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As the nation celebrates her 66th anniversary of its independence from Britain on October 1st 1960, Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, has assured residents that his administration will not relent in protecting lives and property. In a message to mark the day, the governor said security remained his first responsibility, noting that farming, trade, investment and every other economic activity depend on peace. "We have worked hard to make Edo safer. We are rebuilding our roads, upgrading our schools and hospitals, and creating opportunities for our teeming youths. "The safety of every Edo citizen, in the city and in the village, remains my first duty," he said. Governor Okpebholo said his administration would continue to work with all security agencies, as well as traditional rulers and community leaders key partners, given their closeness to the people and their knowledge of local terrain. "Edo State is not a safe place for criminals," the governor w...

Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo has charged members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council to take the party’s message to every ward and polling unit across the state ahead of the 2027 general elections. Okpebholo gave the charge on Wednesday at the inauguration of the Edo APC Campaign Council for the 2027 General elections, which he chairs. The governor urged members to work together as a team, engage directly with residents at the grassroots and ensure that the party’s campaign reached every community in the state. He also called for  peaceful campaigns urging   members to avoid actions or statements capable of causing division within the party or the state. Okpebholo said the campaign should go beyond party leaders and political office holders, but should involve youths, women, traditional institutions, traders and other relevant stakeholders. He urged the council members to explain the programmes and achievements of the APC-led admi...

Stakeholders in Edo State have resolved to strengthen collaboration with the Edo State Consumer Protection Committee in its efforts to rid the state of fake, counterfeit and adulterated products. The resolution was reached during a stakeholders’ town hall meeting held in Benin City, where participants expressed concern over the growing circulation of substandard and adulterated goods and their potential danger to consumers and the economy. While declaring the town hall meeting opened, Chairman of the Edo State Consumer Protection Committee, Mr Iyamu Osaro Culture said the meeting was well designed to assemble great minds, relevant government authorities and critical stakeholders to share ideas required to tackle the problem bedeviling consumers as a result of counterfeit and adulterated products and the exploitation of consumers by private sector operators such as BEDC, Banks, Network providers and others. The stakeholders, drawn from relevant government agencies, the media, business c...

The member representing Oredo East Constituency in the Edo State House of Assembly and National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate for Oredo Federal Constituency, Hon. Frank Uyi Omosigho, has decried the alleged destruction of his campaign posters and billboards in parts of Oredo ahead of the 2027 general election. Omosigho made the allegation on Tuesday when members of OTUEDO N’OGBENBE, the Benin Journalists Forum, paid him a familiarisation visit in Benin City. The lawmaker alleged that some of his campaign materials were pulled down in different locations, including Stadium Road, Oguola, Oliha, Five Junction and Ekehuan Road. "My campaign organisation has  encountered difficulties securing campaign  spaces. And after some posters were eventually mounted, persons suspected to be acting against my ambition removed them," he stated. According to him, instead of retaliating, he urged his supporters to  remain peaceful and continue to engage voters on the programmes and ac...

 TUESDAY FLAT OUT By Suyi Ayodele (Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday, September 29, 2026) https://tribuneonlineng.com/fgs-n750b-and-apc-chairs-invisible-10-million-nigerians/ Some lies protect us. Some lies destroy us. Most lies do both. Over 10 million Nigerians received ₦75,000 each from the Federal Government, yet they are people without telephones, television sets or social-media accounts. They are out there somewhere, hidden from scrutiny by the very poverty from which the government claims to have rescued them. That was the extraordinary claim made last Saturday in Maiduguri by Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). According to him, the government had “given 75,000 naira to over 10 million Nigerians across the country using the conditional cash transfer under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction.” Elementary arithmetic puts the total at more than ₦750 billion!  The claim came with its own sh...

 Monday Lines By Lasisi Olagunju  (Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 28 September, 2026) On Thursday, 10 September, 2026, I bought petrol worth ₦90,259 for my car. Eight days later, on Friday, 18 September, the vehicle flashed its annoying yellow warning light. I fed it another ₦30,000 worth of petrol. By Tuesday, 22 September, four days later, the tank was empty again. I refilled it with ₦91,137. What I bought was not luxury. I bought movement, the means to go to work and return home. It is crazy. I present myself here as the primary exhibit in this trial of pain. I have the receipts. Add my figures. Between 10 and 22 September, a period of just 12 days, I spent a total of ₦211,396 on petrol for one car. That comes to an average of ₦17,616 every day. If that "burning sensation" is sustained for 30 days, approximately ₦528,490 would be gone. In one year, it will be ₦6,429,840 (nearly ₦6.43 million) flared like NNPC’s gas. I showed my calculation to a wise friend; w...

By Dr. Patrick Akhere Ebojele  Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo has made the operationalisation of the Nigerian Army's 83 Division in Benin a personal mission. Not in the ceremonial way, but in his dogged, infrastructure-heavy style that leaves no room for excuses but action. For him it is not just about hosting the new Division. It's about positioning Edo State as the strategic security backbone of the South-South geopolitical zone as envisaged by the President and Commander in chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu. And the governor is passionate about this. At the heart of his five-pillar SHINE agenda sits Security—the first pillar by design, not accident- the foundation upon which everything else in his administration rests. Healthcare cannot thrive in insecurity. Infrastructure cannot be built where criminality reigns. Natural resources cannot be explored or exploited either. Agriculture cannot flourish where farmers fear for their lives....

BY OSARIEMEN IDIAGHE  Edo State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Prince Kassim Afegbua has told residents to blame the immediate past administration of Godwin Obaseki for the deplorable condition of roads in the metropolis. The Commissioner said this during the ministry's monthly press briefing in Benin city. Prince Afegbua said roads are constructed to last for ten, thirty or fifty years but the roads built by the last administration considered speed rather than durability. The Commissioner who was joined by the Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hon Chris Okaeben,   Princess Dr Kenny Okojie, pioneer Executive Secretary of the Edo State Health and Drug Commodities Management Agency and Dr Iyamu, Senior Special Adviser to the governor on health matters however assured Edo people that the Senator Monday Okpebholo's administration will embark on massive construction of roads and drains after the rains subside as no engineer can fix roads under he...

TUESDAY FLAT OUT By Suyi Ayodele (Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday, September 22, 2026) https://tribuneonlineng.com/the-stranger-in-apcs-kitchen / Can a stranger in one’s kitchen chase away the owner of the house? I answer with a resounding YES! History is replete with instances where strangers take over the homesteads of their hosts. The wisest of humanity ever, Orunmila, on three different occasions lost his home to the strangers he took home; some out of pity and the others as apprentices. The West has different laws to describe situations that society cannot explain. In our elementary Economics class, we were taught that the French economist, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, first propounded the Laws of Diminishing Returns before the duo of David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus expanded it, and made it popular. In Chemistry, they have Charles' Law on Volume, which states that “the volume of a given mass of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature whe...

 Monday Lines 2 By Lasisi Olagunju  (Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 21 September, 2026).  'Truth Is Trouble' is Professor Niyi Osundare’s latest book. What the poet laureate says in English, we say in another sense in Yoruba: Òótọ́ korò, truth is bitter. Then there is Ayékòótọ́, the name we give the parrot, the irrepressible bird that sees and tells. The name itself carries a verdict on the human condition: Ayé ko òótọ́, the world rejects the truth. Perhaps that is precisely why Osundare insists "truth is trouble." Two months ago, on July 13, 2026, when I wrote ‘Why Oriire was not Chibok’, a professor friend from the North fired me a hot warning: “Unfortunately, my Brother Lasisi, I must be frank with you; you are likely to lose some of your friends if you persist along this your one-man anti-North campaign.” I replied Prof with a laugh, a smile and a rejection of the charge of being anti-anyone. “No sir. I am not anti-North. But I strongly feel that the...

 Monday Lines By Lasisi Olagunju  (Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 21 September, 2026). Game theorists warn that when two hawks meet, the expected payoff for each becomes negative: C > V > 0. Yet, it is the man who is afraid to join a fight who says: “I was not born into this household.” The ọdán tree at the doorstep never fights the homeboy's battles. And when a proverb strikes close to home, only a weakling lets it pass unanswered. The game and the proverbs are for those blaming FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike for answering the APC governors fire for fire last week. Speaking on Channels Television, an APC leader from Jigawa, Hon. Farouq Aliyu, wondered why Wike chose to fight governors who had not mentioned his name in their rejection of political alliances. Aliyu made it clear that his party was not ready to swallow the poison Wike had helped it feed the PDP. Like a harvester of heads who cannot bear the sight of a sword, Aliyu said: “We appreciate what he (Wik...