Author: Editor

A COURT in Cameroon has sentenced a former defence minister to 30 years in prison for embezzling nearly $40m (£32m). Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o was accused of inflating contracts to buy military equipment from Brazil. His wife, Bernadette, was also found guilty of embezzlement and was handed a 10-year sentence. The court decided to seize many of the defendants’ assets, including luxury cars, houses and land titles. The pair denied wrongdoing and their lawyer said they would appeal against the verdicts at the Supreme Court. Cameroonian journalist Jules Koum Koum, who later died in a road accident, had exposed the…

FOUR key suspects in the July 7, 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise were transferred from Haiti to the United States on Tuesday to face criminal charges, the US Justice Department has announced. A total of seven suspects in the case are now in US custody. Dozens of others still languish in Haiti’s main penitentiary, which is severely overcrowded and often lacks food and water for inmates. The department on Tuesday said Haitian-American dual citizens James Solages, 37 and Joseph Vincent, 57, and Colombian citizen German Alejandro Rivera Garcia, 44, have been charged with conspiring to commit murder or…

NO classified documents were found during an FBI search of President Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth, Delaware, his lawyer says. In a statement, Mr Biden’s attorney said Wednesday’s search was “planned” with the president’s “full support”. The nearly four-hour search of the property related to a wider probe into the handling of classified documents. The FBI has not commented on the search. As it was consensual, no search warrant was sought. Mr Biden’s lawyer, Bob Bauer, said the search was carried out “without advance public notice” in the interests of “operational security and integrity”. Following the search – which lasted…

Approves $500 Each As Parting Gift GOVERNOR Babagana Umara Zulum on Wednesday bided farewell to 19 youths, most of them grew up as orphans and vulnerable indigenes of Borno State. The students will soon be departing for Suez City in Egypt, to study and obtain Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery (MBBS) degrees on full government scholarship, for a duration of five years.  The scholarship to Suez University for which Zulum released N250m was one of the outcomes of a visit to some Egyptian Universities by Governor Zulum in November, 2020. The governor had, during that trip, promised to approve scholarship…

FORMER Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr Dakuku Peterside has challenged Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike to name his preferred presidential candidate for the February poll. The chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) also condemned unwarranted attacks on the campaign grounds of the party in Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area. Speaking at the APC rally in Opobo-Nkoro, Peterside, in a statement by his Media Team, claimed that “Wike is not a man of courage, as he wants Nigerians to believe”. He said: “Wike avoids difficult conversations, lacks vision and pursues personal interest above people’s interest. “I…

A RUSSIAN company said it will offer five million roubles ($72,000) in cash to the first soldiers who destroy or capture western-made tanks in Ukraine, after the Kremlin vowed Russian forces would wipe out any Western tanks shipped to Ukraine. The United States, Germany and several other European countries are lining up to send Kyiv dozens of advanced combat tanks over the next few months to help boost Ukraine’s military capacity as the war approaches the 12-month mark. The decision has been criticised by the Kremlin as a dangerous escalation, and spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the tanks would “burn” on…

AUTHORITIES are investigating how a suicide bomber killed at least 100 people at a mosque in a high security zone in Peshawar, Pakistan. The attack, one of the country’s deadliest in recent years, has shocked Pakistanis. Most of the dead were security force members at prayer. City police who are on the frontline against militants believe they were targeted to demoralise them. It comes two months after the Pakistani Taliban abandoned a ceasefire. Since then violence has been on the rise, with frequent attacks on police and soldiers. A claim that the hard-line Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as…

AN IVORIAN drum seized by France during colonization is about to be returned to the Ivory Coast. The sacred Djidji Ayokwe drum was used to communicate warning messages up to thirty kilometres around villages. In 1916 the drum was confiscated by the French colonial administration and transferred to France in 1910. The “talking drum”, as it was nicknamed,has been restored in a workshop near Paris under the supervision of the Quay Branly Museum. “You can see that it has been quite badly affected by wood-eating insects which have dug galleries, certainly repeatedly, and that this has structurally weakened the drum”,…

FROM southern Ethiopia to northern Kenya and Somalia, 22 million people are at risk of hunger, victims of a historic drought that began in late 2020 and is expected to last for the next few months. This figure has almost doubled since the beginning of 2022, when 13 million people were facing hunger in the Horn of Africa. In this region, where the population lives mainly on livestock and agriculture, nearly 5.6 million people are now “acutely food insecure” in Somalia, 12 million in Ethiopia and 4.3 million in Kenya, according to the UN. More than 1.7 million people have…

CHELSEA have agreed a British record 121m euro (£107m) deal for Benfica’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez. The deal eclipses the £100m Manchester City paid for Jack Grealish in 2021. Benfica said in a statement it had “reached an agreement with Chelsea FC for the sale of all the rights of the player Enzo Fernandez”. Fernandez, who only joined Benfica for a reported £10m in August, was named young player of the tournament during Argentina’s World Cup triumph in Qatar. The 22-year-old’s arrival takes Chelsea’s January spending to £288m, according to transfer website Transfermarkt.com That follows an outlay of £292m in…

MANCHESTER United have completed the loan signing of Austrian midfielder Marcel Sabitzer from Bayern Munich. The 28-year-old joins Erik ten Hag’s squad until the end of the season following Christian Eriksen’s long-term injury and a short-term problem for Scott McTominay. Sabitzer has made 54 appearances for Bayern since joining in August 2021. “Sometimes in life you have to make quick and important decisions,” Sabitzer said. “From the moment I heard about this opportunity I knew it was right for me. I am a competitive player; I want to win and help the club achieve its aims this season,” he added.…

THE Presidency on Tuesday accused the main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party, of allegedly latching onto “fake reports” about the stoning of the President’s convoy in Kano putting the All Progressives Congress at loggerheads with the Federal Government. In a statement signed late Tuesday by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the Presidency argued that the mob spotted in a widely circulated video footage were “innocent children sponsored by politicians and terrorist sympathisers.” The statement is titled ‘PDP’s sad celebration of the false news of Kano stone-pelting of the President.’ Late Monday, the…

MANCHESTER United’s Christian Eriksen is set to be out until at least late April after sustaining an ankle injury in his side’s FA Cup win over Reading on Saturday. United manager Erik ten Hag believes the club have the “players who can fill the gap” caused by Eriksen’s absence. “On deadline day it’s difficult [to bring in a replacement]. You can’t make policy on such bad injuries,” he said. “But we have players in the midfield department and good players.” The Denmark midfielder has made 31 appearances for United this season. The former Ajax, Tottenham, Inter Milan and Brentford player…

ARSENAL have signed Italy midfielder Jorginho from Chelsea in a £12m deal. The 31-year-old, who joined Chelsea from Napoli in 2018, was in the last six months of his Blues’ contract. He passed a medical on Tuesday and signed an 18-month contract with the option of a further year. “Jorginho is a midfield player who has intelligence, deep leadership skills and a huge amount of Premier League and international experience,” said Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta. “He has won in his career, but still has the hunger and huge willingness to contribute here. “We are so pleased to sign Jorginho and…

AUTHORITIES in Ethiopia’s Somali region have banned 15 media practitioners working for foreign organisations – including the BBC’s and the Voice of America’s (VOA) Somali language services – that they said were operating without the necessary permits. The move follows a letter written by the federal media regulator Ethiopian Media Authority to regional officials stating it had found out that some international media organisation representatives based in the region were working without the required accreditations. However, the head of the region’s journalists’ association rejected the claim provided by the authorities for the decision telling a local media outlet that the…

BRITISH Actor Idris Elba plans to open a film studio in Tanzania after holding initial talks with President Samia Suluhu Hassan, according to a presidential aide. The actor met President Samia on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month. “The president met with Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina, they are keen to invest in a film studio in Tanzania. The talks are in the initial stage but if everything goes well then the studio will benefit not only Tanzania but east and central Africa,” said Zuhura Yunus, the director of presidential communications. Since…

FORTY-NINE children died when their overloaded boat capsized in northwest Pakistan, police said Tuesday after divers spent three days dragging bodies from freezing waters. The boys aged between seven and 14 were all students of a madrassa and had been taken for a day trip to the scenic Tanda Dam lake on Sunday. “The water of the dam was freezing due to cold weather that impeded the rescue mission. But today the divers were able to dive deep to recover the remaining bodies,” said Khateer Ahmad, a senior official with Rescue 1122. The bodies of a teacher and one skipper…

EXECUTIONS of prisoners have been carried out in Saudi Arabia with no advance warning to their families, relatives have told the BBC. The country’s execution rate has almost doubled since 2015 – according to a new human rights report – the year when King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman took charge. Mustafa al-Khayyat’s family were given no notice that he was about to be killed. They still have no body to bury. No grave to visit. The last they heard from him was a phone call from prison, and he signed off with these words to his mother:…

The late Emir of Dutse Alhaji Nuhu Muhammadu Sanusi (middle) when he received APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at his Palace on Saturday, January 21st. THE Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has expressed sorrow over the death of the Emir of Dutse, Alhaji Nuhu Muhammadu Sanusi. The Jigawa State monarch died on Tuesday in Abuja at the age of 78. In a press statement released by the Tinubu Media Office in Abuja, the presidential candidate described the late emir as a modern leader who led his people to greater development…

The Emir of Dutse, HRH Alhaji Nuhu Muhammad Sanusi is dead. He died aged 78, at an Abuja hospital after a brief illness. The Commissioner for Special Duties, Jigawa State, Alhaji Auwal Danladi Sankara confirmed the sad news to News Point Nigeria, Tuesday. In a telephone conversation with this newspaper, Special Adviser, Media and Public Relations To Jigawa state governor, Habibu Nuhu Kila said, the funeral for the deceased will take place at the Dutse Emirate Palace, tomorrow (Wednesday). Born in 1945 at Yargaba village in Dutse, the capital of Jigawa State, Late Dr Sanusi attended Dutse Elementary School from…