President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Abuja signed the 2021 Appropriation Bill of N13,588,027,886,175 into law. The president’s action followed the earlier passing of the bill by the National Assembly on December 21 during an emergency session convened for the purpose of passing the budget. The signing of the budget is also in line with the president’s promise to return the nation to the January to December Budget circle. The budget estimate was increased by the sum of N505, 607,317,942 from the estimate of N13, 082, 420, 568,233 presented to the joint sitting of National Assembly by President Buhari on…
Author: Editor
By Solomon Asowata The power sector is a critical aspect of the economy, and getting it right will help transform Nigeria into an industrialised country. Successive governments have, therefore, continued to make massive investments and implement several policies to actualise this objective. The year 2020 marked seven years since the privatisation of the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry, but many Nigerians believe its impact can be better. Power generation still hovers around 5,000MW while transmission and distribution to end users is constantly being plagued by disruptions caused by obsolete equipment and vandalism of power infrastructure. In spite of these challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic,…
China will provide free COVID-19 vaccines to all its citizens, said Zeng Yixin, Deputy Head of the National Health Commission (NHC), at a news conference on Thursday. An inactivated COVID-19 vaccine became the first among self-developed ones to get conditional marketing approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration on Wednesday, an official said. The vaccine is developed by the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., Ltd. under the China National Biotec Group, affiliated with Sinopharm. “All Chinese people will receive this vaccine free of charge,’’ the NHC official said. After the COVID-19 vaccines are approved to enter the market, especially when…
The military neutralised 2,403 suspected criminal elements in various operations across the country between March 18 and December 30, Maj.-Gen. John Enenche, the Coordinator Defence Media Operations, has said. Enenche gave the figure on Thursday, while giving update on operations conducted to check criminality in the country during the period. “This is in addition to scores of other terrorists and armed bandits killed during air strikes,’’ Enenche added. He also said that during the period under review, troops rescued 864 kidnapped victims across the country. The coordinator said that 9,684,797 litres of stolen AGO (diesel) and 33,516,000 litres of DPK…
Argentina has approved the coronavirus vaccine developed by the Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, making it the second country after Britain to do so. The country’s drug regulator Anmat said it granted an emergency registration limited to one year for the sale of the vaccine. The regulator said the risk-benefit ratio of the product was acceptable. Britain had also granted emergency approval to the vaccine made by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University. The drug had shown lower efficacy in trials than BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine already approved in some countries, including Argentina. However, it can be stored…
Algeria has signed a contract for the supply of Russia’s Sputnik ‘V’ vaccine against the COVID-19, government spokesman Ammar Belhimer said. “Algeria’s health minister has confirmed that a contract was signed… for the purchase of a vaccine against coronavirus with a Russian laboratory. “Algeria’s Pasteur Institute held a series of talks with the Russian company that produces the Sputnik V vaccine, negotiations are continuing with other parties,” Belhimer said. On Dec. 20, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune instructed the government to decide which coronavirus vaccine from those available on the market would be used in the country in order to start…
The Centre for Public Health has said that five strains of new COVID-19 infection are circulating in Ukraine. The centre in a statement on Thursday said the data was obtained from the World Health Organisation (WHO) after examining 50 test samples from nine regions of Ukraine. “The results showed that viruses circulating in Ukraine belong to the global genetic line B, which originates from China. Like any other line, the genetic line B has varieties. The following genetic variants have been identified in Ukraine: ‘B1; B1.1; B1.1.1; В1.5 and В2,”, the centre said. The virological laboratory of the centre sent…
China has approved for conditional use its first coronavirus vaccine, developed by state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm. The approval, announced by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, has come a day after Sinopharm said its vaccine was found to be 79.3-per-cent effective in preliminary data from the final round of testing. China aims to vaccinate at least 50 million people before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, in mid-February, in order to prevent the disease from spreading as hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel home for the holidays. dpa
The Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC) has announced 1,016 new infections of COVID-19 in the country. The NCDC made this known via its verified website on Wednesday. The country has so far tested 938,602 persons since the first confirmed case relating to the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in February 27. The agency said that the total number of infections in the country was now 86,576 while 1,385 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours. It noted that the discharges included 537 community recoveries in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 459 in Lagos State and 78 in Plateau managed…
The Kwara branch of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has expressed shock over the decision of the state government to disengage 2,414 teachers employed by the immediate past administration. In a statement on Wednesday, signed by its chairman, Alhaji Issa Ore, the union said that the decision to sack that large number of workers was too harsh on the affected people, their families and dependents. It said the situation would make life unbearable for them and their families; more so that their sack had already created a vacuum in the classrooms, which is also not good for the development of…