Results
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 ...
Ivory Coast names interim prime minister
Patrick Achi, secretary general to the presidency of the Ivory Coast, was appointed Monday interim prime minister while the country’s premier, Hamed Bakayoko, is in Europe receiving medical treatment, the president’s office said. “State minister Patrick Achi will take over the functions of prime minister and head of government in an interim capacity,” the presidency said in a statement. Tene Birahima Ouattara, presidential affairs minister and the younger brother of President Alassane Ouattara, was appointed interim defence minister, also replacing Bakayoko in that position. Bakayoko, 56, travelled to France on February 18 for health reasons and has just been transferred to a hospital in Germany, a source close to the presidency told AFP, without specifying exactly when. The nature of Baka...
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...
Lobbyist says Myanmar junta wants to improve relations with the West, spurn China
An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by Myanmar’s junta said on Saturday that the generals are keen to leave politics after their coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who has previously represented Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s military rulers, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations says more than 50 demonstrators have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won polls in November by a landslide. On Friday, a U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action against t...
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...
CDS Irabor: Nigeria will have peace again
Chief of Defense Staff General Lucky Irabor has said that the Nigerian Armed Forces will never in any way leave the peace and security of the nation in the hands of the terrorists. General Irabor, who spoke with State House correspondents after being decorated with his new rank by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja said the Armed Forces will determine the peace and will not leave it in the hands of the terrorists. He was before his appointment as CDS a Major General. Fielding question on the role played by the Nigerian military in the recent negotiations that led to the release of the school children from their abductors, he said that the security agencies built bridges across various divides. According to him, “Peace and security is not just the s...
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...
Okomu Oil Palm wants central bank to review anchor borrowers programme
Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc. wants a review of CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) to accommodate more farmers and to shore up the nation’s foreign earnings from agriculture. The ABP is targeted at smallholder farmers engaged in the production of rice, maize, wheat and cash crops like oil palm, cocoa and rubber, among others. Speaking with newsmen on Monday in Benin, Okomu Oil’s Managing Director, Dr Graham Hefer, noted that cash crop farmers were yet to fully benefit from the programme. He said food crop farmers had an edge because they could cultivate, harvest, sell and repay their loans within the specified one year period. “It is easy for farmers engaged in annual crops to meet their targets. “This doesn’t happen with cash crops because in the first three years of oil palm production...
Senator Omo-Agege: Delta council polls can only be rigged if electorates sleep
Ahead of the March 6 Delta State local government council polls, Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, weekend, reiterated that the elections could only be rigged if electorates go to sleep, insisting that “every vote must count”. Speaking at Oviri-Ogor, Ughelli North Local Government Area, Delta State, while commissioning a 20 lock-up-store market built by community, Omo-Agege said: “They will tell you that results are written in local government elections, that it is over. It is a lie. “You can only write results, you can only rig elections when everybody has gone to sleep. On that day we are going to insist that everybody must cast their votes; every vote must count.” Urging the people to vote massively for the chairmanship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in ...
Wolves boss ‘confident’ Raul Jimenez will return this season
Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo is “totally confident” Mexico striker Raul Jimenez will be back from his fractured skull before the end of this season. Jimenez has been out of action since he suffered the horrific injury in a clash of heads with Arsenal’s David Luiz during Wolves’ Premier League win at the Emirates Stadium in November. The 29-year-old has now returned to light training and Nuno expects his star forward to feature before the season ends on May 23. “Totally confident, for sure,” Nuno said on Friday when asked about a likely return for the player this season. Jimenez scored 27 goals in all competitions for Wolves last season and has netted seven times in 15 appearances for club and country during the current campaign. Following Jimenez’s injury, Wolves won only one of thei...
Tottenham players unhappy with Jose Mourinho methods
Tottenham Hotspur players are reportedly frustrated with Jose Mourinho’s training methods a scenario which has split the dressing room. Mourinho is under pressure following a return of 12 points from Tottenham’s last 12 Premier League games. Spurs were knocked out of the Emirates FA Cup at the last-16 stage by Everton earlier this month, though they are still in the Europa League and through to April’s EFL Cup final. However, The Athletic claims that Mourinho is losing support from some key members of his squad due to the way that he works. The former Manchester United and Chelsea boss is said to have drastically altered the approach taken by predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, whom he replaced in November 2019, by easing the workload on his players – something that has not gone down well ami...
