The U.S. government has partnered the Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni Association of Nigeria (MWFAAN) and Young African Leaders Initiative Network (YALI) to launch the Clean Up Nigeria Campaign. The campaign which is aimed at encouraging a change in the widespread attitude of littering and indiscriminate waste disposal in the country will take place in four states including Lagos, Oyo, Enugu and Rivers. Speaking at a news conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Stephen Ibelli, Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Lagos, said that the campaign would create sustainable awareness in communities across Nigeria. According to him, Nigeria is one of the…
Author: Editor
Golf star Tiger Woods has had another back operation and will skip at least two events. But the former world number one said online on Tuesday that he intends to return to the PGA Tour. The 45-year-old said he had “a microdiscectomy” which was to alleviate nerve pain in his lower back. Woods will not compete in the coming Farmers Insurance Open or the Genesis Invitational next month. The 15-times major champion has long had problems with his back having undergone several previous operations. dpa
Leicester City claimed top spot in the ongoing 2020/2021 English Premier League (EPL) on Tuesday with a 2-0 win against Chelsea at the King Power Stadium. Wilfred Ndidi fired the hosts in front after six minutes and James Maddison added the second four minutes before half time to secure the triumph. Leicester City, shock champions in 2016,are now ahead of previous leaders Manchester United by one point with a total of 38, while Chelsea have slipped to eighth on 29 points. Manchester United has a game in hand on Leicester City while Manchester City are third, three points behind the leaders having…
This year’s NFL Super Bowl will feature a woman referee for the first time, as Sarah Thomas joins head referee Carl Cheffers, the league announced on Tuesday. “Sarah Thomas has made history again as the first female Super Bowl official,” NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent said in a statement. “Her elite performance and commitment to excellence has earned her the right to officiate the Super Bowl. Congratulations to Sarah on this well-deserved honour.” Thomas is at the end of her sixth season in the league and will be one of seven officials for the championship game on Feb.…
Nigerian government dominated capital raising at the fixed income segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in 2020, with over N2.36 trillion. The Chief Executive Officer of NSE, Mr Oscar Onyema, said this at the 2020 market recap/2021 outlook on Tuesday in Lagos. Onyema said the federal government accounted for about 92 per cent of total bond issuances on the NSE in a bid to finance fiscal and infrastructure deficits. He said corporate organisations also leveraged the low yield environment to fund their expansion programmes and to pursue debt refinancing, raising a total of N192 billion in 2020. Onyema said…
President Donald Trump pardoned his former Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon, as part of a last-minute clemency spree before he leaves office. The White House announced that Trump was pardoning Bannon and 72 others early Wednesday, just hours before president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony was set to begin. Trump also commuted the sentences of 70 people. Bannon was arrested in the summer and is accused of defrauding people who donated to a campaign to privately build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. A trial was planned for May. “Prosecutors pursued…
Media war between the governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo and president Muhammadu Buhari may soon have begun with the governor responding to the president’s statement that Akeredolu could not threaten the herdsmen with ejection order. Akeredolu on Monday issued a seven-day ultimatum for the Fulani herdsmen to leave Ondo forest reserves purportedly on reasons of security. Reacting to Buhari’s response, the State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr Donald Ojogo insisted in a statement, that the presidency was ’emotionally attached to Fulani herdsmen’ and inimical to the existence of Nigeria. According to the commissioner, the presidency was “unambiguous, on the…
An economist, Ms Razia Khan, also Managing Director/Chief Economist, Africa and Middle East, Global Research, Standard Chartered Bank, on Tuesday said Nigeria would see a restoration of positive growth. Khan made the assertion in her presentation at the virtual 2020 Market Recap and 2021 Outlook hosted by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday in Lagos. The virtual event had in attendance no fewer than one thousand participants from within and outside Nigeria. She said that for many emerging markets there would be a restoration to pre-COVID-19 level of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) by the end of 2021 and in…
Some experts appointed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) say the global system for pandemic alert and response is “not fit for purpose”, emphasising the need for a new framework in the wake of COVID-19. The experts, Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, in an interim report presented on Tuesday, said countries should use technology to inform people about the disease. They found critical elements to be “slow, cumbersome and indecisive” in an era when information about new disease outbreaks was being transmitted faster than countries could formally report on them. “When there is a potential health threat, countries and the…
The Director General of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus says the organisation had secured two billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, with a billion more in the pipeline and deliveries expected to begin next month. He made the remarks as he addressed a meeting of the Committee on the functioning of the International Health Regulations, 2005, during the COVID-19 response, posted on the WHO website, Ghebreyesus said ensuring that countries would have access to any COVID-19 vaccines, was the promise of a global mechanism established last April, known as the COVAX Facility. “The vaccines should be administered…