The All Progressives Congress National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, on Wednesday, said part of his assignment as the ruling party chairman would be to ensure the recruitment of the best hands from the Peoples Democratic Party into the APC.
Adamu spoke on Wednesday during the Valedictory/Commendation Session by the Senate in honour of outgoing lawmakers recently elected to other offices.
Aside from
Adamu who is the APC chairman, other outgoing lawmakers are the APC Deputy
National Chairman (North), Abubakar Kyari, and Deputy Governor of Zamfara
State, Senator Hassan Muhammad Nasiha.
Plateau massacre: Bandits shot, beheaded victims in their homes —Survivors
Following
the massacre of 78 persons in some Plateau communities on Sunday, the residents
have fled the affected areas to homes of relations in safer communities in
Garga area of Dengi, headquarters of Kanam Local Government Area.
Some
survivors of the attack, which also led to the burning down of scores of
houses, also said, yesterday, that their communities were attacked through the
land donated for ranching in the areas.
Though
mourning their loved ones, who had since been given mass burial, the survivors
said they had to leave for fear of further attacks.
2023: What We Told Osinbajo About His Presidential Ambition – Senate President, Lawan
The All
Progressives Congress (APC) caucus in the senate has wished Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo good luck in his quest to lead Nigeria.
Osinbajo
formally joined the 2023 presidential race on Monday.
On Tuesday,
he hosted the legislators to Iftar dinner at his official residence at Aguda
House within the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting
held behind closed doors but the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan who led
the APC senators to the Villa told reporters what transpired.
South African leader consoles families after deadly floods
South
African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday met with devastated families in
Durban, after record rains sparked floods and mudslides that killed at least 59
people.
In the
township of Clermont, where homes are precariously perched on hillsides, he met
a family who suffered the deaths of four children after a wall weakened by
rains collapsed on them on Monday night.
“I have to
come and see for myself the damage,” Ramaphosa said as he consoled the family.
“We see
such tragedies hitting other countries like Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but now we
are the affected ones,” the president said.
2023: Osinbajo disowns Olugbenga Olaoye over comments against Tinubu
The Vice
President, Yemi Osinbajo has asked Nigerians to ignore one Olugbenga Olaoye,
Co-Convener, ‘Osinbajo Think Thank’ over his comments during an interview.
Olugbenga
while reacting to the presidential ambition of the national leader of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu in an interview with Arise TV said
Nigerians do not want another sick president who would be embarking on foreign
medical trips.
He said
Nigeria needs a capable person like the Vice President who formally declared on
Monday to run for the top political office in the 2023 elections.
He said,
“We cannot afford another sick President who will be travelling to London all
the time as we currently have, we need someone who is mentally sound. The
little time that Osinbajo spent leading FEC was different. Things were moving”
FG to introduce online tracking system for passport application
THE Federal
Government will in May introduce a system online for the tracking and
monitoring of passport applications.
The
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said this at the opening of a two-day
workshop for Passport Control Officers of the Nigeria Immigration Service in
Abuja on Tuesday.
Aregbesola
revealed that the Federal Government had concluded plans to launch a system
that would lead to minimal interaction between passport applicants and
immigration officers.
The
minister said apart from the National Identity Number verification and linking,
there should be no other major reason for the delay in issuing passports.
COVID-19: Italian govt donates over three million doses of vaccine to Nigeria
The Nigeria
government on Monday received 3,002,400 doses of Johnson & Johnson
(J&J) COVID-19 vaccines from the government of Italy.
Speaking at
the handover ceremony in Abuja, the executive director of the National Primary
Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, said the donation was
in line with the global call for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Mr Shuaib
said the donation is also a reflection of the commitment of the Italian
government and European delegates to the global efforts in halting the pandemic
which has claimed millions of lives.
Relief as Niger community gets free electricity after 100 years
A community
in Gbako Local Government Area of Niger State has received a free 90kw hybrid
mini-grid to provide free electricity for over 305 households.
The
mini-grid which was donated to the Gbanga community by Engie Energy Access was
commissioned on Wednesday by the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello.
Speaking
during the launch of the mini-grid, the Managing Director of Engie Energy
Access, Bankole Cardoso, noted that the provision of electricity to the said
community marked its first encounter with power supply.
He added
that the power supply which had been providing electricity for the people of
Gbangba since November 2021 empowered over 300 consumers.
Court sacks Ebonyi PDP chairman
Federal
High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday, ruled that the Chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party in Ebonyi State, Mr Tochukwu Okorie, was not validly nominated
to contest election into the position.
Delivering
a ruling in the suit filed by Mr Silas Onu, challenging the election of Okorie,
Justice Ahmed Mohammed held that Okorie was indolent in submitting his
nomination form and could not benefit from his wrongdoing.
He declared
that Okorie submitted his nomination form on October 4, 2021 – days after the
October 1, 2021 deadline stipulated in the guidelines on the conduct of
congresses.
EU pledges €500m in military aid to Ukraine
The 27
European Union member states have agreed to send another 500 million Euros in
military aid for Ukraine, top EU Diplomat, Josep Borrell, announced on
Wednesday in a statement.
Borrell said it was crucial the EU increased military support for Ukraine as Russia gears up for a new assault in the country’s east as “the next weeks will be decisive”.
It is the
third package of military aid the EU has agreed to send to Ukraine to defend
itself amid the Russian invasion, totalling 1.5 billion euros worth of military
aid availed so far.
Court lifts movement restriction on Sowore
A Court of
Appeal in Abuja has, on Wednesday, lifted the movement restriction on human
rights activist and convener of Revolution Now, Omoyele Sowore.
Sowore was,
in 2019, restricted to Abuja by a Federal High Court following charges of
treasonable felony and cyberstalking the President, Major General Muhammadu
Buhari(retd.), among other offences.
The Appeal
Court ruled that Sowore could now leave Abuja but not travel out of Nigeria.
The court
said that the restriction of the 2023 presidential aspirant to Abuja was
“excessive”, and therefore, lifted it.
Lagos nurse performs surgery on Edo bizwoman, victim dies
The family
of a businesswoman, Fatima Isa, have demanded justice after she died during a
fibroid surgery at the Felobam Alpha Clinic in the Mafoluku area of Oshodi,
Lagos State.
PUNCH Metro
gathered that the victim, alongside her sister, Queen, left their hometown in
Auchi, Edo State, and travelled down for the surgery at the medical facility.
When the
sisters got to the hospital last Thursday, Fatima was admitted and Queen slept
over at the hospital.
INSECURITY: 2,968 killed, 1,484 abducted in three months; Niger, Zamfara, Kaduna most violent states
At least,
2,968 people were killed while 1,484 were abducted in Nigeria from January to
March 2022, according to data released by the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST)
Nigeria
Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, gathers
the data though “weekly surveys of Nigerian and international media.”
According
to the data, more people were killed in the North-west region than in other
regions in the country. At least 1,103 people were killed within the period in
the region.
The
North-central region recorded the second-highest number of murders with 984
killed during the period while in the North-east 488 were killed.
In the
South-east 181 were killed during the period under review, while in the
South-west and South-South regions 127 and 85 people were killed respectively.
Over 4800 persons displaced by Plateau state attacks – Humanitarian Minister
The
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
Sadiya Umar Farouq, Wednesday said the attacks on five communities in Plateau
state, by armed bandits on Monday displaced over 4800 women and children.
The
communities are Kyaram, Gyambau, Dungur, Kukawa, Shuwaka villages under Garga
District were attacked by armed bandits on Monday while scores were reportedly
killed during the mayhem.
Farouq said
the development was reported to the ministry by the Coordinator, National
Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) North Central Zonal office Jos, Mr Eugene
Nyelong after profiling and assessment of victims.
677 drug traffickers jailed, 3,359 arrested, 65,915.891kg seized in first quarter
No fewer
than 677 even traffickers have been convicted and sentenced to various jail
terms between January and March 2022, with a total of 3,359 arrests and
65,915.891 kilograms of assorted drugs seized within the same period seized by
the National Drug Law and Enforcement Agency.
No fewer
than 2,223 drug users were also counselled through brief interventions and
rehabilitated in NDLEA facilities across the country in the first quarter of
the year; figures that represent a fair balance between the Agency’s drug
supply reduction and drug demand reduction activities.
Lagos has
the highest figure of drug seizures with 22,192.62 kilograms of illicit
substances recovered from parts of the state, followed by the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport, MMIA, Command, Ikeja, also in Lagos, with 8,979.869kg of
drugs seized between Jan and March, while Kano and Kaduna led the pack in the
arrests of offenders with 194 arrests each within the same period.
Russia recovery from sanctions will take ‘years’
Russia will
take “many years” to rebuild its economy if Western sanctions over Ukraine
remain in place for a long time, the head of the audit chamber and former
finance minister said Wednesday.
“If
sanctions remain at the current level, it will take about two years of
reconstruction, no less,” Alexei Kudrin said.
“Then we
will have to rebuild for many years because what we are talking about is
replacing a whole series of imported products,” he was quoted by Russian news
agencies as saying.
Abia, Delta, Kano Get New Polytechnics
The federal
government has revealed that three new federal polytechnics would be situated
in Abia, Delta and Kano States.
The new
institutions are to commence academic activities in October 2022, and this
would bring to 36 the number of federal polytechnics in the country with all
states having one each.
This is as
the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Jibrin Barau, has commended
President Muhammadu Buhari for siting one of the approved federal polytechnics
in Kano State.
War: What to expect if Ukraine, Russia conflict escalates – WTO warns
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) says the war
in Ukraine has created immense human suffering and was putting the fragile
recovery of global trade at risk.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO Director-General
said the most immediate impact of the Russian invasion had been a sharp rise in
commodity prices.
“Smaller supplies and higher prices for food
means that the world’s poor could be forced to do without.
“This must not be allowed to happen,”
Okonjo-Iweala, warned on Tuesday.
Ukraine War Poses Risk to South African Inflation Expectations
South Africa’s central bank warned that
mounting price pressures stemming from the war in Ukraine risk de-anchoring
inflation expectations as it announced the first full overhaul of its monetary
policy implementation system in almost a quarter century.
While the South African Reserve Bank officially
targets price growth in a band of 3% to 6%, its monetary policy committee
prefers to anchor expectations close to the midpoint of the range. A survey
showed inflation assumptions over the next two years increased to 5% in the
first quarter, from 4.7% in the final three months of 2021, raising the
prospect of “more enduring” second-round effects on prices, it said Tuesday in
its bi-annual Monetary Policy Review.
The bank doesn’t respond to short-term price
shocks. Instead, its policy making seeks to address the wider second-round
effects of higher prices, such as on transport and food costs and that could
feed into wage setting.
ASUU strike: NLC gives FG 21-day ultimatum to find resolution
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has given the
federal government a 21-day ultimatum to resolve the issues with members of the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non-Academic Staff Union of
Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Senior Staff Association of
Nigeria Universities (SSANU), and National Association of Academic Technologist
(NAAT).
This was contained in a communique released on
Wednesday and jointly signed by the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, and the
congress’ General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja.
After the meeting with the leaders of the
affected unions, Wabba frowned at the government’s failure to honour its 2009
re-negotiated agreement with them.
Respected and powerful people in Zamfara are behind banditry and killings - Gov. Matawalle says
Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle has
alleged that respected and powerful people are sponsoring terrorists in the
state.
Zamfara State has suffered a series of bandit
attacks in recent times.
On Tuesday, April 12, bandits abducted five
female students of the College of Health Science and Technology, Tsafe, Zamfara
State.
Late Osinachi's Nwachukwu's pastor, Paul Enenche, breaks his silence days after her passing
Senior Pastor of Dunamis Church Abuja and the
clergyman of late gospel singer, Osinachi Nwachukwu, Paul Enenche, has broken
his silence days after her passing.
In a video shared on social media this evening,
the clergyman said that Osinachi and her husband came two and a half months ago
to complain of a chest infection and he did his best as her pastor to get her
medical help until she died.
He said it was after her passing that he got
wind of the series of abuse she allegedly suffered in the hands of her husband,
Peter Nwachukwu.
Pastor
Enenche said when he asked Osinachi's twin sister, her son, and even church
members who knew about the physical abuse, they told him that late Osinachi
would always beg them not to let the church leaders know what she was passing
through and that she believed God will change him.
How Nigeria, others can tackle insecurity – World Bank
The World Bank Group President, David Malpass,
on Tuesday, expressed concern about the increasing spate of insecurity
globally.
Malpass said this in his speech at the Warsaw
School of Economics in Poland ahead of the 2022 Spring Meetings titled
“Addressing Challenges to Growth, Security, and Stability’’.
The session was monitored virtually by the News
Agency of Nigeria. He said millions of people were suffering amid massive
reversals in development.
According to Malpass, effective allocation of
capital, promotion of growth and production, and keeping markets open are some
actions the global community could take to address the situation. He said that
the overlapping global crises were resulting in a weak economic outlook.
According to him, the violence is unfortunately not confined to Ukraine.
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