Category: Daily Trust

The Ladies Golf Association of Nigeria (LGAN) is set to host its 3rd Interclub Golf Championship from May 13 to May 16 at the Port Harcourt Club 1928 Golf Section in Rivers State.

The championship, themed ‘Swing Bold, Play Brilliant,’ is sanctioned by the R and A and recognised as a World Amateur Golf Ranking event.

The four-day tournament, sponsored by First Bank of Nigeria Limited alongside other corporate partners, is expected to attract female golfers from affiliated clubs across the country.

Speaking ahead of the event, LGAN President, Lami Onayi Ahmed, described the championship as a platform aimed at promoting friendship, discipline, healthy rivalry and the growth of women’s golf in Nigeria.

Ahmed also said the competition would help in talent discovery and encourage greater female participation in the sport nationwide.

‘We are committed to developing women’s golf and creating opportunities for players to compete at higher levels,’ she said.

She urged participants to maintain sportsmanship and display excellence throughout the championship.

Chairman of the Local Organising Committee and 1st Vice President of LGAN, Nkoyo Igunbor, outlined activities lined up for the tournament.

According to her, events scheduled for May 13 include arrivals, practice rounds, hoisting of LGAN and club flags, ceremonial tee-off and a cocktail reception.

‘Club uniforms and creative dressing are approved for the opening round, while lunch and karaoke night will follow later in the day,’ she said.

Igunbor added that the final round on May 16 would feature players dressed in tournament tee-shirts on white bottoms alongside invited guests and sponsors.

‘The sum of N5,000 only have been fixed as caddy fees for the duration of the championship.

‘Presentation of prizes will take place immediately after the final group completes play, followed by lunch and closing ceremonies,’ she said.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Abubakar Sulaiman, has pledged support for women’s golf and the 2026 All Africa Challenge Trophy scheduled for Abuja.

Nigeria has one of the most vibrant political cultures in the world. Elections are fiercely contested, political negotiations are constant, and the power struggle dominates national conversation almost daily. Yet beneath this energetic activity lies a troubling contradiction: politics in Nigeria increasingly operates without a clear public purpose. As you wrote, politics has become ‘a largely privatised arena in which access to power is valued less for service than for the privileges it confers’.

In societies that have achieved sustained development, politics functions as a mechanism for debating collective priorities and pursuing national progress. Competition may be intense, but it is ultimately tied to public welfare, economic transformation, and institutional strengthening. In Nigeria, however, political activity has gradually drifted away from these goals. Public office is widely perceived not as a platform for responsibility but as a gateway to influence, security, and economic advantage. Losing office often means losing access to an entire ecosystem of privilege, making political contests existential.

This commercialisation of political power has become one of Nigeria’s most significant obstacles to development. Politics increasingly resembles an investment activity, with public office treated as a strategic asset capable of generating returns through patronage and control of state resources. As a result, the distribution of opportunities often reflects the interests of those who control political machinery rather than coherent national priorities. Elections become battles over access to state patronage, while governance is reduced to managing networks of competing interests. The state gradually loses its developmental character and becomes primarily an instrument for allocating benefits.

This condition did not emerge suddenly. For decades, Nigeria’s political economy has been shaped by struggles over oil revenues and state-controlled wealth. Because the state became the principal source of accumulation, political competition intensified around control of public institutions. Over time, politics became less connected to production and long-term development and more centred on distribution and access.

The consequences are visible across the economy. Infrastructure projects are initiated and abandoned as administrations change. Public institutions remain weak because institutional strength often conflicts with the interests of actors who benefit from discretionary control. Economic policies lack continuity, while long-term planning gives way to short-term political calculations. Governance becomes reactive rather than strategic, with policies designed around immediate political pressures instead of broader developmental goals. This weakens the state’s ability to address structural challenges such as unemployment, low productivity, industrial decline, and failing public services.

Nigeria’s electricity crisis illustrates this problem clearly. Solving the power challenge requires sustained planning, institutional coordination, and long-term investment. Yet political systems driven by short-term survival and patronage struggle to maintain such continuity. The same pattern appears in agriculture, education, healthcare, and industrial policy, where ambitious visions are repeatedly undermined by weak implementation and inconsistent commitment.

The erosion of public purpose also shapes the relationship between citizens and the state. In societies where institutions function effectively, citizens relate to the government through rights, obligations, and shared expectations. In Nigeria, however, many citizens increasingly approach the state through networks of patronage, ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation. Access often depends less on citizenship than on proximity to power. This weakens public trust and national cohesion. Citizens begin to see the state not as a collective institution working for the common good but as an arena controlled by competing interests. Cynicism replaces civic confidence, and public institutions lose legitimacy.

Yet the political class alone cannot bear full responsibility. Society itself has adapted to the logic of patronage politics. Poverty, economic insecurity, and weak institutions encourage citizens to seek survival through personal networks rather than confidence in public systems. Political actors exploit these conditions, but they are also sustained by them.

This is especially tragic because Nigeria possesses enormous potentials: a large and energetic population, abundant natural resources, and a deeply entrepreneurial society. But potential alone does not produce development. Nations that achieved sustained progress did so not merely because they possessed resources but because they built political cultures that linked power to production, institution-building, and national development. Their elites, despite internal rivalries, were constrained by the imperative of advancing collective prosperity.

Meaningful reform in Nigeria remains difficult because the crisis is deeper than electoral rules or administrative procedures. Electoral reforms alone cannot resolve a political culture that lacks public purpose. Anti-corruption campaigns, though important, cannot fully succeed if politics itself remains commercialised. The challenge is structural, institutional, and moral.

Ultimately, Nigeria’s future depends on whether politics can recover a genuine sense of public purpose. Development becomes possible when political competition is tied not merely to distributing benefits but to expanding opportunity, productivity, and institutional capacity. A society advances when power is exercised with a vision larger than personal accumulation. Until that happens, Nigeria may continue to experience the paradox that has defined much of its post-independence history: intense political activity coexisting with weak developmental outcomes. Politics will remain vibrant, but the public purpose necessary to transform national potential into national progress will remain elusive.

Recently, I posed three questions to my graduate Chemical Engineering class at ABU. Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world, with annual production of about 60 million metric tons. Why then do we import industrial and pharmaceutical starch? Cassava can easily be converted into industrial ethanol; why do we still import about 350 million liters annually? Nigeria is also Africa’s second-largest onion producer, with approximately 2.1 million metric tons produced annually; why then do we import dried onions?

After long, structured, evidence-based evaluations, we arrived at one major conclusion: the lack of reliable and sustainable power supply. That is why I was thrilled when Aliko Dangote announced plans for a massive 20,000-megawatt power project. Factories cannot compete, hospitals cannot function efficiently, digital economies cannot expand, and households cannot attain decent living standards without stable and affordable electricity. No nation industrializes sustainably in darkness.

Dangote’s ambition is enormous. To put it into perspective, Nigeria currently struggles to deliver between 4,000 and 5,000 megawatts of electricity to more than 200 million people. In many periods, available power generation falls even below that modest figure. Thus, Dangote’s proposal is not merely another business expansion; it is potentially one of the most consequential industrial undertakings in modern African history.

Dangote himself framed the initiative correctly. Beyond cement, refining, petrochemicals, and fertilizer, Nigeria desperately needs energy. Energy is the oxygen of industrial civilization. Without it, every other economic reform remains partially crippled.

Yet, as the German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe famously suggested, before one achieves a major goal, one must first accomplish several foundational tasks. In the case of Dangote Power, the most important question is not whether Dangote possesses the financial capacity. The real question is whether Nigeria possesses the institutional, regulatory, and infrastructural conditions necessary for such a project to succeed.

The history of Nigeria’s power sector suggests caution. Nigeria’s electricity sector is littered with ambitious announcements that produced disappointing outcomes. Billions of dollars have disappeared into reforms, privatisation, intervention funds, transmission upgrades, and emergency programmes, with little visible transformation for ordinary Nigerians. One important example is the ongoing collaboration between Nigeria and Siemens Energy under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI). The project, initially launched during the administration of Muhammadu Buhari and later revived under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, aims to modernise Nigeria’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure. The goal is ambitious: to raise grid capacity in phases from current levels to 11,000 MW and eventually 25,000 MW. The implications are massive. The initiative involves more than 100 substations, new transmission facilities, and thousands of distribution transformers. Yet progress has been frustratingly slow. This raises a critical strategic question: Is Dangote’s proposed power project intended to complement the Siemens initiative or operate independently of it?

If the answer is unclear, Nigeria risks creating another fragmented mega-project disconnected from the realities of the national grid. Generation without evacuation capacity is meaningless. Producing 20,000 MW is one thing; transmitting and distributing it reliably is an entirely different challenge. Electricity is an ecosystem in which every component must function simultaneously.

But Nigeria’s biggest electricity problem is governance, not technology. The crisis is often mistakenly presented as a purely technical problem. It is not. The technologies required to generate, transmit, and distribute electricity are already mature and widely available around the world. Nigeria’s real challenge is governance failure.

The former Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, repeatedly promised improvements in electricity supply, yet the country has struggled to maintain even 6,000 MW consistently on the grid. In several periods, actual delivered power fell to levels barely sufficient for a single large global city. The consequences are devastating. The World Bank has estimated that unreliable electricity costs Nigeria tens of billions of dollars annually through lost productivity, damaged equipment, reduced industrial competitiveness, and massive dependence on private diesel generators. The tragedy is not simply insufficient megawatts. The tragedy is institutional paralysis. Even the wealthiest investor can become trapped within dysfunctional institutions.

The lesson from the Dangote Refinery is instructive. Despite being one of the most sophisticated industrial projects in Africa, the refinery faced avoidable turbulence after commissioning. There were disputes over crude supply arrangements, conflicts with regulators, uncertainty among marketers, and prolonged public disagreements involving the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority. These experiences should serve as warnings. Large-scale industrial projects in Nigeria do not fail only because of engineering problems; they often fail because stakeholder alignment was neglected from the beginning. For example, what happens to the existing generation companies, distributors, and transmission infrastructure?

The transmission question cannot be ignored, and the answer cannot simply be to combine transmission with generation. Suppose the company successfully generates 20,000 MW tomorrow. Who controls the transmission infrastructure? Can the existing national grid evacuate such electricity? Will the Transmission Company of Nigeria possess the technical and operational capacity to manage such expansion? Without clear answers to these questions, power generation risks becoming an expensive theoretical achievement. Nigeria’s transmission network remains fragile and prone to repeated collapses. Grid disturbances have become so frequent that they no longer shock Nigerians. A modern industrial economy cannot be built on a collapsing transmission system.

Dangote may, therefore, need to think beyond conventional power generation. The project may require integrated investments in transmission infrastructure, embedded generation systems, industrial power corridors, or regional mini-grid clusters tied directly to manufacturing hubs. This would represent a more realistic model than depending entirely on the fragile national grid.

Another major obstacle is revenue collection. Nigeria’s electricity sector suffers from a dangerous financial contradiction. Consumers complain of poor supply and resist tariff increases, while operators complain of non-payment and insufficient cost recovery. The result is a permanently distressed industry. One report indicated that a large percentage of thermal power plants suffer gas shortages because gas suppliers remain unpaid. This creates a vicious cycle: poor collection reduces liquidity, liquidity shortages reduce gas supply, reduced gas supply lowers generation, and poor electricity supply discourages consumers from paying their bills. No electricity sector can survive long under such conditions.

How then can Nigeria develop policies capable of breaking this vicious cycle? The greatest contribution Dangote can make to Nigeria may ultimately go beyond constructing power stations. Nigeria urgently requires a stable, long-term national energy policy insulated from political instability and regulatory uncertainty. Investors need predictable rules. Contracts must be respected. Regulators must operate professionally rather than politically. If Dangote truly intends to transform Nigeria’s electricity landscape, he must become a champion of broader sectoral reform. He possesses unusual influence, financial credibility, and industrial experience. Such influence should be deployed not merely to secure licenses or approvals, but also to advocate durable institutional reforms. Nigeria needs at least three things: stable electricity market regulations, cost-reflective but socially balanced pricing, and long-term industrial energy planning. Without these foundations, even the most ambitious power project may eventually encounter the same frustrations that crippled earlier initiatives.

Despite these concerns, Dangote’s announcement remains potentially transformative. Nigeria desperately needs bold industrial investments. The country cannot continue importing prosperity while exporting raw materials and human talent. For example, we cannot continue exporting cassava while importing its more costly, higher-value derivatives. It is equally absurd to export onions only for other countries to use electricity to dry them and sell them back to us at much higher prices.

A successful 20,000 MW initiative could reshape manufacturing, agriculture, mining, digital services, transportation, and employment across the country. It could become the foundation for a genuine industrial revolution. Nigeria does not merely need more electricity generation. It needs an electricity system that works; technically, financially, institutionally, and politically. That is the real challenge before Dangote Power. And that is what must be done first.

Baba El-Yakubu is a professor of Chemical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University byjibril@gmail.com

The Executive Chairman of Ikorodu Local Government, Hon. Prince Adedayo Abdullateef Ladega, has been named Council Chairman of the Year at the 2026 edition of the Ikorodu Man of the Year Awards (IMOYA), held at the ultra-modern Ikorodu Town Hall on Sunday, 10 May, 2026.

According to a press statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman, Akeem Mustapha, the award was presented in recognition of Hon. Ladega’s contributions to grassroots governance, community development, and people-focused administration within Ikorodu Local Government.

The statement noted that stakeholders and attendees at the event commended the Chairman’s leadership style, describing it as inclusive, proactive, and strongly aligned with the needs and aspirations of residents, particularly young people.

It further highlighted that since assuming office, Hon. Ladega has continued to implement the administration’s SEED Agenda-Security, Education, Enhanced Healthcare, and Development-through policies aimed at improving service delivery and strengthening institutional performance.

The recognition, according to the statement, reflects growing public confidence in his leadership and ongoing efforts to advance development across Ikorodu.

A Kano State High Court sitting at Court No. 27, Metropolitan, has remanded three staff members of a rehabilitation centre in Kiru over alleged involvement in a murder case.

The defendants, Yasir Yusuf, Nura Abdullahi and Bashir Sa’ad, were arraigned by the prosecution counsel, Saima Garba, on charges of conspiracy and culpable homicide, contrary to Sections 97 and 221 of the Penal Code.

The prosecution alleged that the accused conspired and used excessive force on a man admitted to the centre by his parents over suspected illicit drug use.

Garba told the court that the victim allegedly slipped into a coma after being beaten by the defendants and was later taken to a government hospital, where he was confirmed dead.

The defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The prosecution subsequently applied for an adjournment to enable it seek legal advice from the government.

Justice Hauwa Abba Musa granted the application and ordered that the defendants be remanded in a correctional facility pending legal advice.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Screening Committee has disqualified the former factional Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Victor Oko-Jumbo, and 64 other aspirants from contesting the forthcoming State Assembly primaries.

Daily Trust gathered that most of the disqualified aspirants are core loyalists of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

The screening committee report, signed by the Chairman, Rt. Hon. Muraina Ajibola, and three other members, stated that the aspirants were screened out for failing to meet requirements, citing reasons such as invalid affidavits and conflicting dates of birth or nominations.

Conversely, 33 aspirants loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike-most of whom are incumbent members of the Rivers Assembly-were cleared to participate.

The Ajibola committee said it had successfully verified the credentials of these aspirants, confirming they met the party’s eligibility criteria.

Those cleared to participate include: Maol Dumle, Major M. Jack, Nwabochi Frankline, Ofiks K. Christopher, Enemi Alabo George, Tonye Smart Adoki, Tekenari W. Granville, Azeru Opara, Igwe Obey Aforji, Opuende Lolo Isaiah, Ukalikpe Napoleon, Hope Ugwumadu, Kenneth Minimah, Justina Aniton Okorji, Onyema Rex Nwankwo, Jumbo Soparagha, Wami Solomon, Gift Esede Ali, Ejekwu Chisa Nathan, and Peter E. Abbey.

Others include: Loolo Bulabari Henrietta, Barida Alice Samuel, Ohanuna Bright, Kue Yeghene, Nwankwo Chimezie C., Emeji Gloria Chika, Ejekwu Ezebunwo Leslie, Okpokipou Peters, Arnold O. Davids, Gerald C. Oforji, Amadi Promise Amadi, Opuene Thompson Atekebo, and Amakiri Awowari.

Prominent among the disqualified aspirants is Chijioke Ihunwo, the former Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government and a core loyalist of Governor Fubara.

Our correspondent reports that a total of 98 aspirants obtained nomination forms and underwent screening at the party secretariat in Port Harcourt over the weekend.

The outcome has further heightened political tensions ahead of the 2027 general elections, as Wike’s loyalists appear to have successfully navigated the screening while those aligned with Fubara were excluded.

An APC chieftain in Rivers State, supporting Governor Fubara, told Daily Trust on the condition of anonymity that the party’s current trajectory could pave the way for opposition parties to seize the state in 2027.

‘You cannot just drive out your key mobilizers because you want to please a particular interest and expect them to work for the success of the same people who oppressed them,’ he said. ‘If this is not handled well, the APC has just shot itself in the foot.’

Panel secretary, party spokesman clash over report

Confusion has engulfed the screening results as the Secretary of the Screening Committee, Hon. Tanko Yamowa, and the State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Chibike Ikenga, differ on the outcome.

While the state leadership initially suggested the report was finalized, Hon. Tanko Yamowa disclaimed the leaked list, describing it as false and unauthorized.

He noted that the exercise led by Muraina Ajibola concluded less than 24 hours ago and no official list had been released.

However, the Rivers State Publicity Secretary, Chibike Ikenga, dismissed Yamowa’s disclaimer as ‘fake news,’ insisting the report is out.

‘The report is out,’ Ikenga told Daily Trust. ‘If you read our statement, we indicated that tomorrow is the day for appeals. Disqualified aspirants should approach the appeal committee at the national or state secretariat to challenge their status.’

Governor of Imo State and Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, has said that the economic reforms introduced under the Renewed Hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have significantly strengthened Nigeria’s fiscal position, lifting foreign reserves to $49.4 billion.

Uzodimma stated this on Monday while addressing members of the diplomatic corps accredited to Nigeria at an interactive session in Abuja, where he presented the economic trajectory of the Tinubu administration since May 2023.

He disclosed that Nigeria’s foreign reserves rose from about $32 billion in mid-2024 to $49.4 billion by the end of March 2026, representing approximately 13 months of import cover.

The governor said the improved reserve position reflected stronger macroeconomic management and enhanced confidence in Nigeria’s economy.

The governor told the diplomats that the administration’s twin reforms – the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of the foreign exchange market – had fundamentally altered the country’s fiscal outlook and restored investor confidence.

He described the removal of petrol subsidy as one of the most consequential anti-corruption measures ever undertaken in Nigeria, arguing that the previous subsidy regime had become a massive conduit for fraud and revenue leakages.

Uzodimma argued that resources previously lost to subsidy payments are now being redirected toward infrastructure development, social investments and fiscal expansion.

He further stated that the naira float and exchange rate unification had restored transparency to the foreign exchange market by eliminating the multiple exchange rate windows that previously encouraged arbitrage and rent-seeking.

According to him, the gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates, which previously exceeded 30 per cent, has now fallen below two per cent.

‘The chaos that used to make Nigeria’s macroeconomic indicators effectively fictitious has been retired,’ he said.

‘An investor coming into Nigeria today can build a financial model that holds. A multinational planning regional headquarters in Lagos or Abuja is no longer asked to bet on which exchange rate will be enforceable when the time comes to repatriate earnings.’

Uzodimma also disclosed that diaspora remittances, which hovered around $200 million monthly in 2023, have increased to an average of $600 million monthly, while foreign exchange market liquidity reached $10 billion in April 2026.

He added that the administration had cleared over $10 billion in foreign exchange liabilities and secured more than $50 billion in foreign direct investment commitments.

The governor further cited credit rating upgrades by Fitch Ratings and Moody’s as evidence that international institutions were beginning to acknowledge the impact of the reforms.

On fiscal expansion, Uzodimma said monthly FAAC disbursements now range from N1.8 trillion to N2.6 trillion, compared with substantially lower figures before the reforms.

According to him, state governments now receive between N700 billion and N800 billion monthly, with allocations to states reaching N784 billion in February 2026, representing a 23 per cent increase over the corresponding period in the previous year.

The governor said the increased revenues have transformed the fiscal capacity of subnational governments.

‘Thanks to this policy, the era of state governors travelling to the Federal Capital to ask for emergency bailouts to pay salaries is over,’ he stated.

The era of buying pepper for N500 is gradually disappearing across many markets as the prices of pepper and tomatoes continue to soar beyond the reach of average consumers.

A market survey revealed that the price of a 50kg basket of tomatoes has risen sharply from about N62,000 to N152,000, while a small sack of pepper now sells for as high as N120,000, up from N42,000. The price of a full 50kg bag of pepper has also climbed from about N120,000 to N237,000.

Findings showed that the sharp increase in supply prices has significantly affected retail costs, weakening consumers’ purchasing power and forcing many households to seek cheaper alternatives.

Speaking on the development, Merit Chukwunenye, a chef and manager of Raven’s Bites, said the rising cost of pepper and tomatoes has badly affected her operating expenses and profit margin.

According to her, a half paint bucket of pepper she previously bought for N2,000 recently cost her N4,000 at Ile-Epo Market.

‘Pepper is very expensive. I bought half paint for N4,000 after negotiating at Ile-Epo, whereas I used to buy it for N2,000,’ she said.

She explained that despite the increase in cooking ingredients, she has not adjusted the prices of meals sold to customers.

‘If I knew that the price of pepper would go up this much, I could have increased my food prices earlier. It has seriously affected my profit margin,’ she added.

Another consumer, Gift Abayomi, lamented that the least quantity of pepper now sold in many areas costs N1,000, making it difficult for low-income earners to cope.

‘I cannot buy pepper for now because it is beyond my budget. The last one I bought was not affordable. There is no pepper for N500 in my area anymore,’ she said.

She noted that many families now rely on dry pepper, dried tomatoes, bell pepper and tomato paste as substitutes for fresh produce.

‘We now use dry pepper, dry tomatoes and tomato paste to prepare stew, even though fresh pepper is healthier,’ she said.

Abayomi appealed to the government to intervene in the agricultural sector to reduce food prices and improve availability.

‘We are pleading with the government to help the agricultural sector so that food items can become affordable for citizens in every season,’ she added.

Similarly, Emmanuel Adedoyin said the quantity of pepper currently sold for N1,000 barely lasts a day.

‘The N1,000 pepper I bought is very small. It only lasts for one day,’ he said.

He also expressed frustration over the economic hardship facing ordinary Nigerians.

‘The government does not listen. No matter what people say, nothing changes, but it is affecting everybody,’ he stated.

An agribusiness educator and turnaround strategist, Africanfarmer Mogaji, attributed the surge in prices to climate change and poor agricultural planning.

According to him, extreme heat experienced around February disrupted tomato and pepper production across many northern states.

‘This year’s increase is mainly due to climate change and poor planning. The heat around February affected production seriously,’ he explained.

He stressed the need to decentralise food production across the country rather than depending heavily on northern Nigeria for pepper and tomato supply.

‘We need to break the production cycle concentration in the North. Different regions have different production windows, but the whole country still depends largely on the North,’ he said.

Mogaji argued that southern states possess climatic advantages that could support tomato and pepper cultivation during periods when northern production declines.

‘The North cannot efficiently produce tomatoes during March and April because of weather conditions, but the South has a better climate advantage during that period,’ he noted.

He also criticised many southern governors for not paying enough attention to agriculture despite available opportunities.

According to him, southern states could not only satisfy local demand but also export pepper and tomatoes to neighbouring West African countries if investments in agriculture were properly prioritised.

‘The South has the opportunity to produce enough tomatoes and pepper for Nigeria and even export to Ghana, Togo and Burkina Faso, but many states are not taking advantage of it,’ he said.

He maintained that improving food security would require stronger government support, better planning, regional agricultural coordination and increased private sector participation in farming.

Gunmen suspected to be bandits attacked a convoy of travellers in Zamfara State, killing at least 10 people and injuring several others.

The incident occurred on Sunday evening along the Magami-Dansadau road, forcing many travellers to flee into nearby bushes in search of safety.

A witness, Malam Aliyu, said the stretch of road around Dogon Santsi requires a heavy security presence because of persistent bandit activities in the area.

‘People were stranded for several hours waiting for security escorts before the attack occurred,’ he said.

He said the bandits ambushed the convoy while security personnel were escorting travellers to Dansadau.

‘The bandits attacked the security escorts on their way to Dansadau. They killed some security personnel, civilians, and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), while several others sustained injuries,’ he said.

Aliyu added that 10 deaths had been confirmed, while efforts were still ongoing to locate other missing persons.

‘We have confirmed 10 people dead, but the search for others is still ongoing,’ he added.

Another traveller, Aminu Muhammad, said survivors had to wait for additional security reinforcement before injured victims could be moved to Gusau for treatment.

Aminu also alleged that the bandits abducted an unspecified number of travellers during the attack.

He, however, commended security operatives for their protection.

Efforts to obtain official confirmation from the Zamfara State Police Command were unsuccessful, as the command’s spokesperson, Yazid Abubakar, had yet to respond as of the time of filing this report.

A total of 450 out of 24,207 schools nationwide have adopted the option of writing the 2026 Computer-Based West African Senior School Certificate Examination (CB-WASSCE) for School Candidates.

Daily Trust reported that the CB-WASSCE was introduced in 2025 with the aim of curbing exam malpractices.

Ahead of the commencement of the essay and objective subjects, which include Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba on Tuesday (today), Dr Amos Dangut, the Head of the Nigeria National Office, West African Examinations Council, disclosed yesterday during a press briefing that 450 out of 24,207 schools registered to write CB-WASSCE.

Daily Trust analysed that the 450 schools which registered for CB-WASSCE showed 1.8 per cent, indicating low penetration of the exam option.

However, the HNO described the figure as an increase compared to 40 schools that opted for CB-WASSCE in 2025.

‘This year, the number has increased. Last year, we had fewer than 40 schools nationwide that started the computer-based mode. But as we talk now, we have about 450 schools. If you calculate the percentage from 40 schools to 450 schools, the percentage is very high.

‘Now, because of the design of that examination, we don’t need any elaborate arrangement. If a school tells us today that they are ready for CBT, tomorrow we will deploy it, and that is why the number keeps going up. But as of this count today (Monday), we don’t have fewer than 450 schools that have joined the CB-WASSCE,’ he said.

He stressed that centres must have either a generator or solar in an attempt to prevent power outages, expressing concerns over the supply of power from the national grid.