Protesters on Monday brought parts of Kaduna to a standstill as they marched in solidarity with the Dangote Refinery, accusing a well-connected oil importation cartel and elements within the labour movement of trying to frustrate the country’s nascent local refining drive.
The protest, themed “National Unity Against Sabotage: Reclaiming Our Petroleum Sector for the People,” called for urgent government action to protect the multi-billion-dollar Dangote Refinery from “systematic attacks” by elements of the oil importation cartel.
Marching under the banner of Partners for National Economic Progress, the demonstrators gathered at Murtala Mohammed Square before winding through Alkali Road, Ali Akilu Road, Ahmadu Bello Way and Muhammadu Buhari Way, brandishing placards with messages such as “Protect Local Refining,” “End Fuel Import Cartel” and “Support Dangote Refinery.”
One of the movement’s leaders, Igwe Ude-Umanta, told the crowd that the Kaduna demonstration formed part of a nationwide campaign that began in Abuja on October 2.
Protesters in Kaduna on Monday. Photo Godwin Isenyo
Ude-Umanta described the rallies as a “national liberation effort” aimed at saving Nigeria’s economy from forces he said were determined to keep the country dependent on imported fuel.
“This struggle is against the cartel that destroyed our public refineries, killed the textile industry, and now wants to strangle the Dangote Refinery. We will not let them succeed. The days of holding Nigeria hostage are over,” Ude-Umanta declared to thunderous applause.
Ude-Umanta drew an explicit historical parallel with Kaduna’s once-thriving textile industry, saying the same pattern of sabotage that gutted that sector was being replayed in the petroleum industry.
“Kaduna used to be a textile hub before the same pattern of sabotage destroyed it. Today, they want to replicate that in our petroleum sector by frustrating local refining. We will resist them,” he said.
PANEP leader accused the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria of complicity, describing recent union actions as tantamount to “economic terrorism.”
PANEP urged either an outright halt to fuel importation or the imposition of heavy tariffs to protect domestic refining and related industries.
“Countries that place tariffs are not stupid; they are protecting their economies,” Ude-Umanta said, adding that importers were frightened by the prospect of local refining exposing price manipulation and corrupt practices.
Dahiru Maishanu, who also addressed the rally, said the union’s conduct had gone beyond legitimate labour protest and was instead assisting the importers’ agenda.
“What PENGASSAN did was not unionism, it was sabotage. The Federal Government should have arrested their leadership to serve as a deterrent. We cannot allow people to hide under labour unions to commit crimes against our economy,” Maishanu said.
Protesters in Kaduna on Monday. Photo Godwin Isenyo
The protesters demanded urgent intervention from President Bola Tinubu, who also holds the portfolio of Minister of Petroleum Resources, to ensure that local refineries, notably the Dangote Refinery, are supplied with crude oil on terms equal to those offered to foreign refiners.
“President Tinubu must stamp his feet,” the group said in a statement read at the rally.
“Local refineries must receive crude at the same price offered to foreign refiners. That is key to sustaining the refinery and boosting investor confidence,” he said.
Maishanu also accused the cartel of actively blocking the sale of locally produced Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Aviation Turbine Kerosene, insisting those actions were intended to keep prices artificially high and preserve monopoly profits.
“They are punishing Nigerians to protect their greed. How can importers compete with producers? They are scared because local refining will expose their fraud and end their control over pricing,” Maishanu said.
The demonstrators praised the Dangote Refinery for what they called its early impact on prices of Premium Motor Spirit and diesel, saying ordinary Nigerians were already “breathing fresh air” because of local refining.
They warned that if the refinery were undermined, the consequences would be severe for investor confidence and the wider economy.
“This movement is about economic salvation. If we allow them to kill Dangote Refinery, no investor will ever risk bringing money into this country again. We must protect this refinery as our own,” Maishanu said.
PANEP added the Kaduna leg with a renewed call on the Federal Government to “crush every enemy of Nigeria’s economic progress,” urging swift policy and enforcement actions that would protect local refining capacity and punish those found to be undermining it.
The September 29 meeting between the PENGASSAN and Dangote Refinery management over the ongoing industrial dispute ended in a deadlock after stretching from 4 p.m. into the early hours of Tuesday.
Following the stalemate, the Minister of Labour, Muhammad Dingyadi, announced that negotiations would resume at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
The follow-up session eventually began at about 3:50 p.m. at the Office of the National Security Adviser and lasted into the early hours of Wednesday, when a breakthrough was finally reached.
The dispute arose from allegations by PENGASSAN that the refinery engaged in mass transfers and sackings of union members, while replacing some Nigerian workers with foreign nationals, accusations the company repeatedly denied.
The federal government waded in to forestall further disruption, citing the dispute’s potential impact on the economy and national energy security.
The National Judicial Council (NJC) has recommended 28 candidates for appointment as judicial officers across six states, including 24 candidates for various State High Courts.
The recommendations cover the High Courts of Kano, Ebonyi, Edo, Adamawa and Ogun states, the Plateau State Sharia Court of Appeal, Adamawa State Sharia Court of Appeal and Adamawa State Customary Court of Appeal.
The Council announced the recommendations in a statement issued on Wednesday by its Deputy Director of Information, Kemi Babalola-Ogedengbe.
It said the decisions were taken at its 112th meeting held on November 3, 2026, under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Motonmori Olatokunbo Kekere-Ekun.
According to the Council, one candidate was recommended as Grand Kadi of the Plateau State Sharia Court of Appeal, while another was recommended as Kadi of the Adamawa State Sharia Court of Appeal.
Two others were recommended as judges of the Adamawa State Customary Court of Appeal.
The appointment includes “24 High Court candidates and four candidates for the Sharia and Customary Courts of Appeal.”
The full list of the 28 recommended candidates is as follows:
PLATEAU STATE SHARIA COURT OF APPEAL (GRAND KADI)
1. Tijjani Jibrin Zololo
KANO STATE HIGH COURT
2. Nafisah Yusuf Hassan
3. Halima Yahuza Ahmad
4. Abdullahi Abdulsalam Bature
5. Musa Ibrahim Umar
United States Vice President JD Vance has blamed the Iran war for the Republican Party’s poor performance in the 2026 midterm elections, saying many supporters of President Donald Trump switched allegiance to Democrats over dissatisfaction with the conflict.
Vance said this in a post on his X handle on Wednesday, arguing that the party’s defeat was not primarily caused by poor voter turnout but by the defection of voters who supported the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024.
He said data analysis conducted by his team before the elections had shown that Republican supporters were turning out in significant numbers, despite opinion polls predicting a major Democratic victory.
“One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was ‘composition’—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win,” he said.
Vance explained that although turnout was encouraging in several states, a member of his data team had warned him that many Republican voters were angry and might not vote for the party.
“Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was nine points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024,” he said.
“But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.”
The Vice President acknowledged that the party might have failed to communicate its economic policies effectively, particularly on the cost of living and inflation.
However, he said the major reasons voters abandoned the Republicans were concerns about the war, economic hardship, America’s foreign policy priorities and its relationship with Israel.
According to Vance, a pollster who accurately predicted the election outcome identified four major demands among former Republican supporters who switched to the Democrats.
The demands were to end the war, prioritise the cost of living and inflation, put America first and change the country’s relationship with Israel.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance stated.
He also defended television personality Rachel Campos-Duffy, saying her earlier call for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict had proved politically sound.
Vance warned against attempts by Republican establishment figures to attribute the party’s electoral setback to other issues, particularly immigration policy.
He said he was open to reviewing immigration enforcement strategies, including targeting businesses that employ undocumented workers, but rejected calls for amnesty.
“Anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you,” he said.
The Vice President challenged those who believed the war was worth the political cost to defend that position openly, noting that the defeat could cost Republicans control of the Senate for the next six years.
“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay,” he said.
“Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.”
Despite the setback, Vance expressed optimism about the country’s future, urging disappointed Republican supporters to channel their anger into rebuilding the party and electing candidates who share their political views.
“Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country,” he added.
The United Kingdom government plans to expand live facial recognition technology to strengthen immigration enforcement and identify individuals who have violated immigration rules.
The initiative, being developed by the Home Office, could see facial recognition cameras deployed at transport hubs and public events to help immigration officers identify people who have overstayed their visas, entered the country unlawfully or breached their immigration conditions.
According to policy documents published in October and sighted by PUNCH Online on Thursday, the proposed expansion could extend the technology’s use to general immigration enforcement, including civil immigration violations that do not necessarily involve criminal offences.
The development comes as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood seeks to intensify immigration enforcement through increased funding, additional personnel and expanded deportation operations.
The Home Office said the technology would help officers identify individuals subject to removal proceedings and those attempting to re-enter the UK unlawfully.
The policy documents also suggest that facial recognition could reduce the need for repeated enforcement visits to residential properties and workplaces.
Authorities have already conducted three trials of the technology at Holyhead port in north Wales between November 2025 and February 2026. The trials focused on identifying individuals travelling from Ireland who were subject to deportation orders or wanted over immigration-related criminal offences.
The programme has now entered its formal delivery phase, with officials considering wider deployments at transport hubs and large public gatherings.
A Home Office spokesperson confirmed that further trials were being considered while the government examined the potential benefits and implications of the technology.
U K Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said: “Facial recognition technology has been the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching, already helping police take thousands of dangerous criminals off our streets.
“The benefits are clear, but we must ensure that its use is fair, safe and proportionate.
“It is right we put in place clear laws to ensure that the use of this technology is watertight, so the public can have confidence that these tools, which are vital to our safety, are used responsibly too.”
However, the proposed expansion has raised concerns among civil liberties organisations and migrant rights advocates over privacy, surveillance and the possibility of inaccurate identification.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants described the development as a significant escalation of immigration enforcement powers, while the Open Rights Group questioned the transparency of the plans, public consent and the absence of comprehensive legislation governing facial recognition.
Critics have also warned that the technology could disproportionately affect people of colour because of concerns about identification accuracy.
Meanwhile, Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner William Webster has questioned whether existing regulatory arrangements are sufficient to oversee the expanding use of facial recognition across government agencies.
Under the proposed policy, individuals under 18 will not be included on facial recognition watchlists.
