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...
The Ethiopian army could re-enter the seized Tigray regional capital of Mekelle within weeks if needed, a spokesman for a government task force said on Wednesday, adding that government-allied Eritrean forces had withdrawn from the region. It was the first public statement by a federal government official since Mekelle was taken by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces this week in a major turn of events after eight months of conflict in which thousands of people have been killed. read more People in Mekelle, where communications were down on Wednesday, said on Monday incoming Tigrayan fighters had been greeted with cheers. There were similar scenes in the northern town of Shire on Wednesday, where Eritrean forces had pulled out and Tigrayan forces had entered, residents said. Peo...
The Registrar, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has accused some higher institutions of mobilising and awarding IJMB/JUPEB certificates to individuals who did not attend their institutions. Oloyede alleged that some of the certificates issued by the Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) and Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB) centres for Direct Entry into universities were fakes He made the allegation in Abuja on Tuesday, at the 2021 Batch ‘B’ pre-mobilisation workshop of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on the theme ‘Sustainable Mobilisation Process: The Role Of Stakeholders’. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that IJMB and JUPEB are national educational programmes approved by the Federal Government. They are quali...
Presidential campaign posters of Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, have flooded major streets in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. This is the latest in a series of presidential campaign posters on the streets of Abuja in recent weeks. Other 2023 presidential hopefuls whose campaign posters have adorned the streets of Abuja are the APC National Leader, Bola Tinubu; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Senate President Bukola Saraki. Bello’s posters had various inscriptions such as, “2023 Presidency: Yahaya Bello for a generational change,” Yahaya Bello for President 2023″. Some were pasted on electric poles, roundabouts, overhead bridges, among others. They were sighted around the Ministry of Justice; the Federal Secretariat; NICON Luxury; Sheraton Hotel, street leadi...
The sit-at-home protest ordered by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, recorded total compliance and success with all the residents of Onitsha and Nnewi and business outfits complying with the directive. All business activities were shot down, all markets were under lock and key public and private Secondary and Primary Schools were shot down, government offices and banks were also not opened for business as they were under lock and key, Petrol and Gas filling stations were also not opened for business as streets and roads shops and artisans in both Onitsha and Nnewi shut for the day business when Vanguard moved round the cities. All the roads leading into and exit of Onitsha, the commercial city, and those ...