Author: Samuel Akpenpuun

Nigeria’s under-20 women’s football team, the Falconets, on Monday in Bogota lost 0-1 to their Mexican counterparts in a friendly match. The match played at the Club Banco de la República in the Colombian capital city was the final game in their preparations for the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup held there. Mexico scored the lone goal in the 15th minute, through a volley by Alejandra Lomelí. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the 2010 and 2014 silver medalists had on Friday beaten Australia 2-1 as part of their preparations. Speaking after Monday’s match, Falconets’ team head coach Christopher…

President Emmanuel Macron on Monday denied any political link to the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov as the tech tycoon spent a second day in French custody following his surprise arrest at a Paris airport. Numerous questions have been raised about the timing and circumstances of Durov’s detention, which a source close to the case said had been extended until Wednesday. The 39-year-old billionaire is accused of failing to curb the spread of illegal content on Telegram, which has over 900 million users. The company has rejected the accusations. Born in Soviet times into a family of academics in…

State media said Tuesday that Vietnam’s national assembly will elect the country’s new president in October. This is the latest top-level change during an unusually turbulent period for the communist state. The presidency is one of the key roles in Vietnam’s four-pillar leadership structure, which also includes the Communist Party general secretary — the top position — the prime minister, and the head of the National Assembly. “The National Assembly will complete the presidency position at its regular session in October,” state-run Voice of Vietnam said Tuesday, quoting national assembly sources. Current President To Lam was named general secretary or…

Nigeria’s first-ever Olympics medalist, Nojim Maiyegun, has been reported dead. This was disclosed late Monday by an Austria-based acquaintance of the deceased identified as Rudolfine Soultan (Funmilayo) on her Facebook post. The post read, “My Jimylein (Jimmy) is dead. I can’t say more about this right now because it’s just horrible. By the day after tomorrow, we would have been together for 17 years.” In a check by our correspondent, on August 29, 2023, Maiyegun, popularly known by the monikers — Jimmy, Market Boxer and Omo Oloja; wrote in a Facebook post, with a picture of himself and Soultan, “16…

The forthcoming governorship election in the state has top contenders including Ighodalo, Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP), and Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Ighodalo, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), was anointed by the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, who shunned his deputy and party man, Philip Shaibu. The PDP candidate said he would improve the lives of the people of the state if elected as governor as he feels their sufferings. Ighodalo said, “I’ve been round the whole state; 192 wards. I’ve been round the state. I talk to the people, high…

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) says it has commenced shipment of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cargoes to Japan and China on a Delivered Ex-Ship (DES) basis. In a statement on Monday, a spokesman for the company, Olufemi Soneye, said NNPCL achieved this through the collaboration of two of its Downstream subsidiaries – NNPC LNG Ltd and NNPC Shipping Ltd – which delivered its first DES LNG cargo from the 174,000m³ LNG vessel, Grazyna Gesicka at Futtsu, Japan, on 27th June 2024. Since then, the company said it has expanded its footprint to China with the delivery of one…

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos state, Barrister Taofik Gani, has called on the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar to call his aides to order and guide them against their now intolerable agent provocateur role which has continued to embarrass the Party in the eyes of the electorates. He also called on Atiku to dissociate himself from press statement issued by his aides denigrating party elders. Gani’s call is coming on the heels of a reaction attributed to Mr Paul Ibe, an aide of Atiku who accused Chief Bode George of…

The Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria grew by 3.19 per cent in the second quarter of 2024 driven by growth in the Services sector. According to the GDP report released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday, the growth rate is higher than the 2.51 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2023 and higher than 2.98 per cent in the first quarter of 2024. The report indicated that Q2 GDP performance was driven by the Services sector which grew by 3.79 per cent and contributed about 58.76 per cent to the total GDP. The agriculture sector experienced…

A combined team of officials from the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Kaduna State Primary Healthcare, and Zaria Local Government has returned to the Tukur-Tukur community in Zaria for a second round of immunisation and follow-up on the reported outbreak of diphtheria, which has claimed the lives of five children. The Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Board, Dr. Bello Jamo, led a health team that included a WHO representative to visit the community following reports of multiple child deaths. Dr. Jamo confirmed that three children had died from the outbreak, attributing the incident…

Senator representing Delta North Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Senator Ned Nwoko would on 31 August 2024 convene a stakeholders’ summit to chart a common course on the creation of Anioma State. A statement from the office of the Senator said the summit with the theme ‘Renewed Quest for the Creation of Anioma State’ would hold at Grand Hotel Asaba, beginning at 10 am. Those to attend the summit, the statement said, include traditional rulers, presidents generals of communities in the nine local government areas of Delta North, youth groups, women’s bodies, and professional organizations among others. The summit…