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I concede defeat, but not the fight *Full text of Kamala Harris concession
Good afternoon. Good afternoon everyone, good afternoon. Thank you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So let me say, and I love you back, and I love you back. So let me say my heart is full today. My heart is full today, full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country and full of resolve. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say the light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.
To my beloved Doug and our family, I love you so very much. To President Biden and Dr. Biden, thank you for your faith and support. To Governor Walz and the Walz family, I know your service to our nation will continue. And to my extraordinary team, to the volunteers who gave so much of themselves, to the poll workers and the local election officials, I thank you. I thank you all.
Look, I am so proud of the race we ran and the way we ran it — and the way we ran it. Over the 107 days of this campaign, we have been intentional about building community and building coalitions, bringing people together from every walk of life and background, united by love of country, with enthusiasm and joy in our fight for America’s future.
And we did it with the knowledge that we all have so much more in common than what separates us now. I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it, but we must accept the results of this election. Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.
A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.
I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions and aspirations, where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do. We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence and America, we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld.
And we will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square, and we will also wage it in quieter ways, in how we live our lives, by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up to fight for the dignity that all people deserve. The fight for our freedom will take hard work. But like I always say, we like hard work, hard work is good work. Hard work can be joyful work. And the fight for our country is always worth it. It is always worth it.
To the young people who are watching, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it’s going to be okay. On the campaign, I would often say, when we fight, we win. But here’s the thing, here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is, don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up. Don’t ever stop trying to make the world a better place. You have power. You have power, and don’t you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.
You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world. And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.
This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together. Look, many of you know, I started out as a prosecutor, and throughout my career, I saw people at some of the worst times in their lives, people who had suffered great harm and great pain and yet found within themselves, the strength and the courage and the resolve to take the stand, to take a stand, to fight for justice, to fight for themselves, to fight for others. So let their courage be our inspiration. Let their determination be our charge.
And I’ll close with this, there’s an adage and historian once called a law of history, true of every society across the ages, the adage is, only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service. H-U [from Howard University’s motto Veritas et Utilitas, which translates to “Truth and Service,” and to which the crowd responded: “You know,” the school’s call and response).
And may that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America, I thank you all. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. I thank you all.
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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