The security operatives aimed at protesters and journalists who ran for cover.
A car belonging to a Premium Times reporter was shot at while in motion.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, during a press conference in Abuja, said the military would step in to control the looting and violence being witnessed in some parts of the country.
The #EndBadGovernance protest started on Thursday with no fewer than 17 people feared killed as violence erupted in Abuja, Kano, Niger, Borno, Kaduna and Jigawa states. Businesses and banks were shut, while major roads were deserted.
The protest continued Friday as the police and protesters clashed in different parts of the country.
The Nigerian military has said it will intervene if violence recorded in some states in the ongoing nationwide protest tagged #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria escalates.
The Chief of Defense Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, during a press conference in Abuja, said the military would step in to control the looting and violence being witnessed in some parts of the country.
The #EndBadGovernance protest started on Thursday with no fewer than 17 people feared killed as violence erupted in Abuja, Kano, Niger, Borno, Kaduna and Jigawa states. Businesses and banks were shut, while major roads were deserted.
The protest continued Friday as the police and protesters clashed in different parts of the country.
The CDS noted that while he was aware of the “grievances” of the protesters on the challenging economic difficulties in the country, they must show understanding.
He appealed to Nigerians to be united during “these trying times” and cautioned against looting and vandalization of property. The defense chief decried the destruction of valuables during the nationwide protests, describing it as “crazy.”
He stressed that the military and other security agencies “will not fold” their arms and “allow this country to be destroyed.”
“The Armed Forces and the entire security agencies will not stand by and see that to continue. We want to warn those that are recalcitrant; those that don’t want to listen that we will not fold our arms and allow this country to be destroyed.
“We will take action and the action we will take, we will take it professionally. Anyone that is caught will be taken to court and will be dealt with.
“There are a bunch of people who believe that it is only through this medium that they will be able to loot, steal and destroy. And that is what they tried to do yesterday but we have arrested most of them that broke into places to steal and they will be prosecuted accordingly.
“We are also going behind to ensure that we also identify those that are involved; there are individuals who are sponsoring them, pushing them to do this, we are going after them,” he added.
Police disperse Abuja protesters, shoot hoodlums
Some Nigerians, including journalists who reconvened on Friday for the protest were injured after police made attempts to disperse them in Abuja.
Our correspondents gathered that when the demonstration began at the Moshood Abiola Stadium, protesters refused to be confined to a spot as directed by an FCT High Court order, and also ignored police warnings against holding a procession.
As tension mounted and protesters decided to stage a walk, they were ambushed near the National Hospital area, and dispersed with tear gas and live ammunition.
Five injured protesters said they jumped into the bush when the shooting started.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that when other protesters heard about the police harassment, they left the national stadium to reconvene at the Berger Roundabout, but were tear-gassed.
A few minutes after being tear-gassed, the defiant protesters reconvened, vowing not to back down until their demands were met by the Federal Government.
A protester, who gave his name as Tari, criticized the police, saying the group would not be intimidated.
Another protester, Michael Zayi, said if the President had listened to Nigerians earlier, the situation would not have escalated.
He maintained that protesters were committed to demanding better lives for all citizens despite the use of force.
But the Federal Capital Territory Police Command, in a statement on Friday, directed hospitals and medical personnel to report anyone who presented with gunshot wounds to the nearest police station.
The command’s spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, noted that policemen engaged some hoodlums in “a fierce gun duel”, with many escaping with gunshot injuries.
According to him, the hoodlums took advantage of the hunger protest to embark on extortion and assault of innocent citizens along the Lugbe end of the FCT.
Adeh revealed that residents alerted the police to the development.
“Following distress calls about the activities of some hoodlums who took advantage of the ongoing protests, which began on Thursday, 1st August 2024, to block the Lugbe end of the Shehu Musa Yaradua Expressway at about 10pm, embarking on massive robbery and assault of innocent citizens, which led to an exchange of fire with police operatives in the Lugbe area of Abuja, the FCT Command hereby puts all medical personnel in and around the Federal Capital Territory on high alert to the possibility of receiving victims with gunshot wounds,” she said.
Adeh explained that the command was making the request in line with the Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Act 2017.
She said the FCT Commissioner of Police, Bennett Igweh, warned against committing crimes under the guise of protest.
Police tear gas demonstrators, journalist in A’Ibom
In Akwa Ibom State, men of the state police command were reported to have fired tear gas canisters at a group of protesters who gathered at the Ibom Plaza to continue the hunger protest for the second day.
A journalist with the New Nigerian Newspapers in Akwa Ibom State was also tear-gassed while interviewing protesters.
One of our correspondents reported that the group was singing solidarity songs when the police opened the canisters on them and marched them to Unity Park, along Udoudoma Avenue, where they had been restricted to.
A protester, who spoke on condition of anonymity at the plaza before the police intervened, said they were protesting because life in Nigeria was becoming increasingly unbearable for the average person.
He said, “We are here to protest against the high cost of fuel. In this country, we can do better as a people. We cannot produce crude oil in Nigeria and buy fuel for N900 per liter. This is unacceptable.
“An average person can no longer feed their family because of the current state of affairs. The Federal Government claims to have increased the minimum wage, but it is worthless as it cannot even buy a bag of rice. If you earn N70,000, you need to borrow N20,000 to buy a bag of rice. We want the price of a bag of rice to be reduced to N10,000 and the price of fuel to drop to N100.”
Security operatives brutalise Bauchi PWD in wheelchair
In Bauchi State, security guards at the Government House gate wrestled with the leader of the Initiative for the Liberalization of Physically Challenged People, Hamza Waziri.
In a trending video on social media, the security agents can be seen hitting the victim while he sits in his wheelchair.
Waziri stated that he was on the street of the government house alongside other physically challenged persons while exercising their constitutional right of peaceful demonstration when they were attacked by the guards.
He said, “I was doing a live video so one of the policemen came to me and said that I had filmed him and they were trying to grab the phone from me. As they were struggling to grab the phone from my hand, they kept brutalizing's me. They gave me a couple of punches as you can see from the video.
“There were not more than 10 of us, but I was the only one actually standing in front of the Government House just to raise our placards that said, ‘Employment should be for all’, ‘Everybody should be allowed to be employed’, ‘Inclusive Society’.”
Mukhtar Gidado, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, said an investigation was ongoing into the incident.
Hoodlums attack Yobe Red Cross office, burn vehicles
In Yobe, hoodlums attacked the office of the Red Cross in Gujba, Maiduguri-Potiskum Road, Damaturu, the state capital, destroying property and setting a vehicle ablaze.
Photos and videos obtained by our correspondents showed the vehicle on fire, as well as another Red Cross-branded Landcuiser and a bus damaged with their windows smashed.
When contacted on Friday, the Coordinator of Communications and Advocacy for the Nigerian Red Cross Society, Chima Nwankwo, confirmed the incident to Saturday PUNCH.
“The office was attacked around 1pm this afternoon (Friday). Some of our property, air conditioners, and vehicles were destroyed and they took some away, burnt our cars but there was no casualty,” he said.
He described the assailants as a “mob” with unclear motivations.
“They simply came to vandalize our property,” he said.
Protest organisers disagree with lawyer
The lawyer to the protest organisers, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, in a statement on Friday, called for the suspension of the protest, saying it had been hijacked by hoodlums.
He appealed that the protest be stopped immediately to avoid more casualties.
While berating the President for not engaging the organisers at the earlier stage, Adegboruwa warned that no leader should ever take the citizens for granted again.
He said, “Notice of this protest was given many weeks ago, yet nothing was done to engage the organisers of the protests in order to address the issues raised in their charter of demands. It is the same way that the government ignores several strike notices issued by the Labour unions until they eventually snowball into strike actions. This should not be so.”
But reacting, an activist, Omoyele Sowore, said the call for suspension was Adegboruwa’s view and not that of the organisers.
He said, “No, he has made it clear that it is his private opinion. “
The Director of Mobilisation, Take It Back Movement, Damilare Adenola, said the protest would be called off when their demands had been met.
He said, “We don’t agree. He doesn’t speak for us. The protest will be suspended when the government meet our demands. Anything short of that would not pack us out of the streets.”
Kano, Borno, Katsina, Yobe, Jigawa impose curfew
Following breakdown of law and order, at least five northern states – Kano, Borno, Katsina, Yobe and Jigawa – have declared curfew to restrict the movement of residents.
Following the outbreak of violence in Jigawa State on Thursday, Governor Umar Namadi imposed a 24-hour curfew.
The curfew was, however, relaxed on Friday for two and a half hours for Muslims to observe the Juma’at prayers. Namadi said the violent turn of the peaceful protests was unacceptable and vowed to prevent further chaos.
‘Police arrested 1,154 protesters, killed 21’
Meanwhile, the Organised Civil Society of Nigeria says according to data obtained through its Civil Society Protest Monitoring Situation Room, 21 persons had been killed, while 1,154 others were arrested by the police on the first day of the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests.
In a press release signed by the Head of the Coordinating Secretariat of the United Action Front of Civil Society, Olawale Okunniyi, on Friday, the group stated that 175 persons sustained injuries.
Okunniyi stated that 18 states, including Lagos, Yobe, Zamfara, Borno and the FCT recorded cases of police brutality and violence, while only eight states, namely Plateau, Taraba, Ebonyi, Edo, Benue, Nasarawa and Ogun, recorded peaceful protests.
The group said the data, received from field volunteers, revealed contrary realities to the assurances given by the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, adding that the “reckless” show of force by the Police was “unacceptable.”
However, some of the official figures released by the police showed that more than 500 protesters were arrested in at least six states.
Out of the figure, 320 protesters were arrested in Kano, 18 in Yobe, 50 in Katsina, 81 in Sokoto, five in Abuja, and 25 in Kaduna, as confirmed by the police commands in the states.
Meanwhile, a coalition of lawyers has secured the release of 15 protesters arrested by the police in different parts of Lagos.
A member of the legal team, Festus Ogun, who confirmed this to Saturday PUNCH, said two of the protesters were arrested on Thursday in the Oregun area of Lagos, while 12 were picked up around Lekki Toll Gate plaza on Friday.
Efforts to reach the Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, for the total number of suspects arrested proved abortive, as he did not respond to multiple phone calls, and Whatsapp messages.
LP, NNPP knock Tinubu over killings, arrest
Meanwhile, opposition parties in the country have criticised President Bola Tinubu for failing to condemn the arrest and alleged killings of protesters.
In an exclusive interview, the National Secretary of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Dipo Olaoyoku, said the President failed to take a fatherly role in addressing the organisers’ demands long before the protest began.
He said, “Let me use an analogy to describe what is going on. As a father, we have children. And the Bible tells us that children should respect their parents. The same Bible goes further to say fathers should not provoke their children. Unfortunately, many people don’t read the Bible. You have children saying ‘Father, we are hungry.’ I think a good father should find a means of sitting them down. That is even from home, not to talk of a country with diverse cultures and diverse people.
“All these things are avoidable. I remember sometime in June before travelling out of the country, I saw something like a protest. By the time I came back, I was still seeing the same message all over. So, it is an action that the people gave him adequate notice about. As a father, I would have done everything humanly possible to ensure the protest didn’t happen. But what did the father do instead? He was busy inviting traditional rulers and governors instead of talking directly to his children. It is still not too late. Unfortunately, when you look at the killing, it is most likely to be from the security agencies.”
Similarly, the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, said the continued silence of the President over the mayhem that occurred was baffling.
He wondered why the President would watch while his people were being “harassed, maimed, and killed for demanding their constitutional rights.”
A total of 3,173 Nigerian-trained nurses and midwives were licensed to practise in the United Kingdom in one year, Saturday PUNCHreports.
This is according to the latest report on the number of nursing and midwifery professionals on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, obtained exclusively from the council.
The report also showed that so far, 13,656 nurses and midwives educated in Nigeria were practising in the UK.
The NMC data noted that on March 31, 2024, “there were a total of 826,418 nursing and midwifery professionals on our register.
“Of this number, 13,656 were educated in Nigeria. In the 12 months to March 31, 2024, 3,173 people who were educated in Nigeria joined our register for the first time.”
The NMC is the regulator for nursing and midwifery in the UK and it maintains a register of all nurses, midwives, and specialist community public health nurses and nursing associates eligible to practise in the UK.
According to the report, Nigeria is one of the top non-UK countries of education as of March 2024, and the number of Nigerian nurses and midwives practising in the UK increased by 28.3 per cent in one year.
Other top non-UK countries of education as of March 2024, compared to last year are India (62,413), Philippines (49,092), Romania (7,378), and Ghana (5,536).
In 2023, the World Health Organisation said Nigeria and 54 other countries were facing the most pressing health workforce challenges related to universal health coverage.
WHO said with the impact of COVID-19 and widespread disruptions to health services, health workers in the identified countries continued to seek better-paid opportunities in wealthier nations.
The WHO said of the 55 countries, 37 are in Africa, eight are in the Western Pacific region, six are in the Eastern Mediterranean region, three are in Southeast Asia and one is in the Americas.
Thereafter, the UK government on March 23 placed Nigeria and 53 other countries on the red list of countries that should not be actively targeted for recruitment by health and social care employers.
However, the NMC report stated that the number of first-time joiners across the UK continued to rise, with nearly 60,000 new nursing and midwifery professionals registering with it this year alone.
It added that the figures were split almost equally between UK-educated joiners (30,363) and those educated internationally (29,628).
It stated, “The year-on-year growth was even higher among international joiners, which shows an increase of more than 18 per cent compared to the previous year. Almost half (14,615) of this year’s new joiners were educated in India.”
In 2023, the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives said over 75,000 nurses and midwives left the country in five years to seek greener pastures.
The mass exodus of nurses has worsened an ongoing shortage of health workers, and poses significant threats to the healthcare delivery system, leading to limited access to care for many people.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said late Friday he had agreed with Fox News to debate Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on September 4.
“I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, but it was not immediately clear if Harris had agreed to the debate.
A Nigerian woman, Lola Akinlade and her family are facing deportation from Canada after it was discovered that she used a fake university acceptance letter to secure a study and work permit.
Lola, who graduated from the Nova Scotia Community College in 2019, told CBS News she was unaware the letter provided by an agent in Lagos for the University of Regina in 2016 was fraudulent.
A few weeks before graduation, the international student from Nigeria received a letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
It said one of the documents she had used to enter Canada in 2016 was a fake, and asked her to explain herself.
It's a charge Akinlade said she knew nothing about before IRCC told her. She said the issue has left her and her family in Canada with no immigration status and little to fall back on if they return to Nigeria.
Akinlade said the realization that she had relied on a fake document to get her study permit left her devastated.
"That was the beginning of my trauma."
Statistics released to CBC by IRCC, and the experience of people working in the field, suggest there could be many other international students in Canada in a similar situation.
Since IRCC began a new process to screen international student acceptance letters in December 2023, it has found more than 9,000 examples of fake letters, suggesting Akinlade's case is far from unique.
Akinlade wants IRCC to reexamine her case, arguing she was a victim of a "rogue agent" who supplied her with a fake letter of acceptance to a Canadian school.
"Please look into my file," she said. "I just want this to be sorted out.
Akinlade started thinking about studying in Canada in 2015. She was working for a pharmaceutical company in Lagos as a medical sales representative with a business administration degree from a Nigerian university.
She said at an office outside Lagos, she met with a man who said he worked as an immigration consultant and would guide her through the process of becoming an international student by applying for a master's degree in business administration for her.
Akinlade said she did not discuss a particular university with the agent, and just explained that she wanted to study at a high-quality Canadian institution.
Akinlade said she gave the agent documents such as her passport and university transcripts, along with payment. Several months later, he gave her a study permit to enter Canada, plane tickets and an acceptance letter to the University of Regina.
Akinlade flew to Canada in late December 2016, thinking she would start classes in January 2017.
However, she said while she was stopped over in Winnipeg en route to Regina, she got a call from the agent, who told her there were no spaces available at the university and she'd have to go on a waitlist.
"I said my primary aim was to come here to study. I don't want to be on the waitlist."
Akinlade began to search on her own for a new school and a new program, and stayed with relatives in Winnipeg until she was accepted at the Nova Scotia Community College for social services for a September 2017 start.
She said she decided to switch to social services because it better aligned with the work she'd already done in the medical field.
Akinlade said she never contacted the University of Regina directly until two years later, when she received the letter from IRCC telling her the acceptance letter was a fake.
"I was kind of skeptical [after getting the IRCC letter] because I thought that wasn't real, like a miscommunication or something," she said. "So immediately I contacted [the] University of Regina.
“And that was when I learned the truth.”
Akinlade said since arriving in Canada she's had little contact with the agent in Nigeria.
But CBC exchanged text messages with Babatunde Isiaq Adegoke, the agent Akinlade said she used to co-ordinate her Canadian university and study permit application.
Adegoke told CBC he guided Akinlade through the process of applying to enter Canada.
He agreed that he gave Akinlade the acceptance letter to the University of Regina. But he said the letter was given to him by a company called Success Academy Education Consult that he hired. He said it was located in the city of Ejigbo but has since moved to an unknown location.
He said he was surprised to learn the acceptance letter was fake, and he denied telling Akinlade she'd have to go on the waitlist at the University of Regina.
Adegoke told CBC he was no longer offering study permit services, he had no contact information for Success Academy Education Consult and had not dealt with the company since 2018. He declined to do a video call for more information.
CBC was not able to find a business that matched Adegoke's description. CBC made phone calls and sent emails to businesses with similar names, but none of the business owners said they recognized Lola Akinlade's letter.
Akinlade lost her study permit in Canada because of the fake letter, and was denied when she attempted to apply for a post-graduate work permit and a temporary resident permit.
An IRCC officer wrote to her in March 2023, telling her the department believes she knew the document was fake, "as per balance of probabilities."
Her husband, Samson Akinlade, and eight-year-old Nigerian-born son, David, joined her in Nova Scotia in 2018, and have now lost their temporary resident status.
Their younger son was born in Canada in 2021, and while he has Canadian citizenship, he does not have medical coverage because of his parents' status.
The three oldest members of the family have been asked to leave the country voluntarily. They cannot work or go to school.
"We've been surviving on our savings and I don't know how long we can keep surviving on that," she said. "It's really, really hard."
Akinlade said the family sold their home in Nigeria to fund the tens of thousands of dollars required for her Canadian tuition.
She and her husband worked in Nova Scotia as caregivers before losing their immigration status.
"We already invested our lives in Canada, so there is nothing to go back to fall on [in Nigeria]," she said
Akinlade's lawyer, Amanat Sandhu, said the family is filing a humanitarian application to stay.
Sandhu said it's common for her downtown Toronto firm to see what she describes as "rogue agents" supplying immigrants with bad information.
"Overall, there's a lot of people that get into this sticky situation where they trust an agent and then the agent doesn't perform the way that they're supposed to," she said.
Canadian schools are also concerned about the actions of these agents, said Graham Barber, the assistant director of international relations at Universities Canada.
Barber said in his more than 10-year career he's seen a "handful" of times when students actually showed up on a university campus believing they were enrolled when they were not.
Protest organisers in Osun say they will meet to decide the next line of action, after President Bola Tinubu appealed to protesters to sus...
