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The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Waidi Shaibu, has pledged N25 million to the Emergency Health Fund of the Course 39 Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) United Welfare Association (UWA), as part of efforts to strengthen support for retired military personnel.

Shaibu made the pledge yesterday when the association’s Executive Committee, led by its President, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Ibikunle Daramola (rtd.), paid a visit to the Army Headquarters in Abuja.

He reaffirmed the Nigerian Army’s commitment to the welfare of serving and retired personnel, describing sustained engagement with veterans as an important pillar of institutional development. He said their operational experience and leadership expertise were valuable to the Army, strengthening institutional memory and mentorship.

‘Caring for those who have served the nation remains an enduring responsibility and an important component of personnel welfare,’ Shaibu said.

The Army Chief outlined ongoing reforms to build a more professional and technologically enabled force, including the expansion of the Army to 12 divisions and the integration of 28,000 recruits through regional training depots in Zaria, Osogbo and Amasiri Edda.

He said the Army was implementing a revised training curriculum emphasising marksmanship, fitness and fieldcraft, while transitioning toward multi-domain operations through the integration of space, cyber and non-kinetic capabilities, alongside developments in Army aviation and unmanned aerial systems.

Shaibu also highlighted the institutionalisation of the Senior Executive Transition Programme to prepare retiring senior officers and their spouses for life after service.

Daramola congratulated Shaibu on his appointment as COAS and his elevation to lieutenant general, commending his efforts to strengthen the Army’s force structure and operational capabilities.

He appreciated the support given to the association, particularly in health insurance, emergency assistance and capacity-building.

Daramola assured the COAS that Course 39 members were willing to deploy their operational, technical and leadership experience in support of the Army’s objectives and national security.

President Bola Tinubu has ordered the development of a roadmap for the full launch of Nigeria’s Digital Free Zones initiative within 180 days.

This was part of moves to stop promising Nigerian technology companies from relocating their businesses and intellectual property abroad to access global capital and markets.

The President directed the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, to work with the Itana Innovation project and the Presidential Steering Committee on Digital Free Zones to develop the roadmap within the stipulated period.

Oduwole serves as Vice-Chairman and Implementation Coordinator of the committee, which is chaired by the President.

Under the initiative, the Federal Government wants Nigerian technology and service companies to be able to raise international capital, employ Nigerians and serve global markets while retaining their headquarters, operations and intellectual property in the country.

President Tinubu said the initiative had now moved into its implementation phase, with the government seeking to modernise Nigeria’s more than three-decade-old free zone framework for the digital economy.

The President said the initiative would also enable more young Nigerians to work remotely for global companies while remaining in the country, creating opportunities for engineers, developers, designers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals servicing digital businesses.

‘Nigeria has the talent, enterprise and ambition to build companies that can compete anywhere in the world. Our responsibility as a government is to ensure that Nigerians do not have to leave Nigeria or rely on other jurisdictions to realise that potential,’ Tinubu said, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President, Bayo Onanuga.

He said the administration wanted a greater proportion of the economic value generated by Nigerian talent to remain within the domestic economy through jobs, investments, professional services, intellectual property and the growth of Nigerian businesses.

Tinubu said the practice whereby promising Nigerian entrepreneurs incorporated their companies and domiciled intellectual property outside the country to gain access to finance and international markets must change.

He said: ‘For too long, some of our most promising young entrepreneurs have felt compelled to establish their companies and intellectual property abroad to access global capital and markets. I do not accept that this must remain the case.

‘I want the next generation of African technology, finance and service companies to be built, headquartered and scaled to the world from Nigerian soil’.

The initiative is already taking shape through Itana, described as Nigeria’s first Digital Free Zone, which has been licensed by the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority to provide a platform for global and pan-African digital and service businesses to establish and operate from Nigeria.

The Africa Finance Corporation is backing the $500 million Itana Innovation project at Alaro City, Lagos.

According to the Presidency, the project will combine an enabling policy environment with an innovation campus, access to capital and other ecosystem services intended to help African startups scale their operations while retaining more of the value they create on the continent.

Tinubu said the government’s plan went beyond the establishment of conventional technology parks, stressing that Nigeria should become a base from which African companies could raise capital and serve international markets.

‘We want African companies to be incorporated in Nigeria, financed here and governed from here, while serving markets across Africa and the world.

‘I want a young Nigerian in Kano, Enugu, Warri, Minna, Maiduguri or Ibadan to be able to work for a global company without leaving home, and I want our founders to raise capital globally while their companies and intellectual property remain in Nigeria.

‘When these businesses grow here, they employ Nigerians, use Nigerian professional services and retain more of the value they create in our economy’, the President said.

The Presidential Steering Committee is expected to continue work on regulatory, taxation, banking, immigration and arbitration issues, as well as the digitisation of government processes within the country’s free zones.

The government believes addressing the issues would create an operating environment in which technology and digitally enabled service companies can establish and expand businesses in Nigeria while competing internationally.

Tinubu said the Digital Free Zones initiative would also enable Nigeria to take advantage of the rapid expansion of Africa’s digital economy and the growth of digitally enabled trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

‘Nigeria has the talent and the market to reshape Africa’s place in the global technology and digital economy value chain.

‘This is what our Renewed Hope commitment to a digital economy looks like in practice, and this is how we transform reform into opportunities.

‘We made a promise to Nigerians. We are keeping it,’ President Tinubu said.

Singer Spyro has revealed that he does not believe in leaving wealth for his children, arguing that they must learn to stand on their own.

‘I’m not part of the school of thoughts of leaving money down for children at the end of the day because after I’m gone, I don’t know what you’re doing with it. So once you fall off grace and you don’t have money, you are finished,’ he said.

Spyro also revealed that he has spent heavily on his music career with little return at times, noting that there is a spiritual dimension to every physical effort.

‘To everything physical you see, there’s a spiritual part to it. There are songs I’ve spent a hundred million on and when you go check the streams, sometimes you’re like what’s going on? The most I’ve spent on a music video I think that should be about fifty million,’ he stated.

The singer further criticised the explicit content in some music videos, saying many artistes would not be proud to show them to their own children.

‘I mean, a lot of us as artists are not even proud to have our children watch our music videos, you know, because it’s p%rnography, literally,’ he said.

Speaking on his faith, Spyro described himself as a ‘Jesus boy’ but clarified that he does not do gospel music.

‘Na me be Jesus boy. My music is not necessarily Jesus music you understand? I’m a Jesus boy because I love God, I serve God but I don’t do gospel music,’ he said.

He also acknowledged the influence of Wizkid on his sound, adding that his breakthrough came after turning to God when all else failed.

‘Wizkid influences everybody. I learned a lot from Wizkid musically,’ Spyro said.

‘I can trace my success back to where I got to the end of myself. I tried everything, I tried talent, I tried everything I could, but everything failed. And then I went back to God. I’m like, there’s nothing I can do now. Even if you don’t help me for myself, at least help me for my mom,’ he added.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has called on African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to withdraw from the race following revelations in the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration over the long-running Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project dispute.

The campaign council, in a statement on Friday by its spokesman, Dr Dele Alake, seized on the tribunal’s examination of a $500,000 payment made in January 2003 by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited promoter, Leno Adesanya, through an offshore company to Jennifer Douglas, then wife of Atiku, who was Vice President of Nigeria at the time.

It alleged that the transaction and circumstances surrounding the disputed award of the Mambilla Build-Operate-Transfer contract raised questions about Atiku’s role in the affair and his suitability for the presidency.

The ICC tribunal, however, did not make a finding that Atiku received a $500,000 bribe.

Reports on the final award show that the tribunal examined the payment and rejected Adesanya’s explanation that it represented a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku, citing the absence of corroborating documentary or witness evidence.

The controversy followed Nigeria’s victory in the arbitration instituted by Sunrise over the Mambilla project, with the ICC tribunal rejecting claims that exposed the country to billions of dollars in potential liabilities.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had on Thursday hailed the tribunal’s decision that rejected Sunrise’s $680 million settlement-related demand, connected to another arbitration in which the company was claiming more than $2.7 billion in compensation and interest over the Mambilla project.

Against the backdrop of the ruling, the APC campaign alleged that Atiku had compromised Nigeria’s interests and should consequently abandon his latest presidential ambition.

‘The APC Campaign calls on Abubakar Atiku to do himself a rare honour by bowing out of the presidential race, as the $500,000 bribe is just the tip of the iceberg of the revelations to come about his monumental corruption’, Alake said.

The campaign alleged that Atiku and former Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye, worked together in the events surrounding the disputed award of the power project to Sunrise in 2003.

It further claimed that the contract was executed in the closing months of the first term of the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo despite objections surrounding the transaction.

The Presidency, in its account of the arbitration on Thursday, said the dispute dated back to an ‘illegal 2003 contract’ for a 3,050-megawatt hydroelectric plant in Taraba State under a Build-Operate-Transfer arrangement and maintained that the Federal Executive Council never authorised the contract.

The APC campaign linked the disputed contract to the $500,000 transferred to Douglas on January 30, 2003, through China Castle Investments Limited, an offshore company controlled by Adesanya.

Details of the ICC award reported on Friday showed that the tribunal considered the proximity between that transaction and the purported award of the BOT contract to Sunrise on May 22, 2003.

Adesanya acknowledged making the payment but maintained during the proceedings that it was a foreign-exchange transaction undertaken for Atiku.

The tribunal said it could not accept that explanation because of a lack of contemporaneous documentary evidence and corroborating testimony from either Atiku or Douglas.

The tribunal also noted that the payment came from China Castle rather than Moneyline Ventures, through which Adesanya said he operated a bureau de change business, and that China Castle was not licensed to conduct foreign-exchange transactions.

The APC campaign nevertheless characterised the payment as a bribe and accused Atiku of helping to expose Nigeria to potentially huge financial liabilities.

‘By collecting a $500,000 bribe from Leno Adesanya to approve a Build-Operate-Transfer contract to a company with no scintilla of experience in hydro power generation, Atiku has proven he is one of the enablers of local and international predatory and exploitative entities out to defraud our country’, the campaign alleged.

It also criticised the former Vice President for not appearing as a witness in the Paris arbitration, contrasting his absence with the participation of former Presidents Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari.

President Tinubu had specifically commended Obasanjo and the late Buhari for testifying in the case, alongside former ministers Babatunde Fashola and Suleiman Adamu and other witnesses and experts who participated in Nigeria’s defence.

The APC campaign also recalled a United States Senate investigation into suspicious transfers involving Douglas, arguing that the latest disclosures revived longstanding questions surrounding Atiku’s financial dealings.

It further cited criticisms of Atiku contained in Obasanjo’s memoir, ‘My Watch’, to buttress its claim that the former Vice President should not seek Nigeria’s highest office.

Turning to Taraba State, the campaign accused Atiku of sharing responsibility for the prolonged delay of the Mambilla project, saying residents should take the latest revelations into account in assessing the controversy surrounding the project.

The Mambilla dispute has remained one of Nigeria’s longest-running international arbitration battles. Sunrise had sought $680 million as settlement and interest in one proceeding while pursuing more than $2.7 billion in compensation and interest in another dispute connected with the project.

The ICC tribunal’s latest award rejected Sunrise’s claims, while reports on the final decision said Sunrise and Adesanya were also ordered to reimburse Nigeria about $11.82 million, representing 75 per cent of the country’s legal fees and expenses in the arbitration.

Tinubu had described the decision as clearing the biggest legal obstacle that had held back the Mambilla project for years, while pledging that Nigeria would honour legitimate obligations to genuine investors but continue to resist claims against the country’s commonwealth that the government considers opportunistic.

It has been a little over two months since Kenya hosted France’s Africa Forward Summit 2026 in Nairobi. Co-hosted by the presidents of each country, it marked the official start of France’s pivot in Africa.

This move brings France away from the francophone regions it has been associated with for so long, towards the anglophone region of East Africa. Whilst some protested the event, citing neocolonialism, the new direction France has taken in Africa was welcomed warmly by many, seeing in itpotential trading opportunities with a European powerhouse.

France came to the summit seeking around 250 deals and agreements with East African trade partners. President Macron himself committed one billion euros of investment during his keynote address at the summit. These impressive figures heralded a landmark moment in European – African relations in two key ways.

First, since 1973, the Africa Forward Summit has been held solely in francophone nations, previously colonised by France. The Africa that France finds itself dealing with now is a different place from when it began its long exit from the continent, culminating, finally, in its departure from Mali.

The fact that France is transitioning to different potential trading nations in Africa may be seen to underline the shift in relations over the last decade between some West African countries and France, which have deteriorated. This has driven the summit towards nations positively disposed to France, in this case Kenya, which stands to benefit a great deal from a reimagined partnership with a European financial giant.

There is a possibility that those junta-led West African nations which booted France out might even feel a twinge of regret. Security across Mali in particular has drastically worsened since Operation Barkhane finished. Even the capital Bamako is looking out anxiously as the various insurgent and terrorist groups rapidly gain ground and move nearer. A combination of collapsing security, together with a reduction in trade with France and the EU, is resulting in a deteriorating quality oflife for the people of Mali.

One critical difference in engaging with Africa which France will experience as it begins its recalibration with the continent will be in the matter of the terms on which African nations now trade. For example, over the last few years, increasing impetus has been placed on the sovereignty of African nations over the extraction and processing systems of their resources.

Essentially, this means African countries are taking more of a driving role in deal-making and developing terms that finallybenefiting from their own resources in a more equitable way. Something which is well overdue. If France can use its fresh start to adapt to this new reality and enter the market on the most up-to-date trading terms, it will find itself a popular trading partner.

The second update to a Franco-African reset is the fact that France chose to reimagine the summit, rather than abandon it, and chose to host it in an anglophone, East African nation, which suggests they are not giving up on Africa. It suggests that whilst it has needed to reposition itself geographically on the continent, France does not want to relinquish the strategic and commercial opportunities Africa offers. This reflects a high level of willingness to invest in the region, something East African nations should stand to benefit from.

Although there were dissenting voices about having a new Western power on the scene in East Africa, many others saw the choice of Kenya as the partner nation as a huge vote of investor confidence. In 2025, Kenya’s GDP showed an encouraging 4.6% growth rate, according to Kenya’s Business Daily. An impressive metric given some of Kenya’s and the region’s wider problems with governance and security. This performance is unlikely to have been missed by France andcould have been an important factor when France was casting around for host nations.

France’s dramatic pivot in Africa is still unproven, and Macron will find the road he is travelling bumpy. Not everyone will welcome the move. But the economic resources France could bring to bear are considerable. The French president’s huge investment promises during the summit demonstrate that this move is not a superficial power play, but a strategic push to become a core partner to East Africa.

Minns is Executive Director of Panel 54, a Pan Africa podcast

A group, Good Governance Initiative (GGI), has called for transparent investigation into the management of donor-funded health programmes in Nigeria, following the probe by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into the alleged diversion of international health funds.

Coordinator of GGI, Mr Eugene Morka, said the investigation should examine the procurement processes and activities of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP), among others.

In a statement, Morka, said weaknesses in procurement and inadequate oversight could create opportunities for corruption in donor-funded health interventions.

‘To truly protect critical health programmes, the investigation must thoroughly examine the integrity of procurement processes, contractor eligibility, compliance requirements and programme implementation,’ he added.

According to him, investigators should establish whether contracts were awarded transparently, whether successful bidders met applicable regulatory requirements and whether contractors possessed valid government certificates at the time of bidding.

The group also called for greater scrutiny of the role of international donor agencies in monitoring local implementing entities, arguing that inadequate oversight could undermine efforts to safeguard funds intended for critical health interventions.

GGI said its inquiries indicated that the Global Fund maintains a dedicated auditing department aimed at mitigating procurement risks, while information on successful bidders could be accessed through the Freedom of Information (FOI) framework.

It added that corporate information relating to bidders is transmitted to relevant regulatory authorities after the opening of bids.

However, Morka said the existence of such safeguards should not prevent investigators from examining specific allegations where credible concerns have been raised.

‘While these mechanisms provide useful safeguards, specific corruption allegations must still be independently examined wherever credible concerns exist,’ he said.

GGI said its engagements with anti-corruption authorities suggested that procurement compliance was receiving increased attention, particularly in cases involving companies allegedly unable to produce valid government certificates or those suspected of benefiting from political influence.

The group said verification of both past and current contractors was being pursued, adding that companies found to have violated procurement requirements could face legal action.

Morka described the FBI-EFCC collaboration as timely, saying a joint investigation could strengthen efforts to establish what happened to funds allocated for healthcare interventions.

‘The decision by the FBI and EFCC to work together is timely and reassuring,’ he said.

He urged the agencies to scrutinise financial records, procurement documents, company registration details and banking transactions linked to the programmes.

‘We expect the EFCC to follow the money wherever it leads. If there was diversion, inflated expenditure or fictitious activities, the law must take its course,’ Morka said.

The GGI coordinator, however, stressed that the investigation should remain strictly evidence-driven to prevent innocent individuals from being wrongly implicated or those responsible from being shielded.

He urged the FBI and EFCC to publish their findings at the conclusion of the investigation, particularly regarding compliance certificates issued to contractors and implementing agencies.

The group also called for the recovery of any funds found to have been diverted from Nigeria’s healthcare system, while urging donor agencies to strengthen oversight mechanisms to prevent future abuses.