NAME
Nollywood actress: Why I changed my name
Nollywood actress, Belinda Effah, has revealed that she will now be officially addressed as Grace-Charis Bassey. The actress recently announced this development on her Instagram page. Speaking at a press conference which held on the set of “Nollywood Queens” reality show during the week, Effah disclosed that she changed her name from Belinda Effah to Grace-Charis Bassey. According to the actress, her divine encounter with God prompted the name change. Her words; “I had to change my name and the only thing that can make me change my name will be the most supreme being which is God. A lot of people will not understand that. So I don’t bother to explain to people when they ask me why. On the 15th of August last year. I had a divine encounter with God to change my name to Grace. Nobody changed...
AKA: I’m not a suspect in my fiancée’s murder investigation
Superstar South African rapper, Kiernan Forbes, has stated that he is not a suspect in the ongoing investigation into the death of his fiancée, Nellie Tembe, by the South African Police. Fondly referred to as Anele, it was reported that the rapper’s fiancée fell from one of the upper floors of the hotel to the intersection of Loop and Bloom streets in the Cape Town central business districts. AKA and Anele had gotten engaged in February this year. In March, he paid ‘lobola’ to her family, describing her as ‘the love of his life’ when he announced their engagement on social media. The rap artiste revealed that some people whom he and his late fiancée trusted with their deepest troubles now use them as weapons against him. He said, “It is a sad day when I find myself having to speak to the n...
House asks federal government to suspend upcoming census exercise
Following the ravaging insecurity in the country, the House of Representatives yesterday called on the federal government to suspend the upcoming census exercise until security improved. The House also said it will be counter-productive and a waste of scarce financial resources to conduct such exercise amidst the economic recession. The call was made on the heel of a motion under matters of urgent public importance titled “Call on the federal government of Nigeria to Suspend the Proposed 2021 Population and Housing Census to be conducted by the National Population Commission” sponsored by Shelia Barwa Bell. Moving the motion, Bell said that the state of insecurity would not guarantee accuracy if the census was conducted now, arguing that many Nigerians have fled their homes and villages. H...
CAF president launches pan-African inter-school championship with own $10 million
The South African billionaire and president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Patrice Motsepe, on Tuesday in Abidjan announced that he will personally finance the pan-African inter-school football championship, which will be launched “between 2022 and 2023”, in collaboration with FIFA. The donation will amount to US$ 10 million and will come from the foundation that bears his name. On a visit to Côte d’Ivoire, the CAF president recalled that the future competition will concern boys and girls aged between 12 to 14 years and will take place “first at national level via national associations, then at zonal level with the organization of six regional tournaments which will serve as qualifying rounds for the final tournament”, according to CAF’s governing body. Initially, pilot na...
Niger: Bandits kill two, kidnap assemblyman’s mother
The mother of the one of longest serving members of the Niger State house of Assembly, Alhaji Bello Ahmed Agwara, has been kidnapped. The 78-year-old Hajia Salamatu Ahmadu was abducted at about 9p.m. on Thursday night when some heavily armed gunmen riding on four motorcycles raided the country home of the Peoples Democractic Party (PDP) member in Agwara town. This is coming on the heels of the killing of two people and kidnap of several others at Tegina in the Rafi local government also on Thursday. According to eyewitnesses the bandits were armed with different types of weapons, among them AK-47. Immediately they stormed the town they started shooting sporadically making members of the community to scamper for safety. In the confusion it was learnt that the bandits went straight into the ...
TRCN: Nigerian teachers becoming more competitive globally
Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), says Nigerian teachers are currently becoming more competitive globally. Ajiboye, disclosed this at the end of the opening of a one-day training workshop for Education Correspondents’ Association of Nigeria (ECAN) on Friday in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. He noted that the narrative about the proficiency of Nigerian teachers had begun to change due to innovations being introduced to keep them at par with their counterparts globally. He said that unlike before those Nigerian teachers had to undergo a certain level of training abroad before being offered appointments, but now they were being offered jobs straight up. According to him, this is because the Federal Government is focusing more atte...
Ebonyi commissioner escapes gunmen attack
The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Infrastructure Development, Engr. Fidelis Nweze, narrowly escaped gun attack on Tuesday as he abandoned his car and ran into the bush leaving his SUV at the mercy of gunmen who shot sporadically in all directions. The incident happened at the site of a proposed international airport in the State. The gunmen were feared to have targeted the State Governor, Dave Umahi who was scheduled for an inspection visit to the airport. Newsmen gathered that the gunmen stormed the airport site at about 3:30 p.m. but missed their target as the Governor failed to turn up. A highly placed source at the Ebonyi State Government House told newsmen that the heavily armed men came on seven motorcycles and two vehicles. “On getting to the site, they opened fire, but God averted ...
Cross River agency chief calls for legislation to back labour migration
The director-general, Cross River Migration Control Agency, Prince Michael Nku Abuo, has called for enactment of a legislation to back labour migration in order to engender national development. Abuo made the call at the Cross River State Migration Summit held in Calabar, the state capital on Saturday. The DG, who also represented the state governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, at the summit, pointed out that several solutions by both federal and state governments have been given to address the issue of unemployment in order to curb the challenge, but the way forward is to tackle the menace was through labour migration. According to him, Cross River Migration Control Agency was exploring and advancing for opportunities for citizens of the State who are at home and in the Diaspora under a work study p...
Southeast Asian leaders discuss Myanmar crisis with junta chief
Southeast Asian leaders began a crisis meeting on Myanmar on Saturday aiming to persuade Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the military takeover that sparked turmoil in his country, to forge a path to end the violence. The gathering of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta is the first coordinated international effort to ease the crisis in Myanmar, an impoverished country that neighbours China, India and Thailand. Myanmar is part of the 10-nation ASEAN. With participants attending in person despite the pandemic, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Friday that the summit reflected the “deep concern about the situation in Myanmar and ASEAN’s determination to help Myanmar get out of this delicate situation”. It’s unusual for the leader o...
Official: Dennis Amachree not speaking for DSS on Isa Pantami
Nigeria’s secret police, the Department of State Service (DSS) has disowned reasons adduced for its alleged failure to reveal alleged link of Malam Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy to terrorism before his confirmation as minister in 2019 adduced by one of its former officer, Dennis Amachree. Amaechree, a former Assistant Director of DSS had in an online interview on Wednesday said the secret police was aware of alleged link of Pantami to terrorism. But he said the DSS decided not to make the reasons public, thus enabling Pantami to sail through senate screening due to a lot of factors including federal character balancing. Amachree had said, ”There is no information that escapes the DSS, we have all of it, all. When I was working there, we keep a catalogue of...
JAMB: CBT centres must carry names of their examination towns
File Photo Ahead of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and direct entry registration exercise, all Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres across the nation have been mandated to feature the name of the examination town in which they are located as part of their identity for easy recognition and accessibility. The registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, made this known recently at a meeting with the Board’s Zonal Directors and State Coordinators. The move is to enable candidates to have a good grasp of centres within their chosen examination towns. The registrar had called on the state coordinators to ensure that examination towns are well delineated for easy location by candidates and avoid any situation where candidates wo...
NIMASA: SPOMO act improving Nigeria’s image
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act, is improving Nigeria’s image in its fight against piracy and sea robbery. Dr Bashir Jamoh, Director-General, NIMASA, said this in a statement on Sunday in Lagos. He said that the Act signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in June, 2019 was to end piracy and sea robbery in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea. He made this known at the maiden edition of the Nigerian Admiralty Law Colloquium organised recently in Lagos by the agency, in collaboration with the National Judicial Institute (NJI). The colloquium had the theme, “Achieving Maritime Safety, Security and Shipping Development (TRIPODS) through Enforcement of Legislations and the Implementation of th...
