Storiman

Clarity in a country of Noise | Anti-system journalism | Email: [email protected]

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Nigerian media celebrated a $300 billion investment deal from Qatar in October 2025.

Storiman investigated.

The lead company was registered 30 days before the announcement. The website was created 7 days before the headlines. Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has no record of it.

The deal does not exist. Here is the proof.
https://t.co/S7faExUGZ2

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“Kenneth Okonkwo claimed he has damaging information about me. I’m suing him so he can present it in court.”

— Peter Obi explains his decision to sue Kenneth Okonkwo.

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Tony Elumelu is leaving the boardroom of UBA on August 21, 2026, after completing the maximum 12-year tenure for non-executive directors prescribed by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Taking over from him is Emmanuel N. Nnorom, currently a non-executive director on the board.

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50 days in captivity. The children of Oriire, Oyo State, are still hidden inside Old Oyo National Park, a 2,500 square kilometre forest three times the size of New York City.

Two are already dead. Their families are still waiting. Nigeria cannot let this become normal.

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Fifty days ago, terrorists took 46 children and teachers from three Oyo State schools into a forest the size of a small country. Two are dead. The rest are still there.

Full story: who holds them, why Nigeria still hasn't brought them home.
https://t.co/0DYRrW6u0Y

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Enugu, Nigeria — Former Minister Uche Nnaji was arrested by the DSS at Enugu airport today, boarding a private jet to Abuja.

ICPC had invited him multiple times over ministry fund allegations. He had ignored multiple invitations from the commission before the DSS was brought in.

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The CBN has revoked the licences of 46 microfinance banks.

The affected institutions were found to be inactive, undercapitalised, or no longer operating, in violation of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020.

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Peter Obi has called the State Police Bill commendable but dangerous.

His complaint: it passed with no public hearing on an issue this sensitive, which he says fuels suspicion about the political motives behind the rush.

His fear: governors using state police to suppress rivals, disrupt opposition rallies, and manipulate elections.

His demand: an independent state Police Service Commission, free from executive control, and a delay in implementation until after the 2027 election.

"There is no guarantee that this administration can resist the temptation to take advantage of state policing to influence the 2027 general election by proxy."

The same governor-abuse fear Storiman flagged the day this bill was introduced is now coming from the opposition's presidential candidate.

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Onitsha, Nigeria — Peter Obi has filed an N8 billion defamation suit against Kenneth Okonkwo and formally served him the writ this week.

The dispute traces back to June 8, when Okonkwo told Channels Television that Obi and NDC leaders extorted ₦10 million from House of Representatives aspirants and personally compiled candidate lists in a hotel room.

Obi gave him seven days to retract, apologise, and pay ₦5 billion. Okonkwo refused, calling Obi a "hypocrite" and offering to personally fund his campaign instead of paying him anything. In his written response, he said he stood by his comments, sourced from an aggrieved NDC aspirant, and accused Obi of trying to "distract and cow" him from exposing wrongdoing in the party.

Obi proceeded to court. The claim grew from ₦5 billion to ₦8 billion, citing repeated publication even after the warning letter: ₦5 billion in general damages, ₦2 billion in aggravated damages, and ₦1 billion in exemplary damages.

The writ commands Okonkwo to appear in court within 42 days or risk judgment in his absence. He has also been put on notice that the case requires him to substantiate, with evidence, every claim he made on air.

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The EFCC has filed 12 counts of money laundering against Bello Bodejo, leader of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore.

The charges say he received $2.53 million in physical cash from Bauchi State's former Accountant-General, Sa'idu Abubakar, in tranches between 2022 and 2024. One single payment was $980,000. None of it passed through a bank, as the law requires for sums above N5 million.

Bauchi's own Commissioner for Finance and three civil servants are already on trial for terrorism financing, accused of releasing $2.33 million of these same funds, money prosecutors say partly financed a terrorist or terrorist group.

The state government's internal records once called these payments "security commitment."

Follow the chain. A state Accountant-General hands cash to a herder group leader. The Finance Commissioner faces terrorism financing charges for releasing it. The funds allegedly reach a group prosecutors link to terrorism. And the man who received nearly $2.53 million of it is now separately charged with laundering it.

Governor Bala Mohammed's name sits at the center of both cases. He has not been charged.

The money came from his government.

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BREAKING: The Senate has passed the State Police Bill.

66 years of single, federal policing in Nigeria ends here, pending state assemblies' ratification. Senators voted manually, raising their hands to be counted, with more than two-thirds support on all 26 clauses. No senator opposed the bill at final passage.

Governors will appoint State Commissioners of Police, subject to confirmation by their State Houses of Assembly. State police handle local laws and public order. Federal police keep counter-terrorism, border security, and cross-state crimes.

The safeguard written into the bill: a Commissioner cannot arrest, detain, or deploy force against anyone for criticising the government.

Next stop: 24 of 36 state assemblies must ratify it before it reaches the President's desk.

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"I don't see the level of hunger Nigerians are complaining about." — Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga

His proof: he drove from Ibadan to Lagos and found a new concrete road. He has staff working for him privately, and he asks them how they're adjusting.

That is the basis for dismissing what tens of millions of Nigerians are living through.

A man surrounded by people whose job security depends on him is using their answers as a national hunger index.

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Senate President Akpabio just said something governors should sit with.

"Many of us will like to go back home after we are through from here without being afraid of state police. Even current governors will one day leave office. They should not be afraid of the state police that they created."

That is the Senate President warning sitting governors against building a force they will one day fear themselves.

The Senate votes on the bill today.

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Senate to vote on State Police Bill

President Tinubu has formally sent the State Police Bill to the Senate.

Senate President Akpabio read the letter on the floor today. The Senate will consider and vote on it tomorrow, June 24.

Akpabio says the state assemblies have promised to take it up the same day once they receive it.

The House already passed it 289 to 1. If the Senate passes it tomorrow, the next stop is 24 of 36 state assemblies.

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Nasir El-Rufai stays in prison custody.

His bail requires a surety who is a federal civil servant at Grade Level 17 or above, owns property in Maitama or Asokoro, and can prove three months of salary payments.

His lawyer asked the court to relax that condition, arguing it was too stringent to find someone meeting all of those at once. The judge refused today, ruling that there are civil servants who own properties at the said location.

The same day, the DSS closed its wiretapping case against him without calling further witnesses.

Here's what the prosecution already got on record:

A DSS witness, Deji Adeyanju, testified that El-Rufai admitted on Arise TV in February that "we listened to the conversations of the NSA," referring to National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu.

Under cross-examination, the witness clarified he never heard El-Rufai say he personally hacked anything, only that someone tapped the line and passed him the information.

El-Rufai's lawyers now have two weeks to ask the court to drop the charges, saying the evidence is not strong enough to prove the case. Hearing is fixed for September 22.

Until then, the former governor remains in custody.

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Nigerian Governors and State Police

While the state police bill moves through the Senate, Nigeria’s governors have quietly asked for more.

A strategic meeting convened by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum in Abuja proposed greater constitutional recognition of governors’ authority to direct security operations in their states, plus a rotating seat for State Attorneys-General on the National Police Council.

On funding, the meeting pushed for constitutionally guaranteed financing, not the discretionary federal support currently in the bill, and floated State Security Trust Funds as a backup.

The same governors who will run these forces are the ones drafting how much power they get to direct them.

That is worth watching closely.

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Peter Obi has called on President Tinubu to resign.

The trigger: British PM Keir Starmer's resignation speech this morning, which Obi called a culture of accountability in public office.

The argument: in 2023, Tinubu told Nigerians not to vote for him again if he failed on electricity, corruption, and welfare. Obi says all three have gotten worse, not better.

"I therefore join Nigerians of goodwill in calling for the resignation of the President over monumental failure in governance."

Obi also recalled that before 2015, Tinubu himself demanded Goodluck Jonathan's resignation over insecurity and the Chibok abduction.

The standard Tinubu set for another president, Obi is now setting for him.

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Nigeria's 36 state governors say they want state police, fast, and built right.

Meeting in Abuja this week, the Nigeria Governors' Forum resolved that any state police framework must be constitutionally sound and aligned with federalism and citizens' rights. State Attorneys-General have been assigned to review the proposed constitutional amendments before they go further.

The push comes barely a week after the House of Representatives passed the state police bill 289 to 1, with the Senate already through second reading.

What is missing from the governors' statement: any commitment on how financially weaker states like Zamfara, Yobe, and Kebbi will fund a force they cannot currently afford.

Wanting state police and being able to pay for it are two different problems.

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Former INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu, the man who oversaw the disputed elections that put this administration in power, has resumed office as a non-career Ambassador to Qatar.

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A London jury has acquitted former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke of all six bribery charges after 46 hours of deliberation at Southwark Crown Court.

The UK's National Crime Agency investigated her for over a decade. Prosecutors alleged she received luxury gifts and benefits from oil executives seeking contracts. The jury disagreed.

What the verdict means: she is not guilty of bribery under UK criminal law. A jury of her peers said so after five months of trial.

What the verdict does not settle: separate civil asset recovery cases remain active in other jurisdictions. The US Department of Justice said in 2017 that she used her influence to steer lucrative oil contracts to executives who paid her bribes. That case was never tried.

She walks free from London. The full accounting of Nigeria's oil years under her watch is not yet closed.