The NLC declared an indefinite strike in the FCT over unresolved teachers' promotion and welfare demands.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (LC) has commenced an indefinite strike in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, over unresolved disputes concerning teachers’ promotions and welfare, disrupting academic activities in parts of the nation’s capital.
The industrial action began on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, after the expiration of a seven-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).
The LC directed workers in public and private establishments, including schools, hospitals and government offices, to withdraw their services until its demands are addressed.
Academic activities face disruption as teachers’ unions issue conflicting directives over the FCT strike.
The strike has affected academic activities, with several public schools reportedly shutting down and students being sent home.
Why LC Declared an Indefinite Strike in FCT
At the centre of the dispute is a promotion policy requiring teachers to wait until vacancies become available before advancing to higher positions.
The LC argues that the requirement has prevented qualified teachers from progressing in their careers despite meeting the necessary conditions for promotion.
In a statement, FCT LC Chairman Knabayi Adalo criticised the administration’s response to the union’s demands, describing it as “ambiguous, dismissive, and totally unacceptable.”
The labour union insists that teachers employed by the FCT Universal Basic Education Board and the FCT Secondary Education Board should not be subjected to promotion conditions designed for other categories of civil servants.
Beyond removing the vacancy requirement, the LC is demanding that eligible teachers excluded from the 2025 promotion exercise be allowed to participate alongside the 2026 candidates.
The congress also wants redeployment and demotion letters issued to certain education directors withdrawn and management disputes involving the territory’s education boards resolved.
Teachers Union Rejects LC Strike
However, the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), FCT Chapter, has rejected the industrial action and directed its members to continue teaching.
The union’s chairman, Julius Ogundiran, described the strike as premature, arguing that industrial disputes should not unnecessarily disrupt students’ education.
ASUSS maintained that the vacancy requirement forms part of existing public service regulations and that disagreements over promotion policies should be resolved through dialogue.
The union also argued that arrangements had already been made to address outstanding promotion examinations.
Meanwhile, the FCT wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) directed its members to stay away from work, highlighting divisions among education unions over the industrial action.
Schools Face Disruption as Strike Continues
The conflicting directives have created uncertainty for teachers, students and parents across the Federal Capital Territory.
Reports on Thursday, October 8, indicated that several schools had suspended academic activities, although ASUSS maintained that its members were continuing classroom duties.
The industrial action also raises concerns about the delivery of public services following the LC’s wider directive to workers across the territory.
For now, the central disagreement remains whether the FCTA should remove the vacancy requirement governing teachers’ promotions.
The LC has insisted that its demands must be addressed, while ASUSS is advocating continued negotiations without disrupting academic activities.
The dispute places renewed pressure on the FCT Administration to reach an agreement that protects teachers’ career progression and limits further disruption to students and residents.
Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa visits the crash site in Igbokoda on Wednesday, 72 hours after the Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 went down.
Twenty-five people were on board the Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 that went down in Ondo’s swamp on Monday. As sonar, swamp buggies and divers hunt for the fuselage, the Federal Government and the Air Force have agreed to tear down the wall between civil and military aviation.
A Nigerian Air Force ATR-42, NAF 931, crashed on Monday near the naval base at Igbokoda in Ondo State while flying Lagos to Benin City. All 25 people on board are presumed dead. A board of inquiry is investigating, recovery remains stalled by swamp terrain, and Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo and Air Marshal Sunday Aneke have agreed on a joint civil–military safety framework.
What happened
Recovery teams navigate the waterways at Igbokoda, Ilaje LGA of Ondo State, on Wednesday as the search for the Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 wreckage shifts to recovery.
A Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 aircraft, registered NAF 931, came down on Monday in the swampy riverine terrain of Igbokoda, Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, close to a naval forward operating base. The aircraft was reportedly on a routine flight from Lagos to Benin City. There were 25 people on board — five active crew, two additional crew travelling as passengers and 18 others. No survivor has been found.
Why recovery is slow
The main body of the aircraft remains submerged. Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who visited the site 72 hours after the crash, described it as “a very gory sight,” with body parts, personal effects and aircraft fragments recovered while the fuselage itself has still not been sighted. He directed the Ministry of Works to deploy two amphibious “swamp buggy” machines to open waterway access, and the Nigerian Navy Hydrographic Department sent sonar equipment to map the wreckage underwater because the swamp is too turbid for visual search.
The investigation
Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa visits the crash site in Igbokoda on Wednesday, 72 hours after the Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 went down.
A military source said a board of inquiry, conventionally chaired by the Superintendent of Standards and Evaluation, was activated, with recovery and investigation running as one process. NAF spokesman Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Aneke, has directed a comprehensive investigation under established protocols, with findings to be released after the preliminary report. He dismissed the aircraft’s age as a factor, saying it was a relatively modern acquisition delivered around 2010 and properly maintained.
The casualty confusion
Ejiofor-style public arithmetic, and conflicting statements, fed speculation of 32 or more deaths. Ejodame explained the air traffic control convention: “25 souls on board inclusive of seven crew” means the seven are inside the 25, not additional to it.
The reform response
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo meets Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Sunday Aneke in Abuja on Wednesday, where they agreed on joint civil–military aviation safety cooperation.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo paid a condolence call on Aneke and announced a joint NCAA–NAF committee covering airworthiness, certification and training, plus access for Air Force personnel to civil aviation programmes — what he called “cross-pollination and a symbiotic relationship.” Aneke agreed both sectors serve and protect the same Nigerians.
The wider question
Security analyst Mike Ejiofor, president of the NISS Alumni Association, argued the focus must widen beyond this crash to fleet maintenance, service life and record-keeping, noting more than ten military aircraft crashes in a decade. Former Sokoto governor Aminu Tambuwal, the Olugbo of Ugboland, Oba Frederick Akinruntan, Abia Governor Alex Otti, Senators Orji Uzor Kalu, Abaribe and Akobundu, and Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu mourned the victims, including Abia-born pilot Squadron Leader Ahamefule Aham Man-Ugwueje, who had married Flight Lieutenant Damilola Adekunle in Abuja about two weeks earlier. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared three days of national mourning and ordered a full-scale investigation.
ACCRA, Ghana — Ghana is preparing for what its government describes as a “New Economy”, one designed to move the country beyond economic stabilisation and towards an economy driven more deliberately by production, jobs, investment and wealth creation.
And at the Loveworld Trade and Investment Forum (LTIF) 2026 in Accra, Ghana’s gold sector offered perhaps one of the clearest examples of what that transformation could look like.
Speaking at the two-day forum, Sammy Gyamfi, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), highlighted the importance of production, trade, trust and innovation in building Africa’s economic future.
His comments came as Ghana prepares to unveil the details of its New Economy programme in the 2027 Budget.
From stabilisation to production
For Ghana, the proposed New Economy agenda represents a shift in emphasis.
The Finance Ministry says the government wants to move beyond stabilising the economy towards job creation, wealth generation and sustainable growth, with the economy increasingly strengthened by what Ghana itself produces.
Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson has described stabilisation as a necessary foundation rather than the final destination.
The next phase, he says, is transformation.
The government has said the broader programme will involve a proposed US$10 billion investment in key sectors, with further details expected in the 2027 Budget.
Forson has also said the programme will seek to turn imports into opportunities for domestic production — essentially asking why Ghana should continue importing goods that it has the capacity to produce competitively at home.
That is where the idea of a New Economy becomes important.
It is not simply about spending more, it is about what the spending produces.
Gold as a test case
In an exclusive interview with LN247 senior correspondent, Yemisi Lanre-Idowu, he reiterated that Gold sits at the centre of that conversation. He said funding for the new economy will be derived internally and generated from Gold mining and processing.
Ghana is one of Africa’s major gold producers, but for years much of the economic value associated with the mineral has been captured beyond the point of extraction.
The emerging policy direction is to retain more of that value inside Ghana — through formalised purchasing, refining, processing and stronger control of the gold value chain.
The government’s 2026 Budget reported that between January and October 2025, Ghana’s small-scale gold exports reached 81.7 tonnes valued at about US$8.1 billion, while large-scale gold exports stood at 74.1 tonnes valued at about US$6.6 billion.
Those numbers show the scale of the opportunity. But they also raise a bigger question: How much of that value can Ghana retain?
Don’t just export the gold
Ghana’s strategy increasingly focuses on moving beyond the export of raw or minimally processed minerals.
In February, the Finance Ministry said government was working with GoldBod to increase local processing and refining, describing the move as part of a wider industrialisation and economic transformation strategy.
And there are early signs of that shift.
GoldBod CEO Sammy Gyamfi said in August that 7.1 metric tonnes of GoldBod-purchased gold had been refined locally in 2026.
He said local refining was helping Ghana retain refining fees that would otherwise have gone to overseas refining centres, while supporting jobs and economic activity.
However, he also acknowledged a major constraint: Ghana’s current refining capacity is not sufficient to process all the gold purchased by GoldBod.
That limitation is important.
Because the New Economy cannot be built simply by changing who buys the gold.
It requires the factories, refineries, laboratories, technology, finance and skilled workers needed to create more value locally.
A new role for GoldBod
Ghana has also been expanding GoldBod’s role in the gold economy.
In February, the Finance Ministry announced plans for GoldBod to purchase at least 20% of large-scale gold output under a revised acquisition framework, with the gold to be processed locally before being moved into the international market and, in part, Ghana’s reserves.
By August, the government had signed an agreement with the Ghana Chamber of Mines to purchase 30% of gold output from large-scale mining companies under the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme.
The gold is intended to be processed and refined locally.
That policy is significant because it links three objectives: Gold production.Local value addition.Foreign-exchange reserves.
In other words, Ghana is attempting to make its natural resources work harder for the domestic economy.
But the New Economy is bigger than gold
Gold is only one example. The wider New Economy agenda is about directing investment towards productive sectors capable of creating jobs, generating wealth and reducing excessive dependence on imported goods. That means agriculture, manufacturing, technology amongst other businesses capable of producing for Ghana, and eventually exporting to the rest of Africa.
Loveworld launches a $1 million capital fund at the LTIF 2026 summit in Accra, Ghana.
Fund unveiled at LTIF 2026 in Accra as Loveworld pushes plan to build a structured business and investment ecosystem
ACCRA, Ghana — Loveworld has launched a $1 million capital fund to provide growth financing to entrepreneurs and businesses within its network, as the Loveworld Nation moves to strengthen enterprise, investment and production across its business community.
The Loveworld Capital Fund was unveiled at the just-concluded Loveworld Trade and Investment Forum (LTIF) 2026, held in Accra, Ghana, on October 6 and 7.
The fund was established through the Loveworld’s Ministry of Commerce and is designed to provide capital to businesses positioned for growth and expansion.
According to the organisers, the initiative is intended to address one of the persistent challenges facing entrepreneurs — access to patient and growth-oriented capital.
Loveworld Launches $1m Capital Fund to Finance Businesses
Rather than relying solely on conventional lending channels, the fund is expected to direct capital towards selected businesses within the Loveworld network, with a focus on stimulating production, strengthening existing enterprises and supporting new businesses.
Building the “Loveworld Economy”
The launch forms part of what organisers describe as a broader strategy to develop what they call the “Loveworld Economy” — an organised network in which capital, enterprise and business opportunities can circulate within the community.
Speaking at the launch, the Chief Host and Executive Minister of Discipleship, Pastor Biodun Lawal, said a significant portion of the fund would be directed towards what the leadership describes as “Kingdom economy advancement.”
For Loveworld’s Ministry of Commerce, the initiative is being positioned as more than a one-off fundraising exercise.
Executive Minister of Commerce, Stephanie Oforka, said the fund is intended to increase business ownership, investment and enterprise development across the network.
“The $1 million is not merely a financial milestone,” Oforka said.
She said the fund would increase the capacity to support enterprise, stimulate production and enable business growth and expansion, with the broader goal of making Loveworld businesses stronger, more scalable and competitive.
“We want to see Kingdom capital deliberately financing Kingdom enterprise. This is the Loveworld Economy in action,” she said.
From capital to production
The launch comes against the backdrop of the central message of LTIF 2026, which focused on “Building the Future Through Production, Trade, Trust and Innovation.”
Throughout the two-day forum, speakers and business leaders examined how Africa can move beyond its vast natural and human potential towards greater production, investment and value creation.
The capital fund brings that conversation closer to the businesses within the Loveworld network.
For entrepreneurs, access to capital can determine whether a promising business remains small or gains the resources needed to expand — from purchasing equipment and hiring workers to developing products, entering new markets and increasing production.
The organisers say the new fund will therefore target strategic businesses within the network.
Who can access the fund?
The Loveworld Capital Fund is expected to deploy its resources to selected businesses and entrepreneurs within the Loveworld network.
However, the Ministry of Commerce has not yet publicly detailed the full application process, eligibility requirements, investment terms, interest or return structure, selection criteria or disbursement timeline.
The ministry is expected to communicate further details on applications and allocation criteria.
For now, the $1 million launch represents an attempt to connect capital with enterprise and turn the broader LTIF conversation about production into a practical financing mechanism.
And as Africa’s entrepreneurs continue to search for capital to build and scale, Loveworld is betting that one way to build an economic ecosystem is to begin by financing the businesses within its own network.
Stephanie Oforka speaking at LTIF 2026 in Accra about production, trade, trust and innovation.
ACCRA, GHANA — Africa has no shortage of resources.
It has land. It has minerals. It has a huge and youthful population. It has entrepreneurs. It has technology. And it has a continental market of more than a billion people.
But at the 2026 Loveworld Trade & Investment Forum in Accra, the message was clear: potential is not wealth.
Wealth is created when potential is converted into something people can use, buy, sell, export, invest in and build businesses around.
That was the central argument running through LTIF 2026, held on October 6 and 7 at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, UPSA, under the theme: “Building the Future Through Production, Trade, Trust and Innovation.”
Delegates at the Loveworld Trade and Investment Forum 2026 in Accra, Ghana.
The two-day forum brought together entrepreneurs, investors, business executives, policymakers and other stakeholders to examine what Africa must do differently if it is to build stronger economies and compete more effectively within and beyond the continent.
And beneath the speeches, panels and fireside conversations was one bigger question:
Can Africa finally move from talking about what it has to building what it needs?
From potential to production
Opening the forum, the Executive Minister of Commerce, Stephanie Oforka, highlighted the vision of the President of LoveWorld Incorporated, Rev. Dr. Chris Oyakhilome DSc., DD, for Africa’s economic transformation and for raising a generation of nation builders, innovators, producers, and solution providers. She unveiled the theme, Production, Trade, Trust and Innovation as a call to build an economy that produces, trades, earns trust, and continually innovates.
According to her, “For years, the conversation has centred on what Africa possesses — its natural resources, population, markets and opportunities. But, she argued, possession alone does not create prosperity”.
The distinction is important. A country may have oil but still import refined petroleum products. It may mine gold but export it with limited local processing.
It may have millions of young people but fail to create enough productive jobs. It may have a large consumer market while depending heavily on goods produced elsewhere.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to ask what Africa has. It is to ask:
What can Africa produce?
What can it manufacture?
What can it process?
What can it design?
What can it export?
And what African companies can grow large enough to compete globally? This was also harped upon by Pastor Yemisi Kudehinbu in her message from the Loveworld nation. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSbgCQAn4/
That idea of building a “production generation” was also at the heart of the session led by Grace Ofure, the CEO of Lifecard Investment company of Nigeria and Lifecard Dubai, which examined who will build Africa’s future.
The conversation focused on the next generation of African entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders — and the need for mentorship, values-driven leadership and ecosystems capable of turning ideas into sustainable enterprises.
While sharing her growth story, she challenged participants to produce products and service that can solve solutions. In her words, ‘Africa needs entrepreneurs who can build companies that survive beyond their founders, employ people, attract capital, enter new markets and create value across supply chains’.
The real African market is beyond the border
If production is the starting point, trade is what allows that production to scale.
And this is where the LTIF conversation moved from the factory floor to the border.
One of the major sessions, “The Trust Equation: What Makes Capital, Talent and Trade Choose Africa,” confronted a contradiction at the heart of the continental economy.
Africa wants deeper integration.
But African businesses still encounter different regulations, currencies, taxes, standards, customs procedures, payment systems and market requirements when they cross borders. The speakers, Dr. Olori Boye-Ajayi, the managing partner, Borderless Trade and Fiyin Ogunlesi, Founder and managing partner, Regal Capital harped on the fact that the focus of SMEs is not capital but the right positioning of their businesses.
The result is that a business can have a good product and still struggle to become a regional business if not well positioned.
That challenge matters because the African Continental Free Trade Area — whose Secretariat is based in Accra — is intended to create a larger market for African goods and services.
The World Bank estimates that intra-African trade remains only about 14% of Africa’s total trade, far below the levels seen within the European Union and Asia. It also estimates that full implementation of AfCFTA could significantly increase intra-African exports, particularly manufactured goods.
So the question is no longer simply:
“Can Africans trade with one another?”
The bigger question is:
“Can African businesses build the capacity to trade with one another at scale?”
That means reliable production. Competitive pricing. Consistent quality. Efficient logistics. Accessible finance. Recognisable brands. And, perhaps most importantly, trust.
Why Trust is an economic asset
Trust can sound like a soft business concept.
It is not.
For an entrepreneur seeking investment, trust can determine whether capital comes in.
For a manufacturer seeking a distributor in another country, trust can determine whether a deal closes.
For a consumer choosing an unfamiliar African brand, trust can determine whether the product sells.
And for investors, trust reduces uncertainty.
That is why trust sat alongside production, trade and innovation as one of LTIF’s four central pillars.
The forum’s message was that Africa cannot build a sustainable commercial ecosystem on transactions alone.
It needs relationships.
It needs standards.
It needs accountability.
And it needs institutions and businesses that can make commitments and deliver on them.
Who gets to shape Africa’s economic future
That question became even more interesting when LTIF turned to the role of the Church.
In the roundtable, “Who Gets to Shape the Economic Future, and What Role Should the Church Play?”, Pastor Lanre Alabi and other participants examined the economic influence and responsibilities of faith-based institutions.
The question goes beyond whether the Church should participate in commerce.
African entrepreneurs and business leaders participating in LTIF 2026 discussions.
It asks what happens when an institution with significant human networks, financial resources, educational structures and community reach applies those assets to entrepreneurship and economic development.
Can the Church help develop entrepreneurs?
Can it provide mentorship?
Can it promote ethical leadership?
Can it support skills development and productive enterprise?
And can faith-based institutions contribute to an economic culture where integrity and enterprise are treated as complementary rather than competing values?
Those questions place the Church within a much wider conversation about who gets to build Africa’s economy — government, business, investors, technology companies, communities, young entrepreneurs and institutions of faith.
When technology becomes infrastructure
Technology was another major thread running through LTIF 2026. But the conversation was not simply about artificial intelligence, apps or the next big startup. It was about something more fundamental:
Can technology become infrastructure for African commerce?
In the fireside conversation “From Innovation to Infrastructure: How Tech Becomes Africa’s Backbone,” Norebase Co-Founder and CEO Adetola Onayemi brought the discussion to the practical realities of operating across multiple African markets.
That challenge is real. A company expanding from one African country into another may face new incorporation requirements, licences, tax rules, intellectual-property issues, banking arrangements and compliance obligations.
Norebase’s 2026 research describes this regulatory and operational complexity as a major part of the continent’s expansion challenge, drawing on data from more than 40,000 companies that have expanded across African markets using its platform.
Technology, therefore, becomes infrastructure when it removes those friction points.
When it makes payments easier. When it connects buyers and sellers. When it simplifies compliance. When it makes market entry faster.
When it allows a company in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi or Kigali to operate across borders without rebuilding its entire business architecture every time.
The opportunity is enormous. But the technology must solve real economic problems.
From product to industry
That same principle shaped the fireside conversation featuring Philip Twum, COO, Fido, on:
“What It Takes to Build an Industry, Not Just a Product.”
It is a critical distinction for Africa. Launching a product is one thing. Building an industry around that product is another.
An industry requires customers, suppliers, capital, talent, regulation, infrastructure, distribution and a market that can sustain growth.
Fido’s experience in digital finance illustrates how technology can move beyond a single product to questions around access to finance and the ability of digital financial services to reach underserved businesses and entrepreneurs. A 2026 partnership between Fido and the UN Capital Development Fund, for example, is focused on scaling digital finance for women- and youth-led MSMEs in Ghana.
That is the larger challenge for African innovation:
Not how many startups can we launch?
But:
How many industries can we build?
Gold, value addition and the cost of exporting potential
The appearance of Sammy Gyamfi, CEO of Ghana GoldBod, brought the production argument into one of Ghana’s most important economic sectors: gold.
Gold is one of Africa’s most valuable natural resources. But the economic question is not simply how much gold is extracted.
It is how much value remains within the economy.
Ghana’s GoldBod has increasingly focused on formalisation, traceability and local value addition. The institution says it is working to promote refining and downstream development so that more economic activity associated with gold processing is retained domestically.
In August 2026, Gyamfi said 7.1 metric tonnes of GoldBod-purchased gold had been refined locally during the year, while acknowledging that domestic refining capacity remained insufficient to process all the gold being purchased.
That is the production debate in physical form.
Do you export the raw material — or build the industry around it?
Do you export cocoa beans or build stronger chocolate and food-processing industries? Do you export minerals or develop refining, manufacturing and technology around them?
Do you export talent or build companies capable of employing and scaling that talent at home?
For Africa, value addition is not merely about keeping more money at home.
It is about creating entire ecosystems of jobs, skills, suppliers, technology and businesses around what the continent already produces.
The capital question
But none of this happens without capital. And LTIF’s broader programme placed investment firmly inside the conversation.
Africa’s entrepreneurs need money to buy machinery. They need working capital. They need technology. They need skilled workers. They need logistics. They need to meet standards.
And they need financing that understands the difference between a promising idea and a business that is ready to scale.
But capital also needs something from enterprise:
discipline.
Good financial records.
Clear governance.
Reliable cash flows.
Market knowledge.
Strong leadership.
And the ability to demonstrate that investment can produce measurable returns.
This is where production, trade, trust and innovation converge.
Capital without productive enterprise can become speculation.
Production without capital can remain small.
Innovation without infrastructure can remain an idea.
And trade without trust can remain an expensive transaction.
The LTIF question that remains
After two days in Accra, perhaps the biggest takeaway from LTIF 2026 is not that Africa lacks opportunity.
It is that opportunity must be organised. Africa does not need another celebration of how much potential it has.
It needs more factories. More processing plants. More scalable African businesses. More regional supply chains.
More investment-ready entrepreneurs.
More trusted institutions.
More digital infrastructure.
More products that can cross borders.
And more businesses capable of becoming industries.
The continent already has a market.
It already has resources.
It already has entrepreneurs.
It already has technology.
The challenge is connecting all of these things into productive economic systems.
And that is where the four words at the centre of LTIF 2026 become more than a conference theme:
PRODUCTION.
TRADE.
TRUST.
INNOVATION.
Together, they describe a possible economic chain:
Produce something of value.
Build trust around it.
Use innovation to make it better and more competitive.
Then trade it across borders.
That may ultimately be the bigger question LTIF leaves Africa with:
What happens when the continent stops measuring its future by what it possesses — and starts measuring it by what it produces?
Footage showed the water swallowing most of the village within minutes.
With rescue operations over and more than 5,000 still unaccounted for, Nepal’s 12-year presumption-of-death law is blocking death certificates, compensation and inheritance for flood-bereaved families.
At the Pashupatinath temple on the banks of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Madan Lal Lawat stood with other families to honour relatives who died in last month’s flood along the China–Nepal border. Hindu tradition provides for exactly this contingency: where no body can be recovered, an effigy of sacred kusha grass stands in for the dead, and last rites can proceed. For Lawat and thousands of other Nepali families, the effigy is the only option available — because although the government has ended rescue operations and more than 5,000 people remain missing, their relatives are not, in law, dead.
Footage showed the water swallowing most of the village within minutes.
The 12-year problem
Under Nepal’s Civil Code, a missing person is presumed dead only after 12 years. Section 40 permits some exceptions, but contains no provision for a disaster on the scale Nepal experienced. Constitutional law expert Bipin Adhikari put it plainly: “In view of the current disaster, the law is outdated.” The provision was designed for people who travelled abroad and fell out of contact — “but technology has advanced now, it isn’t as difficult to send or receive information,” he argues. Local officials, meanwhile, have not improvised. When Lawat went to his municipality office to seek a death certificate last week, he was turned away. “They said they’re still discussing the death certificate issue. We aren’t sure what to do now. There’s so much uncertainty,” he said.
What a missing certificate actually costs
Without a death certificate, families cannot claim state bereavement support at all: up to NPR 25,000 (about $162/£122) toward funeral costs, NPR 200,000 (about $1,302/£981) for the first death in a family, and NPR 100,000 (about $651/£491) for each additional one. Nor can they transfer property or settle inheritance. Bidur’s mayor, Rajan Shrestha, said the effect on his municipality is total: “Everything is on hold” — and it could take up to 12 years for relatives to reach the money they are entitled to. He framed the constraint as institutional self-protection rather than cruelty: “We understand the emotional pain for families who have already performed funeral rituals, but officials must work within legal boundaries to avoid future liabilities.” Local governments are now pressing the prime minister’s office for a legal route.
The dead, the missing and the DNA problem
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority reported on 26 September that 1,453 people had died and 5,285 remained unaccounted for, with 1,451 bodies recovered. Recovery, however, is not the same as identification: Nepal has little experience processing DNA at this scale, and in some cases authorities have taken samples, then buried bodies marked in the ground so families can claim them later. For Lawat, five relatives — including his brother Mangal — were taken by the water. He survived because he was driving his bus outside their village, Betrawati. Survivors told him Mangal died going door to door, warning others to leave. “I don’t know how to start over. Police say they’re still searching for the bodies, but I’m not sure they’ll ever be found.”
A village erased in minutes
Betrawati in the day of the flood.
Betrawati sits across the flood-devastated districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot. For days after the disaster the area was cut off from Kathmandu, short of basics including petrol. The ground became hardened mud and silt; flood footage showed the water swallowing most of the village within minutes. Its market is gone, the local Uttargaya School is in ruins, houses are swept away, school buses lie overturned. Nepal’s latest assessment counts 7,570 private buildings damaged or destroyed, housing nearly 33,000 people on census data. Bidur municipality alone accounts for more than 3,000 damaged or destroyed buildings — the highest of any municipality.
The bill — and the climate argument
The government estimates reconstruction at up to £3.6bn ($4.8bn), more than 10% of GDP, addressing wrecked schools, clinics, hospitals, roads, bridges, wastewater plants and hydropower. Damage to personal belongings alone is put at £123m ($165m) across more than 8,300 households — roughly £14,800 ($20,000) per household on average, though this is modelled from census data rather than per-family accounting. Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister pressed for grant-based support rather than new loans, arguing that “when a climate-driven disaster destroys infrastructure of a poor country, the answer cannot simply be another mega-loan or a patchwork of small grants.” Nepal is among the world’s lowest greenhouse-gas emitters and among the most exposed to warming.
Nepal has been here before
Tisum Ghale knows the sequence. His family lost their home in the 2015 earthquake and were displaced for months before settling in Betrawati. Last month, 19 of his relatives died there in the flood, including five of his sisters. He survived because he was doing construction work outside the village. Now he is again homeless, has received no compensation, and is raising eight children his sisters left behind, from one of 37 holding centres across northern Nepal. “I have lost everything,” he said. He intends to hold a funeral without bodies, like Lawat. Both men are waiting on the same thing: for the law to recognise what they already know.
Government response
The prime minister’s office said it was “aware of the difficulties” the law may cause families in “exceptional circumstances, including disasters.” The home ministry said it was taking the issue seriously and was prepared to amend the law if required. No mechanism, timeline or interim order has been announced.
Analysis: a disaster response stalled at the register office
Families performing last rites at the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, using a kusha grass effigy in place of a body that was never recovered.
This is a rare case where the bottleneck is not money, logistics or access but a definition. Nepal’s state has effectively conceded the missing will not be found, yet its legal system still requires the physical evidence of death that only a body can supply — so the paperwork for reconstruction has been suspended behind a category error.
The consequences compound: bereavement money is small relative to £14,800-per-household losses, but it is the entry point for inheritance and property claims, meaning unresolved status freezes land and housing decisions across whole municipalities. It also creates a grim perverse incentive, since families who burned a kusha effigy have performed a religious act their own state does not recognise. The legal fix is not exotic — most jurisdictions carry presumptive-death provisions for declared disasters, and a retroactive ordinance or administrative directive covering the affected districts would clear most of it.
The obstacle is the fear Shrestha named: officials exposed to “future liability” if they declare someone dead who is later found alive. That is a real risk, and it is precisely what indemnity provisions and evidentiary thresholds exist to manage. Nepal’s test here is not whether it can pour concrete. It is whether it can amend a statute in weeks rather than wait out twelve years of grief.
A Saudi-backed counter-offensive near the Red Sea strait escalates the 12-year Yemen war, displacing 200,000 people and prompting Turkey to send defensive support to Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government reported on Wednesday that Iran-aligned Houthi forces attacked Aden’s international airport with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones. The attack occurred as intense fighting flared near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping artery that has become increasingly critical for global energy exports amid restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
: A missile landed near the runway at Aden International Airport just minutes before a flight from Cairo was scheduled to land, forcing an emergency diversion to Jeddah.
The Attack on Aden and Regional Spillover
According to the country’s Transport Ministry, a Houthi missile landed near the runway at Aden International Airport just minutes before a commercial flight from Cairo was scheduled to land. Authorities successfully diverted the incoming aircraft to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and moved planes off the tarmac due to fears of further strikes. Aden serves as the primary international air gateway for the government-controlled areas of the war-torn nation.
The escalation has not been contained to Yemen. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed his forces targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with drones, as well as Abha International Airport and an airbase in Khamis Mushait with ballistic missiles. The Saudi-led coalition reported intercepting and destroying at least two Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Saudi territory, tracking the launch platforms back to Houthi-controlled Sanaa.
Battles for the Red Sea Coast
Control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, is fiercely contested by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces and the Houthis.
The airport strikes coincide with a fierce, Saudi-backed Yemeni government counter-offensive aimed at retaking strategic territory from the Houthis near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. With Saudi-led coalition air support, pro-government forces—including the powerful Giants Brigade—are battling for control of the Dhubab district and coastal plains leading up to Taiz. Earlier claims by the government that forces had reached the town of Mocha have been characterized by military officials and analysts as premature. The Houthis claim to have successfully repelled the counter-offensive.
Global Backing and Humanitarian Crisis
The renewed fighting is a deadly spillover from broader US-Iran regional tensions, reviving a fragmented 12-year civil war that had been largely dormant following a UN-brokered truce in 2022. Saudi Arabia is now seeking broader international assistance to repel the Houthis. In a significant geopolitical shift, Turkey is reportedly sending defensive and technical support to the Kingdom following a newly formed collective defense commitment between Turkey and Pakistan.
The human toll of the renewed offensive has been devastating. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that the number of displaced people since the latest round of fighting began has surpassed 200,000. IOM Director General Amy Pope warned that displaced citizens are “running for their lives and finding nowhere safe to go.” With both sides alleging hundreds of casualties, the UN warns that the broader war has already left three out of four families going hungry in parts of Yemen.
Professor Nnamdi Umeoduagu died a day after his formal inauguration as substantive Vice-Chancellor of Tansian University.
The Tansian University VC, Professor Nnamdi Dike Umeoduagu, has died hours after being formally inaugurated as the substantive Vice-Chancellor of the institution in Umunya, Anambra State.
Umeoduagu was inaugurated on Friday, October 2, 2026, and died the following day, Saturday, October 3, according to information confirmed by the university.
Tansian University’s Chief Press Secretary, Fidelis Nwakwesili, confirmed the death to PREMIUM TIMES, saying the professor had been sworn in as substantive Vice-Chancellor on Friday before his sudden death on Saturday.
The cause of his death has not been publicly established.
Tansian University VC Had Served in Acting Capacity
Although Umeoduagu had only just been inaugurated as substantive Vice-Chancellor, Tansian University has clarified that he was not new to the position.
The university said he had already served as acting Vice-Chancellor for approximately two months after the previous substantive Vice-Chancellor, Professor Eugene Nwadialor, proceeded on medical leave.
Umeoduagu continued in the acting role until the expiration of Nwadialor’s tenure on September 30, before his formal inauguration as substantive Vice-Chancellor on October 2.
Umeoduagu had served as acting Vice-Chancellor for about two months before his formal inauguration.
The clarification followed reports suggesting that the late Tansian University VC had only been in charge of the institution for a few days.
University officials said that portrayal did not accurately reflect the period he had already spent leading the institution in an acting capacity.
What Is Known About His Death?
Details surrounding Umeoduagu’s sudden death remain limited.
The university said it would support his family’s desire for an autopsy to help establish the cause of death.
This means claims about what caused the professor’s death remain unconfirmed, and no medical cause should be attributed to him until findings are officially released.
His death came shortly after what should have marked a new phase in his academic career.
Who Was Professor Nnamdi Umeoduagu?
Umeoduagu was a professor of Microbiology and had previously served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Tansian University.
He was also a former member of the Anambra State House of Assembly, where he represented Aguata I Constituency.
Before his formal appointment as substantive Vice-Chancellor, he had already been involved in the university’s academic and administrative leadership.
The institution described him as a committed scholar and administrator who contributed to strengthening its academic programmes and institutional development.
University Mourns Tansian University VC
The sudden death of the Tansian University VC has thrown the institution into mourning just as he was beginning his substantive tenure.
University management described Umeoduagu’s death as a major loss to his family, colleagues, students and the wider academic community.
The institution has also urged the public to avoid speculation about the circumstances surrounding his death while awaiting further information.
For now, the most significant unanswered question remains the cause of Umeoduagu’s sudden death.
Any definitive conclusion will depend on official medical findings and further information released by his family or Tansian University.
PenCom says the Federal Government’s ₦758bn intervention has cleared inherited pension liabilities and benefited 957,045 Nigerians.
The Federal Government has cleared a ₦758 billion pension backlog, settling inherited pension liabilities that had accumulated for years under Nigeria’s Contributory Pension Scheme.
The National Pension Commission, PenCom, said the intervention has benefited 957,045 Nigerians, including retirees affected by outstanding pension increases and accrued pension rights.
PenCom Director-General Omolola Oloworaran disclosed the development at the 2026 PenCom Media Conference in Lagos, describing the intervention as a major step towards addressing longstanding pension obligations.
The liabilities reportedly date back to 2007, making the settlement significant for retirees who have waited years for outstanding entitlements.
How the ₦758bn Pension Backlog Was Cleared
PenCom says the pension intervention addresses liabilities dating back to 2007.
According to PenCom, the government used a ₦758 billion pension intervention bond to address several categories of outstanding pension obligations.
The intervention covered pension increases, accrued pension rights, the Pension Protection Fund and retirement benefits for university professors.
Earlier details released by PenCom showed that the ₦758 billion intervention included ₦387.5 billion for pension increases, ₦253 billion for accrued pension rights, ₦107 billion for the Pension Protection Fund and ₦10 billion for professors’ retirement benefits.
PenCom said the intervention effectively eliminated the backlog of accrued pension rights inherited by the current administration.
The commission had previously reported that the government inherited about 21 months of unpaid accrued pension rights.
Who Benefits From the Pension Backlog Payment?
The biggest beneficiaries are retirees and other eligible Nigerians whose pension entitlements were affected by the accumulated liabilities.
PenCom said approximately 957,045 beneficiaries are covered by the wider ₦758 billion intervention.
The pension regulator also said accrued rights had now been funded beyond the immediate retirement schedule.
For 73,732 beneficiaries, funding has reportedly been secured through December 2029, which PenCom described as being 41 months ahead of the current schedule.
This means the intervention is not limited to people who have already spent years waiting for their benefits. It is also intended to reduce the risk of another backlog developing for some upcoming retirees.
Why Nigeria Had a Pension Backlog
Accrued pension rights relate partly to benefits earned by workers before Nigeria fully moved to the Contributory Pension Scheme.
When eligible government workers retire, those accrued rights must be funded before their complete retirement benefits can be processed.
Funding delays over successive years contributed to outstanding liabilities and long waiting periods for some retirees.
PenCom had previously said payments were being progressively made to clear these obligations. The latest announcement indicates that the inherited pension backlog has now been addressed through the intervention bond.
What the ₦758bn Payment Means for Retirees
Clearing the pension backlog could reduce one of the most persistent complaints surrounding retirement under the federal Contributory Pension Scheme — delays in accessing benefits.
For affected retirees, delayed payments can create serious financial pressure, particularly after salaries stop at retirement.
By providing funds beyond the existing retirement schedule, PenCom is attempting to move the system away from clearing old liabilities towards paying retirement benefits more promptly.
The commission has also introduced measures aimed at speeding up the processing of retirement benefits.
PenCom said Pension Fund Administrators have been directed to process and approve retirement benefits within 48 hours when the required conditions and documentation have been met.
PenCom Eyes Broader Pension Reforms
Beyond clearing the ₦758 billion pension backlog, PenCom says its next phase will focus on expanding pension coverage and improving retirement security.
The commission is also developing frameworks that could allow pension assets to support investments in infrastructure including roads, energy, healthcare, education, agriculture and ports.
PenCom’s own published information shows that the regulator has been pursuing reforms covering pension increases, accrued rights, compliance and broader participation in Nigeria’s pension system.
For thousands of retirees, however, the immediate issue remains access to money already owed to them.
The clearance of the pension backlog therefore represents an important development for affected pensioners, particularly those whose outstanding rights had remained unresolved for years.
Memorial on the site of the Nova music festival on the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks, where an Israeli Defence Force probe found 378 people were killed and 44 taken hostage.
For the first anniversary with no hostages left in Gaza, families gathered on a desert dance floor where 378 were killed — while near-daily strikes, a UK rift and a feared new exodus define the third year.
Three years after the deadliest day in Israel’s history, the place where the largest single massacre took place is a strip of desert scrub where a dance floor used to be. Since sunrise on Wednesday, bereaved families, survivors and former hostages gathered at the Nova music festival site to remember the 378 people killed there — mostly young Israelis — each represented by a photograph and a short story. It is the first anniversary with no hostages remaining in Gaza. It is not, by any measurable standard, the first anniversary in peace.
What happened on 7 October 2023
A dawn gathering at Bondi Pavilion in Sydney, where attendees observed silence at 06:29 local time — the moment the attacks began three years ago. Israel’s ambassador there said “there is a direct line between the shooting at Nova and the shooting at Bondi.” Photo credit (Reuters)
Shortly after sunrise, a barrage of thousands of rockets preceded an estimated 6,000 Hamas-led militants breaching the border at dozens of points — by car, motorbike and paraglider. Military bases were assailed and kibbutzim stormed, homes burned and civilians killed; in Nir Oz, 41 people died and 76 of the community’s roughly 400 residents were taken. At the trance festival in the Negev, air-raid alarms sounded at about 06:30 local time, and militants gunned down people fleeing by car and on foot and hid in shelters along the highway. Survivors described hiding for hours or playing dead. Police reinforcements reached the site around 12:30; the army about two hours later. In total, about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Of 44 kidnapped from Nova, 25 returned alive.
The ceasefire that has not settled anything
Hamas and Israel accepted US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan last October, which required suspension of “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment.” A BBC correspondent at the Nova site heard loud thuds apparently from Israeli demolitions or shelling across the border, hours into the commemorations. Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health says more than 1,460 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began — a figure Israel disputes in characterisation, saying it operates “in a precise manner to remove threats and protect its troops and Israeli civilians, in accordance with the agreement.” The Israeli military says five troops have been killed in combat and one contractor in an operational accident since the truce. Most of Gaza lies in ruins, nearly the whole population is displaced, and the UN warns of dire humanitarian conditions.
The first anniversary with no captives — and its unresolved politics
A woman bending to arrange small stones on a grave marker at an outdoor memorial site, with photographs placed nearby.
That no hostages remain in Gaza is the one decisive change since last year, and it belongs to the families who campaigned for years and to a deal nobody expected to hold. Inside Israel, though, the anniversary has become electoral. With an election imminent, anti-government groups including the October Council and the Kumu Movement blocked a main Tel Aviv highway, dyed the Dizengoff Square fountain red, and displayed banners reading “a complete failure” and “guilty” beside an image of Benjamin Netanyahu. In the small cemetery at Kfar Aza, former defence minister Yoav Gallant sat with residents while the names of the dead were read aloud, one by one. Senior defence and security officials have resigned or been dismissed. Three years after Israel’s worst-ever security failure, there has been no independent state inquiry. On a Tel Aviv beach, an unattributed installation of 1,200 human figures stood beneath Hebrew letters spelling “Total Failure.”
Britain: vigils, tribute and a diplomatic chill
A vigil organised by the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council is due outside Downing Street at 17:00 BST, with speeches, prayers, music, a reading of the names of British victims and a moment of silence. Derbyshire Jewish Community holds an online memorial at 19:00 BST, after a Movement for Progressive Judaism service on Sunday. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said a “disturbing rise in antisemitic behaviour in the UK” has been observed since the attacks: “I want Britain’s Jewish community to hear this from me directly. We stand with you… An attack on Jewish people in Britain is an attack on all of us.” The Israeli Embassy in London paid tribute to the British-Israeli dead but said the atmosphere for British Jews “continues to worsen,” citing post-attack celebrations, “marches of hate,” and intimidation in schools, universities and online — and expressed “deep sadness” that the British government’s position on Israel has shifted so far from the solidarity of the first days.
Emily Damari’s warning
Damari, a former British-Israeli hostage held in Gaza for 471 days after gunmen took her from her home, shooting her in the hand and leg, said in a video message: “Fifteen British citizens were killed that day, and another British hostage later died in captivity… It was not an accident; it was a planned terrorist attack. And yet, even today, there are people who deny what happened, distort it, or simply choose to look away.” She said Jewish communities worldwide had carried the pain of three years, and in Britain had “often felt afraid simply because they are Jewish,” and asked people to “continue to stand against antisemitism and terrorism.”
Mourners at the memorial on the site of the Nova music festival on the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks, where an Israeli Defence Force probe found 378 people were killed and 44 taken hostage.
Gaza: the question has narrowed
For many Palestinians, the argument about how the war ends has been displaced by a bleaker one. Mohammed Emad al-Din, a 38-year-old barber in Gaza City, has been displaced five times since 7 October; his home is destroyed and his shop partly damaged. “I don’t believe Israel caused all this destruction for nothing,” he said. “They have turned Gaza into a place that is almost impossible to live in, and I fear that we will eventually end up outside the place where we were born.” That fear, expressed across Gaza and to this correspondent by Hamas, Palestinian Authority and opposition figures alike, is now close to the only point of consensus among a deeply divided leadership: the threat of large-scale displacement is believed to be real, and they believe they lack the military or political means to stop it.
Hamas’s position
Hamas issued a statement praising 7 October as a “historic milestone” in its “ongoing struggle project,” calling it “a natural response” to “bitter suffering” imposed by Israel, and rejecting as “a blatant falsification of reality” the notion that the conflict began on that date. It insists the confrontation “is not over yet” and accuses Israel of genocide — an accusation Israel denies. The Al-Qassam Brigades separately circulated a stylised image of a paraglider crossing a breached section of fence.
A global commemoration, and a local one
World leaders marked the day: Germany’s Friedrich Merz called the attack “a profound rupture” and pledged to confront antisemitism “with even greater resolve”; Emmanuel Macron said France “does not forget the names and faces” of the killed; the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen said the EU “remains ready to help turn today’s fragile ceasefire into a durable peace, based on a two-state solution”; Sweden’s Ulf Kristersson called it “downright appalling” that Jews have lived with growing antisemitism since the attack. In Sydney, hundreds gathered at Bondi at dawn, observing silence at 06:29 local time — the exact moment of the assault. Israel’s ambassador there, Hillel Newman, said “there is a direct line between the shooting at Nova and the shooting at Bondi”: 15 people were killed in an antisemitic attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi on 14 December 2025.
Analysis: three years, three unfinished accounts
Each side is now marking a different anniversary. For Jewish communities, the third year is defined by a grievance that has curdled into a political one — the demand for an inquiry no government has yet delivered, and a diaspora that reports being made to feel unsafe for surviving. For Gazans, the anniversary measures loss of territory, of homes and of prospects, with the ceasefire functioning as a reduction in violence rather than a termination of war. For Hamas, the commemoration is a claim of strategic success on its own terms. The uncomfortable common ground is that none of these three accounts is reconcilable with the others, and the ceasefire is a mechanism that freezes that standoff rather than resolving it. The measure to watch is not rhetoric but the number of people who cannot rebuild — and the number of Palestinians who conclude that remaining in Gaza is no longer a practical possibility.
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