Good morning,
A pupil is missing after floodwaters swept him away in Anambra. Success Ezenwafor, of UNIZIK Primary School, was on a school bus trapped on the flooded Isiagu-Nibo-Awka link road on Tuesday. Isiagu youths waded in with ropes and rescued seven children and two adults. No boat. No coordinated emergency service in those first minutes. The state arrived later. It always does.
The constitutional debate about who is actually in charge has returned, and it is being conducted by men who seem to have misplaced their own rulebook. Senate President Godswill Akpabio insists President Tinubu remains in power from France, dismissing concerns about the President and Vice President being absent at the same time. “There is no vacancy,” he said, conveniently forgetting that Section 145 exists precisely because a country once watched a president waste away in a foreign hospital while his deputy could not govern. The National Assembly wrote that rule after Yar’Adua and Jonathan taught us what happens when power is not formally transferred. Then Buhari and Osinbajo made a habit of ignoring it, and now the precedent is set. The irony is rich: the Senate President, the very man constitutionally positioned to receive the written declaration of absence, has instead become the President’s most enthusiastic spokesman from abroad. Akpabio assures us the President is working, signing documents, and taking meetings with Macron. Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser on Policy Communication, adds that Tinubu’s powers are “not geographic.” Legally true. Politically, it is the kind of argument you make when you know you cannot defend the optics.
Elsewhere, the CBN has cut the Monetary Policy Rate to 23% from 26.5%, its first easing in two years, citing falling inflation and a stable naira. Kwankwaso says an Obi-led administration would restore fuel subsidies in a reformed structure, betting that voters want relief more than fiscal purity. The OPS wants foreigners banned from last-mile retail, pointing to the same protectionist instinct that has failed for decades because enforcement, not legislation, is the problem. And Zamfara has signed an air route deal with XEJet for bi-weekly Gusua-Abuja flights, effectively admitting that it is a state where the roads are too dangerous to use.
In sport, Rivers Hoopers reclaimed the NPBL title for a record-equalling seventh time, beating Maktown Flyers 92-90 in overtime.
Warmly,
Lolade