NRTC WEEKLY: Top 5 trending stories across the country this week 

It’s another edition of NRTC WEEKLY Roundup — in this week’s edition, we are focusing on five trending stories across the country.

As usual, the stories will cut across the top five beats in our media organization, NRTC (your one-stop hub for rich and reliable content covering entertainment, sports, politics, business, and more).

As we all know, a day can’t pass without trending stories and we have tracked many of them for you this week. Why not scroll down and treat yourself? 

ALSO READ, NRTC WEEKLY: Top 5 trending stories across the country this week

Business: Fake news surround new currency deadline; politics: Nigerians decide today, sport: EPL clubs flop in UCL, Manchester United trashes La Liga number one, entertainment: celebrities’ choice of presidential candidate and on the metro; the death of Labour Party Senatorial candidate, Oyibo Chukwu are the stories NRTC WEEKLY will be discussing. 

Politics: Nigeria decides 

The long-awaited day [February 25th, 2023] is today, after several counting down. As the custom of the country demand, Nigerians will be matching to polls to elect their new president and members of National Assembly across the thirty-six [36] states including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

 

Nigerians queuing to vote. Photo credit: NRTC

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 93.5 million Nigerians registered to vote in today’s Presidential and National Assembly election as well as the March 11 governorship and state Assembly polls but 87.2m who collected PVCs will determine who will win today.

ALSO READ, NRTC English: Funny enough or funnily enough?

The electoral umpire who insisted yesterday that no one would be allowed to vote without PVC said after weeks of preparation, they could only clear 87,209,007 voters out of the 93.5 million.

Nigerians will be electing their president among the eighteen [18] candidates jostling for the Aso Rock seat. Three major contenders among the candidates were, the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Labour Party (LP) flagbearer, Peter Obi, and the People Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Tinubu was a former Senator and Lagos State Governor, Obi was a former governor of Anambra and Atiku was a former Vice-president of the country who contested two times but failed to win.

The winner of the presidential election today must score the highest votes and the required 25 percent in two-thirds spread in the 36 states of the federation and in a situation where a clear winner did not emerge, there would be a second election between the person with the highest votes and the person with the spread, but not necessarily the second highest votes scored.

Will sufferers determine who wins today? 

Many Nigerians couldn’t wait for the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari to leave the office come May 29th of this year, having experienced eight years of suffering [according to Nigerians] of APC rule.

NRTC WEEKLY gathered that many Nigerians are not willing to vote for the candidate of APC due to the hardship the party has made them go through jettisoning the ‘hope’ slogan of Bola Tinubu. Most of them claimed it’s ‘youths’ time making them drum up support for Peter Obi while some believe it’s Atiku Abubakar that can make the wrong things right, having experienced sixteen [16] years of PDP rule. 

Who’ll win today? We at NRTC WEEKLY can’t answer the question likewise our readers but only the INEC can do justice to the question after sorting and counting votes. 

Business: Fake news surround new currency deadline

The newly redesigned current is no longer news to Nigerians, even those living outside the country can testify. Nigerians have been groaning since the first deadline for the validity of old N200, N500, and N1000 was pegged for January 31st before the extension to February 10, 2023.

The new notes. Photo credit: NRTC

NRTC WEEKLY gathered that the hope was high when the apex court [Supreme Court] gave a verdict that the deadline will not stand, but the hope died after the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele said the old notes will not remain legal tender after February 10.

However, in a way to ease the suffering of the citizens, President Muhammadu Buhari in his broadcast message said only N200 old notes will remain legal tender till April 10, 2023, which resulted in calling the president and the CBN Governor names for not putting into consideration the citizens. 

There was excitement in the air, when the First Lady of Nigeria, Aisha Buhari on her Instagram page posted that the CBN had ordered that the N500 and N1,000 naira old notes should remain legal tender till May 1, 2023. They [citizens] believed that the information posted by the First Lady was true, but unknowingly to them, it was ‘fake news’.

Netizens reposted and made the news go viral across all social media pages in order to inform and educate Nigerians, but barely three [3] hours after the news went viral, CBN via its verified social media handles debunked the claim that originated from the wife of the first citizen of the country. 

“A whole First Lady disseminated fake news in a country where people were so eager to hear the news of the deadline extension for the old notes. She did it for a purpose. She wants to collect a ministerial appointment from Tinubu if he wins the election.

“She should be prosecuted for such an act. This means we can’t trust any political office holders,” netizens stated. 

In her apology post obtained by NRTC WEEKLY, she said a hacker should be blamed for such a punishable act. Aisha said the hacker had taken charge of her social media handles for years and had been deleting most of her posts about Tinubu and other important issues.

She apologized to Nigerians, saying such information will not emanate from her social media accounts again, as well as called on security agencies to fish out and bring to book the hacker. 

“There’s no hacker anywhere, she’s the one that shared the fake press release with misinformed Nigerians,” netizens reacted. 

Sport: EPL clubs flop in UCL, Manchester United trashes La Liga number one

This week, no clubs from England Premier League were able to win their first leg of the UEFA Champions League amidst several expectations from fans. 

Liverpool Football Club lost to Real Madrid [Spain club] at Anfield, Manchester City played a draw with RB RB Leipzig in their home; Dortmund trashed Chelsea one to nil in their home and Tottenham Hotspur was unable to record a single goal against Ac Milan of Italy [Serie A].

 

Real Madrid team. Photo credit: NRTC

To these club fans, it looks like a spell, most especially the overrated Manchester City found it hard to triumph over the Bundesliga side club. 

It was not a good week for EPL football fans as none of the aforementioned clubs were able to make fans happy, but things turn around, sadness turned to joy on Friday evening as Manchester United club trashed the leading club in La Liga, Barcelona football club 2:1 at Old Trafford to advanced to the Europa League round of 16.

Netizens and United fans set the internet buzzing as they couldn’t hold the excitement of sending the overrated Barcelona back to Spain after playing a draw at Camp Nou last week. 

As the Premier League returns today, which clubs will win and make its fans happy after days of sorrows this week?

Entertainment: Celebrities and their presidential candidate choice 

In politics, there’s a free choice of supporting any candidate one feels it’ll perform and lead the people to the promised land just like Moses in the Bible. This applied to many celebrities as they picked candidates of their choice in today’s presidential and National Assembly elections but instead of staying put to their picking choice, they decided to throw words at each other.

Findings by NRTC WEEKLY revealed that many actresses and actors based in Lagos [especially the Yoruba’s] were ready to vote for Tinubu today but among them who were from the Igbo tribe are for Obi which in turn resulted in an exchange of words.

 

Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu. Photo credit: NRTC

We (NRTC WEEKLY) found out those supporting Tinubu in their attacking words asked if Obi’s supporters should have stayed back in their states to become millionaires and well-known celebrities across the globe but decided to stay in Lagos developed by the APC presidential candidate, Tinubu. 

This got netizens and some Nigerians talking and beseeching the celebrities to keep their integrity instead of exchanging words with politicians.

“What will be will be. The winner will eventually emerge and all these will not matter or decide who will win as president'” netizens statement. 

Metro: The death of Labour Party Senatorial candidate, Oyibo Chukwu

Tears flow freely on Wednesday as the Labour Party candidate for the Enugu East senatorial district election, Prof. Oyibo Chukwu, was murdered 

NRTC WEEKLY found out that Chukwu was burnt to death three days before the presidential and National Assembly elections alongside five other party members at Amaechi Awkunanaw, Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State.

Logo of Enugu State. Photo credit: NRTC

As of press time, NRTC WEEKLY gathered that the killers were unknown as well as the reasons for such actions which have caused netizens and Nigerians to talk. 

According to them, in a country practicing democracy people will kill themselves because of elective positions and go scot-free without securities operatives doing anything. 

To them, the assassination was a bad one for the Labour Party and the entire family of the deceased, resulting in calling on the Commander of Army Forces and the president of the country, President Muhammadu Buhari to do everything possible to fish out the killers. 

Condemning the incident the presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi called for immediate man hurting for the perpetrators, saying people should be able to practice politics freely and citizens should be allowed to vote for those candidates of their choice without intimidation. 

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in its response to the incident and the fate of the party rescheduled the senatorial election to hold on 11 March alongside the Governorship and States Houses of Assembly elections.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, announced the development at a briefing in Abuja on Friday.

At this junction, we’ll be dropping the cotton of this week NRTC WEEKLY, and don’t hesitate to join us for another wonderful edition next week.