Author: Vardiafrica

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Nigeria says the Commission will assist the Nigerian Correctional Service with training and skills acquisition for inmates in custodial centres in the region. The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, said this during a courtesy visit by the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Mr. Sylvester Nwakuche, at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, the State capital. The NDDC Chief Executive Officer said that there had been a long-standing partnership between the Commission and the correctional service, noting that the NDDC had incorporated the Nigerian Correctional Service into…

Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to…

The crisis rocking the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) further degenerated yesterday when the National Working Committee (NWC) suspended the National Legal Adviser, Kamaldeen Ajibade (SAN); National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu; Deputy National Legal Adviser, Okechukwu Osuoha; and National Organising Secretary, Umaru Bature, for one month. However, the suspension has plunged the party deeper into crisis as fresh divisions have emerged within its leadership, with Anyanwu’s faction, backed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, announcing the suspension of the Acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Iliya Damagum, and five other members of the NWC.The suspension of…

One hundred young graduates of diverse academic disciplines on Thursday began a Graduate Internship Programme jointly sponsored by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Renaissance Africa Energy Company (RAEC) Limited, and the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) as part of a collaborative initiative to provide youths with critical skills, exposure and practical knowledge of the work environment in the oil and gas industry.  Under the initiative tagged 2025/2027 NCDMB/PETAN/Renaissance Graduate Internship Programme, the graduates drawn from engineering, geology, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and the natural sciences, among others, are to be deployed to PETAN member companies in the oil and gas sector for structured,…

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan won a landslide election victory. Official results showed Saturday, after key candidates were jailed or barred from a vote, which triggered days of violent protests. The final result showed Hassan won 97.66 percent of the vote, dominating every constituency, the electoral commission announced on state television. A quick swearing-in ceremony would take place on Saturday, state TV said. The main opposition party, Chadema, says hundreds of people have been killed by security forces since protests broke out on election day on Wednesday. Hassan was elevated from vice-president on the sudden death of her predecessor, John…

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has commenced an indefinite nationwide strike effective 12am today Saturday, November 1, 2025. The strike, which is expected to paralyze activities in government-owned hospitals across the country, followed the federal government’s alleged failure to meet a 19-point list of demands described by the association as its “minimum expectations.” At a press conference held in Abuja, NARD President, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, said the decision was reached after a five-hour emergency meeting of the association’s National Executive Council (NEC) last week. He said the association had exercised restraint and patience despite repeated government’s inaction on…

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday maintained its decision to proceed with its forthcoming national convention scheduled for November 15 and 16, 2025, in Ibadan, Oyo State, despite a ruling by a Federal High Court in Abuja under trial justice James Omotosho, that torpedoed the process and restrained the party from convening the exercise. While the National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Debo Ologunagba said the order does not vitiate their planned convention as it did not stop them from activities towards it, Chieftain and Deputy National Vice Chairman of the Party, Chief Olabode George dismissed the order as “joke…

US President Donald Trump has redesignated Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern’ in response to allegations of a Christian genocide in the country. Trump announced his decision in a Truth Social post on Friday. “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump said. He blamed radical Islamists for the “mass slaughter”. “I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’,” he declared. Trump said when Christians are slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 worldwide), something must be done. The US president did not mention where he cited the…

The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has filed a fresh motion before the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking the dismissal of all charges against him and his immediate release. In the motion dated October 30, 2025, and titled “Motion on Notice and Written Address in Support,” Kanu argued that there is no valid charge against him under any existing law in Nigeria. He said the charges currently before the court are “a nullity ab initio for want of any extant legal foundation.” The IPOB leader, who is representing himself, filed the motion…

A federal high court in Abuja has stopped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from going ahead with its planned national convention slated for November 15 and 16 in Ibadan, Oyo state. In a judgment delivered on Friday, James Omotosho, the presiding judge, said evidence before the court showed that the party failed to hold valid state congresses before the planned national convention as stipulated in the 1999 constitution, guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as well as its own constitution. He said notices and official correspondence signed by the PDP national chairman without the national secretary’s co-signature were “invalid”…