Friday
Coronavirus takes toll on federal roads’ construction in Lagos
The ravaging effect of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was, perhaps, the biggest challenge faced by stakeholders in the road sub sector of the construction industry in 2020. As the virus gained ground, several contractors soon abandoned work and shut their operations, consequently, many hitherto gainfully employed Nigerians were thrown into the labour market. Even when the government later introduced partial lockdown measures, the number of workers on site was scaled down by many contractors in line with COVID-19 protocols, which slowed down progress of work. Virtually all road projects in Lagos State suffered the effect of the pandemic, with every project having its own peculiar challenge. The reconstruction of 46km Agbara-Seme section of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway project awarded to CGC Nigeria...
Signal outage keeps messages from sending
If you’re having trouble sending messages in the secure messaging app Signal, it may be due to technical difficulties the company says are affecting the app on Friday. Signal allows for secure and encrypted video, voice, and text communication, but users were greeted this morning with messages that failed to send. Signal confirmed the issue on its official Twitter account with the promise that it would “restore service as quickly as possible.” Signal is experiencing technical difficulties. We are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible. — Signal (@signalapp) January 15, 2021 In the last week, Signal reported a surge of new users to its app following a recommendation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a new WhatsApp privacy policy that may have driven users away from the Facebook-o...
Morocco to host 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations
Morocco will be the host country for the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, the Confederation of African Football has announced. Congo had been due to welcome to the competition in 2020 until they pulled out in July 2019, leaving the event without a host before the event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic a year later. Before the cancellation, Caf had made a positive step with the expansion of the African Women’s Cup of Nations from eight to 12 teams, which was the first change to the format after 11 editions. Besides that, a record total of 36 national teams have entered the qualifying tournament for the 2020 Awcon finals, with 11 countries expected to make it out of the qualification series. “Morocco has been designated host of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations,” interim...
Gunmen attack Bayelsa community
Unknown gunmen on Friday attacked the Ogila-ama community in the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The armed men, who stormed the coastal community in three speed boats, shot sporadically before setting some buildings on fire. The incident was said to have caused panic and confusion as the residents of Ogila-ama fled into the bush. Reports quoted a native of the community, Bolouikie Ogoro, as saying that he received phone calls from his sister and some others informing him of the armed invasion. According to him, the armed arsonists operated in three speed boats and fired gunshots indiscriminately to ward off any resistance before going for the targeted houses that they razed down. It could not be immediately ascertained if any life was lost even as no group had claimed...
Presidency: Boko Haram weaker now than in 2015
As the country marks the 2021 Armed Forces Remembrance Day, Friday, the Presidency has declared that the activities of Boko Haram insurgents have been weakened compared to what obtained in 2015. This is even as it said that more than 2,403 criminals, including terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and criminals of other sorts, were reportedly eliminated by the Nigerian Armed Forces, in coordinated operations across the country between March 18 and December 30, 2020. The event is billed to hold in the early hours of the day at the National Arcade, opposite Eagles Square, Three Arms Zone, Abuja. The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a statement titled “Security checklist, as Nigeria marks Armed Forces Remembrance Day, by Presidency” flaunted the Buhari admin...
Golden Eaglets qualify for WAFU U17 Cup semi finals
Nigeria reached the semi finals of the WAFU U17 Cup Tournament ongoing in Lome, Togo on Tuesday evening after Group B pacesetters Cote d’Ivoire hammered the Black Starlets of Ghana 3-1 at the city’s Stade Municipal. Five-time world champions Nigeria, who lost by the odd goal to the Ivorians on the opening day of the competition and were forced to a 1-1 draw by the Starlets at the weekend, needed a favour from the Ivorians to progress to the knockout stage. And the Ivorians obliged. The Baby Elephants raced into the lead after only nine minutes and consolidated at 2-0 as the match wore on. But the Starlets, themselves two-time champions of the world, pegged back their neighbours to leave Nigeria’s chances on the wire. The Eaglets and their Ghanaian counterparts had both scored through penal...
Aston Villa winger Trezeguet tests positive for coronavirus
Mahmoud Hassan ‘Trezeguet’ has tested positive for coronavirus, the Aston Villa star has confirmed. Since his head injury during an English top-flight game where the Claret and Blue Army stuttered to a 2-1 defeat by West Ham United in November 2020, the Egyptian is yet to feature for the Villa Park giants. The 26-year-old went down under the challenge of Declan Rice while trying to connect to Douglas Luiz’s flick in the 71st minute. Upon his return to first-team training at their Bodymoor Health training ground on Thursday, Trezeguet contracted the virus alongside several first-team players and staff. “After being hit in the head with six stitches, I was exposed to a tear and a hindquarter and I was not able to play for a month, then after rehabilitation and the beginning of the return to ...
Normalcy returns to Kwara community after security operatives, drivers clash
Normalcy returned to Ilesha-Baruba community in the Baruten Local Government Area of Kwara on Monday after a Friday clash between security operatives and commercial vehicles drivers. The clash between the security operatives and drivers in the area left at least three persons dead and several people injured from gunshots. Newsmen report that the clash occurred on Friday during a misunderstanding over “bookings’’ between the operatives mounting roadblocks on the Ilesha-Baruba/Chikanda highway and commercial drivers plying the route. The corpses of the deceased, which had earlier been deposited at a morgue in Saki, Oyo State, were brought into Ilesha-Baruba on Sunday night for burial. Newsmen who went round the community reports that the residents have returned to their normal businesses. Ma...
Uganda election: Will Bobi Wine derail Yoweri Museveni’s sixth term bid?
As millions of Ugandans prepare to pick the country’s president this week, the stakes could not be higher. The run-up to Thursday’s vote has been marred by restrictions on campaigning, arrests of opposition figures and deadly violence. At least 54 people were killed in November as security forces put down protests by opposition supporters. Longtime President Yoweri Museveni, 76, is facing a strong challenge from popular musician-turned-politician Bobi Wine in his bid to secure a sixth, five-year term in office. Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was just four years old when Museveni, a former rebel leader, came to power in 1986. In 2005, Uganda’s ruling-party-dominated parliament removed presidential term limits. And in 2017, lawmakers scrapped the age limit of 75 fo...
Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho expects Aston Villa match to go ahead
Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho expects their Premier League fixture against Aston Villa to be played. The match is understood to be in doubt after an outbreak of coronavirus at the Midlands club. Villa played their FA Cup game with Liverpool on Friday night with a youth team, losing 4-1. It is understood that Spurs are yet to hear anything from the Premier League regarding the fixture, so Mourinho will begin preparations on Monday. He may have been making more of a point about the lack of information from the league, but asked after Sunday’s 5-0 win at Marine when he expects his side to next play, Mourinho said: “Wednesday.” Asked again whether he thinks the Villa game will go ahead, he replied: “Yeah. Nobody told me that I’m not going to play so (on Monday morning) we start to prepare for t...
Japan detects new coronavirus variant
Japan on Sunday reported that four people who had arrived in Tokyo from Brazil were found to be infected with a new variant of the coronavirus. The four passengers, who landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on January 2 from the state of Amazonas, Brazil, tested positive after spending time in the airport in quarantine, Japan’s Health Ministry announced. Takaji Wakita, head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said the variant was different from those already spreading in Britain and South Africa, Kyodo News reported. The institute reported that there was no evidence at present that the new strain was more contagious. Of the four, a man in his 40s had been hospitalized after his breathing difficulties worsened, a woman in her 30s complained of a sore throat and headaches, and a mal...
Republican senator: Donald Trump must ‘go away as soon as possible’
A second Republican senator in the United States has called on Donald Trump to step down after some of the president’s supporters overran the Capitol building in Washington, DC this week in a deadly riot. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press news programme on Sunday, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey said Trump should resign for the good of the country. “I think the best way for our country is for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible,” he said. Toomey said president’s resignation is the “best path forward, the best way to get this person in the rear-view mirror for us”, but added that he did not believe Trump would step down before his term ends on January 20. He also said the president’s role encouraging the riot was an “impeachable offence”. Momentum has been buildi...
