Author: Chronicle Editor

Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo is making wide use of powers granted by President Muhammadu Buhari, who is on extended sick leave abroad, as the country seeks to avoid a debilitating power vacuum while it confronts its first recession in 25 years. The West African oil-producing nation was gripped by instability in 2010 when then President Umaru Yar’Adua spent three months in a Saudi hospital while his aides shrouded his illness in secrecy. His deputy Goodluck Jonathan only took over after he died in the midst of a constitutional crisis. The Nigerian stock exchange, already hit by recession, has…

Arsene Wenger says he will definitely be managing next season, whether at Arsenal “or somewhere else”. Wenger, 67, was speaking at the end of one of the most turbulent weeks of his two-decade tenure as Gunners boss. After Wednesday’s 5-1 Champions League defeat by Bayern Munich, several ex-players said they believed his time in charge was coming to an end. The Frenchman’s contract expires at the end of this season and he said he would decide on a new deal in March or April. “No matter what happens I will manage for another season. Whether it’s here or somewhere else,…

Nigerian troops battled Boko Haram suicide bombers and fighters to repel an attack on the outskirts of northeastern Maiduguri city, witnesses and soldiers say 11 people have been killed. Associated Press reports that nine suicide bombers and two civilians died early Friday. It was the fiercest attack in months by Boko Haram on the city that is the birthplace of the Islamic insurgency. Police say three female suicide bombers detonated vehicles parked at a truck station around midnight. The two civilians died there. Self-defense fighters say soldiers later fired at gunmen on motorcycles escorting suicide bombers, killing at least six…

The fire may have died down and the smoke stopped rising to the skies but what remains clear is that the last has not been heard about the fire incident in Onitsha which consumed a couple of houses and caused extensive damage running into millions of naira. According to an eye witness who spoke to sabinews, a tanker driver driving a MACK petrol tanker with registration number ABB 44 XA suffered a brake failure and in trying to bring the car to a halt climbed over the kerb right opposite Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS) by Upper Iweka. The tanker…

Researchers at Google say they are “years closer” to rolling out a network of huge balloons to provide connectivity to rural areas. The Project Loon team, part of the company’s X research lab, said it was now able to use machine learning to predict weather systems. It means the firm has far greater control over where its balloons go, making it possible to focus on a specific region, rather than circumnavigating the globe. Clustering a small number of balloons greatly reduces the cost of the idea, Google’s “captain of moonshots”, Astro Teller, told reporters. “We can now run an experiment…

Since Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the President of Nigeria in 2015, the anti-corruption campaign in the country has yielded huge returns. Led by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria has recovered billions of naira but its citizens continue to wallow in poverty. The recent catch is the N34 billion recovered from former Petroleum Minister, Alison Diezani following a court ruling on Thursday, 16 February 2017. A Federal High Court Lagos ordered the final forfeiture of the sum of N34 billion (153 million dollars) linked to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke. Justice Muslim Hassan issued…

Right from the kick off of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump was in the face of the media. He had on many occasions ridiculed and insulted them, claiming the media was publishing stuffs to favour his opponent. Months after, the story remains the same. Relationship between President Trump and the media has continued to strain but who will win this war? On Thursday, Trump opened a new chapter in his unending attack against the Fourth Estate of the Realm. In a 76-minute press conference he told reporters their level of dishonesty was out of control. If Trump had his way,…

US President Donald Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser has turned down the job offer. Retired Vice-Admiral Robert Harward was widely tipped for the post after Mr Trump fired Michael Flynn on Monday. A White House official said Mr Harward cited family and financial commitments, but US media said the sticking point was he wanted to bring in his own team. Mr Flynn had misled US Vice-President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the US. The latest setback emerged hours after Mr Trump robustly denied media reports of White House disarray, insisting his administration was running like…

The UN chief has warned Donald Trump against abandoning the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying there is “no alternative”. It comes after Mr Trump went against decades of US policy, saying he would back whatever formula led to peace. Palestinians reacted with alarm to the possibility that the US could drop support for Palestinian statehood. The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down in 2014. Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, President Trump promised to deliver a “great” peace deal. But he said both sides must compromise. “So I’m looking at…

Mr Israel Adeshola, the National President of Bus Conductors Association of Nigeria (BCAN), says that as from March it is mandatory for bus conductors in Lagos state to wear uniforms, name tags and badges. Adeshola, who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, said that the Lagos State government has approved wearing of uniforms and badges. He said that the use of badges and wearing of uniforms by over 3,000 bonafide members got the approval of the government on Monday. “We are in collaboration with Lagos state government on the…