Welcome to today’s roundup of Nigerian newspaper headlines, accompanied by our advocacy-focused calls for government action on pressing issues that impact citizens.
1. The Guardian: Crush Terrorism Now, Nigerians Task New Service Chiefs
The Guardian reports that Nigerians have tasked the new service chiefs to crush terrorism once and for all to let citizens have a rest of mind and justify the confidence President Bola Tinubu reposed in them.
Tinubu, last Friday, made sweeping changes in the leadership of Nigeria’s Armed Forces to strengthen the country’s security architecture and consolidate command and professionalism within the military.
Our Take: The new service chiefs must now go beyond parade-ground promises and deliver real results, not PowerPoint presentations or press briefings filled with grammar. Nigerians have endured enough ‘strategic operations’ that begin and end with sound bites. It is time to make insecurity feel insecure. Let the terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits finally experience the kind of sleepless nights they’ve been giving citizens for years.
2. Daily Trust: Farmers, FG Disagree over Drop in Food Prices
Daily Trust reports that farmers and the federal government have disagreed over the recent drop in prices of food items across the country.
While many of the farmers and their associations cited what they described as massive importation of food items recently approved by the government as the cause of the price crash, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, attributed the development to the various incentives introduced by the present administration to boost local production.
Our Take: It is time to stop the blame game and ensure that affordable food doesn’t come at the expense of local farmers’ livelihoods. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security needs to immediately halt uncoordinated food import surges that undercut domestic producers and instead implement a guaranteed minimum price for key local grains to stabilise the market. After all, if the price of a basic staple like maize is the central point of contention between the government and its people, the strategy has failed.
3. Punch: Economic recovery has begun – Edun
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has assured Nigerians that the country’s economy has turned the corner.
According to the minister, when President Bola Tinubu took office in 2023, the country’s economy was on the brink of fiscal collapse.
Our Take: If the economy has truly ‘turned the corner’, then it is time for Nigerians to start feeling it beyond government spreadsheets and PowerPoint charts. The numbers may be smiling, but wallets are still frowning. Minister Edun and his team must ensure that this so-called recovery moves from the pages of economic reports to the pockets of citizens, because, at this point, Nigerians would love to see prosperity that can actually buy garri without needing a press release to explain it.
