These are the top five Nigerian stories that conversation today.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday insisted that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been a failure.
He spoke at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State, while playing host to the New Nigeria 2019 Group, led by the convener, Chima Anyaso, in company with Moses Siasia.
“As I said, stop giving excuses; we met challenges. If there are no challenges, then we wouldn’t need you to come. You come in because you know there are challenges and then giving us an excuse that you have many challenges; that is why you haven’t achieved results.”
The police have arrested six persons for allegedly aiding the escape of six suspects from police custody in Division ‘A’ Lokoja, Kogi State, last week Wednesday.
They include John Beneche, 22, Seye Atowoju, 27, Danjuma Yunusa, 35, Egga Ochai, 50, Abbas Haruna, 30, and Gloria Audu, 28, sister to Emmanuel, one of the re-arrested prime suspects in Senator Dino Melaye’s arms case.
The force in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja by its spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, explained that the six suspects played criminal roles in the escape of Kabiru Seidu (aka Osama), Nuhu Salisu (aka Small), Aliyu Isa, Adams Suleiman, Emmanuel Audu and Musa Mohammed.
Some gunmen on Tuesday invaded the police station at Gegu village on Lokoja–Abuja road, killing two of the policemen on duty.
William Aya, spokesman of the Kogi state police command confirmed this.
“It is true that there was an attack today. We lost two officers,” he said.
He said the gunmen also injured one of the suspects in the cell.
Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, walked into the presidential villa in Abuja on Tuesday on crutches.
The governor was involved in an accident during the Easter holiday.
Kingsley Fanwo, spokesman of the governor, had earlier issued a statement to deny that his principal’s condition was critical.
“We wish to refute speculations in some quarters that the Governor of Kogi State, His Excellency, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, is either hospitalised or otherwise incapacitated,” the statement read.
Festus Keyamo, Lagos lawyer, has accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of committing same act he is tackling President Muhammadu Buhari for.
He said Obasanjo “kept blaming” the military for his “abysmal” performance while in office.
Writing via his Twitter handle on Tuesday, Keyamo said — just like Buhari — the former president had asked Nigerians to be patient with his government.
He wrote: “Let’s remember that during the first four years of Obasanjo (1999-2003), he kept blaming the ‘rot’ the military left behind as the reason for his abysmal performance and begged Nigerians to be patient with him, to the extent that he reportedly knelt down for Atiku Abubakar (his then vice-president) then to get his second-term ticket.”
And now, stories from around the world…
The Duke of Edinburgh has been admitted to hospital in central London for planned surgery on his hip, Buckingham Palace has said.
The surgery will take place on Wednesday at the King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone.
Prince Philip, 96, retired from royal duties last August.
The duke did not attend the Easter service at Windsor Castle on Sunday, with his absence said to have been because of a hip problem.
France’s rail network has been severely disrupted, as a wave of strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s labour reforms gets under way.
The start of the strike has been dubbed “Black Tuesday”, but the action will spread over three months, affecting two days in every five.
Staff at state railway SNCF are leading the strike, but the energy and waste collection sectors are also affected.
The unrest presents Mr Macron’s biggest challenge since his election last May.
The first person has been jailed as part of the FBI inquiry into alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign team and Russia.
Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, 33, was sentenced to 30 days in prison for lying to investigators about contacts with ex-Trump aide Rick Gates.
He struck a plea deal in February.
Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men and was the 19th person to be charged by special counsel Robert Mueller.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s calling on the military to guard the US-Mexico border until his long-promised border wall is complete.
“I told Mexico, and I respect what they did, I said, look, your laws are very powerful, your laws are very strong. We have very bad laws for our border and we are going to be doing some things, I spoke with (Defense Secretary James) Mattis, we’re going to do some things militarily. Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military. That’s a big step,” he said during a luncheon with leaders of the Baltic states.
He continued: “We cannot have people flowing into our country illegally, disappearing, and by the way never showing up for court.”
China says it will respond to any new trade tariffs by the United States with measures of the same scale and intensity.
The warning from China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, came after Beijing slapped tariffs on $3 billion worth of US exports including fruit, pork and steel pipes.
Those measures were in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum from China and other countries. But Trump has also announced plans to impose tariffs on about $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.
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