1. The Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday said it had opened two foreign-currency domiciliary accounts for the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council.
This is as the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, appeared at the headquarters of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to testify in the ongoing investigation into the activities of the fictitious agency. The apex bank’s admission came at the public hearing convened at the National Assembly Complex by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the existence and operations of the PFIPC, chaired by Yusuf Gagdi and inaugurated by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas
2. Troops of Operation Hadin Kai have arrested two foreign nationals, including a 32-year-old Sudanese man and a 36-year-old Ghanaian woman, in Askira/Uba Local Government Area of Borno State. The army identified the Sudanese, Musa Fashir, as a suspected foreign terrorist fighter and collaborator, while the Ghanaian, Mary Florence, is said to be an illegal immigrant.
3. The Department of State Services is set to appeal Monday’s life sentence handed to two top commanders of the Ansaru Terror organization by a Federal High Court, Abuja. Justice Emeka Nwite had, shortly after Mahmud Usman, a.k.a Abu Bara’a/Abbas/Mukhtar, the self-styled Emir of Ansaru; and Abubakar Abba, a.k.a Mahmud al-Nigeri/Malam Mamuda, pleaded guilty to all the 32-count charges against them, sentenced both men to life imprisonment but the service viewed the punish as too light.
4. President Bola Tinubu on Monday approved the appointment of 26 persons to the boards and management of 10 federal government agencies and commissions. Among the appointees is Ayo Fayose, former governor of Ekiti, who was named chairman of the board of the Rural Electrification Agency, REA.
5. The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday, honoured an invitation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, appearing before investigators probing the activities of the fictitious Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, PFIPC. Gbajabiamila’s appearance comes nearly two weeks after President Bola Tinubu directed the anti-graft agency to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the fake presidential agency.
6. Amid growing public anxiety over Nigeria’s rising debt burden, widespread economic hardship and concerns over whether the country is taking on more obligations than it can sustain, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, has moved to clarify the figures surrounding the country’s debt profile, insisting that President Bola Tinubu’s administration has not borrowed the N80 trillion being widely circulated in public discourse.
7. The vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso, has confirmed that the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, signed a written agreement with him to serve only a single tenure of four years and allow power to return to the North if elected president in 2027. Kwankwaso disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television on Monday, saying the agreement was aimed at ensuring power returns to the North after a single four-year tenure in line with the party’s power-sharing arrangement.
8. Despite Nigeria’s headline inflation rate easing marginally in June 2026, residents in more than half of the country’s states continued to face annual inflation above 30 per cent, with Niger, Kogi and the Federal Capital Territory recording the highest rates. The latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that headline inflation slowed slightly to 15.91 per cent in June from 15.93 per cent recorded in May.
9. Tension gripped the Gero community in the Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State on Monday after the bodies of two unidentified females were discovered behind the headquarters of the council. The discovery sparked widespread protests by women in the area, who took to the streets and temporarily blocked a section of the expressway, causing heavy traffic disruption. Eyewitnesses said the bodies were found early Monday morning, prompting residents to troop to the scene.
10. The House of Representatives has begun clause-by-clause consideration of President Bola Tinubu’s executive bill seeking the establishment of state police, with lawmakers indicating they might adopt the Senate-passed version of the legislation with only minor adjustments. Speaking at the meeting of the House Committee on Constitution Review, the Deputy Speaker of the House and Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, Benjamin Kalu, said the House would leverage the work already done by the Senate to expedite the passage.
