Nigerian Newspapers: 10Things You Need To know This Friday Morning

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

1. Some soldiers were reportedly killed when Boko Haram terrorists raided a military checkpoint around Zuma rock in Niger State, on Thursday night. The area close to Madalla town is a few meters away from Zuba, along the Abuja-Kaduna highway.

2. The National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Major General Babagana Monguno, has said the nation is currently “in a very difficult situation” which requires the cooperation of all stakeholders. He said this while briefing State House reporters on the outcome of the National Security Council (NSC) meeting yesterday.

3. The Federal Government says it will sanction Trust TV, a television owned by Media Trust Group, and the BBC over their stories on bandits in the North. Speaking with journalists on Thursday, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the documentaries promoted terrorism in the country.

4. A Kano State High Court sitting at Audu Bako, presided over by Justice Usman Na’abba, has sentenced a school proprietor, Abdulmalik Tanko, to death by hanging for the kidnap and killing of five-year-old Hanifa Abubakar. Isyaku Hashim, his conspirator, was also sentenced to death by hanging for concealment and kidnapping of the five- year-old.

5. The Defence Headquarters says the military troops have eliminated 30 of the terrorists who attacked troops of the Guards Brigade in the Bwari area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Sunday. The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. Bernard Onyeuko, made this known at the Bi-Weekly news conference on military operations on Thursday, in Abuja.

6. The Federal Government, Thursday, flagged-off disbursement of cash grant for the vulnerable groups in Abuja. The grant, according to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar-Farouq, who spoke at the ceremony in Abuja, was meant to uplift many poorest and vulnerable citizens nationwide.

7. President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed concern over the current security challenges facing some parts of the country and said his administration will stop at nothing to change the tide. The National Security Adviser to the President, retired Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno, said the President made his feelings known when he summoned an emergency meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, in Abuja.

8. Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, yesterday, stated that the shooting at the Craneburg Construction yard in Owo on Wednesday was intended and designed to damage some of their equipment rather than injure or kill anyone.

9. In what appeared to be a step further on moves to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari over endless attacks by terrorists, PDP lawmakers in the upper and lower legislative Chambers on Thursday met behind closed-doors in Abuja.

10. The immediate past Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, and a group, Incorporated Trustees of Rights for All International, have filed an originating summons before a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking an order declaring Nwajiuba as the authentic Presidential candidate of the APC.