Author: Vardiafrica

The Minister of Education, Dr. Olatunji Alausa, says a National Policy on bullying will be developed to mitigate its tendencies, gradually creeping into schools across the country. Dr. Alausa who stated this in Abuja at a Press conference during a crucial meeting with principals of Unity schools, said the ministry of Justice would provide all the required legal template to achieve the policy in good time. In recent times, there have been recurring incidents of bullying in schools at every level of learning, which usually leaves victims traumatized emotionally and physically. To curb the trend, the Minister of Education, Dr.…

President Bola Tinubu says he will deploy wisdom and diplomacy in reintegrating Mali, Niger Republic, and Burkina Faso into the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS). Tinubu, who is also the ECOWAS chairman, spoke when he hosted the visiting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the State House on Wednesday, Bayo Onanuga, the presidential spokesperson, said in a statement. Receiving the German president, who is in Nigeria for a three-day state visit, Tinubu said the leadership of the three West African countries had been reluctant to bring out transition programmes to civilian rule with clear dates. However, the Nigerian leader…

Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, says Nigeria is on track to add 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity to its national grid before the year ends. Adelabu spoke to journalists after a closed-door meeting with President Bola Tinubu and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at the presidential villa in Abuja. The minister said the upgrade will be made possible following the successful completion of the pilot phase of the presidential power initiative (PPI). Adelabu said the initiative, which is being implemented in partnership with Siemens, intends to enhance Nigeria’s electricity supply through a series of strategic projects. “We believe that before the…

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier says he is satisfied with President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the exit of the Republic of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Steinmeier, who is on a three-day state visit to Nigeria, spoke in Abuja on Wednesday when he was hosted by Tinubu in Aso Rock. The German president also expressed delight about Tinubu’s leadership of ECOWAS. In July, Mali, the Republic of Niger, and Burkina Faso announced that they had “irrevocably turned their backs” on ECOWAS. The three countries exited the regional organisation after ECOWAS imposed sanctions…

Meta said Wednesday that a technical issue is causing a widespread outage of its apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. “We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience,” Meta Newsroom said on X Wednesday afternoon. WhatsApp and Instagram both confirmed outages via X, and many users are reporting they are unable to access Meta’s apps. On outage tracking site Downdetector, where users can report issues, Instagram had logged almost 70,000 reports by mid-afternoon Wednesday. Facebook had up to 105,000 outage…

Google on Wednesday announced the launch of Gemini 2.0, its most advanced artificial intelligence model to date, as the world’s tech giants race to take the lead in the fast developing technology. CEO Sundar Pichai said the new model would mark what the company calls “a new agentic era” in AI development, with AI models designed to understand and make decisions about the world around you. “Gemini 2.0 is about making information much more useful,” Pichai said in the announcement, emphasizing the model’s enhanced ability to understand context, think multiple steps ahead and take supervised actions on behalf of users.…

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has denied issuing a directive that gas supply to power generating companies (GenCos) be halted. In a statement on Wednesday, the authority also denied instructing wholesale gas suppliers to stop further supply of gas to companies due to failure in payment obligations. The NMDPRA described reports stating that it has directed the stoppage of gas supply to GenCos over N2trn debt as “false and completely unfounded”. “It has absolutely no bearing on the information shared at a recent stakeholders’ engagement held in Lagos between the Authority, the OPTS, IPPG and other…

Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, PCNGI, and the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, to facilitate the implementation of the CNG policy in the Niger Delta region. The NDDC Managing Director, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, who spoke during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the PCNGI, led by the Programme Director, Engr. Michael Oluwagbemi, at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, stated that the CNG initiative was critical for the country. Ogbuku observed that the Presidential CNG Initiative was a component of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration’s intervention, which was directed at providing succour…

FIFA on Wednesday confirmed that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, underlining the Gulf kingdom’s growing influence in world sport despite criticism of the country’s human rights record. At the same time, a virtual Congress of world football’s governing body confirmed that Morocco, Spain and Portugal will be joint hosts of the 2030 World Cup, in which three games will also be played in South America. The Saudi bid was waved through by acclamation during the meeting of FIFA’s 211 national member associations, with no rivals standing in its way. “It is a proud day, a day of celebration, a day that we invite the entire world to Saudi Arabia,”…

Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on Wednesday declared the seat of Senator Monday Okpebholo, representing Edo Central Senatorial district, vacant. This comes as Senator Okpebholo bids farewell to the 10th Senate, following his election as Governor of Edo State. Akpabio also asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct elections as soon as possible to fill the vacant seat. This move is aimed at ensuring that the people of Edo Central Senatorial district continue to have representation in the Senate. Senate President Godswill Akpabio made the declarations after a valedictory session for Okpebholo organised by the Senate. Akpabio urged Okpbeholo…