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Troops of Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK) have neutralised more than 1,106 members of the Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province (JAS/ISWAP), recovered 475 assorted weapons and interception of over N300 million linked to terrorist financiers during the tenure of Abdulsalam Abubakar as Theatre Commander.

Abubakar disclosed this on Tuesday at a stakeholders’ engagement and media parley in Maiduguri, held as part of activities marking the end of his tenure as the 15th Theatre Commander of the Joint Task Force (North East).

The engagement preceded the formal handing and taking over ceremony at the Headquarters Theatre Command, Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri, where Ibikunle Ajose assumed command as the 16th Theatre Commander.

According to Abubakar, the mandate given to OPHK when he assumed command was to facilitate the restoration of normalcy in the North-East and create an enabling environment for socio-economic activities to thrive.

He said the Theatre’s operations had contributed to the return of more than 7,000 displaced families to their ancestral communities, while previously abandoned communities had been reoccupied across all Local Government Areas of Borno State.

Abubakar also said the Theatre supported initiatives that had enabled the gradual restoration of civilian activities and public institutions across communities previously affected by terrorism.

He cited the voluntary, safe and dignified repatriation of more than 3,000 Nigerians from Cameroon, the return of the National Youth Service Corps Orientation Scheme to Maiduguri after more than 13 years, and the conduct of WAEC and NECO examinations in communities including Banki and Gwoza.

He also noted the reopening of trade routes and local markets, describing these developments as indications of improving security conditions in parts of the North-East.

On the operational front, Abubakar said troops neutralised more than 1,106 JAS/ISWAP terrorists, including some of the groups’ notable commanders, while recovering more than 475 assorted weapons and 24,409 rounds of ammunition of various calibres.

He said troops also discovered and detonated at least 295 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), thereby preventing potential attacks on troops and civilians.

The former Theatre Commander disclosed that more than N300 million allegedly linked to terrorist financiers was intercepted during the period, while 758 suspected terrorist logistics collaborators were arrested.

He further said sustained kinetic operations, combined with non-kinetic measures, had led to the surrender of more than 969 JAS/ISWAP fighters and their family members within the past year.

According to him, 638 civilians were also rescued from terrorist enclaves during the period under review.

Abubakar attributed the gains to sustained military pressure, improved intelligence, enhanced surveillance and cooperation among the military, other security agencies, state authorities, community actors and humanitarian organisations.

‘The Theatre had also undergone operational strengthening through the activation of Sector 4, the induction of Nigerian Army Aviation helicopters and the Nigerian Army Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Regiment’, he said.

He added that the enhancement of the Military Command and Control Centre had improved frontline surveillance, coordination and situational awareness.

The outgoing commander said the progress recorded was not the achievement of a single individual but the product of the courage, resilience and sacrifices of troops, as well as the support of stakeholders.

He expressed appreciation to President Bola Tinubu, Olufemi Oluyede, Chief of Defence Staff, Waidi Shuaibu, Chief of Army Staff, and the Borno State Government led by Babagana Zulum.

He also acknowledged the contributions of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, International Committee of the Red Cross, British Defence Staff West Africa, other security agencies, Hybrid Forces, humanitarian partners and the media.

Speaking at the engagement, Zulum, who was represented by Usman Tar, Commissioner for Information and Internal Security, commended Abubakar for what he described as responsive and decisive leadership during his tenure.

Zulum particularly highlighted the outgoing commander’s response to actionable intelligence, as well as improvements in intelligence gathering, civil-military relations and personnel welfare.

The Governor described the remaining terrorists as a residue of what had previously been a formidable adversary, while commending the military leadership for sustaining pressure against terrorist groups.

He also identified the establishment of a command-and-control centre linking formations and units across the Theatre as one of the initiatives that contributed to improved operational coordination.

At the formal change-of-command ceremony, Abubakar charged troops to maintain professionalism, discipline and dedication in the discharge of their duties.

He urged personnel to honour colleagues who had paid the supreme sacrifice by sustaining the campaign against terrorism.

The outgoing commander also appealed to troops and other stakeholders to extend to Ajose the cooperation and loyalty they accorded him during his tenure.

He described his successor as a battle-tested infantry general whose operational experience would be valuable in consolidating the gains recorded by the Theatre.

Taking over as the 16th Theatre Commander, Ajose said the mandate of Operation HADIN KAI remained unchanged, to facilitate the restoration of normalcy in the North-East and create an environment where socio-economic activities could flourish.

He commended Abubakar for the progress recorded under his leadership and pledged to consolidate the gains made in the Theatre.

Ajose said he was familiar with the operational environment, having previously served as Commander, 5 Brigade, and Chief of Staff, Force Special Forces Command, in Borno State.

He said his knowledge of the terrain and operational experience would be brought to bear on efforts to further degrade terrorist groups and ultimately bring terrorism in the North-East to an end.

The new Theatre Commander also pledged to sustain existing relationships with the Borno State Government, humanitarian organisations, Hybrid Forces, the Civilian Joint Task Force, the media and other critical stakeholders.

The change-of-command ceremony featured the signing of handing and taking-over notes, an address to troops, quarter guard, lowering and hoisting of the Regimental Colours, presentation of awards and souvenirs, and a group photograph.

Before his departure, Abubakar paid tribute to fallen military personnel at the Maimalari Cantonment Military Cemetery, where he laid a wreath in honour of officers and soldiers who died in the line of duty defending the country.

Veteran Nigerian actor and film executive, Oludotun Baiyewu Jacobs, popularly known as Olu Jacobs, has died at the age of 84.

His death was announced by his son, Olusoji Jacobs, on Instagram on Wednesday, September 16, 2026.

In a statement announcing his death, the family described him as ‘The Lion of Lufodo’ and appealed to bloggers and social media influencers to respect its privacy during the mourning period.

‘It is with gratitude to God for a life well lived and fought, that we announce the passing of our dear husband, father, grandfather and uncle,’ the family said.

Born on July 11, 1942, Olu Jacobs was one of Nigeria’s most prominent actors, with a career spanning theatre, television and film.

He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and began his acting career in Britain, where he worked with repertory theatres and appeared in several television productions.

His international film credits included The Dogs of War, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend and Pirates.

After returning to Nigeria, Jacobs became a prominent figure in Nollywood, earning recognition for his commanding performances and roles in numerous films.

Jacobs won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2007.

He also received the Industry Merit Award at the 2013 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards and the MAA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

In 2011, he was conferred with the national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic by the Nigerian government.

Jacobs was married to fellow veteran actress Joke Silva. Together, they founded the Lufodo Group and the Lufodo Academy of Performing Arts, which focuses on film production, distribution and performing arts education.

The naira traded largely flat against the dollar in the official foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, after JPMorgan’s decision to add Nigerian local-currency bonds to its emerging-market index.

Data published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the naira weakened by N2.85, with the dollar quoted at N1,329.15 on Tuesday, representing a 0.2 percent loss compared with the N1,326.30 quoted on Monday at the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM).

Dollar liquidity improved as total turnover at the interbank segment of the FX market surged by 174.16 percent to $262.12 million on Tuesday, from $95.61 million recorded on Monday. The number of deals also increased by 57.79 percent, rising from 109 on Monday to 172 deals on Tuesday.

Although the NFEM figures for Tuesday’s deals and turnover were not available at the time of reporting, the number of deals at the NFEM window rose by 3.4 percent to 301 on Monday, from 291 deals on Friday. However, total turnover at the NFEM window declined by 7.63 percent to $423.95 million on Monday, from $458.99 million recorded on Friday.

Nigeria’s external reserves, which give the CBN the firepower to support the naira and meet the country’s external obligations, have maintained a steady growth trajectory, rising by 30.52 percent to $54.61 billion as of September 14, 2026.

The reserves represented an 18-year high, compared with $41.84 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2025, according to data published on the CBN website.

J.P. Morgan has returned Nigerian local-currency bonds to its tracking indexes after an 11-year absence, assigning them a 7.4 percent allocation in the newly launched Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) Edge.

Ayokunle Olubunmi, head of Financial Institutions Ratings, Agusto and Co., said the inclusion will decrease demand for Nigeria’s debt instrument which will drive down the associated yields. ‘Ultimately, it will reduce funding cost as the yield is used as the basis for determining the borrowing rate,’ he said.

The inclusion is expected to improve the visibility of Nigeria’s domestic debt market among global investors and could support increased foreign portfolio flows into the country’s local-currency bond market.

Meanwhile, FTSE Russell has confirmed, in a market notice published on Thursday, August 27, 2026, that Nigeria’s reclassification from Unclassified to Frontier Market status will proceed from the open of trading on September 21, 2026.

The decision marks Nigeria’s return to the global Frontier Market universe and represents an important milestone for the country’s capital market, following its removal from the index in 2023 amid concerns over foreign exchange liquidity, capital repatriation and market accessibility.

Analysts at Coronation Merchant Bank said the naira is expected to remain broadly stable in the near term, largely supported by continued improvements in external reserves, while FTSE Russell’s index inclusion is expected to provide gradual support in the medium to long term.

A report by Coronation Merchant Bank said the naira had a mixed performance last week, as the official rate weakened while the parallel-market rate strengthened.

At the official market, the currency depreciated by 0.40 percent week-on-week to N1,326.52 per dollar, from N1,321.22 per dollar in the previous week. The currency recorded its weakest single-day print on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, when the official rate touched N1,329.21 per dollar.

Conversely, the parallel-market rate strengthened by 0.36 percent week-on-week to N1,385.00 per dollar, from N1,390.00 per dollar in the previous week.

Consequently, the parallel-market premium moderated to N58.48 per dollar, from N68.78 per dollar in the previous week, narrowing the spread between both windows, although a significant gap persists.

Analysts adopt wait-and-see approach in bond market

Meanwhile, in the bond market, analysts are still testing to see whether Nigeria’s high-yielding local debt can attract fresh foreign demand at a time when rising US yields are making global investors more selective.

‘We have not yet seen inflows coming into the local bond market since the announcement of it yet,’ Victor Ogunfijo, head of fixed-income trading at CardinalStone, told BusinessDay.

Ogunfijo said the response could be delayed as offshore investors assess the newly created index and determine how to position their portfolios.

‘The J.P. Morgan effect might be lagged,’ he said.

Omobola Adu, a fixed-income analyst, also said it was too early to assess the immediate impact, noting that offshore fund managers were unlikely to reposition immediately around a new index.

The Federal Government’s September bond auction provides an early reference point, although its results cannot establish whether the inclusion has generated additional foreign demand.

The Debt Management Office offered N1tn across a new 16.80 percent FGN September 2036 bond and a reopening of the 15.45 percent FGN June 2038 bond on Monday.

The auction attracted N1.49tn in subscriptions, with the 2036 issue receiving N546.90bn in bids against N400bn offered and the 2038 bond receiving N947.83bn against N600bn offered.

The securities were allotted at marginal rates of 16.79 percent and 16.85 percent respectively.

While the subscription levels indicate continued demand for government debt, the auction took place on the same day as J.P. Morgan’s announcement, making it difficult to link the result to the index inclusion.

The more important test will be whether demand builds in the secondary market as investors begin positioning around Nigeria’s new weighting.

If additional foreign demand materialises, it could push bond prices higher and compress yields, potentially lowering the government’s cost of raising new domestic debt.

But Nigerian bonds are competing for capital against a global market where US yields remain elevated.

At around 16.7 percent, Nigerian government bond yields offer investors a substantial nominal return premium. However, foreign investors must also account for naira risk and the relative attractiveness of holding dollar-denominated assets as US yields rise.

Ogunfijo said this could limit the appeal of Nigerian debt despite its high yields.

‘When US yields just keep moving up, there’s less incentive also,’ he said.

The country has regained access to a major source of potential foreign demand, but investors still have to decide whether the additional return from naira assets is sufficient compensation for currency and market risks.

Adu said even a decline in Nigerian bond yields in the coming sessions would not necessarily prove that offshore investors were responding to the inclusion. Domestic institutional investors could also be positioning ahead of anticipated foreign demand.

For now, the market is waiting for clearer evidence.

A sustained decline in secondary-market yields alongside stronger trading activity and foreign participation would provide a stronger indication that the inclusion is beginning to influence investor positioning.

That would give the government a potentially important benefit beyond the reputational boost of returning to J.P. Morgan’s benchmark: stronger demand for FGN bonds could lower borrowing costs while greater foreign participation could support foreign exchange liquidity.

There is a point at which an explanation for public hardship becomes part of the hardship itself.

For years, Nigerians have been given a familiar catalogue of reasons why petrol must cost more. Global crude prices have risen. The naira has weakened. The subsidy became unaffordable. Refining and logistics have become more expensive. Supply has tightened. The market has been deregulated.

There is truth in some of these explanations. But there is a question they have never satisfactorily answered: how much does each actually contribute to the price Nigerians are asked to pay?

That question has become unavoidable with the latest movement in the price of petrol.

Between August 21 and September 12, Dangote Petroleum Refinery raised its petrol gantry price four times, from ?1,165 to ?1,185, then ?1,200, ?1,265 and finally ?1,350 per litre. The cumulative increase was ?185, or about 15.9 percent, in 22 days.

But the consumer does not buy petrol at the refinery gate. By September 14, reports from Abuja showed retail prices ranging from about ?1,415 to ?1,450 per litre, with some major marketers already above ?1,400. Prices in Lagos and Ibadan were also rising.

The difference between the refinery gate and the pump is therefore no longer an abstract accounting question. It is money paid by the consumer.

A private refinery is entitled to determine its commercial price. The issue is not that right. The issue is whether successive increases can be traced, with reasonable transparency, to identifiable changes in the cost of producing and supplying a litre of petrol.

That is where the opacity begins.

On September 8, the Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria estimated petrol landing cost at ?1,311.36 per litre, up from a 30-day average of ?1,216.34.

Dangote’s gantry price at the time was ?1,265. Four days later, it moved to ?1,350.

The two figures are not directly interchangeable because an import landing cost and a domestic refinery’s gantry price represent different points in the supply chain. The international benchmark also does not automatically determine the price of domestically refined petrol. But the movement makes the underlying arithmetic impossible to ignore.

What was the refinery’s crude acquisition cost? How much of its crude came through domestic supply arrangements? What exchange rate applied? What was the refining and operating cost? What did logistics contribute? What margin was added at the refinery gate? And what accounts for the further movement from the refinery gate to the retail pump?

The public does not have sufficient information to reconstruct the answer.

That is not an accusation against Dangote. It is a transparency problem.

And Dangote is now too important to the Nigerian petroleum market for that problem to be treated casually.

The refinery has changed the country’s refining landscape and created a major domestic source of petrol. That is an industrial fact. It does not, however, remove the need to scrutinise its commercial decisions. The greater the market significance of an enterprise, the greater the public interest in understanding the economic consequences of its decisions.

Dangote should therefore neither be romanticised nor demonised.

It should be examined.

The same principle applies to NNPC.

Here, the evidence is even more revealing.

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reported that NNPC imported 14.53 billion litres of PMS in 2023 at a recorded supply cost of ?6.74 trillion. Revenue was ?3.73 trillion, leaving an under-recovery of ?3.01 trillion.

NNPC has said such spending reflected the gap between the regulated pump price and the actual cost of importing fuel to meet that price. That explanation has never removed the need for independent reconciliation.

The subsidy was formally removed in 2023. Yet a system in which the cost of supplying petrol exceeded the regulated selling price continued to generate a multitrillion naira difference in 2023.

The question is therefore not whether NNPC should be believed or disbelieved. Its figures should be independently reconciled.

How much petrol was actually supplied? At what cost? At what selling price? What constituted the under-recovery? Who bore it? How was it settled? What part of the mechanism disappeared with subsidy removal and what part survived under another classification?

Until those questions are independently answered, Nigerians cannot be expected to regard the old subsidy controversy as completely closed.

Then came the currency shock.

The 2023 exchange rate reform altered the naira cost of dollar-linked petroleum inputs at the same time that subsidy support was being withdrawn. Exchange rate movements therefore became a major component of petrol economics.

But ‘forex’ cannot be permitted to become another explanation that ends the inquiry.

If the naira depreciates, the resulting increase in petrol cost should be calculable. If the naira appreciates, the corresponding benefit should also be traceable. If crude prices rise at the same time, the contribution of each factor should be distinguishable.

Otherwise, the Nigerian consumer receives the combined bill without being able to determine the contribution of any individual cost.

The domestic crude supply figures expose another weakness.

NUPRC reported that 61.9 million barrels of crude were allocated to domestic refineries in the first quarter of 2026, while actual supply was only 28.5 million barrels. Producers had offered 68.7 million barrels. NUPRC attributed the shortfall primarily to pricing gaps between producers and domestic refiners within the willing buyer, willing seller framework.

The figures do not prove that producers deliberately withheld crude. They do establish a substantial gap between what was allocated, what was offered, and what reached local refineries.

That gap has an economic consequence.

If domestic refineries cannot obtain sufficient crude under the arrangements designed to support domestic refining, they must find alternative supplies or operate below potential capacity. Either way, the cost ultimately enters the petroleum economy.

Who bears that cost should not be a mystery.