18:12 21/05/2015
New York - Author Chimamanda Adichie, was honored on Wednesday
at the Girls Write Now Awardsheld at Tribeca 360 in New York City,
reports Bellanaija
She
was honoured alongside editor of the New York Times Book Review Pamela
Paul, and Emmy Award-winning co-anchor of ABC News Nightline Juju Chang .
The
event honors influential women who have paved the way for teenagers to
break through boundaries—both in life and in writing—to realize their
promise and the possibilities of change.
The
event included a reception with open bar and hors d’oeuvres, the awards
ceremony, a performance by a Girls Write Now mentor-mentee pair, a
silent auction, and the private launch of their 2015 anthology Voice to
Voice book.
Read more at Bellanaija
Thursday, 21 May 2015
1 464MW integrated power plants to be inaugurated
18:12 21/05/2015
Abuja - The Federal Government has said three integrated power plants with combined electricity generation capacity of 1 464 megawatts will be inaugurated on Monday, Punch reports.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Dr. Godknows Igali, stated that the plants would bring the number of the National Integrated Power Project plants inaugurated by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to seven.
He said the seven power plants would add 4 700MW of electricity to the grid.
Igali spoke at the opening session of a two-day validation workshop on power sector policy documents in Abuja on Wednesday.
Read more at Punch
Abuja - The Federal Government has said three integrated power plants with combined electricity generation capacity of 1 464 megawatts will be inaugurated on Monday, Punch reports.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Dr. Godknows Igali, stated that the plants would bring the number of the National Integrated Power Project plants inaugurated by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to seven.
He said the seven power plants would add 4 700MW of electricity to the grid.
Igali spoke at the opening session of a two-day validation workshop on power sector policy documents in Abuja on Wednesday.
Read more at Punch
Reps-elect reject imposition of Speaker
Abuja - A group of incoming lawmakers in the House of Representatives
have formed a group called New House of Reps Members Forum, reports Punch.
The group was formed to thwart attempts by the leadership of both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to impose a Speaker on them.
The group, which met in Abuja on Wednesday, said the era of allowing godfathers or party leaders to determine those that will emerge as principal officers was over.
Leader of the group and Rep-elect from Niger State, Mahmud Mohammed, who spoke on behalf of other members during a press conference, noted that the group is not happy with the current spate of unconfirmed endorsements and rebuttals by supporters of different aspirants for the position of Speaker.
The new group, which boasts of over 200 members, urged the various party leaders to maintain some distance in the emergence of principal members of the House of Representatives.
Read more at Punch.
Read more on 2015 elections
The group was formed to thwart attempts by the leadership of both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to impose a Speaker on them.
The group, which met in Abuja on Wednesday, said the era of allowing godfathers or party leaders to determine those that will emerge as principal officers was over.
Leader of the group and Rep-elect from Niger State, Mahmud Mohammed, who spoke on behalf of other members during a press conference, noted that the group is not happy with the current spate of unconfirmed endorsements and rebuttals by supporters of different aspirants for the position of Speaker.
The new group, which boasts of over 200 members, urged the various party leaders to maintain some distance in the emergence of principal members of the House of Representatives.
Read more at Punch.
Read more on 2015 elections
Saturday, 4 April 2015
Returning officer dissociates self from Abia North result
Umuahia - Dr Ihekwaba Chukwugoziem, Returning Officer for
Abia North Senatorial District in the March 28 National Assembly
elections, has disassociated himself from results emanating from the
election.
Chukwugoziem said in an interview with newsmen in Umuahia on Friday, that he could not announce the results because of ''irregularities and massive fraud.''
He claimed that the irregularities and fraud were perpetrated in all the five local government areas of the constituency comprised of Ohafia, Arochukwu, Bende, Isuikwuato and Umunneochi.
The returning officer said that it was discovered from the field that fake documents were used to record the results and later transferred into the original result sheets.
He also said that hoodlums later besieged the collation centre in Ohafia local government headquarters and threatened to kill him, if the verdict was not in their favour.
Chukwugoziem claimed that the attack by the hoodlums and sporadic shootings made him to become apprehensive as to which result to announce.
"My concern was how we will escape from the place alive,’’ he said, adding that they were later rescued by security operatives.
According to him, he had made recommendations in a report to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Oko for the conduct of a re-run in the area.
Chukwugoziem said that Oko had constituted a committee to review the results.
He also told reporters that he refused to sign the result document because ‘’those who were the collating officers at a point were not sure of what they were doing.''
"As the returning officer, it is my duty to announce the results but I have not done so,’’ he said.
The returning officer called for a re-run to be strictly supervised by security operatives from the polling units to the collation centres.
He said that he had been receiving threat calls and messages in his cell phone since the end of the elections.
Chukwugoziem said in an interview with newsmen in Umuahia on Friday, that he could not announce the results because of ''irregularities and massive fraud.''
He claimed that the irregularities and fraud were perpetrated in all the five local government areas of the constituency comprised of Ohafia, Arochukwu, Bende, Isuikwuato and Umunneochi.
The returning officer said that it was discovered from the field that fake documents were used to record the results and later transferred into the original result sheets.
He also said that hoodlums later besieged the collation centre in Ohafia local government headquarters and threatened to kill him, if the verdict was not in their favour.
Chukwugoziem claimed that the attack by the hoodlums and sporadic shootings made him to become apprehensive as to which result to announce.
"My concern was how we will escape from the place alive,’’ he said, adding that they were later rescued by security operatives.
According to him, he had made recommendations in a report to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Oko for the conduct of a re-run in the area.
Chukwugoziem said that Oko had constituted a committee to review the results.
He also told reporters that he refused to sign the result document because ‘’those who were the collating officers at a point were not sure of what they were doing.''
"As the returning officer, it is my duty to announce the results but I have not done so,’’ he said.
The returning officer called for a re-run to be strictly supervised by security operatives from the polling units to the collation centres.
He said that he had been receiving threat calls and messages in his cell phone since the end of the elections.
- NAN
Weeping families await bodies of slain Kenyan students
2015-04-04 12:03
Nairobi - Quietly weeping, families desperate for news of sons and daughters feared killed at the Kenya university massacre by Islamist gunmen wait for hours at a morgue in the capital Nairobi.
Cargo planes carrying corpses flew on Friday afternoon from the northeastern town of Garissa to Nairobi after the day-long killing spree on Thursday by Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab insurgents.
"I cannot talk," were the last whispered words from Salome, a 20-year-old economics student, to her father Peter Wainaina, about an hour into the attack. Then she hung up.
Wainaina, 72, called her after receiving a terrible text message: "Al-Shabaab is killing us. Goodbye. If we don't make it, I loved you all.
"After that I tried later, but her phone was off," he said sadly. "Since then I have no news - I called the registrar of the university, but he could not give any information."
He waits beside around a hundred others, sitting in tents erected on the morgue car park, waiting in sombre, dignified silence, some quietly weeping.
Inside, 20 bodies lie on on stretchers on the ground, in front of the doors of refrigerated cabinets.
Draped with a sheet, their faces are revealed: 11 men on one side, nine women on the other.
'I still have hope' The attack on Thursday at the university in Garissa was Kenya's deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the bloodiest ever by the al-Shabaab.
"I tried to call him, but the phone was out of contact. I tried to contact him all day," said John Nyang'au Masiria, a 36-year old casual labourer, describing his desperate hope that he may still find his younger brother Josh alive.
Josh was a mathematics student at Garissa University.
In small groups, families enter a room, looking at images of the faces of the bodies, screened on a television, to see if they recognise the dead.
For some, the long wait ends in screams and tears, breaking the heavy silence outside.
In small tents, Kenya Red Cross workers and church groups try to comfort those relatives who collapse.
Felix Barasa, 49, an accountant, waits for news of his 21-year old daughter Diane, who was studying to be a teacher.
He rushed to the morgue after a relative thought she saw the body of Diane - but Barasa said they had made a mistake, and still remains hopeful.
"I talked to her the night before the attack... when I woke up in the morning, I tried to call her but it was not ringing," he said.
"I'm still having hope - she may be in the hospital or somewhere in the bush."
Nairobi - Quietly weeping, families desperate for news of sons and daughters feared killed at the Kenya university massacre by Islamist gunmen wait for hours at a morgue in the capital Nairobi.
Cargo planes carrying corpses flew on Friday afternoon from the northeastern town of Garissa to Nairobi after the day-long killing spree on Thursday by Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab insurgents.
"I cannot talk," were the last whispered words from Salome, a 20-year-old economics student, to her father Peter Wainaina, about an hour into the attack. Then she hung up.
Wainaina, 72, called her after receiving a terrible text message: "Al-Shabaab is killing us. Goodbye. If we don't make it, I loved you all.
"After that I tried later, but her phone was off," he said sadly. "Since then I have no news - I called the registrar of the university, but he could not give any information."
He waits beside around a hundred others, sitting in tents erected on the morgue car park, waiting in sombre, dignified silence, some quietly weeping.
Inside, 20 bodies lie on on stretchers on the ground, in front of the doors of refrigerated cabinets.
Draped with a sheet, their faces are revealed: 11 men on one side, nine women on the other.
'I still have hope' The attack on Thursday at the university in Garissa was Kenya's deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the bloodiest ever by the al-Shabaab.
"I tried to call him, but the phone was out of contact. I tried to contact him all day," said John Nyang'au Masiria, a 36-year old casual labourer, describing his desperate hope that he may still find his younger brother Josh alive.
Josh was a mathematics student at Garissa University.
In small groups, families enter a room, looking at images of the faces of the bodies, screened on a television, to see if they recognise the dead.
For some, the long wait ends in screams and tears, breaking the heavy silence outside.
In small tents, Kenya Red Cross workers and church groups try to comfort those relatives who collapse.
Felix Barasa, 49, an accountant, waits for news of his 21-year old daughter Diane, who was studying to be a teacher.
He rushed to the morgue after a relative thought she saw the body of Diane - but Barasa said they had made a mistake, and still remains hopeful.
"I talked to her the night before the attack... when I woke up in the morning, I tried to call her but it was not ringing," he said.
"I'm still having hope - she may be in the hospital or somewhere in the bush."
Nigeria bus station bombed
2015-04-04 12:04
Kano - The death toll from an explosion near a bus station in Gombe, northeast Nigeria, has risen to 10, a doctor and nurse at the hospital treating the injured said on Friday.
"We received 10 dead bodies from the blast at the Bauchi motor park [bus station]," a doctor at the Gombe Specialist Hospital said, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
"Five of the dead were claimed by relatives. We still have five others in the morgue. Eight people are now in the emergency ward being treated for wounds sustained during the blast."
The blast happened at about 18:30 on Thursday after a woman enquired about the destination of a bus leaving for the central city of Jos at the terminus, witnesses said.
It bore the hallmarks of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, who have hit a number of bus stations and crowded markets in recent weeks, including with suicide bombers.
A nurse at the Gombe Specialist Hospital, who also asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the death toll and said of the injured: "Eight people are now responding to treatment.
"The wounds are mostly cuts and burns."
Kano - The death toll from an explosion near a bus station in Gombe, northeast Nigeria, has risen to 10, a doctor and nurse at the hospital treating the injured said on Friday.
"We received 10 dead bodies from the blast at the Bauchi motor park [bus station]," a doctor at the Gombe Specialist Hospital said, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
"Five of the dead were claimed by relatives. We still have five others in the morgue. Eight people are now in the emergency ward being treated for wounds sustained during the blast."
The blast happened at about 18:30 on Thursday after a woman enquired about the destination of a bus leaving for the central city of Jos at the terminus, witnesses said.
It bore the hallmarks of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, who have hit a number of bus stations and crowded markets in recent weeks, including with suicide bombers.
A nurse at the Gombe Specialist Hospital, who also asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the death toll and said of the injured: "Eight people are now responding to treatment.
"The wounds are mostly cuts and burns."
Jonathan moves personal effects from Aso Rock
Abuja - President Goodluck Jonathan and his family members have
started moving their personal belongings out of the Presidential Villa,
Abuja, few days after the President lost his re-election bid, Punch reports.
Some buses loaded with travel bags were seen moving out of the President’s official residence at about midday on Friday.
A source said the early removal of the personal effects of the first family might have been necessitated by the need for the renovation of the residence ahead of the May 29 handover date.
For renovation work to commence on time, the President may have to be operating from outside the residence in the days ahead.
Read more at Punch
Some buses loaded with travel bags were seen moving out of the President’s official residence at about midday on Friday.
A source said the early removal of the personal effects of the first family might have been necessitated by the need for the renovation of the residence ahead of the May 29 handover date.
For renovation work to commence on time, the President may have to be operating from outside the residence in the days ahead.
Read more at Punch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)