Category: General News

 

 

By Danladi Ahmed

The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) has said that President Bola Tinubu has a major responsibility to forestall further chaos and anarchy in Rivers State by proclaiming a state of emergency.

The group argued that intelligence at the President’s exclusive disposal was sufficient justification for his decision to declare a state of emergency and also suspend democratic institutions there for six months.

This, according to TMSG, is a fallout of the reluctance of the two parties in the political crisis to work together despite a presidential intervention and a recent Supreme Court ruling.

In a statement signed by its Chairman Emeka Nwankpa and Secretary Dapo Okubanjo, TMSG argued that the President was left with no choice but to constitutionally intervene and restore security, stability and order in the state.

It said: “Our position on President Bola Tinubu’s decision to impose a state of emergency and suspend Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and members of the House of Assembly is simple. The president acted proactively to defuse an already charged situation.

“This follows the hard-line positions and reluctance of both parties in the political crisis in Rivers state to heed the voice of reason and act to return the state to peaceful governance in the aftermath of the recent Supreme Court ruling.

“We note that before then, President Tinubu had in December 2023 intervened by brokering a peace deal between Governor Fubara and the state legislators.

“The deal which was tabled at a meeting in Abuja attended by key political stakeholders, was to have culminated in the governor recognizing and presenting the 2024 budget to the Martin Amaewhule-led assembly as well as reinstate the legislators’ remunerations and benefits while the Assembly members were to stop impeachment proceedings.

“Both sides were also to drop all pending court matters on the crisis. But to the surprise of many Nigerians, the parties stuck to their hard-line positions and failed to implement critical aspects of the peace deal.

“We were therefore surprised to see a claim by the former Rivers state Commissioner of Information that the governor implemented the President’s deal. So we wonder which one of the terms was implemented because the lawmakers have not had their benefits reinstated, and neither was the 2024 budget sent to them for approval.

“We invite Nigerians to also note that even when the Supreme Court ruled on the matter, there was still a reluctance from both parties to work in harmony until the state legislators began impeachment proceedings which could have worsened the situation.

“And indeed, the day after the impeachment notice was served, an explosion rocked the Trans-Niger Pipeline, one of Nigeria’s biggest oil pipelines, which feeds the crude export terminal at Bonny A similar incident was also recorded a few hours later in the evening at a manifold connected to a federal pipeline deep inside the forest.

“So for us, an extraordinary measure was necessary to restore governance and prevent further breakdown of law and order in Rivers State, as the President noted in his 12-minute national broadcast.

“From all indications, the President watched and waited patiently for 15 months as both parties engaged in unnecessary filibustering and reneging until the truce brokered by the president was broken.”

TMSG further argued that there was no basis for comparing the President’s action to that of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013 at the height of the war against insurgency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

“We acknowledge that President Jonathan indeed declared a State of Emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa but left the governors in place. But let Nigerians not forget that it was a war situation, which is different from what we have in Rivers State.

“President Tinubu did not declare emergency rule in Rivers strictly because of security issues. He made it clear that
his decision was necessary to restore peace, order, and governance in a state that had been embroiled in political turmoil for several months on end.

“So we believe that President Tinubu deserves credit for not only declaring a state of emergency but for also suspending the two parties for six months.

“We hope that it will give both parties enough time to ruminate and evaluate their actions since December 2023 and accept mediatory efforts they had shunned previously,” it added.

End.

 

 

By Majeed Ishola
The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) has expressed confidence in the ability of President Bola Tinubu to resolve the decades-long crisis that is stalling the resumption of oil exploration in Ogoni, one of Nigeria’s most prolific oil-producing areas.

This, according to the group, stems from the overtures the federal government is making as well as the groundswell of support from individuals and groups from the oil-rich area.

In a statement signed by its Chairman Emeka Nwankpa and Secretary Dapo Okubanjo, TMSG noted that a resumption of oil production in Ogoniland would add a minimum of 500,000 barrels a day to the country’s daily crude output.

It reads in part: “Since 1993, when the multinational oil company Shell pulled out of Ogoni in the aftermath of the crisis over environmental issues, no single drop of oil has been extracted from any of the nearly 200 oil wells in the area.

“It is on record that different administrations since 1999 had tried to broker peace between the aggrieved members of the Ogoni community and Shell with little to show for all the efforts.

“We are aware that former President Olusegun Obasanjo made mediatory efforts led by Father Matthew Kukah which were bogged down by unmet demands for restitution while the Jonathan administration’s initiatives were largely stalled by the inability to set up a structure to receive the $1 billion recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for a clean up of the affected areas.

“Former President Muhammadu Buhari continued from where his predecessor stopped until President Bola Tinubu assumed office and opted for a two-pronged approach of sustainable development and reconciliation to win the heart of the 260 communities in Ogoniland

“We recall that at the second of his two meetings with a selection of prominent leaders of the Ogoni community, the President said ‘We cannot in any way rewrite history, but we can correct some anomalies of the past going forward. We can not heal the wounds if we continue to be angry.

“The reconciliation initiative to be led by the National Security Adviser is to entail getting a buy-in of all the stakeholders on efforts by the government to ensure a conducive environment for resumption of oil exploration.

“In a demonstration of his commitment to the sustainable development of the area, President Tinubu has since approved the take-off of the Federal University of Environment and Technology, which was not only designed to give Ogoni people a sense of belonging in education but also to pave the way for the development of capacity in life-changing global academic endeavours.

“Like many Nigerians, we see it as a great step towards addressing some of the people’s long-standing grievances of neglect against the Nigerian state.

“We are also aware that the federal government also intends to involve the various communities in the Ogoni clean-up initiative just to ensure that the people have the kind of sense of belonging they had not felt in a long time.

“All these are part of several efforts to smoothen the path to the resumption of oil exploration in the oil-rich area after a 32-year pause, especially now that Shell has divested from its onshore operations.

“What we know is that with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in place with provisions that clearly spelt out immediate benefits of three per cent of annual operating expenditure of oil prospecting companies to host communities, the over 260 communities of Ogoniland are bound to have a new lease of life in their relationship with oil producing companies.”

TMSG also urged Ogoni communities to be wary of conflict entrepreneurs who have been pushing back against the government’s efforts.

 

 

*By Maya Jaggi

The award-winning Nigerian author and Beyoncé-sampled essayist is back with her first novel in a decade, which makes now a great time to get to know her work.

 

She’s won multiple awards for her novels, had her Ted talk sampled by Beyoncé, and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2015. Now, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is back with her first novel in 10 years – so if you haven’t read anything by the Nigerian author yet, it’s a good time to catch up.

*The entry point*

Adichie’s second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, not only won the Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction) in the year I was a judge, but also its Winner of Winners in 2020, and was made into a 2013 film with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton. It begins after Nigerian independence in 1960, telling the story of the Biafran war via “The Master,” a maths lecturer in Nsukka (where Adichie grew up), his London-educated lover Olanna, and teenage houseboy Ugwu. The traumas of war are preceded by joyous intellectual jousting, fuelled by Ugwu’s mouthwatering jollof rice and pepper soup. While Adichie once acknowledged to me her debt to Romesh Gunesekera’s Sri Lanka-set novel Reef for this master chef culinary device, her breakthrough novel earns its place as a West African War and Peace.

*The credo*

Adichie’s essay The Danger of a Single Story, first given as a 2009 Ted talk (and available as an eBook), sets out her stall as a storyteller as succinctly as Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I Write. Joining novelist Chinua Achebe’s call for a “balance of stories,” it echoes Binyavanga Wainaina’s How to Write About Africa, the 2005 satirical bombshell in Granta magazine – reprinted in a posthumous 2022 collection for which his bereft friend Adichie wrote the introduction. “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story,” she writes – a flattening of experience that “robs people” of human complexity and dignity while exaggerating their differences. “Africa is a continent full of catastrophes … But there are other stories … just as important.”

*The spectacular debut*

The consummate coming-of-age novel Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the best first book, explores faith, freedom, sexual awakening and religious hypocrisy through a 15-year-old girl, Kambili, growing up in south-eastern Nigeria after a military coup. Her father, a “Big Man” factory owner, is a patriarch and religious zealot whose wife-beating tyranny devastates the family, even as he garners human rights awards for defying the new regime. Where the Catholic church demands prayer in Latin, not Igbo, and cash-stuffed envelopes get things done, a brother’s act of defiance leads ultimately to prison. Yet Kambili blossoms with a scholarly aunt in Nsukka, a university town where questioning and debate are encouraged not slapped down. To the strains of Fela Kuti, she exults because, for all its potholes, “Nsukka could free something deep inside your belly that would rise… and come out as a freedom song.”

*The epic love story*

The 600-page, tricontinental novel Americanah, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle award for fiction, is as much sharp observational comedy and critique as romance. Its heroine Ifemelu, a fellow at Princeton, is first seen having her hair braided for the journey home after 13 years away. Fleeing military-ruled Nigeria, she felt the burden and pathologies of race only in the US – as explored in her flâneur’s blog, “Raceteenth, or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black”, which ranges from Barack Obama to the vexed politics of black hair. But her homesickness is partly for her first love, Obinze, the “only person with whom she has never felt the need to explain herself”. Having failed in the visa lottery for the Land of the Free, he languished in London before making it as a property developer in his newly democratic homeland. As the novel traces their sundered lives towards reunion, the question is whether their love is beyond rekindling.

*The one everyone should read*

We Should All Be Feminists speaks to successive generations of women and men in its efforts to reclaim feminism’s high ground from a mighty backlash. Expanded from a 2012 Ted talk – since sampled on Beyoncé’s Flawless – it bristles with outraged anecdotes and observations on how women are still taught to shrink and silence themselves, how gender bias becomes normalised through repetition, and how the cage of masculinity breeds men’s fear of weakness and vulnerability. “We must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently,” Adichie writes in a book that could be read alongside her advice for parents, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Embracing her great-grandmother, who ran off to marry the man of her choice, as a feminist avant la lettre, Adichie rebuts notions of feminism as “un-African”.

*The one that will make you feel less alone*

Published the year after her father’s sudden death from kidney failure, Notes on Grief is a doting daughter’s reckoning with her father’s loss. It contains rare confidences from an author who guards her privacy and a bracing confession of the rage and turmoil of mourning. Though the family met on Zoom, Adichie had not seen her father in the flesh for months when he died during lockdown, and her “leaden heart” feels only fury at condolers’ presumptuousness (“he is in a better place”). Flashes of obituary reveal a man, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Nigeria in the 1980s and a leading professor of statistics, who had returned from doctoral studies at Berkeley shortly before the Biafran war when all his books were burnt by Nigerian soldiers. Years later, he was kidnapped for ransom because of his famous daughter. Yet his humour, “already dry, crisped deliciously as he aged”. Was he “the reason I have never been afraid of the disapproval of men?” Adichie asks. “I think so.”

‘Cancel culture? We should stop it. End of story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on backlash, writer’s block – and her new baby twinsHer first novel in 10 years, *Dream Count,* charts the interlinked lives and desires of four women during the Covid-19 pandemic. Adichie’s mother, who died in 2021, was an inspiration for its mother-daughter relationships. Central is Chiamaka, a Nigerian travel writer living in the US, considering her body clock and missed opportunities. The character of Chiamaka’s housekeeper, Kadiatou, was inspired by Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean woman who in 2011 accused the then IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in the New York hotel where she worked as a maid – though the case was dismissed because she was said to have lied about her background. “A victim need not be perfect to be deserving of justice,” Adichie notes in the novel’s afterword, arguing for the need for “imaginative retellings”. Fleshing out this character while preserving as sacrosanct her account of the alleged assault, was, for Adichie, “to ‘write’ a wrong in the balance of stories”.

*Dream Count* is published by 4th Estate.

*British Writer and Critic Maya Jaggi wrote for The Guardian, London*

 

 

*By Paul Ejime*

PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in the southern Rivers State and the suspension of the State’s elected legislature and embattled governor may at best, serve as a balm with limited effect on the deep wounds from political power and resource control battles in Nigeria’s oil-bearing region.

For almost two years, Governor Siminalayi Fubara has been at daggers-drawn with his erstwhile political godfather and predecessor Nyesom Wike, the current Minister of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, over what some call the “soul of Rivers State.”

Rivers State, in the volatile Niger Delta, which accounts for much of Nigeria’s oil revenue, is not new to political tensions.

The latest simmering crisis from 2023, is played out in a bitter tug-of-war between the governor and the legislature, with the involvement of the federal might. Matters reached a crescendo on Tuesday, 18 March 2025, when multiple explosions were reported at some critical oil pipelines.

Citing the failure of the State legislature and the governor to “work together for the peace and good governance of the state…,” President Tinubu said, in a 12-minute national broadcast “…it has become inevitably compelling for me to invoke the provision of section 305 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, to declare a state of emergency in Rivers State with effect from today, 18th March 2025 and I so do,”

“By this declaration,” he said, “the Governor of Rivers State Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy, Mrs Ngozi Odu and all elected members of the House of Assembly of Rivers State are hereby suspended for an initial period of six months.”

President Tinubu also nominated “Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (Rtd) as an administrator to take charge of the affairs of the state…,” noting that the “declaration does not affect the judicial arm of Rivers State…”

He accused the governor of demolishing the State House of Assembly complex for “unjustifiable reasons,” on 13th December 2023, and “has, up until now, fourteen (14) months after, not rebuilt same.”

President Tinubu said he made “personal interventions between the contending parties for a peaceful resolution of the crisis, but my efforts have been largely ignored by the parties to the crisis. I am also aware that many well-meaning Nigerians, leaders of thought and Patriotic groups have also intervened at various times with the best of intentions to resolve the matter, but all their efforts were to no avail. Still, I thank them.”

He further accused Governor Fubara of “several grave unconstitutional acts and disregard of the rule of law” and the “28 February 2025 judgement of the Supreme Court judgment in respect of about eight consolidated appeals concerning the political crisis in Rivers State.”

According to the President, quoting the Supreme Court “…in their judgment and having found and held that 27 members of the House who had allegedly defected are still valid members of Rivers State House of Assembly and cannot be prevented from participating in the proceedings of that House by the 8th Respondent (that is, the Governor) in cohorts with four members.

However, the same judgment has attracted criticism from analysts and legal experts, including Prof Chidi Odinkalu, a constitutional lawyer who argues in Rivers State, a Supreme Iniquity? that it is at variance with the apex court’s previous decisions on similar cases.

In previous judgments, the Supreme Court held that lawmakers who defect to other political parties, without any proven division in the party on which platform they were elected, should lose their seats. But this has not happened in Rivers State.

In his address, President Tinubu said: “Some militants had threatened fire and brimstone against their perceived enemy of the governor who has up till now NOT disowned them.”

“The latest security reports made available to me show that between yesterday and today, there have been disturbing incidents of (vandalism) of pipelines by some militants without the Governor taking any action to curtail them. I have, of course, given stern orders to the security agencies to ensure the safety of the lives of the good people of Rivers State and the oil pipelines,” the President affirmed.

He explained that “The Administrator will not make any new laws. He will, however, be free to formulate regulations as may be found necessary to do his job, but such regulations will need to be considered and approved by the Federal Executive Council and promulgated by the President…”

The President expressed his “fervent hope that this inevitable intervention will help to restore peace and order in Rivers State by awakening all the contenders to the constitutional imperatives binding on all political players in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria as a whole.”

However, analysts are less optimistic, predicting that the presidential declaration could open a floodgate of litigation, challenging its legality, with some already pointing out that the presidential address made no mention of the role of the former Governor Wike, the FCT Minister, one of the dramatis personae or the cause célèbre.

Wike insists he belongs to the opposition PDP, but his closeness to President Tinubu and the ruling APC is public knowledge.

He also boasts that as sitting governor, he was instrumental to the president’s controversial electoral victory in Rivers State in 2023.

In one of the initial reactions to the presidential address, Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the opposition PDP in the 2023 election, said: “The declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith.”

He said: “Anyone paying attention to the unfolding crisis knows that (President) Bola Tinubu has been a vested partisan actor in the political turmoil engulfing Rivers. “Beyond the political scheming in Rivers, the brazen security breaches that led to the condemnable destruction of national infrastructure in the state land squarely on the President’s desk.”

According to Atiku, “It is an unforgivable failure that under (President) Tinubu’s watch, the Niger Delta has been thrown back into an era of violent unrest and instability -undoing the hard-won peace secured by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Years of progress have been recklessly erased in pursuit of selfish political calculations,” he added.

The former presidential candidate said: “Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serve the political gamesmanship between the governor and (President) Tinubu’s enablers in the federal government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”

Under the Nigerian Constitution, grounds for declaration of a state of emergency include Natural Disasters – earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, or other natural disasters that threaten lives and property; Security Threats – insurgency, terrorism, civil unrest, or other security threats that imperil national security; Economic Crisis – severe economic downturn, financial instability, or other economic emergencies and Public Health Crisis – outbreaks of infectious diseases, pandemics, or other public health emergencies.

During emergency rules civil liberties may be suspended, including freedom of movement, assembly, and speech; military authorities may assume control of civil authorities, curfews may be imposed, and emergency regulations may be enacted.

Increased Executive Powers, potentially limiting legislative and judicial oversight are also common under a state of emergency. In some jurisdictions, the declaration requires legislative approval and judicial review to ensure that the emergency measures are constitutional and proportionate.

Emergency declarations may also be limited in duration, requiring periodic renewal or extension.

Nigeria’s chequered political history is no stranger to emergency declarations.

The first was in November 1962, following large-scale irregularities in the country’s first census that led to the crisis in the Action Group (AG)-controlled Western Region, two years after the country’s independence from Britain in 1960.

Africa’s most populous nation witnessed a long spell of military rule, and on return to civilian rule in May 1999, it was President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), who declared the next state of emergency in May 2004, following the cycle of violence between Muslim and Christian communities that claimed over 2,000 lives in the central Plateau state.

President Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), first imposed a State of Emergency in some local government areas in northern Borno State, and central Plateau State in 2011, before slapping Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, all in northern States with emergency rule in May 2013 over Boko Haram insurgency.

The need to prevent unforeseen developments that could adversely impact Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy might have informed the latest extraordinary measures imposed on Rivers State, but the last has not been heard from the volatile Nigerian region.

In the next six months, attention will be on Vice Admiral Ibas (Rtd), the 22nd Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Navy (2015 to 2021) and the magic up his sleeve.

Some might consider it a blight on democracy in Nigeria that elected officials are turning to the military for governance support.

Traditionally, the navy and other arms of Nigerian security forces provide security for oil production in Niger Delta.

Whether a retired Naval officer has the silver bullet to succeed where politicians are faltering as River State’s administrator remains to be seen.

*Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security and Governance Communication*

 

 

By Perpetua Onuegbu

Abuja: (NAN) The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Mr Nentawe Yilwatda, has urged support from non-governmental organisations to solve humanitarian challenges of over 15 million poor households in Nigeria.

Yilwatda said this at the 47th Lions Day with the United Nations celebration in Abuja with the theme: “The Future of Service Assured through Collaborative Approach”.

According to him, the UN has been the strongest partner the country has in addressing humanitarian challenges confronting the country.

He said government cannot do it alone and needed the collaboration, commitment and courage by partners like the Lions club, that had been at the forefront of solving these challenges for over a century.

“I’ve come for us to stand together with the belief that the future of service is not just bright, it is assured, as long as we work together.

“We want to ensure that 15 million households benefit from 75000 naira but we are not just giving money, we are also giving financial literacy to them.

“We are supporting 15 million households, averaging at 4 people per household, targeting 60 million Nigerians to benefit from it.

“We’ve already had 5.5 million Nigerians benefit from it, so we are still left with nine plus million people that are still targets and that will be done before the year runs out.”

He said that in order to be impactful and reach the number of the people intended , collective goodwill must be translated to lasting change and not just temporary relief to people who are suffering.

“How do we make the next 46 years have greater impact and a lasting effect in the heart of people?

“The answer lay in what the lion stands for; collaboration, commitment and courage,”Yilwatda said.

Mrs Beatrice Eyong, Representative of the UN Women to Nigeria and ECOWAS, representing Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations at the event, said partnership remained key to solving human problems.

According to her, the partnership the UN has with the club is institutional partnership since 1945, that is focused on service to humanity, especially as it concerned the 17 goals of the sustainable development.

“Actually, what I will say is that they should continue to do what they have been doing and continue to work together within the organisation but continue also to improve on partnerships.

“Looking at the way we find ourselves in the world now, the fact that funding is reducing, some donor countries have totally reduced their funding. It, therefore, means there must be people who are willing to provide their services for the good of humanity and the environment.

“So Lions Club should continue what they are doing but should increase in its partnerships because the challenge is so big that we say they should also partner with other organisations and institutions to render service to humanity,” Eyong said.

Speaking also at the celebration, Mr Anogwi Anyanwu, Multiple Council Chairperson, Lions Club Nigeria, District 404, said the club wanted to use the theme of the year to build a network of assistance for humanity.

“We want to collaborate with other non-governmental organisations, the government, corporate organisations, so that we can mobilise resources to serve the needs of humanity in hunger relief, environmental sustainability, diabetes, eyesight preservation, humanitarian service, children’s cancer.

“These are problems that exist that sometimes, the people that it affects have no capacity to help themselves.

“So the job Lions do is to bring together, all the people with capacity to bring their time, treasure and talent so that we can solve humanity in need.

Anyanwu said the Lions Day with the United Nations is an international celebration and 2025 celebration would be in Lions Club locations in Nairobi Kenya, New York, and in Vienna, Austria and Nigeria.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the club was established in 1917 in Chicago, U.S., with focus on eight areas which included diabetes, sight, youth empowerment, pediatric cancer, among other humanitarian services.

NAN also reports that in 1978, the club started celebrating the relationship between it and the UN under Lions Day with the UN and this is the 47th edition.(NAN)

 

By Flowerbudnews
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has felicitated with Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu State on his 53rd birthday anniversary.

The Chairman of IPMAN Enugu Depot Unit, Mr Chinedu Anyaso, made the congratulatory message in a statement issued to newsmen on Tuesday in Enugu.

Anyaso also called on Gov. Mbah to sustain the giant and enviable strides on development especially on robust and technology-led security measures within Enugu State, which had enhanced business both in day and night hours.

“On behalf of myself, my family and the entire members of the IPMAN Enugu Depot Unit, we wish you a wonderful and fulfilling 53 years birthday.

“As we celebrate your nativity today, we thank God for granting us a great leader who have transformed the length and breadth of Enugu State in all developmental fronts.

“Our prayers is that the good Lord grant you many more beautiful years ahead in good health and abundant grace.

“May His Light always illuminate your path; as indeed it is a new dawn for us in Enugu State. Once again happy birthday His Excellency,” he said.

 

By Flowerbudnews

The Chief Imam of the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Lt.-Col. Husein Eleje, has called for the adoption of Zakkat as a means of wealth redistribution and socioeconomic balance in the society.

Zakkat is a fundamental pillar of Islam and an obligatory form of charity that requires Muslims to allocate a portion of their wealth to those in need.

Speaking with newsmen on Friday in Enugu, Eleje said that implementing the principles of Zakkat could greatly benefit Nigeria and its citizens.

According to him, the primary objectives of paying Zakkat include economic empowerment, wealth redistribution, and providing support to the less privileged, ultimately fostering socioeconomic stability.

He said, “It is for the welfare of people especially the Muslim Ummal (community); however, the concept can be applied to the larger society.

“Zakkat, which is an induction (commandment) in the Holy Quran is charity from the rich and wealthy given to the needy people, who may not necessarily be the poorest of the poor.

“The wealthy, rich and well-to-do people are people who pay Zakkat primarily.

“The essence of Zakkat is to ensure that nobody is as poor, to alleviate the suffering of the common people in the society and that everybody should be supported.”

The cleric noted that with proper implementation of Zakkat, “nobody should experience abject poverty.

“It is a form of social responsibility for the wealthy and leaders to ensure that everybody has something to eat and a means to solve their immediate problems.”

According to the chief imam, there are three types of Zakkat as specified by the Holy Quran.

“The first, is the one payable compulsorily by the rich (in animals, successful business moguls or other types of wealth or uplift), which involve a certain percentage of their profit annually also known as Nisab.

“Second, is the Zakkat-el-Fitr, which is virtually paid by all Muslims at the end of the Ramadan fasting to the needy around to ensure that no one lacks items used in celebrating idi (sallah) and it signifies end of the fasting.

“The third is the ordinary alms giving, which is not compulsory. You can be moving along the road, see the needy and drop whatever you are compassionately willing to give to them,” he added.

 

 

 

By Flowerbudnews
The Chairman of Isi-Uzo Local Government Area in Enugu State, Mr Obiora Obeagu, says the council has waded into harassment, humiliation and forceful detention of indigenes of Eha-Amufu community by misguided individuals.

There were reports reaching newsmen on Thursday that yet-to-be identified individuals are using group of local women to attack, humiliate and forcefully detain indigenes of Eha-Amufu who spoke to newsmen recently against an unfounded protest video circulated in social media.

The community leaders and Isi-Uzo council chairman, while addressing journalists on fact-finding mission on Sunday, debunked the unfounded and fake video allegedly that scores of people were raped and killed in the community recently by unknown gunmen.

Obeagu told newsmen on Thursday in a telephone interview that the council leadership had visited some of the victims and their family members that were threatened, attacked and detained within the community.

“Yes, I have been on the matter since morning and I have met some of the victims and their families.

“I made sure that they also made statement at the police station and to security agencies concerning the negative treatment and humiliation meted on them.

“We are following up on that. What is happening in Eha-Amufu is going beyond unfounded protest.

“I am trying to handle it carefully so that it doesn’t extend into further crisis in the community,” the chairman said.

Earlier, a community leader and activist, Mr Richard Ogenyi, alleged that after the 2023 Governorship Election, some hoodlums in Eha-Amufu had been “threatening anybody they perceived is in support of the current administration in the state.”

According to him, at the weekend, a team of journalists numbering about 30 from different media organisations came on a fact-finding mission in Eha-Amufu in respect of the menace herdsmen are causing in our community.

“As it stands today, anybody that granted them an interview to express the truth on ground; have been attacked and detained by uninformed women being used by their sponsors.

“This morning, March 20, 2025, they came after me and as I was not at home, they forcefully took my wife to Afor Mgbuji Market in Eha Amufu where she was humiliated,” the community leader said.

Ogenyi called on the state and local government authorities as well as security agencies to come to their rescue in the community.