Senate President Ahmad Lawan says the All Progressives Congress (APC) will face challenges when President Muhammadu Buhari leaves office in 2023.

Speaking on Monday at a youth conference organized by the party’s youth wing in Abuja, Lawan said Buhari is the one with mass support politicians in the party enjoyed in 2015 and 2019.

The senate president said the youths in the party should play the role of building the APC.

“Whether we like it or not, the truth is, President Muhammadu Buhari, remains the person with the bulk of the support we get across this country in APC,” he said.

“When he leaves, he will still have some roles, but I daresay that it is after he leaves office that APC will face its challenge.

“Yes, we have to know our value then, and the value of APC presently is APC minus President Muhammadu Buhari. Whatever it is, that is the value of APC.

“So, we need to do a lot to build this party, and we need our youths more than ever before for them to continue with this legacy that this administration has established all over the country.

“That means we have to see ourselves as brothers and sisters regardless of where we come from.”

The senate president said ethnic background or religion should not matter when it comes to building the country.

“We can ask others to join us, but we are the ones to do it, so we need all hands on deck,” he said.

The United States of America has again urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to rethink and rescind the Twitter ban in Nigeria.

This message was conveyed by a top American official and senior diplomat, who is the current administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Samantha Power.

Power, in a tweet on her verified handle on Wednesday, wrote, “There are nearly 40 million Twitter users in #Nigeria, and the country is home to Africa’s largest tech hub.

“This suspension is nothing more than state-sanctioned denial of free speech and should be reversed immediately. #KeepItOn.”

Recall that the Federal Government through the office of the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had banned Twitter.

Much later, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, had criminalized anyone accessing the microblogging site through any other means, even though he logged on to Twitter to deactivate his account on Tuesday.

Prominent Nigerians had continued to Tweet, saying the ban is against free speech and fundamental human rights.

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Projects and 176 Concerned Nigerians had on Tuesday filed a suit against the FG in the Economic Community of West African States, urging them to unban the site.

All this was because the president had stated that many of those misbehaving in the country were too young and did not witness the gruesomeness of Nigeria’s 1967-70 war, saying he would “treat them in the language they would understand.”

Controversial Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, says the students of Greenfield University kidnapped about two months ago have not been released because their kidnappers have links with Boko Haram.

Mr Gumi said this in an interview with Channels Television on Sunday from Kaduna.

The kidnappers had attacked the private university on April 17 and abducted 20 students, five of whom they have killed.

They have also threatened to kill the others unless a N100 million ransom is paid for their freedom.

In the interview with Channels Television, Mr Gumi said unlike previous cases of abduction in the North-west and North-central states, the kidnappers of the university students have linkage with some elements of Boko Haram in the forest.

“The Greenfield abduction is unique because for the first time we saw a cooperation between some bandits and Boko Haram elements which confirm that Boko Haram are encroaching into the field, which is a bad situation,” Mr Gumi said.

Mr Gumi said Boko Haram had reached out to the abductors of hundreds of students of Government Science College in Kankara, Katsina State, last year with an offer that the schoolboys be sold to them because they could bargain better for ransom.

He said the bandits, however, rejected the offer and eventually released the students after negotiations brokered by Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle.

The cleric also said all the students abducted in Kagara, Niger State; Jangebe in Zamfara State, and Federal School of Forestry Mechanisation, Kaduna were released through negotiations.

But the Greenfield abduction is proving difficult because of the linkage between the bandits and Boko Haram, Mr Gumi said.