Good morning dear esteem readers! Here is today’s summary from Nigerian Newspapers:

1. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo received a special invitation on Thursday for a tour of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries to confirm their operational status. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, assured Obasanjo the days of inefficiency were gone and that the one-time corporation is now a profit-driven company.

2. Former Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi, yesterday visited Minna, the Niger State capital, for engagements with two prominent leaders in the town and to reaffirm his commitment to nation-building and unity. In separate tweets on his X account, Obi said he first visited former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, at his residence

3. Reports emerged on Thursday, revealing that despite the prevailing hardship, the presiding officers of the National Assembly— Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, and their deputies, Barau Jibrin and Ben Kalu – were allocated N10 billion for rent and furniture in the 2024 supplementary budget of the FCT.

4. Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, on Thursday visited the Kaduna State Correctional Service facility to see his former Chief of Staff, Bashir Saidu, who was remanded in the facility. The former Chief of Staff was arrested on Monday and taken to a magistrates’ court at Rigasa which remanded him at a correctional facility in the state on allegations of money laundering and other charges.

5. The Chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Hashim Suleiman Dungurawa, has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reconsider his administration’s “anti-people policies” or risk being voted out in the 2027 general elections. Dungurawa also dismissed rumours that the NNPP’s presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, was planning to defect to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

6. The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi has said there was currently no agreement between the party and any other opposition party for a merger. The former Anambra State governor spoke against speculations that the LP had entered into a merger deal with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP.

7. Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, on Thursday, justified his decision to present the 2025 budget to three lawmakers, asserting that the 27 members of the State House of Assembly who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress had permanently lost their seats. According to him, there is no remedy or opportunity for the 27 lawmakers, loyal to former governor Nyesom Wike, to return to the Assembly.

8. An Osun State-based clergy, Bishop Shina Olaribigbe of Rapture Empowerment International, Osogbo, was in the early hours of Thursday stabbed to death while settling a fight between a couple. Security sources said that the woman fighting her husband was attending Olaribigbe’s church located around BCGA Area, where she served as an interpreter.

9. A Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Joseph Enyinnaya, of St. Columbus Catholic Church, in Amaimo, Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, has been arrested by the police for allegedly killing a boy who threw a firework, popularly called knockout or banger, inside the church on New Year’s Eve. It was gathered that the event left the boy, identified simply as Joseph, dead and others injured.

10. A fire incident that gutted a one-storey building in the Lekki area of Lagos State on Thursday left property whose worth was yet to be ascertained destroyed. It was learnt from an incident report signed by the Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, that household items like furniture, air conditioning systems, and utensils among others were destroyed by the fire.

©CDA News