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President Buhari directs security chiefs to recover areas being occupied by criminals
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the nation’s security chiefs to recover all areas being occupied by insurgents, bandits and kidnappers across the country. The National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno, told State House correspondents that the president gave the order during the just concluded meeting of the National Security Council. The meeting was presided by Buhari at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday. According to him, no sovereign nation will allow a group of non-state actors to bring it down to its knees and render the state in state of panic, apprehension, mistrust and disorder. “Therefore, both the defence and intelligence organisations have been charged that while we look forward to having a peaceful, non-kinetic reso...
Senator Saraki urges President Buhari to include opposition, others in fight against insecurity
A former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, on Tuesday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to include opposition parties and the international community in the fight against insecurity in Nigeria. He spoke with newsmen shortly after he met with a former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, behind closed doors at his penthouse residence located within the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State. Saraki, who is the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Reconciliation and Strategy Committee, was joined in the meeting by former Governors, Ibrahim Dankwanbo (Gombe), Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Osun), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Ibrahim Shehu Sema (Katsina) and former Majority Leader, House of Representatives, Mulikat Akande Adeola. Speaking after about two hours c...
Energy firms’ bank debts rise to N5.94 trillion
The debts owed to Nigerian banks by oil and gas operators as well as power companies in the country rose to N5.94tn at the end of 2020 from N5.25tn in December 2019. The N5.94tn represents 29.16 per cent of the N20.37tn loans advanced to the private sector by the banks as of December, according to the sectoral analysis of banks’ credit by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Oil and gas firms, which received the biggest share of the credit from the banks, increased their debt by N600bn to N5.18tn in December 2020 from N4.58tn in December 2019. The debt owed by power firms to the banks rose to N763.22bn in December 2020 from N671.45bn in December 2019, the CBN data showed. Oil firms operating in the downstream, natural gas and crude oil refining subsectors owed N393tn as of December, up from N3.42t...
Charles Udeogaranya: Ndigbo Republic may emerge if South-East fails to produce president in 2023
A Presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2019, Chief Charles Udeogaranya, has said that the way things are going in Nigeria, Ndigbo Republic may emerge instead of Biafra. According to him, “if after 50 years of Nigeria/Biafra civil war and political power brokers do not find it expediently urgent to close this monumental gap of inequality by giving a sense of belonging to the South-East region of Nigeria, then Ndigbo Republic (NR) is inevitable and I will lead the struggle of its actualisation.” Udeogaranya said that Ndigbo remains more Nigerian than any other Nigerian ethnic group and will always play their big brother role of pan-Africanism. Ndigbo, he said wants the best for the Yoruba nation, Hausa nation, Fulani nation, Ijaw nation and every other nationality ...
Minister: Nigerians who received coronavirus vaccines abroad must get tested upon arrival
The minister of state for health, Olorunnimbe Mamora, says Nigerians who have received COVID-19 vaccines abroad will still be required to take polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests upon arrival in the country. Speaking on a Channels TV programme on Monday, Mamora said receiving the vaccine is not a license to disregard the already established COVID-19 travel protocol. “The protocol is there already. They need to produce evidence of taking a PCR test within the estimated time limit before boarding and the test certificate and when they come into the country, they would need to go into isolation and on the seventh day, they take the PCR test. “Having been vaccinated does not absolutely say that you can’t get the infection. What the vaccine guarantees is that if you get the infection, you are...
NANS asks Nigerian government to declare abductors of students terrorists
Following the gale of abductions of school children in the Northern part of the country, the National Association of Nigerian Student (NANS), has advised the federal government to list bandits perpetrating such horrendous crime as terrorists. Newsmen averred that the abduction of over 300 schoolgirls from Government Girls Junior Secondary School, Jangebe, Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State in the early hours of Friday, was an indictment and clear indication of the failure of the nation’s security apparatuses. Again, NANS advised the government to convey a National Security Summit towards galvanizing the best brains in providing ideas and innovation to combating the country’s multi-faceted security challenges. In a statement in Ado-Ekiti, on Sunday, NANS National President, Com. Su...
Morgan Wallen’s ‘Dangerous’ Becomes Only Country Album to Spend First Seven Weeks at No. 1 on Billboard 200
Dangerous and The Chase are two of only eight country albums that have spent at least seven weeks in total at No. 1. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new March 6, 2021-dated chart (where Dangerous is No. 1 for a seventh week) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on March 2. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and...
Miranda Lambert and Elle King Rocked Out to Cyndi Lauper While on ‘Drunk’ Set: Watch
“Girls just want to have fun! Glam Jam on the ‘Drunk’ music video set,” Lambert captioned the video, tagging everyone who appeared. The “Bluebird” singer and King first teased their collab on Feb. 22, with both women sharing photos of the two together and the hashtag #DRUNK. The song and its accompanying video dropped soon after on Feb. 26. In a behind-the-scenes video shared by Entertainment Tonight, King revealed, “This is probably the most fun music video I’ve ever done.” “We both got to jump around and wear glitter,” added Lambert. “We needed to laugh.” Prior to “Drunk,” King appeared on Lambert’s cover of “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” and also joined her Roadside & Pink ...
Primate Ayodele: President Buhari has broken Nigeria’s unity
The Leader of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, has once again knocked the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, over the unsecured state of the country. The popular prophet frowned at the method the government has chosen to fight banditry: negotiating with bandits in order to stop terrorising the ordinary citizens. Ayodele during a live service in his church on Sunday made it known that Nigeria has broken already with the means through which the government is fighting insecurity. He explained that terrorism will continue to grow bigger and tougher in Nigeria because the government has invited terrorism already by negotiating with bandits. He explained that the unity of Nigeria has been broken, and it’s only God that can bring the country back. Ayodele said: “‘Gi...
South Africa signs J&J vaccine deal, eases restrictions
South Africa has signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and will ease restrictions due to a decline in new cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. South Africa has been the hardest-hit on the continent by the pandemic, recording almost half of the COVID-19 deaths and more than a third of reported infections. But daily cases have fallen below 2,000, from a peak above 20,000 last month during a second wave of infections. Ramaphosa said in a televised address that 2.8 million of the J&J doses would be delivered in the second quarter, with the rest spread throughout the year. South Africa started administering the single-dose J&J vaccine this month in a research study targeting healthcare workers but has not yet rolled out sh...
NHRC urges Zamfara government to reconsider stand on ‘repentant bandits’
The National Human Rights Commission, on Saturday, expressed concerns over the rising cases of kidnapping of boarding schools’ students in northern parts of the country. The commission also called on the Zamfara State Government to reconsider its stand on repentant bandits to avoid elevation of criminality to a level where they would be dictating conditions for negotiations with government. The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Tony Ojukwu, stated this in a statement by the Commission’s Deputy Director of Public Affairs, Fatimah Mohammed, in Abuja. He was reacting to the recent reports of the abduction of over 300 students at Government Girls Science Secondary School Janjebe, Zamfara State. According to him, young boys and girls have unfortunately been abused and violated by some unsc...
Bauchi, Benue governors reconcile in Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday, brokered a truce between the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom and Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed in Port Harcourt. The conflict was resolved following the intervention of Governor Wike and his Adamawa State counterpart, Governor Ahmed Fintiri. Briefing journalists at the meeting, which held at Governor Wike’s private residence at Rumuepirikom, Governor Mohammed said the outburst between him and Governor Ortom over herders/Fulani profiling was regrettable. “We don’t mean to divide the country, to divide our people. We are still friends and brothers and that we will move forward because most of those issues are fully resolved. “I want to seize this opportunity to tell Nigerians that whatever misconception that is there, th...