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PDP Accuses INEC of Thump printing Ballot Papers in Borno A Month After Election

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PDP Accuses INEC of Thump printing Ballot Papers in Borno A Month After Election

By: Michael Mike

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the Borno Central Senatorial election, Hon. Muhammed Kumaila has alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are still thump printing ballot papers in its keep barely a month after the election.

Kumaila who said this amounted to destroying and tampering with evidence that would be presented before the Election Petitions Tribunal, alleged that some adhoc staff of the commission in Borno were caught thumb printing and stuffing ballot boxes within the premises of Borno office of INEC in Maiduguri last Wednesday almost a month after the Presidential and National Assembly elections were held.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Saturday, Kumaila said following the outcome of the National Assembly election, where he lost to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kaka Shehu Lawal, he had filed a petition before the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Maiduguri.

He added that he subsequently obtained a court order to inspect materials used for the elections, which he said included the ballot boxes, used and unused ballot papers as well as obtain Certified True Copies of the result and collation sheets among others.

When contacted, Head of Department, Voter Education and Publicity, Abba Liberty, said the issue was beyond him.

“I am not in a position to respond. I think you should contact the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). I have restrictions to what I can respond to please. That is the nature of my work and that is my stand”, he stated.

Kumaila, however, disclosed that while his team of lawyers were undertaking the inspection of materials on March 22, 2023, they discovered some INEC ad-hoc staff sorting out, rearranging and counting ballot papers and stuffing them in different ballot boxes in respect of Mafa, Kala Balge and Dikwa Local Governments.

He said: “Our inspectors immediately raised alarm and accordingly reported the incident to the Borno State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). They drew the attention of the REC that the actions of the Ad-Hoc staff amount to tampering with evidence. The REC assured our team that the Ad Hoc Staff were only rearranging the documents that were dumped on them by the respective Local Government Electoral Officers who brought the materials from the local governments. Although we were not satisfied with the explanation, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and continued with the inspection.

“To our surprise, by the next day, Thursday March, 23, 2023, our inspectors this time around caught red handed two ad-hoc staff actually thumbprinting ballot papers and stuffing them into ballot boxes for Mafa Local Government right inside the premises of the INEC office in Maiduguri. Our Inspectors immediately arrested the two staff involved in the thumb printing and stuffing of ballot boxes and took them to the Bulumkutu Police Station together with the bundles of ballot papers that were thumb printed and the indelible ink they used.

“We were surprised that no official of the Maiduguri INEC office took interest to accompany our team to the police station in order to ensure the arrest of the ad-hoc staff and undertake investigation of any possible crimes.

“The police officials took the statements of the complainant and the two ad-hoc staff and arrested them. They also invited the Electoral Officer for Mafa Local government who brought the materials to the Maiduguri INEC office from Mafa Local Government to give a statement. Our team was informed by the police at Bulumkutu Police Station to come back the next day so that the case will be transferred to the Maiduguri Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigation and prosecution.”

Kumaila explained that since the ballot and results sheets would serve as evidence in court, any attempt by any official, permanent or adhoc to thumb print or move ballot papers from one ballot box to another after the elections have been concluded amounts to tampering with evidence.

He added: “When our team arrived the police station the next day as requested for the case to be transferred to the CID, the DPO informed our team that the suspects have been released to the officials of the Maiduguri INEC office and the bundle of ballot papers and the indelible ink (Exhibits) have been returned to the INEC office in Maiduguri.

“They opined that the case is not within their jurisdiction and that we should go to the police station at Mafa Local Government to complain, ostensibly forgetting that they had a day earlier informed our team that the case will be transferred to the Maiduguri CID department. The action of the DPO amounts to obstruction of justice and failure to carry out his lawful duty.

“One issue that begs for an answer is who are the INEC officials that the suspects were released to and also collected the bundles of Ballot papers from the Police station and returned to the INEC office? Those INEC officials that collected the ballot papers from the police station and returned them back to the INEC office are as complicit as the Ad-Hoc staff that were caught thumbprinting the ballot papers. It is therefore obvious that the INEC officials and the DPO are involved in suppression, concealing and aiding of crime as well as tampering with evidence.
We have video evidence of the suspects when they were caught thumbprinting the ballot papers.

He urged the Inspector General of Police and the Director General, Department of State security Service (DSS) to immediately direct investigation into this matter with a view to apprehending the culprits and prosecuting them in accordance with the law.

He said the IGP should direct the Borno State Commissioner of Police to arrest the two ad-hoc staff of INEC by names that were caught thumb printing and stuffing ballot boxes in respect of Mafa local government right inside the premises of INEC office in Maiduguri.

He also urged security agencies to investigate the culpability of the INEC officials that caused the release of the suspects and also took back the ballot papers and indelible ink that were handed over to the police as exhibit.

PDP Accuses INEC of Thump printing Ballot Papers in Borno A Month After Election

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Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

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Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

By: Zagazola Makama

The Nigerian Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai have executed a coordinated strike on a major terrorist enclave located at Maisani in the Timbuktu Triangle general area of Borno State, killing several ISWAP terrorists.

Intelligence sources told Zagazola Makama that the air interdiction mission conducted on May 4, 2025, at approximately 1800 hours, was informed by credible intelligence and sustained surveillance, targeted terrorists’ structures cleverly concealed and camouflaged under thick shrubs in the area.

The sources said that using advanced platforms, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) conducted a focused Air Interdiction (AI) mission, resulting in the destruction of the identified enemy hideouts and the neutralisation of an unconfirmed number of insurgent fighters.

According to the sources, Post-strike Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) obtained from our Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms confirmed that the airstrike achieved its intended objectives, dealing a significant blow to terrorists.

Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

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Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

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Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

By: Michael Mike

As the world marks the 2025 Environment Day, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has appealed to the World Bank for support on capacity building, data and in addressing the challenges poised by Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) in the country.

Head of Department, National Accounts Energy and Environment at the NBS, Dr. Baba Madu made the appeal at the 2025 Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) Conference on Thursday in Abuja with support from the World Bank in. collaboration with the NBS and the Federal Ministry of Environment.

Madu while noting that the NCA was a new area Nigeria must exploit to further boost the nation’s economy, said for Nigeria to grow and be at par with other developed nations, there was need to account for her natural resources.

He said: “NCA has been tasked with the crucial role of integrating natural capital into economic measurement. It is impossible to measure the economy accurately without accounting for natural resources. Issues such as environmental degradation, afforestation, desertification, and climate change all directly impact productivity.

“Productivity in turn, influences output—one of the core components of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These environmental factors must be reflected across all economic activity sectors to present a more accurate picture of national output.”

While stating that Nigeria currently has data on NCA in Nigeria, the NBS official however raised concerns over the huge data gap from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the environment sector.

He said: “We are not doing badly but we need to improve on what we are doing. In terms of data sources, I can tell you there’s a big gap because these are new areas needed to be exploited.”

Programme Leader on Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Vina Vutukuru, said there was need to jointly
explore the vital role of national accounting in national development plans and to brainstorm on how Nigeria could institutionalize it.

He said: “Establishing the national capital accounting as part of the national account system will allow us to measure the economic value of ecosystem services such as clean air, water and biodiversity which are essential for our well-being and economic prosperity.”

Vutukuru commended Nigeria for having “very bold ambitions” as far as responding to climate change was concerned saying, “That shows the commitment of the policy makers here towards the issue of climate.

“But I think to back up that aspiration and the aggressive goals that Nigeria has set for itself, the foundational thing for those goals to materialize those objectives to come true is a very strong natural account system.”

Head of Media, National Council on Climate Change Secretariat (NCCCS), Chioma Azie who represented her Director General, Dr. Nkiruka Maduekwe at the event, described Nigeria as a very ambitious country, stressing that natural resources was instrumental to achieving all the objective of climate action.

She said: “Technology, policy reforms, behavioral changes has a role to play but natural resources is very key because they’re underpinning the mitigation and adaptation for climate action.

“If you look at Nigeria’s NDC, the NCA is an avenue to provide raw materials that we could use to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies.

“If you look at what we have done in terms of this NDC in 2020.which is the second leg of the NDC, we identified a lot of mitigation activities within this mentioned sectors of ours. In agricultural sector we talked about smart agriculture. What is smart agriculture without natural resources?

“We talked about biomass, what is biomass without natural resources? We also spoke about land use changes and that is natural resources, we talk about natural solutions and we talked about also afforestation, reafforestation. Those are mitigation potentials of our NDC. So, we cannot achieve our NDC without SEEA.

“What you cannot be able to account for is recorded as if it is not done so if we know what is existing in terms of the reservoirs we have for natural resources, it can inform the scope of the mitigation activities we’re going to be imputing in the NDC 3.0,” she said.

Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

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NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible

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NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible
.. Says Police Service Commission Not Denied Access

By: Michael Mike

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said all its verification service platforms are functional and accessible to all partners including all security agencies.

The Commission, in a statement on Thursday by its spokesman, Dr. Kayode Adegoke said it is aware of the purported ”inability of the Police Service Commission (PSC) to access the NIMC verification server,” insisting that the “information is not only misleading but also inaccurate.”

Adegoke said: “To set the record straight, the NIMC granted verification access to all Nigerian Police formations for the verification of the National Identification Number (NIN). The NPF, PSC and other security agencies have been enjoying uninterrupted verification services for over five years.

“NIMC has provided top-notch verification services for recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force, as conducted by the PSC and at no time have there been any complaints or issues regarding NIN Verification by the NPF or PSC.”

Adegoke, in the statement, claimed that: “The Commission has a robust and harmonious working relationship with the Nigerian Police Force and the Police Service Commission. The Information Communications and Technology (ICT) department of the Nigeria Police Force is actively managing the long-standing verification and integration service between the NIMC and all Nigeria Police formations. NIMC will continue to provide flawless verification services for the purpose of recruitment, security mapping, cybercrime control, and any other security matters.”

He explained that: “The framework by which NIMC provides services to the security agencies was recently restructured for standardization and effective implementation, following consultation with the Office of the National Security Adviser, and NPF has confirmed the verification services have continued to be available. We therefore believe that any service interruption experienced by PSC may be due to internal matters.”

He promised that: “NIMC is committed to providing excellent verification services to the PSC, NPF and all its partners but the terms and conditions inherent must be adhered to for uninterrupted flow of service.”

NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible

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