Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki has urged Nigerians not to lose hope despite the hardships being experienced in the country.

The governor called on the people of the state and Nigerians in general to trust in God, as the country can only get better with belief and hope in the Almighty.

He said this on Sunday during an interdenominational thanksgiving service to mark the Midwest Referendum and 32nd anniversary of Edo State, held at the New Festival Hall, Government House, Benin City, the state capital.

The governor noted that the glory of the new Edo Nation stood on the threshold of transformation in the area of infrastructure, development, innovation, and inclusiveness to build a State where humanity thrives.

He said: “I appreciate all those who have created time to come and worship with us at the 60th Mid-West Referendum and 32nd anniversary of Edo State.

“We are here today to praise and thank God for what He has done for us as a people. Yes, things are difficult, times are hard, and the future looks bleak, but we must thank God, as it can only get better with our belief and hope in him.

“This morning, I am expected to make some declarations upon the State and the glory of the new Edo nation.”

He added: “Today marks a pivotal movement in our journey, a sermon to unite us in our collective efforts; the dawn of this new era has unveiled a horizon of limitless possibilities.

“It is both a responsibility and privilege to grasp this opportunity with unyielding determination.

“As we stand on the threshold of transformation, let us remember the dreams that ignited our hearts and inspiration that propel our endeavour; we are the architect of this emerging glory in our beloved State.”

The Katsina State government under the administration of Governor Umar Dikko has banned commercial motorcycles and tricycles at night across 19 Local Governments (LGs) to enhance security.

Nasiru Mu’azu, the Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, made this known in a statement on Sunday, August 27, 2023.

According to him, the ban was from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. everyday.

He explained that the order affects local government areas fully affected by banditry and other related crimes.

“The order affects LGs fully affected by banditry and other related crimes,” Mr Mu’azu said.

He listed the affected LGAs as Sabuwa, Dandume, Funtua, Faskari, Bakori, Kankara, Danja, Kafur, Malumfashi, Musawa, Matazu, Danmusa, Safana, and Dutsinma.

“Also affected are Kurfi, Charanchi, Jibia, Batsari and Kankia,” he said.

“Members of the public must understand that the purpose of the order is for the restoration of permanent peace in the affected areas,” the commissioner added.

In a related development, six staff of a private security company deployed to the Rivers headquarters of Winners Chapel Church, at Kaduna street, D-line, Port Harcourt are now in police net for allegedly stealing and attempting to sell property of the church.

It was gathered that the security men were intercepted by men of PHALGA Security Watch when they were conveying the heavy iron rods and other church property to a place in D-Line where the items will be sold.

The Chairman of PHALGA Security Watch, Victor Ohaji in an interview with newsmen said he got intelligence at about 1 am on Sunday morning that the security guards of the church were conveying iron rods and other church property to unknown destination with a truck.

Ohaji said he and his men quickly mobilized to the scene and trailed the church security guards to where the property was about to be sold.

Mr Ohaji said though those invited to buy the stolen items on sighting them took to their heels, they were about to arrest the six security guards and retrieved the stolen items.

The vigilante group Chairman also disclosed that he and his operatives arrested Mr Chigbo at about 3am on Sunday morning while he was vandalizing a truck belonging to Rivers State Waste Management Agency(RIWAMA) which was parked in front of a church at IKoku axis of Ikwerre road.

The driver of the RIWAMA truck, Chijioke Ani told our correspondent that he parked the truck when the diesel in the vehicle got finished, but when he came back, the truck compacting component has been vandalized.

The truck driver revealed that he was alerted by residents that Mr Chigbo who vandalized the truck was apprehended by the PHALGA Security Watch and he went to Mile 1 Police Division where the suspect is being detained.

Our correspondent who visited the office of the vigilante operatives reports that Police Officers from Olu-Obasanjo Police Division came and took the six church security guards after Mr Ohaji alerted the Divisional Police Officer(DPO).

Meanwhile, the Rivers State Police Command has confirmed the arrest of the security guards, but indicated that the suspects were five.

The Spokesperson for the Rivers State Police Command, SP Grace Koko confirmed the incident.

SP Koko disclosed that the five security guards have been conniving and selling the irods and were taking another batch sale in the early hours of Sunday when they were arrested by the vigilante operatives.

SP Koko further stated that investigations is ongoing

Residents of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital on Sunday reportedly invaded and looted a warehouse where palliatives are kept.

The warehouse located in Kpansia suburb of the state capital is where the 2022 flood palliatives were stored.

However, it was not confirmed whether the subsidy palliatives provided by President Bola Tinubu to states to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal are among the items looted by the hungry residents.

Confirming the invasion of the warehouse, the Bayelsa State Emergency Management Agency, said the incident occured at about 7:45pm on Sunday almost an hour after the Director-General, Walamam Igrubia, alongside some BYSEMA personnel, left the warehouse premises, adding that during the 2022 flood in the state, the Agency used the warehouse to store food items.

BYSEMA in the statement condemns the action of the yet-to-be-identified persons that invaded the premises of a warehouse and also condemns the attempt to politicise the incident by opposition elements in the state.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has charged Nigerians with the change of attitudes, saying that Nigeria must make “difficult changes” to be respected in the comity of nations.

The president gave the admonition in Abuja on Sunday while declaring open the 2023 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) at the Velodrome, MKO Abiola Stadium.

According to Tinubu, even though initial reforms may be painful, Nigeria must be willing to take the hard steps to set the country on the path of growth.

“We cannot have the country we desire without the reforms we have initiated. It is painful at the beginning, in the short and medium term, but we must do what we have to do to take this nation to its great destiny. It is not about you and it is not about me. It is about our generations yet unborn, for whom we must bequeath a great and prosperous country,” Tinubu’s media aide Ajuri Ngelale’s Sunday statement quoted him as saying.

Tinubu, while lamenting Nigeria’s external debt servicing figure, described it as “unsustainable”.

“Can we continue to service external debts with 90% of our revenue? It is a path to destruction. It is not sustainable. We must make the very difficult changes that are necessary for our country to get up from slumber and be respected among the great nations of the world,” the President added.

The former Lagos State governor equally told the gathering that Nigerians need to change their attitude to make the country great.

“You are learned. I want to learn. Why are we so blessed and we are still lacking? We must have a change of attitude and a change of our mindset. We accuse our nation and its previous leaders,” he said.

“We complain a lot of the past. Is that the solution? No! Let us look forward and be determined! God has given us what we need. We must work hard with determination to make our country great and it begins with you who are seated here with me.”

The mutinous soldiers who overthrew democratically elected Niger President Mohamed Bazoum announced a raft of measures over the weekend that analysts say are aimed at strengthening their grip on power while preparing to defend against any military attempt by regional leaders to reinstate Bazoum.

The junta led by Brig. Gen. Abdrahmane Tchiani ordered the Nigerien armed forces to go on maximum alert over “threats of aggression to the national territory” and asked the military-led governments of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso to send troops to help defend them. It also issued a Monday deadline to the French ambassador to leave the country and held a rally to gather support to force French troops out.

France President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the country's ambassador will remain in Niger. Macron spoke out firmly against the coup leaders while insisting that France is not Niger’s enemy.

“Our policy is the right one. It depends on the courage of President Mohamed Bazoum, the commitment of our diplomats, and of our ambassador on the ground who is remaining despite pressure,” Macron told a gathering of French ambassadors in Paris.

Seidik Abba, a Nigerien researcher and president of the Paris-based International Center for Reflection and Studies on the Sahel, said the junta is trying to reinforce its position and rebuff attempts by West Africa's regional bloc, ECOWAS, to pressure the military government to reverse the coup.

“The risk of a war (between Niger and the regional bloc) is still pretty high,” said Nate Allen, an associate professor at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. He said the junta is aligning with the regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso in “a very strong anti-Western and pro-authoritarian orientation.”

ECOWAS has said it must reverse the coup in Niger to “halt the spiral of coups” in West Africa. At a meeting Saturday with Molly Phee, the top U.S. diplomat for African affairs, the bloc’s chairman, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, accused the Niger junta of trying to “buy time” after failed talks to reinstate Bazoum, who remains in detention.

“The ECOWAS consensus is that we will not allow anyone to insincerely buy time,” Tinubu said, adding that he has been holding the bloc back “despite its readiness for all options” that could include military intervention in Niger.

Before Bazoum's ouster last month, Niger, a former French colony, was seen as the West’s last major partner against jihadi violence in the Sahel region below the Sahara Desert rife with anti-French sentiment. The cutting of ties with the French, as occurred after the military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso, shows "a new world order that is emerging in the Sahel and in a way marks the end of the post-colonial state in a lot of these countries” colonized by France, said Abba, the Sahel researcher.

ECOWAS has not provided details of what a military intervention would look like, other than that it would be led by a so-called standby force. Mali and Burkina Faso are both battling with internal security challenges, while Nigeria, which also faces deadly violence, constitutes roughly half of about 450,000 combined military personnel in the bloc’s remaining 11 member states. Guinea is also among the countries that have sided with Niger.

The bloc is in a challenging position with the Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso alliance and with its past interventions often reliant on international support, said Allen with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

The coup leaders in Niger “are planning on staying in power for the long term," he said. “That is a typical pattern we have seen in military regimes ... they overstay their welcome often for a very long time.”

[ABC]

I had visited Niger for the first time in the early 1980s when it was covered by our Embassy from Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire). Ivory Coast was governed by one party rule of Papa Boigny ( Houphouet Boigny) the last strong man and a pro French leader in Francophone Africa . It was also the beautiful show window of French assimilative culture which allowed them control over 83% of overall decision making in the government through a Directeur du Cabinet ordinarily a French man. I know how difficult it was to break the glass ceiling if you wished to penetrate the Francophonie markets . Country was modern and broadly stable even though poverty reigned supreme. But after Boigny, the country faced civil wars and an economic crisis .

Niger , rather poor yet somewhat stable , had the marked French influence as its Uranium remained a formidable attraction for the colonial masters as well as wannabe’s like Pakistan who had an embassy there . Same was the story in the rest of the French speaking world. I always thought that the French, due to their efforts to socialize and assimilate with the local populations ,would be better placed than the British whose racist segregation made them hated by the countries they ruled . In my hometown Nainital on the Mall Road , during the British Times placards indicated that “ Indians and Dogs are not allowed’. Some reactions in the western media and commentariat on India’s exceptional Lunar Chandrayan 3 success still smacks of the colonial mindset. But the French smarter approach has run its course .

As such in Africa there is a greater realization that ‘Africa is for Africans ‘and they will decide their own destiny. Unfortunately, Corruption, coups and conflicts have continued to mark the continent often with the connivance of the erstwhile or neo colonial masters. Very often their leaders have failed them. Niger, which became the latest victim of the coup, is neither an exception nor it is the last one. Unless the gains of democracy and governance percolate to the most underprivileged and the last man on the ladder such recurrences will continue to happen. Democracy is simply a better form of governance but if it does not yield to the expectations of masses and works only for the few, it is as bad as autocracy. After 63 years of independence from France, Niger remains the 7th poorest country in the world ranking 189th among the 192 countries in the HDI rankings of the World Bank with a mean age of about 15 years – all this is a heady mix for frustration and conflict of the youth.

In Niger the military coup (July 26) and its mass based support and protests against the colonial power has become a convenient tool to justify the overthrow of the government of Mohamed Bazoum by General Abdurrahman Tchiani who was accused of working for the French and it was to prevent the country from ‘ the gradual but inevitable demise’. Bazoum had apparently decided to relieve Tchiani of his duties two days ago. In fact while I was in Nigeria , a senior army officer claimed that many military officers are convinced of their final destination as the Head of the Government one day . French nuclear power plants get more than 20% of Uranium from Niger and that supply is threatened .No wonder French President Macron said that he will not tolerate any attack on his country or its interests . Now that Putsch leaders have given 48 hours for the French Ambassador to leave and mission closed as their 2000 strong military base has been contained by the Niger military. Although the French government refuses to acknowledge the legality of the order by an unrecognized military government, the fate of the mission hangs in balance. The French also refused to give the agreement to the new Nigerian Ambassador while their Ambassador refused to meet the new Junta Foreign Minister . Junta has also cancelled all military and other cooperation agreements with France which Paris has declined to recognize.

This time the situation has further been worsened and complicated as the ECOWAS which has a standing force broadly led and manned by Nigeria to be deployed in such situations, has threatened to restore ‘constitutional order’ and the deposed President by force , if the coup leaders did not agree . Timelines have passed. In fact, the Nigerian Senate did not accord approval to the proposal of new Nigerian President Tinubu to send the Nigerian contingents as part of ECOWAS to restore order in Niamey. ECOWAS does have a good track record but Nigeria itself is going through its own financial and domestic problems which the polity does not want to be compounded by the invasion of Niger. Coup leaders have warned against any misadventure and are ready to give a fight if attacked by any outside power. What is challenging the African Unity and efforts to restore democracy by taking decisive action against military coup leaders is the fact that this time two other military leaders of Mali and Burkina Faso in the Sahel have also joined the warning by Niger and are coordinating their joint military plans to defend Niger, if the Ecowas or any other power intervened. This has called into question the reliability and capability of the regional organizations to take action in such situations except suspending their membership and cooperation at the African Union (AU) and other regional organizations.

The Sahel stretches from the Atlantic Ocean eastward to Sudan and Eritrea. It cuts through Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, north-eastern Nigeria and Chad. There have been five coups in the Sahel and six in the broader West African region in the last three years. Military Coup d’état is becoming fashionable and frequent. Destabilization of Libya, post NATO invasion, has added the greater threat of terrorism and extremism especially Jihadis and Islamic extremists and AQ, ISIS and Boko Haram in the Sahel and beyond who will have a field day in the current situation. Niger has been a partner in fighting against radical outfits which will surely be compromised. Mali has also asked the UN Peacekeepers to leave by the year end while asking foreign forces to move out.

Chad President also tried to intervene with coup leaders in Niger, who want three years for transition to civilian rule which is a challenge difficult to entertain by the AU and ECOWAS at least for now. With these Sahel countries’ shared opposition to France and its western allies and a growing preference for Russian partnership and Wagner presence despite the death of its leader Prigozhin in an air crash, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are merging into a de facto anti-west francophone faction within Ecowas. This further complicates the issues even more and will undermine the ECOWAS’s credibility and efficacy for good.

These fissures and confrontations will also have a major impact on the cross border projects. Niger is an important transit country for Nigerian pipelines like the $25 bn Nigeria- Moro gas project for supply of gas to Europe . Moreover , Nigeria ‘s Water and Power exchange agreements with neighbouring countries including Niger has been threatened ,which also explains Nigeria ‘s proactive efforts supported by the West and AU and larger international community .

Russia , although has asked the coup leaders to allow the return of Bazoum, will not yield the vacated strategic space and has invited several leaders for the Russia-Africa St Petersburg Summit . During the pro-coup demonstrations “ Down with France and Long Live Putin’ and Russian flags were a common sight .Therefore it is a country that western countries cannot afford to lose because of who will win: Russia. As a result ,the Sahel will turn into a fertile turf for more global superpower confrontations. Meanwhile an ECOWAs delegation finally met Bazoum and Tchiani last week but an acceptable resolution is not in sight. Eventually dialogue and accommodation might be the only way out like elsewhere .

Economics has its own logic and for the common man it is also their predicament. Humanitarian crisis is there for every one to see as more than three million people are facing food insecurity and a large number of Nigeriens have become internally displaced. While it is difficult to predict the way it will all unfold, for the French the writing on the wall is clear as Niger becomes more destabilised. Macron, last March himself had admitted that the age of ‘Franc Afrique’ is gone ( Passe) while advocating a new era in relations, whose trajectory only time will tell.

But then late French President Jacques Chirac acknowledged that “without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power.” Voila …

Chicago Bears offensive tackle Roy Mbaeteka has always considered himself a patient person with an ability to see the bigger picture. Thus, as he paced the sideline at Soldier Field during Saturday’s preseason finale against the Buffalo Bills, he suppressed his restlessness with a double dose of football curiosity.

For 3 hours and 9 minutes, with the Bears running 59 plays on offense and 27 more on special teams, Mbaeteka waited to see if he’d get another brief opportunity for in-game action. But his call never came. He saw only two snaps across the entire month of NFL preseason games — as part of the Bears field goal team.

But why would Mbaeteka pout or check out when his education in the sport where he is trying to build a career remains elementary?

“I don’t like to dwell on negative thoughts,” he said. “Even standing there and watching, I’m still learning a lot about this game and observing other people to see how they operate. There’s a big learning curve for me.

“Do I want to be out there? Yes. But I still believe that on this journey, there will be perfect timing.”

Maybe now is the perfect time to mention Mbaeteka’s entry into football came just a little more than five years ago — in his late teens in Nigeria as he and others interested in the sport practiced with rudimentary understanding picked up through YouTube.

Maybe here is the spot to emphasize Mbaeteka has played in only four football games. In his life. At any level. (And they have all been in the NFL preseason.)

Maybe this is where we pull back the curtain on Mbaeteka’s trek through the league’s International Player Pathway program and wonder whether this driven, humble, curious 6-foot-9, 320-pound giant has a real chance to take what has already been a dream and turn it into a riveting fairy tale.

“I take my journey as it comes. Day by day,” Mbaeteka said. “This is all part of a bigger plan.”

Mbaeteka wasn’t exactly all-in on the day his football journey truly accelerated. He was just being agreeable in the summer of 2021 when a buddy, Sodiq Muhammed, urged him to come along to the Uprise camp in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

Mbaeteka was 20 years old, living in Lagos and pushing to figure out what he was going to do next. For three years, he had pursued basketball. And why wouldn’t he? He had rare size plus attention-grabbing dexterity and grace. Yet no matter how much talent he possessed or how much promise he showed, every time he attended a camp with hopes of making a life-changing breakthrough, he’d fall just short.

“There was always something, some reason,” Mbaeteka said. “I was always getting right to the finish line but never getting across.”

So Mbaeteka wasn’t expecting anything momentous when he agreed to drop in at Uprise, the talent-discovery stage that former New York Giants standout and fellow Nigerian Osi Umenyiora had set up in Abuja. Mbaeteka certainly wasn’t expecting to essentially teleport to the NFL, where he broke in with the Giants last season and is now looking to further his career with the Bears.

When Muhammed urged him to attend Uprise, he was simply agreeing to take a swing. First, though, Mbaeteka and his friend needed to navigate the 470 miles from Lagos to Abuja. They had no vehicle and limited funds, instead leaning on a “What the heck?” spirit when they decided they’d somehow hitch a ride.

“Mind you,” Mbaeteka said, “this was immediately after the COVID-19 lockdown had lifted. Nobody was giving anybody a ride.”

In some respects, Mbaeteka resigned himself to the most likely outcome.

“In my mind, I’m thinking, ‘I’m just going to stand here by the road for a couple hours and when nothing happens I’ll go back home.’ Just making it look like, ‘Hey, I gave it a shot.’”

Nevertheless, at a gas station in Lagos, a stranger noticed Mbaeteka and Muhammed lingering — each with just a lightly packed travel bag — and was genuinely curious about what they were up to. The man was a fan of American football and headed in the direction of Abuja, offering to take Mbaeteka and Muhammed most of the way.

The ride? Just a quick 11 1/2-hour field trip — full of dreams and imparted wisdom. “Fatherly advice almost,” Mbaeteka called it.

“It was almost like he was sent to us,” he added.

When the driver reached the end of his trek, he dropped the two football hopefuls off and gave them money to grab a bus for the rest of the way.

At the Uprise tryout, Mbaeteka caught the eyes of Umenyiora and co-director Ejike Ugboaja, showing enough athleticism and promise to receive his proverbial golden ticket. That was it right there, the twist of fate that gave Mbaeteka his invitation to the NFL’s International Combine in London which then pushed him on to a 10-week training program in Arizona as part of the International Player Pathway program.

From there, he received his first professional contract with the Giants, spending 2022 on the team’s practice squad before re-entering the NFL’s IPP and being assigned to the Bears in May.

At this point, Mbaeteka projects as a 10,000,000:1 long shot to make the 53-man roster by Tuesday’s deadline. Even that might be generous. More likely, he will be asked to see general manager Ryan Poles in the next two days and told he is being cut. Still, there is a strong possibility his fall will be cushioned with an invitation to the practice squad this week.

“Hopefully,” Mbaeteka said.

The Bears essentially hold a no-risk exemption with an extra practice squad spot as part of the league’s International Player Pathway program guidelines.

Offensive line coach Chris Morgan is eager to continue aiding Mbaeteka’s development. “Every day he’s just, ‘I’m going to get a little bit better. Every day I’m going to gain a little more understanding.’ He wants to learn,” Morgan said.

That’s been part of the book on Mbaeteka since he began this journey two-plus years ago, fueling the ride with intelligence, focus and diligence. Combine that with his size, length and agility, factor in his lack of playing experience, and it’s easy to imagine what he could one day become.

“Like, Roy has not played football,” Morgan said. “So yes, there’s a lot of regard put into that, seeing where he’s at with absolutely no track record. It’s pretty impressive when you think about it.”

A year ago, former Pro Bowl offensive lineman LeCharles Bentley, now the NFL’s senior adviser of player performance and development, called Mbaeteka “by far the most physically advanced athlete I’ve worked with at his current stage of growth and development.”

“My knowledge is now miles from where I started,” he said. “But I still have a million miles to go.”

He laughs when he reflects now on how surface-level his YouTube introduction to the sport was.

“We would do drills based on what we watched. But it was completely simple. We never went into game concepts. It was more, ‘This is pass blocking. This is run blocking.’ It was just entirely a broad concept thing, like ‘Just run and block that guy.’ And all the defensive guys did was come at you or bull rush or try to beat you (around the edge). Everything was made simple.

“It’s different playing checkers than it is playing chess.”

Now, as Mbaeteka continues to understand and embrace the complexity of the game, he has understood why the Bears have limited his exposure to game action.

“As much as I want to be out there,” he said, “I don’t want to jump in when I’m not ready yet and then butcher things up for everybody else.

“This is a true team sport. And if I’m not ready to help my team, I’m just going to be a loose end that is messing with the whole thing.”

That’s been part of football’s draw to Mbaeteka, the way everything must fit together for success to materialize. On Saturday, as he again played the role of observant onlooker, Mbaeteka found himself marveling at his teammates.

“I appreciate the level of effort,” he said. “It’s amazing watching a bunch of guys go out there and play for something bigger than themselves. Every time I watch, I see these guys playing in a way where they’re making sure the person next to them can do well also.

“It’s always amazing. Every time I see that, I say to myself, ‘Man, I really want to do this. I really, really want to do this.’”

Mbaeteka will continue trying, hoping this week the Bears will further his opportunity for another developmental season that will be, in so many different ways, dizzying.

“I don’t think my head will ever stop spinning throughout this journey,” Mbaeteka said. “That’s fun for me. I don’t think I want it to stop spinning. I want everything to keep happening like this is a big story. And with every step that passes, a new chapter is unfolding.”

[chicagotribune]

President Bola Tinubu spent the months since his victory at the February 25 election setting clear goals for each sector in the country and will not tolerate failure from either of his recently inaugurated ministers, presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale said Monday.

“The President has set the benchmarks,” the Senior Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity noted on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“The question now is about enforcements and the President has shown, as he did during his time in Lagos State as governor, that he is not someone that is afraid to fire anybody.

“He is not somebody that is afraid to levy quick sanctions to ensure that they get the results that he wants ’cause, ultimately, if this administration fails, they will not say a minister failed or a set of ministers failed. They will say President Bola Tinubu failed, and he will not accept failure.”

According to Ngelale, the President used the interim period between his emergence as the president-elect and his inauguration on May 29 to set up “a series of reform committees across all the sectors”.

Presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale appears on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, August 28, 2023.

“[Tinubu] basically looked at exactly what His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari has achieved and said, ‘This is what we want to do to build on all these achievements,” Ngelale explained.

“We’re going to effectively implement a plan within a certain amount of time based on time-based benchmarks that when a minister has come in, we would be able to measure their performance against.’

“Every minister coming in absolutely knows what they have to achieve within the time frame that’s been given to them by the President and that’s something in the history of Nigerian governance we’ve never seen before.”

President Bola Tinubu has convened the inaugural Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of his administration at the State House in Abuja.

The meeting comes 92 days after his official inauguration as Nigeria’s 16th president on May 29, 2023.

The meeting is taking place on the heels of the recent swearing-in of 45 ministers as members of Tinubu’s cabinet and is being attended by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, and National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, among others.

The FEC meeting serves as a platform for the president to share his plans and receive expert advice and diverse perspectives from his cabinet members.

The president is expected to use the inaugural FEC meeting to set the agenda for his administration and to outline his priorities for the country in terms of policy direction and approach to various challenges facing the nation.

The areas will range from the economy, security, infrastructure development, healthcare, education, and foreign policy.

In terms of the economy, Tinubu is expected to give his ministers and other aides a detailed presentation on his plans to address the country’s economic challenges and the impact of the recent removal of fuel subsidy, among others.