Author: NewsQuest

The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Tuesday urged Nigerian youths to place national interest above personal ambition and embrace service and sacrifice as drivers of the country’s recovery and long‑term development. O’tega Ogra, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital & New Media who also serves as Deputy Director‑General Media, Communications & Public Affairs, City Boy Movement in a statement said Gbajabiamila in a goodwill message to participants at the City Boy Movement’s 2026 National Retreat, themed “Youth, Unity and Action,” explained that the nation’s future would be shaped intentionally by a generation willing to…

President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday declared that Nigeria will stop exporting raw cocoa beans. The government, he said will instead push the crop through local processing plants, a move aimed at capturing more of the global chocolate industry’s value and boosting jobs and foreign earnings. Speaking at the Cocoa Value Addition Summit in Abuja, President Tinubu — represented at the event by Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kyari — described the policy shift as a corrective to decades in which African producers supplied the world’s cocoa but earned only a sliver of the finished-product profits. “Seven of every ten cocoa pods on…

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) on Tuesday moved to calm growing unrest within the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), saying it is pursuing improvements to officers’ retirement benefits rather than advocating their withdrawal from the country’s Contributory Pension Scheme. NewsQuest reports that retired police officers have been pressing for removal from the Contributory Pension Scheme, arguing that it has left many of them impoverished after service. Senate President Godswill Akpabio reportedly said the issue would receive speedy consideration, and the Senate later concurred with the House on bill related to Police pension issues. Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, Director-General of PenCom, told State…

Nigeria and Brazil on Monday moved from diplomatic pledges to concrete market actions rolling out first operational elements of a bilateral agriculture and livestock partnership. Vice President Kashim Shettima who disclosed this while speaking at a high-level market-access meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said the two countries had “moved with deliberate steps from dialogue to delivery, from agreements to implementation.” NewsQuest reports that technical teams and regulators from both countries prepared private-sector operators to begin trading commodities under the Nigeria‑Brazil Agro‑Trade Initiative. The meeting, co-chaired by Vice President Shettima and Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin under the Nigeria‑Brazil…

First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, on Monday met with a World Bank delegation in Abuja where she stressed that investment in early childhood development (ECD) is essential both to expand opportunities for children and to strengthen the nation’s future workforce. Mrs. Tinubu said the Federal Government must pursue programmes that sharpen children’s “focus” and broaden growth prospects, and described Nigeria’s large population as a national advantage. “The population size of Nigeria alone is our advantage, because Nigeria is a great nation,” she said. She cited ongoing government efforts on environmental sanitation and a “Green Challenge” that she helped launch, and praised…

President Bola Tinubu on Monday inaugurated the start of work on a new access road linking Tungan Madaki with the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway at Zuba, describing the project as part of a broader drive to connect satellite towns to the capital and to spur economic activity along the corridor. Speaking at the ceremony where he was represented by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Honourable Tajudeen Abass, President Tinubu also described the road as an extension of the Bill Clinton Drive–Tungan Madaki route commissioned weeks earlier. “What began as one road is now growing into a network, and that…

The Independent National Electoral Commission pushed back the deadline for political parties to file candidate lists for Nigeria’s 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections, the commission said Sunday. Mohammed Kudu Haruna, INEC’s national commissioner and chairman of the information and voter‑education committee, said the new cutoff is midnight on Tuesday, July 14. NewsQuest reports that the move supersedes an earlier deadline set for Saturday, July 11 in the commission’s revised timetable for next year’s vote. INEC said the extension followed a request from the Inter‑Party Advisory Council, which had represented parties unable to upload candidate names and personal particulars within…

By Tunde Rahman When Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew walked into Phase III Section of the Federal Secretariat in Abuja with a forged letter and emerged with an office, signage, and a semblance of government legitimacy, he did not act alone. That is the uncomfortable truth of the “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” saga. Adeyemi has been charged with eight counts of fraud and forgery. But the bigger scandal is not one man’s alleged audacity. It is how a non-existent agency got close to N1.3bn in the 2026 budget, secured office space in the heart of government, hosted top government functionaries…

First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, on Saturday urged prominent musicians including Burna Boy, Davido and Asake to channel part of their wealth into charitable foundations to help the country’s most vulnerable. The First Lady said the burden on government alone is ‘huge’. Speaking at the launch of a national community food bank in Lokoja, Mrs. Tinubu appealed to wealthy Nigerians—particularly figures in the entertainment industry—to back sustained philanthropic efforts. “We have a lot of wealthy people. But our priorities are different. And I think it’s high time we started helping those who need help in the country,” she said. Mrs. Tinubu…

Minister of Education on Saturday praised President Bola Tinubu and security agencies for the safe recovery of pupils and teachers abducted near Ogbomoso in Oyo State, describing the operation as evidence of the federal government’s commitment to protecting children. Dr. Tunji Alausa, commended the coordinated effort by the Armed Forces, the Department of State Services (DSS) the Nigeria Police Force and other agencies that, he said, freed the victims and arrested the perpetrators without harm to those held. Alausa spoke through his Special Adviser on media and communications Attah Ikharo. “The successful rescue of these innocent children and their teachers…