Country
Carrie Underwood, Mickey Guyton & More Join ‘Cameo Goes Country’ Charitable Campaign
Proceeds will be distributed to ACM Lifting Lives’ COVID-19 Response Fund. Cameo, the app and tech company that allows users to pay celebrities for personalized videos, has struck a charitable partnership with ACM Lifting Lives, the philanthropic arm of the Academy of Country Music. The resulting campaign, “Cameo Goes Country,” will benefit ACM Lifting Lives’ COVID-19 Response Fund and music therapy programs for both physical and mental health-related issues. Going live today and running through June 30, “Cameo Goes Country” allows fans to book personalized messages and purchase virtual meet-and-greet tickets in support of the charitable campaign. Participating country artists, who will donate 100% of their proceeds to the cause, include Carrie Underwood, Chrissy Metz, Deana Carter, ...
House member accuses military of extrajudicial killings, looting in Imo
A member of the House of Representatives, Bede Eke, has said men of the Nigerian Army and the police are carrying out extrajudicial killings and displacement of people in Imo State following the recent killing of a former presidential aide, Ahmed Gulak. Mr Gulak, a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was killed by unknown gunmen on May 30 while on his way to Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri, en route Abuja. According to the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, Mr Gulak was consulting for the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review, which he (Omo-Agege) heads. The police said Mr Gulak’s killers were subsequently killed in a gun battle. Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Thursday, Mr Eke, who represents Mbaise/Ngor-Okpala Federal Constituency of Imo State, alleged tha...
Group wants more women in governance
The Women Political Participation Technical Working Group (WPP-TWG) has called for the review of the 1999 Constitution to accommodate more women in government. The position by the group was presented during the House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Amendment organised by the National Assembly in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital. Making the disclosure was Mrs. Glory Ekaso, Director, National Issues/Welfare, WPP-TWG, who briefed newsmen in Uyo on Thursday to intimate the public on the women’s position as presented during the just-concluded Constitution amendment committee meetings. Ekaso said the WPP-TWG comprised 26 women’s groups across the country with a common mission to ensure equitable representation in government. She said that women political representation in the 2019 e...
CJN demands NJC’s involvement in fixing, reviewing of judge’s salary
The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, has admonished the National Assembly to alter the constitution to mandate the National Judicial Council (NJC) to be involved in the fixing and reviewing of salaries and other emoluments of judges in the country. The CJN, who decried the non review of their salaries in the last 13 years by the Salaries and Wages Commission, also asked for the review of their salaries every four years. He also wants the NJC to collect, control and disburse all monies, capital and recurrent for the judiciary. Justice Muhammad’s demands were contained in the paper he presented as part of recommendations on behalf of the Judiciary at the national public hearing by Senate Committee on Review of the 1999 Constitution held at the Africa Hall of the Inte...
Minister: Nigeria’s earlier break-up prediction failed, others will
Information minister Lai Mohammed says a prediction that Nigeria would break up in 2015 did not materialise, asserting that current predictions by individuals and organisations will also fail. A former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, and one other expert had suggested that Nigeria had become a failed state calling on the U.S. government to step to salvage the country from total collapse. Mr Mohammed stated, “This declaration is merely the opinions of two persons, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations John Campbell, and the President Emeritus of World Peace Foundation, Robert Rotberg. “Declaring any nation a failed state is not done at the whims and caprices of one or two persons, no matter their status. Just because Nigeria is ...
Mass grave reopens wounds among indigenous survivors of colonial Canadian school system
The discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Canada has reopened wounds for survivors of the system, they said, as the government pledged to spend previously promised money to search for more unmarked graves. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc indigenous nation in British Columbia announced last week it had found the remains of 215 children, some as young as three, buried at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once Canada’s largest such school. Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 children from their homes and subjected them to abuse, rape and malnutrition at schools across the country in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”. Run by the government and c...
Nigerian government mulls deployment of GPS to monitor constituency projects, expenditure
The Federal Government, yesterday, considered the deployment of Global Positioning System (GPS) across the six geopolitical zones, in a bid to monitor constituency projects and expenditure. It also considered a bottom-up approach in the siting and location of zonal/constituency projects to enhance and ensure ownership by the constituents. This was contained in a communiqué issued at a 2-day stakeholders’ interactive forum organized by the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, yesterday in Abuja. The communiqué which was signed by Simon Tyungu, a Special Adviser to the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, George Akume, added that ICT platforms should be created for monitoring and evaluation of projects to reduce physical exercise. According to him, “...
Nigerian government approves N9.2 billion premium for civil servants’ life insurance
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the sum of N9.2billion as premium to insurance companies that will manage the group life insurance for federal civil servants in the country. Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed revealed this when he briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the Council meeting which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Wednesday. He said: “On behalf of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, I will like to report that council today approved the award of contract for the appointment of insurance companies for group life assurance for federal government employees, public servants, para-military and the intelligence community for the year 2021-2022 in the sum of N9, 248. 995, 907. “This premium is for a perio...
Benue governor decries murder of security aide
The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has condemned the assassination of his Senior Special Assistant on Security, Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Christopher Dega (rtd), describing it as a huge blow to his administration and the entire state. The governor, while speaking to journalists Wednesday at Benue Peoples House, Makurdi, lamented that the retired AIG was very active even in retirement, saying it was painful that he was gunned down in such a gruesome manner. “Retired AIG Dega served with me here and this is someone who has retired but is not tired and was very active. So for him to have been murdered in the manner they did, a retired AIG gunned down. This is very sad,” Ortom stated. The governor, who stressed that insecurity had bedevilled the entire country, called o...
Ex-Governor Mimiko: President Buhari‘ll be judged based on fight against insecurity
Former Ondo State governor, Segun Mimiko, has said posterity will judge President Muhammadu Buhari based on his ability to tackle the present security challenges ravaging the country. Mimiko stated this, on Tuesday, while speaking at the 71st birthday ceremony/ public presentation of biography of the former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Joseph Akinlaja, in Abuja. The former governor, who stated that the country is perching precariously at the precipice, noted that President Buhari has an opportunity to determine his legacy. According to him, President Buhari will not be remembered by the kilometers of railway gauges built by his administration nor the Second Niger Bridge, but by his ability to tackle insecurity across the country. He said...
Luke Combs Continues Career-Opening No. 1 Streak on Country Airplay Chart With ‘Forever After All’
“It’s pretty crazy having this song go No. 1,” Combs marvels. “It’s all thanks to the fans [and] we have a really great team, from management, to label, to band and crew. And, we’ve been lucky that country radio has embraced us, which means the world to me. I’m forever grateful to everybody that’s helped get my songs out there. Thanks to everybody, and I never take it for granted.” The single, which Combs wrote with Drew Parker and Robert Williford, follows “Better Together,” which ruled for five weeks beginning in January; “Lovin’ on You” (four weeks, starting last September); “Does to Me,” featuring Eric Church (two, May 2020); “Even Though I’m Leaving” (five, November 2019);...
Guatemalan president says graft fighter biased, ahead of Harris visit
Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei criticized the country’s best-known graft prosecutor for what he said was a left-wing politicization of the fight against corruption, a view at odds with strong U.S. backing for his work. Speaking in an interview with Reuters late on Tuesday, Giammattei nonetheless expressed hope that a visit to Guatemala next week by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will produce shared strategies to create prosperity in rural areas prone to emigration. Harris, a Democrat, is in charge of Washington efforts to tackle the causes of mass migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, collectively dubbed the Northern Triangle, including a focus on corruption and poor governance that she says limit opportunities. There is a $4 billion U.S. aid package to the reg...