Author: Chief Editor

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari will speak to the government-owned National Television Authority (NTA) on Friday night, his spokesman said. It will be the second interview for the media-shy Nigerian leader in less than 48 hours. He was on interviewed by a team of Arise TV journalists on Thursday morning. “It promises to be revealing and educating,” Buhari spokesman Femi Adesina said in a statement. [GuardianNG]

BUT there is only one thing, which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression,” once wrote an English philosopher, John Locke. Once again, as the country marks ‘Democracy Day’ on Saturday, the malignant ghost of the criminal annulment, 28 years ago, of the presidential election hovers over the land. In the struggle that followed the abrupt voiding of the result by the military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, hundreds of innocent people were killed, and media houses proscribed. It was, really, an ugly time for the country. Yet, almost three decades down the road, Nigeria’s rulers, like the Bourbons, appear…

Senior advocate and founder of Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola, said on Friday that true democracy was still elusive in Nigeria 28 years after the June 12, 1993, election, believed to have been won by Chief Moshood Abiola, was annulled by the military. Babalola who recalled the day the issue of June 12 was finally put to rest in the court, in view of a one-sheet gazette presented by the government’s lawyer, described it as “the saddest day for the Judiciary in our country” and “the beginning of a journey the end of which nobody knows.” The elder statesman,…

South Africa has officially entered its third wave of coronavirus infections, health authorities said, with rising caseloads and a sluggish vaccine rollout fuelling fears of fresh strain on the health system. “South Africa technically entered the 3rd wave today as the national 7-day moving average incidence (5959 cases) now exceeds the new wave threshold as defined by the Ministerial Advisory Committee,” the National Institute for Communicable Diseases tweeted on Thursday. The health ministry later announced that it had detected over 9,100 cases in 24 hours — approaching the levels seen at the peak of South Africa’s second wave in December.…

The Philippines is once again polio-free, the World Health Organization said Friday, after a successful vaccination campaign that has raised hopes for Covid-19 inoculations in a country plagued by mistrust of jabs. Polio re-emerged in the country in 2019, nearly two decades after its last cases were detected, sparking a nationwide effort to immunise millions of children against the crippling disease. At least 17 people were infected, but health authorities said they have not detected the virus in a child or the environment in the past 16 months. “We are celebrating freedom from polio,” said Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative…

Nigerians celebrate June 12 tomorrow, both as the now official Democracy Day and in remembrance of Chief Moshood Abiola who won the presidential election of June 12, 1993, adjudged to be the best election in the country. Coming closely after the commemoration of May 29 as democracy inauguration day, it is ironic that a country that keenly observes the two days in a year for the commemoration of democracy suffers the worst form of self-inflicted anti-democratic tendencies which are gradually consuming the polity. Both by intent and default, this is a rude deception and an odious malady of which this…

Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday the country can host the Copa America despite the coronavirus pandemic, clearing the way for the troubled football tournament to go ahead in three days. In an extraordinary virtual session, a majority of the high court’s 11 justices decided against plaintiffs who argued the South American championships posed an unacceptable health risk. Various judges however ordered the government to take additional safety measures. “It falls to (state governors and mayors) to set the appropriate health protocols and ensure they are respected in order to avoid a ‘Copavirus,’ with new infections and the emergence of new…

President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Mr Balarabe Ilelah, a veteran broadcaster as the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed announced the appointment in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday. He said Mr Ilelah’s appointment was for five years tenure in the first instance. The statement was signed and made available to newsmen by Mr  Segun Adeyemi, the Special Assistant to the President (Media), Office of the Minister of Information and Culture. [GuardianNG]

Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, has disclosed that the COVID-19 vaccine, which his group presented to the federal government few months ago, is currently undergoing clinical trials at the University of Lagos. According to him, the government of Thailand had accepted the active constituent of the vaccine as their national response for COVID-19, adding that the vaccine is doing well and it is going to be successful. He said: “It is good to let Nigerians know that there is a new product based on the anti-malaria that my group is developing with the…

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the local government system has been killed and not properly functioning. Buhari stated this while responding to a question during an exclusive interview on the Morning Show on ARISE TV, the broadcast arm of THISDAY, Thursday. He said, ”Devolution of powers, you have to define it. Well actually the local government system has been killed. The federal, state and local government if they agree to flow properly we won’t have all these problems. But the problem is the local government has been virtually killed and this is not good for this country, because those…