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Sani to Youths: Drop content creation and get involved in politics!
Former Kaduna Central Senator Shehu Sani has challenged Nigerian youths to actively participate in politics rather than limiting themselves to content creation and social media influence if they truly desire national transformation.
Speaking at an event over the weekend, Sani acknowledged the achievements recorded in various sectors but emphasized that restoring peace and stability remains Nigeria’s most pressing challenge.
“There have been achievements in a number of areas, but what remains a problem to us is how can we silence the gun so that we can have peace and stability in our country. Young people of today, you have your positives and you have your negatives,” Sani stated.
READ ALSO: El-Rufai, you lack basic knowledge of what democracy is – Shehu Sani
The former lawmaker commended the current generation for their creativity and cultural exports, citing recent successes in the entertainment and sports sectors.
“The positive aspect of your generation is that you are full of energy and creativity. In our days, we listen to foreign music, but in your generation, you have been able to develop and export our culture and our music to the stage of the world to the point that it gives us pride when we see the likes of Thames, Debedo and Bonobo winning Grammys when it wasn’t possible for our generation to do that. It gives us joy to see how you are able to compete with young people outside of this country,” he said.
He expressed particular admiration for the Super Falcons’ recent performances despite limited facilities.
“I was highly impressed. If you see the training facilities of Thames from Morocco, from Algeria, from Tunisia, the training facilities for their sportsmen and women, you will wonder how the Falcons were able to beat them. This shows that with more for Nigerians, we can achieve more,” Sani noted.
However, the former senator criticized the younger generation for lacking the political ambition that characterized previous generations of Nigerian leaders.
“The negative aspect of your own generation is that what do you need to know? The leaders of Nigeria’s first republic became leaders in their 20s and 30s. The leaders of Nigeria’s second republic became leaders in their 20s and 30s. The leaders of Nigeria’s aborted third republic and this republic became leaders in their 20s, 30s and early 40s,” he observed.
He pointed out that many of today’s political leaders began their journeys as young people in 1999.
“Most of the people you see today, whether they are presidents, they are governors, they are ministers, they are senators, in 1999 they were all looking like you and they were of your age mix. But they had vision and they were determined to take over power whether for themselves or for what they claimed to be. As such, they entered the ring of politics with all its troubles and storms and they took over power,” Sani explained.
Drawing a stark contrast with contemporary youth engagement, he added: “Today, many of you who were their age mate in 1999 are content creators and social media influencers. That cannot change a nation. That cannot shape the nation in line and in your own dream.”
Sani emphasized the necessity of direct political involvement for meaningful change.
“It’s not possible. You have to be involved. In the 90s, I’ve been a senator and I will still return back to the senate,” he said.
Sharing his personal political journey, the former senator recalled: “As of 1999, we couldn’t contest the senate because our age is not up to the age of people who can contest elections. But we are determined. We contested and lost, contested and lost, and remained resilient until we took over the seat.”
He urged young Nigerians aspiring for national transformation to embrace political participation.
“So, for those of you who want the nation of your dream, you have to get involved. There’s no way you can change this country if you don’t participate in politics. In the 90s, when Nigeria was under military rule, some of us organised ourselves and started civil rights organisations that resisted and demanded for the return of democracy in Nigeria,” Sani recounted.
Reflecting on the sacrifices made by his generation, he revealed: “Some of us were forced to exile, some lost their lives, and people like me spent many years in prison. When we came out of prison in 1998 and Nigeria was transiting to civil rule, we said, what do we do? We are just out of prison. Because for me, I didn’t spend much here. I spent only four years in prison.”
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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