Author: TheScrutinyNG

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, announced on Tuesday that Nigeria and Belgium are set to strengthen economic cooperation to bolster food security. The Director of Information and Public Relations at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Mohammed Manga, disclosed this in a statement he signed and released in Abuja. According to the ministry’s Director of Information, the minister and the Belgian Ambassador, Mr Pieter Leenknegt, held a meeting to explore ways to facilitate cooperation in agriculture and food security. “At the meeting, Edun highlighted Nigeria’s improving economy, declining inflation, price stability, and increased savings in the federation…

The Nigerian Defence Academy has warned residents of Afaka, Kauya, and Mando in Kaduna State to steer clear of its open range during an upcoming shooting exercise. The academy’s Public Relations Officer, Maj. Muhammad Maidawa, announced in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Kaduna. Maidawa said the exercise had been scheduled to take place from February 26 to March 1, He said the exercise was part of the advanced application of fire package for the Army Cadets of the 72 Regular Course. According to him, the exercise will involve live firing of arms, adding…

By Kassim Afegbua   Ibrahim Babangida’s memoir, “A Journey in Service,” has expectedly dominated public discourse throughout the last week; even before, and after its launch on Thursday, 20 February at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. Given IBB’s stature, the event assembled the creme de la creme of Nigeria’s political and socio-economic empire; and of course, mouth-watering donations to support the author’s Presidential Library Project were collected. Anything and everything IBB, must be big and expectedly so, because here is a leader that cannot be pigeon-holed into any ethnic conclave, a humanist and a completely detribalised Nigerian, who cultivated…

The Vatican said Pope Francis is in critical condition after suffering an asthmatic respiratory crisis that required doctors to give him oxygen. Priests and nuns from around the world gathered outside Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Feb. 22 as the pontiff continues to battle pneumonia and a respiratory infection after being admitted over a week ago. The Catholic community here in Arizona is reacting to the news of the Pope’s deteriorating health and, as you can imagine, parishioners said they had extra prayers to say for 88-year-old pontiff. “I mean this is like our holy father, so it’s a really big…

By Professor Mike Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, LL.D. I have carefully read and listened to former Nigerian military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida’s public remorse and regrets over the atrocious annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential elections. He did this 32 whopping years later. I want to very quickly say that it takes a man with strong guts and balls and a man who has become repentant, born again and has seen the face of God to publicly recant his earlier wrongful deeds and offer public apology to the entire nation. This was no doubt meant to heal gapinng…

By Kassim Afegbua I was going through a piece of one of ex-Governor Obaseki’s rottweilers, barking aloud about what he perceived as the legacies of his paymaster in his eight years of abysmal leadership, and I came to the irrevocable conclusion that the culture of shame has since departed from him. Crusoe Osagie’s diatribes were a combination of superb artefacts of shame, such kind of bold-faced admission of guilt, with a justification of Obaseki’s rotten legacies. It is no longer fashionable for me to engage Obaseki and his vuvuzelas, especially a Crusoe Osagie, planted in the rustic settings of Idumota,…

The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mojisola Meranda, has denied rumours suggesting that she has resigned. Meranda’s Chief Press Secretary, Segun Ajiboye, debunked the rumour on Wednesday. “I’m in the office. The speaker is in the office. I don’t know where that is coming from,” Ajiboye said in a chat with PUNCH Online. An online report suggested on Wednesday that the Speaker had resigned. A circular dated February 17, 2025, allegedly released by Meranda had also been trending for two days, with the content claiming she had resigned. However, checks on the letter circulating on social media…

The Academic Staff Union of University, Kaduna State University  Branch, has declared an indefinite strike beginning from Feb. 18 over unresolved welfare concerns. The union announced the decision in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Peter Adamu, and Secretary, Dr Peter Waziri. It was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria in Kaduna on Tuesday. The statement said that the action followed the approval of the union’s National Executive Council. “The Academic Staff Union of Universities, KASU branch wishes to notify the public that its National Executive Council has approved the request of the congress of the branch…

By Crusoe Osagie After an election many believed to be a heist organised by the very institutions responsible for the defense of the people’s choice, Monday Okpebholo came into office on the 12th of November, 2024 with a hefty baggage of credibility crisis. Quite frankly, his first 100 days in office have upended the chaos that accompanied the charade of an election that brought the taciturn and diminutive Senator into office. From his very first decision to sack nearly 5000 civil servants whose only crime was entering the public service in the previous administration, to the perpetual bullying of elected…

The coronation rites of the 46th Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Akeem Abimbola Owoade is ongoing as the absence of the Apetumodu of Ipetumodu in Osun State is not mandatory to rob the process of its legitimacy. Chief of Staff to Oba Owoade, Rotimi Osuntola stated this in a statement sent to newsmen on Tuesday, where the Palace urged the public to dismiss a media report that the coronation rites of the new monarch would be incomplete without the Apetumodu. Osuntola, who was reacting a recent article published by a national newspaper with the title: “Alaafin’s Coronation in Jeopardy Over Unknown…