As I concluded this essay, it occurred to me that it corresponds with the sixth year anniversary of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari. He will leave office on May 29, 2023, after completing two four-year terms approved by the constitution. Curiously, in recent weeks, his government has issued direct and indirect alerts about “plans” by yet-to-be-disclosed persons to oust the retired General, from Katsina State, through undemocratic means. The presidency notified the public that some highly-placed members of the society were working against the President and pushing for his unceremonious exit. “Disgruntled religious and past political leaders” were accused of plotting…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
Fourteen students of Greenfield University abducted in Kaduna state, have regained freedom, ChannelsTV has reported. They were released on Saturday afternoon at a location along the Kaduna- Abuja highway. Reports in Kaduna further said that the chairman of the Parents Forum, Markus Zarmai and few others were expected to receive the students at the drop-off location. At the time of filling this report, Kaduna government and police authorities had not confirmed the development. However, the parents of the abducted students said that they paid ransom, in addition to providing eight new motorcycles to the kidnappers before they agreed to release…
Hyenas urinating upwind to stampede the cattle below -African proverb According to a popular adage when you are in a tunnel, what you need is light, not sound. However, light at the end of the tunnel on issues relating to cattle husbandry is long time coming, given the ill-tempered and sometimes uninformed exchanges on open grazing. Self-styled experts are attempting to stampede governments to ban open grazing by advancing fictitious arguments such as: no land for roaming cattle, data on land use shows otherwise or that ranching is the global best practice for keeping cattle, while in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranches…
The Borno government has shut down the Mohammed Goni Islamic and Legal Studies (MOGOLIS) Internally Displaced Persons ( IDPs) camp in Maiduguri. Announcing the formal closure of the camp on Saturday, the state Commissioner for Resettlement, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation, Mr Mustafa Gubio, said all the 500 households taking refuge in the camp have been resettled. Gubio said the development was inline with Governor Babagana Zulum’s promise to close some camps in Maiduguri and return all those willing to go back to their ancestral communities to engage in farming and other normal businesses. “Closure of these camps, particularly those occupying schools…
The federal government of Nigeria says it has submitted its National Determined Contribution (NDC) Interim Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A statement by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Environment, Mr Sagir el-Mohammed made available to ASHENEWS on Saturday said the submission was part of government’s commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Submitting the report on behalf of the federal government, the Minister of Environment, Dr Muhammad Abubakar said Nigeria had made steady progress towards meeting its NDC. “This action underscores our determination to achieving the commitment we signed in 2015 to reduce…
India’s top health research body, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved the use of saline gargle reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for COVID-19. The Research body said that the RT-PCR test would give the result in about three hours. The test is simple, fast, cost-effective, patient-friendly, comfortable and offers instant results, said a statement issued Saturday by the federal ministry of science and technology. It is well-suited for rural and tribal areas, given minimal infrastructure requirements. The Saline Gargle RT-PCR method for testing COVID-19 samples has been developed by India’s National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) under…
At least two people were killed and 317 others injured by gunfire at celebrations in Syria marking President Bashar al-Assad’s re-election to a fourth term, a war monitor reported on Saturday. The casualties resulted from celebratory shots fired randomly by al-Assad’s loyalists in several areas including the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added. The two who died were a young man and a child in Aleppo, the Britain-based observatory said. Al-Assad was re-elected for a fourth seven-year term with 95.1 per cent of the ballots in the election in government held…
The first forged Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination certificates is appearing in Germany, with the numbers expected to grow. According to local police authorities on Saturday, in Bavaria alone, there has been a number of cases in the low double-digits. “Compared to other criminal offers of personal and identity documents, the forgery of vaccination certificates is still a minor phenomenon in numerical terms,’’ a spokesman for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said. “However, an increase in demand and thus also in the supply of forged vaccination certificates is expected due to the legal relaxations for vaccinated persons.’’ Vaccinated people in Germany…
The colonel who led a military coup in the West African nation of Mali this week is now officially the country’s leader. Mali’s Constitutional Court published a judgement late Friday declaring that Colonel Assimi Goita was assuming the presidency. The judgement gives Goita the power to head the interim government and “lead the transition process to its conclusion.” The judgement noted “the vacancy of the presidency of the transition following the resignation of Mr Bah N’Daw.” President N’Daw and prime minister Moctar Ouane resigned from their positions after being detained for several days this week in a coup staged by…
President Muhammadu Buhari has taken the second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the State House, Abuja. The president’s personal physician, Dr Suhayb Rafidadi, administered the vaccine on the president at his official residence in the State House, Abuja on Saturday. Buhari had received the first jab of the vaccination on March 6 where he was presented with his COVID-19 vaccination card by officials of the Federal Ministry of Health, who supervised the exercise. The President is the ECOWAS Champion on the Fight against COVID-19. Meanwhile, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) had disclosed that 1,945,273 eligible…