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Monday, 14 February 2022 06:11

Airlines halt flights to Ukraine as fear of Russia invasion heightens

Some airlines have canceled or diverted flights to Ukraine amid heightened fears that an invasion by Russia is imminent despite intensive weekend talks between the Kremlin and the West. In an hourlong Saturday call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Joe Biden said that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said. It offered no suggestion that the call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe. The two presidents spoke a day after Biden’s national security adviser,…

Sunday, 13 February 2022 06:34

FG announces issuance date for fresh N150bn bonds

Debt Management Office (DMO) says it will auction N150 billion federal government bonds to investors on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. DMO announced this in a circular recently published on its website. A bond is a fixed income instrument that represents a loan made by an investor to a borrower — typically corporate or government. According to the circular, the bond issuance will be in two tranches valued at N75 billion each. The first tranche is the 10-year, 12.5 percent FGN Jan 2026 re-opening bond, while the second is the 20-year, 13 percent FGN 2042 reopening bond. It said the bonds…

Sunday, 13 February 2022 06:26

Two dead so far as building under construction collapses in Lagos

Two bodies have been recovered, while two persons were rescued from the rubble of a three-storey building which collapsed in Yaba, Lagos, on Saturday. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, director-general of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), confirmed the development in a statement. Earlier on Saturday, an official of LASEMA had said some construction workers were in the building when it collapsed. “Upon arrival of LASEMA response team at the incident scene, a three-storey building under construction was discovered to have collapsed,” the official had said. “Further investigation revealed that the construction workers numbering about five were on site when the structure…

Sunday, 13 February 2022 06:25

Police headquarters gets new spokesperson

Spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force, Frank Mba, has handed over the duties and responsibilities of the Force Public Relations Department to his deputy, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, according to an official statement. Adejobi, whose appointment takes immediate effect, will serve as substantive FPRO, a statement from the Force Headquarters said on Saturday. He takes over from Frank Mba, who was nominated for the Senior Executive Course at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos. Adejobi, a Chief Superintendent of Police, is an alumnus of the University of Ibadan where he studied Archeology and Geography. He also holds…

Saturday, 12 February 2022 06:17

Supreme Court shoots down Buhari’s Executive Order 10

Supreme Court, in a split decision of six Justices to one, on Friday in Abuja nullified the Executive Order 10 initiated by President Muhammadu Buhari to grant financial autonomy to the State Judiciary and Legislature. The apex court held that Executive Order 10 was inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution and therefore unconstitutional, illegal, null and void and of no effect. In a judgment by Muhammed Dattijo in the suit by the 36 states against the Federal Government, the court rejected the request of the 36 state governments for an order to compel the Federal Government to take up funding of…

Saturday, 12 February 2022 06:06

US, UK, Japan, others order citizens out of Ukraine as ‘Russia has troops in place to invade at any time’

Russia has the troops in place to invade Ukraine "at any time" and American citizens should leave within the next 48 hours, the US has warned. An invasion could start with aerial bombing that would make departures difficult and endanger civilians, the White House said on Friday. Moscow has repeatedly denied any plans to invade Ukraine despite massing more than 100,000 troops near the border. A host of other countries have also urged their nationals to leave Ukraine. They include the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Latvia, Japan and South Korea. Russia's foreign ministry has accused Western countries of spreading false…

Saturday, 12 February 2022 06:05

Biden to split $7bn in frozen funds between 9/11 victims and Afghan humanitarian aid

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday allowing $7 billion in frozen assets from Afghanistan's central bank to be distributed for humanitarian assistance in the country and to victims of the September 11 terror attacks, senior administration officials confirmed Friday. The funds, held in the US, were frozen following the collapse of the central government in Kabul in August. Half the remaining assets -- $3.5 billion -- will go toward providing relief inside the country, where fears of mass starvation have taken hold in the months since the Taliban took over. The remaining $3.5 billion will be made available…

Saturday, 12 February 2022 05:59

North Korea hacked him. So he took down the internet of the entire country

Disappointed with the lack of US response to the Hermit Kingdom's attacks against US security researchers, one hacker took matters into his own hands. For the past two weeks, observers of North Korea's strange and tightly restricted corner of the internet began to notice that the country seemed to be dealing with some serious connectivity problems. On several different days, practically all of its websites—the notoriously isolated nation only has a few dozen—intermittently dropped offline en masse, from the booking site for its Air Koryo airline to Naenara, a page that serves as the official portal for dictator Kim Jong-un's…

Friday, 11 February 2022 06:25

30,000 Boko Haram, ISWAP terrorists surrender in Borno - Gov

Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State says so far, 30,000 terrorists have surrendered to the military. Speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday, Zulum expressed optimism that the menace of Boko Haram will end very soon. The governor said this would become a reality with the support of the federal government. Asked whether this would happen in his administration, he said: “Insha Allah. Even now in Borno State, we’re doing very well, extremely well.” When further asked if what he meant was that the menace would end before 2023,…

Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:28

Electricity cut off in Oyo state as govt, IBEDC tango over debts

Management of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc says Oyo State Government has illegally sealed off its offices following the disconnection of electricity supply to the State Secretariat which also houses the Governor’s Office. The electricity distribution company said the state owes it N450 million and it disconnected supply to the State Secretariat over its failure to pay but the company said the state, through its officials, retaliated by sealing its offices over some contrived debts. This was contained in a statement signed by the Chief Operating Officer, John Ayodele, on Wednesday and made available to our correspondent by the Lead,…

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Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:19

Iraq pays last tranche of $52.4bn Gulf War reparations - UN

Iraq has completed payment of $52.4 billion to compensate individuals, companies and governments who proved damages due to its 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the United Nations reparations body said on Wednesday. The U.N. Compensation Commission, set up by the U.N. Security Council after the seven-month occupation of the emirate and U.S.-led defeat of Saddam Hussein’s troops in the Gulf War, received a portion of proceeds from Iraqi oil sales. The rate varied over the 30 years and was most recently 3%. In all, about 2.7 million claims, with an asserted value of $352.5 billion were lodged, but the…

Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:18

Sweden declares pandemic over, says Covid no longer ‘a danger to society’

Sweden scrapped almost all of its few pandemic restrictions on Wednesday and stopped most testing for Covid-19, even as the pressure on the healthcare systems remained high and some scientists begged for more patience in fighting the disease. Sweden's government, which throughout the pandemic has opted against lockdowns in favour of a voluntary approach, announced last week it would scrap the remaining restrictions - effectively declaring the pandemic over - as vaccines and the less severe Omicron variant have cushioned severe cases and deaths. "As we know this pandemic, I would say it's over," Minister of Health Lena Hallengren told…

Wednesday, 09 February 2022 06:31

CJN blasts FG, says its criticism of judiciary is ‘giving a dog a bad name so as to then hang it’

Ibrahim Muhammad, chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), says the federal government files more charges than it can prove in court. The CJN said this in reaction to the claim by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, that the judiciary is to blame for delays in prosecuting high-profile cases. In an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Monday, Malami said the federal government had employed measures to ensure speedy dispensation of cases, and that once a matter is brought before the court, it becomes a judiciary affair. “As far as the present administration is concerned, delay of cases does not…

Wednesday, 09 February 2022 06:30

FG to spend 92 percent of revenue paying interests on debt in 2022 - IMF

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the Federal Government could spend as much as 92.6 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing this year. This is contained in its 2021 Article IV, which was released yesterday. It also estimated last year’s debt servicing-to-revenue ratio at 85.5 per cent. The IMF 2020 debt-serving-to-revenue-ratio projection is higher than the 90 per cent forecast given by Agusto & Co. As at the end of September, 2021, debt-servicing-to-revenue ratio was 76 per cent, implying that 76 kobo out of every N1 earned by the government was spent on payment of interest on debts.…

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