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BREAKING: Bode George recants! Says, Nigerians must give Tinubu a break
In a rare volte face, Bode George, President Bola Tinubu’s arch political enemy both in Lagos and at the national level, seems to have thrown his weight behind the President, with a major pushback against those roasting the President for his dismal performance in his first year of taking office, saying such an assessment is too hasty.
A guest of the Moring Show, a breakfast programme on Arise News, George, former National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who had declared that he would embark on self-exile if Tinubu ever became the President of Nigeria, to underscore the depth of animousity against the former Governor of Lagos State, made the surprising detour, saying he spoke out of “conscience.”
Though he acknowledged the immense hardship in the country, he said nobody could push the blame on Tinubu, having inherited the situation from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari who left the country in a “mess” during his eight years in office, adding that what the incumbent was facing today was the learning curve, that anybody must face as a natural challenge in a new office.
Denying that he was speaking as a Yoruba man supporting his kin or because he had been reached to observe a ceasefire, following the troubleshooting efforts by some All Progressives Congress (APC) members and elders of Lagos, last year, he said he only wanted to be fair and that his real assessment would commence in 2025 by the time Tinubu would have served for two years.
Hear him: I need to be fair, I need to be very fair, because getting to the eight floor in the age ladder, we must tell the truth to power. The performance of any government in the first year, you can forgive them. As an engineer, we look at that as a learning curve, because he wasn’t in government before and he had not been in government before.
“I told a lot of my friends and my colleagues in the political side of this country that – look – okay, my Oga, General Buhari was there for eight years and we saw the mess, the complete collapse of this nation. Okay, he is fresh, he is new there. Give him time. So, that one year of grace has passed. I said to other people that this next second year of his administration we must feel the impact, we must see those terrible areas being reverted and that come this time next year, partisan politics will start and that is when we would really sit down and do an x-ray of every sector.
“So far, people are hungry, people are angry. Things are not going right. They tell us that it is as a result of the poor performance of their party managers and the government managers in the last eight years. He has just spent one year. So, I want to excuse him for now. Is it in the economic sector, the agric sector, the infrastructural sector? Even the income to our nation, the debt portfolio that this nation now has, it is so annoying that Nigeria has done so poorly.
“They created the Ministry of Humanitarian – whatever the call it – that was a sham – collecting that humongous amount of money every 30 days to be distributed to the people – where is the data that they used? Have they called the lady who was the Minister to come and explain? And so many of the sectors, it is like we are in a doldrum. We’ve forgotten everything that is called management of the resources for the betterment of the people.
“I have said to my closed-door friends and outdoor friends that – look, let’s give him one year of grace. That one year has ended. Now, by this time next year, politics will start. That is when will do an in-depth analysis into the management style of his administration, because he wasn’t the one that has been there for the last eight years. The ninth year is no different. It is still the same everywhere you go!”
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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