Good morning! Here is today’s summary from Nigerian Newspapers:
1. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has threatened to relocate its National Secretariat to the Niger Bridge in protest over the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It expressed disappointment over the outcome of the last meeting between the ASUU and the Federal Government, which ended in stalemate. The National Public Relations Officer of the association, Comrade Okereafor Bestman Opeyemi made this known on Wednesday in a press release issued.
2. The sacked Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TeTFund), Abdullahi Baffa, said he was forced out of office for his refusal to provide alleged monetary kickbacks to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu. Baffa said the Minister had sent a contractor to him demanding his share of N200 billion disbursed by the agency to tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
3. A senior Pastor of the Awaiting The Second Coming Of Jesus Christ Gospel Church has declared that the All Progressives Congress, APC, does not have a presidential candidate. Giwa, in a statement on Wednesday, claimed that “the person being paraded by the APC as a presidential candidate is a ghost”.
4. The Federal Government on Wednesday transmitted an executive bill to the National Assembly on the new minimum wage of N30, 000 for federal workers and the 27,000 for private sector, as well as State workers. Confirming the transmission of the bill to the National Assembly, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang told reporters on Wednesday that the bill had been forwarded to the parliament.
5. Report says two supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) lost their lives during the presidential rally in Sokoto on Wednesday. They include a 15-year-old boy and a woman. The report claimed that the woman lost her life after being knocked down by a moving vehicle while the boy was said to have collapsed and died inside the venue of the rally.
6. The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has said Polaris Bank will be put up for sale after the 2019 elections. This is coming barely four months after the bank was taken over from Skye Bank. According to a report, this was disclosed by Jude Nwauzor, the AMCON spokesman, on Tuesday.
7. Former Senate President, David Mark, has revealed the only crime of Governor Samuel Ortom that has earned him persecution from the Federal Government. He said Governor Ortom’s sin is that he has stood firmly in defence of the people of the state. Senator Mark stated this at Oju during the Governor’s campaign tour of the local government area.
8. The House of Representatives has again suspended debate on the provisions of the 2019 appropriation bill, over what it described as “irreconcilable differences” in the document. When the debate commenced, Chika Adamu, from Niger State drew the attention of the lawmakers to discrepancies, he said were evident in the allocations of respective ministries.
9. The Federal Government on Wednesday announced that Value Added Tax (VAT) will be increased this year. Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, at the unveiling of government’s Strategic Revenue Growth Initiatives in Abuja, said the initiative was to boost accruals into government’s coffers and to sustain revenue generation in all sectors.
10. Civil rights organisations, under the banner of Free Nigeria Movement, has staged a protest at the entrance to the State House, Aso Villa demanding the release of citizens held in illegal detention for political reasons under President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. Speaking during the protest, Co-Convener of the Movement, Dare Atoye noted that human rights abuses, clampdown on free press, conscienceless assaults on the judiciary and obscene display of executive recklessness were fast becoming the order of the day across the country.
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