At least 22 athletes from the Kano State contingent have been confirmed dead following a devastating motor accident at Dakatsalle Bridge in Kura Local Government Area of Kano State.
The athletes were returning from the recently concluded National Sports Festival in Abeokuta, Ogun State, when the fatal incident occurred.
Chairman of the Kano State Sports Commission, Umar Fagge, confirmed the tragedy, explaining that the vehicle transporting 30 athletes veered off the bridge and plunged into a ravine, claiming the lives of 22 people. Several others sustained various injuries.
Although the exact cause of the accident is yet to be determined, emergency responders were promptly dispatched to the scene. According to Ado Salisu, a former Vice President of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), the injured were taken to Kura General Hospital for urgent medical care.
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), through its Kano Sector Command Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Labaran, also confirmed the incident. However, he stated that the casualty figures were still being verified, as the situation remained fluid.
“We have just received initial reports of the crash, so we cannot confirm the total number of fatalities or injured persons at this time,” Labaran said.
The athletes had represented Kano State with dedication and excellence during the national competition, making the tragedy upon their return even more heartrending.
Government Response
In reaction to the heartbreaking event, the Kano State Government issued a statement through the Honourable Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Mustapha Rabiu Kwankwaso.
“This is an incredibly sorrowful moment for all of us. We are heartbroken over the terrible accident involving our athletes who were on their way home after proudly representing Kano State. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire sports community in the state,” Mr. Kwankwaso said.
He described the incident as a shared tragedy for the people of Kano and pledged full government support for the victims and their families, including medical treatment and other assistance.
Mr. Kwankwaso also commended the emergency and medical teams for their rapid response and assured the public that a comprehensive investigation will be carried out, with necessary measures to follow.
On Monday, the Federal High Court in Abuja was closed, preventing lawyers, court staff, and litigants from entering the premises.
Despite a Sunday statement indicating that court workers would not join the strike, the court remained locked and inaccessible.
The Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja faced the same situation, with no access granted.
The Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) issued a communiqué on May 30, directing its federal chapters to begin an industrial strike starting at midnight on Sunday, June 1.
Signed by Acting General Secretary M.J. Akwashiki, the communiqué cited unproductive discussions with the Minister of Labour and Employment as the reason for the strike.
JUSUN’s demands include the payment of a five-month wage award, the implementation of the ₦70,000 national minimum wage, and a 25%/35% salary increase.
On Sunday, the JUSUN chapter of the National Judicial Council issued a statement through its Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joel Ebiloma, declaring that the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the NJC, and the Federal High Court would not join the industrial strike.
The statement noted that this decision was made following the intervention of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun.
It further stated that a two-week grace period was given to the relevant authorities to address the union’s demands.
On Saturday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inaugurated the first completed segment of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Superhighway, calling it a crucial link for trade, tourism, and national unity.
The significant ceremony in Lagos was part of the events celebrating the second anniversary of President Tinubu’s administration.
The event also featured the commissioning of various completed infrastructure projects nationwide and the launch of several new initiatives under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
During the ceremony, President Tinubu stressed that his administration sees infrastructure not merely as “brick and mortar,” but as vital catalysts for sustainable economic growth, job opportunities, expanded possibilities, and national cohesion.
Alongside the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, President Tinubu virtually inaugurated several other significant road projects, including the 166.8km Shagamu–Ibadan section of the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway and the 94km Eleme Junction to Ahoada segment of the East-West Road.
Other commissioned projects included the 67.1km Alesi–Ugep Road in Cross River State, the 30.4km Ikorodu–Shagamu Road connecting Lagos and Ogun States, and the first 16km of the 61km Enugu–Lokpanta Expressway.
Additionally, the New Artisan Market Bridge in Enugu, a 75-meter dual-span bridge, and a new 75-meter single-span bridge at Akpoha in Ebonyi State were inaugurated.
President Tinubu also launched the initial 15km of the Port Harcourt–Onne Junction (East-West Road), the 48.6km Lagos–Badagry Expressway (Agbara–Seme Border), a rehabilitated section of the Lagos–Badagry Expressway, and a segment of the Enugu–Port Harcourt Expressway.
To further enhance national connectivity, President Tinubu initiated construction on several new road projects as part of his administration’s commitment.
These projects encompass the Ibadan–Ife–Ilesha–Akure–Benin Highway, the Nembe–Brass Road in the Niger Delta, the reconstruction of sections of the Enugu–Onitsha Expressway, and the construction of the Abakpa Flyover in Enugu State.
The Federal Government has announced plans to convene the first-ever National Council on Livestock Development before the end of 2025. The council will serve as a platform for deliberation, harmonization, and review of policies and initiatives in the livestock sector, bringing together key stakeholders to shape a unified national agenda.
The Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, revealed this initiative during a press conference to commemorate World Milk Day. Maiha emphasized the importance of the council in driving sustainable development in the livestock sector, aligning with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the current administration.
The Ministry is also working to transform the dairy industry by doubling local milk production, reducing dependency on imports, and unlocking the economic potential of the livestock sector. Nigeria aims to increase national milk production from 700,000 metric tonnes to 1.4 million metric tonnes annually within five years, which would help cut the country’s over $1.5 billion annual dairy import bill.
The Ministry has recorded several achievements, including the registration of eight pasture species, development of the National Strategy and Action Plan on Animal Genetic Resources, as well as expansion of livestock vaccine production capacity. Other notable projects include the commissioning of a solar-powered cold storage facility and the inauguration of the Wase Livestock Village.
The Minister cited milestone projects like the Arla Dairy Farm in Kaduna and the Nestlé-backed Paikon Kore Dairy Training Facility in Abuja as models of progress. He praised the Ekiti State Government and Promasidor for transforming the Ikun Dairy Farm into a high-yield operation, producing 10,000 litres of milk daily.
The Ministry has partnered with several companies and organizations to introduce best practices, invest in dairy demonstration farms, and support smallholder farmers.
Maiha, however, lauded the media for their role in shaping public opinion and amplifying government efforts, emphasizing the importance of telling the story of the Ministry’s vision boldly and accurately.
The Federal Ministry of Livestock Development has commemorated World Milk Day on June 1, 2025, with a focus on enhancing food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable livestock practices.
The Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, at a press conference to commemorate the 2025 World Milk Day in Abuja, highlighted the significance of milk as a vital source of nutrition, particularly for children, and emphasized the need to increase local milk production.
Nigeria currently produces only 600,000 metric tonnes of milk annually, covering just 35% of national demand, with the remaining 65% imported at a cost of over $1.5 billion.
The Minister noted that the country’s low milk consumption rate of 8.7 liters per person per year is far below the African average of 40 liters and the WHO-recommended 210 liters.
To address this challenge, the Ministry has launched several initiatives, including the National Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy, which focuses on livestock value chain development, feed and fodder development, animal health, and youth empowerment. The Ministry has also registered eight pasture species, developed a National Strategy and Action Plan on Animal Genetic Resources, and upscaled vaccine production at the National Veterinary Research Institute.
Maiha also highlighted successful partnerships, such as the Ikun Dairy Farm in Ekiti State, which has transformed a dormant facility into a national model, and the Arla farm in Kaduna State, which has demonstrated the potential for high-yield dairy production in Nigeria. These examples show that with focus and commitment, Nigeria can fast-track local milk production and reduce dependence on imports.
The Ministry aims to double national milk production from 600,000 metric tonnes to 1.2 million metric tonnes annually within the next five years and plans to convene the inaugural National Council on Livestock Development to shape a unified national agenda for sustainable livestock development.
Manchester United have signed Brazilian forward Matheus Cunha from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £62.5 million, their first deal this summer. The 26-year-old agreed to a five-year contract, which could be extended by another year, once visa and registration are approved.
This transfer is Wolves’ biggest sale ever, topping the £53 million they got for Matheus Nunes in 2023. Cunha played 92 games for Wolves, scoring 33 goals and assisting 15 times. Last season, he scored 17 goals in 36 games and was named Wolves’ Player of the Season.
New Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim chose Cunha to improve the team after they finished 15th in the Premier League. Amorim sees Cunha playing as an attacking midfielder or in a deeper role in his system.
The transfer fee will be paid in three parts over two years, as Wolves rejected United’s plan to pay until 2029.
Cunha started his European career at Swiss club Sion and has also played for RB Leipzig, Hertha BSC, and Atlético Madrid before Wolves. He’s currently with Brazil’s national team for a World Cup qualifier against Ecuador.
Manchester United are looking to sign another striker and might sell players like Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Antony to fund more transfers.
The National Examinations Council (NECO) has disowned a fake Facebook account opened in the name of the Registrar/Chief Executive, Prof. Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, aimed at defrauding unsuspecting members of the public.
The Council wishes to draw the attention of the public to the existence of this fake Facebook account in order to avoid being swindled by the fraudsters.
Meanwhile, security agents have been informed to take appropriate action against the perpetrators of this fraudulent act.
This was contained in a statement signed by Azeez Sani, Acting Director of Information and Public Relations, on 1st June, 2025.
There comes a time in the life of a people, a species even, when the very mirror they once fashioned to reflect their glory begins, slowly but surely, to distort their soul. We now stand at such a threshold – not merely of a new age, but of a reckoning. A reckoning where the echo of machines, once designed to mimic man, now threatens to muffle the voice of humanity itself.
Where intelligence, though artificial, ascends as oracle, and knowledge – once hard-won by the sweat of intellectual toils – becomes a digitized whisper in the datawind.
In this hour, swaddled in the luminous sheath of algorithms, we in the citadel of learning and thought – my colleagues and I in academics; we the researchers, scribes of the mind’s long journey, and custodians of civilization’s memory – must not be lulled into a slumber of convenience.
We must be watchers on the walls. For in this season of exponential adoption and propensitous embrace of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the true philosopher must learn to decipher the grain from this touted so called intelligence ‘grail’.
For the grain is what nourishes – rooted in nature, cultivated in seasons, and harvested with labour. This grail however, though dazzling, may be but a mirage – a glint in the eyes of a technocratic priesthood, promising transcendence while delivering enslavement. The grain is truth, soul-rich and borne of generations; this grail may be a chalice of code, bearing no moral compass nor ancestral grounding.
This moment is not merely technological. It is deeply ontological. It is epistemological. It is spiritual. We are witnessing the deconstruction of man’s place as centre, being subtly displaced by systems trained not on wisdom but on vastness; not on virtue but on velocity.
Afrika, in her eternal patience, must not be caught unaware. For ours is a people whose thought systems predate computation, whose oracles spoke before silicon, and whose philosophies were encoded in proverbs, not Python. If we allow this tide to sweep us into a whirlpool of passive consumption and reverent imitation, we shall, once again, become the harvest of another man’s algorithm. We must not lose the battle for authorship – of our knowledge, of our humanity, of our future.
Let no one mistake this for Luddite lament. No, this is not a dirge against advancement. It is a call for discernment. The tools of AI are vast, yes; they bear capacity to assist, to illuminate, to optimize. But tools, if unmoored from conscience and custodianship, become weapons. And what is a weapon in the hands of those who have no memory of your history? What is an AI trained on oceans of data, yet blind to the sacred river of your story?
There is an eerie quiet growing in the hallowed halls of scholarship, especially of Afrikan kinship – as if the ancient rigour of peer inquiry has been traded for prompt injection. The sacred doubt of the philosopher now scrolls endlessly through citations computed, not conceived. A generation of minds – raised not in mentorship but in models and modelling – may soon lose the ability to ask the primal question: What is man, and to what purpose is he driven?
We must be careful, extremely careful, lest this tide of artificial sagacity becomes the signal trumpet of the last days of a lost generation, especially of Afrikan essence and originality – a generation severed from the integrity of thought, from the sweat of knowledge acquisition, from the mentorship of moral scholarship. In such a generation, learning becomes layered mimicry, and research becomes retrieval, not revelation.
From the bowels of Afrika’s crucible – from Timbuktu’s manuscripts to Samaru’s chalkboards, from Ife’s cosmologies to the ink of the Nile — we were once the bearers of sacred knowledge. Let us not now become its eulogists.
Let us rise. Not to reject the machine, but to master it. Not to fear the code, but to anchor it. Let us imprint in the heart of every AI engine a conscience – an Afrikan conscience, a human conscience. Let us hold the line of scientific inquiry intellectual integrity, spiritual dignity, and governance responsibility.
For what shall it profit a generation if it gains the language of machines, but loses the soul of humans – created and molded by Divinity in His own image and likeness?
I write not as one on the outside, but as a sentinel within the fortress of thought. I speak not from the easy perch of abstraction, but from the broken benches of our public schools, the neglected laboratories of our institutions, the paper-thin journals of struggling scholars whose truths are eclipsed by trending tokens.
I write to remind – and to remember – that the mind is sacred. That truth cannot be fully mined by machines. That wisdom is not synthetic. And that in the silence of the Benue, amid the ghosts of colonial curricula and the whispers of ancestors who once taught under trees, a voice must rise. A voice that says: Not all that is coded is correct. Not all that is modelled is moral. Not all that is trained is true.
Let we the scholars awaken. Let Africa’s minds rise with both the fire of innovation and the oil of discernment. For in this day of silicon sorcery, we must walk with eyes open, and souls uncolonized.
And so, from this quiet corner where the Benue mourns in silence, I cast forth this scroll – not of warning alone, but of remembering, restoring, and reawakening.
I am Prof. Pastor Qrisstuberg msughTer Amua. I write from the ‘Silenced Banks of the Benue’
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has monitored the promotion examination conducted for Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) staff. Prof. Oloyede expressed gratitude to TETFund and other agencies for their continued confidence in JAMB’s credibility and collaboration.
He commended TETFund for engaging JAMB’s services, reaffirming the Board’s commitment to providing exceptional examination services that uphold integrity and trust. Despite challenges faced by the Board, Prof. Oloyede assured that appropriate action would be taken against any dereliction of duty.
The JAMB Registrar expressed satisfaction that there were no reports of examination leakage or similar issues during the TETFund examination. He reiterated his commitment to exploring innovative methods for conducting examinations, ensuring the Board’s continued excellence in service delivery.
This development highlights JAMB’s ongoing efforts to provide quality examination services to various stakeholders, including government agencies and institutions.
According to the Chairman of the Kano State Sports Commission, Umar Fagge, the vehicle was carrying 30 people when the crash occurred.
Kano State has been thrown into mourning after a fatal auto crash claimed the lives of 19 people returning from the just concluded National Sports Festival (NSF) held in Ogun State.
As reported by Kano Times, the tragic accident happened on Saturday in Dakatsalle town, about 50 kilometres from Kano, as the state’s contingent approached the final stretch of their journey home. The victims included athletes, a journalist, medical staff, and sports officials.
According to the Chairperson of the Kano State Sports Commission, Umar Fagge, the vehicle was carrying 30 people when the crash occurred.
“As I am talking to you now, we have counted 19 dead bodies,” Mr Fagge said, adding that several others sustained injuries and were receiving medical treatment. Mr Fagge was quoted on Kano Times.
Authorities have not confirmed the exact cause of the crash, but emergency response teams were quickly deployed to the scene. Victims were taken to Kura General Hospital for urgent care, according to Ado Salisu, a former Vice President of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN).
The Kano Sector Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) also acknowledged the incident. However, the command’s spokesperson, Abdullahi Labaran, stated that investigations were still ongoing.
“We just received the report of the accident, so I cannot confirm the exact number of casualties at the moment,” Mr Labaran said.
Zahraddeen Saleh, Chairperson of the Kano chapter of SWAN, confirmed that among those who died were the Public Relations Officer of the Kano State Sports Commission and a photojournalist working with Express Radio, an online news platform.
Painful ending to glorious outing
Kano athletes during the opening ceremony of the National Sports Festival.
Kano State had finished 13th on the overall NSF medals table, with a respectable haul of six gold, 13 silver, and 10 bronze medals.
The contingent had represented the state with pride and dedication throughout the competition, making their tragic return all the more heartbreaking.
Government reacts
In response to the incident, the Kano State Government released an official statement through the Honourable Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Mustapha Rabiu Kwankwaso.
“This is a deeply painful moment for all of us. We are devastated by the news of the ghastly accident that occurred as our athletes were returning home after representing our great state with pride and commitment. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire sporting community in Kano,” Mr Kwankwaso said.
He described the tragedy as a moment of collective grief for the state, assuring the public that the government would stand by the victims and their families, providing medical attention and necessary support.
Mr Kwankwaso also commended the first responders and medical teams for their swift action and promised a full report on the incident, with appropriate steps to follow.
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