Nigerian Newspapers: 10 things you need to know Saturday morning

Good morning! Here is today’s summary from Nigerian Newspapers:

1. Two people are feared dead in a boat accident in Sokoto State, the third such incident in August 2025. The incident occurred as villagers were returning from a weekly market in neighboring Yabo Local Government Area. According to a source at the Sokoto State Emergency Management Agency the boat with 11 passengers on board capsized around 8pm.

2. The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has made a U-turn regarding his earlier remarks on the federal government’s agreements with the Academic Staff Union of Universities admitting the existence of the deal in 2009. Speaking with reporters in Abuja on Friday the minister had insisted that no agreement existed between the government and ASUU, adding that the union was merely parading a draft, a claim rejected by ASUU.

3. Former Zamfara Central Senator, Kabiru Garba Marafa, and his supporters have announced their resignation from the All Progressives Congress, APC. Marafa, who represented Zamfara Central in the Senate from 2011 to 2019, disclosed the decision alongside his supporters in a communiqué issued after a two-day meeting in Kaduna.

4. The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress says former president Goodluck Jonathan cannot defeat President Bola Tinubu in the next election. Speaking, the party’s spokesman, Mr Seye Oladejo, in a statement on Friday noted that the former president’s political relevance to unseat President Bola Tinubu, remained in doubt.

5. The Federal Government says no fewer than 396,000 students have benefitted from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND tuition loans under President Bola Tinubu’s Administration. This was disclosed on Friday in Lokoja, at a townhall meeting to highlight the significant achievements of President Bola Tinubu’s administration in the past two years, with particular reference to Kogi.

6. The Nigerian Army troops have intercepted 242 bags of NPK fertiliser suspected to be diverted for use in the production of Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs by terrorists in Borno. A credible source at Army Headquarters confirmed the development to NAN on Friday in Abuja. The source said the operation underscored the army’s vigilance in cutting off critical logistics to insurgents.

7. Bishop Francis Okobo, the first Nsukka Catholic Bishop died at the age of 89 in Enugu. This is contained in a statement issued on Friday in Nsukka by Rev. Fr. Greg Nnamani, the Vicar General of Nsukka Catholic Diocese. Nnamani said that the bishop emeritus died on Friday in an Enugu hospital after a brief illness.

8. Some Nigerian professors have demanded that their salaries be raised to a minimum of N2.5m per month, insisting that anything less was no longer tenable. On Tuesday, protests rocked several campuses as members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities decried the Federal Government’s failure to implement the renegotiated 2009 FGN–ASUU agreement.

9. The Benin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recorded the highest number of arrests in the agency’s crackdown on internet fraud in the first half of 2025. Figures published in the latest edition of The EFCC Alert, the commission’s magazine, showed that the Benin office carried out 12 sting operations between January and June, arresting 327 suspects.

10. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested 1,315 suspected drug peddlers in the past seven months as part of its intensified nationwide crackdown on illicit substances. During the same period, the agency seized a total of 1,387,254.27kg of drugs and destroyed 43 cannabis farms covering more than 320 hectares across the country.