Author: Chronicle Editor

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC has announced the appointment and redeployment of top management staff across board in a major exercise designed to reflect operational realities and ensure sustained performance and profitability. In all, 109 management staff were promoted and 24 were redeployed in an exercise which saw the return of veteran journalist, Ndu Ughamadu as Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division. He takes over from Garba Deen Muhammad. In a podcast to members of Staff, Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru said that the changes were informed by the desire to consolidate on the…

Ibrahim Dasuki, the former Sultan of Sokoto who was deposed during the regime of General Sani Abacha, is dead. He was aged 93 in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Alhaji Umar Faruk, Secretary Sultanate Council confirmed his death. The former Sultan was deposed in 1996, eight years after he ascended the throne. He succeeded Sultan Abubakar, the father of the current Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar. Sultan Dasuki was a notable business man and was the father of Colonel Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Adviser, now facing trial over the mismanagement of billions of dollars meant to procure arms during the Goodluck Jonathan…

President Barack Obama has urged Donald Trump to send “some signals of unity” after the US election campaign. In a White House news conference, Obama also said he “absolutely” has concerns about the president-elect. But he called on his fellow Democrats to accept the result and “recognise that that is how democracy works”. Obama declined to comment on Trump’s pick of controversial conservative figure Steve Bannon as his White House chief strategist. Speaking of his meeting last week at the White House with Trump, Obama said: “I emphasised to him that, look, in an election like this that was so…

Veteran journalist and news anchor Gwen Ifill has died aged 61, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has said. She died after a battle with cancer. One of the most celebrated African-American broadcasters in the US was best known for moderating Washington Week in Review and for PBS NewsHour. Ifill had been absent for last week’s election coverage due to ongoing health issues and had been on leave since May. “She was a journalist’s journalist and set an example for all around her,” said a PBS NewsHour executive producer. “Gwen was a standard bearer for courage, fairness and integrity in an…

Manchester United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has met with MLS side Chicago Fire as he looks likely to leave Old Trafford in January. The former Germany captain, 32, has been allowed to negotiate potential moves with interested parties. He is thought to be interested in joining an MLS side and met Chicago coach Veljko Paunovic over the weekend. Schweinsteiger returned to first-team training after being forced to work on his own by Jose Mourinho. However, it is not anticipated he will get a recall by the Red Devils manager. Schweinsteiger, who joined United from Bayern Munich in a £14.4m deal in…

Forte oil recorded a loss of N10.18 to close at N94.32 per shares at the Nigerian stock exchange on Monday which made it to lead major blue chips price depreciation. CAP came second on the losers’ chart with a loss of N1.65 to close at N33.75 and Guinness shed N1 to close at N89 per share. PZ Industries was down by 72k to close at N15.77, while Zenith Bank depreciated by 63k to close at N14.50 per share. On the other hand, UACN recorded the highest gain to lead the gainers’ table, gaining 9k to close at N17.76 per share.…

Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Edo State, was Monday shut down indefinitely over a violent protest by students of the institution. The students who reportedly barricaded the Benin-Ekpoma-Auchi highway, were said to be protesting an alleged 200 percent increase of their tuition fees. It was reliably gathered that the management of the institution was earlier informed of the impending protest, but it failed to mobilize security early enough to neutralize it before the students arrived at the university’s gate. An articulated truck laden with rice, was reportedly set ablaze after the goods were allegedly looted by the protesters. A press…

The police in Cross River said one of its personnel, Corporal Kingsley Iyeke, has killed another policeman, Inspector Edet Archibong, during a gun duel between the police and suspected cultists in Calabar. Mr Jimoh Ozi-Obeh, the Commissioner of Police in the state, made this known on Monday in Calabar while briefing newsmen on the activities of the command in the past one month. The commissioner said that after the incident, the police swung into action by tracing the cultists to their hideout where some of them were arrested. He explained that during interrogating, one of the suspected cultists mentioned Iyeke…

Intracom Telecom, a global telecommunication systems and solutions vendor, announced today that it has successfully completed the live field trial of StreetNode™, its SON (Self Organizing Network) based Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) platform, implemented by MTN’s South African operation. The trial took place in Johannesburg and the aim was to evaluate the platform’s unique capabilities to provide the most advanced high-quality and high-availability services to MTN’s enterprise customers. MTN was assessing ease of deployment and the capability of the platform. The StreetNode™ solution was tested in both lab environment and external network, and the platform’s software-defined operation allowed activation and reconfiguration in…

A body of Muslim clerics in Mauritania has called for the death sentence to be carried out against a blogger convicted of apostasy in 2014. Mauritania, an Islamic republic, has not applied a death penalty since 1987. The Forum of Imams and Ulemas says Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir, 29, should be executed despite the fact that he repented for an article criticising Mauritania’s caste system. The clerics want him to be killed according to the “law of God”. The blogger was arrested in January 2014 for an article in which he lashed out at those who use religion as…