WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says it sank Russian submarine, hit airfield, oil depots

Ukraine's military said on Saturday it had sunk a submarine in Russian-controlled Sevastopol, attacked a southern Russian airfield and hit oil depots and fuel and lubricant storage facilities in Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions.

"A Russian submarine went to the bottom of the Black Sea," the defence ministry said in a post on X, naming the vessel as the B-237 Rostov-on-Don attack submarine.

The military's general staff said the attack on Sevastopol port also significantly damaged four launchers of the S-400 anti-aircraft "Triumf" defence system.

There was no immediate comment by Russia on the Sevastopol attack.

In other, overnight attacks, the military said it hit an ammunition depot at Morozovsk airfield where Russian forces stored guided aerial bombs among other equipment and a number of oil depots and fuel storage facilities.

"Russian combat aviation must be destroyed wherever it is, by all effective means. It is also quite fair to strike at Russian airfields. And we need this joint solution with our partners - a security solution," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian president has repeatedly calledon his Western allies for permission to use their weapons for long-range attacks on Russia, in addition to striking military targets close to the border.

He said on Saturday that Russian forces had used over 600 guided aerial bombs to attack Ukraine in the past week.

The attack on oil depots and fuel and lubricant storage facilities in Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions set fire to at least two oil tanks, according to the Ukrainian military report.

In Russia, local officials reported that tanks at a fuel storage depot in the Kamensky district of Rostov region caught fire as a result of a drone attack.

The regional governor of Belgorod also said Ukraine-launched drones caused a fire at an oil storage depot there, adding that the fire was extinguished and no one was injured.

Ukraine has dramatically stepped up its use of long-range drones this year to attack Russian oil facilities, attempting to damage sites fueling Russian forces and the country's economy in Moscow's 29-month-old invasion.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces hit two S-125 missile launchers and a temporary base of foreign mercenaries in the past day, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"Russian tactical aircraft, drone teams, missile forces and artillery units hit two launchers of the S-125 missile system, a P-18 search and track radar, Ukrainian fuel depots and a temporary base of foreign mercenaries, as well as enemy troops and equipment in 138 areas," the statement reads.

Reuters/Tass

The nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests that are convulsing the neoliberal fundament of the Bola Tinubu administration are redefining and redrawing the contours of protests in Nigeria in many significant ways. Although I’ve been on the road since Thursday, here are lessons I’ve learned from the protests.

One, there is now a profoundly consequential decentering of the locus of protest culture in Nigeria. In the past, protests against unpopular government policies used to be conceived, constructed, and carried out by a self-selected class of professional protesters based mostly in Lagos who earned activist bona fides from their anti-military, pro-democracy, human rights advocacy in the 1980s and 1990s.

These careerist agitators are now either in government, in bed with the government, or have suffered significant contraction of their symbolic and cultural capital. Most Gen Z Nigerians whose vim and vigor power the ongoing protests either don’t know them or know them but have no use for their guidance.

So, the conception, planning, and execution of the protests have neither a recognisable locale nor any identifiable dramatis personae. A lot of the known names identified with the protests merely joined and amplified it. They didn’t start the revolt and can’t stop it. It’s effectively a leaderless rebellion.

It started life as anguished, discordant murmurs on social media in response to the increasingly unendurable but relentlessly unabating neoliberal, IMF/World Bank-sanctioned economic and social terror of the Tinubu administration. Many of the young people who can’t feed now and whose future is being perpetually deferred have enough education to know that the delayed gratification the government promises them from removing subsidies and from devaluing the naira has never materialised anywhere in the world.

Everywhere in the world—from South America to the Pacific and from Asia to Africa—from the 1980s (when the IMF first forced Structural Adjustment Programmes on developing countries) until now, there is not a single example of a country that has escaped irreversible devastation and decline as a result of subsidy removal, currency devaluation, destruction of social safety nets for the poor, abandonment of the welfare of citizens—all IMF policies that countries are forced to implement as conditions to secure World Bank loans.

The only countries that have developed outside the West are precisely the countries that have repulsed the IMF, that have strategically deployed subsidies to buoy their economies and uplift their people, and that have guarded their national currencies. Many young Nigerians now realise that the idea that the pains they are suffering are mere temporary birth pangs that will deliver a bouncing baby is a damned, soulless, conscienceless, self-centered lie. They’ve had enough.

So, they resolved to band together and fight peacefully. They chose to demand the restoration of petrol subsidies, among other demands, because they see that the people who took away petrol subsidies from them are themselves luxuriating in unimaginable opulent elite subsidies. Their cries quickly gained traction.

For the first time in a long time, northern and southern youth found common ground. Northern agitations for “zangazanga” and southern push for #EndBadGovernance protests, though gestated independent of each other, somehow converged. It’s a unity forged in diversity and adversity.

The second lesson is a derivative of the first, and that is the unexampled collapse of the cultural, political, and social power of the Northern Nigerian Muslim clerical establishment. Northern Nigerian clerical elites, known as the ulama, had been constituted in the region’s moral imagination as the apotheosis of probity and the unquestioned source of moral and political guidance.

They have used this power, this priceless symbolic capital, to keep the masses perpetually in a state of suspended animation. They have programmed northern Nigerian masses to not resist, protest, rebel, much less revolt, against bad governance. They socialised them into accepting their economic suffering with equanimity. The only thing the clerical elites have conditioned the masses to be implacably roused and animated over is real or perceived slight against religion.

For example, amid the inexorably intensifying breakdown of security in the region during the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the clerical establishment also intensified fraudulent theological rationalisations for the rise of kidnappings and exculpated Buhari of responsibility for this. That was why Buhari got away with murder for eight years.

However, although there was a groundswell of anti-zangazanga sermonising among the region’s notable clerics in the aftermath of their meeting with officials of the Tinubu administration, northern Nigeria is erupting in communal convulsions. It is also instructive that protesters in Daura took their anger to Muhammadu Buhari’s doorsteps. No one is immune now. The genie has been let out of the bottle.

The #OccupyNigeria protests in 2012, which the North also actively participated in largely, some would say precisely, because of the religious and regional identity of Goodluck Jonathan, had the moral imprimatur of the clerical establishment.

This is the first major example in recent memory I am aware of in the North where the masses of the people not only bucked the impassioned counsel of their ulama but have openly labelled them as unreliable and mercenary charlatans not worthy of respect. This is a culturally seismic shift.

The third lesson is that the Federal Government is in more trouble than it realises. It invited civil society leaders, traditional rulers, religious clerics, and certain audible voices in the protest movement in an effort to thwart the protest. It was inspired by the mistaken belief that these hitherto esteemed opinion molders had the capacity to use their conversational, symbolic, political, and cultural currencies to influence people to back out of the protest.

It didn’t work because the habitual order of things has shifted, and the government hasn’t come to terms with this reality. We call it decentering in humanities and social science scholarship. “Decentering” involves challenging and moving away from traditional centres of authority, meaning, or truth. It means a shift of focus from dominant cultures, narratives, or perspectives and the amplification of marginalised, peripheral, or alternative voices.

The government’s cluelessness about this social media-enabled decentering of traditional ways of seeing and knowing manifested in its mutually contradictory claims about who was sponsoring the protest—and in its counter-intuitive displays of persecution complex.

The State Security Service (SSS) said it knew the “sponsors” of the protest, but the police asked the “sponsors” to identify themselves as a precondition for protection. High-profile government officials fingered foreign mercenaries as the organisers and funders of the protest. They all can’t wrap their heads around the possibility that distraught, depressed, and disgruntled young people, without prodding from anybody, can organise protests to ventilate their frustrations at foreign-inspired policies that kill their present and deny their future.

Unfortunately, the government’s response follows the same miserably familiar template: whine like over-indulged crybabies about fictive “sponsors,” induce or intimidate people thought to be behind the protests, deploy strong-arm tactics against protesters, and do nothing about the conditions that instigated the protest in the first place—until it happens again another time.

The fourth lesson is that there is a relationship between how security forces respond to protests and how they turn out. In such states as Edo, Osun, Oyo, and Ogun, the police were admirably polite and even-tempered. I saw a video of the Edo State police commissioner addressing protesters in the kindest, most empathetic way I’ve ever seen any senior law enforcement officer addressing aggrieved people. The protesters reciprocated the police commissioner’s mild-mannered and conciliatory speech with chants of his praises. That warmed my heart. Tinubu can learn from that.

But in places where law enforcement officers treat protesters as enemies of the state and visit unprovoked violence on them, things easily escalate into violence and bloodshed. We saw that in Kaduna, Kano, Abuja, and many parts of the North.

It should be admitted, of course, that there are many criminal elements who cash in on protests to loot the properties of innocent people or destroy government properties. I saw heartrending videos of criminals stealing or destroying private and government properties in Kano and Abuja. Such outlaws deserve no mercy. It’s elements like that who justify the government’s apprehensions about protests always devolving into chaos and destruction.

Finally, although many people from the Southeast supported the protest, the region was the only place, as of the time of writing this column, where almost no protest took place. Was it the culmination of the ethnic baiting of the honchos of the Tinubu administration who said the protests were planned by the people of the region as a payback for their electoral loss in 2023? Whatever it is, it does not give a good account of our efforts at nation-building.

Well, Tinubu has just one option left for him if he doesn’t want to govern in disabling tumult: address the nation in a solemn national broadcast, acknowledge the unprecedented hurt people are nursing, announce the restoration of petrol and electricity subsidies, and reverse the disastrous “floating” of the naira.

Tinubu’s loyalty should be to Nigeria, not the racist economic hitmen at the IMF and the World Bank.

There is this anecdote in Igboland of M̀gbekē and her cutlass. By the way, M̀gbekē is a synonym for an unrefined and unsophisticated girl. Each time M̀gbekē’s farmer colleagues visited her in the farm, they saw haphazardly tilled land and a female farmer lazily fondling her farm implement. Whenever Mgbeke was asked the reason for her snailish work, she complained of an old and ineffectual cutlass. Knowing M̀gbekē as the female version of Nnoka, Okonkwo’s lazy father in Things Fall Apart, it was difficult to believe the implement was the culprit. The villagers thereafter concluded that it was either M̀gbekē’s cutlass was defective, M̀gbekēherself was lazy or the problem was with both of them.

The #EndBadGovernance protest which commenced last Thursday revealed several cracks in our Nigerianness. One major crack it revealed is our propensity for betrayal of a general struggle; the betrayal of Nigerians by Nigerians. Such betrayal is however not new in Nigeria or to Nigerians. It is not even native to us. That theme was dealt with by East African leading novelist and Kenyan author, academic, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in his 1976 play. In The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, Ngugi narrates the trials faced by Kimathi, regarded as Kenya’s foremost anti-colonialist national hero. Kimathi’s resistance to colonialism led to his capture by British police officer, Ian Henderson. Kimathi was sold out by disgruntled fellow Kenyan Mau Mau fighters who revealed where he holed up. Once captured, his abductors put pressure on him to disclose his allies in the struggle. While awaiting trial, the colonial authorities sent three persons to persuade Kimathi to abandon the struggle. One was Shaw Henderson, the judge in his trial.

Like the biblical Satan who took Jesus to the pinnacle of a mountain and persuaded him to renounce his messianism, Henderson told Kimathi he would be released if he pleaded for his life. Kimathi refused the offer. Then a delegation of bankers came. Why was he disrupting the Kenyan economy which flourished under colonial rule? The third delegation comprised a priest, businessman and a politician. They each asked for Kimathi’s surrender. Momentarily, Kimathi was swayed but later obstinately refused. Henderson meets him again but this time, tortured him to disclose the identities of his co-revolutionists. Kimathi refused. Outside of the Ngugi play, in reality, this famed leader of the Mau Mau war of October 1956 was eventually sentenced to death by the colonial authorities. He was hanged on February 18, 1957 at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. Britain rewarded Henderson with a George Medal, while Henderson in turn documented his experience in a book he entitled Man Hunt in Kenya.

In the June 12 1993 struggle, our own Dedan Kimathi was betrayed severally. MKO Abiola suffered serial betrayals from the people he trusted. Fellow politicians, his Yoruba kinsmen, labour union activists and leading democracy activists betrayed Abiola for a mess of pottage. Leading politicians paid nocturnal visits to Ibrahim Babangida in his Aso Rock fortress, pretending they were taking a nap when their vehicle was to be identified at the Villa gate. Labour leaders allegedly collected money from the military regime to kill protests against the June 12 election annulment. Till date, the role played by those who inherited Abiola’s presidency in the betrayal is still being studied. If you read Segun Osoba’s autobiography, Battlelines – Adventures In Journalism And Politics, you will learn how NUPENG’s Frank Ovie Kokori was lured into detention by a trusted ally in the struggle. He was finally betrayed in death by those who are today’s inheritors of his struggle to liberate Nigeria from autocracy. The Abdulsalami Abubakar government eventually adopted the Kimathi model. It allowed an American government delegation to visit Abiola in the prison, ostensibly to persuade him to relinquish the struggle. The rest, as they say, is history.

In Alex La Guma's In the fog of the Seasons’ end novel, like the sabotages received by the #EndBadGovernance protest, its protagonists, Beukes and Elias Tekwane, undercover protestors of apartheid, distributed handbills to announce a forthcoming strike action aimed at upsetting Apartheid South Africa. An intensely well-crafted plot, La Guma weaves the plot to unravel what went into underground anti-apartheid movements and how protesters were confronted by sabotage from fellow workers who worked as agents of government. If they were found out, Beukes and Elias faced threat of imprisonment and torture hanging over their heads. Every leaflet they distributed, every phone call they made, every outspoken word they uttered to someone about the strike got them closer to being captured. They were eventually captured by the South African police who tortured them to death in their cells.

The Nigerian #EndBadGovernance protest mirrors similar trope, though in a different manner. It synchronizes with Kenya and Uganda, becoming poster children of the need to reset the brains of misgoverning African leaders. The arrogance of William Ruto who initially labeled the anti-tax agitation in Kenya treason was confronted by Gen Z protesters whose existential misery fired their zeal. The protest not only reportedly claimed over 50 casualties, it reset the politics of Kenya. That country may never be the same again. Ruto was forced to fire most of his cabinet members amid thousands of youths marching on the streets of Nairobi since mid-June. Police deployed teargas canisters, water cannons and live bullets to chase away the protesters, yet they remained adamant. The youth eventually forced Ruto to take sweeping decisions like sacking his entire cabinet. So, when a similar protest, the #EndBadGovernance, erupted in Nigeria last Thursday, President Bola Tinubu must have known what was in the offing.

One of the first groups to dissociate itself from the protest was the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Lagos State chapter. It was followed by a group which claimed it was representing the national leadership of the National Association of University Students, (NAUS) the National Associations of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) and the National Association of Nigerian Colleges of Education Students (NANCES). It also distanced self from the planned protest. Some members of the organized labour also pulled back. On the D-Day, government’s old tactics of mercantile purchase of the consciences of protest organizers surfaced. Protesters against the protest confessed that they were given miserable N5000 by proteges of government figures. 

Tinubu apparently dusted up the ancient, military-bestowed tactic of setting up monarchical and religious elites against protesters. During the June 12 crisis, apparently scared Generals Babangida and Sani Abacha ferried monarchs into Aso Rock. The aim of the two despots was to use the monarchs to subvert the people’s will. Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, came out of one of such Villa meetings to appeal to Nigerians to forget June 12. When asked by reporters what Babangida said on the annulment of the election, his “I think he was making sense” caused huge furore. It was interpreted to mean that Kabiyesi had sold out. Olubuse never recovered from this tar-brush.  

Tinubu apparently didn’t realize that the IBB, Abacha model of nipping protests in the bud before they begin is an outdated and glacier-frozen style. The social media has redrawn the space, graph, contour and mode of protest agitations. Today, unlike in the past when, once you had the Paschal Bafyaus of NLC or NUPENG leaders in your pocket as locus of betrayer of a just cause, protests were doomed, today, protest is amorphous, occurs with the speed of lightning and is spontaneous. It is leader-less. You can no longer consign news to NTA, Daily Times or paid newspapermen as it was done in the past. Information travels at the speed of light on social media. In any case, who respects voices of traditional rulers any longer? Isn’t it the same voices of weed smokers; the known notorious land-grabbers and fraudsters now merely garbed in flowing apparels?

In all these push-backs, whether now or before, allegations of the presidency purchasing interventions of hitherto respected voices loomed large. So, following that ancient mould, apparently informed by security reports that the anger of Gen Z youths was boiling over, Tinubu also ferried monarchs and clergy elites on an emergency pilgrimage to Aso Rock. Emir of Zazzau, Ahmed Bamalli, Ooni of Ife, Enitan Ogunwusi, Dein of Agbor, Benjamin Keagborekuzi and other natural rulers, as well as notable clerics, spoke thereafter with the press. They appealed to the organizers of the protest to give the president more time to fix Nigeria. What time? A cleric in a viral video even alleged that Tinubu thumped his chest and told clerics he bought his presidency. To these pleas, the Gen Z seemed to have invoked Sango’s wrath to descend on the Bata drum and its noisy accoutrements (Sàngó pa bàtá, pa jonwon jonwon etí è). The youths then marched on the streets of Nigeria in blazing anger.

The appeal to fear by Tinubu’s security apparatchik also failed woefully. “A “bomb” was “detonated” somewhere in Lagos.” “Foreign mercenaries were on their way into Nigeria.” To this old, frozen scaremongering tactics, the Gen Z howled, may Sango descend on Tinubu’s Bata and its useless accoutrements! If Tinubu’s inner cabinet members had been mis-informing him that the cries of hunger were politically motivated, the president must have seen for himself live videos of Nigerians expressing blistering views on his excruciating and punishing economic policies and the calamities these IMF-driven policies have brought to the people. Some even claim that Tinubu’s slavish licking of the western world’s spittle is borne out of the fact that the West has the balls of his uncomely past in its hands.

What summarizes Nigerians’ wails at protest grounds last week is Bob Marley’s iconic song, Dem belly full but we hungry. Tinubu and his cabinet members live in stupendous wealth and go on saturnalia with our wealth while Nigerians are dying in droves. The most tragic part of it is that the people in government don’t even pretend to care. Did you hear the voluble Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, say the people could keep on protesting but he and the Senate members would continue eating? It may be a Freudian slip or a flippancy for which Akpabio has earned an infamous notoriety but it seems to be the philosophy of the Tinubu government. Hungry Nigerians may go jump inside the Bunga River for all the government cares. The man who dons the moustache of Chancellor of Third Reich Nazi Germany, the despot Adolf Hitler, Nyesom Wike, also attempted to spin the weather-beaten old ad-hominem narrative of “protest sponsorship” last week. A senator was sponsoring the protest, he drooled in his usual scary guttural. The apt response he got from Nigerians was that hunger, hopelessness and death of Nigerians since Tinubu took over government were the sponsors of the protest.

And the protest held. Sadly, while official figure said 17 people were killed, suspicious police report claimed three died. From our experience during the #EndSARS protest, we know who to believe. The protest also drew a graph not native to protests in time past. A hitherto supine north tipped over in its anger, crudely burning and looting. It was the same north which always hit the street in murderous baying for blood only when it feels God had been defamed. Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State, explaining this mindless pillaging of the north by Almajiris, said: “What actually caused it? Today if you look at Nigeria, 70% of those in the North are in poverty. If you look at 65% of our people in the North, they don’t even have bank accounts. In 18 million out of school children, over 14 million are in the North.” In Sokoto, protesters at the Sultan’s palace even went extremely idiotic, calling for soldiers’ return. Same north went into slumber throughout the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari’s zero governance. The southwest, on the other hand, was calm even though pummeled by hunger. South-south wailed in anger despite the annoying woto-woto from Asari Dokubo threatening would-be protesters. Dokubo had earlier confirmed that he had collected money from the presidency. Uncharacteristically, the southeast went into an unusual somnolence.

In the midst of all these, even with the loss of souls, Aso Rock has feigned deafness and dumbness. When his claim that Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar sponsored the protest was perforated, Bayo Onanuga immediately relapsed into a baffling aphasia. Nigerians told Onanuga, borrowing from Marley’s lyrics, that “a hungry mob is an angry mob.” Since August 1, Tinubu, too has maintained a concerning taciturnity, apparently, like Emperor Nero, fiddling while Nigeria got enveloped in conflagration. Some have interpreted this self-imposed deafness of Aso Rock as arrogance of power. To some others, it was a hallmark of presidential conceit for the people. Even William Ruto peeled his initial lapel of arrogance and spoke to the people of Kenya.

But our own Asiwaju – one who mounts the saddle from the front – is now a rare-admirer, an Aseyin. Long live King Nero. The litany of problems which the protesters complained about that led to the #EndBadGovernance protest is the case of the proverbial M̀gbekē and her cutlass. Is it that the current government lacks the mental wherewithal to pull Nigeria out of the doldrums or it is too enmeshed in the problems to make a difference? As I was putting finishing touches to this piece, I learnt the president would be addressing Nigerians today. This is coming days after lives had been lost and property destroyed. There was apparently no stitch in time and no nine was saved.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness…and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” - 2 Timothy 4:7-8.

Introduction

The Apostle Paul, a man widely (and rightly) regarded as a Christian leader for all time, was a true exemplar of the Christian way of life. As we learn from his writings and accounts of others, in all that he did, he was truly an ambassador of the Gospel to the Gentiles, a father to many, and certainly not one to back down from a fight. From the cusp of adulthood until he was saved by the Lord Jesus on his way to Damascus, Paul had spent his entire life devoted to fighting, and thereafter, he continued fighting, but in the service of the good and righteous One.

Before we turn to the focus of this piece, the good fight, it may perhaps be worth considering briefly the other side of the coin, that is, the ‘bad fight’. This consists of ‘zealous religious pursuits’ to which we are sometimes, like Saul of Tarsus, devoted – and the ‘righteousness’ of which we are quite convinced of – but which, in God’s books, do not count for much and may take us down the slippery slope of hate, jealousy and unholy anger.

The Good Fight

What, then, is the ‘good fight’? In 2 Timothy 4:1-8, Paul articulated and commended certain things to Timothy, his beloved son in the faith (things Paul himself had done, and which qualified him for a crown of righteousness).

For the avoidance of doubt, the good fight, which is the centerpiece of our calling as believers – is as set forth in this missive from Paul to Timothy: “preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine…but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Timothy 4:2-5).

I posit that these above present to us a very vivid, true and an acceptable kingdom lifestyle, failing which will doubtless result in undesirable consequences in form of stronghold of unbelief, creating distractions from our major goals in life. However, the consequences also show up in the forms of sicknesses of the mind or body, stagnation, setback, marital problems, and all forms of addiction, depression and lusts. And, unfortunately, all of these become complicated, especially when such individuals refuse to give attention to godly, Biblical counsel from wise and elderly people who have accomplished what they are just wishing to attain.

Now, one of the most useful dynamics of living is in being able to overcome challenges and win through the battles of life as they come up. However, this cannot come to be until we learn to fight aright. Thus, the important question arises: how do we fight to win through and finish strong?

It is important to note from the onset that most of the serious battles man constantly faces are not carnal (2 Corinthians 10:4). Hence, it would require the fights of faith to win and overcome them. Strong holds can still lose their grip if we learn to fight aright, or else we miss it.

To fight aright, we must recognize that it is faith’s fight that wins the battle, not carnal fights. This is done by fighting the enemies with the Word of God, speaking boldly in prayer to issues and situations that contend with our joy, and fighting from our stands of righteousness in Christ Jesus.

We must also keep in mind the fact that all of life’s major battles start and are controlled in the spiritual realm, well before they manifest in the physical. In this regard, the Bible instructs us not to be complacent or carnally-disposed, but to fight from our privileged position of victory in Christ Jesus, using the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:12).

Finishing Strong

In closing, I must stress that it does not suffice to simply fight, as a strong start that is not sustained only ends in whimpering shame and makes the fighter the subject of ridicule. Ask Samson, a warrior divinely bestowed with supernatural strength, but who failed to finish strong. Ask Demas, who fought alongside Paul but ultimately forsook the faith, “having loved this present world” more than prize of the high calling of Christ.

Indeed, what qualifies a believer for the crown of righteousness is the ability to sustain the vigor and fervor of the fight to the very end. As the Master Himself said in Luke 9:62, “no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Please, make no mistake about it: Satan will always fashion his weapons, but God foretold us that the devil’s arsenal against us shall not prosper. And most certainly, with the armor of God, you’re skewed to win, always!

Beloved, I pray that the Almighty God, the wellspring of life and strength, the One who has bestowed us with all things pertaining to life and godliness, including the armor to do battle, will grant you the grace to fight the good fight of faith, and the stamina to last the long haul for His glory here on earth, that a glorious crown of righteousness may be yours for eternity. Amen. Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

Jesus told Pilate that he who is of the truth hears His voice. This means Jesus is only acceptable to the truthful. A man is either of the truth or he is of the lie:

 “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. (Jn 8:43-47).

Two Kinds of Human Beings

Here is a stark definition of two kinds of men. One who is of the truth and one who is of the lie. One who is of God and one who is of the devil. One who can hear the word of God and one who cannot but can hear the voice of the devil.

The world says that opposites attract. But the word of God says like attract. Only those who are of God find the gospel of Jesus Christ attractive. Jesus says those who are attracted to the gospel are those who are of God. 

Jesus is like a magnet. His people are drawn to Him and they welcome His revelation. Although His light rebukes their sin, they nevertheless respond to that light in repentance and faith. They live by His truth. But those who are not of God reject the gospel. Otherwise, why would a man not believe the truth and prefer to be told a lie?

Rejecting the Truth

If you tell a liar the truth of God, he will reject it. Jesus said the reason the Jews did not believe Him was because He told them the truth. If He had told them a lie they would have believed Him.

Look at this scripture again:

“Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?” (John 8:46).

Jesus asked the Jews if He had ever told them a lie. “Have you ever caught Me telling you a lie? Have you ever caught Me sinning? On the contrary, you have only observed Me telling you the truth. Everything I tell you I practice. I do everything I tell you I can do. I do everything I teach. You have never heard Me or seen Me contradict Myself. You have never observed Me being hypocritical. You have always known Me to be truthful. And yet, you don’t believe Me. Therefore, the problem is not in what I say. The problem is in you. The problem is that you are not of the truth. The problem is that you are not of God. For God is a God of truth.”

We cannot know our true selves if we don’t know the true God. If we don’t know God, we will be open to lies, especially about humanity. It is in the wisdom of God that men who reject the truth of God will believe lies: 

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Romans 1:18).

Because men did not like to retain God in their knowledge, the Bible declares that God gave men over to a debased mind and vile passions, allowing men to do ungodly things:

“For this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

So, God says to Isaiah:

“Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Unbelievers Are Liars

Unbelievers are liars and they make God a liar. Because they are liars, they reject the truth. But the truth we reject will judge us on the last day. Jesus says:

“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” (John 12:48).

Those same words of truth we rejected will come back to question us. The truth will ask: “Did I not tell you so-and-so on such-and-such a date? Why did you reject what you knew to be the truth?” 

We reject the truth because it is true. We reject the truth because we are liars. We reject it not because we believe it is false, but because we know it is true. We reject truth because we are not of the truth. We reject it because we don’t like the truth. We reject it because we don’t think the truth is profitable in this life. 

We want the world to like us but if we speak the truth they will not. If we are truthful, we will not get away with murder. If we are pastors, our ministry will suffer. Our membership will decline. We might not be able to pay our bills.   

In which case we cannot expect to spend eternity with the truth.  We must spend eternity with the lie.  Jesus says:

“I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” (Luke 16:9).

Eternal Habitations

A man will end up in the end with what he believes. According to our faith so shall it be unto us. We will end up with who we believe. If we believe in idols, then we should be prepared to spend eternity with the idols where they are. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then we can look forward to spending eternity with Him where He is.

Truth in man comes in response to the truth of God. It is received as a gift from God. This gift comes by way of teaching and also by way of the working of the Holy Spirit in the life of a man. 

Jesus is the word of God. The word of God is truth. The more we read the words of Jesus and trust the Holy Spirit to quicken what we read to our spirit, the more our hearts are cleansed so that we think the pure thoughts of God.

In the end, the pastors, bishops, popes and other members of the religious establishment decided that the way out was to kill Jesus. But can you, O great Christian, kill the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, today? 

Hating the Truth

God is love and He is also the truth. There is a very close relationship between the truth and love. The truth is to be spoken in love. (Ephesians 4:15). 

Love thinks no evil. Love rejoices in the truth. Love believes true things. Love hopes true things. Love never fails to love.

Why do we hate the truth? We hate the truth because the truth is bitter. We hate the truth because the truth exposes us. We hate the truth because the truth reveals who we are. We hate the truth because we believe in self-deception. We hate the truth because we don’t like ourselves. We hate the truth because we are not who we want to be.  We hate the truth because we are not who we claim to be.

We like lies because we cannot handle the truth. Yes, he is a preacher of the gospel.  Everyone acknowledges him as a man of God. But nobody knows he is a closet drunkard. Nobody knows he is having an affair with his secretary. They call him Archbishop, but nobody knows that he is addicted to pornography.

 Would they still love me if they knew the truth? Would they still love me if they knew I am a fraud? Would they still love me if they knew I am still striving against sin? What if they found out that I beat my wife? What if it becomes public knowledge that I have children outside of my marriage? What if they knew that I shoot cocaine? Would they still love me? 

Secrets don’t exist

All the things we are hiding are already known. Nothing is hidden from God.

The prodigal son went away into a far country so that he could be with prostitutes without having to bother with his father. No such luck. God is Jehovah Shammar. Take solace. God knows already. What a relief. 

He knows I am a thief. He knows I have lustful thoughts.

He knows I still shoot cocaine.

God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world. He did not send Jesus into the world to condemn me, but to save me. He knows that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Therefore, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. 

Even though my sin is scarlet, the promise of God says His grace will ensure that it will be as white snow. Jesus says about a sinful woman: “Her sins, precisely because they are many, have been forgiven her because she loved much.” She has been accepted into God’s beloved. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Gospel of Truth

 We have met the truth and it did not destroy us. The truth is not as damning as we feared. The truth is the gospel. The truth is ultimately good news. 

“Adam, who told you that you were naked? That is not the truth. The truth is that although you have been stealing, you are not a thief. It is not in your nature to steal, beat people up, lie, cheat and fornicate. The truth is that we can be righteous, and live godly lives. God in Christ has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

The truth is that God has provided the opportunity for the man who has messed up, the man who has blown it, the man who has failed, the man who has sinned and the man who has transgressed to begin again.   

How has he done this? He did it by giving us the avenue to a new birth.

But I am an old man says Nicodemus. Would I have to go back into my mother’s womb? 

It does not matter if you are young or old. It is a spiritual and not a physical rebirth. The slate is wiped clean. The past is forgiven and forgotten. God is the most merciful of all. Once we repent, confess our sins and make a turnaround, He does not remember our sins anymore.

Thanks to the path of life laid out before us by Jesus, the believer has new principles, new affections, and a new nature. He has the divine ability to overcome temptation.

When a man is born again, his spirit is re-generated, quickened and made alive by God. He is now able to see, understand and perceive hitherto hidden things about the kingdom of God. The things of God are spiritually discerned. 

 Nicodemus was a teacher and a ruler of the Jews. Nevertheless, he could not understand this because he was spiritually dead. What Christ spoke spiritually Nicodemus passed through carnal filters?

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). CONCLUDED.

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Warning: This post contains mentions of abuse.

We recently asked divorced people of the BuzzFeed Community who regret ending their marriage to tell us why and what they'd do differently. Here's what they had to say:

1. "My ex-husband and I started dating when we were both 18. We got married at 20 mainly because of issues with his student visa, as he wasn't from the US. I decided I wanted a divorce when we were 24 because I didn't feel how I felt in the beginning; I was attracted to other people, and I wasn't ready to have kids. We're now 37 and talk now and then. I can confidently say he was the best man I've ever been with after all these years. I miss him and our relationship."

"I wish I would've gone to couples counseling or just tried harder to save the relationship instead of just giving up. I realize now that relationships aren't always easy, and you aren't always going to be head over heels for one another. It's about more than that. He's now remarried, and I keep getting screwed over by all the a-holes I choose to date."
​

—37, USA

2. "I didn’t 'end' my marriage, per se. My wife left me because I was young and angry and abusive. I cheated numerous times and was verbally and, at times, physically abusive. I wish I would’ve looked at my behavior and taken responsibility for my actions instead of blaming her and everyone else. I lost someone who really loved and cared for me, and I’ve given up on ever finding anyone like that again."

"Those people are very rare. Because of our children, she still looks out for me. I wish I would’ve appreciated having someone that special in my life."
​

—40s, USA

3. "We separated about a year after an affair that I had on him with hopes of rekindling months later, but he, in turn, cheated on me. We never saw each other after the initial separation and are still going through a divorce. If I could do anything differently, it would be to fight FOR your spouse, not WITH them, and COMMUNICATE MORE."

"I know we hear that a lot, but the good, the bad, and the ugly need to be shared with your partner. With grace and forgiveness at your core. If you think you communicate well now, try to do so just a little bit more."
​

—30, California

4. "My son was 9 years old when I chose to leave and divorce his father. The story is long and tedious, but I was in my selfish, obsessed-with-my-looks era, and I wish I had the wisdom then that I have now. I have a very close relationship with my son, and his father and I maintain a friendship, but since the divorce, I have had one failed relationship after another. It's almost like I'm being punished for not trying harder. I worked in the fitness industry then, and I got a lot of male attention. Instead of taking compliments and letting them go, I became obsessed with how men looked at me. My ex-husband was the love of my life, and I ruined it by craving attention from anyone OTHER than him."

"I was unfaithful one time, and the guilt was so bad that I came clean. Everything fell apart after that. And here I am today, 53 years old, and unable to have a successful relationship. If I could do it all again, I would try harder. That said, I would not have gone back to school and gotten my degree in social work, either, so who knows what the right thing was? What I do know is I am single now and plan to stay that way. It just isn't worth the exhaustion and the heartbreak."
​

—53, New Hampshire

5. "Although I am likely going to be the one to end my marriage ultimately, it's not by choice. My husband and I had a solid marriage, but miscommunication and life issues (kids with medical issues, aging parents, and work stress) got in the way without us realizing it until it was almost too late. My husband finally confessed he wasn't sure he loved me anymore or if he wanted to be married."

"I knew things weren't perfect and had tried to get him to open up, but he denied any unhappiness before this shocking revelation. I figured we would work through it and come out better on the other side. Fast-forward three years of counseling and trial separations (which never went well; we are best friends who have a hard time not sharing our lives) and trips away — both as a family and just the two of us. Things have improved immensely, and I have much hope and faith in a fabulous future together. However, my husband is still unsure about what he wants, and I am no longer willing to put myself or our children in such an uncertain position. So, I plan to walk away in a few weeks if he can't definitively say he's in for the long haul. It sucks because there was no cheating, no abuse, and no bad behavior — just a slow drift apart. He is a good man and father, and I still love him. And I know he still loves me. I can't live the rest of my life in limbo and won't put my children through this any longer, but I know we will both have many regrets."
​

—47, Washington

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6. "I would have gone to counseling and understood that my depression was eating at me. Yes, he was a jerk, but it wasn't anything that we couldn't have overcome to save our marriage. I hate having to share custody and not be with my son every day. I hate that I have these regrets. I hate that I didn't try harder and give him an opportunity to try. It's been eight years, and we're both remarried to other people, but if I could go back, I would have done everything differently."

"I would have stayed and worked on it with him so we could still be a family. I miss my little family so very much."
​

—45, Texas

7. "I had an amazing husband. High school sweethearts who got it right. Then there was menopause, financial troubles, and a few years of being empty nesters. I lost a ton of weight and went back to school. A girlfriend who I had known for only a couple of years kept telling me I settled and deserved better. I should have considered the source; she had been divorced for 12 years and thought all men were worthless. My best friend of 20 years tried to get through to me, but I didn't listen. I end up going online for curiosity and the thrill. I got wrapped up in an affair, and my dear husband said he would forgive me."

"Too much had happened in my mind, and the other guy was leaving his wife and saying he loved and needed me. So, I now felt responsible for my affair guy. His soon-to-be ex stalked him and was wild enough to key my car and follow my kids. So, I ended up married to the affair guy. My kids have never looked at me the same, and it all came out. I lost my lifelong friends. My ex has a third wife now. She is a keeper. We go to the same small church, but it still hurts to see the life I destroyed. He was and is a great guy. I'm glad he is finally happy. Our boys are grateful for what great parents we are to each other and them, even though we have been divorced for almost 10 years. We even spent a long weekend with our current spouses, kids, and stepkids. My ex could have been a real jerk, but he has always been just as kind to me divorced as when we were married! Even my affair husband will comment on how my ex and I are so much alike in speech and mannerisms. Me, I have finally gotten up the courage to leave my affair husband."
​

—53, Texas

8. "We were married for 21 years. I wish we would have tried some real counseling. We did try with a 'relationship expert,' but I don't think it was quite the same thing — although, it was always pulling teeth to get my husband to talk to anyone. When we decided to divorce, we started getting along so much better. Even after the divorce, we are practically best friends, which is nice but also sad at the same time."

"I'm always thinking, 'What if we tried harder?' Obviously, I knew what divorce was, but its seriousness and finality somehow surprised me."
​

—50, Tennessee

9. "My soon-to-be ex-husband and I have been together for 10 years. We have two young children, and we ended our marriage in May. I always thought anything could be solved as long as you communicate. But it didn't matter how much we talked or got couples counseling; we just couldn't see each other's point of view. Due to financial reasons, we still have to live close to each other. He's in our house, and I'm on the driveway in a caravan. I think it will be like this for a couple of years. I still love him and wish it could work, but we both know we can't be what the other person needs."

"Although we get on well now, almost like good friends, if we tried again, we'd have the same problems. I need him to be more emotional and romantic, and he needs me to be a good housewife and not complain."
​

—38, England

10. "It was the quintessential grass is always greener. I didn't realize how great he was until I screwed up. It was an emotional affair; I left him over it, and I crushed him. It haunts me to this day, even though it has been 15 years. He is a great guy and a great father. He's happy now, and I'm glad, but not a day goes by where I don't wish that I would have looked for the greener grass with him."

—59, Pennsylvania

11. "I ended my marriage after 20 years. My spouse just was not a go-getter; he left the military after 13 years because they were giving 'bonuses,' lied about attending orientation to receive free tuition for college, and didn't participate as a parent unless directed. He was just a boy that never grew up or emotionally matured. He did everything I asked but secretly resented me for it. I had three daughters when we met, and I thought he was the best choice for us. Fast-forward 20 years, and I tell him, 'I know you love me; I just don't believe it anymore.'"

"His response: 'I'm still married to you, aren't I?' Cue divorce as fast as I can file for $150! Ten years later, and after years of therapy, I realized I should've just created a life outside of him, on the side, and done whatever the hell I wanted. I am older and wiser now, and even though I am the baddest b*tch around, he is still that same no-ambition guy; I would've loved to have the company and good lay still every day."
​

—52, South Carolina

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12. "I didn't end the marriage because I wanted to — my ex-husband did, and he never said that he was seeing someone else. Now, I'm the one who is heartbroken and hurting."

—35, USA

13. "We married young and had our son less than a year later. We didn't really have a chance to be married, just the two of us. We stopped communicating and helping each other, and I would complain about our marriage to anyone who would listen. I ended up having multiple affairs and leaving him for another man. BIG MISTAKE. The grass was not greener (as everyone tried to tell me). Years later, after I had left the BIG MISTAKE, my ex and I sat down with our son and had a heart-to-heart about the past, and if mom and dad had just talked to each other, we might have stood a chance."

"I missed so many milestones in my son's life, selfishly chasing my own happiness. Even so, I never wanted to get back together with my ex — too many mistakes on my part to make up for. The guilt and shame was and is too great to bear. The thought of hurting him and my son like that again makes me want to stay away and let them rebuild."
​

—39, Michigan

14. "I had an emotional affair and felt like I had irrevocably destroyed my marriage. That was further confirmed when I started developing feelings for someone else. I told my spouse about it immediately and felt we needed to separate because of it. I never thought I would be the person to have an affair, to hurt my spouse the way I did, and the shame and guilt from that was and still is overwhelming."

"We ended the marriage amicably, but now, there is a possibility we are getting back together. It all is just so confusing and tough, and a part of me wishes we never got divorced in the first place and fought to work it out. It's all just very messy now."
​

—30, California

And finally...

15. "We were too young when we married and became more like siblings. The divorce was amicable, and I've since remarried and have two kids I'd never give back. Now, 20 years later (older and wiser), I regret giving up so soon for 'greener pastures' back then. As frustrating as it was, I think if we could have communicated better on our wants and needs from each other, we could have lasted."

"The older me feels my life now would mesh perfectly with my ex, and I think, 'maybe in another 20 years,' we'll be the grandparents on the wrap-around porch together. I regret losing touch with him because I think we would be really compatible at this point in our lives."
​

—46, Colorado

If you regret ending your marriage and feel comfortable sharing your story, tell us why and what you would do differently in the comments below. Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, feel free to use this Google form.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.

Buzzfeed

The nationwide protests against economic hardship and government policies in Nigeria continued for a second day on Friday, August 2, 2024, with escalating tensions between demonstrators and security forces in several parts of the country.

Key Developments:

1. Abuja Protests:

- Thousands of protesters shut down Abuja's Central Business District, marching towards Eagle Square.

- Police dispersed protesters near the National Hospital using tear gas and live ammunition, injuring some demonstrators.

- Defiant protesters regrouped at Berger Roundabout despite police actions.

2. Military Warning:

- The Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, threatened military intervention if violence escalates.

- He warned against looting and vandalism, stating the military would not allow the country to be destroyed.

3. Police Crackdown:

- Police reported arresting over 1,100 protesters across the country.

- In Abuja, police engaged in a "fierce gun duel" with alleged hoodlums.

4. Violence and Curfews:

- At least five northern states (Kano, Borno, Katsina, Yobe, Jigawa) imposed curfews following violence.

- Hoodlums attacked the Red Cross office in Yobe, burning vehicles.

5. Casualties and Arrests:

- Civil society groups report 21 deaths and 1,154 arrests on the first day of protests.

- Over 500 arrests confirmed by police in six states.

6. Continued Protests:

- Demonstrations continued in Lagos, Osun, and Plateau states.

- In Plateau, Christians and Muslims united in protest, showing solidarity.

7. Government Response:

- President Tinubu, through Vice President Shettima, defended economic policies at an African Caucus Meeting.

- Opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar, called on the government to heed protesters' demands.

8. Media Attacks:

- The International Press Institute Nigeria warned against attacks on journalists covering the protests.

9. Economic Context:

- Protests driven by concerns over high living costs, unemployment, and perceived government inaction.

- Government claims economic reforms are yielding positive results despite current challenges.

Analysis:

The second day of protests saw an intensification of both demonstrator activity and security force response. The military's warning of potential intervention signals a concerning escalation. The widespread nature of the protests, spanning multiple states and uniting diverse groups, underscores the depth of economic discontent in Nigeria. The government's continued defense of its economic policies suggests a potential impasse between authorities and protesters, raising concerns about further unrest if grievances are not addressed.

The situation remains fluid, with the potential for further escalation or de-escalation depending on government response and protest dynamics in the coming days.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd is currently scouting for a fresh $2 billion loan in Europe, TheCable understands.

This will be repaid with 35,000 barrels per day over the tenor of the loan, insiders have told TheCable.

Reuters recently reported that Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO) of NNPC, was in talks for a new oil-backed loan to finance the firm’s operations.

Given the low number of NNPC’s share of oil production in the country, the proposed deal will significantly affect what is available to the national oil company, which has been mandated to supply crude to Dangote refinery, payable in naira.

Although Nigeria’s current output is estimated at 1.3 million barrels per day, the country’s share of it is thought to be less than half because of the nature of the production sharing contracts (PSCs) that govern offshore production where most of the drilling takes place.

A large chunk of Nigeria’s share is already committed to various loans and crude swap agreements to import petrol which is then sold at averagely N700 per litre, although the landing cost is over N1,000 per litre.

The NNPC has consistently denied suggestions that petrol is still subsidised.

TheCable understands that top NNPC officials are currently in Europe to source the loans and are targeting Standard Chartered Bank in the UK.

There is yet no significant progress, insiders said.

THE AFREXIMBANK DEAL

The latest development is not the first time the national oil firm will be running to lenders for financial support using Nigeria’s most vital economic resource as a repayment plan.

In August 2023, the NNPC secured a $3 billion crude-backed loan from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to support the naira and stabilise the foreign exchange (FX) market.

In the deal, the oil company pledged a total of 164.25 million barrels of crude oil — at 90,000 barrels per day — starting from 2024 to repay the loan through Project Gazelle Funding Ltd, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) incorporated in the Bahamas.

In January, Afreximbank announced the first disbursement of $2.25 billion under the crude oil prepayment facility. The lender also paid out an additional $925 million in June.

DANGOTE REFINERY VS OIL INDUSTRY REGULATORS

In the past weeks, Nigerians have witnessed a bitter brawl between the Dangote refinery and industry regulators, drawing stakeholders’ attention across the board.

The refinery has been unable to source crude locally but it has now been resolved that the NNPC should prioritise local refineries, including Dangote.

The refinery will buy the crude in naira and save Nigeria over $610 million in hard currency monthly on fuel imports, according to Zach Adedeji, chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

On July 22, Aliko Dangote, chairman of the refinery, had alleged that some officials of the NNPC, oil traders and terminals have a blending plant in Malta.

An oil blending plant has no refining capability but can be used to blend re-refined oil (a used motor oil that has been treated to remove dirt, fuel, and water) with additives to create finished lubricant products.

The allegation marked the climax of a conflict that was stoked by claims by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) that local refineries — including the Dangote refinery — produce substandard petroleum products.

In his defence, Mele Kyari, the group chief executive officer (GCEO) of NNPC said he does not own a blending plant in Malta. He also denied knowing of any employee of the oil firm that operates such a facility.

The house of representatives joint committee on petroleum resources (downstream and midstream) is currently investigating several claims relating to the dispute — including the alleged production of inferior products by local refineries, the “indiscriminate” issuance of licences, and the importation of substandard petroleum products into Nigeria.

The Cable

Slain Hamas leader Haniyeh buried in Qatar amid vows of revenge against Israel

Hamas' top leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday following his assassination in the Iranian capital Tehran, and his possible succcessor told mourners his death would only make the Palestinian militant group more determined in its struggle against Israel.

Haniyeh's death was one in a series of killings of senior Hamas figures as the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel nears its 11th month and concern grows that the conflict is spreading across the Middle East.

Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and have pledged to retaliate against their foe. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the death nor denied it.

Haniyeh was laid to rest in a cemetery in the city of Lusail after a funeral ceremony at the Iman Mohamed Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab Mosque in Qatar's capital Doha.

His coffin, draped in the Palestinian flag, was carried in a procession past hundreds of people along with the casket of his bodyguard, who was killed in the same attack in Tehran on Wednesday.

Mourners at the ceremony included Khaled Meshaal, who is tipped to be the new Hamas leader. Other senior Hamas officials and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani also attended.

Speaking at the mosque, where Haniyeh's body was laid for prayers, Meshaal said his death would only make the group more determined to continue its fight for a free Palestine. There would be no concessions over its principles and no recognition of Israel, he said.

"Palestine will remain from the river to the sea...and the Zionists (Israel) have no place on the land of Palestine, regardless of how many they kill of us," Meshaal said in a video released by Hamas.

Haniyeh's death was a big loss to the movement but it would not alter their course, he said.

"Our enemies don't learn the lesson, they have been killing our leaders for over 100 years, what happened? When a leader ascends (to heaven) another leader comes," he said.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters by phone: "Our message to the occupation (Israel) today is that you are sinking deep in the mud and your end is getting closer than ever. The blood of Haniyeh will change all equations."

Haniyeh was killed by a missile that hit him directly in a state guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya said in Tehran.

The strike was one of several recent hits that have killed senior figures in Hamas or the Lebanese movement Hezbollah in a conflict that is now stretching from Gaza to the Red Sea and the Lebanon-Israel border and beyond.

In the United States, U.S. President Joe Biden said Haniyeh's killing was not helpful to international efforts to secure a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

"It doesn't help," Biden told reporters on Thursday, when asked if the action ruined the chances of a truce.

Qatar has been leading the peace effort along with Egypt and the United States, Israel's main ally.

WIDOW MOURNS

Haniyeh was the face of Hamas' international diplomacy as an Israeli offensive destroyed Gaza.

He was seen by many diplomats as a pragmatist compared to the more hardline members of the Iran-backed group inside Gaza, although some Israeli commentators have said he was considered by some on the Israeli side as an obstacle to a deal.

Three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the besieged enclave in April along with four of his grandchildren, Hamas said.

For Palestinian supporters, the Hamas leadership are fighters for liberation from Israeli occupation, keeping their cause alive when international diplomacy has failed them.

To Israelis and Western states, the Iran-backed Hamas, which has directed suicide bombings in Israel and fought frequent wars against it, is a terrorist group bent on Israel's destruction.

Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh moved between Turkey and Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip.

In May, the International Criminal Court prosecutor's office requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes. Israel and Palestinian leaders have dismissed the allegations.

Israel has announced that an air strike it mounted last month assassinated Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif in Gaza. Hamas has not confirmed or denied the death of Deif.

Hezbollah said that its senior military commander Fuad Shukr had been killed in an Israeli strike on a building in Beirut on Tuesday and it vowed a "definite" response to his killing.

** Hezbollah resumes steady rocket, artillery fire against Israel

Hezbollah forces on Friday resumed rocket and artillery attacks against Israel, ending the lull along the border following Israel's killing of the Lebanese group's military commander in Beirut.

Hezbollah said it had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace overnight and forced it to turn back. Its forces also carried out two artillery attacks and two rocket strikes at military positions in northern Israel, it said.

The Israeli military said in a statement it had successfully intercepted an aerial target coming from Lebanon into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire hit several villages in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanese state media, a day after an Israeli strike killed at least five Syrian migrant workers in southern Lebanon, according to medics.

The Israeli military also said it had hit two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an address on Thursday that he had ordered calm along the border following the Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday that killed military commander Fuad Shukr out of respect for the victims and to consider what the next steps should be.

The strike on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs also killed an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate but it would need to study what their response would be, and would otherwise resume its usual military operations against Israel.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for nearly 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with exchanges mostly limited to the border area.

But strikes since last week have threatened to tip the conflict into a full-scale regional war.

Israel and the United States have accused Hezbollah of killing 12 youths in a July 27 rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a claim Hezbollah has denied.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, told Reuters on Friday it had not investigated the incident as the Israeli-occupied Golan is outside its mandated area of operations.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian troops inch forward in Ukraine's east with waves of bombs and infantry

Russian assaults are raising pressure on the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, Ukraine said on Friday, as waves of guided bombs and infantry lead to some of Moscow's largest territorial gains since the spring.

The push is fuelling a surge in civilians fleeing, with requests for evacuation in the area increasing about tenfold over the past two weeks, according to a volunteer helping people leave.

Russian forces have been steadily inching forward on several fronts in the eastern Donetsk region, staging particularly fierce attacks near Pokrovsk with Kyiv's troops stretched thin 29 months since Russia's full-scale invasion.

Russia's gains of around 57 square km (22 square miles) in the space of a week are the third largest recorded since April after they made only modest gains in June, Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, told Reuters.

Russian forces are using warplanes and artillery fire to support waves of infantry assaults in the area near Pokrovsk, Ruslan Muzychuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's National Guard said in televised remarks.

"These assaults are not always supported by armoured vehicles, often it is infantry assaults," he said, flagging the bombing by Russian warplanes as a particular problem.

"It's a significant threat ... because the Pokrovsk and Toretsk fronts are taking a large share of the daily aviation strikes carried out on the positions of Ukrainian defenders."

Russia's Ministry of Defence said its forces had captured five settlements in the Donetsk region in the past week.

Russia's use of warplanes to fire guided bombs was crucial for Moscow's battlefield tactics, said Valeriy Romanenko, a Kyiv-based aviation expert, who compared it to a "conveyor belt".

"The Russians are not piercing our defence, they are pushing it back. They are advancing 100, 150, 200 metres every day using this tactic: dropping guided bombs, then a 'meat assault', (and if those are) repelled, dropping guided bombs again, a 'meat assault' again."

He said the supply of U.S. F-16 fighters to Ukraine could disrupt that dynamic if the jets were able to threaten Russian warplanes, but that such operations were unlikely for now given the risk it would present for the new pilots operating expensive jets.

Paroinen said the Russian offensives around the settlements of Toretsk and Niu York as well as the one to the east of Pokrovsk around the villages of Ocheretyne and Prohres had created a "double crisis" for Ukraine towards the end of June.

That, he said, followed the Russian offensive into the northeastern Kharkiv region, which was halted by Ukraine, but opened a new front and spread the defenders extremely thin.

'THEY ARE DESTROYING EVERYTHING'

Roman Buhayov, an evacuation driver from humanitarian organization East SOS, told Reuters that the number of requests for evacuation in the area had increased about tenfold over the past two weeks.

On Friday, he drove a bus evacuating residents from Novohrodivka, a town with a pre-war population of some 14,000 near Pokrovsk. It now lies around 10 km from the front line, which inches closer each day.

Antonina Kalashnikova, 62, and her disabled son Denys, 34, evacuated their pummelled home by taking Buhayov's bus to Pokrovsk where she spoke to Reuters.

Together with their neighbour, they arrived to the town with all of their possessions reduced to a few market bags before continuing their journey to the southern city of Mykolaiv.

"They started bombing heavily and it became extremely frightening. We didn't sleep all night, and we decided to leave," Kalashnikova said. "They are destroying everything."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia pounds Ukrainian military enterprises, troop deployment sites over week — top brass

Russian troops delivered 11 strikes by precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises, military trains, troop and mercenaries’ deployment sites over the past week in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.

"On July 27 - August 2, the Russian Armed Forces delivered 11 combined strikes by precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles, hitting Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises engaged in the production and repair of armor, assembly workshops and storage sites of attack UAVs. In addition, the strikes targeted depots storing ammunition, air-launched weapons and missile/artillery armament, military trains and temporary deployment sites of the Ukrainian army and foreign mercenaries," the ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian army loses 13,570 troops in all frontline areas over week

The Ukrainian army lost roughly 13,570 troops in battles with Russian forces in all the frontline areas over the past week, according to the latest data released by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The data show that on July 27 - August 2 the Ukrainian army suffered roughly 1,755 casualties from Russia’s Battlegroup North, 3,605 casualties from the Battlegroup West, 4,020 casualties from the Battlegroup South, 2,635 casualties from the Battlegroup Center, 905 casualties from the Battlegroup East and 650 casualties from the Battlegroup Dnepr.

Russia’s Battlegroup North inflicts 1,755 casualties on Ukrainian army over week

Russia’s Battlegroup North repelled 27 Ukrainian army counterattacks and inflicted roughly 1,755 casualties on enemy troops in its area of responsibility over the past week, the ministry reported.

"During the week, Battlegroup North units inflicted damage on manpower and equipment of a mechanized brigade, an assault brigade, a motorized infantry brigade, an air assault brigade and an infantry brigade of the Ukrainian army, a marine infantry brigade, three territorial defense brigades and a National Guard brigade. They repelled 27 enemy counterattacks," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the week amounted to 1,755 personnel, two tanks, six armored combat vehicles, including a Turkish-made Kirpi armored vehicle and two US-made HMMWV armored vehicles, 12 motor vehicles and 20 field artillery guns, among them five Western-made 155mm howitzers and self-propelled artillery guns, it specified.

In addition, Russian forces destroyed six field ammunition depots of the Ukrainian army over the week, the ministry said.

Russia’s Battlegroup West inflicts 3,605 casualties on Ukrainian army over week

Russia’s Battlegroup West inflicted roughly 3,605 casualties on Ukrainian troops in its area of responsibility over the past week, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup West units gained more advantageous frontiers and positions and inflicted casualties on formations of three mechanized brigades and an assault brigade of the Ukrainian army, three territorial defense brigades and also nationalists of the Azov brigade [outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization]. They repulsed 12 counterattacks by enemy assault groups," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past week amounted to 3,605 personnel, five tanks, eight armored combat vehicles, 66 motor vehicles, 41 field artillery guns, including 13 Western-and Ukrainian-made 155mm self-propelled artillery systems and howitzers, it specified.

In addition, Russian troops destroyed 10 electronic warfare systems and counterbattery radar stations and 22 field ammunition depots of the Ukrainian army, the ministry said.

Russia’s Battlegroup South inflicts 4,020 casualties on Ukrainian army over week

Russia’s Battlegroup South inflicted roughly 4,020 casualties on Ukrainian troops and destroyed a German-made Leopard tank in its area of responsibility over the week, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup South units improved their forward edge positions as a result of active operations. They inflicted damage on manpower and equipment of four mechanized, two air assault, two airmobile brigades and an assault brigade of the Ukrainian army. They repelled five enemy counterattacks," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past week amounted to 4,020 personnel and two tanks, including a German-made Leopard tank. The Ukrainian army also lost 10 armored combat vehicles, among them three US-made M113 armored personnel carriers, 19 motor vehicles and 68 field artillery guns, including 33 Western-made weapons, it specified.

"Nine electronic warfare systems and counterbattery radar stations and 20 field ammunition depots were destroyed," the ministry said.

Russia’s Battlegroup Center liberates five communities in DPR over week

Russia’s Battlegroup Center liberated five communities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past week, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup Center units liberated the settlements of Lozovatskoye, Progress, Yevgenovka, Volchye and Leninskoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic in active operations," the ministry said.

Reuters/Tass