The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has expressed concern over what it described as “shrinking civic space, lingering social injustice and dwindling democratic values,” in Nigeria, even as the centre felicitates with all citizens on Democracy Day 2021, when the country marks 22 years of democratic rule. A statement by the executive director of CISLAC, who is also the head of Transparency International in Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani made available to ASHENEWS on Friday, said, “we are seriously perturbed by recent unwary development threatening citizens’ fundamental rights and freedom as well as civic space at all levels.” Read CISLAC’s statement…
Author: Editor
After over 20 years of failed attempts, the senate is to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), the Constitution Amendment Bill and other key bills before it this month. The Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, made the announcement at a news conference to mark the two-year anniversary of the Ninth Senate in Abuja on Thursday. He said that the bills would be passed into law before members of the upper legislative embark on their annual recess later next month. In a speech entitled: “Beholding the Silver Lining in Nigeria”, an elated Lawan disclosed that the senate was close to passing…
The federal government says its directive that Over the Top (OTT) and social media platforms operating in the country must register and obtain license to operate is in conformity with global trend. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said this on Friday when he featured on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) programme “Good Morning Nigeria’’. The federal government recently suspended operations of Twitter and directed that all OTT and social media platforms operating in the country must register with Corporate Affairs Commission. The federal government said they must also apply for licensing with the National Broadcasting Commission ( NBC).…
In all spheres of socio-economic development of Nigeria, there have been traces of failure which have given rise for calls for drastic measures to be taken in order to improve on the country’s present status of a failing economy, especially in food security. Nigeria is today at the bottom of other African countries in terms of socio-economic development. Among the 105 countries presently assessed by the Global Food Security Index, GFSI, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Nigeria became the 80th with 34.8 based on the indices of Affordability, Availability and Quality and Safety. Areas in which the country was rated…
The Southern Senators Forum has called on Nigerians to strengthen the unity of the nation irrespective of their ethnic and religious affiliation. The forum made the call in a statement in Ado-Ekiti on Friday by its Chairman, Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele, while congratulating Nigerians on the celebration of the 2021 Democracy Day. “Time has come for all Nigerians to strengthen the nexus of unity among ethnic nationalities and religious boundaries in the country. “This will serve as the remedy to possible truncation of the democratic rule in our dear country,’’ Bamidele said. The forum congratulated all Nigerians on the heart-warming feat, saying…
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday directed Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to discard 60 million doses of its single-shot COVID-19 vaccination made at Baltimore plant, Maryland, U.S. J&J is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. In April 2020, it entered a partnership with Catalent Pharmaceutical Company to provide large-scale manufacturing of the J & J vaccine for COVID at Catalent’s Bloomington, Indiana facility. The U.S. agency said the shots made at the troubled Baltimore plant had to be thrown away due to potential contamination. The plant,…
More people have died from the coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2021 than in 2020, in spite of the progress of vaccination in the world, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The report, while quoting Johns Hopkins University data, said that it took less than six months for the globe to record more than 1.88 million COVID-19 deaths in 2021. According to the journal “the university’s count for 2021 edged just ahead of the 2020 death toll as of Thursday. “These numbers reveal the pandemic has hit different parts of the world unevenly, with poorer nations being affected later, and suffering,…
U.S. President Joe Biden, on Friday joined leaders of the G7 and guest countries to make a commitment of providing more than one billion additional COVID-19 vaccine doses for the world at G7 summit. Biden, in a statement from the White House in Washington, DC said of the one billion vaccine doses, 500 million would come from the United States. The U.S. president said that the commitment formed the basis of a comprehensive set of G7+ actions towards ending this global pandemic in 2022. The G7 countries are a group of the world’s seven largest advanced economies namely: the United…
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the National Assembly, NASS, would consider President Muhammadu’s Buhari’s loan request for construction and rehabilitation of rail lines across the country. Lawan who stated this on Friday while fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja said approving such loans would help fund critical infrastructure across the country. While noting that Nigeria’s borrowing plan “is a necessary burden”, Lawan added that for the country to be adequately developed, the National Assembly was considering two loan requests of the federal government. “Before us in the Senate are two requests from the executive arm…
Connected Development (CODE) a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) says it tracked N193 billion spent on government projects across the country in 2020, towards ensuring accountability. Mr Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive, CODE and founder, Follow The Money, said this at the launch of the group’s annual report: Empowering Communities in a Pandemic in Abuja on Friday. Lawal said CODE also tracked about N96billion of COVID-19 funds at states and federal levels in Nigeria, using its social accountability tool ‘Follow The Money’. “When CODE set out in 2012, it had the sole purpose of bridging information gap between marginalised communities and their government,…