News
Nigeria@64: Speaker Abbas shares 1,000 bags of rice, others to Abuja IDPs
…says Nigeria needs to prioritise quality assurance in public schools
…lectures school children on unity, patriotism, hard work on 59th birthday
As part of activities marking Nigeria’s 64th Independence Anniversary and his 59th birthday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, Ph.D, on Tuesday, reached out to some internally displaced persons at Kabusa community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Speaker, who led a delegation comprising the Deputy Speaker Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu; Chief Whip, Hon. Usman Bello Kumo, and other members of the House to the IDPs’ camp, said he was moved by their plight.
Speaker Abbas gave out a total of 1,000 bags of 10kg rice, 200 cartons of noodles, over 800 pieces of clothes for men and women, as well as bedsheets.
He was supported by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Also at the humanitarian ceremony, Speaker Abbas provided free medical services for IDPs with certain ailments.
Meanwhile, Speaker Abbas had earlier in the day hosted students from six public secondary schools in the FCT for an interaction, where he responded to questions from the students.
At the interaction, which lasted for over an hour, the Speaker said for Nigeria’s education sector to return to its glory days, adequate supervision and quality assurance in public schools must be prioritised by those tasked with the duties of running the sector.
He decried the largely unregulated and proliferation of private schools, which he said had led to an unacceptable decay in public schools across the country, saying “even teachers teaching in public schools now have their children in private schools because they don’t even believe in what they are doing for a living.”
He added: “When we were growing up, there was no such thing as private school because everyone, including the Emir, the Commissioner, the Minister and the biggest business tycoon in the town had to take their children to the available public schools, everyone was interested in what happened there. And for that reason, there was strict and adequate supervision of the teachers and those running the schools, which was why the standard was very high. But today it’s a different story altogether because even government officials no longer take their children to public schools due to the proliferation of private schools and the decline of standard in public schools,” Speaker Abbas said.
The Speaker advised the students to imbibe the culture of hard work, which is an aspect of patriotism, saying that though their generation has access to smart ways of doing things, that has also made them to cultivate the habit of following shortcuts to success.
“You have to imbibe the culture of hard work if you want your patriotism to impact on Nigeria. However, the current generation is a smart one that likes to use the shortcut to success without following due process. So please try to pay attention to details and follow due process. Also believe in yourself and work hard. It worked for me.”
Speaker Abbas also harped on the importance of believing in oneself, recalling how he became self-reliant at a very young age after his secondary school education to becoming a teacher, up to the point where he became a homeowner at 19.
“Because I was trained to be a teacher and after my secondary school I went straight into the classroom. Since then, I never asked for (financial) assistance from my parents, and I became a homeowner at the age of 19. I remember the shock on my father’s face when I told him I was going for my youth service because he never knew I was in the University. Because I believed in myself and doing better for myself, I took the challenge of going further on my own without actually having to bother my parents again.”
Also stressing the importance of unity in diversity, Speaker Abbas urged the students to love their country as they love themselves, saying the concept of loving one’s neighbour as one’s-self eschews any element of ethnicity, tribalism and religious sentiment.
“When you love your neighbor the way you love yourself, relate with others the way you want them to relate with you, then your patriotism is well on its way to fruition. I look at every Nigerian, male or female, as one and the same. I look at your character as a factor for a good and purposeful relationship.
“If you look at my family background you will not see any issues of religious bias and even among my constituents so if you go to every religious sect in my constituency, you will see that I relate with them on equal basis. And same thing with the House. We are brothers, we see each other as brothers and as one. So children if you want your future to be better than what we have now, you must strive to eradicate the disease of ethnicity, religious sentiment and look at the greater picture. I take delight in the way I see you, both northerners and southerners, you are like children from the same parents and I urge you to maintain that,” he said.
The students who were drawn from public secondary schools in the six Area Councils of the FCT made various presentations, including technological innovations as birthday gifts to the Speaker.
By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
Dignitaries from across the nation gathered at Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, on Saturday to witness the coronation of the 46th Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade
The historic event drew a distinguished crowd, including President Bola Tinubu, represented by the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu; the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde; former Deputy Governor, Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja; Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon.Debo Ogundoyin; and Senator Yunus Akintunde, representing Oyo South, among other notable figures.
Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade I and his Wife Abiwumi Owoade.
Royalty was richly represented as well, with the presence of revered monarchs such as the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; the Soun of Ogbomoso, Oba Ghandi Olaoye; and the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, adding grandeur and cultural depth to the occasion.
The driver and conductor of a BRT bus have fled for their lives, abandoning passengers to their fate, as a BRT bus caught fire at Maryland, Lagos State, on Saturday morning.
Our correspondent, who was at the scene of the incident, said that the vehicle departed from Ikorodu en route to CMS when the sad incident occurred.
As of the time this report was filed, emergency responders, including officers of the Nigeria Police Force, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), fire services, and local security personnel, arrived at the scene to contain the blaze.
Firefighters at the scene.
One of the passengers on the bus told our correspondent the fire started as smoke from the driver’s side.
According to her, the passengers initially thought the smoke emanated from other buses; however, the slight smoke soon worsened, immediately sending them into panic mode.
“As soon as we saw that the smoke grew bigger, we immediately rushed off the bus before the fire ignited”, she said, adding that none of the passengers sustained any injury.
She added that the driver fled the scene immediately after the fire started.
“The driver and the conductor ran away. They didn’t even wait to see what would happen to us.
“Definitely, they knew what happened. They knew the bus was bad before putting it on the road and risking our lives,” she alleged.
Channels
The United States-funded Voice of America (VOA) has gone off air in Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, and several other African countries after President Donald Trump cut financial support to the global broadcaster.
The shutdown, first noticed by millions of listeners in northern Nigeria, sparked panic when music began playing in place of scheduled broadcasts, a haunting reminder in the region of military coups or political takeovers.
“People started calling in, worried that there had been a coup in America,” Babangida Jibrin, a journalist who worked with VOA’s now-defunct Hausa-language service was quoted by Daily Trust.
The station’s abrupt disappearance from the airwaves last month left stunned reporters scrambling to explain what had happened to their loyal audience.
VOA’s Hausa service, a lifeline for millions of listeners in rural and conflict-prone areas of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Niger, had become a trusted source of international and regional news, especially in places where local media is either censored, inaccessible, or compromised by state influence.
With internet access unreliable or non-existent in these regions, shortwave and radio broadcasts like VOA filled a crucial void.
“People are now cut off from the world, especially from critical international news,” lamented Moussa Jaharou, a listener from southern Niger.
He described the shutdown as a “deliberate silencing of the poor.”
Founded during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda, VOA later became a major player in Cold War-era broadcasting, offering an American perspective against Soviet disinformation.
Over the decades, it evolved into a beacon of credible journalism worldwide, particularly in authoritarian regions where press freedom is under attack.
In northern Nigeria, where insurgency, banditry, and government corruption are everyday realities, VOA Hausa provided in-depth, unbiased coverage that is often missing in local media.
Its disappearance has now left a gaping hole in a media landscape already struggling with state repression and misinformation.
Critics blame Trump’s ideological war on independent institutions and his administration’s push to dismantle U.S.-backed international media.
The US president slashed VOA’s funding as part of a broader effort to bring the outlet under tighter political control, effectively killing off several regional language services.
It was also reported that over 1,100 “Hands Off!” protests and meetings were scheduled to take place across all 50 states in the U.S. on Saturday.
This was in response to the significant cuts to the federal workforce, reportedly overseen by Trump adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
These nationwide demonstrations aim to voice opposition to the dramatic reductions in the federal workforce, which organisers believe are part of a broader effort to dismantle public services, including Social Security, Medicaid, and public education.
The protests are being organised by a coalition of over 150 organisations, including Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Service Employees International Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union, according to Yahoo News.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them,” the organisers say on their website. “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them.”
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