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We Won’t Pay Ransom to Kidnappers Again, Tinubu Declares

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President Bola Tinubu has, again, directed that on no condition should ransom be paid by government to kidnappers, bandits or other criminal elements for the release of their victims, as he read the country’s security agencies the riot act following incessant kidnap incidents.

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, revealed the directive yesterday in Abuja while briefing newsmen at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, chaired by Tinubu at the State House.

The federal government also said it was still reviewing offers from the United States and other countries to help in rescue missions, saying it would disclose its decision soon.

The comments came as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, assured residents of improved security, including reduction in cases of kidnapping, in the nation’s capital.

At the same time, Commissioner, FCT Police Command, Benedict Igweh, disclosed that the correctional officer, Usman Ishaya Magaji, who shot and killed a convicted offender, Ibrahim Yahaya, at Wuse market on Tuesday, had been arrested for interrogation.

The government’s decision to put a damper on kidnapping for ransom followed recent incidents, particularly in Kaduna State, where some children were kidnapped and held in captivity while their abductors demanded billions of naira for their release.

Idris briefed newsmen on the latest developments at the end of the FEC meeting yesterday.

He stated, “In council today, Mr. President reiterated his directive to the security agencies and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that those our kids that have been abducted by these criminal gangs are brought back to their homes safely.

“Mr President has also reiterated his zero tolerance for payment of ransom. That was also mentioned by Mr. President at the council today. So, the security agencies are working round the clock.

“So, these children and people that have been abducted by criminal elements will be brought back to safety pretty soon. The security agencies are working hard in that direction.

“And Mr. President has also directed that no ransom will be paid by government to any of these criminal elements. It is important that it will be put out there.”

On the rising wave of kidnapping in the country, Idris said, “You’re also asking about the apparent surge in this kidnapping across the country. Now, it is true that some of these are happening, we have seen what has happened in Kaduna, in Borno and then in Sokoto.

“Of course, government is watching that very closely and not just watching, also ensuring that security agencies are taking proactive steps to ensure that this is halted significantly.

“Now, like I said, Mr. President has said it is an unacceptable situation and the government will not condone abductions or kidnappings or any kind of criminality in that direction.

“We’re seeing this happening and government is taking very proactive steps, first, to mitigate that, and also to stop the spread of this apparently.

“We are seeing that the more the security agencies are also hitting these targets or criminals, the more they are pushed to also getting some soft targets. But government is not taking any excuses.

“The president has directed that security agencies must, as a matter of urgency, ensure that these children and all those who have been kidnapped are brought back in safety and also in the process to ensure that not a dime is paid for ransom.

“So, it’s important to underscore that no dime, government is not paying anybody any dime and the government is optimistic that these children and other people that have been abducted will be brought back to their families in safety.”

Asked what specific support the United States was prepared to offer Nigeria in the rescue of the kidnapped children, the minister said other countries had also offered to help.

He stated, “Talking about what support, if any, are we getting from other countries, specifically the US, well, we’re aware that it’s not just the US that has actually offered.

“Other countries have also offered to support Nigeria. But what we can tell you is that government is still reviewing these offers and the position of government will be made known to you.”

Wike Assures of Improved Security in FCT

FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, assured of improved security, including reduction in kidnapping, in the nation’s capital.

Wike gave the assurance yesterday after a closed-door meeting with the FCT Commissioner of Police, Benedict Igweh, and the Senate on the state of security in the territory.

The minister said regarding the meeting, “It’s nothing difficult, just normal interactions, just to brief them on what we have done as regards security in the FCT.

“I am glad they are all happy with what we have done and what we are going to be doing and the suggestion, which they have given to us but which I cannot disclose to the members of public. This is just a very interactive session.

“What is important is what the FCT should expect from now. I will say improved security, more infrastructure. You can see what is going on in the FCT. It has been turned into a construction site and you can also see what has happened in the FCTA.

“Now we have our own Civil Service Commission, now we have our own permanent secretaries, which had never been. There are new things in the FCT and the residents are happy.” Wike added that from the interaction with the senators, it was agreed that security had improved in the FCT.

“Let me also say that there is no part of the world where criminality has been eradicated. We have heard several times in the United States of America, where criminals go to schools and shoot students.

“So, people should not have that impression that you cannot have one crime or the other. What we need is being able to limit or reduce the level of insecurity.

“But if anybody tells you that as societies are concerned, you will not have one crime or the other, that is not correct and we must tell ourselves the simple truth. Also, most of the kidnapping stories you hear, some of them are stage-managed by people.”

Police Nab Killer of Wuse Market Offender

FCT Commissioner of Police, Benedict Igweh, said the correctional officer, Usman Ishaya Magaji, who shot and killed a convicted offender, Ibrahim Yahaya at Wuse market on Tuesday had been arrested for questioning.

Igweh also said sanity had been restored to the market. He assured the people that the FCT Police Command would continue to work for the security of the residents, stating that the force would continue to comb the forests bordering Niger, Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Kogi states.

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UBA Reinforces Commitment to Rewarding Customer-Loyalty with N400m Bonus

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UBA Rewards Customer Loyalty with Over ₦400 Million Bumper Account Anniversary Bonus
…Reinforces commitment to rewarding customers for consistent savings
Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has rewarded thousands of customers with over ₦400 million in anniversary bonuses under its flagship UBA Bumper Account, reaffirming the Bank’s unwavering commitment to rewarding customer loyalty and promoting a strong savings culture.

The payout, one of the largest loyalty rewards under the Bumper Account initiative since its launch, saw qualifying customers receive anniversary bonuses directly into their accounts, demonstrating UBA’s resolve to create lasting value for customers who consistently save with the Bank.

The UBA Bumper Account is a unique savings product that rewards customers simply for maintaining and growing their savings. Every year an eligible account reaches its anniversary, customers receive a cash bonus, making disciplined saving both rewarding and beneficial over time.
Speaking on the milestone, UBA’s Head, Retail Products, Tomiwa Sotiloye, said the Bank remains committed to ensuring that customers benefit directly from their relationship with UBA.

“At UBA, we believe customer loyalty deserves meaningful recognition. Every bonus paid is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to customers who continue to trust us with their financial aspirations. Surpassing the ₦400 million milestone reflects our commitment to creating products that not only help customers save but also reward them in tangible ways. It is another demonstration that when our customers grow, we grow with them.”

He added that both new and existing customers can open a UBA Bumper Account seamlessly through https://on.ubagroup.com/bumper-tc, any any UBA branch, the UBA Mobile Banking App, by dialing *919#, or online, positioning themselves to qualify for future anniversary rewards.

Also speaking, UBA’s Group Head, Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, said the Bank’s customer-centric philosophy continues to shape its product offerings.

“The UBA Bumper Account reflects our unwavering commitment to putting customers first. We deliberately design products that reward responsible financial behaviour while delivering real value. Crediting over ₦400 million directly into customers’ accounts is not just a payout; it is evidence of our promise to make banking more rewarding and to continually appreciate the confidence our customers repose in us.”

The UBA Bumper Account remains one of the Bank’s flagship retail savings products, combining competitive savings benefits, digital convenience and attractive loyalty rewards. It forms part of UBA’s broader strategy to deepen financial inclusion by encouraging sustainable savings habits while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

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Dele Momodu Leadership Centre Hosts Media Scholar, Prof Abiodun Adeniyi

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By Anjorin Fehintola Stella

We often measure leadership by the institutions people build or the positions they occupy. Yet, during his visit to the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre, Professor Abiodun Adeniyi repeatedly returned to something less visible but perhaps more enduring; the responsibility of documenting one’s life and thoughts. He spoke as someone who understands, at a personal level, what is lost when experience is left unrecorded. His emphasis on documentation was not stylistic advice for writers. It was an argument about memory itself, about how societies retain or lose the wisdom of the people who pass through them.

Ideas disappear when they are undocumented because memory, at the collective level, is fragile and selective. A society does not remember everything that happens within it, it remembers what is written down, repeated, taught, or institutionalised. An undocumented thought, however brilliant, dies with the person who held it, or worse, drifts into vague anecdote, stripped of its original precision. This is why oral cultures, for all their richness, often struggle to transmit complex ideas across generations with fidelity. Professor Adeniyi’s point, then, was not simply about personal record-keeping. History remembers people largely through what they leave behind, not through what they intended to leave behind. Intention without artefact disappears.

When he spoke about travelling, it would be easy to reduce his words to a fondness for movement or exposure. But the deeper claim runs further than that. Travel disrupts familiarity. It exposes individuals to different ways of living, thinking, governing and imagining society. Professor Adeniyi suggested that travelling remains one of the simplest yet most profound forms of education because it broadens not only knowledge but perspective. A person confined to one environment mistakes the local for the universal. Movement across geographies forces a confrontation with alternative logics, alternative arrangements of power, family, and meaning, and that confrontation is often where genuine learning begins.

Perhaps the strongest advice he gave concerned the pursuit of a doctorate. When Aare Dele Momodu spoke of his desire to pursue a PhD, Professor Adeniyi’s response challenged a growing culture in which academic qualifications are sometimes pursued as symbols of prestige rather than vehicles of inquiry. A PhD earned for the title that follows a name produces a credential without a contribution. A PhD earned out of genuine curiosity produces new knowledge and, more importantly, sustains the kind of intellectual restlessness that defines a thinking life. Professor Adeniyi’s counsel was that one should choose a field that strikes them professionally and personally, something that connects to lived purpose rather than social signalling, because the value of advanced study lies in the questions it forces a person to keep asking long after the degree is conferred.

Professor Abiodun did not reserve his counsel for matters of scholarship alone. Turning to the younger staff in the room, Professor Adeniyi offered something closer to reassurance than instruction, that everything they are currently going through, the uncertainty, the striving, the sense of being far from where they hope to be, is a phase both he and Aare Dele Momodu have lived through themselves. It was a reminder that ambition rarely moves on a straight or visible timeline. The goals and dreams that feel distant now are not denied, only delayed, and what stands between the present moment and their fulfilment is simply time and dedication, applied without pause.

 

Underneath all these threads, travel, documentation, the meaning of scholarship, was a single, unifying idea about legacy. Legacy isn’t what people say about you. It’s what remains after you leave. This distinction matters because praise is temporary and circumstantial, shaped by mood, politics, and memory’s natural decay. What remains, however, is structural. It is the book on a shelf, the institution still running, the idea still being taught.

This is where the conversation returned, inevitably, to the Centre itself. The library. The scholars’ rooms. The conversations. The institution. Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by what he encountered, not by the scale of the buildings, but by what the buildings were designed to hold. Perhaps that is why Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by the Centre. It was never merely about architecture. It was about permanence. Buildings become legacy only when they preserve ideas.

Every visit leaves footprints. Some are physical. Others are intellectual. Professor Abiodun Adeniyi’s visit left the latter.

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Lagos Govt Sues for Calm As Flood Ravages City, Okays Dredging of 28 Channels

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The Lagos State Government has appealed for calm following persistent rainfall and flash floods across many parts of the State over the past two weeks, announcing the immediate dredging of 28 additional primary drainage channels to improve flood control.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu approved the emergency dredging intervention as part of efforts to strengthen the state’s drainage network.

The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said the recent downpours are an extreme weather event that produced an unusually large volume of rainfall within a short period, overwhelming drainage systems in some locations and causing temporary flooding in parts of Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, Gbagada, Mushin, Mafoloku and other communities.

According to him, the situation was not peculiar to Lagos; several African countries and parts of North America also experienced heavy rainfall and flooding during the same period.

Wahab, however, said Lagos presents a more complex hydrological challenge because of its extensive network of lagoons, rivers, creeks and tidal water bodies, coupled with its high rainfall intensity.

He explained that the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos Lagoon and inland waterways, especially during high tide, naturally slows the discharge of storm-water into the sea, leading to temporary flooding in low-lying areas during exceptionally heavy rainfall.

The commissioner assured residents that the government was closely monitoring drainage infrastructure, flood-prone areas and major channels across the State.

He added that emergency response agencies have been deployed to affected areas to facilitate the quick recession of floodwaters and provide necessary support to residents.

Wahab said the government would continue to invest in drainage construction, channelisation, desilting, and other flood-control infrastructure, but stressed that residents also have a responsibility to support these efforts.

He urged residents to stop dumping refuse into drains, canals and waterways, warning that blocked drainage channels and illegal reclamation of wetlands contribute significantly to flooding.

He also cautioned against building on drainage alignments and engaging in activities that could obstruct the free flow of storm-water.

The commissioner said the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall events across coastal cities is a clear indication of the impact of climate change.

“Lagos is not exempt from these realities. However, the State Government remains steadfast in its commitment to building a flood-resilient city through sustained infrastructure development, environmental enforcement and active collaboration with residents,” he said.

Wahab described flood management as a shared responsibility, urging residents to keep drainage channels free of debris and to report any activities that could obstruct storm-water flow.

He also advised motorists to avoid driving through flooded roads during heavy rainfall and urged residents, particularly those in flood-prone communities, to comply with weather advisories and safety instructions issued by relevant government agencies.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to protecting lives and property through proactive flood management measures and called for continued public cooperation in building a cleaner, safer and more resilient Lagos.

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