Author: David Great

The Muhammadu Buhari administration claimed that a total of 105 power transformer projects were completed between 2015 to 2022, adding a capacity of 6,216MVA to the national grid. The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the 11th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) ‘Scorecard Series (2015-2023)’ organised to showcase the achievements of the Buhari administration. In a presentation at the event hosted by the Ministry of Information and Culture, Aliyu said 73 of the power transformers installed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) engineers in substations across the nation. The minister said…

Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, saw withdrawals of $1.9 billion in the last 24 hours, blockchain data firm Nansen said on Tuesday, as the platform said it had “temporarily paused” withdrawals of the USDC stablecoin. Binance, whose dominance of crypto was cemented by the bankruptcy of rival exchange FTX, last week tweeted a so-called proof-of-reserves report by audit firm Mazars. The report showed its holdings of bitcoin exceeded customer deposits on a single day in November. The $1.9 billion figure marks the largest daily outflow since at least June, the Nansen data showed, and accounted for the majority of…

Arsenal have become favourites to sign Portugal forward Joao Felix, 23, from Atletico Madrid in January, ahead of Paris St-Germain, Manchester United and Aston Villa. (Marca – in Spanish) There is a “good chance” Arsenal will be able to sign Ukraine winger Mykhaylo Mudryk in January, for less than the £86m Shakhtar Donetsk previously wanted for the 21-year-old. (Athletic) Liverpool have an agreement in principle with Benfica to sign 21-year-old Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez. (La Capital – in Spanish) Fernandez is an alternative for Real Madrid if they cannot sign their main target, 19-year-old England midfielder Jude Bellingham, from Borussia…

The world’s only nonuplets – nine babies born at the same time – have safely returned home to Mali after spending the first 19 months of their lives in Morocco. The babies broke the Guinness World Record for the most children delivered in a single birth to survive. Ahead of the birth in May 2021, the mother Halima Cissé, now 27, was flown to Morocco for specialist care. Before returning they had been living with medical support in Casablanca. The babies – five girls and four boys – were born by Caesarean section at 30 weeks, according to the Malian…

By Deyemi Saka It is no longer news that Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, GCON, who is the current chief justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is fighting the biggest battle of his life and judicial career. The embattled CJN and other senior judicial officers were in Rivers State on some weeks back to commission the two buildings to accommodate the Federal Judicial Service Commission’s South-South Liaison Office and the Justice Mary Peter-Odili Judicial Institute conceptualised by the state government. The CJN’s statement was a joke in response to his host (Governor Wike) threats to withdraw Makinde’s wife, who is from…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the behest of US prosecutors on Monday, the day before he was due to testify before Congress about the abrupt failure last month of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The arrest marks a stunning fall from grace for the 30-year-old entrepreneur widely known by his initials SBF, who rode a boom in bitcoin and other digital assets to become a billionaire many times over until FTX’s rapid demise. The exchange, launched in 2019 and based in the Bahamas, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 11 after it struggled to raise…

The Nigerian government has rejected a Reuters report published last week about a secret programme of abortions run by the military in the country’s northeast, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Monday. The Reuters investigation found that since 2013, a secret military programme has involved terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants. The sources included dozens of witness accounts and documentation reviewed by Reuters. “The Federal Government hereby categorically states that there is no ‘secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme’ being run by our military in the…

Croatia are hoping Argentina’s bad-tempered World Cup quarter-final qualification over the Netherlands with 16 yellow cards and one red will not spill over into Tuesday’s semi-final, coach Zlatko Dalic said on Monday. The Argentines eventually prevailed on penalties after squandering a two-goal lead but the game was marred by disciplinary violations from both sides throughout. Argentina captain Lionel Messi exchanged words with Dutch coach Louis van Gaal following the final whistle and called a Dutch player ‘a fool’. Croatia, runners-up in 2018, have gotten their own taste of Argentine temper in the past following their group stage win over them…

Nigeria on Monday removed COVID-19 testing requirements for international travellers and it was no longer mandatory to wear masks on flights and inside airport buildings, the airlines’ regulator said. In a notice to airlines, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority said travellers to and from Nigeria did not need to undergo COVID-19 irrespective of their vaccination status. The authority said travellers above 60 years and those with comorbidities were encouraged to use face masks. Nigeria has recorded 266,381 COVID cases since the start of the pandemic and 3,155 deaths.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has urged the police that they must be diligent in carrying out their functions because they mirror the government. “Everywhere in the world, a police force is a representative of the people and the government such that there is a need to give it an ethos that will be admired by all,” he said. Prof. Osinbajo said this when he received, on behalf of the President, the Annual Report of the Police Service Commission, PSC, from the acting chairman, Justice Clara Ogunbiyi (retd) who led a delegation of the Commission’s Management Team to the Presidential Villa…