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Saturday, 19 November 2022 05:42

Nigeria slated to get biggest share of Gates Foundation’s $7bn pledge for Africa

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Thursday it was committing $7 billion to Africa over the next four years, as Bill Gates warned that the Ukraine crisis was reducing the amount of aid flowing to the continent. The Foundation's pledge, which is up 40% on the amount spent during the previous four years, will target projects tackling hunger, disease, poverty and gender inequality. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, will take the biggest share. Humanitarian groups in Africa are grappling with the diversion of funding away towards Ukraine, and as Russia's invasion increases goods prices globally, impacting aid operations.…

Saturday, 19 November 2022 05:41

FG gets another $20.6m ‘credit alert’ from Abacha loot

The United States Department of Justice said it has transferred over $20.6m to the Federal Government in accordance with an August 23 agreement between the governments to repatriate assets stolen by late dictator, Sani Abacha, and his co-conspirators. According to a statement published on the DoJ’s website on Thursday, the repatriation brings the total amount forfeited and returned by the US in this case to approximately $332.4m. In 2020, the department repatriated over $311.7m of the forfeited assets that had been located in the Bailiwick of Jersey. Last year, the United Kingdom enforced the US judgment against the additional $20.6m.…

Saturday, 19 November 2022 05:40

‘Buhari’s payment of 13% derivation arrears enables me deliver on infrastructure projects for Rivers’ - Wike

Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, says President Muhammadu Buhari approved the payment of funds owed to states in the Niger Delta since 1999. Wike said this on Friday at the inauguration of the Nabo Graham Douglas campus of the Nigerian Law School in Rumueme, Port Harcourt. Wike said the funds have significantly aided his infrastructural strides in the state, adding that the projects that were recently inaugurated have been fully paid for, and more will be completed before the end of his tenure. According to Rivers governor, the money approved by Buhari were funds owed from the 13 percent derivation…

Saturday, 19 November 2022 05:36

What to know after Day 269 of Russia-Ukraine war

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine’s electricity grid chief warned of hours-long power outages Friday as Russia zeroed in on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with heavy artillery and missile attacks that have interrupted supplies to as much as 40% of the country’s people at the onset of winter. Freezing temperatures are putting additional pressure on energy networks, grid operator Ukrenergo said. “You always need to prepare for the worst. We understand that the enemy wants to destroy our power system in general, to cause long outages,” Ukrenergo’s chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Ukrainian state television. “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:34

NBS says 133m Nigerians are ‘multidimensionally’ poor. This is the breakdown between North and South, urban and rural

National Bureau of Statistics has disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor. In its latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index Report launched on Thursday, the NBS said 63 per cent of Nigerians are poor due to a lack of access to health, education, and living standards, alongside unemployment and shocks. The MPI offers a multivariate form of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education, living standards, work and shocks. According to the Statistician-General at the NBS, Semiu Adeniran, it is the first time they will conduct a standard multidimensional poverty survey in Nigeria. “The survey was implemented in 2021 to…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:32

100 children die every hour in Nigeria due to malnutrition - UNICEF

United Nations Children’s Fund has again raised the alarm that Nigeria loses 100 children per hour due to malnutrition. This translates to about 2,400 deaths daily. It, therefore, called for increased funding and other measures that could help in arresting the challenge urgently. Speaking in Lagos on Thursday during an interaction with media executives, UNICEF’s Chief Nutrition Officer in Nigeria, Nemat Hajeebhoy, noted that Nigeria was moving towards a nutrition emergency. The event was organised by the National Council on Nutrition, chaired by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo. Hajeebhoy said one-third of children in Nigeria lived in severe food poverty,…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:29

NAFDAC gets acting Director-General as Mojisola Adeyeye retires

Monica Eimunjeze, a director in the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has been appointed as the acting director-general of the agency. Mojisola Adeyeye, the former director-general, is said to have commenced her retirement leave. In an internal memo dated November 17 and seen by TheCable, Augustine Oboli, an assistant director, said the management is in receipt of a letter appointing Eimunjeze as acting director-general. Oboli, who copied 27 directors in the memo, said Eimunjeze’s appointment took effect from November 12. “The management is in receipt of a letter appointing Monica Eimunjeze as the acting director-general…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:28

Buhari sacks NYSC DG over ‘incompetence’

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the immediate removal of Mohammed Fadah as director-general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). According to sources, the president’s decision was taken on Thursday, and comes amid concerns over “incompetence”. Fadah’s reported removal comes months after he assumed office — he took over in May 2022 and became the 19th person to hold the position of NYSC DG. Meanwhile, following his reported removal, Fadah is said to have been asked to hand over to the most senior official within the NYSC. The senior official who takes over from Fadah is expected to act as…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:27

Nigerian soldier kills aid worker, injures UN helicopter pilot

A Nigerian soldier shot and wounded a United Nations helicopter co-pilot on Thursday before going on to kill a humanitarian worker and a fellow soldier at a military base in northeastern Nigeria, the army and a witness said. The Nigerian Army said in a statement that one of its members shot and injured a helicopter co-pilot from the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) in the north east, where the military is battling an Islamist insurgency. Army spokesman for the anti-insurgency operation Samson Nantip Zhakom said the unnamed soldier went on to shoot and kill a worker from one of…

Friday, 18 November 2022 05:25

What to know after Day 268 of Russia-Ukraine war

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russian missiles and shells hit Ukrainian positions in several regions and there was no let up in heavy fighting in Donetsk in the east, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday night as Moscow's occupying forces appeared more active. FIGHTING * Russia pounded gas production facilities and a major missile factory in new missile strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said. * Investigators in Ukraine's recently liberated southern region of Kherson have uncovered 63 bodies with signs of torture after Russian forces left, Ukraine's interior minister was quoted as saying. A Ukrainian human rights investigator released a…

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Thursday, 17 November 2022 06:55

Senate resolves to support Naira redesign with legislative oversight

The senate, on Wednesday, witnessed a rowdy session over the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). A heated argument broke out during a debate on a motion sponsored by Uba Sani, chairman, senate committee on banking, insurance and other financial institutions. Sani had, in the prayers to his motion, urged the senate to provide legislative support for the policy. He also asked the upper chamber to mandate his committee to embark on aggressive oversight on the matter. Sani also urged the senate to support the CBN naira redesign policy, including the January 31 deadline for compliance.…

Thursday, 17 November 2022 06:54

FG insists on not paying ASUU members for time during strike

The federal government has insisted that members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not be paid for work not done. On Wednesday, at the state house in Abuja, Adamu Adamu, minister of education, dismissed allegations that the federal government was trying to treat lecturers as causal workers by paying them on a pro-rata basis. “The strike has been called off and the government has paid them what is due to them,” Adamu said. He said the position of the government is quite clear, adding that “the government is not going to pay anyone for work not done”.…

Thursday, 17 November 2022 06:51

What to know after Day 267 of Russia-Ukraine war

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya on Wednesday said statements by Warsaw and Kiev sought to trigger a direct Russia-NATO conflict over the missile incident in Poland. "If this meeting hadn’t been scheduled, it would have had to be convened to discuss the attempts of Ukraine and Poland to provoke a direct clash between Russia and NATO. The absolutely irresponsible statements made by the leadership of these two countries cannot be perceived in any other way," he said at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Nebenzya said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately after the explosion in Poland accused…

Wednesday, 16 November 2022 06:33

World population hits 8 billion, creating many challenges in Nigeria, DRC, others

The world’s population hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa. Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than 15 million people in Lagos compete for everything from electricity to light their homes to spots on crowded buses, often for two-hour commutes each way in this sprawling megacity. Some Nigerian children set off for school as early as 5 a.m. And over the next three decades, the West African nation’s population is expected to soar even more:…

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