Gov. Dave Umahi of Ebonyi has confirmed the fourth and fifth positive cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the state. Umahi disclosed this while giving an update on the COVID-19 situation on Sunday in Abakaliki. He said: “Fourth case is a twenty-two-year-old man, he lives in Ojo in Lagos state. “Just as it is with the third case, he left Lagos on April 26, and entered Ebonyi through Nkalagu border, and from there,...
Nigeria has recorded 220 new cases of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), bringing the country’s total infections to 2,388. According to a tweet by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Saturday, of the new infections, 62 are in Lagos, 52 from the FCT, 31 in Kaduna, and 13 from Sokoto. The NCDC also recorded 17 deaths, bringing the total number to 85. The centre also said 10 new cases were recorded in Kebbi, nine-Yobe,...
LAGOS – With her school shut because of the coronavirus, Tolu Alagba kneels as she copies down class notes from a communal village chalkboard, the closest thing to online lessons on an island with no electricity, a boat ride from Nigeria’s megacity Lagos. Like much of the world, Nigeria ordered schools shut in late March to curb the spread of the coronavirus. But while children in many countries have shifted to online lessons, that is...
Export programmes for West African crudes emerged on Friday and showed lower volumes for this month and the next, in line with unprecedented output cuts by producers and a lack of demand. Royal Dutch Shell circulated its export schedule for June loadings of Nigerian Bonny Light and Bonga crude, with the former set to fall sharply in June to 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 245,000 planned for May. Loading plans have been disrupted as Nigeria...
In a very strongly worded statement, the United States of America Justice Department made it clear what consequence awaits Nigeria if it doesn’t properly account for the returned Abacha loot. Nigeria must use money repatriated from funds looted by former military ruler General Sani Abacha on agreed public projects or be forced to “replace” it, the U.S. Justice Department said. The United States and the British dependency of Jersey agreed with the Nigerian government in...
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. — Sun Tzu Fifty years ago, this past January, the short-lived country called Biafra came to a very humiliating end. To say that the Igbo people and some of their cousins in the old Eastern Nigeria passed through a meat grinder in the preceding three years would be a great understatement. However, that history is largely lost on the majority of Igbos living...
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Catholics! Catholics…they never cease to amaze me. You should know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic and wouldn’t trade this faith for another. Glad we have that out of the way. Somewhere at the beginning of Mass, those lines appear in a faith recital to absolve everyone in attendance of sins they might have committed. As a result,...
Despite the ominous signs that were coming out of China late in 2019 the entire world now seems taken unawares by the novel virus (Coronavirus) that is currently ravaging the entire planet as we know it. There is no cure as we have been told, there is no remedy and all that the medical science could offer is for everyone to retreat into their respective holes and stay quarantined in place until this pandemic subsides....
Nigerian drummer and composer Tony Allen, who worked closely with musician Fela Kuti as a pioneer of the Afrobeat genre, died in Paris aged 79, his manager said. The Afrobeat sound, which rose to prominence in Nigeria in the 1970s, combined organ riffs with West African drum patterns and brass instruments. Allen’s drumming was a key part of the rhythmic structure that underpinned the fusion of jazz, funk and West African melodies. “Without Tony Allen, there would...
It actually started late February in Aba – a major commercial town in the eastern part of Nigeria known for product innovation and creativity. Individual tailors competed on production of unique designer masks and face caps. By the end of March, designer facemask became a trend in major African countries. Currently in this continent, fashion designers are agog with commendably striking styles of masks for use against the coronavirus pandemic. With Love from Algeria Tackling...
