KeenWinBlog

  ...........fresh evidence has emerged on how a victim of ‘one-chance’ robbers in Abuja, Greatness Olorunfemi, was confirmed dead on arrival at the Maitama District Hospital, Abuja. On September 26, Olorunfemi was reportedly stabbed and thrown out of a moving vehicle along the Maitama-Kubwa highway. It was alleged in a viral video that the medical team at the hospital requested a police report and denied her treatment. A voice in the video could be heard in the background saying she died 20 minutes later. However, our correspondent who visited the hospital on Saturday found that Olorunfemi was brought into the hospital dead and there was no request for a police report. The deceased was the Assistant Secretary and Public Relations Officer of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, Abuja Branch. She was also a community developer and member of the Young African Leaders Initiative Network. Representatives of the CIPM were also at the hospital when our correspondent vi

Twenty people, mostly African nationals, have died when a vehicle carrying them overturned in southern Algeria, its state media citing the country’s civil protection agency said. Eleven people on board the vehicle were also injured in the accident near Ain Amguel town in the desert province of Tamanrasset, 2,000km (1,250 miles) from the capital, Algiers, state news agency APS reported on Friday. Tamanrasset, located near the borders with Mali and Niger, is regarded as a transit point for African migrants seeking to go to Europe. Among those killed were 19 African nationals, including children, and the Algerian driver of the pick-up truck, which was destroyed in the accident, said the agency on its Facebook page, Many killed in southern Algeria road accident. Twenty killed in crash which took place near Tamanrasset, a transit point for African migrants seeking to go to Europe. Eleven people on board the vehicle were also injured in the accident near Ain Amguel town in the desert provinc

A growing split between outgoing President Donald Trump and Republicans in the United States Congress widened on Wednesday as the Senate moved closer to overriding a Trump veto and Republican leaders rejected his bid for $2,000 stimulus cheques for Americans. In a one-two punch, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 80 to 12, to begin reversing President Donald Trump’s veto of the US’s annual defence authorisation. The action set up a final vote to override Trump’s veto on New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans also broke with Trump by rejecting his proposal to increase forthcoming economic stimulus cheques to eligible US citizens from $600 to $2,000 a person. Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor that a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which sought to meet fellow Republican Trump’s demands for bigger checques, “has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.” “We just approved almost a trillion dollars in aid a few days ago,”

The President, Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday, said his regime would continue to encourage Nigerians to go back to agriculture. He said this has become imperative because the oil industry which Nigerians abandoned agriculture for is now in turmoil. According to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the President spoke at the fifth regular meeting with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The statement was titled, ‘President Buhari: Government will wrestle food inflation in the coming year’. Shehu quoted the President as giving his words that his regime will keep a keen eye on food inflation in 2021 while giving a directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria not to give any money for food importation. 4 He said Buhari directed that the CBN “must not give money to import food. Already about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce.” The presidential aide said Buhari wo

National Identity Management Commission, on Tuesday, issued fresh guidelines for applicants to obtain their National Identification Number. NIMC spokesman, Kayode Adegoke, made this known in a statement titled, ‘NIMC Adopts Booking System For NIN Enrolment’. The statement partly read, “Mindful of the second wave of the COVID-19 which continues to severely affect public health and cause unprecedented disruptions, the Commission wishes to announce that it has adopted a couple of measures to contain the spread of the virus whilst ensuring its services to Nigerians are not entirely interrupted. “Effective December 30, 2020, attending to applicants would be based on Booking System. For Bookings, applicants are to visit any of the NIMC Offices closest to them during stipulated business hours (9am – 1pm). “Once admitted into the office, a Number Issuing queue management system will be in place to ensure orderliness and strict adherence to Covid-19 Protocols.” The Commission also urged all app

A refugee camp in northern Lebanon was set on fire Saturday night following a fight between members of the camp and a local Lebanese family, state media reported. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, confirmed a large fire had broken out in a camp in the Miniyeh region and said some injured had been taken to hospital, but did not provide an exact number. “The fire has spread to all the tented shelters” made of plastic sheeting and wood UNHCR spokesman Khaled Kabbara reported. The camp housed about 75 families, he said, the National News Agency reported that the fire followed an “altercation” between a member of a Lebanese family and “Syrian workers”. Other youths from the Lebanese family then “set fire to some of the refugees’ tents”, the NNA added. The Lebanese Civil Defence worked to control the blaze while the army and police were deployed to restore calm, according to the report. A security source told AFP shots were heard, saying the fight in the Bhanine area was set off when

At least 15 sailors remain missing after a Panama-flagged cargo ship capsized in rough seas off Vietnam, Vietnamese state media said. The incident happened on Thursday off the central province of Binh Thuan when the Xin Hong with 11 Chinese and four Vietnamese sailors on board was transporting 7,800 tonnes of clay from Malaysia to Hong Kong, Nhan Dan newspaper reported. Sailors had contacted Vietnam for help earlier on Thursday when the ship began to list in rough seas, the report said. Vietnam has sent a rescue team, including a coastguard vessel, to search for the missing sailors, the report said, adding that the team had found an inflatable life raft near the sinking ship with no one inside.

Protesters have marched in northwestern Nigeria under a banner reading #BringBackOurBoys as pressure has mounted on the government to improve security in the region and secure the release of more than 300 kidnapped schoolboys. Parents fear time is running out to bring the boys home. The armed group Boko Haram, which has said in an unverified audio message that it was behind their abduction from a school on December 11, has a history of turning captives into fighters. In the city of Katsina on Thursday, dozens of people marched through the streets in response to a call from the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), a civil society body that focuses on the welfare of northern Nigerians. Some chanted “Save northern Nigeria”. A video circulating on social media on Thursday purportedly showed Boko Haram members with some of the boys. Featuring Boko Haram’s emblem, the video showed a group of boys in wooded begging security forces to let them leave. Reuters was not able to immediately verify t

Pan-northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum, on Tuesday went hard on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over the disturbing insecurity across the country, especially in the North. The forum said Nigeria as a country was no longer secure and safe under the Buhari regime. This was the verdict of the ACF’s Board of Trustees, one of the highest organs of the northern body. Rising from its maiden meeting since the inauguration of the new executive of the ACF in March, the body also lamented that the Buhari -led government had failed to heed its advice on how to tackle the spate of insecurity in the land. Speaking with newsmen shortly after the BoT meeting in Kaduna, the forum’s National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe, said the group was not happy with the security situation in Nigeria. Yawe noted that the forum was even tired of complaining because the government appeared inactive about the insecurity. According to the ACF spokesman, Nigerian

An audio message from a man identifying himself as the leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram has claimed that the armed group was responsible for the abduction of hundreds of students from an all boys school in the northwestern state of Katsina. The number of missing students remains unclear. Military spokesman General John Enenche told Channels TV on Monday that 333 pupils were unaccounted for after heavily armed gunmen raided the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in the town of Kankara. “I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina,” said the man in Tuesday’s voice message. Boko Haram and its splinter faction, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, have for years waged a violent armed campaign in the northeast of the country and neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In 2014, Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok. The man in the audio messa