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Mass grave reopens wounds among indigenous survivors of colonial Canadian school system
The discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Canada has reopened wounds for survivors of the system, they said, as the government pledged to spend previously promised money to search for more unmarked graves. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc indigenous nation in British Columbia announced last week it had found the remains of 215 children, some as young as three, buried at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once Canada’s largest such school. Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 children from their homes and subjected them to abuse, rape and malnutrition at schools across the country in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”. Run by the government and c...
Gunmen attacks: Ebonyi governor threatens to deploy Ebubeagu to Benue
Gov. David Umahi has urged the Benue government to form a replica of the Ebubeagu security outfit to protect a village inhabited mainly by Izzi natives from Ebonyi in the state. Umahi spoke on Wednesday when he visited the village known as Nwori-Ndi Obasi Village in Ado Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue which was attacked by gunmen on 30 May. The attack, which left some persons dead and many wounded, was stopped from spilling over to the neighbouring Okwofuruike and Odoke Villages of Ebonyi LGA by a combined team of security agencies and Ebubeagu security outfit. Speaking during the visit, Umahi said Ebonyi Government may be forced to deploy Ebubeagu to Benue if the state government failed to set up an outfit to protect the people. “These are Ebonyi people paying their taxes in Benue an...
Nigeria records 63 new coronavirus cases
Nigeria on Friday recorded 63 new coronavirus infections in seven states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The new figure raised the total number of infections in the country to 166,254, an update published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Friday night indicates. According to the update, no new death was recorded from the virus, which has already claimed 2,071 lives in the country. The data shows that the new COVID-19 cases were reported in seven states and Abuja. Lagos recorded 25 cases, closely followed by Ondo with 22. Rivers State reported six while Akwa Ibom and Kaduna reported three each. Also, Kwara State reported two while Ebonyi and FCT reported one each. A breakdown of the data shows that 11 people were discharged on Friday after testing negative for the vi...
Constitution review: States creation tops list of submissions at North East public hearing
YouTube States creation topped list of demands by groups from Adamawa and Taraba States at Thursday’s public hearing on the review of 1999 Constitutional in Gombe. Newsmen report that the groups wanted creation of Amana and Gongola out of present Adamawa State and Mambilla out of the present Taraba State. Ahmad Sajoh, the leader of the movement for Amana State, said the struggle for the creation of the state had been on for years. Sajoh said since 1961 when the area was moved into Nigeria from Cameroon, it had been an independent entity and it was the wish of the people to have a state of their own. He said: “The then Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, convinced us to be part of Nigeria on the condition that the area shall be an autonomous province with ...
GSAC: 500 Nigerian nationals languishing in Togolese prisons
The Global Society for Anti-Corruption (GSAC) yesterday alerted that no fewer than 500 Nigerian citizens were languishing in various prisons in Togo. Consequently, it has called on the federal government to intervene on behalf her citizens and ensure that they get justice. GSAC’s President, Mr Frankline Ezeona who briefed newsmen in Enugu on a recent fact-finding visit his organisation made to Togolese prisons, disclosed that a good number of the Nigerians in the said Togo prisons had spent more than 10 years awaiting trial. Ezeona who decried the inhuman treatment being meted to the Nigerians by officials of the Togolese prisons, stressed that their situation had been compounded by the fact that they no longer have access to certain relief materials due to the ravaging COVID-19. Federal g...
Governor Obaseki: No record of Indian coronavirus variant in Edo
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State on Friday said there was no record of Indian COVID-19 variant in the state, as was speculated on social media. The governor stated this in Benin at a news conference to provide an update on COVID-19 response in the state. Mr Obaseki was represented by the Permanent Secretary from the state Ministry of Health, Osamwonyi Irowa. He said the federal government had on April 26, taken precautionary steps by restricting international travel from India, Brazil and Turkey to curtail COVID-19. “We as government have reached out to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) with regards to any Indian variant in Edo and the verified information reveals that the said sample was collected in January. “There is currently no update or report suggestive of any such o...
Judge postpones trial for three ex-cops in George Floyd case – reports
A judge postponed the trial of three former Minneapolis policemen accused of taking part in the murder of George Floyd to March 2022 after they said that prosecutors leaked prejudicial information about the case, online court records showed. Tou Thao, 25, J. Alexander Kueng, 27, and Thomas Lane, 28, all fired and arrested days after Floyd was killed on May 25, have been charged with aiding and abetting the second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter of Floyd. Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin was convicted on April 20 of murdering Floyd, 46, by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, in a case that marked a milestone in America’s fraught racial history and a rebuke of law enforcement’s treatment of Black Americans. The death, captured on cellphone video, led to pr...
Imo government condoles with family of student killed by stray bullet
Imo Government on Wednesday condoled with the family of Miss Divine Nwaneri, a first-year student of the Imo State University, who was killed by a stray bullet on April 24. The state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Declan Emelumba who received the family in his office in Owerri, described her death as a ‘huge loss’. Newsmen report that the 22-year old student of Soil Science in ABSU was hit by a stray bullet from an accidental discharge by a security personnel in front of the state Government House, Owerri. Emelumba assured the family that the state government would take all appropriate measures to provide them the needed succour. He added that cogent measures had been taken by the state government in synergy with security agencies to restore calm to the state and ensure se...
Taraba governor: Senator Alhassan’s demise a personal loss
Taraba State Governor Darius Ishaku has described the death of former minister of Women Affairs Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan as a personal loss to him. In a statement issued in Jalingo on Friday night and signed br Bala Dan Abu Special Adviser to the governor on Media, Ishaku said that he received the news with rude shock and is still trying to come to terms with it. He described Alhassan as a woman of courage and rare asset who have contributed immensely to the political emancipation of wen and her death would leave a gapping hole on the political landscape of the nation. “Governor of Taraba State, Arc Darius Dickson Ishaku, has received with deep shock news of the death of Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan, a former governorship candidate in the state and frontline member of the People’s Demo...
Tanzanian student dies of coronavirus in India
A Tanzanian PhD student, Ngowi Emanuel Harrison, died in India on April 26 of Covid-19 complications. A report by The Indian Express confirms that Harrison, 34, had joined the Ph.D. course for Business Economics at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, on March 27, and tested positive for Covid-19 on April 21. According to Indian officials, Harrison died after experiencing a sudden drop in oxygen levels. Director of the Office of International Affairs at MSU, Prof. Dhanesh Patel, explained that about 40 foreign national students were tested for Covid-19 recently, with three of the results proving positive — one from Gambia and two from Tanzania. “The student [Harrison] had arrived in India on March 27. He complained of some symptoms on April 21 but his Rapid Antigen Test came back n...
Minister: Nigeria needs N1.89 trillion to eradicate malaria
The federal government has said that it will require N1.89 trillion to successfully implement the new five-year strategic plan aimed at eradicating malaria in Nigeria. It said that about N352 billion out of the amount is required for the year 2021 programme implementation. In his address to mark this year’s World Malaria Day, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said the target set out in the National Malaria Strategic Plan of 2021 to 2025 is to achieve less than 10 per cent parasite prevalence and reduction in mortality attributable to malaria to less than 50 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2025. He said: “The implementation of the New Strategic Plan will cost N1.89 trillion. About 63.1% of the total amount will be used to support Chemoprevention, diagnosis and treatment, while 35....
South East leaders decry injustice against Igbo
Pool Photo A leading Igbo social-political group, Nzuko Umuna, says that Nigeria, particularly the South East, is witnessing insecurity because of injustice, inequalities and lack of governance. Addressing reporters in Abuja on Monday, Sam Amadi, chairman of the legal committee of the think tank, said the unfair and unequal treatment of citizens have compounded the insecurity crisis. Amadi said the South East used to be the ‘safest region in Nigeria, but has become a site of organised criminality.’ ‘Nzuko Umuna recognises that Nigeria has descended into a depth of insecurity partly because of the failure of governance across the country and particularly because of inequities and injustices of political leadership in Nigeria,’ the former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commi...