Author: Chronicle Editor

A baby girl from the Ivory Coast born with four legs and two spines has been successfully separated from a parasitic twin in a rare and complex surgery at a Chicago hospital. Ten-month-old Dominique underwent a six-hour procedure involving five surgeons at the Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, on March 8. She is now thriving with the Chicago foster family who will look after her until she is well enough to return home, her doctors and foster mother told Reuters on Monday. “It’s going rather well. She was only in the hospital a total of five days. She’s…

The Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Col. Hameed Ali, on Tuesday announced a code number for efficient and effective vehicle duty clearance verification. Ali disclosed this at a media stakeholders meeting in Abuja. Ali said that the essence of the meeting was to have a roundtable with stakeholders to come up with solution to avoid causing hardship to Nigerians in regards to duty payment on old vehicles and verification. He said that the organisation had taken further step to ensure that Nigerians, who wanted to verify the authenticity of their customs duty clearance, could do so at the comfort of their…

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Kwara said it had dismissed two of its officers over extortion of innocent citizens on the pretext of securing employment for them in the corps. Mr Pedro ldeba, Commandant of the NSCDC in the state,disclosed this in an interview with the our correspondent on Tuesday in llorin. Ideba said the Commandant-General of the Corps approved the dismissal of the two affected Officers having found them guilty. The commandant, who did not mention the names of the two affected Officers, said the corps would not relent in its efforts to rid the…

Over four years after the murder of postgraduate student, Cynthia Osokogu, in a hotel in FESTAC Town, a Lagos High Court will on March 23 give judgment in the trial of four accused over the incident. Justice Olabisi Akinlade of a Lagos High Court, Igbosere, had on Jan. 12, during the adoption of the final written addresses by all the counsel in the case, fixed the date to deliver judgment. Osokogu was allegedly lured to Lagos by her Facebook lover and murdered on July 22, 2012, at Cosmilla Hotel, Lakeview Estate, Festac Town. The four accused charged with the murder…

India is home to the highest number of rural people without access to clean water, and faces increased strain on scarce resources due to a rising population and climate change among other factors, a development charity said on Tuesday. WaterAid said over 63 million rural Indians – the equivalent of the population of Britain – do not have clean water to drink, cook or wash with, largely due to remote locations, weak infrastructure and poor planning. China ranked second with almost 44 million rural people without clean water in WaterAid’s report. Nigeria and Ethiopia were in third place – each…

More than 2,600 Nigerians who fled into northern Cameroon to escape Boko Haram jihadists have been forced to go home since the start of the year, the UN said Tuesday. Thousands of Nigerians have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency, which has seen deadly attacks since 2009 in pursuit of a caliphate in northern Nigeria. Some 85,000 have sought refuge in Cameroon but the UN refugee agency said many had been sent back, with officials citing security reasons. “So far this year, Cameroon has forcefully returned over 2,600 refugees to Nigerian border villages against their will,” UNHCR spokesman Babar…

The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Tuesday admitted Andrew Yakubu, former Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to N300 million bail with two sureties. Yakubu was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on six counts bordering on non-disclosure of assets and fraud, charges to which he pleaded not guilty. Yakubu was alleged to have as “Group Managing Director of NNPC, between 2012 and 2014, within the jurisdiction of the court, with intent to avoid lawful transaction, transported to Kaduna $9.7 million and €74,000’’. He was also accused of failure to disclose the sum of $9.7…

Mr. Khaleel Umar Al-Makura, the son of Nasarawa state governor Umar Al-Makura, has been arrested over the killing of a student of Government Secondary School, Lafia. The killing of a Ovye Amos in a road accident on Monday night had sparked a protest in the school. The students took to the streets on Tuesday carrying placards with various inscriptions demanding justice for the killing Amos, a Junior Secondary School two student. The police, officers of the Nigeria Security Civil Defence Corps, teachers and government officials intervened to calm the students. The governor’s son was reported to have hit the deceased…

The World Bank’s newly appointed chief executive gave a spirited defence of globalisation during her first official visit to China, saying it had helped richer and poorer countries, and economic integration made it hard for any nation to walk away. Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian who took up her post at the multilateral development lender at the start of this year, also praised China for its commitment to economic reforms and open markets. “Open markets, trade, division of labour has worked extremely well for the poorer countries,” she told Reuters in an interview late on Monday. But wealthier countries also have…

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a new video is vowing to continue his insurgency until he establishes an Islamic caliphate across West and Central Africa. In the 27-minute video seen by The Associated Press, Shekau says his fighters will continue to attack Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri with suicide bombers until the country accepts the ways of Islam and jettisons constitutional rule. Shekau also denies neighboring Cameroon’s claims earlier this month that 60 of his men were killed and 5,000 people were rescued from captivity. A multinational force has been fighting Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram extremists in the Lake…