Daily Watch – Another Air Force error kills 20, Mahama cuts Ghana’s ministries
13th January 2025

At least 20 people, including members of a local vigilante group, have been killed in a mistargeted airstrike by the Nigerian Air Force. Premium Times gathered that the local vigilantes killed in the airstrike were members of the Zamfara Community Protection Guard. The incident occurred on Saturday night, 11 January, at Tungar Kara, a community in Maradun LGA where both the Air Force and the victims of the airstrike were reportedly repelling an attack by terrorists. Meanwhile, Gunmen, suspected to be cattle herders, have killed nine people and injured many others in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. Premium Times reported. The deadly attack occurred around 8 p.m. on Saturday in the Tattara community of the Panda Development Area of Karu. According to a local source who wished to remain anonymous, the attackers invaded the community, firing shots indiscriminately at residents.
Nigeria’s Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, has explained that its Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS) for 2022 has been delayed due to challenges in reconciling the Consolidated Revenue Fund bank statement with the Central Bank of Nigeria. Madein disclosed this during an oversight visit by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts. In a statement over the weekend, Madein noted that since her resumption of office in May 2023, the Federal Government’s Consolidated Financial Statements had been prepared and audited up to 31 December 2019. “In partnership with the Auditor-General of the Federation, we have prepared and audited 2020 and 2021 CFS while 2022 is ongoing,” she said. The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts, Bamidele Salam, has called on the AGF to expedite the submission of the 2022 Consolidated Financial Statement as required by the 1999 Constitution.
Ghana’s President John Mahama has reduced the country’s ministries from 30 to 23 in a bid to cut government spending. Mahama’s decision – an executive order – was contained in a gazette dated 9 January– two days after he took office. The country would no longer have the ministries of information, sanitation and water resources, national security, railway development, parliamentary affairs, public enterprises, and chieftaincy and religious affairs. The order established the ministries of finance, health, interior, defence, education, energy and green transition, roads and highways, transport, sports and recreation, justice, lands and natural resources, and local government and chieftaincy and affairs. Others are foreign affairs, communication, digital technology, environment, science and technology, youth development and empowerment, works, housing and water resources, gender, children and social protection, tourism, culture and creative arts, labour, jobs and employment, food and agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, and trade, agribusiness and industry.
Chad’s ruling party won two-thirds of the seats in the December 2024 legislative election, provisional results showed on Sunday, reinforcing President Mahamat Idriss Deby’s hold on power. Results of the 29 December 2024 election seal the Central African nation’s transition to constitutional rule more than three years after Deby seized control following the sudden death of his father and long-standing predecessor Idriss Deby Itno. Deby’s party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, secured 124 of the 188 seats at the National Assembly, the national electoral body said. The participation rate was put at 51.56%. The vote, including municipal and regional elections, was Chad’s first in over a decade. But opposition leader Succes Masra’s Transformateurs party and several others boycotted the election, saying the vote was skewed and lacked transparency. Last week, security forces foiled an attack on the presidency that the government referred to as a “destabilisation attempt.”