Category: Nigerian Tribune

PLAYERS in Nigeria’s media and communications industry have been reminded of the global transition in the business space as a result of technological revolution, which is rapidly changing advertising planning, buying and delivery.

Speaking at the 2026 Annual General Meeting of the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria, MIPAN, the Chief Executive Officer of X3M Ideas, Steve Babaeko, dwelled extensively on Artificial Intelligence (AI), programmatic systems and self-service platforms, and the advantages they have over traditional approaches.

He also challenged media professionals to wake up to the new trend as they are losing a major chunk of their jobs to automated processes.

Babaeko urged agencies to build their own audience intelligence, deepen their understanding of local consumers, and work together in areas where individual firms may lack the required scale.

According to him, Nigerian agencies should not shy away from the fact that the pressure is already evident.

The AGM, themed ‘Monetising Tomorrow: Outpacing Disruption, Capturing Growth in the Next Era of Media’, provided the setting for Babaeko’s keynote, ‘Whose Tomorrow Are We Monetising?’

He argued that technology companies are extending their influence across the advertising value chain, from audience data and campaign planning to placement, optimisation, and measurement.

THERE is something fundamentally wrong when retired members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria must protest at the Ministry of Defence to demand what they consider their rightful pension adjustment, while the State responds by deploying armed security personnel. These are not strangers to the Nigerian State. They are former soldiers. They served the country, faced danger, and surrendered the most productive years of their lives to national service. If they now gather to ask why their pensions remain stagnant while serving personnel receive salary increases, the appropriate response should be engagement, not intimidation.

The issue is straightforward. When government increases the remuneration of serving military personnel, it must address the pension consequences for those who have already retired. Colonel Innocent Azubike (retd), one of the veterans’ leaders, says President Bola Tinubu approved a military pay increase in November 2025 and that the consequential adjustment for pensioners was acknowledged by the military authorities. Yet, according to him, the adjustment was never implemented. Then came another salary increase announced in August 2026, with implementation scheduled for September. Again, pensioners were allegedly left out. If that account is correct, government owes the veterans a clear explanation.

There is also a constitutional dimension. Section 173(3) of the 1999 Constitution provides for the review of pensions every five years or alongside federal civil service salary reviews, whichever occurs earlier. The provision recognises an obvious truth: a pension cannot remain frozen indefinitely while salaries, prices and the cost of living move upwards. This is not merely an issue of money. It is an issue of fairness. Consider two military officers of the same rank who served for comparable periods. One retired years ago; the other retires under a new salary structure. If the newer retiree receives a substantially higher pension while the earlier retiree remains stuck on an old rate, the system creates an inequality based largely on the date of retirement. That cannot be a satisfactory pension policy.

The military establishment must also understand that the military does not end at the barracks gate. Today’s serving officer is tomorrow’s retiree. To separate the welfare of serving personnel from that of veterans is to pretend that retirement is somebody else’s problem. It is not. The authorities should therefore stop treating pensioners’ agitation as an inconvenience. They should sit with the veterans, publish the facts and resolve the issue.

If the November 2025 approval covered pensioners, implement it. If it did not, explain why. If the law requires a further process, tell the pensioners what that process is and give a definite timeline. If funding is the problem, say so openly. What government must not do is leave pensioners guessing while successive salary increases are announced for serving personnel. There is another lesson here. Nigeria should stop relying on protest before institutions perform their duties. Colonel I.A Nass (retd) has recounted how sustained pressure from veterans previously helped to force action on pension disparities among retired officers. His experience should not be celebrated as proof that protest works. It should embarrass the nation that protest was necessary in the first place.

The long-term solution is to establish a clear and enforceable mechanism for consequential pension adjustment whenever the remuneration structure of serving military personnel is reviewed. Pensioners should not have to organise demonstrations every time government adjusts military salaries. The military authorities must also resist the temptation to hide behind committees. Committees are useful when they produce solutions. They become another layer of bureaucracy when they merely buy time.

This is why the current situation demands leadership, not paperwork. The government owes veterans dignity. The military owes its retired personnel loyalty. And the pension system owes them predictability. Those who served Nigeria should not have to spend their retirement fighting Nigeria. A soldier may retire from service, but the nation’s obligation to him or her should never retire.

Chief Executive Officer, ChamsAccess, Olayemi Odufeso, has said the decision of the technology company to introduce MarketRide, a digital commerce and delivery platform, stemmed from the need to address the rising transport costs, putting fresh pressures on businesses, dependent on frequent deliveries, and to save consumers additional service charges.

Odufeso stated that the platform, which brings consumers, merchants and riders into one ecosystem, combines MarketRide User for consumers, MarketRide Merchant for businesses and MarketRide Go for logistics, thereby reducing unnecessary mileage and fuel consumption, while giving riders opportunities to earn more from each trip.

Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the ChamsAccess boss argued that the country’s rising transport costs are putting fresh pressure on businesses that depend on frequent deliveries, thus forcing merchants to look beyond traditional delivery models for ways to control fulfillment costs.

According to the NBS, he added, the average fare for bus journeys within Nigerian cities rose to N1,431.25 in May 2026, up by 38.63% from N1,032.46 a year earlier, while the average Okada (commercial motorcycle riders) fares rose even faster, increasing 52.45 percent year-on-year to N1,072.51.

The increases, Odufeso noted, add another cost to an already challenging operating environment for small businesses, particularly online merchants who fulfill orders one delivery at a time.

‘We built MarketRide to close the gap between ambitious entrepreneurs and consumers ready to embrace digital commerce. This is not just for Lagos, but for every urban centre, where inefficient logistics is holding back economic growth,’ he added.

THERE is a point at which political disagreement ceases to be an ordinary feature of internal party competition and becomes a threat to the survival of the party itself. That point appears to have been reached in Ondo State, where disturbing questions are being raised about the alleged conduct of some members of the APC State Working Committee and political appointees of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa The fundamental question is simple: Can a political party win an election when those entrusted with managing its structure are allegedly working against its own candidate? The issue becomes even more troubling when those involved occupy sensitive positions within the party structure or government. The APC is not merely a platform for winning elections; it is an organisation governed by rules, structures, and obligations. Once a candidate emerges through the party’s recognised process, the responsibility of party leaders should be to mobilise support for that candidate-not quietly undermine him.

This is why the situation surrounding an opposition candidate deserves serious scrutiny. That candidate’s political journey has already demonstrated the unpredictability of internal party politics. He contested for the Ondo South Senatorial ticket in 2023 and lost. In 2026, he sought the House of Representatives ticket for the Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo/Odigbo Federal Constituency he also lost. Against this background, allegations that individuals within the APC state structure are mobilising politically for this same individual to contest for the Ondo South Senatorial ticket require more than casual dismissal. If a state party officer is indeed coordinating political activities for an aspirant or candidate in a manner that conflicts with the party’s official position, then the question is not merely about personal loyalty. It is about institutional discipline. The reported involvement of the SWC of the APC is particularly significant. If, as alleged, they are coordinating political activities for an opposition candidate and the party is aware of such activities, then the APC leadership owes its members an explanation.

A party can not publicly demand loyalty from its members while tolerating contradictory political operations within its own leadership structure. It cannot ask ordinary members to support their candidates while some of the people responsible for coordinating the party allegedly work toward a different political objective. That is the definition of organisational incoherence. Governor Aiyedatiwa occupies an even more important position in this matter. Recent reporting following the National Assembly primaries stated that APC leaders in Ondo State reaffirmed him as the leader of the party and pledged to strengthen reconciliation and party cohesion. Leadership, however, is not simply a title. It carries responsibility. If some aides of the governor are perceived to be working against an APC candidate, the governor cannot reasonably wash his hands of the matter. The same applies if members of the SWC are allegedly deploying their positions and influence in favour of interests that conflict with the party’s candidates.

The governor must, therefore, answer the larger question: Is the APC in Ondo State one political organisation with one chain of command, or has it become a collection of competing political camps operating under the same umbrella? An opposition party does not need to defeat a ruling party when the ruling party is capable of defeating itself. The APC’s greatest challenge in Ondo State may, therefore, not come from the PDP or any other opposition party. It may come from internal contradictions, mutual suspicion, factional interests, and the perception that party structures can be deployed selectively for individual political ambitions. This is particularly dangerous as the 2027 elections approach. Aiyedatiwa cannot simultaneously demand that APC members support the party and permit the impression that members of his administration or the party’s leadership structure are free to pursue parallel political agendas against APC candidates. The governor has a political obligation to protect the credibility of the party he leads. The State Chairman, Kolawole Gabriel, also has an institutional obligation. If he is aware that a member of the State Working Committee is openly or covertly working against an APC candidate, silence becomes difficult to defend. Party leadership requires enforcement of rules, not merely attendance at meetings.

And members of the State Working Committee must understand that their offices are not personal political franchises. They belong to the party. The same principle applies to political appointees. Government appointments should not become instruments for pursuing private political vendettas or undermining candidates who emerged from the party’s electoral process. There is nothing wrong with political ambition. There is nothing inherently wrong with having preferred candidates. Politics has always involved competition, alliances, and strategic interests. But there is a fundamental difference between supporting an aspirant during a contest and working against the candidate after the party’s decision has been made. That distinction must be respected.

The APC cannot preach internal democracy to Nigerians while practising internal indiscipline within its own ranks. The party cannot demand that voters remain loyal to their candidates while their own leaders allegedly send conflicting signals to the electorate. Governor Aiyedatiwa cannot afford to be perceived as a passive observer of these contradictions. If he is truly the leader of the APC in Ondo State, he must insist that every member of his administration and every officer of the party respects the party’s candidates and its official structures. The solution is not witch-hunting. It is transparency.

Let the party clarify its position. Let the SWC make its position known. Let the governor make it clear whether his administration supports the official candidates of the APC and expects his appointees to do the same. If the allegations are false, those accused should be given the opportunity to establish that publicly. If they are true, the party should have the courage to address them. What Ondo APC cannot afford is ambiguity. When a party’s own machinery begins to work against its candidates, the problem is no longer merely about one candidate, one primary, or one election. It is about whether the party still has the institutional discipline required to govern, compete, and win.

A party can not ask its members to fly its flag while some of its own leaders are allegedly pulling the flag down. That contradiction must end.

Prince Abubakar Audu University (PAAU), Anyigba, Kogi, has expelled six 100-level students for examination misconduct after they were found to have rewritten an examination at the private residence of a lecturer.

The university’s Senate also approved the withdrawal of nine other students over poor academic performance and failure to register for two consecutive semesters.

The decisions were taken at the 167th Regular Meeting of the University Senate held on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, at the University Auditorium.

The examination misconduct case followed information received by the PAAU management on July 1 that a lecturer was allegedly coordinating students to rewrite an examination at his residence.

Following the information, university security operatives arrested Dr Maji Okpanachi of the Department of Plant Science and Biotechnology and some students at his residence behind the Police Area Command Office along Idah Road, Anyigba.

Some exhibits were also recovered during the operation.

The case was subsequently referred to the Examination Misconduct Committee, whose report was presented to the Senate for consideration.

According to the committee, investigations, including confessional statements made by the lecturer and students, as well as other records, established that some students had rewritten BOT102 (Introduction to Plant Science) several days after the original examination at the lecturer’s residence.

The committee further found that the affected students allegedly paid N10,000 each to the lecturer to participate in the exercise.

Consequently, Senate approved the expulsion of six students: Itodo Ojonugwa Jeremiah (26PL1071), Olloh Kizito Ojoajogwu (26PL1033), Okpanachi Favour (26PL1065), Abdulkadiri Senusi (26PL1031), Umar Imran (26PL1038) and Lawrence Salami (26PL1124).

Senate also referred Dr Okpanachi to the Senior Staff Disciplinary Committee for appropriate disciplinary action in line with the university’s rules and regulations.

In a separate decision, Senate approved the withdrawal of six students for failing to register for two consecutive semesters.

They are Suleiman Salamatu (22SC1059), Social Studies Education; Abdullahi Hossana (21BF1003), Banking and Finance; Anaja Victor Anome (21BF1043), Banking and Finance; Emmanuel Arome (21BF1075), Banking and Finance; Odutola Nancy Oluwanifemi (21BF1138), Banking and Finance; and Olarewaju Segun Abayomi (21BF1147), Banking and Finance.

Three students from the Department of Communication and Media Studies were also withdrawn over poor academic performance. They are Adam Safiyat (24MC1065), Musa Favour (24MC1086) and Umolo John Philip (24MC1192).

Meanwhile, the case involving Jude Ojoajogwu Itodo (26PL1068) was referred back to the Examination Misconduct Committee for further investigation.

Speaking on the decisions, the Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of Senate, Prof Salisu Ogbo Usman, reaffirmed the university’s commitment to academic excellence, discipline, integrity and quality assurance.

Usman said the institution would not tolerate any action capable of undermining the credibility of its academic and examination processes.

He commended the committees involved in the investigations for what he described as thorough and painstaking work, saying the outcome demonstrated the university’s determination to strengthen accountability and protect the integrity of its academic system.

The Vice-Chancellor urged students to remain focused on their studies, maintain good character and comply strictly with the university’s academic and examination regulations.

The affected students were also directed to surrender university property in their possession, including identity cards and other official items, to the appropriate authorities before leaving the institution.

Economic experts have lamented that despite fuel subsidy removal in 2023, the Federal government struggled to implement 2024 budget with the 2025 budget recording barely 30 percent implementation.

They said the continued delay in the implementation of rollover and the current budget by the government posed a threat to capital projects.

Speaking at the weekend with the Nigerian Tribune, an economic expert, Eze Onyekpere, explained that under the current expenditure, ‘you have salaries and embodiments of public officers. So the only people you can touch are those people who are working with government, which is very few.

‘Another part of recurrent expenditure is debt, which is taking 53 percent of all our revenue. So, those ones are not impacting on anybody. Now, the part of the budget that touch lives of the people is the capital budget, particularly the developmental capital’ he stated.

Onyekpere said the developmental capital deals with building bridges, hospitals, schools, water facilities, improving electricity and agriculture.

‘So, if you are not implementing capital projects that mean you are only running the bureaucracy, paying salaries, paying debts. You are not doing projects that will impact the life of the original people.’

He explained, ‘Don’t forget that it is from capital budget that you also buy bullets, buy arms, which after paying salaries of the soldiers and the military and the police, they also need equipment to be able to work. So if you are not funding that, there is no way they will be performing optimally.

‘So that is the danger of not implementing the capital budget. We are being told that the resources are improving, that the money is there. So why is the government not implementing the budget if the money is there?’ He questioned.

The Economic Expert further explained that part of the Ease of Doing Business is building the road that transport the goods, or that there are good railways, or that we are having constant 24-hour electricity instead of factories having to run a generator or start producing their own mini grids to power production, causing commodity price increase.

It is reported that only 30 percent of the 2025 capital budget was funded and executed during its initial cycle due to revenue shortfalls. 70 percent of the unexecuted 2025 capital projects were deferred and rolled over into the 2026 capital budget framework.

Also lamenting the non-implementation of the country’s budget, another Economic Expert and the Co-founder of BudgIT, Oluseun Onigbinde, said the current administration has declared more revenue with low capital releases.

‘You don’t need to continue to roll the budget over and over. There are so many items you find in the budget that have no priority; they don’t make any developmental sense to the Nigerian people. For example, you are putting palaces in the budget.

‘The Federal Government trying to build palaces, or investing in churches and mosques, or buying musical instruments for a church is not going to bring any developmental opportunity. So there are multiple layers of these issues, and there is no coordinated fiscal program from the federal government.

‘The federal government is raising revenues, but there are challenges. One is the issue of debt servicing cost. Because of the devaluation of the currency, debt servicing cost has skyrocketed. It’s around 17 trillion naira as of last year.’

He warned that debt servicing cost is not slowing down any time soon. So the federal government needs to reflect on its fiscal choices and ask itself, how do I generate more revenue? That is the first point.

The second point you have to ask is, how do I prioritise capital spending that gives us impact? And that starts from the budgeting process» he stated.

During the Senate engagement with the Ministry of Finance recently, Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno raised the alarm.

He questioned why capital projects and critical government programs appear to be lagging if revenue collections are exceeding projection.

The senator also expressed concern over the reported absence of capital releases to security agencies and sought clarification on the retention of about 1.7 trillion naira from recent federation account allocations.

«We have exceeded the target of our revenue collection. It is inherently contradictory for government to woefully fail to implement the budget. Where are these revenues going to? If the budget, for example, 2025 budget, has not been implemented, and we have to roll over 70 percent of 2025 to 2026, and that with the promise that 30 percent will be implemented before March.

«Up to March, even 30 percent was not implemented. National Assembly had to extend the lifespan of the budget up to September to allow government to implement just 30 percent component of 2025 budget» he lamented.

In response, the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele said for external loans, «we always need the approval of the National Assembly.

«So, what happens is, when we get the approval of the National Assembly, the media would rightly report it, and many people take that as money borrowed. When we now borrow the money, they report it again. So, in fact, I think it was last year when the National Assembly approved about $20 billion, which was based on MTEF. So people add up big numbers as the money we have borrowed, and that is misleading in terms of the analysis.

«We are currently finalising this breakdown in the Ministry of Finance. We›ll make it available to the public. It will show how much the National Assembly approved and how much of what we have borrowed and how it has been spent» he stated.

«Analysts believe that the low budgetary implementation, particularly the capital project aspect, has denied many citizens the benefits of the fuel subsidy removal as only a few who has direct business to do with the government that may have gained from the policy.

The Federal High Court sitting in Gusau has cancelled the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election conducted for the Zamfara North Senatorial District.

The court, which sat on Monday, also ordered the APC to conduct a fresh primary election in the Zamfara North Senatorial District within 14 days of the judgment.

The presiding judge, Justice Hassan Dikko, delivered the ruling after about two hours of hearing, during which he considered the written addresses and arguments adopted by the plaintiffs and defendants.

Justice Dikko ruled that a fresh APC primary election should be conducted in the senatorial district within 14 days.

Reacting to the judgment, APC senatorial aspirant, Dr Sani Abdullahi Shinkafi, expressed appreciation for the court’s decision, saying it had restored people’s confidence in the judiciary.

It would be recalled that Shinkafi had approached the court to challenge the legality of the APC primary election conducted for the Zamfara North Senatorial District.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 4.43% (year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter (Q2) of 2026.

NBS said the GDP is higher than the 4.23% recorded in the second quarter of 2025.

‘During the quarter under review, agriculture grew by 4.39%, an improvement from the 2.82% recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2025.

‘The growth of the industry sector stood at 3.96% from 7.46% recorded in the second quarter of 2025, while the services sector recorded a growth of 4.60% from 3.94% in the same quarter of 2025.

‘In terms of share of the GDP, the services sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the second quarter of 2026 at 56.62% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2025 at 56.53%.

According to information posted on the NBS website, ‘in the quarter under review, aggregate GDP at basic price stood at N119,294,681.84 million in nominal terms. This performance is higher when compared to the second quarter of 2025, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N100,730,501.10 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 18.43%.

‘For better clarity, the Nigerian economy has been classified broadly into the oil and non- oil sectors. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has been conducting Establishment Surveys to provide data for the estimation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the country.

NBS explained that in 2008, the Bureau started to improve the GDP series by conducting Quarterly Establishment Surveys (QES) for the four quarters of each year to provide timely estimates for decisions and policymaking.

‘In 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) conducted the Quarterly Establishment Surveys for the first three quarters of 2018 (Q1-Q3/ 2018), while the fourth quarter survey for 2018 was conducted in the first quarter of 2019.

‘This compilation procedure is carried out to date, publishing the Q4 GDP report within the first quarter of the new accounting year. It is important to note that the Bureau maintains a publication date of 45 days after the quarter’, NBS stated.

Media mogul and EbonyLife CEO, Mosunmola Mo Abudu, has spoken about her views on respect, business and relationships, revealing why she does not want younger people to address her by her first name.

Abudu made this known during a conversation with Toke Makinwa on Toke Moments, where she described herself as ‘very traditional’ and attributed her views on respect to how she was raised by her grandmother in Ondo.

When Makinwa asked if she expected people to call her ‘Aunty,’ Mo Abudu explained that she was not comfortable with younger people casually using her first name.

‘I am very traditional. I was brought up in Ondo by my grandmother. You can’t be calling me by my first name anyhow. I won’t take it!’ she said.

Tribune Online reports that a trainee at UBA’s graduate management accelerated programme graduation ceremony was stopped mid-greeting by Group Chairman Tony Elumelu after she addressed him simply by his first name, ‘Tony’.

In a video from the event, the trainee was heard saying, ‘Good morning Tony’ while addressing the businessman. Elumelu, however, expressed displeasure over the development and corrected the graduate trainee to either address him as Mr Elumelu or TOE.

THE management of Four Pulley Limited (FPL) Media has said the decision of the out-of-home media company to partner the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) as a platinum member for this year’s edition of the National Advertising Conference (NAC) was informed by the desire to contribute to conversations that would help shape a more innovative and future-ready industry.

The CEO, FPL Media, Lanre Ashaolu, also expressed the company’s delight at supporting a platform that encourages the industry to think beyond its current realities and prepare for what lies ahead.

He argued that the nation’s marketing communications industry is at an important point of transformation, adding that platforms, such as NAC, provide an opportunity for the industry to collectively examine its present situation and how to prepare for the opportunities ahead.

Also speaking on the partnership, Head of the Marketing Committee, Mr Uduak Bassey, welcomed Four Pulley Limited to the conference’s growing network of partners, describing the collaboration as an important demonstration of the value of industry cooperation.

‘We are pleased to welcome Four Pulley Limited as a Platinum Partner of NAC 2026. Their support reinforces the importance of collaboration between industry stakeholders in building a stronger and more future-ready marketing communications ecosystem,’ Bassey said.