Index to Nigerian Newspapers

The new National President of Society of Women in Taxation (SWIT), Mrs Bosede Florence Ikhanoba, has said that SWIT will carry out a lot of enlightenment on tax matters during her tenure. Mrs Ikhanoba stated this during her investiture as the fifth National President of SWIT in Abuja on Saturday. She said, “We want everybody to know why they should pay their tax .Tax is an obligation. Every one of us must understand that you are obligated to pay part of your income to the government. It is what you pay that the government uses to fix infrastructure. So, once you pay your tax, you can hold the government accountable.”

She further stated that during her tenure the group would help to advocate for women in business. The National President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Mr Samuel Agbeluyi, who swore in Mrs Ikhanoba, said he expected the progress of the society and CITN during her tenure. The Executive Secretary, Joint Tax Board (JTB), Hajiya Nana-Aisha Obomeghie, said the board would collaborate with SWIT to help enlighten women in business on their obligation in terms of tax filing and the benefits they would get when they were tax-compliant.

Women in Taxation (SWIT), Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Joint Tax Board (JTB), Business, Finance 

Over 250 Palestinians have been killed and injured in an ongoing Israeli raid on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to the government media office. The Israeli army raided the facility on Monday, which houses thousands of ill and wounded patients and displaced people. The Israeli forces opened fire as they stormed the hospital, killing and injuring more than 250 civilians. The media office said several children were executed by Israeli forces at the hospital, without providing any further details. The Israeli army said that its forces had killed 50 Palestinians and detained 180 others during its raid on the hospital. At least 14,000 children are among the at least 31,810 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since last October. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza has said at least 31,819 people have been killed in the territory during more than five months of Israel's war on Gaza.

The death toll from devastating floods in Libya’s eastern coastal city of Derna yesterday rose to over 6,000, according to local officials. The figure is expected to rise as recovery operations continue in the city pummeled by Storm Daniel. The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration in Libya said over 30,000 people were displaced. This is just as authorities are racing to bury the deceased as bodies pile up in the streets of Derna devastated by flooding after a torrential downpour smashed through two dams, washing homes into the sea. Saadeddin Abdul Wakil, health ministry’s undersecretary of the Unity Government in Tripoli, one of two rival governments operating in the country, confirmed the over 6,000 casualty figure. He said: “Morgues are full in hospitals that remain out of service despite the desperate need to treat survivors of the disaster, according to staff. In Egypt, the government buried 87 Egyptian victims who died in Libya, according to the country’s emigration ministry. “Around 10,000 more are missing, potentially either swept out to sea or buried beneath rubble that’s strewn throughout the city once home to over 100,000 people.”  Meanwhile, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday assured Libya of Nigeria’s unwavering solidarity and goodwill during these trying times. Tinubu, in a statement by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, commiserated with all families who had lost loved ones in what he called “monumental disaster”. Deputy Secretary-General of the council, Prof. Salisu Shehu, in a statement, said the council beseeched the Ummah in Nigeria and all over the world, all global humanitarian agencies, supranational governments, organisations and well-meaning individuals to assist Libya “during this trying period.”

UNICEF Representative for Niger Republic, Stefano Savi, says the political crisis adds a heavy burden to an already dire humanitarian landscape in the country.He said the crisis had affected more than two million children in urgent need of humanitarian aid.The military rulers that overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 had unveiled a three-year transition plan.This is despite the threat of a military action by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).In a statement, Savi said even before the most recent instability, it was anticipated that 1.5 million Nigerien children under the age of five would be underweight in 2023. The landlocked Sahel state, which frequently places near the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index, a measure of affluence, is among the most unstable and impoverished nations in the world. UNICEF stated that despite increasing obstacles, it was still providing assistance. It was concerned about the loss of energy because it was necessary to keep basics like immunizations for children cold. 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will follow its sanctions against the military junta in the Republic of Niger to the letter. But the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) advised President Tinubu, who is also Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, to urgently withdraw all sanctions imposed on Niger Republic to ease negotiation. Nigeria had on August 4 closed all its borders with Niger and cut off electricity supply to the country following the refusal by the junta to reinstate detained President Mohamed Bazoum whose government was toppled on July 26. The military rulers had recently expressed their readiness to dialogue with ECOWAS on the crisis. United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said he still sees a chance for diplomacy to reverse a coup in Niger. Military chiefs from ECOWAS will meet in Ghana this week to discuss possible intervention in Niger. ‘ECOWAS following sanctions to the letter’  President Tinubu said ECOWAS was working to keep the sanctions in place. The president said this yesterday when he received the Special Envoy of President Ali Bongo Ondimba and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Gabon, Mr. Hermann Immongault, at the State House, Abuja. He praised the solidarity of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) on the political impasse in the Republic of Niger. The military chiefs from the West African bloc ECOWAS will meet in Ghana’s capital Accra this week to discuss a possible intervention in Niger, a spokesperson for the regional group has confirmed.