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The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus is currently leading a protest demanding the rescue of the abducted students of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara in Katsina State.
The protest which is tagged #BringBackOurBoys is holding at the PDP liaison office in Maitama.
Details later…
A Zimbabwean nurse identified as Petros Tauya has died from Coronavirus barely 6 months after he graduated from Sally Mugabe Central hospital.
Bindura Provincial Hospital where the deceased was stationed following his graduation in April 2020, said he died from the disease on December 14. He is survived by his wife and a one-month-old baby.
Nurse dies from Coronavirus barely 6 months after his graduation
Read Petros Tauya’s obituary which was published by the Bindura Provincial Hospital below;
OBITUARY
Bindura Provincial Hospital wishes to announce the passing on of a hard-working RGN, Petros Tauya who succumbed to CovId 19 on the evening of the 14. of December 2020.
Born on the 18. of April 1985 in Bikita District of Masvingo Province. he trained at Sally Mugabe Central hospital and finished his course in April 2020. He joined Bindura Provincial hospital on 07/07/2020 and worked tirelessly in the frontline during the peak of the covid disease. He leaves behind his wife and a one-month-old baby boy.
The management and staff of Bindura Provincial Hospital extend our deepest condolence to his wife and the entire Tauya family as they mourn their dear departed.
The Nigerian Army and other security agencies on Thursday cordoned off the Abakaliki Building Materials Market.
The security agents were said to have surrounded the market in a commando-style around 9 am.
They refused to allow anyone inside the market while those already inside before they came were not allowed to leave.
They also closed off the Afikpo road leading to the market forcing motorists to take alternate routes.
The Afikpo road is the main entrance into Abakaliki from the Enugu-Abakaliki expressway and the closure caused heavy traffic around the area.
A top security source said the security agencies were at the market following the alleged discovery of a cache of ammunition in the market
“We are still investigating,” the source said.
A source at the market claimed the ammunition were loaded in a truck and disguised with other goods.
The source claimed the goods were bound for Yola, Adamawa state.
The source’s claims could not be independently verified at press time.
Police Commissioner Philip Maku did not respond to numerous queries for comment to this story.
It was also gathered that the state governor, David Umahi later visited the market around 11 pm to see things for himself.
A former deputy governor of Kwara, Chief Simon Sayomi, is dead.
His son, Ola confirmed his death on Thursday in Ilorin.
According to him, the former deputy governor died in his hometown, Igosun in Oyun Local Government Area of the state.
Ola said that his father died after a brief illness.
“He died on Wednesday night between 9:30 p.m. and 10:p.m. He was born on Oct. 10, 1925.
“We will miss him because he was a hero to us in everything,” he said.
Sayomi was the deputy governor of the state from 1999 to 2003 under the administration of late Muhammed Lawal.
The duo lost their re-election bid to Dr Bukola Saraki during the 2003 governorship election.
Naira weakened marginally against the dollar on the black market on Wednesday, falling by N1 or 0.21% to N476, data from abokiFX, an exchange rate tracking website, showed.
The U.S. currency had exchanged for N475 on Tuesday.
Nigeria’s external reserves had fallen by $838 million or 2.35% to $34.851 billion in the six weeks to 14th December, weakening the central bank’s ability to intervene in the foreign exchange market.
Meanwhile, on the spot market also called the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window, naira depreciated by 67 kobo or 0.17%, changing hands at N394.67 to a dollar. That leaves the gap between the exchange rates of the two markets at N81.33 or 20.61%.
Yet, traders have been thronging the parallel market where dollar is much more expensive because the quantity available at the spot market is grossly inadequate to meet their demand.
Naira had closed at N394 at the Tuesday session.
Turnover at the I&E forex window rose by 78.7% to $200.34 million from $112.08 million.
Naira reached an intraday low of N407.68 to a dollar and hit a high of N388 before closing at N394.67.
Last week, the average daily forex sale was around $169.93 million, signalling a significant rise from the $34.5 million reported in the week before. However, the apex bank’s interventions in the market have failed to stop naira from weakening.
On Tuesday, the Nigerian government got approval for a $1.5 billion loan facility from World Bank, which is anticipated to shore up the country’s fast depleting foreign exchange reserves.
Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has insisted that the man inside Aso Rock Villa, Nigeria’s seat of power, is the “Buhari Nigerians voted for in 2015 and 2019, and not one Jubril from Sudan.”
Adesina who wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday, Decemer 17, while celebrating Buhari’s 78th birthday, faulted the claim by Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), who has continued to tell Nigerians that the man in Aso Rock is a clone.
Kanu had posted on his Twitter handle in 2017 that Buhari had died during his medical treatment in the UK and a clone called Jubrin from Sudan was hurriedly installed to replace him.
“This is Jubril from Sudan and not Muhammadu Buhari, who died during the medical vacation in 2017, some people say. You have a clone in Aso Villa, not Buhari. Idiocy, sadly believed by even some intellectuals,” Kanu had posted.
However, in a piece titled “Buhari at 78: If only we knew this President,” Adesina poured encomiums on the President, insisting that Buhari is not only “hale and hearty but full of life and has a lot in the offing for Nigerians.”
Part of the article put out by Adesina reads:
“Let me tell you a story. On the day the President finally returned to the country in August 2017, after months of absence, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, was giving out his daughter in marriage.
“I had attended the church service, decked in complete Agbada, with a cap to match. From the wedding, I went straight to the airport to join the reception party.
“We formed a welcome line, as we usually do. And as the President shook each person, he had one wisecrack or the other to say. When he got to me, he took my hand and said: ‘Adesina, this is the best I’ve seen you dressed.’
“We both laughed heartily, and the television cameras captured it. I remember that many people asked me later what had tickled the President and me that we laughed so uproariously.
“Jubril from Sudan? Would he know my name as Adesina? Would he know I rarely wear Agbada? How ridiculous can some people be?
“Another story. The journalist Lindsay Barret had been a longtime friend of the President. One day, he sent me to give his greetings.
“When I did, the President said: ‘Lindsay Barret. I remember meeting him at the war front in 1968. He was covering the war. There was a day he was almost killed in an ambush, and he then described himself as a ‘devout coward,’ who was lucky to be alive.
“Jubril of Sudan? And he remembers Barret, whom he met at the war front in 1968? Tell it to the marines.”
The Supreme Court has fixed judgment for March 12 next year in the appeal by former Plateau State Governor, Senator Joshua Dariye.
The court chose the date on Thursday after taking final arguments from lawyers representing parties.
READ ALSO: No NIN, no driver’s licence – FRSC
Dariye is, by his appeal, praying the Supreme Court to upturn the November 16, 20218 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, which convicted him and sentenced him to 10 years for diverting public funds estimated at N1.162billion while he was the governor.
A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Stephen Adah, in its decision, upheld an earlier judgement by Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), delivered on June 12, 2018.
The Lagos State Government has asked public and private schools in the state to vacate on Friday.
This was contained in a statement, on Thursday, titled LASG directs schools to vacate on Friday, Decemeber 18, 2020′.
In the statement, the Director General, Office of Education Quality Assurance, Ministry of Education, Mrs Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, said “the 2020/2021 first term academic session for public and private schools comes to an end on Friday 18th December, 2020”.
“The Lagos States Government has directed public and private schools in the state to vacate on Friday 18th December, 2020.
“Therefore, all public and private schools below tertiary level in the state are to close for the Christmas and New Year holiday on that day. Schools are to resume back on Monday 4th January, 2021 in compliance with the Lagos State harmonized academic calendar.
“It is important to note that boarders are to resume on Sunday 3rd January, 2021 while academic activities commences immediately,” the statement read in part.
Details later…
French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for coronavirus, his office has said.
The 42-year-old took a test after symptoms appeared and will now isolate for seven days, the Elysée Palace said in a statement.
READ ALSO: No NIN, no driver’s licence – FRSC
Mr Macron “is still in charge” of running the country and will work remotely, said an official.
France this week imposed an overnight curfew to help deal with soaring cases there.
There have been two million confirmed cases in the country since the epidemic began, with more than 59,400 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“The President of the Republic has been diagnosed positive for Covid-19 today,” the Elysée said in a statement on Thursday morning. “This diagnosis was made following an PCR test performed at the onset of the first symptoms.”
It is not yet known how Mr Macron caught the virus but his office said it was identifying those he had been in close contact with to inform them of the situation.
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has given notice that it will start enforcing the National Identification Number (NIN) directive on driver’s license processing nationwide, with effect from Dec. 21.
Mr Bisi Kazeem, Assistant Corps Marshal (ACM), Corps Public Education Officer, announced this in a statement released on Wednesday, December 16.
”Following the Federal Government’s directives on the harmonisation of citizens’ data by relevant agencies, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) had in compliance with the directives earlier put members of the public on notice. As a follow up to that, .FRSC Management has resolved that effective 21 December, 2020, all applicants for the National Driver’s Licence in Nigeria must present the National Identification Number (NIN) from the @nimc_ng before they can be captured for any class of the licences produced by the FRSC.” a statement reads
According to Kazeem, all driver’s license applicants are, therefore, expected to present their National Identification Number from the date, before they can be attended to, adding that there would be no waiver for anyone.
Bisi further stressed the need for a harmonized database on citizens’ information which he said is critical to resolving the challenges of identifying individuals to assist security agencies in data collation and quick retrievals to address some of the national security challenges.