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The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi (SAN), his son and his wife all died in a car crash on the Kaduna-Abuja Road. According to early reports the Minister and his Son were confirmed dead with  wife critically injured. However the wife was confirmed according to a post on the Facebook page of the Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir Elrufai as follows: “It is with great sadness that the Kaduna State Ministry of Health and Human Services further announces the death of Mrs. Ocholi at Doka Hospital, who was in coma since the accident near Rijana, along the Kaduna-Abuja Road. Earlier, the death of Minister Ocholi and his son were announced. May their souls rest in perfect peace, Amen,” A witness, whose car was behind the minister’s when the accident occurred, said the minister’s car had a burst tyre before it somersaulted several times. He was said to be about 45 kilo meters away from Kaduna town from where he was headed to Abuja.  May their gentle souls r...

In a dramatic u-turn, President Muhammadu Buhari, who had earlier claimed to have turned down an invitation to join the Islamic Coalition against Terrorism put together by Saudi Arabia, has told Al Jazeera that Nigeria is in the coalition‎. He made the disclosure during an exclusive interview with Aljazeera which was broadcast at the weekend. He had been asked whether Nigeria was part of it and he answered: “We are part of it because we’ve got terrorists in Nigeria that everybody knows which claim that they are Islamic. “So, if there’s an Islamic coalition to fight terrorism, Nigeria will be part of it because we are casualties of Islamic terrorism.” Asked whether he had suggested Nigeria’s membership of the coalition during his meeting with King Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz during their meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia recently, Buhari said: “Yes.” Asked to explain how such coalition would work for Nigeria, he said he could not disclose the details to the media. However, he add...

Nigeria only has itself to blame for its current economic troubles, President Muhammadu Buhari said in an interview broadcast on Saturday, criticising previous governments for an over-reliance on crude revenues. Africa’s biggest oil producer and leading economy has been struggling with the slump in global crude prices for nearly two years, which has slashed the majority of government revenues. The country’s junior oil minister last Thursday said some oil-producing countries, including Russia, would meet in Moscow on March 20 to discuss a way out of the slump. Asked if the world’s biggest supplier Saudi Arabia and policies of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had hit smaller producers, Buhari told Al-Jazeera English OPEC had to “act together to save the situation”. Countries, including Nigeria, “have to live by” market forces, he said, ruling out a Nigerian withdrawal from the body. But he added: “OPEC as an organisation has to be mindful of economic conditi...

The Lagos state police has paraded persons arrested over kidnap of students of Barbington Macaulay Junior Seminary School (two suspects pictured below). Emmanuel Arigidi, one of the abductors of the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary schoolgirls arrested by the Lagos police, says they did not rape or otherwise physically assaulted the girls. Arigidi could not explain their motivation to forcefully enter the school premises and kidnap the three girls. Speaking to a ThisDay reporter, the kidnapper said they approached the school and escaped via canoes at the edge of Adama creeks. Arigidi was apprehended by the police during a nighttime rescue operation. A source within the Lagos State Police Command says the kidnapper was nabbed when he came out to buy food. Also arrested were two suspects who helped the kidnappers register the SIM card they used to contact the victims’ parents. Following Arigidi’s arrest, the father of one of the gang members was summoned to talk to...

Onetime actress turned nurse, Regina Askia Williams, has written to President Muhammadu Buhari on the state of nation. Thanking the president for his fight against corruption, the actress asked why there seem to be one unrest after the other in the country. “Thank you for all your effort at containing the corruption in Nigeria however unpopular," she began. Continuing, she wrote, 'Nigerians elected you through serious acrimony, loosing several lives and facing deadly unrest but they chose you. Though you are from the North of OUR country you are president of all. How is it that violence and deaths still hold sway? 'My hope and prayer was that on your ascension you would deploy our military with fiat and alacrity armed to the teeth and silence or at least contain Boko Haram. My prayer was that as a seasoned General you would not only flush out king pins and barons but retrieve the loot as you napped them one after the other but we see them working for you. Is th...