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Eko DisCo explains outage in Badagry
The management of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) has attributed the outage in Badagry and its environs to early downpour, which destroyed over 20 electric poles along Agbara-Badagry expressway. The General Manager, Corporate Communications, EKEDC, Mr Godwin Idemudia, said on Thursday in Lagos that the March 8 morning rainfall caused serious damage, which damaged the company’s installation in the area. Idemudia said fallen poles had been removed and the company’s technical team was already working hard resolve the problem. The general manager assured residents that electricity supply would be restored to the affected communities after the repair. According to him, the affected areas in Badagry town, Ajara communities, Vrekete, Cele Keta, Poshukor, Zogbakame, Finayon, Vetho, Iy...
AAC disowns Omoyele Sowore as its chair
The leadership of the African Action Congress (AAC) on Wednesday said that the party’s presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore has been expelled by the party’s highest decision making organ and he is therefore presently unknown to the party. The party also in a petition to the Inspector General of Police claimed that the convener of the Revolution Now’s utterances and behavior have become a security risk and should be investigated by the security agencies before he plugs the country into crisis. Addressing journalists in Abuja, the National Chairman of AAC, Dr. Leonard Nzenwa said the letter by Sowore to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, claiming to be the Chairman of the party amounted to impersonation. Dr. Nzenwa, who is also the National Chairman o...
Ogun governor, others get coronavirus vaccine jab
Dapo Abiodun of Ogun has become the first governor to receive a dose of coronavirus vaccine publicly. Abiodun posted on his Twitter page he got the COVID-19 vaccine jab in Abeokuta under the Ogun state health commissioner’s supervision, Omotomilola Coker, on Tuesday. “I just had my dose of the Astra-Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The doses were delivered today in Abeokuta. It is first service to self then people, when we take the vaccine because we must silence the virus,” he tweeted using the handle, @dabiodunMFR. Abiodun, on Monday, received 50,000 out of 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines the federal government allocated to the state. After getting the jab, he said, “There is a portal that already exists, and there is a link that allows you to register or pre-register and identify...
UNESCO scores President Buhari high in women inclusion in governance
Mr Steven Onyekwelu, Spotlight Project Manager, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), on Monday, said President Muhammadu Buhari demonstrated great inclusion of women in governance. Onyekwelu said this at the occasion of the International Women’s Day (IWD) in Abuja, with the theme of this year’s celebration “Choose to Challenge.” The project manager said UNESCO was satisfied with President Buhari’s commitment to women empowerment and equality. “We are satisfied, as a matter of fact, His Excellency the President is doing a lot to ensure that inclusion in every area, in terms of governance, education, in terms of health, women are included,” he said. The UN official, who congratulated women on the IWD, noted that UNESCO had through the spotlight project, ...
Nigeria threatens to ban flights from UAE, Netherlands
The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has threatened to ban flights from the UAE and The Netherlands as a reciprocal action. The task force said the Ministry of Aviation and its relevant agencies have been mandated to take the necessary reciprocal measures as may be permissible under the laws and other international obligations expected to be discharged against Emirates airlines operating from the UAE and other airlines from The Netherlands. Mr Boss Mustapha, the Chairman of PTF and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, disclosed this at the routine briefing of the committee in Abuja on Monday. Mustapha said: “For over a month, Nigeria has been engaged with the authorities of the UAE and The Netherlands over pre-departure testing requirements passengers should meet before ...
Protest as PDP sweeps Delta council polls
File Photo Delta State Independent Electoral Commission (DSIEC) on Sunday in Asaba returned all the 25 chairmanship candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as winners in Saturday’s local government elections. The PDP chairmanship candidates won the election in their respective local government areas, with landslide, according to the various returning officers. Declaring the announcement of results open, chairman of DSIEC, Mike Ogbodu said the election was conducted in observance of COVID-19 protocols, adding that the exercise was generally peaceful. Although, the All Progressive Congress (APC) which is the main opposition party, pulled out midway into the polls, the returning officers insisted that the elections were contested. Publicity secretary of the APC in the state, Sylvest...
ECOWAS suggests compensation for coronavirus vaccine adverse reactions
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Vaccine Taskforce has recommended compensation for citizens who suffer side effects or injury from the COVID-19 vaccination. Professor Stanley Okolo, the Director-General of the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), disclosed this at the 5th Regional Steering Committee meeting of the Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) project on Saturday in Abuja. Okolo said that the recommendation was one of the resolutions adopted by the taskforce and presented to the ECOWAS Ministerial Coordinating Committee to encourage citizens to receive the vaccine. He explained during the REDISSE virtual meeting that the issue of indemnity was being taken up by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, the global initiative aimed at equit...
Report: Many Delta residents not aware of ongoing council poll
Some residents of Asaba and its and environs on Saturday said they that they were not aware of the local government poll taking place across Delta State, according to a report by newsmen. Agnes Afam, a business centre operator, said, “I never knew today is election. I only came out to discover that today election.” Sunday Ugwu, a carpenter who lives on Ibusa Road, said that he was not aware that there was an election, and as such, would not go to vote. Others have also complained that their polling units were far from their homes and would not participate in the election as a result. Okechukwu Onu told newsmen that he lived around ULO Ibusa Road and his polling unit was at the College of Education, Asaba, a distance he considered too far. “I advise the people in charge of elections to brin...
2,700 Akwa Ibom women benefit from federal government’s special grant
The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has advised Nigerian women not to regard the N20, 000 special grant given to the rural woman by the federal government as the fabled national cake. She has rather charged the beneficiaries to judiciously use the grant to improve their living standard by utilizing it as seed capital do boost their trades and businesses for greater income. Speaking through Bashir Nura Alkali, the permanent secretary of the ministry, at the flag off of the Grant for Rural Women Project and the symbolic disbursement of the grant to 2700 women of Akwa Ibom state, in Uyo, on Thursday, Farouq explained that the Grant for Rural Women Programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of Presid...
PIB: Rivers governor supports allocation of 10 per cent oil revenue to host communities
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has advocated not less than 10 percent fund allocation to host communities in the Petroleum Industry Bill that is still before the National Assembly. Governor Wike said it is also necessary that the bill state in clear terms what specific development projects that the allocated fund should be spent on, so that development of host communities can be truly actualised. The governor gave the charge when the members of the National Assembly Committee on the Petroleum Industry Bill, visited him at Government House, Port Harcourt, on Thursday. Governor Wike stated that oil bearing communities have suffered the loss of their livelihood, good drinking water and their socio-cultural life disrupted because of the insensitivity of the International Oil compan...
Police nab five for selling fake coronavirus certificates at Lagos airport
Five persons have been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command over fake COVID-19 results at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) while two others are still at large. The suspects, Achibong Idorenyin, Moses Samuel, Popoola Adewale, Wale Aderele and Abdulmalik Ibrahim, police said major in selling fake COVID-19 negative results to unsuspecting travellers within the international wing of the airport. The suspects at large are; Shehu Imam and Adeola Darlington who works with Sky Blue Services limited, a cleaning service at the airport. Briefing journalists, on Thursday, in his office at the airport, Mr Bature Umar, the Commissioner, Airports Command, said that the incident occurred on February 19, 2021, at the airport where a British Airways passenger, Michael Osagbogun, was d...
OAU assures students will be mobilised for NYSC 2021 Batch A
Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, has assured its students that they will be mobilised for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) 2021 Batch A. Mr Abiodun Olarewaju, the Public Relations Officer, gave the assurance in an interview with the newsmen on Thursday in Ile-Ife. He debunked rumours that only OAU had not submitted the names of its students for Batch A Corps members. According to him, no Federal University has submitted the names of their prospective students for NYSC scheme till date. “What we did was to travel to Abuja to effect some corrections and to bring back the corrected document for possible uploading for today or latest tomorrow. “Actually, there’s tendency that as I am speaking with you that their names must have been uploaded to NYSC portal today. “I am assurin...
