Plateau Gov Mutfwang Apologises To Igbo Over Civil War Role

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July 21, 2026

Plateau Gov Mutfwang Apologises To Igbo Over Civil War Role

Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang apologized to the Igbo community Monday for the state’s role during the Nigerian Civil War, telling a gathering of Igbo leaders that Plateau’s people had been “deceived” into participating in the conflict, according to a report by The Guardian.

Mutfwang made the apology during an interactive session with Igbo leaders from Plateau’s 17 local government areas at the Government House in Little Rayfield, Jos. He urged both communities to move past the episode and deepen ties between them.

“I apologise to the Igbos so that we can put the past behind us and continue to foster unity. We have become one family because our people were deceived into going to war, and we regret it,” Mutfwang said, calling on residents to close that chapter and build a shared future.

The governor credited the Igbo community with contributing significantly to Plateau’s socio-economic development, describing its members as integral to the state’s growth. He noted Plateau has remained one of Nigeria’s more accommodating states for Igbo residents since the war ended, and recalled that compensation had previously been paid for some losses suffered during the conflict.

Mutfwang also appealed directly to Igbo entrepreneurs operating in Plateau, asking them to extend mentorship and investment opportunities to young Plateau indigenes. “Nigeria is a great country, and no ethnic group has demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit more than the Igbo. I encourage you to replicate that same spirit in Plateau,” he said.

The meeting produced a political dividend for Mutfwang beyond the reconciliation gesture: Igbo community leaders used the gathering to formally endorse him as their consensus candidate for the 2027 governorship election. President-General of the Igbo Community in Plateau State, Chief Chidi Onah, announced the endorsement, citing Mutfwang’s handling of resources and record on peaceful coexistence.

“We hereby endorse Governor Caleb Mutfwang as the consensus candidate of the Igbo community for the 2027 governorship election. This endorsement is based on his competence, integrity, proven leadership and commitment to equity,” Onah said, adding that the governor had stood by the community during the death of its traditional ruler and had engaged stakeholders to promote unity among Plateau’s diverse ethnic groups.

Onah separately credited Mutfwang for compensating some community members over disputed properties and noted that Igbo people have lived in Plateau since before Nigeria’s 1960 independence, framing the community’s presence in the state as long-standing rather than recent.

Read Also: 2027: Sokoto ADC Picks Rep Ambarura As Deputy Gov Candidate

Former Igbo Community Association President-General Mike Okunonke told the gathering the endorsement rested on performance rather than party loyalty. “We will vote for personalities, not political parties. Governor Mutfwang has demonstrated capacity by creating opportunities and reducing unemployment. We will mobilise our members across the 17 local government areas to support him,” Okunonke said.

The governor’s Special Adviser on Igbo Affairs, Barr. Jonah Okechukwu Ezekweme, urged community members to back Mutfwang’s second-term bid while continuing to partner with the state government on employment and business initiatives for young people. High Chief Felix O. Akpunku, who welcomed attendees on the governor’s behalf, praised Mutfwang’s development projects across the state.

The session also featured the formal presentation of Onah as the new President-General of the Igbo Community Association, handed over by outgoing President-General Chief Mike Ifeanyi Okunonke. Other speakers, including Chief Dr. Nelson Mkparu and Hon. Maureen Odilimuo, praised the governor’s engagement with the community and pledged continued cooperation.

Read Also: Police Restore Calm In Osogbo As NURTW Factions Clash Again

Plateau State sits within Nigeria’s Middle Belt, a region whose involvement in the 1967-1970 civil war has drawn less sustained public attention than that of the war’s principal Eastern Region and federal military government combatants. The conflict, fought after the Eastern Region declared itself the Republic of Biafra, drew federal forces from across Nigeria’s regions, including areas now comprising present-day Plateau State, into military campaigns against Biafran forces. Public apologies from state governments for regional participation in the war remain uncommon in Nigerian politics, making Mutfwang’s remarks a notable departure from how the conflict is typically addressed by sitting officials, most of whom avoid direct commentary on the war’s regional culpability.

The meeting closed with both the Plateau State Government and the Igbo community reaffirming commitments to peaceful coexistence and continued collaboration, though no specific policy measures or timelines were announced as outcomes of the session.

The Eastern Updates

2027: Sokoto ADC Picks Rep Ambarura As Deputy Gov Candidate

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Marv

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July 21, 2026

The African Democratic Congress named Bello Ambarura, the House of Representatives member for Illela/Gwadabawa Federal Constituency, as its deputy governorship candidate for Sokoto State’s 2027 election, pairing him with governorship candidate Manir Muhammad Dan-Iya.

The party disclosed the nomination in a Monday statement signed by its Sokoto State Publicity Secretary, Lamir Aminu, who said the decision followed extensive internal consultations and was made in accordance with Section 187(1) of the 1999 Constitution, the provision governing the nomination of running mates for governorship elections in Nigeria.

“The nomination was made in accordance with Section 187(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), following wide consultations and careful consideration of the qualities required to build a strong, competent and people-oriented leadership team for Sokoto State,” Aminu said.

The party described Ambarura as a career public administrator who rose through the ranks of the Sokoto State Civil Service to become a Permanent Secretary before serving as Commissioner for Commerce and Industries. He was elected to the Sokoto State House of Assembly in 2019, where he served as Majority Leader until 2023, before winning election to the House of Representatives, where he currently represents Illela/Gwadabawa Federal Constituency.

Aminu said Ambarura’s background in both administration and legislative service would strengthen the ticket alongside Dan-Iya. “His extensive experience in public administration and legislative service will complement the vision and leadership of His Excellency, Hon. Manir Muhammad Dan-Iya, as the ADC presents a capable, credible and people-centred ticket for the 2027 governorship election,” he said.

The party congratulated Ambarura on the nomination and called on ADC members, supporters, and Sokoto State residents to rally behind the Dan-Iya/Ambarura ticket ahead of the 2027 election.

Read Also: Police Restore Calm In Osogbo As NURTW Factions Clash Again

Ambarura’s move from the National Assembly to a state-level running-mate slot places him in a familiar pattern in Nigerian politics, where sitting federal lawmakers step down from re-election bids to pursue state executive positions, calculations often shaped by term limits, shifting party alignments, or a candidate’s assessment of where their political base offers the strongest path to office. His transition from the Sokoto State House of Assembly, where he held a leadership post as Majority Leader, to the federal legislature and now to a gubernatorial ticket reflects a conventional trajectory through Nigeria’s tiered elective structure, from state assembly to National Assembly to statewide executive contention.

The ADC has positioned itself as an alternative to Nigeria’s two dominant parties, the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party, in a number of states ahead of the 2027 general election cycle, part of a broader realignment among opposition figures and defectors from larger parties seeking new political platforms. Sokoto State, located in Nigeria’s northwest and long considered a PDP stronghold under previous administrations, has seen shifting party fortunes in recent election cycles as APC and other parties have made competitive inroads in the region.

Read Also: Wike Performance Exposes Governors Shortfalls, Says Eradiri

Dan-Iya’s own political background and prior public roles were not detailed in Monday’s statement, which focused primarily on introducing Ambarura as his running mate rather than outlining the ticket’s platform or policy priorities for the 2027 race.

No date has been set for the ADC’s formal campaign launch in Sokoto State, and the statement did not indicate whether Ambarura would resign his House of Representatives seat ahead of the 2027 election or continue serving through the remainder of his current legislative term while campaigning.

The Eastern Updates

Police Restore Calm In Osogbo As NURTW Factions Clash Again

By

Marv

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July 20, 2026

Police Restore Calm In Osogbo As NURTW Factions Clash Again

The Osun State Police Command said Monday it had restored order in Osogbo after clashes broke out between rival factions of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, following a protest over restricted access to a motor park.

The violence began when members of one NURTW faction protested after being allegedly barred from entering a motor park by the dominant faction, the command said in a statement issued by Police Public Relations Officer Abiodun Ojelabi. The protest escalated into clashes involving another union faction, disrupting public peace and commercial activity in parts of the state capital.

“The Osun State Police Command has express deep concern over the unfortunate incident that occurred today 20th July, 2026,” the command said, describing the escalation from a garage-access dispute into inter-factional violence in Osogbo.

Police said officers responded swiftly after receiving distress calls about the disruption, using minimal force to disperse the protesters and restore normalcy. Officers have since been stationed at motor parks across the state to prevent further breakdowns in law and order, according to the statement.

The command called on leaders and members of the affected factions to cease hostilities immediately and pursue peaceful dialogue instead, urging them to channel grievances to the appropriate authorities rather than resorting to confrontation. It also appealed to stakeholders to refrain from actions that could escalate tensions while the question of which faction should manage the disputed motor parks is resolved through proper channels.

Police and other security agencies have been directed to maintain law and order, protect lives and property, and carry out a thorough, impartial investigation into the clash, the command said, warning that anyone found to have engaged in violence or other criminal conduct during the unrest would be prosecuted.

Read Also: Wike Performance Exposes Governors Shortfalls, Says Eradiri

Commissioner of Police Ibrahim Gotan advised Osun residents to remain calm, continue their lawful activities, and cooperate with security agencies by providing credible information related to the incident. The command separately cautioned the public against circulating unverified reports capable of causing panic or worsening the situation.

The statement did not disclose the number of people injured, arrested, or detained in connection with Monday’s clash, nor did it identify the specific motor park where the initial access dispute occurred or name the leadership of the rival factions involved.

Read Also: PCN Seals 505 Illegal Drug Outlets Across Cross River State

Disputes over motor park control are a recurring source of conflict within Nigeria’s road transport union structure, where NURTW factions, often tied to competing local leadership or political patronage networks, have clashed in various states over the right to collect levies and manage vehicle access at commercially valuable terminals. Motor parks generate significant daily revenue through loading fees and levies charged to commercial drivers, making control over a park’s management a frequent flashpoint between rival union factions nationwide, with Osun State among several states that have recorded similar factional confrontations in past years.

The command’s statement stopped short of indicating which faction, if either, holds official recognition to manage the motor park at the center of Monday’s dispute, framing that determination as a matter for “relevant authorities” to resolve rather than something police intend to arbitrate directly. No timeline was given for when that determination would be made, or when the broader investigation into the clash is expected to conclude. As of the police command’s statement, no arrests had been publicly announced in connection with Monday’s violence.

The Eastern Updates

Wike Performance Exposes Governors Shortfalls, Says Eradiri

By

Marv

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July 19, 2026

Former Bayelsa State governorship candidate Udengs Eradiri said Sunday that FCT Minister Nyesom Wike’s development record in Abuja has exposed widespread underperformance among Nigeria’s state governors, arguing that the country’s infrastructure problems stem from state-level mismanagement rather than federal neglect.

Eradiri, a former President of the Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide, made the comments in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, crediting Wike with transforming the Federal Capital Territory within the resources available to him in under four years while narrowing the development gap between Abuja city and its satellite towns.

“Wike’s performance has taught us that the problems of underdevelopment in Nigeria have little or nothing to do with the Federal Government, but a lot to do with many state governors and local government chairmen, who deliberately misuse, misappropriate and misdirect the enormous resources accruing to their states,” Eradiri said.

He argued that most governors lack the commitment needed to execute infrastructure projects capable of transforming their states, characterizing many as driven by “selfish and family interests” who treat state resources as personal property.

Eradiri framed Wike’s tenure as a benchmark for evaluating the impact of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, noting that over the preceding 30 days, Wike and Tinubu had continued inaugurating completed projects and launching new ones across the FCT and its satellite towns. He credited Wike’s approach with breaking through bureaucratic and procurement bottlenecks while holding contractors to project specifications and agreed timelines.

According to Eradiri, Wike’s project selection has prioritized rural development and visible impact for ordinary residents, including the completion of projects left abandoned for years before Tinubu’s administration took office.

He then posed a series of pointed questions aimed at sitting governors. “If a minister could deliver such a number of high-impact, people-oriented and high-quality projects within a single term, why are many governors failing to transform their states despite the huge resources accruing to them, especially under President Tinubu’s administration?” Eradiri asked, adding that abandoned projects, communities without access roads, and areas lacking electricity, functional primary healthcare centers, and potable water reflect what he called governors’ basic incompetence.

Eradiri tied his critique directly to Nigeria’s recent fiscal reforms, arguing that the increased federal allocations flowing to states under Tinubu’s economic changes leave governors with no legitimate excuse for underperformance. He said no governor should be able to cite rising costs or exchange rate fluctuations as justification for stalled development, noting that Wike operates under the same economic conditions while still delivering completed projects in the FCT.

Read Also: PCN Seals 505 Illegal Drug Outlets Across Cross River State

He called on governors to convert groundbreaking ceremonies into actual project inaugurations at the same pace Wike has maintained in Abuja, and urged them to channel rising state revenues toward addressing infrastructure deficits in both urban and rural areas. “They should justify the revenue surge to their states by delivering tangible projects the way the FCT minister has done in Abuja. The people will no longer tolerate excuses,” Eradiri said.

Wike, a former two-term governor of Rivers State, was appointed FCT Minister following Tinubu’s inauguration in 2023, taking charge of an administrative territory that combines the functions of a state government with direct federal oversight, since the FCT has no elected governor of its own and is instead run through ministerial appointment. That structural difference means Wike’s position is not directly comparable to that of an elected state governor: FCT infrastructure spending draws on both federal budgetary allocations and land-related revenue streams specific to the territory’s status as the seat of government, a funding mix distinct from the statutory allocations and internally generated revenue that constitute most states’ budgets.

Read Also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 10

Eradiri’s remarks arrive amid a broader increase in monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee disbursements to Nigeria’s 36 states since 2023, driven by the removal of the fuel subsidy and unification of the foreign exchange market under Tinubu’s economic reform program, changes that have significantly raised the naira value of federal transfers to subnational governments even as the reforms simultaneously drove up the cost of imported materials and equipment used in infrastructure projects nationwide.

Eradiri did not name specific governors or states in his statement, framing his criticism as directed at underperforming state leadership generally rather than at named individuals.

The Eastern Updates

PCN Seals 505 Illegal Drug Outlets Across Cross River State

By

Marv

-

July 17, 2026

PCN Seals 505 Illegal Drug Outlets Across Cross River State

The Pharmacy Council of Nigeria sealed 505 illegal and non-compliant drug premises in Cross River State following a four-day enforcement sweep, after inspectors found nearly half of all shops checked were operating outside the council’s regulatory framework. The council disclosed the results at a Friday press briefing in Calabar, saying the operation covered 602 premises across 10 local government areas and found 48.3 percent operating illegally, a figure the council’s Registrar described as a “decimal performance of regulation” in the state.

Pharm. Ibrahim Babashehu Ahmed, the council’s Registrar, addressed journalists through a representative, Dr. Suleiman Chiroma, who broke down the enforcement figures. Inspectors uncovered 291 fully illegal outlets, all of which were sealed on the spot. A further 54 licensed pharmacies and 160 patent medicine stores were found in breach of regulatory requirements and establishment guidelines, though not immediately shut down. Thirteen compliance directives were issued to operators, giving them an opportunity to correct identified infractions.

Chiroma cited the case of Mrs. Ezea Asidora Kamchekwube, who ran two unlicensed shops in Calabar and was recently sentenced to eight years in prison by the Federal High Court, as a marker of the council’s shift toward legal consequences beyond administrative sanctions. “The recent case… is a signal and proof that Pharmacy Council of Nigeria enforcement now carries real legal weight,” he said.

The compliance figures extended beyond the outright illegal outlets. Chiroma said only 42.5 percent of registered pharmacies inspected were fully compliant, while just 26.8 percent of patent medicine vendors met regulatory standards, indicating that a substantial share of licensed operators also fell short of required standards.

Violations documented during the sweep ranged from operating without valid licenses and maintaining poor storage conditions to unauthorized access to controlled medicines and unsupervised training of apprentices. Chiroma warned that these conditions could allow diverted drugs to reach criminal networks, describing many of the flagged premises as run by “quacks and untrained persons who are not accountable to any statutory authority.”

He urged Cross River residents to purchase medicines only from outlets displaying a valid PCN license, warning that medicines handled by untrained persons raise the risk of treatment failure, antimicrobial resistance, and avoidable deaths, while adding to the financial burden on patients already managing healthcare costs.

Read Also: FG Sets December 2028 Date For Final Analogue TV Switch-Off

Chiroma tied the enforcement drive to the Federal Government’s Universal Health Coverage agenda, arguing that the policy’s goals cannot be met without a supply chain that guarantees access to safe, quality-assured medicines. He commended Cross River residents for cooperating with enforcement teams and said monitoring would remain continuous, with immediate sanctions for any premises found violating regulations going forward.

The scale of non-compliance uncovered in Cross River fits a pattern PCN has documented in other states during past enforcement drives, where informal and patent medicine vendors, often operating without pharmacist supervision, account for a large share of Nigeria’s drug retail sector outside major urban pharmacy chains. Patent medicine stores are licensed under a separate, more limited regulatory tier than full pharmacies, permitted to sell a restricted range of over-the-counter medicines, but inspectors nationwide have repeatedly found such outlets stocking prescription-only and controlled substances beyond their licensed scope.

The Kamchekwube case Chiroma referenced marks one of the more severe criminal penalties handed down in connection with unlicensed drug sales in Nigeria in recent memory, an eight-year custodial sentence rather than the fines or premises closures that have historically been the primary enforcement tool available to PCN. Chiroma’s decision to highlight the case suggests the council is positioning it as a precedent intended to deter other unlicensed operators, particularly as the council pushes to distinguish its current enforcement posture from past cycles of inspection and closure that critics have said failed to permanently curb illegal drug retailing.

Read Also: Appeal Court Reserves Judgment On Deregistration Of ADC

The council did not specify a timeline for re-inspecting the 214 licensed pharmacies and patent medicine stores found in partial breach, nor did it disclose what specific sanctions, beyond the compliance directives already issued, those operators face if violations remain uncorrected. Chiroma’s statement also did not address whether the 291 sealed illegal outlets would face criminal referral similar to the Kamchekwube case, or whether their closure was purely administrative.

With enforcement continuing, the council indicated further inspections across Cross River’s remaining local government areas, and potentially other states, would follow, though no specific schedule was announced.

The Eastern Updates

The Bloodline Execution — Part 10

By

Staff-0001

-

July 16, 2026

The Old Order on Trial

Polygyny, Christianity, Colonial Law, Feminist Critique, and the Battle Over African Family Memory

Forensic classification: Cultural investigation; documentary record; customary-law and kinship analysis.

By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze

The last part of Volume I places African polygyny before its accusers — missionary Christianity, colonial law, statutory monogamy, liberal rights discourse, feminist critique, urban respectability, the language of public health — and grants at the outset that the accusers are not frivolous. Women have been harmed in plural homes. Girls have been coerced. Inheritance has discriminated. Men have abused custom. Children have suffered where resources were thin and favoritism strong. A defense that cannot admit this is propaganda, and this series will not offer one.

The charges deserve their full weight. Christianity and colonial law recast plural marriage first as sin and then as legal nullity, and in doing so sometimes shielded women from coercion the compound tolerated (Agadjanian, 2020; Mair, 1969). The feminist critique correctly names the asymmetry at the institution’s core: a right extended to men and withheld from women is not neutral, whatever social function it serves. The economic critique quantifies real costs, arguing that polygyny distorts marriage markets and suppresses investment (Tertilt, 2005). And the public-health literature spent a generation, with genuine data, classifying polygyny as a harmful cultural practice. None of this can be honestly dismissed.

But an honest trial cross-examines the accusers too, and here the record has shifted under them. The public-health verdict in particular has not survived its own scrutiny: when the aggregated data behind the harmful-practice label were disaggregated, the association weakened, vanished, or reversed, and the field’s own reviewers now urge a more nuanced stance (Lawson et al., 2015; Lawson & Gibson, 2018). Colonial monogamy law, meanwhile, did not reliably protect women; it frequently stripped customary wives of recognized status and left them worse off, converting co-wives into legally invisible dependents. The accusers arrived certain, and several of their certainties have not aged well.

Read also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 9

The verdict Volume I returns is therefore narrow and, direct, because it is narrow, defensible. Polygyny is not vindicated as such, and it is not condemned as such. What survives cross-examination is the distinction the whole volume has pressed: the ordered, provisioned, witnessed compound — where duty outran appetite and the woman and child held standing — is a serious institution the caricature cannot touch; the disordered counterfeit — coercive, hidden, unprovided — is guilty of most of what the accusers describe, and the same evidence convicts it (White, 1988; Zeitzen, 2008). The trial does not acquit the institution wholesale. It sorts it.

And it prepares the ground the series will now stand on. If descent was a working institution with real obligations — if a child was a claimant and a woman a person with a place — then the questions Volume II will raise about the womb and its concealment are not moralizing abstractions but continuations of the same forensic argument: who is owed what, by whom, on what record (Chae & Agadjanian, 2022). Volume I built the floor and tried the old order honestly upon it. Volume II will ask what that order’s collapse has cost the most defenseless party of all.

Read also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 8

Part 10 is assembled as a trial transcript: the accusation stated at full strength, the evidence for it weighed, the cross-examination entered, and the verdict tied to the record rather than to sentiment on either side. It is the model the whole series follows — not a defense and not a prosecution, but a case built until the finding can survive appeal.

Forensic Diagram Set

Evidence Docket

Seven-source APA 7 record for this installment. Entries verified for authorship and publication details.

Agadjanian, V. (2020). Condemned and condoned: Polygynous marriage in Christian Africa. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(2), 751–768. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12624

Chae, S., & Agadjanian, V. (2022). The transformation of polygyny in sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 48(4), 1125–1162. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12524

Lawson, D. W., & Gibson, M. A. (2018). Polygynous marriage and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: What is the evidence for harm? Demographic Research, 39, 177–208. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2018.39.6

Lawson, D. W., James, S., Ngadaya, E., Ngowi, B., Mfinanga, S. G. M., & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2015). No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(45), 13827–13832. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1507151112

Mair, L. P. (1969). African marriage and social change. Frank Cass.

Tertilt, M. (2005). Polygyny, fertility, and savings. Journal of Political Economy, 113(6), 1341–1371.

White, D. R. (1988). Rethinking polygyny: Co-wives, codes, and cultural systems. Current Anthropology, 29(4), 529–572.

The Eastern Updates

FG Sets December 2028 Date For Final Analogue TV Switch-Off

By

Marv

-

July 15, 2026

FG Sets December 2028 Date For Final Analogue TV Switch-Off

The Federal Government has set December 2028 as the deadline for Nigeria’s final switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting, the National Broadcasting Commission’s Director-General, Charles Ebuebu, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.

Ebuebu described the date as marking the final analogue switch-off, framing it as the endpoint of a multi-phase process rather than a single cutover. “We put a timeline for analogue switch-off. Before that time, a lot of things will be put in place. This is just phase one,” he said.

Subsequent phases, according to Ebuebu, will address pay television services, studio development, and the establishment of designated production centers for content creators. He said the commission plans to disclose these phases publicly only after consultations with key stakeholders, including the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, to secure industry buy-in before implementation.

Ebuebu also pointed to progress on audience measurement, an area tied to how broadcasters and advertisers will value content and airtime in a digital environment. He said a proof of concept had been completed covering roughly 7,000 homes in Lagos, with implementation now underway in Abuja.

A central piece of the transition, Ebuebu said, is the spectrum freed up once analogue broadcasting ends. He described the freed spectrum as a strategic national asset that will be professionally valued before being allocated to sectors including telecommunications, applications, and financial services. Asked to estimate its worth, Ebuebu declined to name a precise figure but said the value runs upward of $50 billion, pending assessment by external consultants who will determine the actual valuation ahead of allocation.

On the question of obsolete broadcasting equipment rendered unusable by the switch, Ebuebu said the commission is developing a policy informed by expert input and international best practices. He said the Digital Switch Over White Paper requires broadcasters to separate content production from signal transmission, with transmission handled by dedicated signal distributors such as NIGCOMSAT. Where possible, he said, obsolete analogue equipment may be repurposed, while government involvement will be sought to absorb assets that cannot be reused, in order to prevent environmental hazards from accumulating industrial waste.

Read Also: Appeal Court Reserves Judgment On Deregistration Of ADC

Nigeria’s digital switchover has a history of missed deadlines dating back more than a decade. The country initially committed to switching from analogue to digital terrestrial television as part of a global standard set by the International Telecommunication Union, which had set June 2015 as a target date for member states to complete the transition. Nigeria missed that date, along with several subsequent internally set targets, as previous rollout phases in cities including Jos, Abuja, and other pilot locations faced funding gaps, decoder distribution problems, and coordination issues between broadcasters and signal distributors.

The separation of content production from transmission, which Ebuebu cited as a requirement of the Digital Switch Over White Paper, reflects a structural model used in several countries’ digital broadcasting transitions, where a small number of licensed signal distributors carry multiple broadcasters’ content over shared digital multiplexes rather than each station operating its own standalone analogue transmitter. NIGCOMSAT’s role as a signal distributor under this framework positions the state-owned satellite operator as a key infrastructure provider in the new broadcasting architecture, alongside any other distributors the NBC may license.

Read Also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 9

The spectrum to be freed by the analogue switch-off falls within frequency bands globally recognized as valuable for mobile broadband and other wireless services, which is the basis for Ebuebu’s characterization of the asset’s multi-billion-dollar worth. Countries that have completed similar digital switchovers have typically auctioned or allocated the freed spectrum to telecommunications operators seeking capacity for expanding data services, a process Ebuebu indicated Nigeria intends to follow once professional valuation is complete.

No specific figures were given for how many Nigerian households currently rely on analogue signals, nor did Ebuebu specify a cost estimate for the broader digital migration infrastructure, decoder subsidies, or compensation for broadcasters affected by the equipment transition.

The Eastern Updates

The Bloodline Execution — Part 9

By

Staff-0001

-

July 15, 2026

The Compound Against Chaos

Customary Polygyny as Social Insurance Against Abandonment, Illegitimacy, and Lineage Fragmentation

Forensic classification: Cultural investigation; documentary record; customary-law and kinship analysis.

By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze

The compound was a social-insurance device before insurance became paperwork. It absorbed shocks — death, infertility, widowhood, child mortality, hunger, labor shortage, orphanhood, old age, failed harvests, the absence of men — that routinely break the thin nuclear household, especially in its urban form. The old compound was built to bend without breaking.

This is not nostalgia; it is institutional analysis. A large kin household could spread labor, food, childcare, and elder care across more bodies and more hands. Co-wives who were rivals in good times could become each other’s emergency support in bad ones; a child who lost a mother could remain inside a known house rather than falling through to the street (White & Burton, 1988; Fortes, 1949). Where an anthropologist sees kinship, an actuary sees risk-pooling — and the compound pooled exactly the risks a subsistence world produced in abundance.

Read also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 8

Read this way, even the demographic features the modern critic dislikes acquire a logic. High fertility, plural marriage, and wide fostering were not failures to modernize; they were a considered response to precarity in a world without pensions, insurance, or reliable medicine (Caldwell & Caldwell, 1987; Goody, 1973). And the evidence that the resilience was real, not only claimed, survives in the food-security and household data: where the provisioning structure held, polygynous households were not the fragile units the aggregate once implied, and their members could weather shocks that isolated households could not (Lawson et al., 2015; Murdock, 1959).

The objection is fair and pointed: insurance that pools risk on the backs of women is not benign, and resilience can be a euphemism for female labor absorbing every shock the household meets. The series accepts the charge as a limit on the argument, not a refutation of it. The compound’s insurance was real and it was unequally funded — both are true. But the modern alternative it is measured against is not a generous welfare state; for most of the people in question it is nothing at all — the isolated urban household with no pool to draw on, where a single death or lost job is catastrophic. To notice that the compound absorbed shocks is not to deny who carried the weight; it is to ask what replaced it, and to observe that for many the honest answer is: nothing did.

Read also: The Bloodline Execution — Part 7

The disappearance of the compound, then, is not simply moral progress; it is the removal of an insurance system that has not been replaced. The secret second family, the abandoned mother, the child raised on intermittent transfers — these are not only moral failures. They are uninsured risks that the old order used to pool and the new order leaves to fall where they land (Chae & Agadjanian, 2022).

Part 9 reconstructs the compound as a risk-pooling system: who was absorbed when a parent died, how orphans and widows were placed, how food and labor moved between houses in a bad season. Set against the modern cases of children left uninsured by concealment, the contrast measures exactly what was lost when the pool was dismantled and nothing took its place.

Forensic Diagram Set

Evidence Docket

Seven-source APA 7 record for this installment. Entries verified for authorship and publication details.

Caldwell, J. C., & Caldwell, P. (1987). The cultural context of high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 13(3), 409–437.

Chae, S., & Agadjanian, V. (2022). The transformation of polygyny in sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 48(4), 1125–1162. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12524

Fortes, M. (1949). The web of kinship among the Tallensi. Oxford University Press.

Goody, J. (1973). Bridewealth and dowry in Africa and Eurasia. In J. Goody & S. J. Tambiah (Eds.), Bridewealth and dowry (pp. 1–58). Cambridge University Press.

Lawson, D. W., James, S., Ngadaya, E., Ngowi, B., Mfinanga, S. G. M., & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2015). No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(45), 13827–13832. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1507151112

Murdock, G. P. (1959). Africa: Its peoples and their culture history. McGraw-Hill.

White, D. R., & Burton, M. L. (1988). Causes of polygyny: Ecology, economy, kinship, and warfare. American Anthropologist, 90(4), 871–887. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1988.90.4.02a00060

The Eastern Updates

Appeal Court Reserves Judgment On Deregistration Of ADC

By

Staff-0001

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July 14, 2026

Appeal Court Reserves Judgment On Deregistration Of ADC

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has reserved judgement in the appeals seeking to set aside the judgement of the Federal High Court that ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to deregister the African Democratic Congress, ADC, and four other political parties.

A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Abba Bello Mohammed, on Tuesday reserved judgement to a date to be communicated to the parties after they adopted their respective briefs of argument.

Apart from the ADC, the other political parties challenging the Federal High Court’s judgement delivered by Justice Peter Odo Lifu are the Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party (AP), and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

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The Court of Appeal had, on June 16, granted a stay of execution of the High Court’s judgement and took a swipe at Justice Lifu for refusing to stay proceedings in the matter as ordered by the appellate court, despite its higher position in the judicial hierarchy.

The appellate court held that Justice Lifu ignored its earlier order of May 22 directing him to stay proceedings pending the determination of an interlocutory appeal against his ruling, despite being notified of the order.

The Court of Appeal described his conduct as “a form of judicial impertinence,” noting that the Supreme Court had previously held that such conduct amounts to “judicial rascality” and is unbecoming of a judicial officer.

Justice Lifu had ordered INEC to deregister the five political parties on the grounds that they failed to meet the constitutional requirements necessary to retain their registration.

The court also restrained INEC from recognising the affected parties, accepting nominations from them, or allowing them to participate in the 2027 general elections.

Justice Lifu further ordered the parties to stop presenting themselves as registered political parties, holding that the suit filed by the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL) had merit.

A body operating under the aegis of the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL) instituted the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026, against the five political parties.

The NFFL, through its lawyer, Rabo Mohammed, argued before the High Court that INEC has a constitutional obligation under Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the Electoral Act 2022, and the INEC Regulations to deregister political parties that fail to meet the prescribed electoral performance thresholds.

The plaintiff maintained that the affected parties failed to satisfy the constitutional benchmarks, including winning at least 25 per cent of the votes in a state during a presidential election or securing at least one elective seat at the federal, state, or local government level.

According to the NFFL, the ADC and the four other parties failed to meet these requirements in the 2023 general elections and subsequent by-elections, making their continued recognition by INEC unlawful.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who is also a defendant in the suit, supported the plaintiff’s position.

In his court filings, the AGF argued that allowing the parties to remain registered violates the provisions of the Constitution and undermines the integrity of Nigeria’s electoral system.

He further contended that INEC would continue to breach its constitutional obligations unless the court intervened.

However, dissatisfied with the Federal High Court’s decision, all the defendants, including INEC, appealed the judgement and urged the Court of Appeal to set it aside.

Justice Abba Bello Mohammed, supported by Justices Donatus Okorowo and Oyebisi Oyebola Oyewumi, after hearing the arguments of the respective lawyers, announced that a date for the delivery of the judgement would be communicated to all parties.

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, on Thursday alleged that the All Progressives Congress, APC, plans to release former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai after the 2027 elections.

ADC’s spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi said the APC knows that the opposition would be stronger if El-Rufai is released before the election.

Featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Abdullahi insisted that the ADC is against making it difficult for El-Rufai to be granted bail.

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He said: “ADC is not opposed to anybody who has a legitimate case to answer from being prosecuted but when you are holding someone in custody for bailable offences and you proceed to arraign that person and make impossible conditions for bail to meet, it creates room for us to believe that you deliberate intend to hold this person in perpetuity.

“What I can tell you is that the thinking within the ADC is that the APC government has concluded that they will not release Mallam Nasir El-Rufai until after the election.

“That’s what we believe, that’s the plan, and that’s what they plan to do. They know that with Mallam Nasir El-Rufai freed, the opposition is stronger and they know that if they release him, he would remind them of certain things that they would rather forget.

“We in the opposition believe that they are doing everything to make sure that El-Rufai remains in custody until after the election.”

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has described reports that more than 17 million Nigerians, including infants and young children, are facing acute hunger as a growing humanitarian disaster created by the President Bola Tinubu administration’s incompetence, misplaced priorities and failed policies.

The Eastern Updates

Macron Presents UK’s Starmer With France’s Highest Award

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July 14, 2026

Macron Presents UK’s Starmer With France’s Highest Award

Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been awarded France’s highest honour, in recognition of his work on the security of Europe and Ukraine.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he presented Starmer with the Legion d’honneur on Monday in Paris, where he was attending a summit of Ukraine’s allies.

Starmer, who has been prime minister since winning a landslide election victory in July 2024, is the first UK prime minister to receive the award.

He is due to leave office within days after losing the confidence of his governing Labour party over a slew of domestic policy U-turns that hit his popularity.

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In contrast, he is held in high regard by many foreign leaders on issues from Ukraine to forging closer European ties.

Starmer is due to be replaced as Labour leader and prime minister by Andy Burnham, a veteran former minister, who is also a pro-European centrist.

Starmer, 63, attended the annual July 14 military parade in central Paris as a guest of Macron, alongside other Ukraine allies.

Presenting the former human rights lawyer and chief state prosecutor with the legion d’honneur, Macron praised his “personal leadership” and “commitments” to “the security of Europe, Ukraine, the bilateral relationship” and his “decency”.

Starmer and Labour’s return to power, after 14 years in opposition, marked a sea-change in relations with Britain’s closest European allies, including France.

Under the Conservatives, Britain left the European Union after a divisive 2016 referendum on membership.

The G7 summit of world powers in France is being chaired by President Emmanuel Macron as host but on Wednesday his guest US President Donald Trump left no doubt over who he believed was in charge.

“I’m the boss,” Trump said as he strode in to the morning session of the last day of the three-day G7 summit, with the other leaders already in their seats.

Amid laughter, Macron appeared to take the comment with good humour. “How are you?” the French president asked.

Read Also: Trump Vows Response After Iran Shoots Down US Helicopter

“Good, thank you,” replied Trump, a tycoon before becoming president who famously hosted the TV show “The Apprentice” with its catchphrase “You’re fired!”, as he finally took his seat.

Fresh from clinching an accord to end the war with Iran and celebrating his 80th birthday, Trump’s presence has dominated the summit in the spa town of Evian on Lake Geneva.

French officials will be satisfied that the mercurial US president has stayed for the entire event and signed on to the G7 communique — in contrast to the previous gathering in Canada, where he left early.

In an unusual gesture, Macron has invited Trump to dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris after the summit winds down on Wednesday afternoon.

Macron, under pressure to show he is not fawning over Trump, has already said the evening at Versailles will not be a “gala” dinner.

President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to respond after he accused Iran of shooting down a US military helicopter the previous night, hours after he said negotiations to end the Middle East war were in their final stages.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and its chief negotiator in talks with Washington, meanwhile warned the United States on Tuesday against breaking its “commitments”.

The comments came a day after Iran and Israel halted attacks that threatened to reignite the regional war, which was sparked by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

The Eastern Updates