Author: Opalim Lifted

The Federal Government said it has trained 10,463 additional officers of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) to effectively and efficiently handle firearms to protect its facilities across the country. The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola disclosed this during a State House Briefing with newsmen on Thursday. The development followed the attack on the Kuje Medium Correctional Facility by terrorists on July 2022, as well as other jailbreaks recorded in Lagos, Imo, Jos, and Edo States among others. “We are mandating officers in charge of our facilities not just to carry pistols but high-capacity weapons. Before now, officers were just officers,…

The leader of the Catholics Church, Pope Francis on Wednesday called for an end to laws banning homosexuality, noting that “we are all children of God.” The Pope added that “being homosexual is not a crime” but “it’s a sin.” He made this known while speaking to the Associated Press, calling criminal restrictions on homosexuality “unjust,” continuing that “it’s not a crime.” “Yes, but it’s a sin,” he said. “Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime.” While speaking from Vatican City, he then said it is “also a sin to lack charity with one another.” “We…

A Dutch hacker arrested in November obtained and offered for sale the full name, address, and date of birth of virtually everyone in Austria, the Alpine nation’s police said on Wednesday. A user believed to be the hacker offered the data for sale in an online forum in May 2020, presenting it as “the full name, gender, complete address and date of birth of presumably every citizen” in Austria, police said in a statement, adding that investigators had confirmed its authenticity. The trove comprised close to nine million sets of data, police said. Austria’s population is roughly 9.1 million. The…

At least 51 persons have been killed by an airstrike in the Rukubi community, Ekye Development Area of Nasarawa State. A bomb was dropped on them by an unidentified helicopter. The area, which is in Doma Local Government Area, shares a border with Benue State. A mass burial was held in the council. Police spokesman, Ramhan Nansel, said he could not confirm the number of casualties. He said the state police command was working with sister agencies to arrest the perpetrators. Nansel said: “It is unfortunate that such a thing happened. NAF allegedly drops bomb on Niger community killing scores…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved an $86.9 million extended fund facility for Mauritania, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The Executive Board decision enables an immediate disbursement of $21.7 million, the statement said. The remaining amount will be phased out over the 42-month arrangement under the extended credit facility. The West African country’s economy is on a “recovery path” due to its “determined response” to the coronavirus pandemic and international financial support, the statement said. But the war in Ukraine and regional tensions have reverted the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves observed last year and narrowed the…

Goods worth millions of naira were destroyed when fire gutted a three-storey building housing warehouses with clothes and shoes in the popular Balogun market on Broad Street on Lagos Island. It was gathered that the fire at Thursday midnight and was put out by emergency responders but it started again around 3 am. The South-West Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told media reporters that the building housed warehouses and firefighters encountered some challenges gaining access to the building because of the iron bars. He, however, said the fire has been brought under total control without spreading to…

A suspected armed robber, Williams Abiodun, on Wednesday, narrated how his gang killed their victims and sold their vehicles in Benin, Edo State. Abiodun, while being paraded alongside 10 other suspects at the command headquarters in Edo State, said he and four members of his gang usually disguised as site workers to lure unsuspecting drivers to where they robbed them of their vehicles. He said, “When we get to the site, we collect their vehicles, kill them with blocks and sell their cars. “We killed the first person, collected his car, and sold it to a Chinese company. The second…

The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday in Abuja approved the National Child Online Protection Policy and Strategy. Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Malam Isah Pantami, told newsmen at the end of Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that the strategy aimed at protecting children from the harmful side of the digital environment. The meeting was presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. Pantami said the policy was in line with the International Telecommunication Union’s policy document for all its member countries. “There are many benefits of going online; the world population reached 10 billion on Nov. 15, 2022. “Today, we have around 6.3…

The UK government on Wednesday said it had cut tariffs and extended duty-free trade in goods exported from Nigeria. Mr. Ben Llewellyn-Jones, Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria said this at the launch of the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) which took place at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. Llewellyn-Jones said the scheme would help to boost Nigeria’s non-oil exports in line with the Federal Government’s wider trade policy objectives and take off in April 2023. He noted that the scheme would reduce import costs by over £750 million per year, thereby reducing prices, and increasing the choice…

Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu returned home after more than two years in exile in Europe to a cheering crowd on Wednesday, after the government lifted a ban on political rallies. A former lawmaker and a fierce critic of the government, Lissu initially left the country to seek treatment abroad after he was shot 16 times, mostly in his lower abdomen, in an attack by unknown gunmen in the administrative capital Dodoma in 2017. He had been arrested eight times in the year leading up to the attack. Lissu was welcomed by a large gathering of…