RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia hits ‘foreign mercenaries’ base in Ukraine – MoD

The Russian military has carried out high-precision strikes on an ammunition depot and a temporary base for foreign mercenaries in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has announced.

Both targets were located near the town of Merefa, about 20km (12 miles) southwest of Kharkov, it said in a statement on Thursday. “Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces, and artillery”were involved in the attack, it added.

Underground coordinator Sergey Lebedev claimed in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency that one of the targets was the Merefa Mechanical Plant, where Kiev troops were producing and storing drones, while the second was a tank school, which housed tanks and instructors provided by Ukraine’s foreign backers.

A train carrying Ukrainian troops and equipment, which was unloading not far from the school at the time of the strikes, was also hit, he stated. However, these details have yet to be confirmed by officials.

Earlier on Thursday, Ukrainian officials and media reported that residential infrastructure in Kharkov had been hit by drones. According to the reports, the attacks resulted in at least four deaths. The drones also reportedly hit a thermal power plant located near the village of Slobozhanskoye, 55km from Kharkov.

Moscow has repeatedly said that its forces do not target civilians.

Russian forces first began targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the autumn of 2022 in response to the bombing of the Crimean Bridge. Kiev had initially denied responsibility, but later admitted its involvement in the attack.

Last month, the Russian military carried out a massive wave of strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, causing widespread blackouts.

Russia has stepped up its airstrikes on Ukrainian military targets and critical infrastructure in the wake of Kiev’s recent attempted incursions into Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk Regions, as well as indiscriminate attacks on settlements along the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month suggested that a “cordon sanitaire” – a sort of a buffer zone – should be established on Kiev-controlled territories to protect the Russian population in regions bordering Ukraine.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Fragments of presumed Russian drone found in Moldova

Border police in ex-Soviet Moldova said on Thursday they had found and cordoned off what appeared to be fragments of an Iranian-made Russian drone just inside the country's border with Ukraine.

A police statement said the fragments were found near the villages of Etulia and Vladiceni and bore the inscription Heran-2, another name for Iranian-made Shahed drones used by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine.

The fragments were found in an area about 500 metres (1,600 feet) from the border with Ukraine, with access to the area restricted, the police said. There were no dangerous elements in the fragments and no danger to the area's residents.

There have been several instances of fragments of Russian drones and missiles found on the territory of Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and Romania. Drone fragments were found near the same villages in February.

Pro-European President Maia Sandu has denounced Russia's invasion of its neighbour and singles out Moscow and corruption as the two biggest threats to her country's sovereignty.

Sandu has set a drive to join the European Union as her main policy goal.

RT/Reuters

Anikura thought he was going to have a pleasant night last Tuesday after taking his wife out on a sumptuous dinner treat. It was fun throughout the evening at the Hotel Gbewiri where Anikura and his plus-size wife of 30 years had a 9-course meal with tantalizingly bewitching damsels feeding their eyes with scenes of pole-dance and other out-of-this-world lurid entertainment. That was customary of this super-rich couple whose lavish tastes had no respect for decorum or decency.

‘Darling me”, Abora had hardly put her second foot out of the glistering limousine when she called out in a not-too-friendly tone, “I thought you heard the news as we were having dinner when the newscaster reeled out names on the latest list of billionaires with special attention to those who made the grade in our country.”

“Yes, darling. I did. What about it?’’

“What about what?”

“Yes, what about it? Have you ever heard them mentioning my name among the names of billionaires in this country?”

“That’s my point. And why have you never protested?”

“Protest over what?”

“Look, dear, don’t frustrate me this night. Look at the small boys, yes boys, not necessarily in age, but small by virtue of the newness of their wealth and the smallness of their wallets.”

“Age has nothing to do with Forbes categorisation or newness of the wealth. I think their assessment is based on visibility and I think, possibly on verification of the assets and market value of those they parade as the wealthiest or something like that. I don’t work for Forbes, so I really don’t know for certain what their criteria are”

“You see, that’s where I’m coming from. Are you saying the Forbes people are blind? Can’t they see the palatial buildings we have all over the places. In The US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Dubai, Canada? I’m sure if Forbes people are serious and not corrupt, they should know that you are qualified to top the list of billionaires in this country.

The atmosphere was getting charged and Anikura was at a loss as to what to tell his wife to calm her down. She was fuming and as she punched out every word from her large mouth, her breasts seemed to be moving up and down in response to heavy breathing.

Abora was hypertensive and she also nursed a sizeable measure of diabetes. She stammered and that God’s gift jacked up her temperature whenever she lost her cool or appeared worked up in an argument.

“Look, darling”, Anikura tried to calm down her nerves; may be I should call our accountant to explain to both of us why my name was missing”.

“Come on. Am I an illiterate? What is there to explain to me by your accountant? Don’t you have money? Are we not by far wealthier than those boys and girls in the Forbes list of billionaires? How much billions do they have? In Dollars, we are not their mate. In Pounds Sterling we are not their equal. In French franc, we are by far ahead of their grandfathers. In Naira, we are richer than the Central Bank. So, what is it? What is the so-called accountant you built a house for coming to tell me? Are we not the ones who sent his 2 daughters abroad? Is that the man coming to educate me on what I know?” Abora would not let go. Anikura, her husband, former Governor, former Senator, former Council Chairman, former Ambassador, former Minister and former ex-Military Chief rolled into one, was already perspiring. He also was diabetic and suffered renal challenges.

“No sir, Yes sir, no sir, Okay sir, Beg your pardon sir” That was accountant Manotan Paramole.

“Please if you can drive down to our mansion now, I will appreciate it very much”.

“Expect me shortly sir” Paramole concurred.

“I will walk out on you both if he should show up his ugly face here tonight.”

“What exactly is the matter with you this night? I tried to explain to you how Forbes conducts their business, you said No; I want to bring in an expert, you still say No; what do you want me to do? It’s already past 8, o, clock. We should be in bed by now”.

“Not me and you in bed this night. This Forbes nonsense, exposing me to ridicule in the eyes of my friends who always hail me as ‘Super Billionaire’s Heartthrob’ must stop.”

“Come in!” Anikura gave Manotan a cheerful welcome. “Please sit down”

“Thank you sir”.

“Darling, please come and listen to our accountant”

“Madam, ma, as I was saying….”

Abora interrupted him. “What were you saying? Even by your records, the way we lavish money on you and your entire family, including your father and mother, are we not billionaires? Is my husband not qualified to be dubbed the NO1 billionaire in this country, in this continent, even in the world? You know our assets distributed all over the world and the humongous cash stashed away abroad in several special designated banks? Now, your story?”

“Thank you Madam, ma. The way billionaires are ranked is based majorly on visible, verifiable assets and wealth, possibly along with products or services which engendered such wealth. You know, we are not allowed to advertise my client’s wealth especially since we cannot prove the source or sources of the huge funds stashed away in hidden accounts. And Madam Ma, may be you are not aware, most of the assets you and oga have are in fictitious names and fictitious companies’ names.”

Abora turned to her husband, her jaw drooping: “What am I hearing?”

“But you heard him”, Anikura responded calmly.

“Is he saying you are a shady billionaire, to your face, in our own house?” “Cheeky eh?”

“I don’t think that’s what the accountant is saying. He is just explaining how his company works. He surely can’t sit in my house and call me a thief, or embezzler of public funds or such profane words bothering on character assassination. No, God forbid!”

“I hope not” the confused Abora let down her guard.

“After you have served this country meritoriously almost all your life, working as a public servant for close to two-thirds of your life span so far, how would anybody impugn your integrity? My darling. I’m so sorry. I now understand. Forbes classification is for nouveau rich. For small boys who still have to prove how they came by their sudden wealth. We have long passed that stage.”

“You see, my darling wife, we are billionaires from the womb. Me, Anikura, Forbes doesn’t have one percent of my wealth. It will be an insult for me, and a major insult on my wealth and riches if Forbes should rank me with these little tots.”

All hail Anikura, the billionaire beyond Forbes orbit.

Before The Human Flow was published, Jonathan, one of Europe’s most accomplished foreign affairs columnists and journalists, had talked with excitement about the book. It was his first novel. Like a woman who became pregnant when she thought she was past child-bearing, Jonathan, 82, couldn’t wait to make Mary Wesley look like a child prodigy.

Sam Omatseye’s book, Beating All the Odds: Diaries and Essays on How Tinubu Became President, on the other hand, is part diary, part essay. The diary would have been difficult to script even if a fiction writer had tried to imagine the outcome of events in the months leading up to the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

The thing about diaries is that you never know. When the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a legacy member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was compiling A Witness to History, for example, the party could not have imagined that it was writing the final chapters of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government that had lost its way for good.

This gift of the unknown is also exemplified in The Diary of a Young Girl, the story of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl caught up in the turmoil of the Second World War, but who in spite of it produced a diary that has become both a record of history and also a work of moral philosophy.

Damned either way

From the first part of Sam’s 349-page book, it’s improbable that he knew exactly which way the wind would blow when he started journaling ahead of the February 2023 presidential election, two months after the APC presidential primary in 2022. 

Unlike former military president General Ibrahim Babangida who famously said he didn’t know who would succeed him but he knew those who wouldn’t, President Muhammadu Buhari appeared confused about both. His body language, which became a metaphor for his government’s malaise, suggested that the front-runner, Bola Tinubu, the subject of Sam’s book, was not his preferred candidate.

Even though Tinubu had picked the APC’s presidential ticket when Sam started his diary and decency required that Buhari would rally the party behind its candidate, the party became Tinubu’s worst enemy. It wasn’t just the usual horse-trading, feather-ruffling, and back-stabbing that come with internal party politics. It was a betrayal of Judas-like proportions, plotted to swallow Tinubu alive. 

“I have looked at the whole situation,” Tinubu tells Sam, “I told myself, if I didn’t run, I’m damned. If I ran, they may want to damn me. So, I had to run, anyway.”

Inside Ota lair

Sam’s diary opens with an entry on August 19, 2022, about Tinubu’s pilgrimage to the Ota, the lair of one of Nigeria’s political gods, President Olusegun Obasanjo. Whatever the sacrifice Tinubu offered at the Ota shrine on that visit, his token may have fallen short. 

In spite of the photo-ops and pretensions of ethnic solidarity, Obasanjo whom Sam describes as “the old fox of Nigeria’s politics,” later cast his lot with the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, reopening old memories of mutual distrust between Obasanjo and Tinubu.

Three main issues dominate the diary: One, the conspiracies within the APC, right up to the Presidency, to subvert Tinubu’s ambition; two, the division within the PDP, which split the party into at least three irreconcilable factions, the Nyesom Wike faction being the most potent; and three, the bitter pushback by anti-Tinubu groups – masquerading sometimes as the religious police, sometimes as ethnic tin-gods, and yet at other times as the youth avantgarde – all sparing neither mud nor kitchen sink in their desperate attempts to stop him. 

“It seems obvious,” Sam says in his February 17, 2023 entry, “that the worries that Tinubu expressed about efforts to scuttle his path to victory have never been better revealed than when Buhari went on national television and defied the Supreme Court ruling (on the currency crisis) …the president gave ammunition to the other contestants.”

The Atiku Syndrome

The bulk of the entries however centres on the Atiku Syndrome, a condition that makes the sufferer utterly unable to see or seize an opportunity even if beaten on the head with it; and the unrestrained bitterness of “Obidients” towards the Tinubu campaign. 

Sam, whose diary makes no pretence of his support for Tinubu, not only highlights the misery that the division between Atiku and Wike’s G-5 brought upon the PDP, he also invokes the worst of Atiku’s politics, and takes no prisoners amongst “Obidients” who wanted his head on a platter, especially after his controversial article, “Obi-tuary”.

Even though the opposition’s divided house set the ducks of Tinubu’s victory on a row, Sam had his anxious moments not a few. At one point, he asks Tinubu if there is a Plan B, because, he says, “I knew Buhari did not want him and the vampires around him did not want him.” 

The rest is history, enriched by the second part of his book – a careful curation of a decade’s worth of some of his most engaging weekly columns in The Nation.

Love story

In The Human Flow, Jonathan took a different tack away from – but enriched by – his commentary on foreign affairs published for decades on many platforms across the world. The novel is a love story expressed as a tragedy of our modern existence: the trafficking of West African migrants.

In some ways, the book reminded me of Sina Odugbemi’s Japa,a slim but horrific personal account of the author’s search for greener pastures through the Sahara Desert, complete with tales of his Maghreb nightmares. 

Or perhaps Olusegun Adeniyi’s From Frying Pan to Fire, a searing account of the human tragedies experienced in the elusive chase for a better life in Europe by thousands of African migrants who are consumed by the unforgiving desert or trafficked as slaves long before they can achieve their dreams.

The difference, perhaps, is that while Odugbemi’s and Adeniyi’s accounts are based on real-life stories, The Human Flow is a narrative prose fiction of the life of a Tanzanian-based white British journalist, Jon, whose quest to expose the evils of human trafficking led him into an odyssey of a complicated romance, adventure and tragedy.

Complicated affair

The main characters in the book are Jon, and his Tanzanian girlfriend, Agnes. In their pursuit for truth, they fall in love. Their affair is deepened by Agnes’s brief kidnapping and the search for her that led Jon into romantic entanglement with a married Spanish journalist, Ana. 

The quest also reveals a web of human traffickers comprising religious leaders, local chiefs, border police, hustlers and deadly gangs. These forces sometimes work for or against each other, but unfailingly prey on the desperation of their victims for that basic human instinct of a better life.

In the end, Jon and Agnes are captured by a deadly guerilla movement in Morocco and murdered in Libya. 

In the former world, European migrants to Africa were impeded by geography and tropical diseases but they overcame by guile and gunpowder. In today’s reverse migration, hope and dinghies are the main vessels for African migrants. 

Conclusion of the matter

Unfortunately, as we see from The Human Flow the brutal realities confronting African migrants range from human traffickers to deadly gangs and compromised or hostile border police, leaving the migrants with forlorn hopes and broken dreams, if they survive.  

There’s a place where Sam’s poetic prose and Jonathan’s enthralling story-telling meet: leadership. The failure of leadership is responsible for the booby traps and chaos thrown on Tinubu’s path in the runup to the 2023 election on Buhari’s watch. It also explains why African youths are risking everything to escape the continent. 

Both diary and novel meet at the crossroads of Africa’s biggest problem: leadership.

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

I dread having a busy schedule.
Often, it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to fulfill my work obligations, spend time with loved ones, have a hobby and dedicate enough time to self-care without crashing.
As a result, dinners with friends I haven’t seen since college get pushed back, appointments get rescheduled, and there’s no time for the dance, pottery and piano classes I used to take. 
Lori Santos, a Yale University psychology professor, called this a “time famine” at SXSW in early March. It can lead to poor work performance and burnout and even harm your mental health, Santos added.
The good news: You can up your feeling of “time affluence,” as Santos called it, and end up happier.
Here are three ways to do it:
1. Stop crowding your calendar. While it might look impressive, it can make you feel like there’s no time to eat lunch or chat with colleagues. Save the larger, more pressing tasks for your calendar and the smaller ones for your to-do list, Santos recommends.
2. Celebrate unexpected breaks. When a meeting ends early or you finish a task a little quicker than you thought you would, use those short, leftover minutes to do things that make you happy, such as meditating or taking a quick walk.
3. Spend money to get time back. Some of the best ways to rest, recover and reward yourself do cost money, Santos noted. If you have to work late one day, don’t feel guilty eating leftovers or ordering takeout that night, she said.
I’ve already started implementing the first tip, and I have stopped scheduling short chats and lunch breaks on my calendar, which made it more daunting to look at. 

The next time I have to work late, I might pick up a quick dinner to save myself the time spent standing over the stove, and hit the gym instead.

CNBC

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), manufacturers and energy experts have flayed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (NERC) decision to hike electricity tariff for Band A customers from the current N66 per kilowatt hour to N225, representing a 240 per cent increase. They described the move as insensitive, discriminatory and predatory.

Band A consumers are those who have electricity supply for upward of 20 hours daily. NERC had in 2020 introduced Service-Based Tariff (SBT) to improve service delivery to end-user customers and ensure that electricity tariffs paid by end-user customers are a reflection of the services delivered by the Distribution Companies based on the number of hours of electricity supply per day.

Other categorization under the SBT are Band B: Minimum of 16 hours daily electricity supply, Band C: Minimum of 12 hours daily electricity supply, Band D: Minimum of 8 hours and Band E: Minimum of 4 hours daily electricity supply.

A statement by the NERC Executive Vice Chairman, Musiliu Oseni, however, assured that customers on Band B to E would not be impacted in the new tariff adjustment.

He disclosed that customers in Band A account for 15 per cent of the 12 million electricity consumers in the nation.

Reacting, NLC Spokesman, Benson Upah, in a telephone conversation with our correspondent, said the move was clearly insensitiven and cruel and should be immediately reversed.

He argued that the increase would negatively impact businesses, leading to food inflation, company closures, and job losses.

Upah stated that those likely to  benefit from  the electricity price hike are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), not the citizens.

He said: “The government’s decision  is not only insensitive, it is callous.

“It’ll further pauperise consumers, especially workers whose wages are fixed and insufficient.

“It similarly makes the operating environment more hostile for manufacturers with potential for an astronomical rise in cost of goods and services or in the worst case scenario, more closures and loss of jobs.

“The only people who stand to gain from this mindless social  violence against the people are the World Bank  and IMF.”

In his remarks, the former Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry(LCCI), Muda Yusuf, said electricity is a social service and that the current increase was discriminatory in approach.

He said the increase still represents what he called cross subsidy by making the elites pay more electricity in order to subsidize the average and poor Nigerians.

Lawal lamented that no matter how much they increase tariffs, the service delivery level by the Discos will still remain poor because the majority of them lack the financial and technical capacity to drive the sector.

Yusuf, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Center for Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), said the Federal Government must still find ways to continue to fund the power sector, warning that it cannot afford to leave it entirely in the hands of the private sector whose main motive is driven by profit.

He further stated that due to the failure to meet the necessary electricity supply hours, the commission has moved some Band A customers to Band B.

“We currently have 800 feeders that are categorised as Band A, but upon reviewing those feeders’ performance, the Commission has now reduced it to under 500. This means that 17% now qualify as Band A feeders. These feeders only service 15% of total electricity customers connected to the feeders”.

The former Chairman, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Frank Onyebu, expressed shock over NERC’s decision.

“My first reaction was disbelief, total disbelief. This couldn’t be true. I thought that this had to be one of those social media fabrications. There’s no way our government could be so insensitive to slam this kind of tariff on manufacturers.

“Band A, which by the way, is populated by mostly manufacturers. It is manufacturers who are going to bear the brunt of this totally ridiculous tariff hike!

“I am really lost for words. I can’t believe that anyone could even contemplate such a thing at a time when most of our members are barely keeping afloat. This is the height of insensitivity. This could, in fact, be the final nail on the coffin of manufacturing in this country.

“I just hope that the government will have a rethink. I also hope that, in the future, the government would strive to consult manufacturers on issues that affect them. We all need to understand the implications of an extinct manufacturing sector to the economy of our country. We need to realize what harm would befall the country if half of the existing manufacturers fail.

“We are already living with the effects of high unemployment on our security. The security situation would get a lot worse if many factories shut down and more people are forced into the unemployment market. We also have to think about the impact of factory closures on government revenue. A shut factory cannot pay taxes! It is in our collective interest as a nation that the government quickly rescinds the very insensitive tariff hike”, he explained.

Also speaking, a former Chairman of the Renewable Association of Nigeria, Segun Adaju, said the latest hike by NERC has further shown that the current pricing mechanism was not cost reflective.

He said this remained one of the major challenges in the sector that is scaring away investors, assuring that with this increase, there should be hope for new investments.

But to create a sustainable option for consumers, Adaju said that Nigerians should begin to explore the option inherent in renewable energy, especially solar which, he said, is more cost reflective than grid power.

Also commenting, the Managing Director, Idfon Power Engineering Consultants (iPEC) Limited and former Chief Technical Officer of FGN Power Company, Idowu Oyebanjo, said that if NERC is increasing power based on regular supply of electricity, how would it monitor that a customer who’s supposed to have 20  hours does not get less?

“It’s meant for just only a few people who are on Band A. The only challenge I have there is, how do you ensure that those customers get 24-hour supply? There are things the distribution companies can do to ensure reliable and safe supply and we can help them to achieve this”, he said.

Sun

President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday signed the student loans re-enactment bill into law.

The signing of the bill by the president came after the announcement of a temporary suspension of the commencement of the student loan scheme.

The law will allow Nigerian students in tertiary institutions to access low-interest loans for tuition and other academic needs.

Signing the bill at the State House, Abuja, the president said no one would be excluded from quality education and opportunity to build their future regardless of their background.

The executive bill is titled “A Bill for an Act to repeal the Students Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act, 2023 and Enact the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Bill, 2004 to Establish the Nigerian Education Loan Fund as a body corporate to receive, manage and invest funds to provide loans to Nigerians for higher education, vocational training and skills acquisition and for related matters was signed at the State House in the Presence of the leadership of the National Assembly, Ministers and Major Stakeholders of Education”.

“I have just signed a bill proclaiming the student loan effectively. First of all, I must thank members of the National Assembly for their expeditious handling of this bill considering the children of Nigeria, that education is the tool to fight against poverty effectively,” Tinubu said.

“We are determined to ensure that education is given the proper attention necessary for the country including skills development programmes.

“This is to ensure that no one, no matter how poor their background is, is excluded from quality education and opportunity to build their future.

“We are here because we are all educated and were helped. In the past, we have seen a lot of our children drop out of college and give up the opportunity.

“That is no more, the standard and the control is there for you to apply no matter who you are as long as you are a Nigerian citizen.”

The Cable

ISRAELI REPORTS

IDF: IDF troops are continuing to operate in Al-Amal and the area of Khan Yunis, locating weapons and terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

In the area of Khan Yunis, IDF troops located numerous weapons. During the activity, IAF and engineering forces struck terrorist infrastructure and weapons storage facilities.

In Al-Amal, IDF troops killed and apprehended a number of terrorists, and an IAF aircraft also struck and eliminated a terrorist. During a targeted raid in the area, IDF troops located numerous weapons, including weapon parts, explosive devices, and grenades.

Furthermore, in Al-Amal, IDF troops in a close-quarters encounter eliminated a terrorist cell with tank and close-range fire.

Over the past day, IDF fighter jets struck a number of compounds rigged with explosives and terror tunnels. In addition, IAF aircraft struck dozens of terrorist infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities, launch posts, and military compounds.

** IDF: Earlier today (Wednesday), the Hezbollah terrorist organization launched rockets at the Har Dov area in northern Israel from a military post in the area of Kfar Hamaam. Within a few minutes, IAF fighter jets and aircraft struck Hezbollah terror infrastructure and military posts, including the post from which the rockets were launched and the operatives who fired the rockets.

Yesterday (Tuesday), the IDF struck Hezbollah military structures and terrorist infrastructure in the area of Blida and Aynata.

Earlier today, IDF artillery struck to remove a threat in the area of Ayta ash Shab.

A short while ago, IDF troops identified a number of launches fired from Lebanon which crossed into northern Israel. No injuries were reported.

** IDF: A senior Hamas military intelligence officer in an ISA interrogation: "Units of the military intelligence operated from Shifa Hospital. The Interior Ministry, the Emergency Committees and the government of Hamas also worked from there. It's a safe place.”

Many terrorists affiliated with terrorist organizations were apprehended in the IDF's targeted operation, led by the 162nd Division and the ISA, at Shifa Hospital. This includes the Deputy Commander of the Rocket Unit in the Islamic Jihad, commanding positions in the Hamas Military Wing, and senior operatives in the Ministry of Internal Security and Hamas' Emergency Committees. The apprehended suspects were transferred for interrogation at the ISA and Unit 504 in the Intelligence Directorate (J2).

Among the apprehended are also many operatives from Hamas’ Military Intelligence, who in their interrogations bring valuable and important information for the continuation of the fight against the terrorist organization. Among them is the Deputy Head of the Information Department in Hamas' Military Intelligence, Ashraf Ibrahim Samur.

Samur describes in the ISA interrogation the many branches of Hamas that operated out of the hospital, starting with the Military Intelligence, the Interior, Security and Administration branches of the terrorist organization.

Attached is the ISA interrogation of the Deputy Head of the Information Department in Hamas' Military Intelligence, Ashraf Ibrahim Samur: https://bit.ly/3TDzTjg

HAMAS’ REPORTS

European Union:

⏺The Israeli army's killing of World Central Kitchen team members in Gaza is horrific

⏺ We urge Israel to commit to conducting a comprehensive investigation and ensuring that those responsible for the incident are held accountable

⏺ We expect the implementation of the Security Council resolution of an immediate ceasefire and the measures of the International Court of Justice.

** A number of occupation vehicles and bulldozers were stationed in the vicinity of Al Awda Schools, east of Khan Yunis, in conjunction with strong clashes and artillery shelling.

** Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: We bombed with mortar shells a position of Zionist enemy soldiers and their military vehicles north of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

** Major General Fayez Doueiri:

The occupying state has historically (due to American and Western protection) used to ignore international laws and ignore them, so the day before yesterday it bombed the aid distribution convoy returning to the World Cooking Center, which led to the killing of seven relief workers, including four Britons, after that shameful behavior. What is unacceptable is that some countries that reject this immoral and inhumane behavior moved to condemn the actions of that rogue state. We all condemn and reject those actions and demand that those responsible for them be held accountable. But does not the killing, wounding and arrest of one thousand five hundred Palestinians in the Shifa Complex and its surroundings a few days before the fateful incident deserve the same condemnation, or is Palestinian blood cheap? Damn those condemnations that distinguish between people’s rights to life on the basis of religion and race, unless it is enough to kill, wound and lose more than one hundred and twenty. Alpha to move the conscience of the world (if it exists at all) to stop the war of annihilation being waged against Gaza. Are the painful scenes not enough to awaken the conscience of the resident of the White House to say enough is enough and stop supplying the Zionist gangs with weapons? Isn’t what Britain (which is the root of the disease) done sufficient in the Arab region and other regions sufficient? To ask herself what her civilization has offered to the world other than tragedies, but we are living in a stage of moral decadence despite technological progress.

** Al-Qassam Brigades - West Bank:

Our fighters engaged in clashes with the occupation forces in Al-Faraa camp at dawn today

- During the past week, we carried out several offensive operations by shooting and detonating homemade devices targeting enemy vehicles and some of its settlements in the northern and southern West Bank.

** Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades :

We carried out 36 operations on the fighting fronts in the Gaza Strip during the past 72 hours, which led to deaths and injuries among the enemy’s ranks.

** Saraya Al-Quds: In conjunction with the Al-Amoudi Brigade - Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, we bombed a position of enemy soldiers and vehicles south of Gaza City with a barrage of heavy-caliber mortar shells.

#Al-Aqsa Flood

** Hamas:

What UNRWA said today about the occupation continuing to prevent its teams from reaching the northern Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid; It confirms the insistence of the leaders of the terrorist occupation on the fascist war of starvation against Palestinian civilians, and the policy of preventing and systematically targeting all means of providing relief to them and delivering basic aid to them, with the aim of punishing our people and pushing them to emigrate from their land, under the weight of famine and continuing massacres.

We call on the international community and the United Nations to take immediate action and put pressure on the criminal occupation to stop its declared crime of using starvation as a weapon, preventing the arrival of aid, and targeting aid workers, and the need to stand up to its targeting of UNRWA, and take actual steps to hold it accountable for its ongoing crimes against defenseless civilians.

** Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: After their return from the battle lines, our fighters confirmed that they had targeted a house with anti-armor shells in which a number of Zionist soldiers were holed up, confirming that there were deaths and injuries among the ranks of the occupation, in the Al-Amal neighborhood area, west of the city of Khan Yunis.

** Al-Quds Brigades: We bombed "Sderot", "Niram" and the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip with a missile barrage in response to the crimes of the Zionist enemy against our people.

#Al-Aqsa Flood

** Hezbollah: We targeted, with appropriate weapons, a building in which the occupation soldiers were stationed in the Metulla settlement, and we killed and wounded those inside it.

** Resistants throw homemade bombs “elbows” towards the occupation army in the town of Silat Al-Dhahr, south of Jenin.

** Resistants fire at the occupation forces before they storm Jenin, and violent clashes take place in the Sahel areas and the vicinity of Haifa Street, west of the city.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian troops destroy over 18,500 military drones in Ukraine operation — top brass

Russian troops have destroyed over 18,500 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

"In all, the following targets have been destroyed since the start of the special military operation: 581 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 18,538 unmanned aerial vehicles, 495 surface-to-air missile systems, 15,684 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,262 multiple rocket launchers, 8,644 field artillery guns and mortars and 20,576 special military motor vehicles," the ministry said in a statement.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian drone attack kills at least four in Ukraine's Kharkiv, officials say

Russian drones hit high-rise apartment blocks and private homes early on Thursday in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, killing at least four people, including rescue workers in a repeat strike at the site of one attack, officials said.

Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Synehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, put the death toll at four, with 10 injured, one in serious condition.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, also writing on Telegram, said four people died at the scene of one attack, at least three of them drivers of emergency vehicles killed after they had arrived at the scene and a new strike occurred.

Terekhov said there had been five drone strikes. One had triggered a fire, part of another building had collapsed, and at least three vehicles were seriously damaged.

One person was killed in a strike on private homes in another city district, Terekhov said.

Synehubov said one of the injured was a nurse caught in a later, secondary blast.

Pictures and video posted online showed ladders from fire trucks operating under floodlights and extending up to shattered apartments at the top of high-rise blocks.

Terekhov told Suspilne public television that signs of life had been detected from one person beneath rubble.

Suspilne reported one of the strikes seriously damaged apartments on three floors of a 14-storey building. It said emergency crews had been unable to work for at least an hour for fear of impending new strikes.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the accounts. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians in the 25-month-old war in which it is focusing on capturing eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

Kharkiv has been a frequent target of Russian drone and missile attacks.

Last week, Russian forces used an aerial bomb on the city, killing one person. A missile attack on an industrial area earlier in the month killed five people.

Terekhov said some city districts could be hit by power cuts. Russia in recent weeks has intensified its attacks on electricity and other infrastructure.

Tass/Reuters

Recently, the CEO of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, got on the wrong side of the internet when he said anyone earning N200,000 monthly in Nigeria is better off than someone earning £2,000 in the United Kingdom. According to him in a TV interview, the Nigerian with a mere N200,000 can afford a maid, a driver, and other domestic staff while the person who earns £2,000 in the UK can barely get by. His superficial comparison somehow reminds me of Nigerians who conclude they live a better life after comparing the cost of Coca-Cola in their country to the US/UK.

Now, thanks to the internet, Onyema has received more than enough riposte to warrant him thinking hard and long (if he cares to anyway) about the degree to which he is out of touch with the Nigerian reality. If he believes that a person earning N200,000 in a country with a bag of rice around N80,000 can hire at least three others, it also tells you how poorly he thinks wage workers should earn. Yes, he is a private individual with the right to his opinion, but he also hires people and that is why his opinion on wages matters.

But what I find interesting about his comparison between England and Nigeria and the subsequent pushback from the inhabitants of social media is that it leaves off the important question of how much Nigerians should earn. What amount would be sufficient for an average household in Nigeria to live? Without an empirical determination of what people should be paid to live, the best we can do is to resort to facile comparisons about what a sum of money can buy under regimes of their respective currencies without factoring other intangibles being bought along. The way Nigerians—particularly the ones who cannot get over other people’s “japa” decisions—talk about how hard life can be abroad because people there pay bills, bills, and more bills makes you wonder if they are even aware of the extent to which their own supposedly “bill-less” society relatively over-taxes them. Nigerians probably pay far more—at least relative to their income—in social services than their foreign counterparts.

While a society like the UK might pay people a sum as low as £2000 (in Onyema’s estimation by the way), hardly anyone is left to live on just their income. Their public infrastructure and social security are so relatively excellent that even though one might not have enough cash to stack up in the bank, one is unlikely to be shouting “ebi ń pa wá!” on the streets either. In a place like the United States, a person with that low an income will qualify for public health insurance, food stamps, and possibly even rent assistance. So while they might be considered “poor” by their society’s (and Onyema’s) standards, their poverty is not as stark as that of a society with no such provisions.

The question of what a Nigerian household should earn to live is complicated by differing ideas of what constitutes a standard household in Nigeria and what it even means to “live.” In a culture where there is a high percentage of polygamous marriages and our family structures are largely communal, it is hard to benchmark a standard household. For one, “household” here is unlikely to be a nuclear family arrangement. Then, what it means to live varies because of the increasing privatisation of our entire lives. Those who live in societies where they earn a measly £2,000 monthly do not generate their own electricity and water, provide their own security, send their kids to third-rate private schools, or even be called to donate money towards ransoming an abducted relative. If they do not hire a driver, maid, and maybe even a gateman on their salaries, it is not simply because their incomes are too poor. It is because, despite their mere £2000, their system allows them to own a car (or at least have access to an efficient public transport system); they have home appliances that eliminate the need for a maid; and their mode of securing society does not involve high fences and metal gates manned by a “gateman.”

There are practical implications to not knowing what is a just and fair income and thereby making silly comparisons. One of my observations when hiring workers in Nigeria is that most lack an idea of proper calibration of their wages. Because they have not developed a statistical sense of value for what they do, they place the moral burden on you who is hiring them by telling you to pay what you consider fair. Value for their labour is thus negotiated, and contingent on moral considerations and sentiments rather than a standardised measure. Recently, I spoke with someone who pointed out how “corruption” was distributed through every aspect of our society. His example was an instance of price gouging by “pure water” vendors, but what came through in his complaints was the problem of not calibrating value. That is why even the modest attempts of a low-income vendor to make a living looked to him like a rip-off.

In 2019, I talked with some friends regarding the standard of living. There are a family of six (two parents, three children, and a relative). During our conversation, I argued that, for a household like theirs to live a relatively comfortable life, they should earn nothing less than N500,000 monthly. Husband and wife, both school teachers (in a public and private school), understandably laughed. They agreed their lives would considerably improve with a higher income, but who would ever pay teachers that amount? Of course, the question of who can pay such an amount as average income in the country is pertinent. Nigeria simply does not have enough economic activities for any employer, public or private, to pay people enough for them to live well. The minimum wage proposals the Nigeria Labour Congress has bandied about ranged from N500,000 to N1m, and people think the union leaders are being ridiculous. At the bottom of those figures being thrown up is the unsettled issue of how much people should earn in order to live and how to standardise it.

Meanwhile, about five years after I spoke to that couple, their income barely increased but the cost of living leaped up by many miles. Nigeria is no longer where it was in 2019; most people are barely coping. When people seeking to justify the Nigerian dysfunction mention the high costs of living in Western societies that drain their poor £2,000 salaries, I also remind them that as hard as things might be over there, they do not spend 80 to 120 per cent of their income just buying food. Nigerians earn so little that people even take loans to buy food. Not luxurious feasts, just enough food to survive. That does not make any sense.

Through the experiences of this couple and several others I would argue that to the matter of what Nigerians need to earn in order to live should be appended the question of how frequently those kinds of figures need to be updated. The Nigerian costs of living change so frequently that the income that hired three domestic wage workers years ago can barely sustain a four-person family now. Whereas the hypothetical person earning the £2,000 pittance can still do most of the things they were doing years ago. Their reality is not upended as quickly as that of Nigerians.

That is why, instead of wasting time and absolving responsibility by talking about what the person living abroad and ensconced within a system with tight social security and welfare benefits ultimately lacks, we should focus on fellow Nigerians and define what it would mean for them to really live.

Punch

CRISIS DEEPENS: President Bola Tinubu announced a no-confidence vote on himself last week, unknown to him. He inadvertently admitted that he is unable to do the job and that his administration is in crisis when he inaugurated two hurriedly cobbled up, new-fangled economic committees to run things and revive economy.

The one is a 31-member Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC), while the other is a 14-man Economic Management Team Emergency Task Force, code-named (EET).

If Nigerians noticed the move by Tinubu, they didn’t seem to give a damn. Many had long given up on the Tinubu presidency anyway and they have switched off its activities. They have come to the eerie realisation that Tinubu is not the man to get Nigeria out of the morass of poverty and underdevelopment, so many have long moved on with their lives, leaving the man to continue with his extended blundering and shadow-boxing.

The teams are made up of the usual culprits: the jaded Dangote-Otedola-Elumelu circle; the Bismarck Rewane-Doyin Salami-Soludo celebrity-economists and the same raucous crowd of  governors and ministers. The same motley crowd of people who brought Nigeria to her current tragic destination has been gathered again!

Apparently, Tinubu forgot he had just last February, assembled the Dangote-Elumelu hawks as his Economic Advisory Council members. Scratch! That was just another presidential blunder out of so many. Now PECC and EET are Tinubu’s NEW DEAL. Call it “peck and eat" if you like but that’s the new buzz in Aso Rock. But for discerning minds, this is a clear sign that crisis has deepen in Tinubu’s administration.

SELF-INDICTMENT: But which serious president sets up a new economic management task force after 10 months in office? What about his cabinet? Has it been rid of the failed ministers and aides whose apparent failure warranted a side team like this?

What has the new government been doing in office all this while? What about the election manifesto and the president’s economic vision?

Could it be that all these have been forgotten in 10 months to the point that outsiders are needed to give direction and “revive" the economy?

Now some ministers and state governors have been co-opted into this  new TASK FORCE. They are mandated to meet twice a week in Abuja for the next six months. So what happens to the governors’ duties back home? What about the ministers’ core assignments? All of this seems quite weird right now.

The simple message here is that the president has lost focus and direction. Vision, if any, has failed him. The presidency is weak and puny (see EXPRESSO_PRESIDENCYWATCH ...Puny Presidency) nobody is holding forte in case the president falters.

BLANK SCORECARD: Now almost one year in office, no scorecard, nothing to report. All the positive indictors the president met upon inauguration have all crashed to near zero. Even the deposits in the blame banks have been exhausted  - there’s nobody to blame anymore!

LOW CAPACITY, LOW ENERGY: This column has warned right before election that Tinubu hadn’t the requisite mental and physical capacities to lead Nigeria.

As can be seen by all, Tinubu has not managed to tackle any of the fundamentals of the economy and the polity; the very basic expectations in governance are not being attended to.

For instance, the corruption monster rages on afield, with Tinubu seemingly not interested in caging it. Official graft has therefore worsened under his watch. About N21 billion budgeted for his Chief of Staff as against N500m for the last occupant of that office has become the compass  for graft in Tinubu’s Nigeria. Today,  the police is on a manhunt for the investigative journalist exposing filthy Customs men while the rogues in grey uniform are overlooked.

The president personally ballooned the cost  of governance by forming a large, lumbering cabinet and showering them with exquisite SUVs, among other pecks.

Insecurity is at its worst with no fresh ideas to tackle it.

The country is in semi-darkness as power generation and distribution is at near-zero levels.

Importation goes on at a massive scale, productive capacity has dwindled further and living standard of Nigerians is at the lowest ebb now. There’s hardly anything to commend the Tinubu administration so far.

WHO WILL RESCUE THE SITUATION? As Nigeria’s socioeconomic crises deepen, and the president’s handicaps can no longer be concealed, who will rescue the polity? All the stress signs are there; the fault lines are all too visible to be ignored anymore.

Recently, we have seen civilians brazenly butchering officers and men of the Army and the army brutishly exacting reprisals almost uncontrolled. We see the escape from Nigeria, of the Binance executive who had been invited to Nigeria and then slammed into detention. That a foreigner could slither out of the hands of security personnel and slip out through Nigeria’s borders, suggests unspeakable ills about the country.

The other day, so-called MINING GUARDS in their thousands,  were suddenly ‘manufactured’ -  uniforms, boots, arms and all. They are conjured into existence ostensibly to guard the mines. Which mines? Whose mines? How much do the mines contribute to the federation account? Are we using taxpayer’s money to fund an army to protect largely private and illicit mines? Why are we committing harakiri by throwing more armed men into our unmanned spaces? Even the Nigerian Navy has been unable to protect Nigeria’s oil wells!

The Mining Guard is yet another  symptom of an insipient loss of control by the President.

Finally, for the first time in a long while, an editor, Segun Olatunji, was abducted from his home in Lagos. For two weeks, no one knew his whereabouts and no arm of the military cum security agencies owned up to picking him in such bandits-style operation. It took the intervention of foreign media and human rights bodies for the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to own up they abducted him,  and eventually release him. Not one charge was brought against him.

Not even under the military junta were editors kidnapped by security agencies in this manner. The point is that the so-called democrat-president is losing patient with the media.

There shall be many more abductions and media mugging in the coming days. When a government fails, it kicks the media's ass for reporting the failure; that’s the historical pattern!

Things will go from bad to worse and government would respond in more undemocratic and authoritarian ways.

Lastly, it’s unlikely that Dangote and Co can rescue the dying Tinubu presidency? These are fortune-hunters craving the next billion dollars to shore up their egos.

To mitigate the looming crisis, Tinubu must quickly reshuffle his cabinet that is currently filled with dead woods and rogues. Many of them are too big for their shoes and they are not given to the rigour of work.

In fact, Tinubu must as a matter of urgency, fortify the presidency by changing his chief of staff to a Raji Fashola kind. As it is, the hub of the presidency is its weakest link.

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