RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia shoots down two Ukrainian jets – MOD

Russian forces have downed two Ukrainian warplanes in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Sunday.

The ministry identified one as a Su-25 close air support plane, which it said was shot down by Russian air defense not far from Dnepropetrovsk (known as Dnepr in Ukraine), some 150km north of the frontline. The other jet was a Su-27 fighter, downed not far from Krivoy Rog, about 140km west of Dnepropetrovsk, officials added.

The Russian military also said it had intercepted 14 missiles fired from US-supplied HIMARS and Soviet-era Uragan missile systems, as well as six Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune rockets. According to the statement, Russian forces have also destroyed 38 Ukrainian drones across the frontline over the past 24 hours. 

In total, Russia has taken out 567 Ukrainian warplanes, 265 helicopters, and 10,526 drones since the start of the conflict in February 2022, the Defense Ministry claimed.  

In October, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Moscow’s forces had received new military systems, which at the time allowed them to shoot down 24 Ukrainian planes in just five days. He did not provide further details. 

However, TASS news agency later reported, citing sources, that Russia had used an S-400 Triumph air defense system, which has a range of up to 400 km. It was also said to have been equipped with active homing heads, and to have been operating in tandem with an A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Japan minister, in Kyiv bomb shelter, pledges funds to fight drones

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, forced into a bomb shelter by an air alert in Kyiv on Sunday, pledged millions of dollars to NATO to help Ukraine avert Russian drone strikes and announced donations of generators and transformers.

"Russia has continued threats and attacks with missiles and drones in various locations, even on New Year's Day," Kamikawa said through an interpreter, after her news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was moved underground.

"Japan is determined to continue to support Ukraine so that peace can return," said Kamikawa, whose stop in Kyiv, announced the same day, was not part of an announcement last month of her Jan. 5 trip to Poland, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and Germany.

Kamikawa said Japan would allocate $37 million to a NATO Trust Fund that supports equipment such as a drone detection system.

She also announced donations of five mobile gas turbine generators and seven transformers. Russian air strikes caused frequent power cuts across Ukraine last winter, and its two main cities experienced cuts due to a major attack on Jan. 2.

Air alerts have become a fact of life since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and many pass without casualties or damage.

However, Moscow deployed hundreds of missiles and drones over the New Year, pounding Kyiv and Kharkiv and killing at least 5 civilians and injuring more than 135, Ukrainian officials said.

Kamikawa also met President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who offered condolences for Japan's New Year's Day earthquake, and thanked Prime Minister Fumio Kishida "for elevating the level of relations" with Ukraine during Japan's G7 presidency in 2023.

Sitting alongside his visitor, the Ukrainian foreign minister also noted Kyiv's key ask of its allies, saying, "I informed my colleague ... of Ukraine's needs not only in aircraft, but above all in air defence systems."

Japan said last month that it would prepare to ship Patriot air defence missiles to the United States after revising its arms export guidelines, in the pacifist nation's first major overhaul of such export curbs in nine years.

It still cannot ship weapons to countries at war, but the move could indirectly benefit Ukraine by boosting Washington's capacity to provide military aid to its ally.

Tokyo also intends to show its commitment to the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine under a public-private partnership by hosting a Japan-Ukraine conference on Feb. 19, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

Reuters

Last week, we got a dose of what investigative journalism ought to be. Umar Audu, a promising young journalist, proved to be an outstanding student of his mentor, Ja’afar Ja’afar, an investigative journalist of the first order. Reporting for Daily Nigerian, Ja’afar’s online newspaper, Umar Audu went underground to bag a degree in Mass Communication from a university in the Benin Republic. It is a report worthy of the highest award in the land for investigative journalism.

“This certificate will be delivered to you just like you ordered a pizza or something, and you give them your location, and it is delivered to you. That was what motivated me to conduct this investigation.

“We did a similar investigation in 2018, which led to the government taking certain decisions. These things keep going on despite pronouncements by the federal government,” he said.

In his investigative report entitled, “How Daily Nigerian reporter bagged Cotonou varsity degree in 6 weeks,” released by Daily Nigerian on 30 December 2023, Umar Audu exposed a booming certificate racketeering syndicate in neighbouring African countries like Benin Republic and Togo which specialises in selling university degrees to willing buyers from Nigeria.

The certificate and transcript which came at the affordable sum of ₦600,000 bore the authentic scan code of Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, ESGT, Benin Republic. He was able to get the certificate without having to apply, register, study, or take any tests.

According to the certificate issued, Umar Audu commenced his programme in 2018 and graduated on September 5, 2022. And with the fake certificate, he participated in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme without being detected.

To participate in the NYSC scheme, despite him never crossing any Nigerian borders, an immigration officer managed to get his passport stamped by both Nigerian and Beninois immigration officials.

Following the expose, the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Musa Adamu Aliyu, met with the reporter “to verify details and move beyond speculation,” according to a statement by ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua.

The report forced the government to ban the validation of certificates from the country and Togo, followed by others from Niger Republic, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, the UK and the USA.

Even though this is not the first time the Nigerian government has promised to descend on those who procure “Cotonou Certificates” or the institutions that offer them, the will to act has always been lacking.

To beat a system that emphasizes paper qualifications, Nigerians, therefore, try the shortcut method by paying, some through the nose, for these certificates bypassing standard academic procedures like application, registration, coursework, and examinations. And as long as the emphasis would always be on certificates, corrupt government employees would enable the fraudulent business of certificate racketeering.

The deification of certificates, without which one's political and economic growth may be dwarfed, our impatience and penchant for cutting corners coupled with compromised officialdom – aggravated by harsh economic conditions - ready to short-change the system for pecuniary gains - all combine to fuel the network.

Not only that; most of those who graduate from our tertiary institutions at home do so through dubious and dishonest means. This is why it is not surprising these days to see a university graduate who cannot string three good sentences together.

The past governments’ nonchalance to education also contributed in no small measure to driving our citizens into the hands of such unscrupulous elements. The last regime did not give a hoot when, for almost a year, the Academic Staff Union of Universities was on strike. Such strikes always push some students who can afford to go to such institutions that give degrees within two months. Here, it takes about four years under normal conditions but can take more because of strikes.

It is a good idea that this time around, the government has taken up the issue squarely and hopefully the measures are not going to just stop at banning the schools but that their products would be sieved out of our system as they are currently ensconced in all sectors of our society.

Beyond that, the government must also look into a situation where an academically deficient student here goes on to become a medical doctor or an engineer abroad, leaving his more brilliant and promising student here with no future because of the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board’s policies.

Let me explain further. Two mates complete secondary school, one with eight credits and the other with three. Neither of them could get admission to study medicine or engineering because they could not reach the required JAMB cut-off marks. However, the one with three credits could go abroad, where nothing is asked of him, to study medicine or engineering and return to Nigeria to practise.

A nation is just as developed as the education it imparts to its citizens. And a civilisation’s life is dependent on the education driving it. The foundation for a nation’s greatness is quality education. For Nigeria to join the top 20 world economies, it must reappraise the value it places on education.

For instance, what is the annual budget we allocate to the education sector? What is the focus of our education? What do we want to achieve and what values do we want to inculcate in students?

It is time that we make products of our education imbibe the culture of honesty and self-reliance. A person who goes to school from primary to tertiary level should be able to be proficient in some skills so that there would be no need for them to be pounding the streets in search of government jobs. A situation where quality (skills and merit) is relegated to quantity (certificates) does not make for a meritorious society.

Lest I Forget

What is so special about the Humanitarian ministry that women, assumed to be humane, who are placed in charge of, including its agencies, show to the world that they are stone-hearted? Or is it that the sector is meant for them to push their husbands into political relevance?

This is a theory we should look at.

** Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.

At age 12, Bella Lin had a problem. Her guinea pigs were disappearing.

In those days, Lin let her three guinea pigs roam her parents’ grassy, fenced-in backyard just outside of San Francisco. It was better than the alternative, she thought: The two-pound creatures “looked miserable” in their cramped, “prison-barred” cage, Lin, now 17, tells CNBC Make It.

She assumed the first, Snoopy, had escaped and she continued letting her guinea pigs outside — until her dad watched an eagle fly away with another, she recalls. Determined to keep the pets out of traditional cages, she started drawing prototypes.

Lin, a senior at Khan Lab School in Mountain View, California, went through several models and invested roughly $2,000 from her savings to launch her side hustle GuineaLoft on Amazon in November 2022.

It sold nearly 11,000 cages and brought in more than $410,000 last year — roughly $34,000 per month, on average — according to documents reviewed by Make It.

In addition to a full academic course load, extracurriculars and college applications, Lin works about 20 hours per week on GuineaLoft, she says. Here’s how she built a side hustle so successful that she’s considering delaying college to concentrate on her business.

An unprofitable side hustle led to an ‘epiphany’

Lin told her dad, a computer programmer, that she wanted to create a better cage. He had a connection to a family-owned factory in China through a former client, and he made an introduction, Lin says.

After a year of mocking up prototypes, Lin got distracted by a different idea: She wanted to sell athleisure for girls at a lower price point than large, trendy brands. She researched, found another factory in China, connected with it, and made a business plan to sell leggings starting at $23.

That side hustle, called TLeggings, launched in July 2019. It brought in roughly $300,000 in revenue in 2020, she says. It also earned Lin a spot at BizWorld, a project-based entrepreneurship program for 16- to 22-year-olds.

She completed a 12-week curriculum and worked with a business mentor, but failed to win the pitching contest — and any prize money — at the end of the program. It was one of a few signs that TLeggings was fizzling out: Despite the lofty revenue numbers, the company was never profitable, and Lin struggled to keep up with her competitors.

She shuttered it in early 2022, and refocused on GuineaLoft.

“I had a weird epiphany [where] I kind of realized there are a lot of other companies trying to [make leggings],” Lin says. “There was no innovation there, whereas with GuineaLoft, I could fill a really big gap in the market.”

Tinkering between classes and late at night

Lin realized her early prototypes were promising, but imperfect.

Traditional guinea pig cages are made with bars, roofs and either tarp or plastic bottoms. They are difficult to clean, Lin says, and often reek of excrement.

Her early glass, open-floor enclosures allowed for more visibility and mobility, and featured a two-tiered bottom. Dirty bedding could be pushed into a removable plastic tray. But the glass was too expensive to ship, and her smaller guinea pigs’ feet got stuck in the floor.

Lin rearranged her schedule so she could do her homework in between periods at school. She stayed up late to research and virtually test products with her six-person team in China — a manufacturing lead who works for the factory, and five full-time GuineaLoft employees who’d previously worked with Lin’s dad or the factory’s leadership.

Those six people source, manufacture, package and photograph the products, says Lin. She manages GuineaLoft’s product design, pricing, marketing — TLeggings taught her a lot about social media in particular, she says — and overall business strategy.

Ultimately the company went with acrylic instead of glass and constructed replaceable bottoms from biodegradable, wax-coated paper — similar, Lin says, to “airplane barf bags.”

The bottoms are easy to throw out, which is good for business: Once satisfied GuineaLoft customers run out, they have to come back to Lin’s Amazon store to restock.

Winning a $10,000 competition

The factory produced 100 cages in its first batch. Lin was elated when three sold in the first couple of hours.

Within two weeks, GuineaLoft all 100 were gone “with no marketing,” she says. She re-applied to BizWorld last year, and won $10,000 in investment funds from the pitching competition. That money will go toward adding accessories and new cages for different types of small pets, like rabbits and hamsters, she says.

The company’s 25% profit margin on individual cages is immediately reinvested into marketing, audience research and the development of new products, Lin says.

That means she’s not pocketing any cash for herself yet — but while she’s applying to colleges, she’s also considering taking a gap year after graduating high school to visit the factory in China, learn more about production and grow her business.

“Witnessing the tangible effects of [GuineaLoft cages] through customer reviews and emails is empowering,” Lin says. “As someone who once placed great emphasis on academic validation, the success ... of [my side hustle] has boosted my confidence in navigating life beyond high school.”

CNBC

A mother, Mrs Deborah Olaki (also known on X as Mummy Zee) after a post on X stating how she wakes up as early as 4.30am to prepare her husband’s lunch, has become a social media sensation, with gifts of cash and kind pouring in for her from Nigerians.

Mrs Deborah Olaki’s life is changing right before her eyes. The Lagos State-based mother has become a millionaire in less than 48 hours.

As of December 29, 2023, Olaki, a graduate of Geophysics, begged Santa Claus for a Christmas gift of a small bedside fridge.

Posting a picture of the sample of the fridge, she added that some of her meals were getting bad too quickly because of the night heat that accompanies the dry season.

The tweet got 230 likes, 70 retweets, and 16 comments, but none made her dream come true.

She wrote, “Dear Santa, I don’t want so much for Christmas, there is just one thing I need. This very small bedside fridge. This is because of the night heat. Some of my meals are getting bad quickly.”

Her husband, Mr Abiola Adebisi, a classroom science teacher, who studied Mathematics, she noted in a tweet, was worried that she was not getting the life she truly deserved because of his financial standing.

She also disclosed that she met the man over eight years ago, adding that she married into a good family.

On December 7, 2023, she made a tweet asking God to fulfil her husband’s heart desires.

She wrote, “Dear God, please bless my husband with all his heart desires this December and enrich his pockets beyond his imagination because he deserves every good thing life has to offer.”

But, all that is going to change now, as Nigerians from all walks of lives are raining cash gifts on the couple following a viral tweet made by Olaki on Friday.

Life-changing tweet

In the life-changing tweet, she disclosed on the popular microblogging site, X, that she wakes up at 4.50am every day to cook for her husband, responding to a user who wondered why a wife would wake up very early to cook for her husband.

Tweeting via her handle, @#_Debbie_OA, she stated that she began to wake up that early when her husband told her that a female colleague in his office brought an extra spoon so that he could share in her lunch.

She tweeted, “I’ve always been too lazy to wake up and get his lunch ready. But the day he told me a colleague brought two spoons so he’ll eat with her was the day I set my alarm for 4.50am.”

The tweet generated controversy, with some criticising Olaki and calling her ‘insecure’ for feeling that waking up that early to cook for a man would keep him.

Popular United States based-Nigerian professor, Uju Anya, who seemed displeased with the lady’s comment, condemned her actions.

Anya wrote, “So, you’re saying you rise before dawn to cook for an able-bodied adult so that he doesn’t beg co-workers for food and f*ck somebody for day-old rice and chicken?”

Another user, @emelleionaire, wrote, “Just married, and someone can steal him with small okro and pounded yam? So, my sister in Christ, what is your war plan for when your beggar husband comes across stew that is sweeter than yours?”

@ruttiexx, another user, said, “The lord is your strength because I cannot.”

However, in a dramatic turn of events, some X users, mostly men, rallied around her, requesting a contribution from like minds to encourage the wife.

Olaki, who posted her account number at 1.39pm on Friday, shared that she had received over N2m from Nigerians on Saturday afternoon.

The woman, whose profile shows that she is a geoscientist, sharing a screenshot of her account balance on Saturday afternoon, wrote, “She’fe pami ni? (Do you want to kill me?).

“I’ve never seen this amount before. I’ve been busy at the hospital and turned off DND to see this, ahhh Jesus. Thank you all so much.

 “Oh, I forgot to mention that an Angel recommended me for a remote Virtual Assistant role for 50k monthly. What else do I want? Amazing Mercy!

“Where’s the tweet with my account number again gan sef? Please, it’s okay. I’m scared.”

As of the time of this report, the lady had got more than N2m from well-wishers.

The lady, trending number 1 on X as Mummy Zee and number 3 as Debbie, disclosed on Saturday night that she had got over N5m in her own account, adding that her husband, whose Opay account number she also posted, had also got some cash donations from Nigerians.

Her initial tweet had generated over 21 million impressions, including 21,000 retweets, 3,200 comments and 57,000 likes.

Her followers have also ballooned from around 2,300 on Thursday to over 78,000 as of the time of filing this report.

NNPCL, Infinix, NITDA, other donations

Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has offered free Premium Motor Spirit vouchers worth N200,000 to Olaki.

NNPCL disclosed this in a tweet shared on its official X handle on Saturday.

The tweet read, “Hello, #_Debbie_OA, we love your amazing love story, and we would like to gift you a free N200,000 PMS voucher redeemable at any of our 900+ retail stations nationwide.

“This will ensure that Mummy Zee has #EnergyforToday and #EnergyforTomorrow. We have just followed you. Please check your DM. Best wishes.”

Also, a smartphone company, Infinix Nigeria, on Saturday, offered its latest device, Infinix Hot 40, to the lady and her husband.

Popular medical expert and X influencer,  Chinonso Egbema, also known as Aproko doctor, offered to pay one-year health insurance for the family of the lady, who was once criticised for waking up at 4.50am to cook for her husband.

He tweeted on his official X handle, “You and your family need health insurance. I’ll be paying your family’s health insurance for a complete calendar year. Stay healthy @_Debbie_OA”

He further offered to provide the family with insecticide since the lady was also said to be pregnant.

Another X user, @rellest_gee, offered her a brand-new iPhone.

He wrote, “Good day Ma for being a good wife I have this iPhone available to you. The delivery is on me and airtime you want to do data you free to text me.”

Also, another X user, @davidchibui, offered to give her a smart TV and cabinet for her use.

Another Twitter user, @nordmotion, promised to pay rent for a two-bedroom flat.

“I am elated to hear @_Debbie_OA is expecting a baby. I sent some money to her Kuda account earlier today. I don’t think we would be able to offer her a car as a present now. However, please contact the couple and let me know if we can pay for the rent of a two-bedroom flat for them in anticipation of the arrival of their baby. They can also visit our showroom and take a test drive in any of our @nordmotion models,” @nordmotion wrote.

Another X user, @OTUNBA_TIZ, wrote, “Hi, good afternoon. My name is Tunde and I make furniture. If you don’t mind, I would love to gift you a bed frame. Kindly pick any of these and if they are not your taste I will gladly make your preferred kind of bed frame for you.”

Kuda doubles N2m donation

A fintech company operating in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, where Olaki’s account number is lodged, Kuda Bank, has promised to double the N2m donation made to her.

This was disclosed on the official X handle of the company on Saturday night.

Reacting to a screenshot of over the N2m shared on X by Debbie on Saturday, Kuda wrote, “As your bank, we’re happy to match the ₦2,044,133.94 balance in your screenshot. Keep doing you, Debbie!”

Replying to this Debbie commented, “I’m just seeing this. I got a call from Kuda today and they said I’ll hear from them, but I didn’t know it would be this huge. Thank you #joinkuda.”

Similarly, the National Information Development Agency also offered to gift her and her husband two laptops and a one-year Internet subscription.

In a post on X, NITDA wrote, “Hello, #Debbie_OA your amazing love story and perseverance are touching, and we would like to gift you two laptops and a one-year Internet subscription for you and your husband.

“This is to ensure that Mummy Zee joins our quest for a #DigitalNigeria and #Tech4Women. We have just followed you. Please check your DM. Good luck!”

Rewards so far

1. N2m donations from Nigerians as of Saturday afternoon
2. N2m donation from Kuda Bank
3. N250,000 worth of generator set
4. N200,000 worth of fuel from NNPCL
5. Laptop from NITDA
6. Infinix 40 from Infinix
7. iPhone from X user, @@rellest_gee
8. Smart TV, cabinet from X user, @davidchibui
9. Job as virtual assistant with N50,000 monthly pay
10. Mattress
11. Freezer
12. Blender
13. Microwave oven
14. One-year health insurance from Aproko Doctor
15. One year’s worth of insecticide from Aproko Doctor
16. N200,000 worth of deliveries from Kiakia Delivery App
17. Furniture from @OTUNBA_TIZ

Punch

Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has budgeted N8 billion for local and international trips in 2024.

The amount was presented in the 2024 government-owned entities’ (GOEs) budget proposal.

The GOEs’ budget comes a week after the national assembly passed the 2024 appropriation bill, increasing its size from N27.5 trillion proposed by President Bola Tinubu to N28.7 trillion.

In the national budget, the federal government earmarked N1.7 trillion for statutory transfers, N8.7 trillion for recurrent expenditure, while N9.9 trillion was allocated for capital expenditure.

NCAA, in its proposal, said N272.87 billion will be spent on expenditure, projecting a revenue of N372.22 billion for the year.

The agency plans to spend N8,342,547,767 from the proposed expenditure on “travels and transport”.

A further budget breakdown shows that “local transport and travels for training” will gulp N3,310,009,756, while international transport will cost N4,317,070,233.

Also budgeting N715,467,778 for “local travels and others”, the NCAA plans to pay N1,935,000,000 as a contribution to international organisations. Office stationeries will gulp N2 billion.

Other major components of the expenditure include the purchase of vehicles (N3,000,000,000), purchase of furniture and office fittings (N1,352,997,000), construction of office building (N3,970,000,000), and provision of electricity (N1,205,000,000).

The Cable

Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Oluwatoyin Madein, has faulted the ‘disbursement’ of N585,189,500.00 into a personal account.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, in a viral document personally signed by her and directed to the Office of the AGF, instructed the payment of the funds to one Oniyelu Bridget Mojisola.

The document also showed that the payment of the N585.189 million grant, meant for vulnerable groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos states, was made into Oniyelu’s account.

But reacting to the leaked document, Rasheed Zubair, Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Minister in a statement on Friday, said the payment for the vulnerable group followed due process.

According to Zubair, the payment of the grant to the account of Bridget was because the fellow currently serves as the Project Accountant of Grants for Vulnerable Groups.

In response to the development, the AGF said she did not honour the request.

She said it was not her responsibility to make payments for projects and programmes on behalf of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Madein’s position was contained in a statement on Saturday by the Director of Press, OAGF, Bawa Mokwa.

Mokwa quoted the AGF as saying that allocations were released to self-accounting MDAs in line with the budget and such MDAs were responsible for the implementation of their projects and payments for such projects.

The AGF explained that although her Office received the said request from the ministry, it did not carry out the payment, adding that the ministry was advised on the appropriate steps to take in making such payments in line with the established payment procedure.

“The AGF noted that in such situations, payments are usually processed by the affected Ministries as self-accounting entities and no bulk payment is supposed to be made to an individual’s account in the name of Project Accountant.

“She added that such payment should be sent to the beneficiaries through their verified bank accounts.

“Madein reiterated her determination to uphold the principles of accountability and transparency in the management of public finances. She advised MDAs to always ensure that the requisite steps are taken in carrying out financial transactions,” the statement said.

Daily Trust

Adewunmi Samuel Sofomade, the leader of the Abuja-based music band kidnapped along the Lokoja highway, has disclosed the amount paid for their release.

The band leader was abducted in December 2023, alongside his crew, while returning from a show in Kogi State. The 13-man group was later released after a few days in captivity.

Recounting his ordeal in a recent interview with BBC Yoruba, the band leader, also called Omoba De Jombo Beats, stated that the kidnappers later reduced their ransom from N10m to N7 million each before they were released.

“We were 13 that went to perform at a burial ceremony in Itakete Isao, close to Isanlu in Kogi State. And we had to move by road because they don’t have an airport in Kogi.

“We had gone since Thursday. We finished performing at about 5:30 pm on Friday. So we felt that there was still time to return to Abuja. The incident happened just after we have past Dangote Cement.

“We spent six days with the kidnappers inside a very thick forest and the six days felt like six years because a lot of things happened in that forest.

“They asked for N10 million each. We started begging their commandant that we could not gather N10 million. He later reduced it to N7 million each.

“When we received the information that the money had been completed but there was no cash during the December period, we started looking for cash. They initially agreed that the money be converted to dollars, but their leader later changed his mind and insisted on naira.”

Daily Post

Hezbollah, Israel trade heavy cross-border fire as Blinken seeks to prevent regional escalation

Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah traded fire Saturday in one of the heaviest days of cross-border fighting in recent weeks, a day after the militia’s leader urged retaliation for the targeted killing, presumably by Israel, of a top Hamas leader in Lebanon’s capital.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that if his group didn’t strike back for the killing Tuesday of Saleh Arouri, Hamas’ deputy political leader, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attacks.

With the risk of regional escalation, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicked off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago.

“It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in Beirut during his own Middle East tour.

Hezbollah said it launched 62 rockets toward an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron and scored direct hits in its “initial response” to Arouri’s killing. It said rockets also struck two army posts near the border. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired toward Meron and that a base was targeted. The army’s chief spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said the rockets caused no casualties in Israel.

Hagari said the military struck the Hezbollah squads that fired the rockets and also attacked Hezbollah military sites. Hezbollah said six of its fighters were killed Saturday, raising the toll since the fighting began to 150.

Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon hit the outskirts of Kouthariyeh al-Siyad, a village about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said, adding that there were casualties. Such strikes deeper inside Lebanon have been rare since the border fighting started three months ago. NNA also said Israeli forces shelled border areas including the town of Khiam.

Separately, the armed wing of the Islamic Group in Lebanon, the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close ally of Hamas, said it fired two volleys of rockets toward the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday night. Two of the group’s members were killed in the strike that killed Arouri.

The war in Gaza was triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.

In recent weeks, Israel has been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory’s south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video statement reiterated that “the war must not be stopped” until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting Israel’s hostages returned and ensuring that Gaza won’t be a threat to Israel are met.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 122 Palestinians had been killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The ministry has said two-thirds of those killed have been women or children. The overall wounded rose to 58,166, the ministry said.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah received at least 46 bodies overnight, according to hospital records seen by The Associated Press. Many were men who apparently had been shot. The dead also included five members of a family who were killed in an airstrike.

The latest Israeli-dropped leaflets urged Palestinians in some areas near the hospital to evacuate, citing “dangerous fighting.”

In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the hospital’s nursing department. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had been sheltering in the house, including some who had been displaced.

Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group embeds itself within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Still, international criticism of Israel’s conduct has grown because of the rising civilian death toll. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it sends weapons and munitions while shielding its close ally against international censure.

The U.S. also has pressed Israel to let much more aid into Gaza. Two U.S. senators who visited Egypt’s Rafah border crossing described lines of hundreds of trucks that have been waiting for weeks to enter.

Blinken began his latest Mideast trip in Turkey, which the Biden administration believes can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to tamp down fears of a regional conflagration.

Those fears have spiked in recent days with incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. On Saturday, a drone launched from an area of Yemen controlled by the Houthi militant group was shot down by the U.S. destroyer Laboon near multiple commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement, adding there were no casualties or damage reported.

In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken sought support for nascent plans for post-war Gaza that could include monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multinational force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory.

Blinken then traveled to Turkish rival and fellow NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has been supportive of U.S. efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

Other stops include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt.

The EU’s foreign policy chief also will visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday. He said he aims to jump-start a European-Arab initiative to revive a peace process that would result in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missile attack kills 11 in Pokrovsk in Ukraine's east, rescue efforts continue

A Russian missile strike killed 11 people and injured 10 on Saturday in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said.

Five of the dead were children. A U.N. official in Ukraine expressed horror at the incident.

Rescue efforts extended into the night. Pictures posted online by regional governor Vadym Filashkin showed teams sifting through piles of smouldering rubble in the dark as well as a burned-out vehicle.

Filashkin told Ukrainian television that Russian forces at about 3 p.m. engaged in "mass shelling" of Pokrovsk with S-300 missiles.

"As a result of this barbaric attack, 11 people died, including five children aged from three to 17 years," he said.

"Ten people were injured. Rescue operations are continuing. Closer to morning we will have a better understanding of the final numbers of those who were injured."

Filashkin had earlier said the main strike had targeted the town of Pokrovsk and nearby villages lying about 80 km (50 miles) from the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.

Russian forces, he said, were "trying to inflict as much grief as possible on our land."

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said the attack "quite simply targeted ordinary, private homes. And Russia must be made to feel that none of these strikes will pass without consequences for the terrorist state."

"TRULY HORRIFIED"

Denise Brown, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said she was "truly horrified" by the strikes and, particularly, the deaths of children.

"These were just children who have been killed because of this war," Brown said in a statement.

Recent Russian attacks on towns, she said, were "leaving behind an outrageous number of children. Women and men killed and injured and a trail of loss and destruction."

There was no immediate response to a request for comment on the incident from Russia's Defence Ministry.

A Russian military statement issued earlier on Saturday said its forces had struck a command post used by a Ukrainian military formation near Pokrovsk, referring to the town by its Soviet-era name Krasnoarmeisk.

And a senior Moscow official working in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, Rodion Miroshnik, said Ukrainian forces had shelled a hospital in Donetsk, injuring three patients. Pictures he posted online showed damage to rooms and some outbuildings.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the war launched with the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

But its forces in the past two weeks have intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns. Ukraine has retaliated with strikes on targets in the Black Sea and on some Russian border areas, including missile and drone attacks that killed 25 people in the city of Belgrade this week.

The governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, adjacent to Donetsk, said one person was killed in drone strikes near the town of Nikopol, a frequent Russian target on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

And officials said three people were injured in Russian shelling of areas of Kherson region to the southwest.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine shells hospital in Donetsk on Christmas Eve

The Ukrainian forces launched multiple attacks against civilian targets in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Saturday, with one of strikes damaging a hospital in Donetsk, according to local authorities.

At least three people were injured after a shell hit the Central Clinical Hospital No 6 in the Leninsky district of Donetsk, according to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination. All of the victims were the patients at the facility. The attack also damaged several houses in other parts of Donetsk, with some witnesses calling it a “Christmas miracle” that no one was seriously injured.

Photos and videos from the scene showed the aftermath of the explosion, with multiple windows shattered and glass shards broken blinds scattered throughout the hospital wards.

Donetsk frequently comes under rocket attacks due to its proximity to the front line. Four people were killed after Kiev's forces shelled the city shortly after midnight on January 1 in the first deadly attack of 2024.

As Russia prepared to celebrate Christmas on January 7, the Russian Orthodox Church has decided to cancel its traditional night services in the capital of the Belgorod region and all settlements located within a 20-kilometer-wide zone alongside the Russian border with Ukraine.

The city of Belgorod, located just around 40 kilometers away from the border, Belgorod has been the target of Ukrainian missile attacks and shelling since December 30. In that time, a massive strike has claimed the lives of 24 people and left more than 100 injured. According to the Russian military, Kiev’s forces used banned cluster munitions in their attack.

Reuters/RT

One single thread links Umo Eno, self-styled pastor governor of Akwa Ibom State, his predecessor, Emmanuel Udom and Felix Houphouet-Boigny. It is the religious bigotry and senselessness behind the Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre and the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire. While Eno and Udom constructed a worship centre said to have gulped a frighteningly high N32 billion, Houphouet-Boigny also constructed a monumental architectural edifice in his Yamoussoukro village worth $300 million between 1985 and 1989. Yamoussoukro was regarded as a provincial town that boasted only a mere 220,000 inhabitants and characterized by low-density and under-utilized infrastructure. Like Eno’s Nigeria which is undergoing its major economic somersault, the 1980s when Houphouet-Boigny commissioned the construction of the Basilica was when Côte d’Ivoire sunk into a devastating recession. The Ivorian economic malaise was aggravated by falling market value of cocoa and coffee, the mainstay of the Ivorian economy.

The Basilica itself was an eye-popping spectacle of Ivorian post-independence era. Houphouet-Boigny apparently wanted to deploy its magnificence to solidify the impression of Côte d’Ivoire’s presence on the international political stage, post-independence from French colonial rule. The edifice however attracted huge flagellations from Africans and Africanists who negatively profiled Houphouet-Boigny as an “Agbelesefuja.” Highly venerated thespian, Nollywood actor and a man bountifully endowed with Yoruba proverbs, axioms and language, Adedeji Aderemi, popularly known as Olofa Ina – one with a fire-spitting sword – who died last week, shed light on the concept of Agbelesefuja or what the Yoruba call “atiro b’elesin dogba”. According to Aderemi, he is the one who, buffeted by a huge self complex, tries to impress others by doing the unthinkable. Literally, the “atiro b’elesin dogba” is a man who sees a horse rider he envies and tries to equal his height while seated on the horse. To satisfy the complex of equalizing the one who sits atop the horse who he wants to best will entail huge inconveniences of standing on the toes.

Houphouet-Boigny, affectionately called Papa or Le Vieux – the Old One – by his people, was Ivorian president from 1960 to 1993 when he passed on. From being a tribal chief, he became a medical aide, union leader and thereafter, got elected to the French Parliament. In France, he served in many ministerial positions and at independence in 1960, became Ivorian first president. So, Houphouet-Boigny’s Basilica was seen from the prism of neo-coloniality and decoloniality, the one who wanted to best colonial heritage by acting as the “atiro b’elesin dogba.” First, Houphouet-Boigny maintained close ties with Ivory Coast’s former colonizer, France and maintained an open policy towards immigration to his country, which was labeled the ‘Ivorian Miracle’. Second, from 1983, he attempted to make his Yamoussoukro village, rather than Yaounde, the Ivorian capital by bringing a lot of capital projects therein. Also, like the Agbelesefuja, he got a Lebanese-Ivorian architect, Pierre Fakhoury, to design an unexampled church tower in his configured Ivorian new capital as a challenging modern heritage that would rival St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The major challenges were that his Ivory Coast had Catholics who were a minority and the monument church got sparsely filled up on Sundays.

When the Pope consecrated his Basilica in 1990, the cost of the building was judged extreme wastage and sickening. The West Africa magazine put it at $200 million and in a banner headline in 1990 when it was being inaugurated, said, Pope Paul Consecrates a Controversial $200 million Basilica. Other analysts estimated the controversial Basilica to be worth up to $300 million. Though Houphouet-Boigny officially claimed that the Basilica was privately funded by himself, the world knew it was proceeds of diverted state funds. To worsen matters, the edifice was handed over to the Vatican as gift in 1992.

Counterpoising the affluence of the Basilica, Houphouet-Boigny’s Ivory Coast was known to be an ‘impoverished’ African country that did not deserve such an elephantine and elephant project. Indeed, Le Figaro, a French language weekly newsmagazine published in Paris and France, argued that “Africa had too many economic problems, and the last thing the continent needed was a basilica like Our Lady of Peace” which it said was grossly “reviled by many as an insult to Africa’s poor.”

The architecture of the Yamoussoukro had what Leonhard von Reinersdorff, in his “Relations Around Monumental Architecture in Post-Independence Côte d’Ivoire: Explored Through the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro” described as “a grand dome (which) hovers over the greenery of the Ivorian forest at Yamoussoukro…offering room for 7 000 seated and 11 000 standing worshippers in the sanctuary as well as 150 000 people in an oval piazza.” According to von Reinersdorff, “the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is one of the largest churches in the world but virtually unknown to many people.

Houphouet-Boigny’s twin aggrandizements set the tone for unflattering, condescending rhetoric that structured hard-hitting criticisms and disdain for the edifice in the western media. They also attracted unpalatable descriptions of his self-service. To them, in von Reinersdorff’s words, Yamoussoukro was “a ghost town, a capital in name alone.” Reinersdorff even quoted the Economist as calling Yamoussoukro an “an overgrown village”, “a near-deserted, forest-surrounded town of empty six-lane highways that (lead) nowhere” thus carving Houphouet-Boigny capital city in the image of a peripheral city that was conquered by nature. The West Africa magazine equally described the Basilica in very condescending epithets, especially when the Pope came to commission it. It said of it, Pope Paul Consecrates a Controversial $200 million Basilica. Beauty or Beast? The Time magazine on its own desecrated the humongous edifice as “The Basilica in the Bush” which it said was “a replica” and a “brash imitation of the Vatican’s holy shrine,” thus questioning its originality, authenticity and value of its artistic independence, caricaturing it as “a gigantic white parachute”, a “giant pearl gray dirigible” “a sandy-beige concrete behemoth” and a “ridiculous white elephant monument to Christianity”.

Fast-forward to Nigeria, about twenty years after the Pope commissioned the Yamoussoukro Basilica. A similar edifice was constructed by Akwa Ibom State. The construction of the church, named Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre, began with the former governor of the state, Udom Emmanuel and was inaugurated in May, 2023. The current governor, Eno is thus the inheritor of a Houphouet-Boigny heritage of waste, indiscretion and callous governmental insouciance. Outrage was sparked when Eno, in a tweet a few weeks back, said “As our people converge on this sacred Altar to pray in unity for the continuous peace and progress of Akwa Ibom State, Dear God Almighty, please hearken to their supplication and may our State continue to grow beyond leaps and bounds!” He spoke like one of those pastoral conmen who use the name of God to hoodwink unsuspecting Nigerians going through troublous times.

Constructed with taxpayers’ sweats to the tune of about N32 billion, many feel that in a state ravaged by squalor, hunger, underdevelopment and gross lack, were Nigeria a country where there was repercussion for governmental mis-judgment and profligacy, all those behind the construction of this wastage should be made to cough out every farthing, the product of their greed and indiscretion. It is benumbing to imagine a state spending this much to construct a church auditorium despite its huge unemployment ranking among states in Nigeria, without any regard for its oil-rich status.

In 2019, the Atheists Society of Nigeria (ASN) sued the Akwa Ibom State Government to court on the wastefulness of the church project. It demanded an explanation on how then Governor Udom would source its funding. Udom’s reply, similar to any of those pastoral hoodwinker’s, was that Akwa-Ibom had “found favour in the eyes of the Lord, and it’s instructive to note that religious bodies, non-profit organizations and even individuals from all over the world heeded our call for support to actualize this dream.” Parodying Houphouet-Boigny, Udom said that the church was privately funded. In a Nigeria where governmental purses and budgets are opaque, it may be a herculean task putting a lie to his bunkum. He had said, “Today we stand tall to say that we have secured the bulk of funds needed for the construction of the 8,500 capacity international worship centre which is located in Uyo. Government’s contribution is a very negligible percentage.”

The N32 billion Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre is a reflection of the poverty of wisdom that plagues Nigerian leaders. Another wastage was birthed last year in Kaduna State. It was the reconstruction of the popular Zaria Central Mosque. Though it wasn’t overtly penciled to be done with state funds, this same paucity of thinking was behind the over N2billion raised for the mosque’s reconstruction in October last year. The 150-year old mosque, located in the Zazzau Emirate council of Zaria, collapsed in August last year with many casualties. Of the amount donated, BUA chairman, Abdulsamad Rabiu, was said to have donated the sum of N2 billion. The fundraise also had in attendance the state governor, Uba Sani; Emir of Zazzau, Ahmed Nuhu Bamali; Sultan of Sokoto, Alh. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III; former Vice President Namadi Sambo; former governors of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai and Ramalan Yero; Etsu Nupe, Alh. Yahaya Abubakar and Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Gaidam, who all donated various sums of money. This money could have been used to educate the growing number of out-of-school children in Kaduna State.

Aside unemployment, prostitution, cultism, vandalism, political thuggery, hooliganism that buffet Akwa-Ibom, the state is battling an age-long affliction of its citizens being the most sought after candidates for menial jobs of gatemen and house-helps in Nigeria. It is an engaging oxymoron that while Udom and Eno were busy engaged in a church saturnalia with Akwa-Ibom’s N32 bilion, thousands of Akwa Ibom young boys and girls were pining away as house-helps. Created as one of Nigeria's 36 states in 1987, with a population of over 5 million people and more than 10 million people in the Diaspora, the state is ranked to be currently the highest oil and gas producing state in the country. Yet, this wealth notwithstanding, a recent eye-opening report by data technology company, StatiSense, in unveiling the Multidimensional Poverty Index (2022) report of the National Bureau of Statistics, (NBS) ranked Akwa Ibom, Rivers, and Cross River states as the hardest hit by multidimensional poverty, with 5.08 million, 4.4 million, and 3.44 million people respectively living in excruciating poverty. 

A pure waste of resources it is expending scarce money to fund religious worship centres, Christianity, especially Pentecostal churches’ prayer warlords, have taken this menace to the level of the profoundly absurd. While companies are winding up and vacating Nigeria due to bad government, churches are filling the space by purchasing those factory halls and converting them into church auditoriums.

The problem is that Akwa-Ibom, like virtually all Nigerian states and the government at the centre, is under siege, having been bereft of straight-thinking leadership. The N32 billion expended on the Worship Centre could jolly well have been voted to deal with the menace of poverty in the state, as well as a massive job creation projects for the youth. The truth is that the N32 billion voted for the construction of the church would effectively take 32,000 Akwa Ibom persons out of poverty. Like the skewed thoughts behind the construction of gargantuan auditoriums by Pentecostal churches along expressways, inside the Akwa Ibom Worship Centre, prayers would be offered to God for jobs by the unemployed. Yet, the cost of constructing that auditorium could have provided jobs for thousands. Alternatively, the N32 billion would conveniently construct hundreds of kilometers of roads that would benefit the people immensely.

The truth is that governments have no business constructing religious worship centres or sending people on pilgrimage anywhere. The only plausible explanation for the Udom-Eno tabernacle is same Houphouet-Boigny’s reversed mentality affliction. God does not reside inside those huge Basilicas but in the hearts of His people. Except for the billions that must have been stolen by some smart politicians on the pretext of building a house for God, that worship centre has zero economic or existential impact for the suffering people of Akwa-Ibom. If the charlatans behind the Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre were pro-people, they could have selected 32,000 Akwa-Ibom house-helps in slavish captivity in many homes scattered across Nigeria and lifted them into becoming globally-competitive persons. Rather, inside the Akwa-Ibom Basilica, the people would pray for victory over their enemies. They should have known that Udo Emmanuel and Umo Eno are their Number One enemies.