Author: Chronicle Editor

North Korea appears to be building new ballistic missiles despite recent warming ties with the Trump administration, media reports say. Unnamed US officials told the Washington Post that spy satellites had spotted continuing activity at a site that has produced ballistic missiles. Reuters news agency quotes an official as saying it is unclear how far the work has gone. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June. After the first meeting between sitting leaders from the two countries, the two men pledged to work towards denuclearisation. Mr Trump later said North Korea was “no longer a nuclear…

Donald Trump has offered to meet Iran’s leaders with “no preconditions” and “any time they want”. “I’d meet with anybody. I believe in meetings,” the US president told reporters at the White House. Mr Trump’s conciliatory approach comes after he and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani traded hostile warnings earlier this month. In May, the US left a deal which curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions. Washington is preparing to re-impose sanctions on Tehran within days – despite objections from the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, which also signed the 2015 agreement. The US…

Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, have described the move by eight members of the Benue House of Assembly to impeach Governor Samuel Ortom as illegal. In a joint statement, the two leaders, who are being expected to join the Peoples Democratic Party, from the All Progressives Congress, said the move was “a desecration of the legislative sanctity”. In a joint statement on Monday, they condemned a situation where 22 other members, the majority, are kept away from the Assembly Complex by the police. Saraki and Dogara called on President Muhammadu Buhari to call the…

Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed has told moles in Kwara APC to resign or face the risk of being sacked by the ruling party. Mohammed was reacting to a statement made by one Alhaji Jimoh Balogun, questioning his membership and loyalty to the party. “My attention has been drawn to the statement made by one Alhaji Jimoh Balogun, at a press conference in Ilorin today, questioning my membership of and contributions to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara state. He stressed that the issue of his membership as well as his contributions to the growth of the party…

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Monday arraigned three officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, at the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos and charged them with receiving N179.8 million stolen money as bribe from former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke. The men, Yemi Akinwunmi, Atiba Dickson and Ogunmodede Oladayo, docked before Justice Muslim Hassan, of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi are being tried on an eight-count charge bordering on conspiracy, diversion of public funds and money laundering. The defendants- -were alleged to have collected the slush funds in the build-up to the 2015 presidential election.…

Imo state deputy governor Prince Eze Madumere has been impeached by members of the State House of Assembly on Monday. This comes after the Imo State High Court on Monday restrained the panel set up by the Chief Judge of the state, Paschal Nnadi, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Acho Ihim, and the State House of Assembly from taking any further action in the impeachment process of the state deputy governor, Eze Madumere, until the hearing and determination of the suit. However, the deputy governor was impeached on Monday by 19 out of the 27-member assembly. READ:…

No member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), serving in Plateau would be posted to crises-ridden areas, Mr Abdulsalam Alhassan, the state’s coordinator, has said. Alhassan told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Mangu that the measure became necessary to ensure that no corps member became a victim of attacks on rural communities. “In our bid to protect the corps members, we have resolved that no one will be posted to volatile areas. “We have also resolved that corps members will only be posted to local governments considered safe and reachable. “We are working closely with…

…Event to showcase achievement, reward excellence in MSMEs sector In line with the Buhari administration’s commitment to continue to support growth in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector, arrangements have reached advanced stage to host the first ever National MSMEs Awards as 36 finalists have emerged for the event scheduled to hold in Abuja on August 2. The 36 finalists were selected from businesses across the country in a process that started on July 3, 2018. The 36 finalists comprised three MSMEs in each of the 12 award categories designed for the programme. The 12 categories are; MSME…

South Africa’s High Court on Monday overturned a decision by the government to grant Zimbabwe’s former first lady Grace Mugabe diplomatic immunity after she was accused of whipping a woman with an electric cord. Model Gabriella Engels, the woman behind the assault allegation, last August filed a court application challenging the government’s decision. Grace Mugabe returned to Zimbabwe immediately after South Africa granted her diplomatic immunity, allowing her to evade prosecution for assault and causing a row in South Africa where the opposition Democratic Alliance also challenged the ruling. Mugabe denied assaulting Engels with an electric cable, saying an “intoxicated…

Dr. Stephen Hwande, a PDP governorship aspirant in Benue, has said that the incumbent Governor Samuel Ortom, has not justified the confidence reposed on him by the electorate in 2015. “Ortom has not performed. He is a failure and does not deserve another tenure,” Hwande told newsmen on Monday in Makurdi. He said that Ortom, who defected from the APC to the PDP last week, had taken the state backward and impoverished its residents. “Ortom has nothing to show for the massive debts he will be leaving behind in 2019,” said Hwande a consultant gynaecologist. READ: Its one yuan to…