Author: darelasisi@gmail.com

Sequel to the presentation of the 2020 Appropriation Bill by Mr President to the National Assembly, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the immediate suspension of international travels by all Cabinet Members and Heads of Government Agencies so as to enable Ministers personally lead the process of Budget defence at the National Assembly. The suspension of such travels will enable Functionaries and Agencies of the Executive Arm to provide the required cooperation with the Legislature in order to ensure timely passage of the Appropriation Bill. Honourable Ministers who have already secured approval to travel are by this directive, required to re-validate…

A Chief Magistrates’ Court sitting in Kano on Friday ordered that a teenager, Babangida Inusa, who allegedly raped his neighbour’s 50-year-old mother, be remanded in a correctional centre, pending legal advice. The police charged Inusa, who resides at Falgore Village, Kabo Local Government Area of Kano, with rape. Chief Magistrate, Muhammad Idris, who did not take the plea of Inusa, ordered the police to return the case file to the Kano State Directorate of Public Prosecution for legal advice. Idris adjourned the case until Dec.12, for further mention. Earlier, the Prosecution Counsel, ASP Badamasi Gawuna, told the court that the…

It appears love has turned sour as a 37-year-old civil engineer, Sampson Adesope, who allegedly defrauded his fiancée of N11 million, on Friday appeared in an Igbosere Magistrates’ Court, Lagos. Adesope, whose address was not provided, is charged with two counts of fraud and unlawful conversion. He pleaded not guilty. The Prosecution Counsel, Insp. Abbass Abayomi, told the court that the defendant committed the offencce on April 24, at Bello Street in Surulere area of Lagos. Abayomi alleged that the defendant collected the N11million from the complainant, Miss Victory Alibor, with a promise to invest it in coal business, a…

The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC), an Upstream Subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has reported a fire incident which occurred at Oil Mining Lease (OML) 20 at Egbema-West, Imo State Monday 7th  October 2019. A press release by NNPC’s Acting Spokesman, Mr. Samson Makoji, quoted the NPDC Managing Director, Mr. Mansur Sambo, as saying that preliminary investigation revealed that a spark, which ignited the fire during a bunkering activity by vandals, might have caused the incident, which occurred in Well–18T, located within the flooded part of Abacheke Community. Further report released by the Community Liaison Officer in charge…

The Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District in the Nigerian Senate, Dino Melaye, on Friday lost his appeal on the tribunal judgment that sacked him as a senator two months ago. Recall that the Kogi State National Assembly/State Assembly election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja, nullified Melaye’s election in August. Melaye was declared the winner of the Kogi West Senatorial election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the February 2019 general election. The results declared by INEC showed that Melaye who contested the election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 85,395 votes to defeat…

U.S. Internet giant Google on Thursday suspended from its Google Play digital distribution service the new The Revolution of Our Times role-playing mobile app game that simulates the ongoing protest movement in Hong Kong. The app was suspended after it was considered to have violated the platform’s “sensitive events policy”, the media reported. According to the HKFP news outlet, the Android-only game was suspended on Tuesday, only three days after its release on Saturday. The game’s developer, who goes by the pseudonym Spinner of Yarns, did not receive any warning from Google prior to the suspension and has appealed the…

The 7th News Express Anniversary Lecture will hold on Thursday, November 14, 2019 at the Main Hall of Sheraton Hotel & Towers, Ikeja, Lagos, the organisers said Friday in a statement. The Lecture, according to News Express Publisher Isaac Umunna, “will focus attention on Nigeria’s economic cum developmental challenges and the way out.” The theme, he said, is “Getting Nigeria Out of the Woods – A New Thinking”. “An array of experts in various fields of endeavor to be unveiled in the days ahead will tackle the issue from different perspectives,” Umunna said. News Express Publisher, Isaac Umunna He further…

The list of successful candidates in the 2019 Nigerian Navy recruitment interview held recently has been released. Prompt News Online recalls that the interview was held in Lagos between July 29 and Aug. 27. According to a statement by Navy Director of Information, Commodore Suleman Dahun, the list could be accessed online at www.joinnigeriannavy.com Dahun said the successful candidates would report for training in two batches at the Nigerian Navy Basic Training School (NNBTS) Onne, Port Harcourt, Rivers. He added that NNBTS Batch 29 A would report on Oct. 18, while NNBTS Batch 29 B would report to camp on…

The United States (US) is the third most populous country on earth after China and India with an estimated population of 329,784,700 as of October 8, 2019, according to United Nations’ data. In land area, the North American behemoth covers a kingly 9.834 million km² – over ten times the size of Nigeria and almost double the latter’s population. Agriculture is a major industry in the US, which is a net exporter of food. As of the 2007 census of agriculture, there were 2.2 million farms, covering an area of 922 million acres (3,730,000 km2), an average of 418 acres (169 hectares) per farm. It’s then not surprising…

The flatulent size of the national assembly accents the orthodoxies and paradoxes of Nigeria. Nigeria’s lawmakers are some of the highest paid in the world, in a country where about 100 million people live on less than a dollar per day, and where citizens are expected to be stoic and exist in deficit while their representatives in parliament ensconce themselves in surplus. Is it not pharisaic that while the government insists on burdening citizens with more taxes and increasing the yoke, there is no reciprocity on their part? What is the government doing to shrink the cost of governance? Why…