The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has unveiled a radio tracing programme in Borno to reunite 3,000 missing persons with loved ones. Sidika Nasiru, ICRC protection data officer, disclosed this in an interview in Maiduguri. Ms Nasiru said no fewer than 24,000 people, including children, were separated from their families nationwide due to conflicts, with about 16,000 from Borno alone due to insurgency. The ICRC official explained that the tracing programme run on FRCN (Peace FM Maiduguri) involves repeated announcements of missing persons’ names with few details for possible identification. “With the radio, we hope to get wider…
Author: meridianspy
The United Nations says Nigeria now has a funding gap of $10bn per annum to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. SDGs are global targets that aim to transform the world. They are a call to action to end poverty and inequality, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy health, justice and prosperity. Speaking on the amount of funds required to bridge the SDG gap in Nigeria, the Resident Representative to Nigeria, United Nations Development Programme, Mohamed Yahya, stated that about 410bn would be needed for this annually. He disclosed this at the high-level steering committee meeting of the…
President Bola Tinubu has appointed the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, as his Chief of Staff. He was introduced as the brand new chief of staff at the ongoing meeting between the President and the nation’s security chiefs currently holding at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday morning. Details Later…
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba has urged President Bola Tinubu to appoint his cabinet without wasting time. Agbakoba said Tinubu should appoint good people into his cabinet. He suggested the replacement of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Godwin Emefiele, with either Mustafa Chike-Obi, the Chairman of Fidelity Bank Nigeria or Yemi Cardoso who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Citibank Nigeria. He spoke during an interview with Arise Television. Agbakoba said: “We need to talk about a limited government. The government is too big, he needs to have good people. “The timeline for…
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has denied the report of the devaluation of the Naira to 630 Naira to a Dollar. The CBN in a statement signed by its acting spokesman, Isa AbdulMumin, on Thursday said the details of the report do not conform with the realities of the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market. “For the avoidance of doubt, the exchange rate at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window traded this morning (June 1, 2023) at N465/US$1 and has been stable around this rate for a while,” the statement read in part. The CBN urged the public to disregard the…
The National Assembly management has commenced clearance of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives for payment and collection of severance packages, as the 9th Assembly winds down. The Clerk of the House, Yahaya Danzaria, made this known in a notice to members at the plenary on Wednesday. The 9th Assembly, which was inaugurated on June 11, 2019, is expected to wind down by the first week of June, while the 10th Assembly is billed for inauguration on June 13, 2023. The Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, read out the Clerk’s notice to members on the floor.…
Brazil’s Supreme Court has sentenced former president, Fernando Collor de Mello to eight years and 10 months in prison for corruption on Wednesday, part of the fallout from the country’s sweeping Car Wash graft investigation. The high court had convicted Collor of taking 20 million reais ($4 million) in bribes as a senator from 2010 to 2014 in exchange for arranging contracts for a construction company with a subsidiary of state-run oil company Petrobras. Collor, 73, who led Brazil from 1990 to 1992, was already a tarnished figure in Brazilian politics: the country’s first democratically elected president after the 1964-1985…
Governor Dauda Lawal Dare of Zamfara State has accused his predecessor, Bello Muhammad Matawalle, of going away with 17 government vehicles and looting property including television and cookers from the state government house. Dare of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated Matawalle of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who sought a second term, in the March governorship election. Speaking during a phone in programme on in Gusau, the state capital, Vision FMthe governor said his predecessor also left behind an empty treasury and huge debt. APC women leaders kidnapped after attending Kaduna gov’s inauguration He said, “Former governor Bello Matawalle had…
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has urged the Federal Government to immediately instruct the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) to withdraw the just released pricing template to allow free flow of discussions by the parties. Joe Ajaero, the NLC President, made the call in a statement signed by him and made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja. Ajaero said that the new pricing template is vexatious, an ambush and may scuttle its ongoing dialogue with the federal government. According to Ajaero, government cannot in one breathe be talking about deregulation and at the same time fixing the prices…
President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday had a meeting behind closed doors with the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The meeting comes barely 24 hours after Tinubu directed the Department of State Services, DSS, to vacate the Ikoyi office of the anti-graft commission. Bawa, who arrived at the Villa a few minutes past 2pm was ushered into the President’s office complex. Although the purpose of the meeting is not yet public, it may not be unconnected to the reported disagreement between the EFCC and the DSS over the ownership…
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, Limited has instructed all petroleum marketers to adjust retail prices for the premium motor spirit to a range between N488 to N555 per liter. The instruction which hit marketers early today cited management approval of the upward review of NNPC PMS pump price table for Mega/Standard/Leased Stations. The new table of retail prices for different geopolitical zones of the country will be implemented by retail managers was instructed to take immediate effect beginning from May 31, 2023. “Please implement meter change as approved effective today 31st May 2023. Wayne is to attend to all…
Yakubu Suleiman, the national spokesperson of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), says over 100 petrol stations have been sanctioned for increasing pump prices. Briefly after President Bola Tinubu’s speech on May 29 that the petrol subsidy has been cancelled, panic buying erupted in some parts of the country as some marketers closed shops, leading to large queues in filling stations across the country. In Lagos, Abuja, and other parts of the country, it was observed that since May 29, some filling stations ceased operations; while those that dispensed petrol increased prices as large queues of customers lined…