Author: straightnewsng.com

By Akanimo Sampson Deaths recorded by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency on the three main Mediterranean Sea routes through almost seven months of 2019 are at 859 individuals. This, according to the agency represents about 55 per cent of the 1,558 deaths confirmed during a similar period in 2018. It said Mediterranean Sea deaths this year account for exactly 50 per cent of all global deaths recorded of migrants in transit by its Missing Migrants Project (MMP). Most of the Mediterranean deaths – nearly 600 in almost eight months – have been recorded on the…

By Akanimo Sampson Concerns have started to grow in Cross River State about the safety of the State Chairman of the opposition African Action Congress (AAC), Agba Jalingo, who was arrested around 2:00PM on Thursday in his Lagos residence. Before his arrest, Police operatives had allegedly gone to the office of his wife, Mrs Violet Agba on Thursday morning where she bakes and sells pastries and seized the phones of all staff present and ordered them to show to them Jalingo’s residence. Though they initially resisted, things allegedly took a turn for the worse when their movement was restricted by…

By Akanimo Sampson All does not seem to be well with the Federal Government at the moment financially. Already, 35 states of the federation that benefited from a generous aid deal tagged bail-out by Abuja are now to literally squeeze blood out of stone to pay back. With the way government is going about it, the bail-out was not a dash after all. States that went on a reckless spending frenzy will be facing the music the hard way. Government has empaneled a tough committee for the recovery of the huge N614 billion. The money was however given when most…

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State has listed expectations from the Minister of state for petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva. Chief Richard Kpodoh who was the state security adviser to Sylva as the governor of the state said he expected the APC leader in the state to give proper direction to the party to enable it win the forthcoming governorship election. This is even as he hailed the President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing and giving him such a sensitive office to head. Kpodoh urged Sylva to play a fatherly role as the party works towards the emergence…

By Akanimo Sampson A global rights group, Human Rights Watch, has accused the Saudi-led coalition naval forces of carrying out at least five deadly attacks on Yemeni fishing boats since 2018, killing 47 and injuring 14. The group documented five coalition naval attacks on Yemeni fishing boats in the Red Sea in 2018, pointing out that in three of the attacks, coalition forces left the scene without trying to help fishermen who were wounded or adrift at sea. While the coalition also allegedly detained without charge more than 100 fishermen in Saudi detention centres between 40 days and more than…

The Kogi state national assembly/state assembly election tribunal has sacked Dino Melaye as the senator representing Kogi west district. In a judgment delivered on Friday, the tribunal led by A.O. Chijiok ordered a fresh election in the district. Smart Adeyemi, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 26 election, had approached the tribunal and challenged Melaye’s victory on the grounds that there were cases of irregularities including over-voting and non-compliance with the electoral act. “We’ve decided to fight the results of the elections in the tribunal court because constitutional injustices must not be allowed to stand,” Adeyemi…

A total of N769.523 billion has been shared among the three tiers of government for July 2019, Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has announced. The N769.523 billion comprised revenue from Value Added Tax (VAT), Exchange Gain and Gross Statutory Revenue. FAAC announced that as at 22nd August 2019, the balance in the Excess Crude Account was $274.407 million. The gross statutory revenue for the month of July 2019 was N674.365 billion. It was higher than the N652.949 billion received in the previous month by N21.416 billion. For July, revenue from the Value Added Tax (VAT) was lower than what it…

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja Thursday dismissed the petition the Hope Democratic Party, HDP, and its candidate, Chief Ambrose Owuru, filed to nullify the outcome of the February 23 presidential election and remove President Muhammadu Buhari from office. HDP, in the petition marked CA/PEPC/001/2019, contended that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, failed to follow condition precedents stipulated in the Electoral Act, when it unduly postponed the presidential election originally fixed for February 16. The party claimed that its candidate, Owuru, secured over 50million votes in a referendum that was conducted by both electorates and observer networks…

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, has said that the establishment of Special Agro-processing Zones, SAPZs, in Nigeria has the potential of attracting between one to four billion dollars investments into the country. The Chairman of the forum and Governor of Ekiti, Kayode Fayemi, stated this while briefing reporters after the forum’s 4th meeting on Wednesday in Abuja. Mr Fayemi explained that all states were potential beneficiaries of the SAPZs initiative, which would bring together the farming and the processing community. “The Forum was briefed by its Deputy Chairman, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State on the meeting between the Forum and…

Boko Haram has pulled out of two local government areas in Borno State, hours after taking control of them on Wednesday evening in coordinated attacks. The insurgents, who had captured Gubio and Magumeri, Thursday morning, withdrew from the areas which have had no military presence for sometime now. Gubio and Magumeri have no military presence as troops were withdrawn recently for routine operational changes as enshrined in the military’s rules of engagement. Our Correspondent gathered that hundreds of thousands of residents have been displaced, while others are under the captivity of insurgents, especially those who chose not to flee the…