Pocket News Nigeria

The African Democratic Congress (ADC), led by former Senate President David Mark, has constituted a 22-member National Convention Central Coordination Committee despite the position of the Independent National Electoral Commission on the party’s leadership. The committee will oversee preparations for the party’s national convention scheduled for next Tuesday. INEC had last week stopped recognising Senator David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola as National Chairman and National Secretary of the ADC, even as factional groups have arisen in the opposition party. But the national body, which had accused INEC of partisanship and working for the ruling party, is insisting that it will go ahead with the conventions, having informed the electoral body of its intention, which the party said was the requirement. Owing to this, its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, stressed that the planned national convention of the party would hold Tuesday, April 14. The spokesman of th...

By David Onovo-Agbo I April 10, 2026 Nigeria is on fire, and the man at the top is too busy planning his re-election to notice the smoke. In a single week, the country has absorbed shocks that would bring most governments to their knees: a Brigadier General slain in a brazen overnight assault on a military base in Borno; at least ninety civilians butchered across several northern villages in what the Christian Association of Nigeria described as coordinated raids "from one village to the next" without a soldier in sight; and armed gunmen reportedly making incursions into the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory itself. The ordinary Nigerian, already crushed beneath the weight of triple-digit inflation, fuel queues, and the daily indignity of a collapsing naira, now wakes to something more terrifying than hunger: the sound of gunfire edging closer to home. Brigadier General Oseni Omoh Braimah is dead. He was the brigade commander at Benisheikh, Kaga Local Gov...

Several verifiable past tweets by INEC chairman Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan from his time as a professor at the University of Jos unmistakably reveal partisan sympathies for the APC and, more specifically, for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. If he has any regard for institutional integrity, he should own up to them, acknowledge the moral burden they place on his office, and resign. I will return to this. Amupitan’s neutrality has long hovered under a cloud of suspicion, but I deliberately gave him the benefit of the doubt, to the irritation of many who urged me to call him out earlier and who falsely thought my reluctance to criticize him was the result of my having a relationship with him. When it surfaced that he had written a tendentious memo alleging a “Christian genocide” without acknowledging equally horrific Muslim deaths in the recurring communal violence in central Nigeria, I attributed it to what I call epistemic closure, a condition where a person’s informational e...

The federal government has approved the implementation of 2026 fiscal policy measures (FPM), which include significant tariff amendments. In a circular seen by TheCable dated April 1, 2026, and signed by Wale Edun, the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, the government announced that the new measures supersede the 2023 FPM. The policy includes a national list of 127 tariff lines with reduced import duty rates designed to “promote and stimulate growth in critical sectors of the economy”. According to the document, the import adjustment tax (IAT) on items like crude palm oil has been set at a total effective rate of 28.75 percent, down from previous high-tariff regimes. Similarly, fully built units passenger motor vehicle, four-wheel drive motor vehicle and station wagon now attract a total effective tariff of 40 percent, a reduction from the 70 percent listed in the 2015 FPM. The government also granted a 90-day grace period for importers who had op...

At least seven worshippers have been killed and several others abducted after terrorists attacked two churches in Ariko community, Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State, during Easter celebrations. The early Sunday morning assault, which targeted First ECWA Church and St. Augustine Catholic Church, sent shockwaves across the rural community as residents fled in panic. Confirming the incident, the councillor representing Awon Ward, Mark Bawa, said he was on his way to the affected area to verify the number of casualties. “I am currently on my way to the community to ascertain the exact number of casualties. Some sources said seven persons were killed, while others claimed eight. I will provide an update once details are confirmed,” he said. Describing the scale of the attack, Bawa added that the assailants arrived in large numbers and operated for an extended period without resistance. “The attackers came in large numbers. They surrounded the area and began shooting s...

HOW SECOND U.S. PILOT WAS RESCUED WITH HELP FROM IRANIANS - IRGC HUMILIATED Second US airman rescued from Iran with local help as IRGC humiliated US special forces have carried out one of the most audacious extractions in recent history, rescuing the Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) of a downed F-15E fighter jet from deep in the Iranian mountains hours ago. The airman had evaded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) hunters for nearly 48 hours after his jet was shot down on Friday, relying on his survival training to remain hidden in the rugged terrain. Iranian civilians in Dehdasht flooded the streets, physically blocking roads and delaying IRGC and Basij convoys racing to capture him. The actions of the anti-regime locals bought precious time amid widespread hatred for the mullahs. US teams established a temporary forward operating base inside Iran for the high-risk mission, which involved firefights and heavy air cover. When two transport planes became stuck, commanders f...