The All Progressives Congress, APC, on Monday, closed the forgery case it instituted against Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, after it called a total of six witnesses and tendered 17 Exhibits. Lead counsel to the APC, Chief Akin Olujimi, SAN, announced decision of the party to rest its case, shortly after the court discharged the sixth witness, PW-6, Dr. Mikano Asekome, who is an Associate Professor in Banking and Finance Department at Benson Idahosa University, Benin city, Edo state. The PW-6 told the court that he was on December 23, 2020, summoned to appear as witness in the matter. The witness went ahead and tendered in evidence, the original copy of his certificate in Agricultural-Economics, which the University of Ibadan awarded to him on July 31, 1978. Under cross-examination, ...
A 45-year-old nurse in California tested positive for COVID-19 more than a week after receiving Pfizer Inc’s coronavirus vaccine, an ABC News affiliate reported on Tuesday. Matthew W., a nurse at two different local hospitals, said in a Facebook post on December 18 that he had received the Pfizer vaccine, telling the ABC News affiliate that his arm was sore for a day but that he had suffered no other side-effects. Six days later on Christmas Eve, he became sick after working a shift in the COVID-19 unit, the report added. He got the chills and later came down with muscle aches and fatigue. He went to a drive-up hospital testing site and tested positive for COVID-19 the day after Christmas, the report said. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San...
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has attributed the reasons for the second wave of COVID-19 to the opening up of the economy, the re-opening of schools, large religious congregations, and social gatherings among others. A statement from the Lagos State Ministry of Health quoted the commissioner as saying this while giving an update on the State Government’s response against the second wave of COVID-19 at a press briefing held in Ikeja on Monday. The statement titled, ‘COVID-19: Lagos admonishes residents’, was signed by the LSMOH Director of Public Affairs, Tunbosun Ogunbanwo. “Abayomi attributed the reason for the second wave of COVID19 to include, opening up of the economy; general laxity, false sense of security and non-adherence to safety guidelines by citiz...
Barely five days to the end of the year 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria has disclosed that a survey carried out by its Statistics Department revealed that the naira is expected to depreciate further in January 2021. The report, titled, ‘December 2020 Business Expectations Survey Report’ added that there might also be a steady rise in interest rate from December till the next six months. The naira witnessed a sharp fall in recent weeks, reaching its lowest on November 30, 2020, when it exchanged for N500/$1. Since then, the dollar has been hovering between N460 and N470. As of Friday, however, one dollar exchanged for 465 in the parallel market. Also, the Nigerian economy had on November 21 slid into its second recession in five years when the economy shrank again in the third quarter. Th...
The village head of Madaka, Alhaji Zakari Yau, in Niger State who was kidnapped last week has reportedly been murdered by bandits. Yau who was first kidnapped three months ago before being released and again taken into the custody of bandits was reportedly killed on Christmas day. The murder of the traditional ruler brings the number of people killed by bandits in Madaka to four. The bandits during the December 20 raid first killed the local head of the vigilante in the town, Ishyaku Alhassan, his son Abdulhamid Ishyaku and one other person. Reports from freed victims said that the village head was killed after being tortured by bandits who sometimes sat on him while smoking Indian hemp. It was gathered that the monarch was even forced by the bandits to smoke the weeds. The Chief of Staff ...
Teenager Abubakar Mohammed Gidado has expressed his readiness to utilize every opportunity to showcase his talent and uplift Jigawa Golden Stars as the 2020/21 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) gets underway. Tipped as one of the young talents to shine in the league this season, the 15-year old star is set to make his NPFL debut for the Northern club side against Sunshine Stars in their home game Kaduna in one of the opening Match Day 1 fixtures. “This is an opportunity for me to prove my talent in the league and to the world; I would be glad to give all my best for my club,” a confident Gidado said matter-of-factly. Snapped from Kingsgrant FC of Lagos, Gidado is delighted with the quality of players and standard in display at Jigawa Golden Stars which has helped him to settle do...
Nigerian National Assembly spends billions of naira on constitution review
The perennial constitution amendment exercise by the National Assembly is characterised by proposals that keep resurfacing despite gulping billions of naira yearly, an analysis has shown. The federal parliament had from the 5th to the current 9th National Assembly made several attempts to amend some provisions of the 1999 Constitution to no avail. At every session, the parliament officially spends N1 billion shared equally between the Senate and the House of Representatives. There are reports that the lawmakers spend more than what is appropriated for the exercise. While some amendments were successful, several others suffered serial failures but kept appearing in new proposals. Considering the huge spending, lawyers and civil society groups have pointed out that no significant amendments ...