Churches Stage Nationwide Protests And Other Interesting News Headlines Today

It was a day of prayers and protests yesterday over the killings in some parts of the country. THE NATION, NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, THE PUNCH, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President Supo Ayokunle called for the protests as a wake-up call to the Federal Government that the bloodletting must stop. However, there were no protests in the Southeast. The protests in Lagos, Ibadan, Ado-Ekiti, Akure, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Makurdi, among others, were largely restricted to the Baptist Church. Rev Ayokunle is of the Nigerian Baptist Convention. Pentecostal churches, which are mostly affiliated to the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), did not join the protest.

THE GUARDIAN takes another dimension to report the news of the protests revealing that Christians protest, urge sack of service chiefs. In compliance with the directive, the Christians in Ibadan, Oyo State yesterday staged a peace protest to condemn the Benue killings and passed a vote of no confidence in the service chiefs. They called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack them and restructure the nation’s security apparatus.

Still on the issue of security and the protests by Christains DAILY SUN and NEW TELEGRAPH reveals; CAN to Buhari: Forget 2019 If Killings Continue. CAN President, Dr. Supo Ayokunle, who led church leaders, women, youths, children, choristers and other members of the Oritamefa Baptist Church, Ibadan, Oyo State, to protest killings across the country, noted that the people have lost fate in the service chiefs. The CAN president said that Buhari’s government was at the risk of losing out in the 2019 general elections if it continues to fail in protecting the citizens across the country. His words: “We have lost fate in the security agencies and they must sack all the security chiefs and replace them with new ones. No more bloodshed. If the bloodshed continues, this administration should forget about 2019. We cannot continue like this.

Moving to Senator Dino Melaye’s troubled waters, DAILY INDEPENDENT discloses why Dino Survived Recall. Prominent Nigerians on Sunday reacted to the recall verification exercise of Dino Melaye, the senator representing Kogi West, which failed after the verified signatories to the petition for his recall fell short of the requirement. For the verification exercise to succeed, 50% plus one of the signatories to the petition had to be verified. However, based on the results announced by Prof. Okente Morthy, the Declaration Officer for the exercise held at the senatorial district on Saturday, only 18,742 of the 189,870 of the signatories to the petition for the senator’s recall were verified by INEC.

Moving to the economic sector, Nigeria urged to de-risk agriculture, adopt innovation heads BUSINESS DAY. Nigeria’s food production has for many years been unable to support the growing population, and the situation could get worse as the population, and the situation could get worse as the population continues to grow  exponentially, projected to hit 450 million by 2050, without commensurate efforts being put into increasing food production.