Author: Chief Editor

The Emir of Muri Empire in Taraba State, Abbas Tafida, has issued a 30-day ultimatum to herders terrorising residents of the state to vacate forests within the state or be forced to do so. The Emir gave the ultimatum on Tuesday after Eid prayers. This follows a rising spate of kidnappings, killings, and attacks in the state by criminals suspected to be herders. He claimed that Fulani herders are responsible for perpetrating crimes in the state and should therefore vacate forests in the state within 30 days or be forced out. The Emir, who spoke in the Hausa language, urged…

Former Rwandan minister Augustin Ngirabatware, who has been sentenced to 30 years for his role in the country’s genocide, will see out the rest of his term in Senegal, his judicial overseers announced in The Hague on Wednesday. In a document dated May 28, Judge Carmel Agius of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) said he had instructed the court registrar “to transfer Ngirabatware to Senegal for the enforcement of his sentence as expeditiously as possible” after the conclusion of a separate case. Ngirabatware was planning minister at the time of the genocide, in which at least 800,000 Tutsis…

Covid-19 vaccine makers BioNTech and Pfizer on Wednesday said they had found a South African partner to produce their jab on the African continent for the first time. The move comes amid growing criticism of vaccine inequality that has seen poor countries fall behind richer ones in the race to protect people from the coronavirus. Under the agreement, Cape Town-based Biovac will complete the last step in the manufacturing process of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, known as “fill and finish”, the companies said in a statement. The project will take time to get off the ground, however, with the first African-finished…

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo has cautioned against the registration and revalidation of membership through unauthorised processes. The warning is contained in a statement issued in Owerri on Wednesday by the Director-General, APC Media Centre, Mr Cajetan Duke. Duke said the APC membership revalidation and registration exercise extended in Imo and three other states by the party’s Caretaker/ Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) was not to be done by proxy. “The attention of the party has been drawn to cases where certain persons have tried albeit unfruitfully to compromise the exercise by proxy. “In line with guidelines, as…

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a 36-year-old lady, Chioma Afam, and her partner, Peace Caleb, for smuggling 296,000 tablets of illicit drugs from Anambra State to Gombe state. This was made known in a statement by the NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, on Wednesday. According to the statement, Afam and her 22-year-old accomplice, Caleb, who both use multiple identities and wear hijab to evade security scrutiny, were arrested in Benue State on Saturday, when they tried to smuggle the tablets of Diazepam and Exol-5. Afam is said to have used different names…

As the diplomatic fireworks continue in Cotonou, Benin Republic, on the extradition of Yoruba Nation arrowhead, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho, facts have emerged that politically-motivated extradition is not new to Benin Republic, Nigeria’s neighbour in the West African sub-region. According to the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released by the United States Department of State, the government of Benin Republic in 2019 attempted to misuse international law enforcement tools for politically motivated purposes against specific individuals located outside the country. The report partly read, “In April 2019 a Spanish court rejected the government’s request for the extradition…

An aggrieved aspirant in the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State, Mr. George Moghalu, has dragged his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), before the Abuja division of the Federal High Court, over an alleged failure of the party to conduct a valid primary election for the selection\nomination of the party’s candidate in the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State. Moghalu, in the suit dated and filed July 8, 2021 by his lawyer, Mr. Chris Uche, SAN, asked the court to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to delist the name of Mr. Andy Uba and the APC…

The Oyo State Government says it has uncovered 41 employees classified as “No Show”, a euphemism for ghost workers. A statement issued on Wednesday in Ibadan by Mr Taiwo Adisa, the Chief Press Secretary to Gov. Seyi Makinde, said the discovery was made by the consultants engaged to verify its workforce. According to the statement, the Implementation Committee of the Oyo State 2019/2020 Civil/Public Servants Audit and Payroll Re-engineering/Validation Exercise confirmed the ghost workers. The consultants also indicted 602 officers and recommended them for removal from the payrolls but the Implementation Committee affirmed 41 ghost workers. “The consultants cleared 40…

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that at the appropriate time it will come up with a consensus and agreeable presidential candidate that will fly its flag in 2023. Sen. John Akpanudoehede, National Secretary, APC Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), stated this in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja. The statement was in reaction to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recent allegation that President Muhammadu Buhari had a self-succession plan. The APC scribe, however, stressed that the party would not allow individual ambitions to derail the Buhari administration, ahead of the 2023 presidential poll. He said…

A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Lai Olurode, has warned the Federal Government against maltreating Chief Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho following his arrest in Cotonou, Benin Republic on Monday night. Olurode said Igboho should be treated with dignity and be accorded the right to legal representation so that the international community would not see Nigeria as a lawless society. Although Igboho has not been brought to Nigeria following the arrest, he said he should be treated with dignity where he is now and if he was eventually brought to Nigeria. Speaking with journalists after…