By Felix Umande

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has declared that sustainable peace in the North Central region will be achieved through community-led solutions and deliberate development, cautioning that military operations alone cannot resolve the underlying causes of insecurity.

The President made this known on Monday in Makurdi, Benue State, at the North Central Security Summit. He was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume.

The summit was convened by the Ministry of Defence in collaboration with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement, North Central. In attendance were governors of the six North Central states and the FCT, traditional rulers, religious leaders, ministers, members of the National Assembly, security chiefs, and top federal and state government functionaries.

In his address, President Tinubu, through the SGF, thanked the government and people of Benue State for hosting the gathering, describing the North Central as the most appropriate venue for the conversation because it is “the food basket of our dear nation.”

He noted that the summit is the second in a series of regional engagements by the Ministry of Defence, following the South-East Regional Security Summit held in Umuahia on July 30, 2025.

Commending the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd) CFR, and the SSA on Community Engagement, North Central, for sustaining the initiative, the President said it aligns with the central principle of the Renewed Hope Agenda.

“The security of Nigeria will be built from the community upwards, and not from the capital downwards alone,” the President stated.

He said the theme, “Collaborative Approaches to Strengthening Security and Regional Stability,” captures the reality of the moment. In his words:
“No single agency, no single tier of government, and no single community can secure this region acting alone.”

President Tinubu said his administration has strengthened synergy among the Armed Forces, the Nigeria Police Force, and intelligence agencies, and has equipped the Army, Navy, and Air Force with new platforms and advanced capabilities.

Through the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Act, he said government is rebuilding the indigenous defence industry, while also prioritizing the welfare of troops.

The President disclosed that troops have recorded “significant gains” with terrorist commanders neutralized, thousands of fighters surrendered, captives rescued, and normalcy restored in several communities.

However, he stressed that kinetic action alone cannot guarantee lasting peace.

“Force can suppress violence, but it cannot resolve the grievances that produce it,” he said.

He identified competition over land and water, the effects of climate change and desertification, weak local dispute resolution mechanisms, and the proliferation of illicit weapons as root causes of conflict in the region.

“If we address only the symptoms and never the cause, we will be back in this room in ten years having the same conversation,” he warned.

President Tinubu said government is complementing security operations with development. Through the Ministry of Livestock Development, he said, the administration is driving the transition from open grazing to modern, settled livestock production to safeguard farmland and reduce conflict.

He also highlighted the Ministry of Defence’s Reclaiming Ungoverned Spaces for Economic Benefits Programme, which leverages retired military personnel to secure and revive communities affected by violence.

Other interventions, he added, include investments in irrigation, mechanized agriculture, rural roads, and access to credit under the Renewed Hope Agenda to “turn this region’s greatest vulnerabilities into its greatest economic growth.”

The President charged traditional and religious leaders to serve as the “first line of early warning and the most trusted voice of reconciliation,” and to reject inflammatory rhetoric from any quarters.

“To our communities, our young people, and our women: security begins with you.” He went further to urge citizens to provide timely information to security agencies and to take ownership of peacebuilding in their communities.

Tinubu assured that government is committed to creating opportunities for youth to make productive livelihoods more attractive than crime.

The President added that he expects the summit to produce practical recommendations with clear owners, timelines, and measurable outcomes, rather than another communique.

He directed the Minister of Defence to transmit the outcomes of the summit to him and to report on implementation.
“We will be judged not by the quality of our deliberations here, but by whether a farmer in this region sleeps more soundly a year from now,” the President concluded.

President Bola Tinubu has given the United States District Court for the District of Columbia four reasons why his unredacted records with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency should not be released to the public.

The President, in fillings made by his lawyers and published on Saturday, noted that the US Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act precluded disclosure and there was no public interest in the matter.

Tinubu also said there was no public interest to balance and the plaintiff had ulterior motives for demanding documents with his name on them.

His lawyers were identified as Christopher Carmichael, Victor Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi.

The President’s submission was in response to a request by an American transparency activist, Aaron Greenspan, which sought the disclosure of the records under the US Freedom of Information Act.

But opposition parties in the country kicked against the move, saying Nigerians deserved to know about the President’s past.

The controversy surrounding Tinubu’s US law-enforcement history became a major issue in the build up to the February 25, 2023 presidential election after documents relating to a 1993 US civil forfeiture proceeding surfaced.

A US District Court in Illinois had ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 held in an account in Tinubu’s name after the US alleged that the funds represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in prohibited financial transactions.

The All Progressives Congress, however, maintained during the presidential election petition proceedings that the case was a civil forfeiture proceeding and not a criminal conviction.

The Labour Party and then presidential candidate Peter Obi argued that the forfeiture amounted to a disqualifying conviction under the Constitution.

The Presidential Election Petition Court held in September 2023 that the petitioners had failed to establish that Tinubu was arrested, arraigned, convicted or sentenced in a criminal case in the US.

Ever since, the opposition and other interested parties have been making moves to get official information relating to Tinubu from the US.

Greenspan had argued that his requests concerned the “sitting President of Nigeria…” and “a nation of over 230 million people whose daily lives are directly affected by President Tinubu’s decisions”.

In his rejection of the FOIA request, Tinubu, according to the filings by his lawyer, urged the US District Court to reject the bid because it amounted to an attempt to obtain private information for political purposes in Nigeria.

The President’s lawyers noted that the request was made to provide access to information about government activities.

They specifically rejected the argument that the interest of Nigerians in Tinubu’s background constituted public interest recognised by US laws.

The team also rejected an argument on the President’s fitness for office, stating that “the asserted ‘public interest in Tinubu’s own fitness for office’ is not an interest FOIA recognises or one that needs to be balanced.”

The lawyers further argued that the records sought were protected by privacy provisions under FOIA and the US Privacy Act.

“The redacted information sought by the plaintiff is exempt from disclosure,” they stated, citing Exemption 7(C), which protects personal information contained in law-enforcement records.

The President’s legal team relied on a 1989 US Supreme Court decision, Department of Justice v Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to argue that FOIA was designed to allow the public to know “what the government is up to” rather than provide access to information about private citizens.

They argued that Greenspan was seeking “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files,” which, they said, “reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”

Tinubu’s lawyers also challenged what they described as the political dimension of the request, arguing that Greenspan’s filings demonstrated a focus on obtaining documents containing the President’s name.

“All of plaintiff’s other critiques should be viewed in the context of plaintiff’s overarching goal,” the lawyers stated.

They added that Greenspan’s filings “overwhelmingly demonstrate that his singular focus is obtaining documents with intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”

The President’s legal team urged the court not to allow the FOIA process to become a means of obtaining information about a private individual simply because of his political position.

“If this court finds that the plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with the intervenor’s name on them,’” the lawyers stated.

They further challenged claims that the records could reveal a secret prosecution or an agreement by US authorities not to prosecute Tinubu.

The team described such claims as speculative and unsupported by evidence.

The lawyers added, “Unsubstantiated allegations are easy to assert in filings, but insufficient to justify a request for information about an individual.”

They stated that Greenspan had failed to provide evidence capable of establishing that alleged government wrongdoing had occurred, as required by US case law.

“Plaintiff has not carried his burden to obtain law enforcement records that mention or identify a private individual,” they stated.

The President’s legal team also disputed the argument that his privacy interests had been extinguished because some information relating to the historical investigation had previously become public.

Greenspan had argued that the general nature of the investigation had been in the public domain since 1993.

But Tinubu’s lawyers said the 1993 forfeiture proceeding, including an affidavit filed in the case, did not disclose details or the outcome of any possible criminal investigation involving the President.

The lawyers maintained that even where portions of information had previously appeared in public records, an individual could retain a privacy interest in details that remained undisclosed.

They consequently asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the FBI and DEA to maintain their redactions and withholding of the records.

Among the records sought are the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records involving him from 1992 to 1993.

In April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the FBI and DEA to lift their “Glomar” responses, under which the agencies had refused to confirm or deny whether responsive records existed, and directed them to process the requested records subject to applicable exemptions.

The FBI has subsequently sought to keep portions of the records from public disclosure, citing exemptions relating to law-enforcement information, privacy, investigative techniques and the potential safety of individuals.

The ongoing FOIA case concerns access to US government records and does not itself constitute a criminal prosecution or a finding that Tinubu committed a drug-trafficking offence.

Commenting on the development, the African Democratic Congress and Nigeria Democratic Congress stated that Tinubu’s rejection of the release of the records was suspicious.

The ADC spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, in an interview with the press on Saturday, urged the President to allow the records to be released to save his name.

“Why is the President opposing the release of his past records? That is suspicious. The President should allow them (records) to be released to clear himself. The President should come out clean. He should be the one calling for the records to be released if he has nothing to hide because this is not good for him and the image of the country,” he said.

Also, the NDC National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, said Nigerians deserved to know the truth and urged the President to allow the release of his records with the US agencies.

Director, in an interview with the PUNCH, said the argument that Tinubu’s records were being sought for political purposes did not hold water.

“When a man commits an offence and he says, please, don’t blame me because it is the devil, does that mean he should not face the consequence of his action because it is the devil? That is the question the President should answer.

“Whether it is the opposition or not, if the issue wasn’t there, the opposition would not capitalise on it. Why did the opposition not ask the FBI to release records on our presidential candidate, Peter Obi, or Atiku? That is not an excuse.

“Nigerians deserve to know and in the interest of the President. He deserves to clear the air. This case has been hanging on since his time as a governor. It is over 20 years. Even me, as an opposition, am getting bored. It is time, once and for all, that he should clear the air to allow the issue to be buried.”

By Nick Ibe

Nigeria has agreed an $8.5m-a-year equipment deal that the Nigeria Football Federation says is the biggest in African football. The deal will also end its 11-year association with Nike and return to adidas.

Former NFF president, Ibrahim Gusau, who resigned along with the federation’s executive committee on Thursday, disclosed the agreement at a news conference in Abuja, saying adidas will pay the federation $4.5m annually in cash and provide another $4m worth of equipment for Nigeria’s national teams.

The NFF will also receive a 20 per cent royalty on merchandise sales, a clause that could push the value of the agreement well beyond the guaranteed $8.5m annual figure.

Gusau said the contract has already been signed, though it was originally scheduled to be announced in September. He said:

“It is about the highest kit sponsorship in Africa. No other country in Africa has that kind of sponsorship.

“Adidas will pay Nigeria $4.5 million every year in cash and then they will provide kit worth $4 million every year.”

The package becomes the largest kit-supply agreement for an African national football federation, if beating Morocco’s deal with Puma, reportedly valued at $1.7m, previously the highest publicly known figure on the continent.

Nigeria’s outgoing Nike contract signed since 2015, had become grossly inadequate for the federation’s needs argued Gusau:

“As (former) president, I cannot gift someone a jersey because we met a contract that has been running for 11 years on the same terms worth $500,000 in cash and $1 million in kit supply. $500,000 in 2015 and still $500,000 in 2026. It is like you have nothing.”

Nigeria was to first sign with Nike in April 2015 due to its earlier adidas deal being cancelled over breaches during the 2014 World Cup.

Gusau said the limitations of the Nike arrangement had proven so inadequate that the federation had resorted to buying additional kits for its teams, including Nigeria’s U-20 women’s team for the World Cup in Poland.

“We have to buy jerseys for the girls that travelled to Poland because $1 million worth of equipment cannot even service Super Eagles qualifiers for World Cup and Nations Cup as well as Super Falcons,” he said.

Due to the insufficiency, the federation began pushing Nike for improved terms in 2024 but could not reach an agreement, prompting it to solicit competing offers, with Nike retaining a contractual right to match the best proposal. Gusau added:

“Finally, they agreed that we could negotiate with others. At the end of the day we contacted adidas and other kit sponsors and we were able to secure a substantial agreement with adidas. Nike has to match whatever we were offered. They were unable to match the offer from adidas and that is why we are moving on.”

Adidas previously supplied Nigeria’s 1994 Africa Cup of Nations kits and its first World Cup appearance that same year, and again from 2004 to 2014, a period that included the Super Eagles’ 2013 Africa Cup of Nations title.

Nike’s return in 2015 produced some of Nigeria’s most recognisable kits, including the widely celebrated 2018 World Cup jersey.

Adidas has a larger retail footprint in Nigeria, with about 13 stores compared to Nike’s one, and it plans to expand to 32 stores within two years. This was another factor behind the switch.