Author: Chronicle Editor

The Federal Government will spend N400m to purchase of vehicles for the nation’s former heads of government and their deputies in 2017. The figure formed part of the N9.882bn budgeted for the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation for the year. According to the details of the 2017 Appropriation Bill currently before the National Assembly obtained by our correspondent on Tuesday, N280.099m was budgeted for the purchase of vehicles for seven former Presidents and Heads of State. Further details showed that N120.090m would be used to procure vehicles for four former Vice-Presidents and ex-Chiefs of General…

On Wednesday, Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom stated that the state’s proposed 10,000 hectares of rice plantation to be inaugurated by the second quarter of 2017 that would employ 2,000 youths. Emmanuel, while addressing youths in Nsit Ubium, said that both the plantation and a processing mill would be located in Ini Local Government Area. According to the governor, a 7.5-kilometre of road is being constructed to the plantation ahead of the inauguration. “We are set to inaugurate 10,000 hectares of rice plantation with the entire value chain going to be in Ini Local Government Area of the state.…

On Wednesday, Pensioners of Abia State University Teaching Hospital, urged Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu to use part of the refund given to the state from Paris debt deductions to settle their three years pension arrears. Mr Victor Nwogwugwu, Chairman of the hospital’s pensioners, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba. He said that the government should use part of the N10 billion it got from the refund to pay up the arrears. “We the ABSUTH pensioners want to remind the governor that when the first federal government bail-out fund was received by Abia…

On Wednesday, President Muhammadu Buhari, offered his condolences to the government and people of Delta State over the death of a Second Republic Senator and member of the Board of Trustees of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Francis Okpozo. Sen. Okpozo died yesterday at his country home in Ozoro community, headquarters of Isoko North Local Government Area, Delta State at the age of 85. The president’s condolence was contained in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, where he also commiserated with the family and friends of the late senator “whose championing of social…

On Tuesday, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State announced the readiness of his government to offer amnesty to cultists willing to renounce their membership of cult groups and turn over a new leaf. Mr. Ambode, who stated this in Ikorodu at the ongoing One Lagos Fiesta, said his administration has perfected plans to use 2017 to rehabilitate all those involved in one form of criminality or the other and are ready to be law abiding, with the view to making them live normal lives and contribute meaningfully to the society. ‎ While noting with concern the rising spate of cultism…

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has requested Ibrahim Mustafa Magu, Chairman Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to “urgently begin a thorough, transparent and effective investigation into allegation that N500 million Safe School funds for Chibok girls, commissioned by former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to rebuild the Government Girls School in Chibok, is missing and cannot be accounted for.” The organization urged the EFCC to “invite for questioning, and name and shame anyone suspected to be involved in the alleged diversion, including the contractors allegedly handling the project.” In the petition dated 27 December 2016 and signed…

Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun on Wednesday granted amnesty to four death-row prison inmates in three South West prisons. The Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary to the State Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy, Mr Pomade Adeniji, announced the amnesty in a statement in Osogbo. The statement said the governor’s gesture was in commemoration of the New Year celebrations. “Pursuant to the advice and recommendations of the State Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy, Gov. Rauf Aregbesola, in exercise of his powers, has granted amnesty to the prison inmates,” the statement said. It said the inmates were serving their…

Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe has visited the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, where he offered “sincere and everlasting condolences” to the victims of Japan’s attack on the base 75 years ago. “We must never repeat the horrors of war again, this is the solemn vow the people of Japan have taken,” he said. Mr Abe was accompanied by US President Barack Obama, making the visit the first by the leaders of both countries. Japan devastated much of the base, killing more than 2,400 Americans. Mr Abe paid tribute to the men who lost their lives in 1941 at…

Dozens of Boko Haram fighters have given themselves up to authorities in southern Niger, the interior minister said, days after the Islamist group suffered key losses over the border in Nigeria. “Thirty-one young people from Diffa, who were enrolled a few years ago in Boko Haram, decided to surrender,” minister Mohamed Bazoum wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, above pictures of him touring the area near Nigeria’s northeast border. The fighters arrived in the remote desert town of Diffa in groups and were being held by local authorities. “I learned that the first who surrendered were not arrested, and I surrendered,”…

Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar has rejected a new gender equality bill, which proposes that women and men inherit an equal share, BBC has reported. The Sultan who is Nigeria’s most senior Muslim cleric, said Muslims would not accept the violation of Islamic law guaranteeing men a greater share. Nigeria’s main Christian body has welcomed the bill, saying its religion permitted equal inheritance. Activists have pushed for the bill to end discrimination against women. Nigeria is a deeply religious society with roughly the same number of Christians and Muslims. Speaking at a Koranic recitation ceremony in northern Zamfara state,…