Bangladesh will lift its nationwide coronavirus lockdown for the country’s second-biggest religious festival, the government said on Tuesday, even as new infections soared to record levels. The cabinet said all restrictions would be eased in the country of 169 million [...]
Soldiers stepped up deployment in South Africa on Tuesday on a mission to quell looting sparked by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma as the death toll from the violence rose to 32. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced late Monday that [...]
July 14, 2021
Africa, Security
The main campus of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, has been thrown into panic as some unidentified students have reportedly contracted the coronavirus disease. The university’s vice-chancellor, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who neither confirmed nor denied the report, told Hope For Nigeria [...]
July 14, 2021
Health issues
The National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has suspended a former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha. Okorocha’s suspension was communicated in a letter dated July 12, 2021, and signed by Mai Mala Buni and John [...]
Nigeria’s backward integration policy is se to be downplayed again, giving leverage to Africa’s richest, Aliko Dangote, to wield a ‘monopoly’ in the oil industry. A major player in sugar and cement production, Dangote has dominated with a lot of [...]
Forces from Ethiopia’s northern restive Tigray region said on Monday that they were pushing south and had recaptured a town from government forces, underscoring their determination to keep fighting until the region’s prewar borders are restored. The Reuters news agency [...]
Whichever way one looks at it, the raid carried out by the Department of State Services (DSS) on the residence of Sunday Igboho in Ibadan is callous, blood-thirsty and not synonymous with a government that lays a claim to civil [...]
Global hunger levels have skyrocketed because of conflicts, climate change and the economic impact of COVID-19 as between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020. The information is in a report on the “State of [...]
July 13, 2021
Food, Human rights
The Lagos Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has arrested three bankers for an alleged case of conspiracy, stealing, forgery and obtaining money by false pretence. The suspects, Kagha Emmanuel Uchenna, Okoro Chinasom Davidson and Egbogu [...]
There are strong indications that Nigeria is gradually approaching the third wave of COVID-19 with the steady rise in positive cases in the last one week. The PUNCH on Sunday gathered that the fear that the third wave might be deadlier [...]
July 13, 2021
Health issues
Violent rioting has erupted in two South African provinces following the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma, with supporters blocking roads and looting shops. At least 62 people were arrested, South African police said on Sunday. Zuma started serving a 15-month sentence [...]
At a time when Nigerian commuters are seeking refuge in rail transportation, consequent upon security concern on the roads’ equivalent, reports of incessant breakdown of the passenger coaches of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) trains are unsettling and utterly embarrassing. [...]
The Sultan of Sokoto and President General, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Sa’ad Abubakar III, has declared Sunday, July 11, as the first day of Dhul-Hijja 1442AH. This was contained in a statement by Sambo Junaidu, chairman , Advisory Committee [...]
The Nigerian Army has confirmed that one of its personnel shot dead a final-year student of the University of Calabar, Mr Gray Agbesu, on Friday, July 9. The soldier was one of the personnel deployed to the Calabar Correctional Service [...]
The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, says that Nigerians deserve wealth, rather than poverty. He stated that, for all the abundant wealth of natural resources, Nigeria’s poverty situation is unacceptable. Noting that “there are way too [...]
July 12, 2021
Human rights
Friday marks 10 years since South Sudan gained independence to become the world’s youngest nation – yet few citizens are rejoicing. Over the past 10 years, the oil-rich country has been mired in fighting that killed nearly 400,000 people, engrained corruption and a deteriorating humanitarian [...]
July 9, 2021
Africa, Geography
President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed sadness over brutal killing of some citizens, including a vigilante leader and Village Head of Dabna, a village in Dugwaba, Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa. The president made his feelings known in a statement [...]
The Nigerian government has said a case of the dangerous delta variant has been recorded in a traveller in the country. A statement issued by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday night, noted that the development raises a grave concern. About [...]
July 9, 2021
Health issues
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has restrained Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Company Ltd and Polaris Bank from tampering, howsoever, with funds standing to their credit up to $6,759,000 (about N2.8 billion) or its equivalent in any currency [...]
Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick lead the way, but could a finalist striker take the Golden Boot at Euro 2020 at Wembley? Harry Kane’s goal, knocking home the rebound after his own penalty had been saved [...]
Jacob Zuma, former South African president, turned himself in to police on Wednesday to begin 15 months in jail for contempt of court, the culmination of a long legal drama seen as a test of the post-apartheid country’s ability to [...]
The Nigerian Government has pledged renewed commitment to partner with UNESCO towards improving livelihoods of inhabitants of the Lake Chad Region. Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu made the pledge on Wednesday, when he received Dr Hajo Sani, Nigeria’s [...]
The Director General, Scientific Equipment Development Institute (SEDI), Enugu, Samuel Ndubuisi, was on Wednesday shot dead in Enugu State, Nigeria’s South-east, by unknown gunmen. Mr Ndubuisi, a professor of Physiology and Biotechnology, was killed along with a police officer attached to [...]
The Department of State Services (DSS) operatives who on the invitation of the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, arrested five human rights activists who wore the #BuhariMustGo T-Shirts to church last Sunday, arrested a blind saxophonist among the victims. Hope [...]
July 8, 2021
Human rights
Boko Haram terrorists on Wednesday morning attacked communities in Adamawa state, killing scores of people, local sources have reported. The terrorists reportedly stormed Dabna village, in the Hong local Government Area, according a fleeing survivor. He said, “They (Boko Haram) came [...]
Hundreds of opposition supporters marched through the streets of Ghana’s capital Accra demonstrating against what they described as rising insecurity and lawlessness since President Nana Akufo-Addo came to power in 2017. Wearing mostly red or black, the youth wing of [...]
The United States on Tuesday warned Iran to stop nuclear “brinksmanship,” saying the country’s latest efforts to enrich uranium could complicate its return to talks aimed at restarting the 2015 nuclear accord. “It is worrying that Iran is choosing to [...]
July 7, 2021
International
The Nigerian government kidnapped Nnamdi Kanu from a foreign country in order to bring him to trial in Nigeria, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has said. Mr Soyinka, who condemned the Nigerian government’s action, however, criticised Mr Kanu’s ‘hate rhetoric’ while [...]
A bill proposing a five-year jail term for unlawful protesters in the country has scaled through first reading at the House of Representatives. The Bill entitled: ‘An Act To Amend The Criminal Code ACT, CAP 38, Laws Of The Federation [...]
The leadership of Ijaw nation has met with the British government seeking support to leave Nigeria and end the suffering of the people. A delegation of the Ijaw leadership led by the President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof [...]