The headlines of mainstream Nigerian newspapers for Thursday, October 12, are focused on the controversy that erupted during the military medical outreach in the southeast and the rift between minister, Ibe Kachikwu and NNPC boss, Maikanti Baru.
Vanguard reports that the entire south east zone is currently in commotion, following widespread rumour alleging invasion of schools by men dressed in military uniform and allegedly injecting pupils and students to death with an unknown vaccine linked to monkey pox.
Reports from all the states revealed that there was panic and anxiety in the public arena as unconfirmed news of alleged deaths of some pupils spread like wildfire, following allegations that the free medical outreach programme which is part of the Operation Python Dance 2, is responsible for the monkey pox disease now ravaging parts of the south south and spreading to the southeast.
The Punch reports that in Asaba, Delta State, pupils on Wednesday abandoned classrooms following a rumour that soldiers would come to schools to inject them to death.
The unverified information filtered into Asaba at about 9am, and quickly spread like a wildfire.
Some school heads, who could not control the situation, alerted the government, but many pupils were already out of their school premises.
In Anambra state, Governor Willie Obiano, ordered the army to stop the outreach.
The governor reacted to the panic at Ozubulu, in the Ekwusigo Local Government Area caused by unsubstantiated information that soldiers wanted to forcefully inject monkeypox vaccine into schoolchildren.
The Nation reports that the war of integrity between Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director (GMD) Dr. Maikanti Baru got more intense yesterday.
The oil giant faulted the Minister’s claim that he was not consulted on $10billion Crude Term Contracts.
The NNPC said Kachikwu made an input into the shortlisting of 40 off-takers for the Crude Term Contracts by recommending seven companies, which were engaged.
Also, the minister was said to have nominated two companies for the alleged Direct Sales, Direct Purchase (DSDP) transactions, which Kachikwu claimed were worth $5billion.
ThisDay reports that Sokoto state governor, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Wednesday dismissed the widely held perception that the north was opposed to restructuring because it is the biggest beneficiary of the current socio-political and economic structure in the country.
Tambuwal spoke at a two-day conference on “The North and Future of the Nigerian Federation”, organised by the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP) in Kaduna.
However, his position went against the grain of his colleagues such as the Kano state governor, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, and his Katsina state counterpart, Bello Masari, among others, who had at a recent zonal meeting organised by the All Progressives Congress (APC) committee on restructuring, opposed the clamour for the restructuring of the country, saying that they were in favour of a fair and equitable Nigeria but not any arrangement that would lead to the alteration of the socio-political structure of the country.
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the global central banks to keep watch over the improving financial system across the world, as there are looming dangers in the form of rising financial risks.
The warning came, as there were estimated one-third of globally systematically important banks with assets worth $17 trillion that will continue to struggle to achieve sustainable profit.NAIJ