The Bola Tinubu administration is facing mounting criticism in the United States over its handling of violence against Christians, with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz accusing the Nigerian government of deploying public relations and lobbying to deflect scrutiny over the country’s worsening security crisis. Cruz’s allegation followed revelations that Nigeria engaged a Washington-based public affairs and lobbying firm in a reported **$9 million contract** to communicate the government’s efforts to protect Christian communities and strengthen its engagement with U.S. policymakers. The development has triggered a fresh diplomatic and political controversy, with critics questioning why substantial resources are being committed to international…
Author: National Update
Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timi Frank, has accused the Presidency of attempting to inflate the significance of a reported letter from United States President Donald Trump to President Bola Tinubu, alleging that the correspondence was being deployed to create a favourable political narrative for the administration. Frank challenged the Presidency to publish the full document and establish its authenticity, arguing that the reported correspondence, as described, amounted to little more than a diplomatic acknowledgement of security cooperation between Nigeria and the United States. He rejected any suggestion that the letter constituted an endorsement…
The election of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, as President of the Nigerian Bar Association has triggered fresh expectations for reforms that will strengthen the legal profession, improve lawyers’ welfare and restore public confidence in the justice system. The NBA Lawyers in the Media Forum, while congratulating Badejo-Okusanya on her emergence as the 33rd president of the association, said her administration would assume office at a time when the legal profession faces critical questions over access to justice, the independence of the Bar and the welfare of practitioners. In a congratulatory message signed by the forum’s Chairman, Ustadh Adam O. Adedimeji,…
Member of the House of Representatives, James Abiodun Faleke, has called for a stronger political alliance among leaders in Kogi State, saying internal divisions and partisan interests must not be allowed to undermine the state’s development. Faleke, who represents Ikeja Federal Constituency of Lagos State, made the appeal when he received a delegation of stakeholders from the Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency, led by Prince Yomi Kolawole, in Abuja on Friday. The meeting, which brought together political and community stakeholders from Kogi West, centred on the need for greater cooperation among leaders and more effective mobilisation of resources and opportunities for the…
Former Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, has urged President Bola Tinubu to urgently improve the remuneration and welfare of military personnel, warning that expanding the Nigerian Army without adequately motivating its personnel could undermine the effectiveness of the security architecture. Ndume, who represents Borno South in the National Assembly, made the call while commending Tinubu for approving the expansion of the Nigerian Army from eight to 12 divisions and the recruitment of 28,000 additional personnel. He said the government must complement the expansion with better pay, training, equipment and ammunition, stressing that the success of the initiative would depend not…
The Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has delivered a major setback to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in its prolonged financial restrictions against businesswoman Aisha Achimugu, declaring the continued freezing of 124 bank accounts linked to her an abuse of court process and a subversion of the rule of law. In a unanimous judgment, a three-member panel of the appellate court discharged and vacated the ex parte order obtained by the EFCC more than 15 months earlier to freeze the accounts of Achimugu and several corporate entities associated with her. The court also overturned the…
By Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a lucky man. He is a lucky husband and a lucky father. The President may not be forgotten in a hurry, long after he has served out his tenure as the leader of Nigeria, the largest Black so-called democracy in the world. I say so because of two major figures who have added glamour to the tenure of Mr President: his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, a former senator, and his son, Mr Seyi Tinubu, an accomplished lawyer and entrepreneur. Both personalities have used their proximity to the highest political office in…
By Douglas Baye-Osagie dbayeosagie@yahoo.com It is sobering to see the Vice President of Nigeria lead a team of Governors to the Benin Republic to study the operations of a textile mill. Vice President Shettima flew into Cotonou, and pictures from his official verified Facebook page, _Kashim Shettima_, on 24th July 2026 carried a sentence: “drawing practical lessons from Benin’s approach to agricultural value chain.” The images tell a story we should not be telling in 2026. Not long ago, the story was reversed. People came to Nigeria. Buyers came. Investors came. Technicians came. They came to learn how we did…
By Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko This is certainly the season of intense competition among politicians in Nigeria to show off their foreign-educated children in the mass media, for whatever reason. Perhaps they do this to let the rest of us—the wretched of the earth, in the words of Frantz Fanon, the French psychiatrist and political philosopher—know that they are building political empires and grooming successors who will take over from where they stopped destroying Nigeria. Some of these politicians were once governors who purportedly built state universities but would never send their own children to those institutions. This is indeed their…
Senator representing Kano South, Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila, has criticised recent comments by United States Senator Ted Cruz on Nigeria’s security situation, warning that portraying the country’s challenges through a narrow religious lens risks deepening divisions and undermining efforts to restore peace. In a statement issued on Friday, Kawu said attempts to characterise Nigeria’s complex security crisis as a conflict targeted solely at one religious group misrepresent realities on the ground and could encourage policies that do not reflect the country’s security dynamics. He noted that the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump had previously removed Nigeria from the…