Author: Chronicle Editor

Facebook (FB.O) whistleblower Frances Haugen will appear before the U.S. Congress Tuesday, where she is set to sharply criticize her former employer as “one of the most urgent threats” facing the country, and to demand transparency about its operations in order to better regulate it. Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team, says the social media giant keeps its algorithms and operations a secret. “The core of the issue is that no one can understand Facebook’s destructive choices better than Facebook, because only Facebook gets to look under the hood,” she said in written testimony prepared for…

Hafsat Ganduje, the wife of the executive governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Ganduje, is in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, custody for fraud allegations. It was gathered that the First Lady of Kano was allegedly arrested on Monday over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son, Abdualzeez Ganduje. She had been invited by the anti-graft agency to report to Abuja headquarters on September 13. However, she did not honour the invitation, which prompted the EFCC to arrest her. Sources close to her revealed that she had travelled to the UK at the time, for the…

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that there is a need to focus on developing our agricultural value chain, particularly the business of guaranteeing the creation of a proper commodity market with the right logistics that would be mutually beneficial to farmers and consumers. He made this assertion on Monday while receiving a delegation from Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange, a Kano State based private company that provides a specialized organized market, operating efficient transaction and delivery of agricultural, solid minerals, and energy-based commodities. The delegation was led by the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Muhammad Rabi’I Elyakub. Prof…

… Calls For Synergy among stakeholders In a concerted and relentless effort to support civil authorities in tackling diverse security challenges bedeviling the country, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Faruk Yahaya has flagged off three Nigerian Army Field Training Exercises in Emene, Enugu state, on Monday 4 October 2021. The flag off, symbolically activated the exercises in four geopolitical zones of the country. In his remark during the ceremony, Lt Gen Yahaya identified the exercises as Exercise Still Water, Enduring Peace and Exercise Golden Dawn, which he pointed out, will be conducted simultaneously in South South, South…

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has proposed a compulsory drug test for intending couples. According to NDLEA chairman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa (rtd), the drug tests and evaluations will reduce the high rate of drug abuse in Nigeria. Marwa stated this at a programme organised to discourage drug abuse in Kano state. “Nobody wants his daughter to marry a drug addict or a drug user and you are not sure – when people come to marry, they have a nice face and you don’t know what is behind it,” He said. In a 2018 report, the United…

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has seized 15 sacks of pangolin scales weighing 1,014.5kg with a Duty Paid Value of over N1.7 billion. The border agency intercepted the scales in Lagos. The National Public Relations Officer, NSC, DC Joseph Attah, revealed the latest development to journalists on Monday, adding that two suspects were arrested with the items. “This criminality was not essentially a Nigerian thing, sadly some foreigners with active connivance of few Nigerians are bent on using our dear country as a transit route for illegal wild life trade,” he said. Attah said that a DNA test would be…

Gareth Southgate has added Chelsea defender Ben Chilwell and Roma striker Tammy Abraham to his England squad for this month’s World Cup qualifiers. The pair will join up with the squad at St George’s Park on Tuesday. Chilwell’s club team-mate Reece James has been ruled out through injury after Blues boss Thomas Tuchel said he was surprised by his selection. England face Andorra away on 9 October followed by Hungary at Wembley Stadium three days later. The Three Lions are top of Group I heading into the penultimate international break of the year with 16 points from six games. Chilwell,…

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says that the value of imported goods into the country exceeds exports by N4.37 trillion in the second quarter of 2021 as manufacturing sector takes a hit. According to the report, the total value of manufactured goods trade in Q2, 2021 stood at N4.51trillion representing 37.50 percent of total trade. “Out of this, the export component accounted for N211.67 billion while the import component was valued at N4.3 trillion,” the NBS report stated. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) stated that the growing decline in the non-oil sector’s productivity of the Nigerian…

The global container shortage is beginning to take its toll on imports into Nigeria as a large volume of imports is now trapped in Asian countries, particularly India and China. Foreign vessel owners are currently allocating their available scarce containers to commercially viable trade routes, such as India-United States and China-United States, rather than releasing them to load goods heading to African ports. With this development, the volume of Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers coming into Nigeria and other West African countries may decline significantly, especially now that the festive season is around the corner. The global shortage of…

Drops to No. 5 on world’s richest list Stock plunge knocks his net worth down to $121.6 billion Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth has fallen by more than $6 billion in a few hours, knocking him down a notch on the list of the world’s richest people, after a whistleblower came forward and outages took Facebook Inc.’s flagship products offline. A selloff sent the social-media giant’s stock plummeting 4.9% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September. Zuckerberg is now the world’s sixth richest person after his fortune declined to $121.6 billion in total. Facebook stock came under…