• President Bola Tinubu exchanging pleasantries with Pope Leo XIV at the installation mass for the new Pope in Rome on Sunday. Photo: State House.

President Bola Tinubu exchanging pleasantries with Pope Leo XIV at the installation mass for the new Pope in Rome on Sunday. Photo: State House.

President Bola Tinubu shook hands with the newly installed Bishop of Rome and the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, on Sunday.

The US pontiff shook hands with several world leaders in St Peter’s Square after the inauguration mass on Sunday.

While shaking hands with the Pope, Tinubu had a brief conversation with him before moving away.

Other world leaders who shook hands with the Pope include US Vice President J.D Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others.

The Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON) has announced its withdrawal from ongoing merger talks with seven other maritime media associations.

In a statement signed by the President, Kelvin Kagbare, AMJON cited the other associations’ refusal to dissolve their individual bodies and merge into a single, united association as the reason for its withdrawal.

“AMJON believes that creating a single, strong, and indissoluble maritime journalists’ association can only be achieved if all eight associations dissolve their individual structures and fuse into one united body,” said Kagbare.

The other seven associations have proposed a confederacy model, which would allow them to retain their individual associations while coming together under a new name and structure.

AMJON rejects this approach, describing it as a “deception” and a “creation of another association in disguise.”

Finnish prosecutors on Friday said they had charged a man with inciting terrorism online who a media report identified as Nigerian separatist leader Simon Ekpa.

According to the prosecution authority, the accused remained in custody and denied the charges.

AFP reports that Finland’s National Prosecution Authority said in a statement that it had charged “a Finnish individual in a case involving suspected public incitement to commit crimes with terrorist intent and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.”

It added that the alleged crimes had been committed in the city of Lahti between 2021 and 2024 and were related to the suspect’s efforts to establish Nigeria’s Biafra region as an independent state.

The prosecution authority did not name the accused but Finnish public broadcaster YLE identified him as separatist leader Simon Ekpa.Ekpa — who claims to lead the Biafra Republic’s government in exile — was detained in November.

According to the prosecution authority, the accused remained in custody and denied the charges.