Author: straightnewsng.com

The World Bank has cut its forecast for growth of sub-Saharan Africa in 2018 to 2.7 per cent, down from an earlier one of 3.1 per cent, partly due to less favourable external environment for the region. The lender said in its October 2018 issue of Africa’s Pulse, the bi-annual analysis of the state of African economies, said its 2018 projection represented a slight increase from 2.3 per cent in 2017. “The slower pace of the recovery in sub-Saharan Africa (0.4 percentage points lower than the April forecast) is explained by the sluggish expansion in the region’s three largest economies,…

Eight months after the abduction of Leah Sharibu, President Muhammadu Buhari, Wednesday, assured Leah’s mother that his administration was making frantic efforts to bring her daughter back from the den of her captors. This is even at the faction of Boko Haram resurgents who captured Leah, Dapchi Secondary school girl threatened to kill her this October if Federal Government does not negotiate for her release. Speaking on phone with Mrs. Rebecca Sharibu, mother of Leah, Buhari assured her that his administration will do everything within its powers to bring her daughter back home. During the conversation Buhari was quoted to…

Nigeria is fourth in the world’s most climate vulnerable countries, with Lagos ranking 10 most vulnerable cities in the world since 2014, the German Missions in Nigeria said Wednesday. Nigeria is followed among the top 10 by Haiti, Bangladesh, Senegal and Sudan. Philippines tops the list, with Cambodia, Vietnam in the second and third positions respectively. The Mission stated: “With global waste growth predicted to increase by 70 percent in 2050 per the World Bank and the Sub-Sahara region, one of the ‘hot spots’ that is likely to experience severe impacts of climate change, there is urgent need for actions…

In what appears to be a move to stem possible post-convention crisis, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, wants its presidential aspirants in the 2019 general elections to sign a bond ahead of its Saturday’s national convention. The bond, expected to be signed this week, was arrived at, following the resolution at the party’s 82nd National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting last week that all aspirants should unite behind the presidential flag bearer after Saturday’s convention in Port Harcourt. In a chat with National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Wednesday, the party stated that despite the plot by the ruling All Progressives Congress,…

Concerened with human roght abuses in the country, the Police Service Commission Wednesday pledged to collaborate with the Nigerian Office of Amnesty International to reduce such cases. Chairman of the commission, Alhaji Musiliu Smith, retd, conveyed the commission’s position when he received in audience a delegation from the Nigerian office of the agency. Smith told the visiting delegation that the commission had already started work on the cases, but requested the agency to carry the commission along in its findings before such reports were released. He said the commission had since set a new agenda for the Nigeria Police which…

The purported report of Federal Government’s approval to hike tuition fees of Nigerian universities to N350,000 has generated heat in different quarters. However, the Federal Ministry of Education Wednesday dismissed such insinuations through Mr Sonny Echono, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry at a symposium in Abuja. Echono, who said the Federal Government was not planning to increase tuition fees, urged Nigerians to remain calm on the issue. This is even as the National Teachers Institute, NTI, has concluded plans to train and develop the capacity of primary and secondary school teachers in the 36 states and FCT. The symposium…

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to a woman for the first time in 55 years, and for only the third time in its history. Donna Strickland, a Canadian physicist, was awarded the 2018 prize jointly with Gérard Mourou, from France, for their work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses. They share the award with an American, Arthur Ashkin, who at 96 becomes the oldest Nobel Laureate, for developing “optical tweezers.” Both inventions had “revolutionized laser physics,” the Royal Swedish Academy said. The Nobel laureates in Physics are announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm,…

After staying in the jungle perpetrating heinous crimes, more than 100 militants from Etim Ekpo and Ukanafun local government areas in Akwa Ibom State have come out to the public glare with a basket of conditions for peace. The cultists-turned militants seized the opportunity offered by Governor Udom Emmanuel’s visit to Ukanafun on Tuesday to reel out complaints ranging from poor social amenities, state/local government’s marginalisation of rural communities for several decades, ill-equipped and dilapidated public schools, lack of political office rotation to unemployment among youths, among others. Emmanuel’s visit to Ukanafun local government area, the second of such visit…

Akwa Ibom Police Command has given a dreaded militant from Etim Ekpo local government area in Akwa Ibom State a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender his weapons or be fished out by the police. The militant- Overcomer also known as Englishman from Ikpe Annang in Etim Ekpo local government area is among the 59 persons in the wanted list of the police command. Englishman whose wife and mother had been arrested and detained by police was alleged to have kidnapped a 10-year-old child and seven women from Ikot Inyang Abia in Ukanafun local government area on the grounds that the local…

Ahead of Saturday’s national convention slated for Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday unveiled strategies aimed at ensuring transparency of the process. The strategies are to prove to the world that the party was democratic in the conduct of its internal affairs. Addressing newsmen at the party’s secretariat Tuesday, Kola Ologbindiyan, the National Publicity Secretary, said unlike in the past when aspirants were restricted to nominating agents to represent them during delegates’ elections, the National Working Committee had chosen to broaden their participation by giving them opportunity to nominate two people each into the…