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White House does not rule out Haiti request for U.S. troops
The United States is still reviewing a request for troops made by Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph to help secure key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Monday. Psaki said Haiti’s political leadership remains unclear and that it was vital for the country’s leaders to come together to chart a united path forward. Moise was shot dead early on Wednesday at his Port-au-Prince home by what Haitian authorities describe as a unit of assassins formed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans. Haitian police said on Sunday they had arrested another key suspect. The death of the president has plunged the troubled country into deeper turmoil, and U.S. officials traveled there on Sunday to assess the situation and ...
Dangote Cement acquires 2,000 new vehicles to enhance transportation
Dangote Cement Plc has acquired 20,000 additional vehicles to enhance the distribution of the company’s cement products in the country. The company’s Spokesman, Tony Chiejine, said in a statement made available to newsmen on Monday in Lokoja that the new vehicles, made up of trucks, trailers and tippers, were acquired at a cost of $150 million US dollars. According to him, the company had recently taken delivery of another set of trucks, trailers, bulk tankers, tippers, cargo trucks and bulk cement tankers. “These assets would meet the expected increase in demand for transportation of cement to every part of the country and create employment for over 4,000 people in Nigeria,” he said. “We have acquired the new trucks in line with our new expansion capacity in Obajana, Ibese, Gboko and the ...
Leaked testimony from Haiti suspects says plan was to arrest, not kill president
A group of Colombians and Haitian Americans suspected of assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moise told investigators they were there to arrest him, not kill him, the Miami Herald and a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday. Moise was shot dead early on Wednesday at his Port-au-Prince home by what Haitian authorities say was a unit of assassins made up of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, plunging the troubled Caribbean nation into deeper turmoil. The murder and uncertainty about who hatched the plot is the latest in a succession of blows to hit the struggling country, which has appealed for international help. Washington has so far rebuffed Haiti’s request for troops, though a senior U.S. official said on Sunday that Washington was sending a technical team to assess th...
Nigerian airlines list conditions for full refund to passengers after two-hour flight delay
Following the pronouncement of the Federal Government that airline operators must refund the full cost of travel tickets to passengers after a two-hour delay, commercial airlines have listed the conditions for such reimbursement. The airline operators made this known in separate interviews with newsmen. The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had, on Thursday at the weekly State House briefing in Aso Villa, Abuja, read out some of the rights of air passengers as enshrined in Part 19 of the Consumer Protection Regulations of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (2015) and charged them to demand their rights whenever they were being trampled upon by airlines. “On domestic flights, for delay beyond one hour, carrier should provide refreshment, and one telephone call, or one SMS, or one e-ma...
President Buhari orders military to crush bandits in ‘language they understand’
President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday ordered the military to crush bandits operating in Zamfara and Kaduna in the language they understand. The president condemned repeated bandit killings in Zamfara and Kaduna States, urging the nation’s military to respond to the worrying situation in a language that the bandits understood. Buhari, in a statement issued by his spokesman, Garba Shehu noted that the military and other security agencies were now working on new methods and policies that are yielding good results in many of the troubled parts of the country. He called for a crushing response to the killing of innocent citizens in the rural communities. Buhari also averred that the nation, its military and the entire population needed to summon the courage required to defeat the bandits and ...
House concurs with Senate, approves $6.183 billion external loan request
The House of Representatives has approved the federal government’s request for $6.183 billion (N2.343 trillion) as external borrowing in 2021 Appropriation Act. The approval followed the consideration and adoption of clauses in the report presented by the committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management, chaired by Hon. Ahmed Dayyabu Safana. The House also gave approval for the bill seeking to establish a Defence Research and Development Bureau (DRDB) to conduct and coordinate robust research and development in the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The approval was sequel to the consideration and adoption of the 5 parts and 34 Sections of the Bill’s report, presented by Chairman House Committee on Defence, Hon. Babajimi Benson. Presenting the report, Benson said the objective of the Bureau was to condu...
Colonel Umar: Blame President Buhari for separatist agitations
Former Military Administrator of Kaduna State Colonel Abubakar Umar (rtd) has blamed President Muhammadu Buhari and the Federal Government for separatist agitations threatening national unity. The current administration, he said, has failed to unite the country. Umar also lambasted the government for what he described as undue attention to threats of separatist movements in contrast to the more daunting threats posed by bandits, kidnappers and insurgents in the North West, some parts of North Central and North East. In a statement on Wednesday titled: ‘Nigeria; A Nation Challenged,‘ the former MILAD said the best way to unite a diverse and fragile nation like Nigeria is through justice, fairness and equity. He stated the current administration has so far exhibited poor skills management of...
Provost advocates national confab on education
Provost of the Federal College of Education (Technical), Isu, Ebonyi state, Prof Ruben Okey Okechukwu, has advocated an education conference in the country to discuss the way out of the many challenges confronting Nigeria’s education system. According to the professor, the report of the conference will help in addressing the many challenges that have bedeviled the nation’s education system. He noted that a similar conference convoked immediately after the civil war in 1970 had developed education immensely which led to the introduction of the universal primary education. On the ravaging insecurity plaguing some parts of the North, leading to kidnapping of students in exchange for ransom, he urged government to urgently arrest the ugly trend. Okechukwu, who spoke in Abuja after he was confe...
Igbo group urges Nigerian government to charge Nnamdi Kanu for murder
The Igbo Peace Forum (IPF) has urged the Federal Government to press charges of mass murder against the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr Nnamdi Kanu. The group made the call on Sunday, in Abuja, at a solidarity rally to register their support for President Muhammadu Buhari and the security agencies for their accomplishments in recent security operations in the country. The Group’s National Coordinator, Mr Emeka Okpara said Igbo citizens were concerned that certain individuals had taken up arms against constituted authority, leading to loss of lives and property of several innocent citizens. “It would be recalled that the leader of the proscribed IPOB, Kanu, who was standing trial on several charges, including treason, jumped bail, but was re-arrested recently...
PDP: Zamfara governor’s reason for defection confirms APC behind insecurity
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) noted that Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle’s statement that he joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) in order to get the Federal Government to end insecurity in his state is a confirmation that APC and its government are responsible for the banditry, terrorism and kidnapping ravaging that state. According to the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the confession by Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle, that he joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) in order to get the Federal Government to end insecurity in his state, reinforces public stance that the APC and its government are responsible for the banditry, terrorism and kidnapping ravaging that state.” The party believ...
Myanmar protesters burn junta leader’s images on his birthday
Protesters burned mock coffins and pictures of Myanmar’s army ruler Min Aung Hlaing on Saturday in the latest demonstrations against the coup over five months ago that has plunged the Southeast Asian country into chaos. “May you not rest in peace” and “may your birthday and deathday be the same,” read the messages on funeral wreaths in Theinzayet township in eastern Mon state. Similar protests took place in many parts of Myanmar. “We are burning this as a curse,” said one protester in the second city of Mandalay, setting ablaze a small pile of picture of the general, 65. A spokesman for the military authorities did not respond to requests for comment. Min Aung Hlaing took power on Feb. 1, overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and cutting short a decade of democratic reforms that had...
Ethiopia urges Tigray rebels to join ceasefire, hostilities persist
Ethiopia’s government urged Tigrayan rebels to join a unilateral ceasefire in their conflict on Thursday as aid agencies struggled to reach hundreds of thousands of people facing famine. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former rulers of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, said on Monday it was back in control of the regional capital Mekelle after nearly eight months of fighting. The government declared a unilateral ceasefire but the TPLF dismissed it as a joke. Hostilities persisted on Thursday and pressure built internationally for all sides to pull back. “Operations are under way … and the number of prisoners of war is increasing by the minute,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters by satellite phone, with light artillery fire crackling in the background. “We are closing in on...
