Saturday 5 April 2026 · Easter weekend Easter Sunday 2026 is not a public holiday in Nigeria — it falls on a regular Sunday — but the country enters it under three simultaneous pressures that feel anything but restful. The Plateau massacre’s true horror is crystallising: Governor Mutfwang’s revelation that gunmen posed as NDLEA officers to lower community resistance is a tactical escalation — like a fire brigade that arrives and starts setting fires. Wike’s ‘I would have shot him’ remark about a journalist on live television is the clearest signal yet that press freedom in Nigeria faces executive-level threat; Amnesty International’s swift condemnation gives it international gravity. Flutterwave’s banking licence is Easter’s genuinely good news — after $40bn in transactions in a decade, Nigeria’s biggest fintech now sits inside the banking system, not merely alongside it. And the NLC’s decision to suspend May Day in favour of street protests in minimum-wage-defaulting states means the post-Easter return to work could be combustible. Nigeria in April 2026 is a country simultaneously celebrating resurrection and processing violence — a nation where economic milestones and state intimidation of journalists share the same morning newspaper.