Author: Akintayo Adams

There was a fire outbreak at Dangote refinery in Lagos on Wednesday. Reacting to the incident, Anthony Chiejina, the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of Dangote Group, stated in a statement that the fire has been contained and there is no cause for alarm. The statement read: “We have swiftly contained a minor fire incident at our effluent treatment plant (ETP) today, Wednesday, 26th of June. “There is no cause for alarm as the refinery is operating normally, and there are no recorded injuries or bodily harm to any of our staff on duty.” Get instant and latest news updates via…

Kenyan President William Ruto attributed the storming of parliament to “a group of organized criminals” who, he said, infiltrated and hijacked what began as peaceful protests. In a televised address on Tuesday, Ruto addressed the protests, which erupted in response to a new tax law imposing additional taxes and raising existing ones. Since Tuesday morning, thousands of demonstrators across Kenya have voiced their opposition to the legislation through protests. By the afternoon, the protests had escalated into chaos, violence, looting, and arson. Buildings belonging to members of parliament who supported the new tax law were set on fire in several…

NATO has formally appointed Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of The Netherlands, as its Secretary-General. Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and uncertainties about the U.S. stance on the transatlantic alliance, NATO ambassadors appointed Mark Rutte as the new Secretary-General at their Brussels headquarters. This decision came after Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, his only competitor, withdrew from the race last week due to insufficient support. Rutte, 57, will replace Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, who will conclude his term on October 1. Stoltenberg has served since 2014, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Rutte, who served as Dutch Prime Minister for…

The Nigerian State House spent ₦244,654,350 on tyres in a single day. Data from govspend, a portal tracking Presidential Villa expenditures, revealed that the payments were for an unspecified quantity of bulletproof and Westlake tyres, around the time the Bola Tinubu administration marked its first year in office. Documents showed that the sums of ₦200,583,390, ₦38,070,000, and ₦6,000,960, were respectively paid for these items, on May 21, 2024. Documents showed two separate payments for tyres: ₦200,583,390 for bulletproof vehicle tyres and ₦38,070,000 for five armored bulletproof tyres to Obi-Wealth Enterprises Nigeria Limited (RC-640684). A search on the Corporate Affairs Commission…

The Rivers State Government, through its Commissioner for Health, Adaeze Oreh, says the prime suspect in the explosion that rocked Port Harcourt, the state capital on Tuesday, has been found. The commissioner said the suspect was found at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, formerly Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMH). She reported that doctors alerted the state government last night when a patient, with injuries suspected to be from a blast but presented as a road traffic accident victim, arrived. The suspect, brought in a semi-conscious state, was quickly taken into the theater for resuscitation and is now in stable…

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, stated that the country recorded a total foreign exchange inflow of approximately $24 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Cardoso disclosed during an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday in London that Nigeria recorded a $24 billion foreign exchange inflow in Q1 2024, about 50% higher than in previous quarters up to 2021. He stated that excessive naira volatility is over, citing the positive impact of the CBN’s monetary policies on the forex market. He also noted that inflationary pressure, currently at 33.69%, has begun to decrease due…

Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has filed a lawsuit against the Kaduna State House of Assembly. This is over their claim that his eight-year administration allegedly misappropriated ₦432 billion, leaving the state with significant debt liabilities. El-Rufai filed a fundamental rights suit at the Federal High Court in Kaduna against the State House of Assembly on Wednesday. The suit, submitted by the ex-governor’s lawyer Abdulhakeem Mustapha (SAN), contests the report of the Kaduna Assembly Committee that indicted El-Rufai for alleged corruption. In the suit, El-Rufai requested the court to declare the Assembly’s probe report null and void, arguing that…

Oleksandr Usyk has vacated his IBF title. This is coming just five weeks after becoming the first undisputed heavyweight boxing champion in nearly 25 years, Usyk defeated Tyson Fury on a split decision on 18 May to add the WBC title to his WBA, WBO and IBF collection. However, the Ukrainian has vacated his IBF belt, which may now be available for the winner of the anticipated bout between Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois. Dubois, the IBF’s mandatory challenger, is expected to face fellow Briton Joshua at Wembley Stadium on September 21. “Anthony and Daniel, I know the IBF title…

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived back in his native Australia after striking a plea deal with a US court to allow him to walk free, bringing an end to a 14-year legal battle. He landed in Canberra on a six-hour flight from the island of Saipan, an American territory in the Pacific. The 52-year-old already served 62 months in jail but was freed after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information. This was after the US dropped 17 other espionage charges against him. Under the agreement, a judge sentenced him to time…

The death toll from protests in Kenya has soared to 13, an increase from the Five reported barely 24hrs ago, according to a disclosure made by an official from the main doctors’ association. “So far, we have at least 13 people killed, but this is not the final number,” Simon Kigondu, president of the Kenya Medical Association said. He said he had never seen “such level of violence against unarmed people.” At the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi on Wednesday, an official said medics were treating “160 people… some of them with soft tissue injuries, some of them with bullet…