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IGP approves provisional redeployment of two senior officers after media reports
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) has directed temporary assignments for two high-ranking officers to fresh jurisdictions, awaiting ultimate ratification by the Police Service Commission (PSC).
An official communication from the Force Headquarters in Abuja outlined the moves: Commissioner of Police (CP) Miller Gajere Dantawaye is assigned to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Wilson Aniefiok Akpan is sent to Kogi State.
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The order specified that these are interim placements pending PSC endorsement, and personnel stepping into elevated roles must refrain from displaying the corresponding insignia until official clearance.
“Posting of Senior Officers. The Inspector-General of Police has ordered the provisional posting of the following officers as indicated against their names: To CP FCT- Compol Miller Gajere Dantawaye; To CP Kogi — Decompol Wilson Aniefiok Akpan pending the approval of the Police Service Commission (Polscom),” it reads.
The internal alert, coded TH.5361/FS/FHQ/ABJ/SUB.6/213, was sent to all regional and state commands, units, and divisions within the Nigeria Police Force.
This shift essentially removes Ajao Saka Adewale from his role as FCT Commissioner of Police.
Adewale had taken up the position in March 2025, replacing Assistant Inspector General Tunji Disu, who moved to lead the Special Protection Unit at Force Headquarters.
Dantawaye, serving as Kogi State Commissioner since January, is set to assume the FCT leadership role once PSC approves.
The adjustment follows roughly a week after activist Omoyele Sowore urged Adewale’s ouster, citing mishandling of the fatal incident involving Arise News presenter Somtochukwu Maduagwu, known as Sommie, and security guard Barnabas Danlami.
The duo died in a brutal armed heist in Abuja on September 29, 2025. Sommie, a 29-year-old journalist and qualified attorney born December 26, 1995, perished alongside Danlami.
The attack unfolded around 3 a.m. on September 29 at Sommie’s third-floor apartment in Abuja’s Katampe area, where more than 15 gunmen invaded a 16-unit complex.
Eyewitness accounts say Sommie leaped from her balcony to flee the intruders. She arrived lifeless at Maitama General Hospital by 4:30 a.m.
Early accounts hinted at potential healthcare lapses, but the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) confirmed she had no vital signs on arrival.
Authorities subsequently detained 12 people linked to the crime.
Before this, Adewale discussed the matter in an Arise News interview, offering his perspective on the sequence of events.
In response, Sowore posted on Facebook on October 2 under the heading ‘Still On Arise News Producer Somtochukwu Maduagwu “Sommie”‘s Tragic Death: The Commissioner of Police of the FCT, Wale Ajao and the Posture of Failure,’ demanding Adewale’s dismissal.
Sowore criticized Adewale for acknowledging that robbers rampaged in central Abuja for 90 minutes without police action, labeling it a clear sign of inadequacy.
He also took issue with how Adewale managed details of Sommie’s passing, highlighting deficiencies in emergency services and medical support in the capital.
Sowore contended that Adewale’s comments and demeanor in the interview revealed the police command’s lack of gravity and the broader breakdown in Nigeria’s safety and health systems.
Sowore said, “The first thing that struck me about FCT Commissioner of Police Adewale Ajao when he was interviewed on Arise News yesterday wasn’t his words, but the plethora of award plaques carefully arranged behind him, Nigeria’s national symbols of empty recognition.
“And yet, in front of those plaques, he sat to ignorantly announce that armed robbers operated in the heart of Abuja for a full 1 hour and 30 minutes without any police intervention.
“As if that disgrace wasn’t enough, he capped his puerile briefing with a most ridiculous conclusion, that Sommie, the Arise News producer, was “rushed” to the hospital but doctors could not revive her after performing CPR.”
“It was a damning display, as he sat comfortably throughout the nauseating interview, not just of failure, but of how deeply unserious and broken the security architecture and the medical emergency care situation of Nigeria is,” he said.
“If CP Wale Ajao served in a proper police force, he would have been fired the very minute he concluded that embarrassing interview, if not even before.”
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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