

Chickletboost’s structure reflects an attempt to solve this directly, accepting Ghanaian Cedis through MTN Mobile Money, AirtelTigo, and Vodafone Cash for its best SMM panel in Ghana offering, and Kenyan Shillings through M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Equitel, and Telkom, alongside its existing Naira payment options for Nigerian users.

This kind of genuine, multi-currency, mobile-money-native payment support remains relatively uncommon among providers in this space, many of whom continue to treat Ghana and Kenya as secondary markets served through less convenient, less localized payment paths.

The Real, Honest Industry Problem This Expansion Runs Into

Cross-border growth in this specific industry carries a real, additional complication worth being direct about. Much of the social media growth industry, regardless of country of origin, has historically relied on automated bot networks to deliver followers, likes, and views.

This approach is cheap to build and scale across new markets quickly, but it creates a real, recurring problem, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and others run continuous detection systems designed to identify and remove exactly this kind of automated activity.

For businesses and creators in any of these three markets, engagement that disappears during a platform cleanup represents a real, tangible cost, not a minor technical inconvenience.

A Structural Alternative Worth Understanding

A smaller number of platforms have approached this problem differently as they’ve expanded across borders, building infrastructure around genuinely human-sourced engagement rather than automated alternatives.

Chickletboost’s approach specifically routes country-tagged orders through TaskletPay, its own task-and-earn platform, where real, active users in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya complete genuine engagement tasks themselves and get paid directly for doing so.

This distinction carries real, practical weight for businesses evaluating growth providers across any of these markets. Engagement completed by an actual person behaves like genuine, organic activity, because it is, rather than triggering the detection patterns that bot-driven networks reliably do.

It also creates a real, secondary economic effect specific to each market, genuine income flowing to real users in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya respectively, rather than a purely extractive model where value moves in one direction only.

What This Regional Pattern Signals for the Broader Industry

The broader pattern here extends beyond any single platform. As Africa’s digital economy continues its rapid, well-documented expansion, and as AI-powered search tools increasingly shape how businesses and creators discover service providers across borders, Nigerian-built platforms with genuinely localized infrastructure for neighboring markets appear structurally well-positioned to capture real, organic demand that previously had no clear, convenient path to reach them.

This is not simply a story about one country’s platforms expanding outward for growth’s own sake. It reflects a genuine, structural shift in how West and East African digital economies are beginning to interconnect, with Nigeria’s mature SMM infrastructure specifically serving as one real, concrete example of that broader cross-border integration.

Real, Practical Considerations for Businesses Evaluating Cross-Border Providers

Businesses and creators in Ghana or Kenya considering a Nigerian-built cross-border platform should weigh a few real, practical factors before choosing a provider. Genuine local payment support, avoiding the friction and cost of international card transactions, matters significantly for practical, day-to-day usability. Equally important is understanding how a given provider actually sources its engagement, real, human-based sourcing carries meaningfully lower risk than automated alternatives, regardless of which country the provider originates from.

Chickletboost’s own platform reflects an attempt to address both considerations directly, with dedicated, currency-specific service pages for each market, each reflecting local payment methods and pricing rather than a single, undifferentiated offering applied uniformly across all three countries.

As this cross-border pattern continues to develop across West and East Africa’s growing digital economies, the platforms that genuinely invest in localized infrastructure, rather than simply extending an existing domestic offering outward, appear likely to capture the most durable share of this expanding, cross-border demand.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a Mexican drug kingpin allegedly linked to a transnational methamphetamine cartel and dismantled another industrial-scale laboratory in Ebonyi State.

The suspect, identified as Arturo Carrera Loaiza, was arrested on August 19, 2026, while attempting to flee Nigeria through the Lagos airport, the agency disclosed on Tuesday.

The NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), who spoke through the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, at a media briefing in Lagos, said the arrest followed months of painstaking investigations into a wider criminal network behind several clandestine drug laboratories uncovered in the country.

Marwa warned that Nigeria would not become a safe haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their operations to the country’s forests and rural communities.

He said, ‘Nigeria will not be allowed to become a haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their laboratories from other jurisdictions into our forests and rural communities.’

The NDLEA chairman said earlier investigations by its Special Operations Unit into the arrest of a Mexican methamphetamine expert, 56-year-old Jose Villa Ochoa, at a forest laboratory in Oyo State, led to the identification of Loaiza as the alleged recruiter of foreign experts into Nigeria.

Ochoa and four Nigerian collaborators were arrested on June 17, 2026, at a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in the forested Tapa village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.

According to him, Ochoa positively identified Loaiza from a photograph obtained by investigators working with international partners.

Intelligence reportedly showed that Loaiza entered Nigeria on June 10 alongside another Mexican national, Jose Ceballos Perez.

He said Loaiza, during interrogation, claimed he had been invited into the country by a Nigerian contact identified only as ‘Henry’ under the guise of a restaurant business venture.

He reportedly denied knowledge of methamphetamine production or involvement in the Oyo laboratory.

However, investigators allegedly recovered photographs showing him wearing a blue laboratory coat and standing amid equipment consistent with methamphetamine production.

Olu Jacobs was more than a celebrated Nollywood actor. He was one of the Nigerian performers whose career stretched across continents, generations and different forms of storytelling.

Born in Kano to parents from Egba Alake, Jacobs discovered his passion for acting as a young boy before travelling to Britain to pursue formal training in the dramatic arts. His journey took him from school drama and stage performances in Nigeria to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, British television and international films, before he returned home and became one of the defining figures of Nigeria’s modern film industry.

Across a career spanning several decades, Jacobs built a reputation for commanding performances on stage, television and screen. He featured in more than 120 Nollywood films and received some of the industry’s most prestigious honours, including the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Beyond acting, Jacobs and his wife, fellow actress Joke Silva, built a family and a business empire through the Lufodo Group, which includes film production and distribution as well as an academy for performing arts.

Following his death at 84, here are key things to know about the life, career and legacy of one of Nigeria’s most respected actors.

Kano childhood and Egba roots

Olu Jacobs was born in July 1942 in Kano, although his parents were from Egba Alake in present-day Ogun State.

He spent his early years in Kano, where he attended Holy Trinity School. As a student, he participated in the school’s debating and drama societies, experiences that helped nurture his interest in performance.

The Hubert Ogunde encounter that changed his life

Jacobs’ decision to pursue acting professionally was influenced by an encounter with legendary Nigerian theatre practitioner Chief Hubert Ogunde.

As a young man in Kano, Jacobs attended one of Ogunde’s annual concert parties at the Colonial Hotel. The experience inspired him to take acting seriously.

Soon afterwards, he secured a visa and travelled to England to pursue formal training in acting.

Training at RADA in London

In Britain, Jacobs studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London.

His training provided the foundation for a career that would initially take him through British theatre and television before he became a household name in Nigeria.

His early stage career in Britain

One of Jacobs’ earliest recorded stage roles came in 1972, when he played The Boy in A Taste of Honey at the newly opened Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

His stage career demonstrated his versatility and opened the door to further opportunities in British theatre and television.

From British television to international films

During the 1970s, Jacobs appeared in several British television programmes and series, including The Goodies, Till Death Us Do Part, Barlow at Large, The Venturers, Angels, 1990, The Tomorrow People and The Professionals.

In 1978, he played President Mageeba in Night and Day, a presentation of Sir Tom Stoppard’s play.

His international screen credits expanded during the 1980s. He appeared in films including The Dogs of War, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend and Roman Polanski’s Pirates.

Return to Nigeria and The Third Eye

After years working abroad, Jacobs returned to Nigeria in 1990.

One of his notable early roles after his return was in the NTA detective series The Third Eye, which helped reconnect him with Nigerian television audiences.

His return coincided with the emergence and eventual expansion of what became known as Nollywood.

A Nollywood career spanning more than 120 films

Jacobs went on to establish himself as one of the most recognisable actors in Nigerian cinema.

He appeared in more than 120 Nollywood films, taking on roles that showcased his range and commanding screen presence.

His work also extended beyond films. He featured in television commercials for brands including Ribena and Binatone.

Major awards and national recognition

Jacobs’ contribution to acting earned him several major honours.

Among them were:

2007: Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

2011: National honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR)

2013: Industry Merit Award at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards

2016: MAA Lifetime Achievement Award

He was also honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) in 2021.

Marriage to Joke Silva

Jacobs married fellow actress Joke Silva in 1989.

The couple have two children and became one of Nigeria’s best-known acting families.

Jacobs once explained why Silva continued to use her professional name, saying that she was an individual who had already established herself as an actress before their marriage.

His position was that marriage should not erase the professional identity she had built as Joke Silva.

Building the Lufodo Group

Beyond their individual acting careers, Jacobs and Silva built a business around the creative industry.

Together, they founded and operated the Lufodo Group, a media company with interests in film production and distribution.

The group also includes the Lufodo Academy of Performing Arts, reflecting the couple’s involvement not only in entertainment but also in developing talent in the performing arts.

The 2021 death rumour

In 2021, rumours circulated on social media that Jacobs had died.

The reports were later disproved when he appeared at AFRIFF in November 2021, where he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The episode highlighted the recurring problem of unverified death reports involving prominent Nigerian personalities.

His final years

In later years, Jacobs’ health became a subject of public discussion.

His wife, Joke Silva, disclosed in an interview with Chude Jideonwo that the actor was battling Lewy body dementia.

Despite his reduced public appearances, Jacobs remained an important figure in Nigeria’s entertainment history and continued to receive tributes and recognition for his contribution to the industry.

Death at 84

Olu Jacobs died on Wednesday at the age of 84.

His death was announced by his son, Olusoji Jacobs, on Instagram.

In announcing his passing, the family described him as ‘The Lion of Lufodo’ and appealed to bloggers and social media influencers to respect the family’s privacy.

The statement described his death as the end of ‘a life well lived and fought’, marking the passing of an actor whose career bridged Nigerian theatre, British television, international cinema and Nollywood.

The fight between the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, which blew open Monday night, may shape the outcome of the 2027 general elections, Daily Trust has learnt.

Party sources and analysts, who spoke to our correspondents, posited that since the rift appears to be more of a turf fight for political interests, it may affect the outcome of the elections in ways that even the actors cannot predict.

Daily Trust reports that 31 out of the 36 state governors in the country are of the APC and 15 of them from 28 states are seeking reelection. Those in their second term are, however, interested in ensuring their candidates succeed them.

Tensions in the APC escalated on Monday night as the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) formally rejected cross-party political arrangements set by the FCT minister under the rainbow coalition.

Wike is the national leader of a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose candidates have been recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), but he has openly been working for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The core political objective of the coalition is to support President Tinubu’s second term under the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’, while pursuing the election of other candidates on different political platforms in the alliance.

He has championed the idea in his home state of Rivers, bringing four major political parties: the APC, the PDP, the Labour Party (LP) and the Action Alliance (AA) to work together.

His bid to replicate the move nationwide, sources say, has pitted him against the APC governors of various states who are either interested in second terms or want certain candidates to succeed them.

Investigations by our correspondent indicate that the FCT minister is seriously working with the candidates of the faction of the PDP aligned to him in states like Katsina, Benue, Plateau, Rivers, Kwara, Nasarawa, Gombe and Taraba states while he is supporting the governorship candidate of another party in Gombe State.

In what is definitely a move to checkmate Wike, the APC governors’ alliance, following a closed-door meeting in Abuja, resolved to prohibit its members from engaging in or endorsing external coalitions that could fragment the party’s vote base, saying this could jeopardise President Tinubu’s re-election bid.

PGF Chairman and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, while reading the communique, said the APC Governors’ Forum unanimously resolved that its members would not participate in, support, or endorse any alliance or political arrangement capable of undermining the re-election of President Tinubu, saying it would weaken the APC, ‘or adversely affect any candidate of the party at all levels.’

The governors argued that Wike’s strategy of endorsing non-APC candidates in state and legislative races threatens party unity, risks vote-splitting, and weakens ruling party power in key states such as Rivers, Kwara, and Imo. Meanwhile, Wike has challenged the APC governors to distinguish between support for President Tinubu and the electoral fortunes of the ruling party’s candidates.

Wike, who has openly backed Tinubu’s bid for a second term, said his support was strictly for the president and did not amount to an endorsement of APC candidates contesting governorship and legislative elections.

The former Rivers State governor made the position clear during an interview on Arise TV on Tuesday, hitting back at APC governors who criticised the emerging Rainbow Coalition and its political activities ahead of the 2027 elections.

Wike described the governors as ‘politically lazy’ and accused them of using Tinubu’s re-election bid as an excuse to address their own political challenges.

He said politicians who have problems in their respective states should solve them politically instead of attempting to restrict the activities of those mobilising support for the president.

‘My support is for the president only,’ Wike said, stressing that he had never promised APC leaders that the PDP would not field candidates in the 2027 governorship, National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections.

He argued that Nigerian voters are capable of supporting one party’s presidential candidate while voting for candidates of other parties in governorship and legislative elections.

To buttress his argument, the FCT minister cited the outcome of the 2023 elections, when voters in several states backed candidates from different political parties for different positions.

He specifically mentioned Imo State, questioning how APC candidates secured two senatorial seats in the state despite the party recording less than 15 per cent of the presidential vote there.

‘Was it a rainbow coalition? Were the voters confused?’ Wike asked.

He also cited election results in Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi states, where the voting pattern for presidential and National Assembly candidates differed.

According to Wike, the results demonstrated that voters could make independent choices. He maintained that there was no basis for the argument that supporting Tinubu should automatically mean supporting every APC candidate on the ballot.

The minister said the same pattern could emerge in 2027, arguing that politicians should concentrate on building genuine support among voters rather than depending on political arrangements at the leadership level.

He also rejected the description of the Rainbow Coalition as an APC project. According to him, the coalition is made up of politicians from different parties who have chosen to support Tinubu’s presidential ambition.

The arrangement, he said, does not require members to abandon their political parties or stop them from contesting elections against APC candidates at the state and legislative levels.

‘Coalition will hurt ruling party’

President of the Nigerian Society of International Affairs (NSIA) and Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Ilorin, Professor Hassan Saliu, said the face-off between Wike and the APC governors has implications for the 2027 elections.

He argued that if President Tinubu wins the presidential election, the APC would not have the majority in the National Assembly and that other parties could produce a significant number of members at the State Houses of Assembly.

On the wider implications for Tinubu, Saliu said the crisis could affect the president if allowed to escalate, particularly because of Wike’s influence in Rivers State and the potential electoral value of the state.

‘If they carry the crisis beyond a certain level, it may affect the president. That is the truth. Rivers has the potential of delivering one million votes. And since all of them are now supporting Mr President, you can imagine the kind of votes that will come from there,’ he stated.

He advised the APC leadership to continue managing its relationship with Wike while encouraging governors and party leaders to return to their respective states and address their internal problems.

Saliu said it would therefore be difficult to condemn politicians who had aligned with Wike after the prolonged attempts to resolve their grievances within the APC.

‘With a clear conscience, it will be difficult to blame those who are aligning with Wike. They were dancing around, going to Abuja, doing everything. Nobody listened to them. So, what do you expect them to do?’ He queried.