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…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
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…
Security has been beefed up in Imo over fears resulting from a sit-at-home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu. Owerri malls suddenly halted activities on Saturday at about 12.30 pm am as against the normal 8.00 pm closure. Also, there was heavy security presence at the entrance to the Shoprite mall with the workers trapped in the building. IPOB had earlier issued a release, directing southeast residents to sit-at-home in memory of what it described as Biafra Remembrance Day on May 30. A staff of the mall, who pleaded anonymity, said that normal…
Residents of Abakaliki, Ebonyi capital have been thrown into fear over the sit-at-home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. The Leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, had called on the five Eastern states to stock food items ahead of the order. Some of the residents, who spoke in separate interviews on Saturday in Abakaliki, said that the sit-at-home was worrisome, especially in this period of harsh economy in the country. Some security personnel were already patrolling major streets in the state capital in order to maintain peace and order in the area. Shops and markets were opened for…
By Justina Auta, Abuja An NGO, Tabitha Cumi Foundation on Friday, donated sanitary products and sensitised students of Junior Secondary School, Kado-Kuchi, FCT, on menstrual hygiene and Gender Based Violence (GBV). The Executive Director of the foundation, Mrs Adetayo Erinle, said the effort was part of activities to mark the 2021 Menstrual Hygiene Day with a theme: “We need to Step Up Action and Investment in Menstrual Health and Hygiene Now!” Erinle said the organisation engaged in the exercise to educate the young girls on menstrual hygiene, which had forced some of them to miss some school days due to…
Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno has identified poverty and illiteracy as some of the factors responsible for insurgency in the country. Zulum stated this at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Nasarawa state government and Flour Mills Nigeria in Abuja on Friday. The MoU by the two parties was for the establishment of a sugar company in Toto local government area of the State. In his goodwill message to governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa state, Zulum said the governor should insist that majority of workers at the company must be indigenes of the state. He said…
The federal government on Friday received eight million dollar worth of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and medical consumables from the United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) in Nigeria. The federal government took the delivery of thousands of goggles, masks, gloves, gowns, boots, waste bins, hand sanitisers, chlorine, and other commodities, at the Nigeria Center For Disease Control (NCDC) warehouse in Abuja. Speaking at event, the Director-General of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, said that the NCDC had been leading on public health response but in terms of health care provision. “These are $8 million worth of PPE IPC materials. “We have been…
Ecobank Transnational Incorporated Plc (ETI) has started reaping the benefits of new strategies it put in place to reposition the pan-African financial institution as it posted high results for the 2020 financial year The ETI recorded $201 million (N83.01 billion) profit in 2020 compared with $184 million (N75.99 billion) recorded in 2019, as consolidated Group net revenues increased four per cent to $1,680 million (N693.82 billion). The exchange rate used is at N412.99 to a dollar Chief Executive Officer, Ecobank Group, Ade Ayeyemi, gave the report in a statement by the Group Head, Corporate Communications, Adenike Laoye, at the end…
President Muhammadu Buhari has been named winner of the 2021 Great Builder Super Prize for Trophée Babacar Ndiaye, taking over from Abdel Fattah al-Sissi of Egypt, who won the 2020 prize. According to a statement from the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Friday, Buhari was named winner during the inaugural Africa Road Builders Conference held on March 31 in Cairo, Egypt. The trophy would be awarded on June 24 on the side-lines of the AfDB’s Annual Meetings. Fattah al-Sissi, received the award “for his personal leadership and for the efforts made to ensure road safety and the health of the…
The House of Representatives has said that only 73 of the over 900 public institutions in the country were complying with the provisions of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act on the disclosure of information. Rep. Cornelius Nnaji, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on FOI, said in a statement to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the implementation of the FOI Act (FOIA) in Abuja on Friday. Nnaji said that the Official Secrets Act (OSA) of 1962 had continued to impede the implementation of the FOIA as it had continued to dominate the thinking and practice within the…