Nigerian Newspapers: 10 Things You Need to Know this Saturday, May 13, 2023

1) On Friday, reports claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari had relocated to the Glass House, a temporary building that has housed departing presidents since 1991, from his official residence inside the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. The change will allow for maintenance to be done on the house in order to get it ready for the residence’s upcoming resident, President-elect Bola Tinubu.

2) The Labour Party’s factional leader, Lamidi Apapa, gave the legal representatives of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, a deadline of 48 hours to inform him of the ongoing election petitions tribunal. Hours after the Federal High Court in Abuja decided in his favour in the case that was before it, Apapa issued his ultimatum.

3) Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the election for president scheduled for February 25, declared on Friday that he “must be” Nigeria’s president. While expressing optimism about securing the top spot in the nation, Obi, who was speaking in the state of Anambra, made it clear that he was not rushing to realise his goal.

4) A Federal High Court in Abuja has been asked by some residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to halt Bola Tinubu’s inauguration as president. According to them, the purpose of this is to use the Nigerian Constitution’s Section 134(2)(b) to definitively decide whether or not the candidate in question complied with its requirements.

5) The federal government announced on Friday that starting in January 2024, states will be responsible for providing food for prisoners housed in correctional facilities. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the interior minister, made this announcement in Owerri, the capital of the Imo state. He said states should make the most of the constitutional amendment to enhance the living conditions of prisoners within their jurisdictions.

6) As the Rivers State Government started demolishing two buildings owned by the Bayelsa State Government in Akassa Street, old GRA, Port Harcourt, tensions between the two states—which have been simmering—intensified on Friday. Before they were demolished, the structures on the large plot of land served as housing for employees of the Bayelsa State Government Liaison Office in Port Harcourt.

7) The notorious kingpin known as “Yellow,” who terrorised the state’s Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area, was neutralised in a joint security operation, according to Musa Hussaini-Rambo, commander of the Nigerian Hunters and Forest Security Service (NHFSS) in Kebbi.

8) According to Muktar Betara, the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, the group of seven candidates for speaker of the 10th assembly will cooperate in order for one of them to be elected speaker of the house in the ensuing administration. There would not be a conflict between them, according to Betara, who made this statement on Friday in Abuja at the formal declaration of the deputy speaker, Idris Wase, for the speakership seat.

9) On Friday, an Ondo State High Court in Akure, the state’s capital, sentenced Ajayi Famakinwa to 18 years in prison for having an unwed child with a 15-year-old girl. Pastor Famakinwa, 60, was detained by police after allegedly committing the crime in 2021 at Ayede Ogbese in the state’s Akure North Local Government Area.

10) The leader of a suspected robbery gang that is suspected of recently killing a police officer in Ibadan has been neutralised by Oyo State police. The police detained three additional suspects. This was said by SP Adewale Osifeso, the police public relations officer, as the suspects were paraded at the command’s headquarters in Eleyele, Ibadan, on Friday.