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BREAKING: Trump moves to revoke Harvard’s accreditation!
In what appears the anti-climax to the feud between the White House and Harvard, one of the most influential Ivy League institutions in the United States, President Donald Trump’s administration, dug deeper on Wednesday with the Education Department and Department of Health and Human Services targeting the university’s accreditation.
The New England Commission of Higher Education, was told by the administration on Wednesday, there was “strong evidence to suggest the school may no longer meet accreditation standards,” a move that could hit the institution’s finances.
The letter to the regulatory body is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s multi-front effort against the nation’s oldest college, which observers claim would mean Harvard could not receive federal student aid.
The federal departments said Harvard was found in violation of antidiscrimination laws and therefore its accreditor needs to work with the university or take away accreditation if Harvard fails to remedy the situation.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth-seeking and learning. Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
“By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers. The Department of Education expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards,” she added.
Harvard is the second school after Columbia University to be turned over to its accreditor by the Trump administration, a development that is commonly called a “death sentence” among higher education advocates and has been rarely used.
The letter to Harvard’s accreditor comes the same day the Department of Homeland Security said it would subpoena the university for “relevant information” about its foreign students, after a judge blocked the department’s directive to stop Harvard from enrolling international students.
The administration has targeted Harvard across multiple avenues, including its federal funding, after it rejected a list of demands for administrative and academic changes. The school has filed a pair of lawsuits against the administration, saying its academic freedom is at risk.
The development is coming on the heels on the same Wednesday with when the government also subpoenaed the university for records linked to students allegedly involved in a wave of pro-Palestinian student protests that the Trump administration labeled anti-Semitic.
Since being sworn in again in January, President Donald Trump has targeted top US universities over claims they are politically biased towards anti-Jewish hate and “woke” politics.
Trump has waged a political and economic campaign against Harvard, stripping it of funds and demanding extensive records linked to foreign students, whom it has repeatedly attempted to block the prestigious university from enrolling and hosting.
The administration has characterised widespread campus protests and sit-ins in the United States calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza as being “anti-Semitic,” and moved to expel foreign students and professors who took part in them.
“After many previous requests to hand over relevant information concerning foreign students, DHS will now send subpoenas forcing Harvard to comply,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus.”
The subpoena demands that Harvard turn over “relevant records, communications, and other documents relevant to the enforcement of immigration laws since January 1, 2020,” according to the statement.
Harvard said in a statement that “while the government’s subpoenas are unwarranted, the University will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations,” adding that the measure was “retaliatory.”
Harvard was among a host of US universities swept by the wave of student protests against the war in Gaza.
Trump has made the question of student protest, particularly by foreign scholars, a flashpoint political issue.
A proclamation issued by the White House last month sought to bar most new international students at Harvard from entering the country, and said existing foreign enrollees risked having their visas terminated.
Harvard challenged the move in court and a judge blocked the administration from enforcing the policy.
International students at Harvard, who accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment in the 2024-2025 academic year, are a major source of income for the Ivy League institution.
The government already cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting Harvard and pledged to exclude the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution from any future federal funding.
Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.”
Unlike Harvard, several top institutions — including New York’s Columbia University — have already bowed to far-reaching demands from the Trump administration.
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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