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TOTAL darkness looming as several parts of Abuja will experience a temporary power outage on Sunday, September 6, 2026, as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) carries out scheduled maintenance at the 132kV Apo Transmission Substation.

TCN announced the planned outage in a statement shared on X on Saturday, saying the maintenance would take place between 9:00am and 5:00pm.

According to the transmission company, the exercise will involve the stringing and latching of Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) on the two 132kV Katampe–Apo Transmission Lines, Lines 1 and 2, between towers T130 and T132.

TCN said the maintenance would temporarily affect electricity supply to residents and businesses in Lugbe, Garki, Area 1, National Hospital, Guzape, Asokoro and surrounding areas.

The company explained that the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) would be unable to off-take electricity for distribution to customers in the affected areas during the exercise.

“Consequently, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) will be unable to off-take electricity for supply to customers in Lugbe, Garki, Area 1, National Hospital, Guzape, Asokoro, and surrounding areas during the exercise,” TCN said.

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Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has vowed to constitute an independent team of experts to trace ₦33.75 billion reportedly paid to 3.29 million vulnerable Nigerian households, after an audit report raised questions over whether the money actually reached its intended beneficiaries.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Saturday, the former vice president said the audit findings amounted to a devastating indictment of a government that took away the poor man’s subsidy, increased his taxes and tariffs, promised support, and is now confronted with serious questions over whether that support ever reached him.

Shaibu quoted Atiku as saying the figures themselves expose the cruelty and inadequacy of the intervention, noting that ₦33.75 billion divided among 3.29 million households amounts to barely ₦10,258 per household.

According to the statement, after removing subsidy, driving up transport fares, electricity costs and food prices, the President Bola Tinubu administration’s supposed intervention amounts to roughly ₦10,000 per household, and even that sum has now failed to withstand basic audit scrutiny.

“This is beyond a bookkeeping scandal. The intervention is insultingly small, yet even that small amount cannot be cleanly accounted for. If money meant for hungry Nigerians cannot be satisfactorily traced while access to records required for accountability is frustrated, then what we are witnessing is unapologetic wickedness against the poor. You cannot punish people with hardship and then play hide-and-seek with money appropriated in their name,” Atiku said.

He, however, commended the Auditor-General of the Federation, Shaakaa Chira, appointed by the Tinubu administration in October 2023, for putting his constitutional responsibility above political convenience. “That is what institutions are supposed to do — protect the public purse, not the political comfort of those in power,” he said.

He noted that the situation was made more disturbing by the government’s own claim that more than ₦600 billion had been disbursed to over 10 million households, after Nigerians had earlier been told about 15 million households.

“It now appears that the Tinubu administration cannot give Nigerians a coherent account of how many households actually benefited from its intervention programme, while significant portions of the expenditure have failed to withstand independent audit scrutiny,” he said, insisting that “a ministerial announcement is not proof of payment. A name on a social register is not a bank alert.”

Atiku said the Auditor-General was reportedly questioning ₦33.75 billion supposedly paid to 3.29 million beneficiaries, alongside ₦36.74 billion in payments reportedly made without pre-payment audit and ₦4.62 billion for which payment vouchers were not produced. “These cannot be dismissed as another set of bogus figures buried in government accounts. These are resources appropriated in the name of poor Nigerians who desperately need protection from a cost-of-living crisis aggravated by this administration’s rash economic policies,” he said.

Explaining the rationale for the planned probe, he said Nigerians could not reasonably be expected to trust the same government whose expenditure was under question to investigate itself.

He said, “My team will constitute an independent group of financial, audit, technology and public-accounting experts to interrogate the available records surrounding these cash-transfer payments. We will follow the money as far as the available public and institutional records permit. We will examine the beneficiary figures, payment channels, reconciliation records, audit queries and every material inconsistency that has emerged. When that work is completed, we will furnish Nigerians with the findings.

“There must be no black box around the poor man’s money. If Remita processed these transactions, the relevant records should be available for scrutiny. If beneficiaries received the money, there should be evidence. If access to records was obstructed, Nigerians deserve to know by whom and why.”

Atiku argued that what Nigerians needed was not another palliative announcement but purchasing power, and an economic policy that reduces what they spend daily on transportation, food and energy, leaving more money in the pockets of ordinary families.

“Our intervention will follow production. It will support domestic refining, increase local supply, reduce the cost of energy and ensure that the benefit reaches Nigerians through lower prices. When fuel costs fall, transportation costs ease; when transportation costs ease, pressure on food prices and household budgets reduces,” he said.

He maintained that the Tinubu administration could not take away the little subsidy that supported struggling families, tax them heavily, increase electricity and transportation costs, and then obstruct accountability over the intervention supposedly designed to cushion those burdens.

Atiku demanded that if the beneficiaries were genuine, government should publish the verifiable payment trail, and if the money did not reach them, it should be recovered. “And if investigation establishes that any official diverted, misapplied or misappropriated funds meant for vulnerable Nigerians, that official must face prosecution. The poor have already paid enough through higher fuel prices, food costs, electricity bills, transportation fares and taxes. They must not also be made to lose the money appropriated in their name,” he said.

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. As NDLEA busts illicit drug-laden fuel tanker, recovers over 2 million pills of opioids, large consignments of skunk, meth in coordinated crackdown across 9 states

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have, in a coordinated sweep across the country arrested a convicted cocaine trafficker who disguised himself as a herbal tea merchant, intercepted a 20,000-litre fuel tanker fitted with a concealed compartment for illicit drugs, and recovered several other consignments of cannabis, tramadol, methamphetamine and other psychotropic substances in Lagos, Adamawa, Ondo, Kaduna, Bauchi, Ekiti, Kogi, Taraba and Enugu states.

Following the interception of a 1.2kg cocaine consignment concealed in phone chargers and destined for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at a courier company in Lagos on 31st July 2026, operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation (DOGI) in NDLEA have successfully tracked the mastermind through painstaking intelligence-led operations.

The suspect, arrested in a sting operation at Article Market, opposite Trade Fair Market, Ojo area of Lagos, on Friday 4th September 2026 while posing as a herbal tea businessman, was identified as 34-year-old Dunu Bethel Ebubechukwu. In his statement, he admitted being the mastermind of some illicit drug shipments in the past while stating that he discarded his telephone SIM card once he learnt his latest consignment had been intercepted by the NDLEA.

Further investigation revealed the suspect is no stranger to the Agency: he was first arrested in 2011 at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Ikeja Lagos after ingestingw 900grams of cocaine and 130grams of heroin in an attempt to fly to Austria under the name Dunu Chukwuyenre Enoch. He was prosecuted for the crime, convicted and sentenced to five years in jail. He thereafter changed his name to Dunu Bethel Ebubechukwu and returned to the criminal trade.

A search of his residence located at 6 Yemishola Street, Ejigbo, Lagos on Friday 4th September led to the recovery of phone chargers similar to those used to conceal the intercepted cocaine, with their internal components removed to create space for drugs.

At the Lagos airport, operatives recovered 966,200 tablets of Tramadol 225mg worth over N1.1 billion concealed among thrift trousers in a 21-carton consignment from Pakistan, and 57.80kg of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, worth over N173 million in street value, hidden inside cartons of disposable hand gloves in a shipment from Singapore that had lain unclaimed for weeks before a joint examination by NDLEA officers, Customs and other security agencies was conducted on Thursday 3rd September.

In one of the week’s most brazen discoveries, a 20,000-litre fuel tanker marked MKA 960 XC, and notorious for evading arrest in the past was chased down by NDLEA officers along the Akoko/Lokoja expressway in Ondo state on Friday 4th September after its driver refused to stop. The driver later abandoned the vehicle at a church premises in Ugbe Akoko, and fled into the bush. A search of the tanker revealed a false compartment concealing 165 bags of cannabis weighing 2,145kg alongside its legitimate fuel cargo destined for Jos, Plateau state.

Barely a month after three suspects: Yashim Dauji, Larry Ifeanyi, and Joseph Moji were arrested at Tincan Port in Lagos over the seizure of 842.54kg of cannabis-laced cookies, another 598.08kg (890 packets) of similarly infused cookies and gummies were on Wednesday 2nd September intercepted in a 40-foot container at the port and linked to the suspects already in custody.

In Adamawa state, NDLEA operatives on patrol along Damilu and Jambutu axis in Jimeta, Yola North LGA, on Friday 4th September recovered 864,000 pills of opioids especially tramadol from a residence linked to a fleeing suspect, Patrick KC Frank, whose Honda Civic car rammed an NDLEA patrol vehicle before he escaped. In another interdiction operation in
Michika area of the state, a major methamphetamine supplier from Lagos to Mubi and Michika axis, Calistus Ebubechukwu, 35, was arrested on Friday 4th September with a total of 2kg of the dangerous substance, while Attahiru Hussaini was intercepted with 750,027,530 pills of tramadol and other opioids concealed in a soap-laden Ford Galaxy bus marked JJM-953XD at Namtari check point in Mubi on Monday 31st August.

In Lagos, NDLEA operatives on Friday 4th September recovered 2,386.9kg of cannabis, 350grams of cocaine, over 100kg of assorted tramadol grades, 9.7 litres of codeine syrup and 4kg of rohypnol at Gbaji area of the state, while two suspects: Damilare Francis and Emeh Emmanuel were arrested with 720kg of cannabis at Agbara area.

Three suspects: Saidu Mustapha, 35; Zaharadeen Salisu, 29; and AbdulSalam Abdullahi, 25,
were nabbed with 636kg of cannabis concealed in chicken manure aboard a bus travelling from Owo, Ondo state to Jos, Plateau state along Okene/Lokoja highway in Kogi state.

In Taraba, 58-year-old Kelechi Unachukwu, was arrested along Zaki-Biam road, Wukari LGA with a cocktail of over 109kg of tramadol, diazepam, pentazocine, phenobarbital, exol-5, nitrazepam, bromazepam and pregabalin being conveyed in his Toyota Corolla car marked KUJ-333BT from Onitsha, Anambra state to Yola, Adamawa state.

A truck loaded with bags of cement was intercepted by NDLEA operatives along the Zaria-Kano expressway, Kaduna with 1,179kg of skunk recovered while a suspect Hamza Dahiru, 25, was arrested by NDLEA operatives in Bauchi in a follow up operation following the seizure of 322.5kg of cannabis at Deba town, Gombe state on Tuesday 1st September.

In Ekiti state, two suspects: Chuks Alex, 50, and Asafa Adekunle, 35, were arrested after NDLEA operatives uncovered and destroyed a 4-hectare cannabis farm in Efon-Alaaye forest, recovering 117kg of already-harvested skunk, just as a 20-year-old Obinna David, was arrested at Ugbema Junction, Enugu with 40,590 capsules of tramadol on Saturday 5th September.

With the same vigour, Commands and formations of the Agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization activities to schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week. These include: WADA enlightenment lecture to nursing mothers and nurses at Ibereko Primary Health Centre, Abeokuta North, Ogun state; youths of Umouji/Okwo community at Olokoro, Umuahia South LGA, Abia, and NLNG staff and concessionaires at Saipem-Daewoo, NLNG terminal, Bonny LGA, Rivers state, among others.

While commending the officers and men of DOGI, MMIA, Ondo, Tincan, Lagos, Adamawa, Kaduna, Bauchi, Ekiti, Kogi, Taraba and Enugu Commands for their professionalism and intelligence-driven approach to the various successful operations, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd) enjoined them and their colleagues across the country to continue with the current balanced approach to the drug control efforts of the Agency. He reiterated that traffickers who believe they can reinvent themselves under new identities or legitimate business fronts will continue to be tracked down.