The two chambers of the National Assembly on Thursday, raised the N10.509 trillion budget proposed by the executive as revised budget for 2020 fiscal year by N301billion, passing N10.810 trillion as aggregate expenditure for the 2020 revised budget. The N301 billion added to the earlier proposal made by the executive arose from increases made on Capital expenditure proposal, which was raised from N2.230 trillion to N2.488 trillion, recurrent expenditure jerked up from the earlier proposed...
The Enugu State House of Assembly on Thursday considered and approved the participation of Enugu State in the Central Bank of Nigeria national healthcare intervention fund. All members of the State’s House of Assembly unanimously supported the State’s participation having found the intervention fund to be favourable, in the public interest, and a boost to the healthcare system. The Central Bank of Nigeria Health Sector Intervention Fund is a facility mapped out for financing the...
TERVUREN, Belgium — When it comes to ruthless colonialism and racism, few historical figures are more notorious than Leopold II, the Belgian king who held Congo as his personal property and may have been responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese more than a century ago. Yet across Belgium, the monarch’s name is still found on streets and tunnels. Cities are dotted with his statues and busts, even as evidence of his misdeeds has...
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Collins Khosa was killed by law enforcement officers in a poor township in Johannesburg over a cup of beer left in his yard. The 40-year-old black man was choked, slammed against a wall, beaten, kicked and hit with the butt of a rifle by the soldiers as police watched, his family says. Two months later, South Africans staged a march against police brutality. But it was mostly about the killing...
For much of its seven-year existence, the Black Lives Matter movement has been seen by many Americans as a divisive, even radical force. Its very name enraged its foes, who countered with the slogans “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter.” Times have changed — dramatically so — as evidenced during the wave of protests sparked by George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Black Lives Matter has gone mainstream — and black...
The Federal Government says the civil aviation regulator, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will determine the resumption of domestic flights in the country based on their preparedness. Dr Sani Aliyu, National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, said this at the daily news conference on Thursday in Abuja. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the government had in March, shut the nation’s airports and airspaces as part of efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Also, Airports’...
President Muhammadu Buhari will address Nigerians on Friday to mark the June 12 Democracy Day celebration. “To commemorate Nigeria’s Democracy Day, President Muhammadu Buhari will broadcast to the nation on Friday, June 12, 2020, at 7 a.m. “Television and radio stations as well as other electronic media outlets are enjoined to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority and Radio Nigeria respectively for the broadcast,” Femi Adesina, Mr Buhari’s spokesperson, said....
According to Nigerian and international media, at least eighty-one people were killed in communities in Gubio local government area (LGA). One of the villages mentioned is Felo. This number was revised upwards from sixty-nine initially reported following the governor of Borno state’s visit to the area. Seven others, including the village head, were reportedly abducted. The town of Gubio is about fifty miles north of the Borno state capital of Maiduguri. The media also reports that between four hundred and twelve hundred cattle...
Changing “Democracy Day” from May 29 to June 12 is of little significance if Nigerians are unsafe, taunted by government agents and by criminals. As Nigeria marks its twenty-one years of unbroken democracy, a closer look at specifics has become altogether unavoidable. In the light of Nigeria’s penchant for wild claims and increasing proclivity for self-congratulation even for doing nothing except maintain status quo, it has become imperative that the country’s democratic experiment over these...
Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, said he was not sure he would get justice from the panel set up to screen him and other aspirants contesting for the ticket to represent the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the gubernatorial election. “The last time I came here, I asked that National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole should recuse himself from the process in the interest of peace and justice. But as a party man, I have had to...
