Foreign missions in Nigeria and other international bodies have heightened security alerts for travels in the seven states making up the Northwest geopolitical zone following last month’s attack on a passenger train arriving Kaduna from Abuja, the Nigerian capital. Multiple diplomatic sources and staff of international organisations in Abuja told our correspondent that though there had been travel advisories to states like Katsina, Zamfara and Kaduna, the alert level was upped across most embassies and other organisations over heightened fear of insecurity. Foreign missions such as those of the United Kingdom, Canada, United States and a host of other countries…

Joseph Makoju, a former group managing director and chief executive officer of Dangote Cement, is dead. A family source confirmed that he died at about 12pm on Monday at his Abuja residence. The cause of Makoju’s death was, however, not divulged. Burial arrangements are said to be currently ongoing. Born on July 13, 1948, in Okene, Kogi state, Makoju was a Harford award winner of Government College, Kaduna and also a J. F. Kennedy essays award winner of Federal Government College, Warri. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he graduated with a first-class honour in…

Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion and the United Nations has verified the deaths of 142 youngsters although the number is almost certainly much higher, the U.N. children’s agency said Monday. Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is something he hadn’t seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work. Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly…

Russia has warned Finland and Sweden against joining Nato, arguing the move would not bring stability to Europe. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "the alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation". It comes as US defence officials said Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has been a "massive strategic blunder" which is likely to bring Nato enlargement. US officials expect the Nordic neighbours to bid for membership of the alliance, potentially as early as June. Washington is believed to support the move which would see the Western alliance grow to 32 members. US State Department officials said last week that…