President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of a Presidential Task Force on Ebola Virus Disease Preparedness and Emerging Public Health Threats and ordered the immediate release of N10 billion as emergency intervention funding.

The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on Tuesday.

According to Onanuga, the fund will strengthen the operational preparedness of the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and support critical national public health emergency response activities.

The Presidential Task Force on Ebola will be chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, with membership drawn from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and state representatives.

Onanuga noted that the President’s approval followed a stakeholder meeting convened under the chairmanship of the Chief of Staff to review Nigeria’s preparedness and develop strategies against the possible importation of Ebola into the country.

Ebola recently resurfaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda – both neighbouring countries.

Other key stakeholders at the meeting included representatives of the Ministry of Interior, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Lagos State Government and others.

Onanuga also disclosed that Tinubu directed all states hosting international airports and international border corridors, as well as relevant MDAs, to submit their plans, funding requirements and intervention needs for consideration and coordinated implementation.

Additional measures to be implemented by the Task Force include the intensification of passenger screening at all international airports through enhanced temperature checks and crowd-control protocols; enhanced monitoring of passengers arriving through high-risk airline routes, including Air Uganda, Rwanda Air, Air Tanzania, Air Angola, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines; and the immediate activation of referral and isolation centres at the Lagos and Abuja international airports, with other airports to follow.

Other measures include the mandatory activation of QR code-based pre-arrival health declaration systems for passengers originating from or transiting through designated high-risk countries, as well as the disinfection of departure halls, cargoes, baggage areas and airport facilities as precautionary environmental measures.

The President also directed the advisory group to consult with security, diplomatic and aviation bodies on regulating flights from affected and designated high-risk countries.

The Task Force was further mandated to designate specific airports or terminals for high-risk flights to enable controlled screening and isolation procedures, and to consider adjusting flight schedules to minimise interaction between high-risk passengers and other travelers.

Justice Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has ordered the African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, to enter a defence in his ongoing trial for alleged criminal defamation of President Bola Tinubu.

In a ruling, Justice Umar rejected a request by counsel to Sowore, Marshall Abubakar, that further hearing in the case be adjourned until after the court’s forthcoming vacation.

The judge ordered that further hearing in the case be conducted daily, beginning from Friday, June 5, when the defendant shall be obligated to open his defence.

Sowore, an online publisher, is being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS) for allegedly making false claims against President Tinubu by calling him “a criminal” in posts he made on his X and Facebook accounts.

At the day’s proceedings, the prosecuting lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN), said the case was fixed for June 4 to get the Chief Judge’s response to a May 19, 2026 letter from Sowore requesting that the case be assigned to another judge.

Kehinde said he was served on May 26 with a copy of the Chief Judge’s response, dated May 22, in which the defendant’s request was declined, and the court was ordered to continue hearing the case.

He then applied that the judge orders the defendant to enter his defence.

Responding, Abubakar claimed that a portion of the Chief Judge’s response directed the defendant to file a formal application so that it could be heard in open court.

Abubakar urged the court to adjourn the case until after the court’s forthcoming vacation to enable his client to participate in next year’s presidential election.

Replying, Kehinde faulted Abubakar’s interpretation of the Chief Judge’s response.

He stressed that the case before the court had nothing to do with political activities in the country.

“The letter from the Chief Judge of this court did not ask the defendant or his counsel to file an application for recusal. So, it is disingenuous for counsel to read into the letter an interpretation that the Chief Judge did not include in the letter,” Kehinde said.

Following a disagreement between both lawyers on the content of the Chief Judge’s response, Justice Umar called for a copy of the letter and read through it, following which he declared Abubakar wrong.

“From the content of the letter, there is nowhere the defendant is asked to file an application before this court.

“This court is not denying the defendant the right to file any application. This can be done anytime before judgment,” Justice Umar said.

The judge said the current stage of the case merely required the defendant to enter his defence.

Thereafter, the judge ordered Sowore to enter his defence.

He also ordered that the hearing in the case proceed daily, in line with the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA).

Following the judge’s order, Abubakar sought an adjournment until after the court’s vacation for the defendant to open his defence.

Again, Kehinde, SAN, objected, noting that having ruled and ordered a daily hearing, the ruling of the court was in consonance with the law.

“The law is that the defendant shall proceed with his defence. There is no option. We are ready. There is no room for dilatory practice for a defendant facing a criminal trial,” he added.

The prosecuting lawyer also said that “the option left at this point is for the defence to continue or simply be foreclosed. It is either they continue, or they are foreclosed”.

Justice Mohammed Umar subsequently adjourned until June 5 for the defendant to open his defence.

‎Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja has sentenced four terrorists to death by hanging for carrying out the June 5, 2022 deadly attack on Saint Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State.

‎The convicts were among the five accused persons who had been standing trial on a nine-count terrorism charge filed by the Department of State Services (DSS), in connection with the attack at the church where over 40 worshippers were killed, and over 100 suffered varying degrees of injury.

They are Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25), Al Qasim Idris (20), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26), and Abdulhaleem Idris (25).

The fifth defendant, Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47), was discharged and acquitted. ‎

In his verdict, Justice Nwite convicted the four defendants on all nine counts of committing acts of terrorism in breach of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, citing crimes including membership of a proscribed terrorist group — Al-Shabab (an ISWAP affiliate), conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, and kidnapping, hostage-taking and killing the over 40 worshippers.
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He held that the prosecution proved its case against the convicts beyond reasonable doubt.

Nwite, however, held that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the fifth defendant.

Scores of people were killed, and many were injured when gunmen opened fire on worshippers at the Catholic Church in the headquarters of Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The incident sparked widespread condemnation, with various individuals and groups calling on the government to ensure the assailants were arrested and brought to justice.

The DSS had called witnesses to establish the allegations against the defendants in the trial that began on August 1, 2025.

The trial court admitted the confessional statements of the defendants following the conclusion of the trial- within-trial conducted to establish that the witnesses’ statements were voluntarily given.

One of the five accused persons, Omeiza, had told the court how he was arrested by the secret police.

Opening his defence, he was led in evidence in an accelerated hearing conducted at the instance of the DSS, by his lawyer, Abdullahi Muhammad.

Although Omeiza claimed to be an auxiliary nurse, he chose to narrate his testimony in Ebira, prompting the court to seek an interpreter.

He told the court that he was arrested on August 1, 2022, alongside two other young boys named Hauwa and Yusuf, in the same house.

In his lengthy testimony, the defendant told the court that it was at the DSS facility in Lokoja, the state capital, that he met the fifth defendant, Abubakar, who had also been arrested by operatives of the secret police.

At the DSS office in Lokoja, Omeiza had explained that the four of them were kept in a room where information in respect of their names, schools attended, their work, and their father’s name was obtained and recorded.

He had said the following day, he volunteered a statement and was in detention till August 18, 2022, when he got to know that his elder brother was also arrested.

Omeiza had also claimed he was detained alongside his elder brother in the same room where interrogators questioned them about the attack on the Owo Catholic Church.

In his final submission, counsel for the prosecution, Ayodeji Adedipe (SAN), had urged the court to convict the defendants and impose the maximum sentence of death in view of the enormity of the crime they allegedly committed.

Adedipe had argued that the prosecution painstakingly established its case against the defendants through compelling evidence and detailed investigations, which he said reflected the determination of security agencies to ensure accountability for one of the deadliest attacks on innocent worshippers in Nigerian history.

But counsel for the defendants, Abdullahi Mohammad, prayed the court to discharge and acquit his clients on the grounds that the prosecution was unable to establish its case against them.