Author: Chief Editor

High-powered Federal Government negotiating team will be meeting with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday in a bid to secure an agreement to call off the nine months old indefinite strike by university lecturers. A notice of the meeting signed by the Deputy Director/ Head of Press and Public Relations, Mr. Charles Akpan and made available to THISDAY Thursday said that the Minister for Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige will be meeting with members of ASUU on Friday. The statement said the meeting was scheduled for the Minister’s Conference Room by 11am. Although, the agenda of…

Niran Adedokun niranadedokun@gmail.com Forgive my scepticism, but the Federal Government’s immediate reaction to the #EndSARS protests that hit Nigeria like a thunderbolt in October, does not assure of an enduring reform. Agreeing to end the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in line with popular demand but replacing it with a Special Weapon and Tactics Team, smells like nothing but a knee-jerk reaction motivated by deceptive populism, in my opinion. Here, is why I say so. Although operatives of SARS were the immediate reference points of the various cases of brutality and other malfeasances that the Nigeria Police is accused of, the…

Abimbola Adelakun aadelakun@punchng.com On Tuesday, the Nigeria Police Force cordoned off the road leading to the Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, to prevent an #EndSARS meeting from happening. In a letter to Afrika Shrine’s operators, Lagos State Police Command warned against hosting a potentially volatile meeting at “this perilous time,” and that any consequent social destabilisation will “be tagged a deliberate action to sabotage the transition and restoration of the peace in Lagos by the state government and the Nigeria Police Force.” First, one wonders why the alarmism of “perilous time” as if we have pivoted to the so-called end times.…

Chelsea Olivier Giroud, who has struggled for playing time at the club, could leave the club in January. In this regard, a return to Ligue 1 has been mooted for the French international. Chelsea forward Olivier Giroud has reportedly decided to leave the club and could do so in the upcoming January transfer window. The France international joined the Blues from Arsenal in January 2018. He has since gone on to make 94 appearances in all competitions for Chelsea, scoring 29 goals and providing 14 assists. However, the Frenchman hasn’t manage to seal his spot as the first-choice striker throughout his time at…

Mariano joined the Real Madrid youth side in 2011 and showed a lot of promise as a youngster. However, he’s no longer a part of Zinedine Zidane’s plans right now and could be offloaded in the upcoming transfer window. Real Madrid have offered West Ham United a chance to sign Mariano Diaz, according to reports. The Spanish-Dominican Republic forward returned to the Santiago Bernabeu in 2018 but has struggled to find his feet in the first team. Mariano joined the Real Madrid youth side in 2011 and showed a lot of promise as a youngster. However, breaking into the first team proved to be…

Justice Okon Abang of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court on Wednesday revoked the bail of the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reformed Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, over his continued failure to appear in court in his alleged N2 billion money laundering trial. Justice Abang accordingly ordered security agencies to arrest him wherever he may be found. The revocation of Maina’s bail was pursuant to an application by the prosecution counsel, Mr Mohamed Abubakar. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Maina, his son, Faisal; and a firm, Common Input Property and Investment Ltd,…

Governors of the 36 states of the federation Wednesday told the deputy Secretary general of the United Nations how the Covid-19 pandemic affected governance and development in Nigeria in the period under review. The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, enumerated some of the challenges of governance in the country and how the pandemic affected the nation’s economy and whittled down its super structure at the subnational level. He spoke when the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, visited the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat as part of her…

An effective coronavirus vaccine will not fundamentally change European Central Bank economic projections, as a medical solution was already factored into forecasts, ECB President Christine Lagarde told a Bloomberg event on Tuesday. Lagarde added that, while vaccine deployment may be somewhat quicker than earlier thought, the economy was also taking a bigger hit from the second wave of the pandemic than expected. “I’m not sure that is going to be a major game changer for our forecasts, simply because what we had anticipated in our baseline was that at some stage in the first half of 2021 there would be…

Just as the novel coronavirus was gaining a foothold in the United States in mid-March, Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla called on his top vaccine scientists and laid out a clear mission: “He basically said, ‘Your mandate is to get this vaccine made. And if you need resources, you come and you ask for them, and you’re going to get them’,”chief viral vaccine scientist Philip Dormitzer told Reuters. The assignment was both inspiring and daunting. It provided researchers with the backing to tackle something that had never been done before: design a vaccine to stop a pandemic in its…

Nigeria’s president will do what it takes to prevent a repeat of demonstrations against police brutality last month that led to unrest in which dozens of protesters and police were killed and more than 200 buildings torched, the police minister said. Protests against an elite police force, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, led last month to the worst civil unrest in Nigeria since the return to civilian rule in 1999. Thousands of Nigerians took to the streets under the slogan “ENDSars” to protest against the force, which the demonstrators blame for killings, torture and extortion. Though the protests were…