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PDP: Edo people will resist attempt to tamper with scheduled date of election

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday said that the people of Edo state would resist any attempt by anybody to tamper with the state governorship election schedule for Sept. 19. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, at a news conference on Sunday in Abuja alleged that there were plots by certain interests to use frivolous lawsuits to scuttle the scheduled date. “The PDP revealed that the said interests masquerading through certain political groups were seeking to blackmail the judiciary and stampede the court to violate the clear provisions of the Electoral Act and illegally halt the Edo election. “Nigerians are already aware that section 87(10) (11) of the Electoral Act, clearly prohibits the courts from restraining the conduct of party primaries and general elec...

President Buhari prevented Nigeria from becoming a failed state – minister

The Federal Government has said if not for President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria would have become a failed state in 2015. The government’s response may not be unconnected to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent statement that the country was fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state. Obasanjo gave the damning verdict last week at a closed door two-day consultative dialogue convened by him which involved major socio-cultural political organisations such as Afenifere, Northern Elders’ Forum, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Middle Belt Forum and Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF). The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement by the Special Assistant to the President (Media), Office of the Minister of Information and Culture, Segun Adeyemi, said Buhari’s assumption o...

Peace summit suggests ways to end Southern Kaduna crisis

The Southern Kaduna Peace Summit has stressed the urgent need for leaders at all levels of government to avoid taking sides and be impartial judges on any issue that has to do with the crisis in the Southern part of the state. The peace summit noted that pronouncements and conducts by some government officials and reports by the media escalate tensions within the social space. In a communique issued at the end of the 3-day peace summit held in Kafanchan by the co-chairmen, Prof. Abdullahi Ashafa and Rev. Prof. Sunday Bobai Agang, lamented the incessant occupation of communities, villages, and farmland following conflicts with no right of return. The meeting also observed that incessant killings, kidnapping, cattle rustling and shielding of criminals is a major challenge. It said that there...

Fuel subsidy removal: Nigerian government to distribute 2, 000 buses to mitigate effects on transportation

The Federal Government has concluded plans to distribute 2, 000 buses to cushion the effects of transportation on Nigerians, especially those living in rural dwellers. Newsmen report that Dr George Akume, Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, made this known on Friday at the interactive he had with stakeholders of cooperative societies in Nigeria at his office in Abuja. Akume explained that the initiative was a collaboration between his ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other agencies in the government. He said the ministry took the decision to pass through the cooperative bodies to ensure the materialisation of the project, rather than giving out loans to individuals, which might delay quick execution of the project. “Basically we do recog...

Six killed in Burundi gun attack, weeks after similar incident

Unidentified attackers shot and killed six people in northern Burundi, an official said on Friday, weeks after a similar attack was reported in a southern province. The group launched the attack in Kayanza province on Thursday night from the Kibira forest, the regional governor said, and fled to the same area after the attack. “They arrived at a small centre … killed six people including two kids studying in primary school II and V,” Remy Cishahayo, army colonel and governor of Kayanza province, said on state-owned National Radio Television of Burundi. The forest in the past has served as cover for the ruling CNDDFDD – The National Council for the Defence of Democracy, Forces for the Defence of Democracy party – during its rebellion. Two people were wounded and were receiving treatment, wh...

Russia, China, Iran reject Microsoft’s hacking allegations

Agence France-Presse China, Russia and Iran have rejected accusations by software giant, Microsoft, that hackers from their countries are targeting U.S. presidential campaigns ahead of the November elections. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested on Friday that Microsoft and the U.S. were inventing the allegations. “With regard to the U.S. elections, I have repeatedly said the U.S. elections are an internal matter and we have no interest or intention of interfering.” A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry made a similar statement on Friday, saying that it didn’t matter to Tehran who won the election. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Microsoft’s conclusions didn’t require attention as long as there was no proof, according to the TASS news agency. The countries listed b...

UN lauds Africa’s success in virus fight

The United Nations has commended Africa for its exceptional management of the COVID-19 pandemic with record low incidences and deaths. The President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Amb. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, said this yesterday while addressing a virtual press conference, adding that the developing countries have done better than developed countries as regards the management of the pandemic. COVID-19 has spread rapidly and extensively to most countries in the world, resulting in considerable mortality in Europe and the United States, as well as in numerous upper-middle-income countries in South America and Asia. Experts predicted millions of COVID-19 deaths in Africa because many countries in the continent rank poorly on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Dev...

PDP: Nigerians can’t survive hike in fuel, electricity prices

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has told President Muhammadu Buhari that there is no way citizens can survive, what it described as the obnoxious hike in the cost of fuel and electricity, given the level of poverty his administration had allegedly already foisted on our nation. In a statement issued by Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary in Abuja on Tuesday, it observed that “the brazen attempt” by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to justify the excessive hike in the cost of fuel from N87 per litre under the PDP to N162 as well as electricity from N30.23 per kWh to over N66kw/h, “as yet another daring and intolerable affront to the Nigerian citizenry, who have summarily rejected the increases.” The PDP said it stands with Nigerians in insisting t...

Manufacturers urges Nigerian government to review levies on imported electricity meters

The Electricity Meter Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (EMMAN) has appealed to the Federal Government to review its levies on imported electricity meters to promote full local content in the production of pre-paid meters. The appeal is coming on the heels of President Muhamadu Buhari’s approval of one year deferment of the 35 percent import adjustment tax (levy) imposed on fully built unit (FBU) electricity meters HS Code 9028.30.00.00 under the 2019 fiscal policy measures for the implementation of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) common external tariff (CET) 2017 – 2022. EMMAN believes the approval is an incentive for mass importation of pre-paid meters as against upscaling of local production. It noted that it takes an average of three months to set up Semi Knock Do...

Rivers government reopens NLC secretariat as labour suspends rally

The Officials of the Rivers Government, on Tuesday, unsealed the Nigeria Labour Congress secretariat in Port Harcourt, following collective bargaining agreement signed with the union. Newsmen report that the state government had sealed the NLC secretariat in March for correction of structural deficit. Mr Ayuba Wabba, NLC President, on Sept. 4, issued a notice to hold mass rally over the sealed secretariat among other lingering industrial dispute. However, after a six hour deliberation on Monday, the organised labour reached an agreement with the state government to address all contending issues and for the protest to be called off. Government officials arrived at the secretariat at about 7.00 a.m. and remove the seal to fulfil part of the agreement. Wabba, who addressed workers of the affi...

CSO urges President Buhari to freeze NDDC account

The Act for Positive Transformation Initiative, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has requested President Muhammadu Buhari to freeze the account of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and suspend all further spending in the commission. Mr Johnson Kolawale, the Head, Directorate of Research, Strategy, and Programme, made the call at a news conference on Monday in Abuja. He alleged that plans were ongoing to make fraudulent expenditures by top officials in the commission. Kolawale revealed that the commission had continued to spend funds against due process and against the directive of the President. According to him, the commission has squandered an additional nine billion Naira in the last one month. “We call on President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Assembly, and genuine sec...

Nigeria confirmed virus cases top 55,000

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday night, announced 100 new COVID-19 cases. The new cases were reported from 10 states – Lagos (39), FCT (22), Kaduna (19), Oyo (7), Ebonyi (6), Edo (3), Katsina (1), Ekiti (1), Bauchi (1), Nasarawa (1) It brought the total in the country to 55,0085, six months after the index case was diagnosed. Out of that number, 43,013 patients have been discharged and 1,057 deaths have been recorded. Lagos still has the highest number with 18,347, while Kogi has reported only five. Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari approved Phase III of the National Response on COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in the country. Get more stories like this on Twitter You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating shoul...