Author: Chronicle Editor

The U.S. government has agreed to pay $1 million to the family of a Mexican teen who died after drinking liquid methamphetamine when U.S. Border Protection officers told him to prove it was apple juice as the teen claimed. A legal complaint said Cruz Velazquez Acevedo, 16, died in November 2013 after being stopped by officers on the U.S. side of the border while he was going through San Diego’s San Ysidro Port of Entry. UPI reported that Cruz was carrying two bottles of liquid he said were filled with apple juice. Court documents said U.S. Customs and Border Protection…

Shop owners at the Area 10 shopping complex, Abuja, popularly known as UTC, on Wednesday, protested against alleged embezzlement of funds by Chairman of the complex, Lanre Ajayi. Chanting various songs, the protesters alleged that Ajayi embezzled about N10 million meant for payment of power supply, thereby causing disconnection by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) for more than a week. There was heavy presence of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), which also have a post at the complex. The police, which helped to enforce law and order, secured Ajayi in a cell at the police post to avoid being…

President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned Wednesday’s terror attacks near the Parliament Building at Westminster, London. The President, who sympathized with the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, assured her that the government and people of Nigeria “stand with Britons at this sad and trying moment in their country.” President Buhari urged the whole world to join hands to defeat the perpetrators of terrorism. “Terror attack anywhere in the world is condemnable,”President Buhari said. Four persons were killed and at least 20 injured in London on Wednesday after a car plowed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to the…

Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun has said the state government has secured a $65 million loan from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to be used to improve water supply in the state. The money would be used for the construction of water treatment plant, 17km transmission line from Kajola to Ilesa, booster pumping station and three water reservoirs on the hill. “The state will provide counterpart fund of about 40 million dollars for the construction of water distribution system and sanitation,” he said. At the celebration of the World Water Day in Osogbo on Wednesday, the governor said the water project…

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Lawal Babachir, has resolved not to honour Senate’s invitation over the handling of funds for North-East rehabilitation. Babachir has headed to the court to challenge the propriety of the invitation and his being investigated on the issue. An ad hoc Committee on Humanitarian Crisis in the North-East investigating allegations of misappropriation of funds for rehabilitation of the region had invited the SGF to a public hearing on the issue. The invitation notice of March 15 is asking the SGF to appear on Thursday. The SGF was formally invited after his…

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved N80 billion for the reconstruction of 12 federal roads across the country. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari. “The first is the approval for the Engineering and Consultancy design for access roads 1 and 2 ‎to link Asaba in Delta State and Onitsha in Anambra State to the Second Niger Bridge project. “Subsequent to the award of further works of the Second Niger Bridge we have started work now by this…

The world has got three to four months to save millions of people in Yemen and Somalia from starvation, as war and drought wreck crops and block deliveries of food and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday. The aid agency still needs $300 million to bring emergency assistance to a total of 5 million people in Yemen, Somalia and northeast Nigeria as well as areas of South Sudan, where famine has already been declared. “We have probably a window of three to four months to avoid a worst case scenario,” Dominik Stillhart, the ICRC’s…

CCECC, a Chinese state-owned firm has been awarded a $1.79 billion contract by the Nigerian government for work on the second phase of Abuja’s mass transit railway, the capital city’s minister said on Wednesday. The three-year management contract is the latest in a series of infrastructure projects won by China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) in Africa’s most populous nation. Muhammad Bello, minister of the federal capital territory, also said that the contract would be funded by the Export-Import Bank of China. The minister did not say when work would begin. The Chinese engineering company had also worked on the…

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss the administration’s proposed budget, the panel’s chairman said on Wednesday, after heated opposition in Congress to President Donald Trump’s plan to slash funding for diplomacy and foreign aid. “I’ve let Secretary Tillerson know there’s a lot of concern about the budget issue,” Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s Republican chairman, said at a hearing on the global humanitarian crisis. Members of the Senate panel will have lunch with Tillerson at the State Department on Thursday, he said. Corker also made clear that when Congress takes…

An FCT High Court in Lugbe has adjourned till May 2, hearing on a preliminary objection filed by the EFCC over the assets seizure of former First Lady Patience Jonathan. At the resumed hearing on Wednesday, the judge, Justice Angela Otaluka adjourned the matter following the submission of the EFCC Counsel, Mrs O. Diribe, that there was a motion before the court. Diribe informed the court that the respondent, the EFCC had filed a preliminary objection to the suit in response to the earlier motion for enforcement of fundamental human right filed by the applicant. The applicant is an NGO,…