Tuesday
#EndSARS: We suffered extensive damages – INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that it suffered extensive damages, vandalisation of offices and facilities across the states during the destruction that trailed the EndSARS protests. The commission said the damages were also felt in areas where bye-elections has been scheduled. INEC National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, who made the disclosure in a statement, said the commission as a result may have to consult stakeholders before agreeing on specific date for the bye-elections. Recall that the commission had at its meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) suspended the bye-elections indefinitely because of the security situation in the country at the time, promising to review same ...
Flying Eagles: WAFU B Zonal U-20 qualifiers postponed due to virus
The WAFU B Zonal qualifiers which will feature the Flying Eagles of Nigeria and six other West African countries billed for Lome, Togo, has been shifted to a later date due to coronavirus. The Togolese Football Federation (FTF) confirmed the postponement of the tournament in a communique published on their Twitter handle on Thursday. The WAFU B Zonal qualifiers which will be the qualifiers for the 2021 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations in Mauritania, was originally scheduled for November 18 to December 2. According to FTF they will engage WAFU and CAF to find a new date for the competition. “The Togolese Football Federation is announcing to the sporting world that the WAFU Zone B tournament scheduled for Lome between November 18 and December has been postponed to a future date following a decisio...
At least 20 massacred during Mozambique initiation ceremony
Suspected militants beheaded over a dozen men and teenagers participating in a male initiation ceremony in northern Mozambique, local sources said on Wednesday, in the latest violent incident in the country’s insurgency-hit northeast. The dismembered bodies of at least five adults and 15 boys were found on Monday, scattered across a forest clearing in Muidumbe district. Islamist militants operating in the area had attacked several nearby villages over the weekend, looting and burning down homes before retreating into surrounding thicket. “Police learnt of the massacre committed by the insurgents through reports of people who found corpses in the woods,” said an officer in the neighbouring Mueda district who asked not to be named. “It was possible to count 20 bodies spread over an area of a...
Governor Wike: Security operatives have arrested two IPOB kingpins over Oyigbo killings
Two alleged kingpins of proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) have been arrested by security operatives in connection with recent violence that left four policemen and six soldiers killed in Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State. Governor Nyesom Wike disclosed this Tuesday when Rotary District 9141 Governor, Mrs Virginia Major led a delegation of Rotarians on a visit to Wike at the Government House, Port Harcourt. The Governor told the Rotatians, “If we did not take the steps we took by imposing curfew in Oyigbo, it would have been the Hausa and Igbo that will have been fighting and nobody knows what level it would have taken today. “I will not support criminality. I won’t because the soldiers don’t like me, then you go and kill them. And then, I will come out and clap, tha...
US election: Republicans hold back Democrats, narrowing path to Senate control
The battle for power in the Senate tightened into Wednesday as Democrats picked up a seat in Colorado, but suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in high-profile races in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas and Kansas, dramatically narrowing the political map. Republicans fought to retain their Senate majority by turning back a surge of Democrats challenging allies of President Donald Trump, and the Democrats’ various paths to seizing control were growing more limited. With several contests still too early to call, and one Georgia race heading to a January runoff, the final verdict is expected to drag on. Democrats gained a seat when ex-Gov. John Hickenlooper ousted GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, a must-win to flip the Senate, but couldn’t hold on in Alabama, where forme...
APC insincere about restructuring – PDP
File Photo THE Peoples Democratic Party has accused the All Progressives Congress of frustrating genuine efforts aimed at restructuring Nigeria. The party said this in a statement titled, ‘APC is frustrating genuine restructuring – PDP, insists on 2014 National Conference report’, signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in Abuja on Tuesday. It alleged that the APC was trying to manipulate the system and frustrate the widespread clamour and efforts by the majority of Nigerians for genuine restructuring. The opposition party described plans by the APC to smuggle the partisan report of its committee on restructuring into the National Assembly to replace the 2014 National Conference Report, “as an unpardonable assault on the sensibility of over 200 million Nigerians, who...
Polls start to close in tense US presidential election
Polls in US battleground states began to close on Tuesday, inching the contest between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden to its nail-biting conclusion, following a race fought in unprecedented conditions of a global pandemic and the most deeply divided electorate in decades. At 7:00 pm (0000 GMT), voting ended in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, and also Georgia, a formerly rock-solid Republican state that Biden’s Democrats hope to flip. CNN and NBC already projected a win for Trump in Indiana. Parts of Florida — an even bigger electoral prize that routinely sees knife-edge elections — were also closing at 7:00 pm. Polls in the rest of the state and also in Pennsylvania, another ground zero in US presidential contests, were closing at 8:00 pm (0100 GMT). What was no...
US election: FBI probes robocalls urging voters to ‘stay home’
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating calls that seek to discourage people from voting, a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security told reporters on Tuesday. Authorities would not offer details. US state and local officials have been raising the alarm over at least two separate automated call campaigns as millions of people cast their votes on Tuesday to decide between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden. Janaka Stucky, 42, a Democratic voter who lives in Medford, Massachusetts, was one of the many who received the robocall on Tuesday. “My first thought was that actually, it was a municipal test call for a COVID lockdown thing,” he told the Reuters news agency. “The more I thought about it I was like, oh this actually feels really off and weir...
Real Madrid rekindle last 16 hopes with 3-2 win over Inter Milan
Real Madrid boosted their chances of reaching the UEFA Champions League knockout stages after a late winner by substitute Rodrygo. The win gave them a 3-2 home victory over Inter Milan in an absorbing Group B clash on Tuesday. The result left Real Madrid, winners of a record 13 titles in Europe’s premier club competition, level on four points with Shakhtar Donetsk. They are one point behind leaders Borussia Moenchengladbach and two ahead of bottom placed Inter Milan. Real Madrid had thrown away a two-goal lead and were flirting with a defeat which would have piled more pressure on manager Zinedine Zidane. Then, their Brazilian duo of Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo combined to save the day. Chances had gone begging at either end before Karim Benzema gave the home side a 25th minute lead. He ro...
Nigeria debts will hit N38.68 trillion in 2021 – minister
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said the total public debts of Nigeria would hit N38trn by December 2021. The Minister stated this on Tuesday, in her presentation to the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts. The Minister said, ”The total public debt stock comprising the External and Homes debts of the Federal and state governments and the Federal Capital Territory stood at N31.01trn (USD85.90 billion) as at June 30, 2020. “It is projected, based on existing approval, to rise to N32.51 trillion by December 31, 2020 and N38.68 trillion by December 31,2021.” She attributed reasons for numerous abandoned road projects across the country to poor funds releases occasioned by dwindling revenue. She explained that the current Sukuk fund is N162bn for...
Nigeria mulls exit from some International organisations – minister
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Godfrey Onyeama, says plans are underway to reduce the number of International Organisations Nigeria belongs to because of paucity of funds. Onyeama made this known while defending the ministry’s 2021 budget at the House of Representatives on Tuesday in Abuja. He said that the ministry is faced with a challenge of meeting its contribution to those International organisations. “We are owing a lot, and in the Federal Executive Council (FEC), there is a process to rationalise and cut down on the International Organisations we belong to. “This is because we are just owing monies left and right and it is not even good for the image of the country,” he said. Onyeama, who decried the poor funding of the ministry, reeled out the challenges facing the 2021 budget...
Lekki shooting: CCTV stopped recording after 8pm – LCC chief
Lekki Concession Company (LCC) has said that CCTV cameras at Lekki Tollgate stopped working at 8p.m. on Oct. 20, the day military men alleged shot at unarmed #EndSARS protesters. Managing Director of LCC, Mr Abayomi Omomuwasi, made the disclosure while testifying during proceedings of Lagos #EndSARS Judicial Panel on Tuesday. Led in evidence by his lawyer, Mr Rotimi Seriki, Omomuwasi said that the cameras stopped working due to network issues. “We never tampered with the surveillance camera, that is why we have footage until 8 p.m. when it stopped recording. “It was around 8.p.m. that we did not get any CCTV recording. It stopped recording because of network issues with the system. “The major cause is that we have the network that connects our cameras together at Ikoyi Link Bridge, Chevron...
